Life Changers

Mark Driscoll in Cape Town

gabe — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:15:07 +0000

Venue: His People (N1 City) Cost: R35 for adults, R25 for students for each event. To buy tickets for either one of the evening gatherings at His people, visit http://www.urbanforce.co.za/content/mark-driscoll-cape-town-9-10-march-2010
Program
Tuesday 9 March
19:30-21:30	Mark Driscoll: Men’s Event
Wednesday 10 March
19:30-21:30	Mark Driscoll: City Wide Celebration

Mark Driscoll: Mark leads Mars Hill Church in Seattle, and is on the leading edge of the world-wide resurgence of helping churches recover a missional focus and relevance to engaging with culture.

“Stamp my eyeballs with eternity”

gabe — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:44:04 +0000

Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was a preacher, theologian, and missionary to Native Americans and today “is widely acknowledged to be America’s most important and original philosophical theologian,” and one of America’s greatest intellectuals. In 1741, during a period of time now commonly refered to as the Great Awakening, he famously preached a sermon entitled “Sinners in the hands of an angry God“.

Most of this sermon’s text consists of ten “considerations”, which Edwards acquires from the Word of God. They are as follows:

God may cast wicked men into hell at any given moment.
The Wicked deserve to be cast into hell. Divine justice does not prevent God destroying the Wicked at any moment.
The Wicked, at this moment, suffer under God’s condemnation to Hell.
The Wicked, on earth – at this very moment – suffer the torments of Hell. The Wicked must not think, simply because they are not physically in Hell, God (in whose Hand the Wicked now reside) is – at this very moment – as angry with them as He is with those miserable creatures He is now tormenting in hell, and who – at this very moment – do feel and bear the fierceness of His wrath.
At any moment God shall permit him, Satan stands ready to fall upon the Wicked and seize them as his own
If it were not for God’s restraints, there are, in the souls of wicked men, hellish principles reigning which, presently, would kindle and flame out into hellfire,
Simply because there are not visible means of death before them, at any given moment, the Wicked should not, therefore, feel secure.
Simply because it is natural to care for oneself or to think that others may care for them, men should not think themselves safe from God’s wrath.
All that wicked men may do to save themselves from Hell’s pains afford them nothing if they continue to reject Christ.
God has never promised to save us from Hell, except for those contained in Christ through the covenant of Grace

Pretty intense stuff hey? In this “seeker sensitive” culture that we are now living in, I would highly doubt that Jonathan Edwards (if he was alive today) would be a greatly sought after guest speaker! But what has gripped my heart (and what should take hold of all our hearts) is the reality of the eternal realm. Jonathan Edwards once prayed, “Lord stamp my eyeballs with eternity”, and that has now become an oft repeated prayer on my lips!

Charles Spurgeon, another famous theologian from centuries gone by once said,

“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for”

Oh God, make this ring true in our hearts and lives!

There’s a superman in eveyone

Graeme — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:24:25 +0000

I recently watched a movie called “Little Manhattan” set in New York city about a 10 year old boy called Gabe. Gabe discovers romance as he pusues the object of his affection, his classmate Rosemary.

A young man has recently joined our tribe all the way from Durban and his name is also Gabe. However, our Gabe is in his twenties and the object of his affection is Jesus. His love for the Lord is contagious and if you have not met him I encourage you to look out for him and introduce yourself. Unfortunately you won’t be able to identify him by his ginger hair or superman outfit as he’s grown out of both.

Be encouraged as you listen to the Word and his personal testimony.

(PS This recording was done on our old sound system and is not the best. We have a new sound system now producing better quality recordings!)

Walkthrough Ephesians (Part 2)

Graeme — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:14:43 +0000

This letter is coming alive to me! On Sunday we explored the “9 Blessings we have received in Christ Jesus.”

Love Actually…

gabe — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:52:31 +0000

As Valentine’s day approaches once again, my heart seems to be getting really full with how smitten I am with the one I call Lover…and how head over heels in love this Lover is with me! Maybe it has something to do with the fact that this will be my 22nd year without a significant other during this period (I have had one girlfriend in my life…a glorious three week stint in the November of 2005…remind me to tell you about it sometime) but I am more and more being captivated with The Real Deal. The type of love that can be found nowhere else and that can’t be fully explained and that has to be experienced. Read the account of Hosea in the bible…then read the book “Redeeming Love” by Francine Rivers (www.christianbook.com) …just something thats helped me deeper into this love adventure.

“The God of the universe would rather die than live without me…so he did”

It’s late so I’ll keep this short.

God passionately LOVES me!

And you!

Simple…

But the greatest sentence I have ever known!

Walkthrough Ephesians (Part 1)

Graeme — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:37:04 +0000

Sunday was the start of our “Walkthrough Ephesians” series. Wally and Shirley recently visited Ephesus and described their visit as a “moving experience”. I have no doubt that God will be moving us to new levels in Him as we walk through the amazing book of Ephesians. See you on Sunday for part 2!

Wally & Shirley in Ephesus

All in a days work…

gabe — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:14:24 +0000

Just climbed into bed with weary legs and a very tired body but with a heart that is oh so full! This is a quick note to just explain that Friday nights at LCC are not for the feint of heart…youth leadership arrived at 5pm to set up and pray, hung out with 20 kids from our community (xbox, pool, foosball, jousting), sat and listened to a preach about what a great treasure we have in jesus, prayed for each other, hung out some more, dropped the majority of the kids off at their homes, came back to tidy up, helped set up some of the new sound and multi media equipment for Sunday and then capped it off bu eating macdonalds burgers together until 1:45am…and did I mention that one of the youth gave their hearts to jesus as well as a couple recomittments? All in a days work…

Incredible leadership team, incredible group of young people…Incredible God.

Now all thats left to do is set the alarm…

…for sometime tomorrow afternoon!

Breathe in deeply…

gabe — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:25:59 +0000

A young boy walking through the woods one day, met with an older gentleman who was renowned for being a great man of prayer. After exchanging pleasantries, the boy asked the man if he would teach him to pray. The words were barely out of the young boys mouth when the older man pounced, swiftly pushing the boy’s head under the surface of the water in the well that they were standing next to. Despite the boys desperate attempts to free himself from the old man’s grasp, he was resolute in holding the boy’s head firmly underneath the pool of water. As the young boy began to lose all hope of ever breathing another breath again, the old man hauled him back onto the forest floor above the water. Cool oxygen filled his lungs deeply once again. Once he had coughed and spluttered and regained his breath, the boy angrily demanded why on earth the old man did that to him. The old man’s reply was simple: “When you are as desperate to pray as you were as desperate for breath just now, only then will I teach you to pray”

Day One of fasting and praying almost complete…

The Delicious Combo

Graeme — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:33:16 +0000

If you have mixed feelings about fasting (I know I do) then you need to listen to this message. What I found helpful was what the “real reason and motives for fasting should be”:

An Act of Faith in obedience to God’s Word & devotion towards the Lord. Rom 12:1-3
To humble one self before God. Psalm 35:13 & Psalm 69:10-11
In repentance for sin and or in seeking deliverance and guidance. Ezra.9:5, Neh.9:1
To draw closer to God, it reveals an earnestness to glorify God in your body and to bring the flesh under Gods control.
To increase ones spiritual power and authority. Mark.9:29. As Prayer needs Faith Prayer needs FASTING.
For our natural hunger to be turned to a spiritual hunger and desire for God.
To develop a greater sensitivity to God and the needs of others. The eternal becomes more important than the temporary.

Wally also makes us aware of some practical aspects which are often overlooked in a time of fasting. Let this message help you make the most out of your time of fasting. God will reward you when you fast according to His Word!

Midnight meanderings…#2

gabe — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:47:45 +0000

Driving everyday to LCC along the r27, I am still getting a massive kick out of catching my morning’s initial glimpse of Cape Town’s iconic Table Mountain. I’m not 100% sure if “glimpse” is the correct word in attempting to describe something as large and over-bearing as our city’s “defender”, but it is almost an impossible feat to find the adequate terminology which would convey it’s impressiveness…so I’ll stick with “glimpse” out of sheer laziness if you don’t mind. Anyway, I digress. What I am trying to get at is that the mother city is quickly growing on me. I’m not sure if it’s in the fact that the mountain frames nearly every aspect of city life, whether it’s the extreme friendliness of the Life Changers people or if it’s just in that I can drive recklessly in traffic and just shrug my shoulders and point to my Durban number plate when anyone hoots angrily at me! But whatever it is, I’m already finding Cape Town to be a pretty pleasant place to live.

However, being a relative new-comer, I have found there has been a few hiccups in my translating of the Cape Tonian dialect, so in order to save anyone else any miscommunication blushes, I felt compelled to share a couple of my discoveries on a few very common words and phrases that one new to this city may not understand straight away:

“Lank” =adjective describing any situation or circumstance that is in extreme in quantity or nature *use in a sentence= “it is lank hot today”

“Decent”=word used to give your agreement when involved in a one-sided conversation (often accompanied by vigorous nodding)

“You want to go for coffee?”= sentence loosely translated as, “I have something serious to talk to you about”

“Please come to our house for a meal (steak, pork chops, prawns)”= sentence not heard nearly enough

While, the new “language” barrier may be providing some confusion to me, the Lord’s voice is still very clear. Life Changers Church is at a pivotal place in its history, and I (among alot of others) am becoming more and more convinced that we as a church have a massive role to play in determining our city’s future. As the calendar flips over onto the final week of January in a couple days time, we are embarking on a church fast. My desire is that during this time, God’s voice would be heard louder and clearer than ever before as we put our ears close to his chest, to hear his heart beat. As someone famous once said (I forget who at the moment), “I want to hear him when he shouts…I want to hear him when he speaks…I want to hear him when he whispers…but most of all, I want to hear his heart beat”.

This next week you won’t need a dictionary or thesaurus to understand what God’s saying to you…all you need is an empty stomach, an open heart and a listening ear.

“Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” (1.Samuel.3)

Gabe Phillips