https://www.bible.com/events/49253188

Church of the Nazarene – East Rock

The Power of Prayer

Search me, test me, uncover my sin, and lead me.

Today we are beginning a new teaching series called “The power of prayer.”

Our series is based out of Psalm 139, where David prays 4 very specific petitions asking the Lord to do a deep and thorough search of his heart and inner life- Throughout this series, that’s our desire too.

Psalms 139:23-24

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Search me, test me, uncover my sins, and lead me.

David is inviting the Lord to go beyond the normal places, to the deep places of his very heart.

Prayer like this is vulnerable. It’s a complete opening of ourselves to the Lord. To allow him access not just to the places we know, to places we might be comfortable with, but beyond, to the places that only he can know.

And that can cause serious disruptions in our relationship with the Lord.

Just ask Peter, one of Jesus’ closest friends.

Mark 14:27-31

“You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written: “ ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not.” “Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “today—yes, tonight—before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.” But Peter insisted emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the others said the same.

Can you imagine the shock of these words? They had been together for 3 years now. Seen and done some amazing things. Now, Jesus turns to them and says “Boys, you are about to walk out on me. Every one of you”

“No way Jesus- not gonna happen. I would never do that, even if everyone else does.” The Apostle Peter cannot see it, he doesnt know that about himself.

You probably already know the rest of the story. Peter really didn’t know himself as well as he thought, did he? He would deny Jesus, not just once, but three times. Cussing, fussing, and swearing that he had never even met Jesus. It turns out Jesus knew Peter’s heart better than he did, and he knows your heart better than you do.

Just like Peter struggled to see beyond his own perception of his loyalty, we too struggle to see and know what lays deep within our hearts.

In Psalm 139 David is inviting the Lord behind the curtain, behind what even David himself knows, to search him, to test him, to uncover hidden sin, and to lead him. As David sought the Lord in these areas, we want to do that as well.

Throughout this series we want to explore the four prayers: Search me, test me, uncover my sins, and lead me.

Before we dive right into verses 23 and 24, we need to journey with David through the rest of the Psalm. There we find David’s heart and mind turning to the Lord in worship and praise, which is a critical part of our journey in seeking to engage God through prayer.

Psalms 139:1-6

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

The text opens examining God’s limitless knowledge. This attribute of God is often called his omniscience. This simply means there is nothing outside of God’s knowledge, there is no thought he doesn’t know, no action he isn’t aware of, no word spoken he hasn’t heard, even before its uttered.

God’s knowledge of you goes far beyond your reputation or your actions- he knows your very thoughts.

As we begin to think about opening ourselves up to the Lord, there is nothing he doesn’t already know- nothing will surprise him.

God knows us better than we know ourselves.

Psalms 139:7-12

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

David here recognizes God limitless presence- His omnipotence. Not only does the Lord know everything in his omniscience, but he is also everywhere in omnipotence.

That means there is nowhere you can go to escape God’s presence.

That’s a great comfort for those who are seeking him, but it’s a great challenge to those who think they can hide form the Lord. Everyone in Scripture who tries to hide from the Lord, fails. And you can’t do it either.

Psalms 139:13-16

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

God is everywhere in Omnipresence, all knowing in omniscience, and all powerful in his omnipotence. There is no limit to Gods creative power- The power that even created you.

And then, just when you think you know where David is going, he makes a hard, skidding left turn. Hold on tight.

Psalms 139:19-22

If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty! They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.

True to life and the experience of our world, David addresses the sin and brokenness of our world by appealing to God’s justice.

With honest and vivid language, David doesn’t hold back his feelings. He doesn’t plead his case as much as he declares his desire to side with the Lord- those who are an enemy of the Lord, would be an enemy of his.

With the wicked in mind, David now says, essentially, O Lord, don’t let me fall into the trap in which they find themselves. Don’t let me by a hypocrite.

Psalms 139:23-24

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

If David was going to take the sin of others seriously, he knew he must first take it seriously in his own life. He would need to invite the all-knowing, ever present, all powerful and just God to search the deep recesses of his heart.

Search my heart, test me, uncover my sins, and lead me.

“Lord, I know it won’t be easy…and I’m a little hesitant as I ask but, please, SEARCH ME.”

The prayer of Psalm 139 is powerfully intimate- It goes behind the façade we put on for people, the one that says everything’s all right.

It sees through the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, even the story we tell ourselves of how good we are.

It’s a prayer that goes beyond the very words that make it up.

It’s a prayer that reaches for the very heart of God, and welcomes him in.

Will you allow him to work in your life? No matter what he finds?

When you ask the Lord to search you, you may not like what he finds, but you will love how he redeems it. Will you trust him today?

Will you pray “Search me, God, and know my heart”?

Updates on the new Waynesboro campus

God is inviting us to step out in faith to plant a Spanish-speaking campus in the Waynesboro community. Join us on the journey! Check out the link below for more information and for frequent updates throughout the journey.

Waynesboro

Giving at COTN

If you ever have questions or need help with online giving, please let us know: finance@cotnaz.org Thank you for your partnership in building the Kingdom of Christ as you impact others!

Giving

Establish COTN as Your Church on the App

In this YouVersion Bible app, we encourage you to set up COTN as your church. It’s a simple process and will open up opportunities to stay connected to us!

https://help.youversion.com/l/en/article/y03uerubo8-mychurch

http://bible.com/events/49251326

Church of the Nazarene – Harrisonburg

Holiness as Wholeness, Part 4

Holiness is living the abundant life.

Holiness as Wholeness

The idea behind this teaching series is that Holiness, rather than being a heavy burden of impossibility placed on believers, is a healing and freeing effect of Christ’s sacrifice.

Holiness is good for us; it restores to us the design of God for our lives. The enemy wants us to believe it is a chain placed upon us, so we dread its requirements so that we’ll turn our back on it or roll our eyes at it. But, in essence, holiness brings all that we really want into our lives. It makes us whole with all of the attendant beauty of that idea.

The Nazarene understanding of Christian Holiness or Entire Sanctification is freeing, not binding. Through this sermon series then, we want to see Holiness as Wholeness.

James Pedlar

…God’s mission is not only for those outside the church but for believers as well, who are currently experiencing the ongoing healing work of God in their lives. In other words, mission is not only “outreach” but also includes the corporate life of the church. Cultivating holiness, spurring one another on in our response to God’s ongoing work in our lives, teaching, catechizing, discipling – all these things which help to form people as disciples are part of the church’s mission.

John 10:9-10

I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

John 10:9-10

Jesus told this simple story, but they had no idea what he was talking about. So he tried again. “I’ll be explicit, then. I am the Gate for the sheep. All those others are up to no good—sheep rustlers, every one of them. But the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture. A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.

John 10:9-10

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

This word “abundant” in the Greek is perisson:

Meaning “exceedingly, very highly, beyond measure, more, superfluous, a quantity so abundant as to be considerably more than what one would expect or anticipate.”

Oswald Chambers

We must never measure our spiritual capacity on the basis of our education or our intellect; our capacity in spiritual things is measured on the basis of the promises of God. If we get less than God wants us to have, we will falsely accuse Him as the servant falsely accused his master when he said, “You expect more of me than you gave me the power to do. You demand too much of me, and I cannot stand true to you here where you have placed me.” When it is a question of God’s Almighty Spirit, never say, “I can’t.” Never allow the limitation of your own natural ability to enter into the matter. If we have received the Holy Spirit, God expects the work of the Holy Spirit to be exhibited in us

Change (transformation) is not the absence of temptations, it is holiness in the midst of temptation.

THE WAY OF CHRIST

IS THE ABUNDANT LIFE

C.S. Lewis – Mere Christianity

“Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

ONCE GOD SETS YOU FREE YOU HAVE TO DECIDE TO LIVE FREE!

John 14:6a

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.

Holiness and the Church of the Nazarene

Former Nazarene General Superintendent Dr. J.K. Warrick discusses the distinctiveness of the Nazarene Church with a focus on Holiness.

Updates on the new Waynesboro campus

God is inviting us to step out in faith to plant a Spanish-speaking campus in the Waynesboro community. Join us on the journey! Check out the link below for more information and for frequent updates throughout the journey.

Waynesboro

Giving at COTN

If you ever have questions or need help with online giving, please let us know: finance@cotnaz.org Thank you for your partnership in building the Kingdom of Christ as you impact others!

Giving

Establish COTN as Your Church on the App

In this YouVersion Bible app, we encourage you to set up COTN as your church. It’s a simple process and will open up opportunities to stay connected to us!

https://help.youversion.com/l/en/article/y03uerubo8-mychurch

Additional Scriptures:

John 15:9-11

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

1 Timothy 6:6

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.

Psalm 16:11

You make known to me the path of life;

you will fill me with joy in your presence,

with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

John 8:36

36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Hebrews 12:14-15

14 Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

https://www.bible.com/events/49249500

Church of the Nazarene – East Rock

Holiness as Wholeness, Part 4

Holiness is living the abundant life.

Holiness as Wholeness

The idea behind this teaching series is that Holiness, rather than being a heavy burden of impossibility placed on believers, is a healing and freeing effect of Christ’s sacrifice. Holiness is good for us; it restores to us the design of God for our lives. The enemy wants us to believe it is a chain placed upon us, so we dread its requirements so that we’ll turn our back on it or roll our eyes at it. But, in essence, holiness brings all that we really want into our lives. It makes us whole with all of the attendant beauty of that idea. Holiness is not a requirement as much as it is a remedy. The Nazarene understanding of Christian Holiness or Entire Sanctification is freeing, not binding. Through this sermon series then, we want to see Holiness as Wholeness.

In John 10:10 Jesus says: “10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

For Jesus, the good life is abundant, life to the full. And notably, it’s not something we acquire, it’s not something we can work for, it’s the life we receive from Him.

If Jesus brings us good and abundant life, why doesn’t my life with him seem more, abundant? Why doesn’t life seem more, I don’t know, “good”?

So often our experience is one of frustration, guilt, or shame because we can’t seem to pull it together, a seemingly unending cycle of failure and forgiveness, never seeing the victory in our lives. Rather than full of life, it’s just full of frustration.

I would propose to you today that the abundant life Jesus came to bring, only comes on the other side of our full surrender to him. The truth is, “abundance” in Christ is not about gathering it all in, but giving it all up.

There is great abundance in… SURRENDER.

John 10:9-10

I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Those who enter life with Christ are first of all, saved.

Safe from the enemy. They are rescued and redeemed. They have freedom- to come and go- to live life. Jesus here isn’t promising material prosperity.

iii.He is saying that “in life with me, I will see to all your needs”. Perhaps not your wants, but you will know my hand in having what you need.

It’s a life full of freedom, marked by his presence, no matter what comes our way.

This is the good life that Christ offers.

Notice the contrast- with the enemy/the thief

“The thief only comes to steal, to kill, and destroy.”

The immediate context of this passage, the thief is likely pointing back to those false messengers and leaders that Jesus referred to in verse 8- but it does not fail to include the enemy of or souls- the devil himself.

He comes offering some sort of distorted life, but his motives are not pure.

1.He is greedy, selfish, and self-serving.

2.The thief, always takes and never gives.

3.The thief is full of lies and deceit. he confuses us about what a “good life” even is.

4. And he ultimately destroys.

The thief came to destroy, Christ has come that we might have life, and that to the full.

The life that he came to give is abundant, full, offering contentment.

The word for to the full or abundantly, it means a super-abundance, overflowing with more than what is needed or expected. It’s not merely filling the jar to the top; it’s filling it to overflowing. That’s the picture of the life that Christ came to give.

We have forgiveness of sins, freedom from shame and guilt. We have belonging in the family of God; we have a calling to take part in his kingdom work. His life is healing, restoring, and transforming- and most of all, it’s in an abundance.

“I have come that they may have life, and that to the full.”

here’s the truth for us today- the fullness of the life Christ came to give cannot be realized in our lives as long as we are in control.

Holiness is giving God full control of our lives. That’s how we can know the good life.

As long as we are still calling the shots, telling the Lord what we will and will not do or agree with- we are living our lives, with Jesus as an add-on. And that can never be a truly good life…

The abundant and holy life comes when we surrender our lives completely to God and begin living HIS life. On this journey, there are many critical moments, decision points along the way of sanctification. But there is coming a crisis moment in your life where you will have to decide. Am I going to give God control of my life- or am I going to keep control myself?

The abundant and holy life that Christ came to offer cannot be found by avoiding that crisis- we must go through it. That’s holiness friends. That’s what experiencing life to the fullest is all about.

The decision to say YES to Christ will change the trajectory of your life forever. You will experience an abundance in life like never before.

Remember, “abundance” in Christ is not about gathering it all in, but giving it all up. There is great abundance in… SURRENDER.

Holiness and the Church of the Nazarene

Former Nazarene General Superintendent Dr. J.K. Warrick discusses the distinctiveness of the Nazarene Church with a focus on Holiness.

Updates on the new Waynesboro campus

God is inviting us to step out in faith to plant a Spanish-speaking campus in the Waynesboro community. Join us on the journey! Check out the link below for more information and for frequent updates throughout the journey.

Waynesboro

Giving at COTN

If you ever have questions or need help with online giving, please let us know: finance@cotnaz.org Thank you for your partnership in building the Kingdom of Christ as you impact others!

Giving

Establish COTN as Your Church on the App

In this YouVersion Bible app, we encourage you to set up COTN as your church. It’s a simple process and will open up opportunities to stay connected to us!

https://help.youversion.com/l/en/article/y03uerubo8-mychurch

http://bible.com/events/49247921

Church of the Nazarene – Harrisonburg

Holiness as Wholeness, Part 2/3

Holiness as Wholeness

The idea behind this new teaching series is that Holiness, rather than being a heavy burden of impossibility placed on believers, is a healing and freeing effect of Christ’s sacrifice. Holiness is good for us; it restores to us the design of God for our lives. The enemy wants us to believe it is a chain placed upon us, so we dread its requirements so that we’ll turn our back on it or roll our eyes at it. But, in essence, holiness brings all that we really want into our lives. It makes us whole with all of the attendant beauty of that idea. Holiness is not a requirement as much as it is a remedy. The Nazarene understanding of Christian Holiness or Entire Sanctification is freeing, not binding. Through this sermon series then, we want to see Holiness as Wholeness.

Holiness as wholeness means that the sanctifying work of God in the pursuit of holiness in our lives doesn’t just allow us to be in relationship with God, but cleanses, refreshes and heals our body and our mind…

The path of holiness is one that compels us to be in unity.

Genesis 1:26-28

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”

To be fully human is to be in holy relationship with God, others, oneself, and all of creation.

Original Sin: We believe that original sin… is that corruption of the nature of all the offspring of Adam by reason of which everyone is very far gone from original righteousness or the pure state of our first parents at the time of their creation, is averse to God, is without spiritual life, and inclined to evil, and that continually…

Personal Sin: We believe that… personal sin is a voluntary violation of a known law of God by a morally responsible person… we believe that personal sin is primarily and essentially a violation of the law of love…

– Church of the Nazarene, Articles of Faith

Sin always results in death.

Romans 3:23-24

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Sin can be attractive, but it is always destructive. Sin will take your further than you were ever meant to go, and further than you may ever intend to go! It’s too great of a burden for us to hold.

Genesis 4:6-9

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Sin leads to death, but holiness leads to life.

Romans 6:19-23

Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Sanctification is God’s response to sin.

Updates on the new Waynesboro campus

God is inviting us to step out in faith to plant a Spanish-speaking campus in the Waynesboro community. Join us on the journey! Check out the link below for more information and for frequent updates throughout the journey.

Waynesboro

Giving at COTN

If you ever have questions or need help with online giving, please let us know: finance@cotnaz.org Thank you for your partnership in building the Kingdom of Christ as you impact others!

Giving

Establish COTN as Your Church on the App

In this YouVersion Bible app, we encourage you to set up COTN as your church. It’s a simple process and will open up opportunities to stay connected to us!

https://help.youversion.com/l/en/article/y03uerubo8-mychurch

Church of the Nazarene – East Rock

https://www.bible.com/events/49245979

Holiness as Wholeness, Part 3

Holiness as Wholeness

The idea behind this teaching series is that Holiness, rather than being a heavy burden of impossibility placed on believers, is a healing and freeing effect of Christ’s sacrifice. Holiness is good for us; it restores to us the design of God for our lives. The enemy wants us to believe it is a chain placed upon us, so we dread its requirements so that we’ll turn our back on it or roll our eyes at it. But, in essence, holiness brings all that we really want into our lives. It makes us whole with all of the attendant beauty of that idea. Holiness is not a requirement as much as it is a remedy. The Nazarene understanding of Christian Holiness or Entire Sanctification is freeing, not binding. Through this sermon series then, we want to see Holiness as Wholeness.

Often we can struggle to see what the big deal is about a little sin.

“It’s fine, God isn’t THAT concerned about it.”

We imagine that we have control over it, that we can call the shots, quit when we want, that it’s not a big deal. But that’s not what the bible says about sin.

Jesus said “I tell you the truth, everyone who commits sin, is a slave to sin.”

Paul says in Romans 6 “The wages of Sin is Death”…

On our own we tend to have a very different and often less severe of an outlook about sin than what the bible gives.

As we continue with part 3 of our series, we will seek to understand the serious and destructive nature of sin in our lives. Without a proper understanding of sin, it is easy to miss the urgency of seeking holiness.

The great lie of sin is that it is harmless, or even that the pleasure it can sometimes bring will actually help us. Whether we would say it or not, when we choose sin, we are saying that we know better than God.

Romans 6:19

I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.

Paul is referencing back to a metaphor he began in verse 16 of being a slave.

For the Apostle Paul, we only have two choices. We are either offering ourselves to God leading to righteousness or we are offering ourselves as slaves to sin leading to death.

There is no spiritually neutral position. Every single person you meet, including yourself, is serving one of these two- Either God or sin- there is no option C.

Notice that Paul says you USED to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity. Paul is presenting a picture of the Pre-Christ life, and in so doing, he gives us the real true nature of sin.

He says “You offered yourself”

Sin was and is a choice.

It’s a conscious decision. It doesn’t just happen; we don’t just end up there. We choose it, we go along with it.

“You offered yourself as slaves”

Sin has an imprisoning, enslaving power over us.

So often we think sin will bring us freedom and autonomy, but it really brings enslavement and bondage. The exact opposite of what it promises.

“Slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness”

The idea of “ever-increasing wickedness” describes the insidious, cumulative impact of sin, like a cancer growing within on its way to total destruction.

The old saying “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you want to pay.” It’s true, because sin is never static. It’s never neutral. It’s always growing, always grasping for more, always binding and blinding us to its real nature.

“So now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness”

Christ has come and broken the power of sin, he has given us freedom, and as Christians we are to respond. Just as we used to sign up for sin, we need to sign on to righteousness, to saying yes to Christ.

Rather than leading to death, choosing to offer ourselves as slaves to God leads to holiness

Romans 6:20-21

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!

As you think about your life before Christ, what benefits did you reap from it? How did that go for you? Paul is inviting us to remember…

Paul has gone to great lengths illustrating the destructive enslaving power of sin that used to dominate our old life.

He has pointed to Christ and the forgiveness and life we can have in him.

He has brought up old memories for us of sin form our old life. We literally have experienced everything he’s talking about.

But all of that teaching, all of that personal experience, and yet, so often we will underestimate the seriousness of sin in our lives, we invite it back into our lives. We still undersell it, minimize it, ignore it, we dabble with it, we put off dealing with it until later.

Rather than choosing to pursue holiness with as much fervor as we used to pursue sin, we pursue Christ and holiness up to the point that it gets inconvenient, or it gets hard

And friends, we will never, ever find the true wholeness and healing pursing God half-heartedly. We will never know holiness as wholeness, without taking sin seriously.

Romans 6:22-23

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In Christ, we have been set free from not only the penalty of sin, but it’s power is broken as well. Sure, Christians experience temptation, Christians can still sin, but in Christ we are free not to. That’s the invitation of Holiness.

To make the conscious decision to see him as Lord of your life, to be his slave. To give up your right to yourself, to give up your ways of thinking, and completely surrender to him. Yes, our outward practices, but also our inner most self.

The invitation to take sin seriously, to be holy, is to pray beyond the external actions that plague our lives. It’s to ask the Lord to deal with us at a heart level. To give us freedom and power in the innermost parts of who we are.

And this victory, this cleansing, this power over sin in our lives is available in Christ Jesus.

You don’t have to be a prisoner of sin any longer. There is freedom to be found in Christ.

Holiness and the Church of the Nazarene

Former Nazarene General Superintendent Dr. J.K. Warrick discusses the distinctiveness of the Nazarene Church with a focus on Holiness.

Updates on the new Waynesboro campus

God is inviting us to step out in faith to plant a Spanish-speaking campus in the Waynesboro community. Join us on the journey! Check out the link below for more information and for frequent updates throughout the journey.

Waynesboro

Giving at COTN

If you ever have questions or need help with online giving, please let us know: finance@cotnaz.org Thank you for your partnership in building the Kingdom of Christ as you impact others!

Giving

Establish COTN as Your Church on the App

In this YouVersion Bible app, we encourage you to set up COTN as your church. It’s a simple process and will open up opportunities to stay connected to us!

https://help.youversion.com/l/en/article/y03uerubo8-mychurch