Jesus is power, personified.

The question is how will we respond to Jesus?  Will we cling to power like Herod, or do everything we can to find and worship him, like the Magi?

We all have some degree of power in our lives – over our own choices, over our dependents, over loved ones and others in our lives, or perhaps over employees and corporations.

Given power, Jesus and Herod use it very differently, and Herod and the Magi respond to Jesus’ power very differently.  How will you?

The Magi responded in worship and service, and go down in history as first non-Jewish worshippers, first missionaries to the larger world.

So today, with the same history presented to us, we are invited to decide how we will go down in history…as clinging to power, as knowing much but doing nothing, or as worshipping the true King of love and peace.

Challenge: Give some of your power and influence to help others.  One great way is to come to the Original Christmas Party and make a generous gift of toys to families who won’t have much at Christmas, but you can find other ways, too!

Reminder: We have a great Christmas event coming December 14th, 2013: The Original Christmas Party.  Hope you’re coming!

Read the Bible in Sync Today

Ryan Sim - November 18, 2013

Monday - A New Idea - Grace - in Lifestyle

We are a few weeks into a new series on “Becoming Like Family”. This is important as members of our online community begin to share the daily challenges with friends, and we begin to gather our larger community together as one church community. We won’t be bound together by a building, or institution, but rather by five commitments. We’ve talked about commitment to common learning goals, connectedness as a community of small and large groups, connectedness to God in worship, and now this week, we come to grace in lifestyle. Those who’ve decided to follow Jesus, and walk in his path, are going to have to choose this over other paths. These choices impact many areas of life. That should be no surprise, but sometimes it’s hard to swallow. We can recoil from rules, or worry about restricted freedom. We’ll explore that this week, but it starts with understanding why we are asked to live by, and with, grace. But what does grace mean? There is a classic Seinfeld episode where Elaine is in a job interview, and the interviewer shares her admiration of Jackie O, who had “grace”. Elaine tries to say, “I think I have a little grace” but the interviewer snaps back, “You can’t have a little grace, you either have it or you don’t.” Elaine backpendals, “Alright, I have no grace. I don’t have grace, I don’t want grace. Hey, I don’t even say grace.” You can see the confusion here – what does grace even mean? Is it poise and kindness? Is it a lovely name for an old lady that is finally making a comeback? Is it a prayer before a meal? Question: What do you think of when you hear the word grace? What does it mean? Reminder: Last week we talked about worship, and asked you to complete our online survey about worship here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8TS7K93 Reminder: Earlier in this series, we saw the importance of reading the Bible together in sync, so our new daily bible readings start today in our mobile app and web site.

From Series: "Becoming Like Family"

This series looks at becoming “like family” with others learning to follow Jesus. We're exploring how the church is not a building, institution or event, but a community of people. It's important that explore what church means as we prepare to launch a new church in Ajax in 2014.

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