Sunday, May 8

This is going to be a short entry because I need to work on my thesis.  It's due May 20 and I have 3.5 of 40-50 pages done... Enough said.

But I want to write about church today.  So Bree and I left the house about 10:55 this morning and made it to church about 11:45 (it starts at 11:30).  During worship I spotted my friend Molly!

Molly is my friend from class. She's German and she's working as an au pair here in Madrid and taking classes at Complutense too.  Molly and I have hit it off well and we usually hang out after class for a little bit, get lunch or something.  Anyway, I asked her last week if she went to church anywhere and she said she does at home in Germany, and she went a couple times with the family she works for, but she didn't really like the Catholic way of doing things, so she stopped going.  She was pretty interested when I told her about Amistad Cristiana and I told her she should come with us some time.  When Bree and I were at the metro station I remembered about Molly and I told Bree I was sad I had forgotten to call her.  So I was so surprised and happy when I spotted her during worship!  We also rode the metro home together (until we had to go different directions).  She absolutely loved the service.  :)  Praise God!  So that was my exciting story about Molly.

Now about church.  Have I already described the worship?  It's amazing.  I love love love love love it.  ;)  They play a lot of my favorite worship songs, but translated to Spanish.  And they really play them led by the Spirit, lingering on chords between songs, to give people time to focus on God and let them hear Him speak.  I just love it.

Then the sermon.  They are doing a series about the cross.  First of all.  Woah, that is awesome.  I guess I missed the first two messages of the series while we were in Sotogrande and last week was just worship.  But the first two messages were What did the cross mean for God?  and What did the cross mean for Jesus?  Today was What did the cross mean for Satan?  Haha!  It was so awesome!  Everything she said was exactly what God has been teaching me lately.  The victory that Jesus won on the cross.  Over sin, over Satan, over death, over Hell.  And that that victory also belongs to those to believe in Jesus!  AMEN!!

This is the general outline of the message.  The verses she used and a short description of them.

1 John 3:8 - "He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work."


>>>The main reason Jesus came was to destroy the devil's work.  That was His sole purpose.  (Other good things came as a result, but that was His purpose)


Hebrews 2:14 - "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil"


>>>He had to become flesh just like us because that was the only way He could save us.  By being subject to the temptations and struggles of being a human, and yet not giving into sin, but rather living a perfect life, He would have the authority to defeat Satan.

Romans 5:12 - "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned"


>>We all sinned, therefore we all earned and deserve death.


John 11:26 - "and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”


>>>But we will never die if we believe in Jesus because through Him we have power over sin!  And we need to really believe it!


Colossians 2:15 - "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross."


>>>This was my favorite point of the message.  Satan and his demons have NO POWER because Jesus disarmed them.  Then He made a public spectacle of them, mocking them in front of all the hosts of heaven.  He triumphed over them by the cross.  Satan has no power because of what Jesus did.  The only way he can hurt us is if we let him.  By sinning, we give him permission.  So Satan's only power is deception, tricking us into sinning.


John 12:31 - "Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out"


Revelation 20:10 - "And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever."


>>>But these verses show Satan's future.  God knows Satan's future.  And Satan knows it too.  He's just trying to take as many down with him as he can.  The only way he can hurt God is by hurting those whom God loves--us.  But in the end God will have complete victory because of the work Jesus did on the cross!


Ephesians 6:10-18 - "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. ¹⁸ And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints."


>>>The pastor ended with these verses, encouraging us to stand firm against the devil's schemes.  We are in a war, so we need to put on the armor that God gives us to be protected from the Devil.




Ok, so that was a little longer than I expected.  But it was such a good message and it encouraged me so much, I had to share it.  :)


Now back to working on my thesis!