New Life Community

True repentance comes from a relationship, ad not from religious practice. It enables us to love God, it brings about change in all aspects of our lives, and it leads us to have self-discipline and excellence. 

The first preach in the gospel is a call for repentance - we learn from David that there is some learning to truly repent from our sins. Repentance never stop with feeling and intention, but with obedience and decision.

Peter met Jesus and his life was changed forever. There are lessons that we can learn from the event that transformed Peter to his newfound identity as the fisher of men. A lesson that prepares us to respond graciously to all the different seasons and opportunities around us.

We are God's masterpiece and handiwork, we are well equipped to do what we were designed to do. There will be many distractions and disappointments, but there is nothing that can change our identity or stop us from fulfiling what we supposed to do.

When what we experience varied wildly from our plans, we need to know that God is in control. Having this understanding shall help us to respond wisely to all of the hurt, failure, and disappointments of life. 

We were created in Christ and for Christ - so that we can live freely to become the true original design. Christ redeemed us not only from sin but also from false identities that this world thrown at us every single day.

Identity determines how we respond to things and situations around us. By understanding that this world tried to label and define our identity, we know that the true identity comes from God, our creator. 

We celebrate Christmas and the last service of 2020 in simplicity - as we back to what matters the most to us, the born of baby Jesus. 

Contentment is elusive nowadays. The secret of being content comes from the understanding that being content when we have plenty is as difficult as being content when we are lacking. Joseph, Jesus' earthly Father shows us how he can have situation against him yet chose to be content nevertheless. 

Gratitude is a command - God commands us to be grateful but gratitude is nothing natural. We need to know the trap of feeling grateful wrongly that would help us to be grateful to God's justice everyday. 

Through Jesus' sign and wonders in the Gospel of John, we learned that sometime when we got our back against the wall and all sources run out - is the best time to get into deeper knowledge and relationship with God.

Regardless of our situation in the past, Jesus finds us where we are and he is God who knows our deepest secret. Through John 4, we learn how Jesus addresses the darkest side of us, brings it to light and turns our lives around. 

We'd like to think of Jesus as a loving God, one who left the 99 to find us, comfort us and carry us. While that is true the Bible also showed a different side of Jesus - one that we are uncomfortable with, one that demands a lot of changes from us and how we live our lives. 

Reconcile the sovereignty of God and the choices of men - in the most uncertain circumstances, we need to reconcile that God is sovereign, he is in control, and he is love - this understanding is crucial in helping us avoiding unnecessary anxiety in life.

The main pursue that we should have is to live like Christ, more than just knowing about him and his works. We go through Mark 1 to see how did Jesus affect so many lives and what are the foundation of His ministry, that should be our foundation too. 

We skewed the definition of blessing with getting what we want and the desire of our heart (or flesh). Jesus takes this heads on in sermon on the mount, in which he brings upside-down Kingdom principle by letting know that blessings actually reserved for those who are in bad seasons. 

When God calls us as his masterpiece, he knows exactly our weaknesses and our strengths, our past and our future, our failure and success - yet he chooses to love us unconditionally. This love and acceptance propel us to live our lives the way it meant to be, to learn from every mistake, to study, and to become a better version of ourselves every day.

We can see and face our situation better if we adopt God's point of view. We can do it by studying through the Bible, through Holy Spirit, and through our experience.

If we see through eyes of the Creator, we will treat and value others as He does. Knowing that we are accepted and loved would change how we live our lives.

When we are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, we no longer owned by sin but by the truth. We are not a servant, the word doulos means we are into a new kind of slavery, becoming a slave of truth. This slavery could be the best thing that could ever happen to us.