Our present global challenge is causing Churches around the world to have to reimagine what the Church really is. Is it a group of people gathering in a building on a Sunday or is it a people who understand that Jesus is their portion, their hope, and the One who connects them when the connections they have known are being shaken? Jesus is the Head of His Church and while we are presented with changing the “how” we meet, the “why” of our gathering never changes. So, join us as we gather from our homes until we can gather face to face again. Together, we want to grow and lift up Jesus.
Since our Province has declared a State of Emergency our ability to assemble in our building has shifted. We are grateful for the time we have been able to continue to gather through this pandemic but feel at the present time the right response is to change the how and not the why in our journey together. Hope to see each of you join us for our online study on Fridays, our Worship on Sundays, and our other gatherings at different times throughout the week. Let’s walk together and commune in ways we never imagined.
Comments(5)
Roberta taylor says:
March 24, 2020 at 9:30 pmIn this weirdest of times, it strikes me that our God uses every thing to His advantage. No opportunity is wasted by Him. We needed to loosen our grip on tradition and sentimental attachments and in His own inimitable way, He pulls us out of our comfort zone and asks us who it is we truly worship. What a wonderful God we serve, who will see our inability to find a kickstart to our heartcry and do it for us!
Freda says:
March 24, 2020 at 9:46 pmAmen! Well Said!
Sue Holmes says:
March 25, 2020 at 1:37 am“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in Love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (John 15:1 & 4, Colossians 2: 6-7, Ephesians 3:14 – 19)
A wonderful building is a great luxury, but we become lost if the building becomes our security or if we confuse it with our Creator Himself. True growth doesn’t come from a building. There is no real safety in a building. It does offer us some protection from the weather & offers us material comfort. But this ‘protection’ has its limits & ‘material comfort’ sometimes can blind us to our true Source.
He, Jesus Christ – Yeshua – Lamb of God – is the One in whom we are rooted. Each one of us at Bethel, as we abide in the True Vine, will be able to trace our roots to that Vine. That is our common thread! There is a part of each one of us that is rooted deep in Christ & we will find that our true unity comes from being rooted & established in Christ. This period of time during which we have left the building can be seen as a wonderful opportunity to focus on the real strength of the Bethel family … our common heritage in the love of God. May this be a time to focus on & abide in Him. As we do so, may we see the glory of God in each of us & remember that each one of us can trace our roots back to the same Vine. As much as I am looking forward to being able to meet together again someday soon, I believe that God wastes nothing. He is using this time for us to focus on Him as our source & to see Christ reflected in each member of His body at Bethel. And out of this may we offer Christ to the homeless, the down & out, the hopeless, the desperate & to our neighbours.
My prayer for each of us during this season is that “He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit … to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ … that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
See you online!
Karen Elaine Fuller says:
March 25, 2020 at 9:02 amSo true dear sister. Mark 7:1-13 speaks very clearly on this topic.
I choose the GRACE of God’s commands……..even when they make me uncomfortable…….and GRACE has made me uncomfortable on more than a few occasions.😁
J.Holmes says:
March 29, 2020 at 4:10 pm“Inseparable”
Hello….just thought that I would like to encourage you all who belong to Christ Jesus and feel somewhat estranged, and perhaps separated from the body of Christ, His church. There is an unseen organism that has disrupted our daily physical way of life, so I want to assure or remind you that there is a greater hidden unseen spiritual reality that is at work in our lives, a unity that can never separate us as the body of Christ, from one another in Christ, and in our self isolation.
The scripture in Ephesians 4:13 speaks of us coming “to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to ‘a perfect man’, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ…”
Much can be said about the “body of Christ”, and I would like to remind you about who we are…as a body of believers called the church…a people that have died in Christ…a people, called to be the bride of Christ…sanctified, holy, purified…. together in Christ, ‘a perfect man’ (Eph 4:21-24). Jesus is the second Adam, in whom, through whom, we are a new creation, born from above, and are not of this world. We do not belong to the world, but are as aliens. Our marriage here has ended (Rom.7:4) that we may be married to another, to Him who was raised from the dead. We excitedly prepare for His appearing. (Titus 2:14,15)
What do we look like as the body of Christ? Eph.4:15,16 says “…speaking the truth in love, may (we) grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. “ I am here for your edification, to love you, and you are for my edification and to love me, and moreover, as each of us do our share, causes growth in the body. We are not islands, but together an island, There are many members in the body of Christ, but there is one body, one Lord, one faith. God is love.
What is the calling to which we are called? Eph.4: 2-6 tells us that “with all lowliness and gentleness ,with longsuffering, bearing one another in love… to endeavor “to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. “ It continues to say “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” What I would like to emphasize is the depth of love that we .have for one another and the unity in the body of Christ for which we are a member of. That is , the significance of being “one” body.
The love of God is far reaching and beyond our comprehension. It is His love that draws us together as “one”. Rom 8:35,38,39 says “Who shall ‘separate us’ from the love of Christ?” and we see “…neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Think about it. This amazing love will never “separate us”. This is the “love of Christ” in us. We are inseparable! It is the Holy Spirit that has “poured out the love of God in our hearts” Rom 5:5. My love for you and your love for me could never separate us, in Christ. Jesus loves us, and nothing can separate us from His love for us and our love for Him. We are not alone. With the comfort that God gives us, we ought to comfort one another.
Paul speaks of not seeing after the flesh.(2 Cor.5:16) What are we seeing? When we learn to drive, we are taught to keep our eyes on the road. If we take our eyes off the road, we quickly find ourselves going in another direction…even the ditch. Like Paul, we need spiritual vision…to see as God sees. Looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. To see with the eyes of God’s heart, and not our own. To give God His place on the throne of our life. To walk in the Spirit. We walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor.5:7)
And so, thinking in terms of the church that “seems” scattered, let us think again about our spiritual relationship in Christ, that in Him we are now closer than ever. That we are closer to one another than any non-regenerated earthly blood brother or sister.
You and I are not of this world,(John 15:19) even as Jesus said of Himself, that He is not of this world. So….I want to present you this following picture which is of the body of Christ, who we are…the church in spirit. This of course, is to remind us that the church that we are does not cease to exist due to our physical (flesh) separation, but God’s building is eternal (we have eternal life) and it is God who is building His church (the body of Christ).
What description or picture does Jesus give to describe us as a new creation in Him”? Have you been born again?
As you already know, to be born again means that you must be put to death to start again….and then be given new life. For this to happen, God’s laws had to be obeyed which we find explained in Rom. 7:1-4 …and indeed Jesus Himself put us to death in Himself, that in dying with Him, we also have been raised (born again) with Him. You are a new creation in Christ. (2Cor.5:17)
Now notice what Jesus prays about you:
(from John 17: 20-23)
“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father; are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
The impact of what Jesus is saying is this: That we may be one as Jesus and His Father are One. Moreover, that we be one in Them. The significance here is that in Christ, I am in you and you are in me…that we are one. The intimate relationship that the Godhead displays, Jesus displays with us, and likewise displayed in the members of His body. We are distinct individuals, but the love of God in me so loves you that I give to you as Jesus gave to me… my being for the purpose of building you up in Christ…for you to know His love, His kindness, His faithfulness…that Jesus is glorified in us. I know you and hold you in my heart and as God so loved the world that He gave…I give my all to you for the body of Christ to grow…. In you I see the glory of my King. For the body to see your need met Jesus has placed me in you and you in me and just as the Father and Son are inseparable, so are you and I in Christ. I cherish you in my heart. It is the love of God in my heart…to love you with the love that comes from God. It is God’s love in us that makes us inseparable. We too are inseparable from Christ. This is wonderfully amazing….that the body of Christ be knit together by unbreakable cords of the love of God. I am yours and you are mine….in Christ. Knowing this, you can understand that you are as strong as the weakest member in the body of Christ. The weakest member is in you and just as your toe might hurt in the physical body, and so the whole body feeing it, so do I (we) hurt when my (our) brother or sister is .hurting in me (us). So then, by helping the weakest member, we are made strong and Jesus is glorified. I am made strong, when you are uplifted and strengthened in Christ. (1 Cor. 12: 12-27)..
Are we walking according to the Spirit or in the flesh? … We need each other…to run together…. We are the body of Christ, and Jesus is our Head. We are one Body…. May we be one as the Father and Son are one….that we may be one in Them. We are not God. We are a NEW creation in Christ Jesus. I hold you and Jesus in my heart. His Father is my Father and the Comforter Whom He sent resides there. You are forever a special part of me, you reside and have a special place in my heart and I also am yours in Christ.
Can we even begin to understand the power of the cross and what it means to be a part of the family of God? Your citizenship is in heaven. You are not of this world. Neither am I of this world. Thank you for being there for me.
Love from a member of the body of Christ….