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-Truly loving, and living as though you love, your brothers & sisters -Patience -Patience

-If you cannot manage your life in a godly manner, you will be a cancer in the body of believers. -Unity is not singularity. We are unified as believers in Jesus Christ, not necessarily believers that no women should preach, or no gay can marry. It is worthy because without it we have anarchy. -Only the fact that in order to be IN the world and not of it we must leave our safe enclaves and venture beyond the walls. -To make disciples who make disciples for Jesus Christ.

-NOT as the only place we can find Him. Rather as a teaching place, and academy of Theology- the study of God and our relationship with Him. -By being willing to grow together and be taught. -This very type of Bible Study, prayer time, small group Bible Studys, fellowship and fun times with other believers, regular attendance in our church. -The church has the ultimate responsibility to nurture it's own. More small groups, more classes, MORE LEADERS arew required. Christ's church is a Leadership Training academy, making disciples who then make more disciples for Jesus Christ OR it's just a service and fellowship club like Kiwanis or Rotary.

-They should be our teachers and models of the Christian life. sadly, some who go by these titles are charlatans. But Jesus warned us to be as sly as serpents about this stuff, didn't he? -His Word must be our guide. Our trust in Him, our prayers to Him, must supercede any other form of decisionmaking. -We grow as we discuss and study the Word; gather in prayer together; learn to love God and each other despite our many personal quirks and eccentricities. -Ditto.

-WE are family, not just fellow citizens. We are all adopted into His home. We are equal with each other, whether we are pastors or first day Christians. -No one is better than another one. Therefore we rely on each others trust and love. -I guess it depends what they are doing outside of the congregation. They may occassionally be playing golf, but if while the play they evangelize, they could be our most effective attenders. However, people who simply don't attend because...hey, they often don't have a reason that makes real sense other than laziness. These people may believe in God and go to Heaven but they are missing that part of Heaven that begins RIGHT NOW.

-The Kingdom of God. -We have made ourselves one with Christ, therefore set apart ourselves. IF we act like it.

-If we cannot gain access at all to the Father, we are fully separated from Him, and that is the condition of hell. -I have no way to have personal access to President barack Obama. But if we had a mutual friend, that freiend might get me into the oval office to discuss my views on politics. -Prior to Christ's atonement for our sin atonement was only possible through blood sacrifice. Now He , being one with the Father, makes the way clear to 24/7/365 communication. -We can love God PERSONALLY. We can love others in union with them in the throne room.

-In Heavenly Realms. This does not mean it cannot effect or be seen in the physical world. Indeed, we have lost much of the original Jewish understanding that God's Heavenly Realms can, if allowed by the believer, rule over the physical. Such was, and is, the great question of the Christian reformation and it's stepchild, the Age of Reason. Which realm is predominant? The spiritual or the natural? It seems the world of humans is re-thinking this question today as more and more physical scientists and thinkers are accepting the concept that their must be an intelligent cause for all that is, and that cause could just be SUPERnatural, ie: spiritual. -All the power that is needed for anything anywhere to be done. In short, ENOUGH. -It is very evident, if we will just SEE the result of persons allowing it to be released. In the book and film, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", we see a man with only one moving visible part- his left eye, write and publish a book by that title. Does he do it on his own, or does this agnostic/atheist whatever of an unbeliever learn to let God rule rather than himself? Check it out, but be warned...it's R rated for some nudity. -If we give God the glory, and accept the thanks of humans for simply allowing God the be loosed in our projects instead of taking credit for the results ourselves, God is glorified. That isn't always done well, is it?

-Either we, the Trustees, the Lead Team, or the informal clique is head of the church, or God is. He gives us free reign to choose our leaders. Why do so many of us choose one of the former? -If the church is God's, it has unlimited possibilities. If it is the pastors, etc, it places itself inside a human box that can only be what humans can imagine it to be. WARNING!!!!!! This does not mean that a church that does not grow in numerical attendance is not in God's hands. It means that any church, of any size, can do anything GOD wants it to do if it will agree to place God at it's head.

-Insofar as we are IN Christ we are WITH Christ wherever He is, and He is with us in the same way. We cannot see Him physically, nor can we feel Him under us as we sit in the same throne, for these are metaphores for the real relationship we can have with Him, if we choose. The Kingdom of God has come; we choose to live in it, or just "go to church". And the KOG is ALL churches, people of Christ's Body, who dare to live in His power.

-First, some of the gentiles believed in spirit powersw, just as some non-Christians today believe in earth sprites and the pantheism of God-is-everything. Some believe and believed in nothig, either as agnostics or atheists. However, to the question, Paul is seeking to "be all things to all people" for the sake of transmission of the Gospel. He can easily use, as can we, the images of spirit beings to illustrate the Holy Spirit power God has available to us. But God's power does not have an agenda separate from our good, as the sprites may. Instead God only seeks our good, as we seek to live godly lives. -Sitting at the right hand of God in Heaven is simply an anthropomorphic image of being close to God; it mirrors the pagan understanding of a "human' relationship with deity, but does not mean God is forced to sit in a chair, in a room, in some county called heaven. We sit next to Him when we place our spiritual selves next to Him, and that can happen anywhere. -First, the beings the gentiles worshipped and pagans worship today don't exist, so Paul is speaking metaphorically here. And the types of demons or evils about which he warns us, "principalities and powers", they relate immediatly to all those things we allow ourselves to place before God in order of worship. As in, " my car needs washed so I'll skip the service this week". -

- Their eyes are probably operating just as they should; their physical eyes, that is. Their spiritual eyes, the eyes they could be using to see their situation as God sees it seem either closed or glazed over. Sure, they are being the church; sure, they are doing church, but in a way that relies upon their own resources, not the unlimites resources of God. -In God's strength, therefore in the issues He wants accomplished. We cannot, God will not allow, use of His power for anything which is not in God's plan. Discerning that opens the floodgates of Heaven upon the projects we choose to work in. -If God can raise His own fully human Son, indeed His second Person, from the dead, what cannot God do for His church when that church is in His will?

I am Ken DeWalt, Lead Pastor at Hope Church, a United Methodist Congregation in Douglassville, PA, USA. We are following the lead of our LEAD TEAM LEADER! Mike Mack began this study on his own to help himself prepare for our new visioning process at Hope and now the entire Lead Team, ( our policy making council), is coming on board. We wilol be discussing our work monthly, before each 2 hour Lead team meeting. TY for creating this simple to use, and provocative, online Bible tutorial. Ken