3Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people. 4Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God. 5You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. 6Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. 7Don’t participate in the things these people do. 8For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! 9For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. 10Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. 11Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. 12It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. 13But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them, 14for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said, “Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” (Ephesians 5:3-14 NLT)
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Evil cannot exist in the light. It simply can’t. When you acknowledge your sin as a part of you – the truth about you – and you bring it out of the darkness and set it before a person whom you trust, and God Himself, then the grip that the sin has over you is broken. Satan will scream that doing this is wrong – that you will be humiliated, embarrassed, that the person to whom you are turning will think you are weak or worse, leave you; but those thoughts and feelings are lies from Hell thus you can pretty much rely on the fact that the exact opposite it true. There is liberation in the light – away from the lies and out of the sin. There is power in the freedom knowing that Satan has no dominion over you. May God empower you in your journey into the light of life. 

1After saying all these things, Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you. 2For you have given him authority over everyone. He gives eternal life to each one you have given him. 3And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. 4I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began. (John 17:1-5 NLT)
33At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. 34Then at three o’clock Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Mark 15:33-34 NLT)
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The time for Jesus to fulfill His purpose had come. He understood completely the point and purpose of His life, ministry, and sacrifice. He was fully aware that He was to be tortured and crucified. He was prepared to give His life – but was He prepared to experience the abandonment that He experienced on the cross. “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” – My God, My God, WHY HAVE YOU ABANDONED ME? I do not believe that the God, as the Christ, was prepared for this feeling. He couldn’t have been prepared for this feeling or His crying out would have all just been for show. Here’s the power – God knows your deepest and worst feelings of abandonment and betrayal. When we are at rock bottom, we actually can be comforted in the fact that our God was at rock bottom. He gets us. Now think back to your ‘on the cross” moment and give thanks. 
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28Jesus knew that his mission was now finished, and to fulfill Scripture he said, “I am thirsty.”g 29A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch, and held it up to his lips. 30When Jesus had tasted it, he said, “It is finished!” Then he bowed his head and released his spirit. 31It was the day of preparation, and the Jewish leaders didn’t want the bodies hanging there the next day, which was the Sabbath (and a very special Sabbath, because it was the Passover). So they asked Pilate to hasten their deaths by ordering that their legs be broken. Then their bodies could be taken down. 32So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus. 33But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, so they didn’t break his legs. 34One of the soldiers, however, pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out. 35(This report is from an eyewitness giving an accurate account. He speaks the truth so that you also can believe.h) 36These things happened in fulfillment of the Scriptures that say, “Not one of his bones will be broken,”i 37and “They will look on the one they pierced.”j
Just a not so gentle reminder that Jesus, the Christ of God, gave His life for you. If you claim to belive this, then it behooves you to act like it. One: stop playing church and BE the church. Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, lives in you and want to minister in this dying world through you. Daycares and community clean-up projects are nice, but if we are not preaching about the saving grace of Jesus, we are wasting our time as a church. Remember – every person you know and every person that you don’t know is one heartbeat away from heaven or hell. If that doesn’t matter to you, well… Two: If you truly love people with the love of Jesus, you will tell them the truth. You will tell them about sin and forgiveness, about heaven and hell, and that the true power of living is found in our submission to our creator through Jesus, the Christ. It has been said that if we lose the ”holiday” of Christmas, we lose only a couple of chapters at the beginning of Matthew and Luke; but if we lose the resurrection – we lose everything. 
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1“Write this letter to the angel of the church in Sardis. This is the message from the one who has the sevenfold Spirit of God and the seven stars: “I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive—but you are dead. 2Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God. 3Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again. If you don’t wake up, I will come to you suddenly, as unexpected as a thief. 4“Yet there are some in the church in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes with evil. They will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5All who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that they are mine. (Revelation 3 NLT)
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“You have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead.” Oh how true this can be for so many individuals and so many churches. These words cut us to the quick as we begin to really absorb what Jesus is saying to us. He speaks about “looking” alive and “acting” alive and doing all the right things to seem alive – but we are dead. We are dead because we are spiritually dead – not that we are not “spiritual” but that we are spiritually dead; and we are spiritually dead because the Holy Spirit does not live within us. We all have a calling. We all have a purpose. We all have, as scripture refers to it, a first love; and that is Jesus, the Christ of God who lived, died, and was resurrected – and in so doing placed all who will belive in right standing with the Most High God and defeated the power of sin and death in our lives. Do you believe this?