Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Jesus is describing how he pushes the reset button in life.  He uses imagery that sounds like baptism.  Baptism is when someone is washed with water, to show on the outside what God is doing on the inside, washing away the sin from our hearts.  When adults are baptized by becoming fully immersed, one can plainly see the imagery of them having died to sin, and then rising out of the waters to new life.

We are baptizing our first RTC member this February.  It will be her reset moment.  Looking back on her life, she says this represents a new beginning.

In the Christianity 101 course, we illustrate the life of faith with a line with markings at 0, 50 and 100.  Whether we’ve run as far from God as possible, stayed close, or jumped around – what matters most is where you go from there.  Will you move closer to God by following Jesus, or run away?  The 50 point is when someone decides to do this intentionally, and although that moment is important and has a real impact, there are many moments to follow when the Holy Spirit transforms a Christian’s life.  New decisions, directions and priorities all come with time and relationship with God through the Holy Spirit.

In this series we’re going to look at a number of ways a “reset” life is different from before.  Specifically:

  • Reset: Goals
  • Reset: Time
  • Reset: Money
  • Reset: Work
  • Reset: Body & Food
  • Reset: Sex & Marriage
  • Reset: Family
  • Reset: Compassion
  • Reset: Nature
  • Reset: Society
  • Reset: Death

Challenge: If you’d like to reset life, here are some steps to consider.  Take our live Christianity 101 in the Cafe Course in Pickering starting next week to explore the first steps.   Consider being baptized, to show on the outside the reset that has taken place inside.  Just get in touch with Ryan if you’re interested!

Reminder: Coffee hours are tonight at 7:30pm at Starbucks in the Ajax Chapters Store.  See you there!

Reminder: We are reading the Bible in sync as one community – so check out today’s reading here.

Reminder: The best way to grow spiritually this year is to join our Christianity 101 in the Cafe Course in Pickering starting January 22nd. Register for you and a friend today!

Read the Bible in Sync Today

Ryan Sim - September 19, 2013

Thursday - Act On It - Strangers to Neighbours

Won\'t You Be My Neighbour?

Yesterday I asked you to complete a neighbourhood grid. How did it go? This grid has been completed by people all over North America, and the creators report that about 10% of people can fill in every name on the grid. About 3% can write down one fact about each neighbour, and less than 1% can write something of depth about every neighbour. Yes, Jesus says love your enemies, and we should work towards this. Unfortunately, we can’t start there very easily, since if we aim for everything, we usually hit nothing. Trying to be neighbours with everybody all at once often means we’re neighbours with nobody. We need to start somewhere. In our culture, we often experience the opposite problem as Jesus’ original hearers. They lived in a tightknit community with strong traditions and bonds. Loving their similar neighbours came naturally, but loving enemies did not. Their definition needed broadening. In contract, our culture can make this story too metaphorical and remote. We don’t regularly see wounded enemies laying on the road, and can tell ourselves, “if I do, I live in a country with universal health care so I can leave it to the profesionals.” For us, our definition of loving neighbour can start out too broad, and needs narrowing so we can learn to truly love, and not just write people off. There are two ways we will start off easy. We’ll start with our actual neighbourhood or cubicle cluster. Secondly, if love sounds mushy or weird, we can just start with learning names, and then we can figure it out from there. Challenge: For this week, work on learning all the names possible in your grid. If you don’t know them all, just go knock on their door and ask. You may find out they forgot your name, too! Have you completed the neighbourhood grid yet? If not, click here: https://www.redeemthecommute.com/2013/09/11/strangerstoneighbours

Related Topics: Love, Names, Neighbours | More Messages from Ryan Sim | Download Audio

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