City of Refuge Fellowship

In John 15:2 Jesus said, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” As branches in the Vine, God is always working, training and disciplining us to produce more fruit in and through our lives. The branches, or unfruitful are “taken away”, while those that are fruitful are pruned in preparation of more fruit. The difficulty we have with this is that when we are fruitful we often feel accomplished and become comfortable in our current state. This can feel like a battle, we are satisfied with our current fruitfulness but God is leading, guiding and pruning us to more fruit.

In John 14 Jesus told His apostles that those that believed in Him wold do the works that He did, but even more, they would do “greater works”. Jesus has always had an eye on more. He knows what the Spirit within us is capable of doing through us. He is fully aware of what He has planned for our future and He knows the fulfillment of all that He will accomplish. He rejoices over us in our obedience while, at the same time, prunes and prepares us for greater obedience. It is not that God is not pleased with us, it is that He is not finished with us.

I equate Jesus’ teaching about pruning and more fruit with Hebrews 12 and the discipline that God gives to His children. The author of Hebrews tells us that discipline produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who are trained by it. Are we being trained by the discipline and pruning of God or are we simply hoping to endure it? There is a purpose to God’s work in your life. He is not and does not remove unfruitful brancehs; mold and change us on a whim or in an effort to harm us; He is working to produce more fruit than we have ever imagined and more righteousness and peace than we could have known we could enjoy.

Today my prayer is that we would learn to submit to God’s pruning process in our lives so that we are not found resisting His will for our lives. Too many times we extend the seasons of discipline simply because we stubbornly hold on to things that God says have finished their course or lost their fruitfulness in and through our lives. No matter how you have been used or God has ministered to you there is a promise in John 15, there is more fruit! We don’t grow by staying the course, we grow by submitting to discipline. I encourage you today, yield to the Vindresser, trust His love and submit to His discipline. Pruning will not feel pleasant at the moment is begins, but it will yield more fruit, it may just lead to the “greater works” that Jesus has promised

Our new Bible study will begin on Wednesday, March 7th. For the rest of 2012 we will be studying the book of Hebrews, verse by verse. Every other Wednesday night from 7:00 to 8:15 at the Kulynych’s home at 945 Bordentown Rd. in Burlington. If you have any questions please feel free to email us, there is no child-care provided at this time.

This week we had the opportunity to hear from Melissa Kulynych, our worship pastor.

In Ephesians 1:17-19 the Apostle Paul prays that we would have the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God. True worship is dependent upon intimate knowledge. Jesus’ statement in John 4, that the Father desires worshippers that will worship Him in Spirit and in truth is a call to a lifestyle of worship, not songs sung or acts of service rendered but hearts that are submitted to Christ and lives that are lived at His feet.

There is a place in worship where we must believe God, trust His love and rely upon His favor. We can’t attain God’s favor or attract His attention, His heart has always been toward man and His desire has always been to gather us to Himself as children. We receive the revelation of His favor when we are willing to sit in His presence, when we, like Mary, choose a “better” way.  My prayer today is that we will long to gaze upon the beauty of Christ, to choose a relationship of intimate knowledge over the temptation to know Him from afar and somehow prove our worth by our activity. Melissa shared a beutiful thought near the end of the sermon, “the reflection of His (Jesus’) beauty is in His love”. We do not find the love of God by our effort, our service or even our worship, we find the love of God when we are willing to sit with Him, trust His voice and receive the grace

We are very excited to be able to be a sponsoring agency to bring a new program to Burlington from the Food Bank of South Jersey. The Hope Mobile is a 48 foot tractor trailer that brings emergency food to communities. The distribution contains meat, pasta, rice and canned goods that can provide 3 meals a day for up to 4 days. The food is completely free of any charge but registration is required. Please call the church office to register or bring with you a form of identification and proof of income or state assistance on the day of the food distribution.

The distribution will be at Wilbur Watts Intermediate School, 550 High Street, Burlington, NJ from 1o:30 until the food is gone, all distributing is done on a first come first served basis.  If you have any questions or would like to register please call our office at 609-531-0816

In our current Sabbath series we are considering three aspects or callings of this transition season: reflection, rest and rebirth. Today’s message deals with rest.

In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus invites, even calls all that are weary and over-burdened to come to him and He will provide rest. There is an imperative in this invitation, we must come to Him if we are going to ever receive His rest. Too often we are waiting for rest to happen to us, for God to simply bestow upon us what we are looking for without ever being willing to take up our cross and follow Him. The first step to rest is to come to Jesus on His terms just as He has called us.

There are then three descriptions of rest that we have looked at:

1. Rest is knowing the love of God

Nothing provides more rest thank knowing that we are loved.

2. Rest is trusting God

Rest is not the absence of effort, it is the absence of anxiety and the presence of confidence. If I know that God is for me I can and will rest in the midst of any and ever situation and circumstance that I encounter.

3. Rest is learning to embrace quiet

God desires to quiet all the noise in our lives, to remove harmful thoughts, ideas, beliefs and even relationships and places of dependence. The rest that Jesus offers is not the removal of all of our difficulties but rather the removal of everything that competes with Him for our attention and affection. Trust rest is wearing His yoke of love, not merely being freed from the burden of our circumstance.

There will be a Night Watch prayer gathering on Friday February 24th beginning at 11:00 PM and going until 6:00 AM Saturday the 25th. This gathering will be at First Christian Assembly, 1105 High Street Burlington, NJ 08016. The Night Watch is a time of worship-based prayer concentrating solely on ministering to the presence of God. We gather becasue of His great

Trevor and Linda Galpin from Fatherheart Ministries in New Zealand will be with us again on Friday March 9th and Saturday March 10th. This two day conference that has been themed “Going Deeper into the Love of the Father” will be a continuation of the teaching that God used Trevor to share with us in December. The two day event will begin with a session on Friday night at 7:00 and then two sessions on Saturday morning and early afternoon with lunch served in between. There is no charge for this event but an offering will be taken. This event will be held at First Christian Assembly, 1105 High Street, Burlington, NJ 08016.  More details will follow, if you have any questions please email us at abie@cityofrefugefellowship.org.

God has given us a vision for the planting of a House of Prayer in Burlington City, a place where worship and prayer would never cease and where God would be constantly glorified for His greatness, His beauty and His great love. The House of Prayer is not a place for needs to be poured out but rather a place for God to be glorified and for His voice to be allowed to lead, guide and purpose within us His plans, desires and purpose for our community and our lives.

We eagerly anticipate coming together in this new facet of His plan and though we don’t know exactly what this will look like, we are trusting that if we walk in obedience and allow the Holy Spirit to lead us, it will become exactly what He has promised and planned for this city. We are asking, as we take these new steps of obedience, that you join us for this one night out of the month, the 2nd Friday of every month, to experience together God’s presence, and His voice as we sit at His feet and recount His goodness and His grace and remind Him who needs no reminding of all of the promises that He has spoken over Burlington City. Our desire is to stand in agreement with all that God has promised, as individuals, as a church and as a City, and we believe the House of Prayer signals in the Spirit our agreement to be obedient and faithful to all of God’s plans and promises.

We will be meeting at 7:00 PM on Friday February 10th at the Knights of Columbus building at 366 East Broad Street in Burlington. If you have any questions please call our church office at 609-531-0816.

We have defined this Sabbath season of transition as a time to reflect on God’s goodness, to rest in our dependence upon His grace and to experience the rebirth created by God’s merciful pruning. This week our message is focused on reflection.

In Exodus 19 God told Moses to tell the people of Israel “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle’s wings, and brought you to Myself.” God was turning the attention of the people to all that He had done for them and the reality that, while they were still far from their “Promised Land” they had already arrived at their eternal destination of being loved and chosen by God. I believe that one of the main reasons we often struggle with doubts, fears and anxieties when we face difficulty is that we don’t spend nearly enough time reflecting upon God’s loving character and the goodness that He has poured out in our lives. Reflection creates gratitude and faith that prepares us for the next steps that God will lead us on. Obstacles become opportunities when I reflect upon the goodness of God, but they are magnified to the size of giants when all I can see is the difficulty that I’m facing.

Today I encourage you to reflect upon God’s love and view all things in your life in light of God’s mercy. It is our choice to dwell upon present difficulty or to reflect upon God’s everlasting love. His love will guide you, protect you and even deliver you from anything that comes against you, today I pray that we will choose the goodness of God and trust Him to be true to His Word, He has born us on eagles’ wings and brought us to Himself!