Waiting for You

Feb. 25, 2019 Monday Message

God wants us all to come back home, to return to heaven with Him. Unfortunately, mankind’s sinful nature renders us unacceptable in the Lord’s sight. Fortunately, God provided a means of forgiveness and reconciliation.

God sent his Son Jesus to be the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, and all those who repent and place their faith, hope and trust in Him would be forgiven and covered with Jesus’ righteousness, and thereby be made acceptable in the eyes of the Lord.

Jesus told his followers that he would be going on ahead to prepare a place for each one of us. “There is more than enough room in my Father's home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2)

When believers leave the earth and enter the next reality, Jesus will be there to greet you with open arms. A room is already prepared for you – it has your name on it!

Norton Lawellin

Jesus in the City Fellowship meets at 10:30 Sunday, March 3, 2019, 3249 30^th Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55406. We continue our “Basics of Christianity” series. This week Pastor Pilla teaches about the Kingdom.

Repent and Return

Feb. 18, 2019 Monday Message

David thought he could cover up his affair with Bathsheba, going so far as to arrange the death of her husband Uriah. But God wanted no part of David’s scheme and deception. That’s the character of God; He NEVER goes along with any scheme or deception. The prophet Nathan called David on his misdeeds. David repented and returned to God, and you can read all about it in Psalm 51. We should learn from David’s example, that when we err, we need to repent and return to the Lord.

Paul thought he was doing the right thing by persecuting followers of “The Way,” the new Christian sect that was dividing Synagogue congregations. But Paul had it backwards. Jesus personally called Paul on his actions on the road to Damascus, and IMMEDIATELY Paul was baptized and started telling everyone the redeeming Good News of Jesus the Christ. Jesus spoke directly to Paul, and that’s hard to ignore!

Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden after he was told not to. When God called him on it, Adam tried to shift the blame, first to God, and then to Eve. “The woman YOU gave me – SHE gave me the fruit!!” Again, God wants no part of scheme and deception. God’s pretty inflexible on this – he’s not about to change his mind.

What if God had called Adam on the misdeed, and Adam had replied, “Sorry, my bad. What could I have been thinking? I know better. Please forgive me, and give me another chance.”

We know our God always shows love and forgiveness – He is a God of second-chances. Do you think he might have forgiven Adam if Adam had been more contrite?

If repent and return was good for David, it’s good for us too!

Norton Lawellin

Let’s worship together! Jesus in the City Fellowship meets at 10:30 Sunday, Feb. 24, 2019. We continue our “Basics of Christianity” series. This week I’ll look at Paul’s response to God’s grace. See you at church!

The Bible

Feb. 11, 2019 Monday Message

“History & Biographies”

We’re in Minnesota, where we’ve been inundated with below-zero cold weather and a blanket of snow, which has thrown me a bit behind schedule. Time to catch up…

At my church, Jesus in the City Fellowship, we’ve been revisiting the basics of Christianity, and last week we started looking at the Bible.

While the Bible is our Holy religious book, it’s important to realize that a lot of it is history, specifically the history of God’s covenant people. We can verify Bible history by comparing it with secular history. We can double-check who was king, and which country won the war, and secular history writers agree 100% with the facts written in the Bible. So if the Bible has been proven truthful with historical facts, it stands to reason the Bible would be truthful about religious facts as well.

The Bible is also biographies, detailing the lives of Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Paul, and most importantly, Jesus of Nazareth. We have four biographies of Jesus, two written by Apostles, one written by a close friend of an Apostle, and one investigative report from Paul’s beloved physician Luke.

The Bible has a lot of good stories about the people of God, and like the song says, “I love to tell the story.” We should ALL love to tell the story of Jesus and his love!

Norton Lawellin

Jesus in the City Fellowship meets at 10:30 Sunday, Feb. 17, 2019. We welcome musical guests “People of Hope” and  the New Hope tour. Pastor Van Dickerson teaching about grace.