King's Church Hastings

At its heart Christianity is about an encounter with the resurrected Lord Jesus and embracing Him with your whole heart, not just giving Him a few aspects of your life, but giving Him full reign.

We can learn a lot about faith from the story of Bartimaeus. Faith seeks Jesus, it acknowledges Jesus, it perseveres. Faith listens, dislodges, obeys / is responsive. It is clear what it wants. It receives. Faith embraces Jesus.

This Jesus who came as a baby is the eternal One, with no beginning and no end. He's the all-powerful One, the Creator. On Christmas Day we remember Him not only as a baby, but also who He was and who He is.

Home of one of those quintessentially Christmas things. At our Carols by Candlelight event, Andrew spoke on the connection between home and Christmas.

When the wise men found Jesus, He would not have been as they might have expected... It wasn't the external things that were amazing, but the baby born in a stable, placed in a manger, that they realised was the King of Kings. It's not the normal response when you see a baby, but they worshipped Him.

Some of the gifts we receive at Christmas are lovely, some are funny, and some are just strange. But Christmas is the time when we focus on God's inexpressible gift to us, Jesus.

What is death? The Bible says that death is an enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). We think it's natural because it happens to everyone, but God didn't create us for death, it came into the world through sin and is a sign of our brokenness (Romans 5:12). Death is unnatural. But death is also defeated (Isaiah 25:7-8, 1 Corinthians 15:54-55). We still die, because we live in a fallen world. But what happens when we die? And what comes at the end?

When the Israelites first came to the Promised Land, there were four perspectives on the situation. Three were right; one was wrong. God's people believed the wrong one! It's not uncommon for God's people to have a wrong perspective of a situation. Through our 40 days of hungering after God, we were freshly provoked to see God as He is, to see ourselves as He sees us, and to lift our heads to follow Him where He's leading us, shedding the grasshopper mentality.

God's plan to bring peace and hope and reconciliation to our friends and our town is actually you! In January we will be officially starting to go from one church with two meetings, to one church with four venues, when we (re)launch the first venue. What's it going to look like? What's our vision for it?

On baptism Sunday, exploring that those who follow Jesus are part of a called and commissioned community, a diverse group of people doing life together, glorifying God and spreading the gospel.

Jesus is the One who was and is and is to come. There is power in His name. He came not to condemn but to save. He was lifted up on a cross (see John 3:13-17), dying for our sin. Then he was lifted up into heaven (Acts 4:1-11), where He has all authority. He will be lifted up in glory, and every knee will bow (Revelation 1:7-8).

We were made to behold God, in the glory of His holiness, and to be held by Him. When we behold and are held by Him, it propels us into loving others.

Jesus proclaimed the gospel, healing the sick and showing compassion to the crowds, then told his disciples that the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. We're the workers. We've been given the authority of Jesus to heal, to cleanse, to bring deliverance. This is our inheritance.

It is so easy for us to put on fear and unbelief, but God wants us to put on love and faith. So how do we do that?

When someone becomes a Christian, they may look the same on the outside, but they've been completely transformed on the inside. We can now live according to the Spirit, being conscious that the Spirit of God is within us, deciding to live a life (with the Spirit's help) that pleases God, and enjoying the knowledge that we are sons and daughters of the living God.

Disappointment with God is something that so many of us feel, but often we don't talk about it because we're not sure if it's ok as Christians to feel it. But if we admit you, there are a few antidotes to help us deal with it... These include dying, gazing, and thanking.

Can you give God 1%? by King's Church Hastings

True fulfilment in life comes from doing what we were designed to do. We were created for intimacy with God. The whole of the Bible is about God's chief purpose in creating us: that we might enjoy Him forever.

Part 2 of the September 2016 What's Next? vision series: God changes lives and does people good. The Kingdom of God can have a powerful impact and bring change and transformation as we take it out. That's why we're planting four venues. To find out more about what's coming up and the church we want to be, listen here...

We believe God has some exciting adventures for us over the next few years. In the coming months we will become one church with four venues. Click below to listen to Paul outline some of the details.