Am I going to Heaven??

Beginning our Walk with Jesus Christ - Am I going to Heaven? Here are some steps to Heaven:

1. You need to understand God loves you and sent His Son to pay for your sin.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[ 3:16 Or his only begotten Son] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."John 3:16

2. You need to understand your sin keeps you from having a personal relationship with God.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, " Romans 3:23

3. You need to know Jesus Christ died and rose again so that your sins could be forgiven.

"For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, " 1 Peter 3:18

4. You need to understand you must personally trust Jesus Christ to be your Savior.

"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" John 1:12

5. Are you ready for a personal relationship with God? You can begin your personal relationship with God by simply expressing yourself to God through prayer: "Dear God, I know that my sin has separated me from You. Thank you that Jesus Christ died in my place and rose again to be my Savior. I turn from my sin and trust Jesus to forgive me. Come into my life and lead me. Thank you for giving me a relationship with You forever. In Jesus' name, Amen."

6. You should know your trust in Jesus Christ begins a lifelong relationship!

"God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." Hebrews 13:5

"For He forgave all your sins, and blotted out the charges proved against you." Colossians 2:13-14

"I have written this to you who believe in the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life." 1 John 5:13

"Let us follow the Holy Spirit's leading in every part of our lives." Galatians 5:25

7. You should remember that you can depend on God and His word (the bible) as you go through life's greatest adventure!! Welcome to the Family of God through Jesus Christ our savior.

"I am the way, the truth, and the light. No one can come to the Father, except through me." John 14:6

Thanksgiving

Dear Family and Friends, November 21, 2005

It is that time of year again, when we gather with family and friends and eat lots of food. Thanksgiving is my favorite time of year, since I was born on Thanksgiving back in the 70's. This year is extra special in that the Lord has really blessed me in the last few years and I wanted to share my appreciation with my family. I love the fact that I can gather with all of you this Thursday, my aunt Tina said it will be over 50 attending. I have been doing a lot of writing lately, the more I study, worship, and discipleship, the more the Lord calls me to use my passion of writing and expressing myself through words. I thought I would share with my family and friends my thanksgiving and some of my testimony of how my life has changed since giving my life to the Lord.

I gave my life to the Lord when I was in college, when I was twenty-something. My walk with the Lord started out slow with baby steps in maturity and then I began to fall away from the Lord with my sin, especially sin that was unrecognizable. My walk really took a turn for the worse with some serious back-sliding that included drug use, sexual immorality, lusting, gambling, and even tattooing my body. Being a Christian, I was recognizing all of this as sin, however the sins of jealousy, anger, resentment, bitterness, and un-forgiveness that destroy relationships went un-recognized in my life. I wasn't recognizing how these emotional sins were destroying me and all of my relationships. This is when I began to realize that I needed a relationship with the Lord more than ever and started going back to church and hearing and learning the Gospel again. The year before moving back to California I was getting more involved in worship and small groups (bible studies) in a local church in addition to many A.A. meetings. Since living in California, the Lord has blessed me with family opening their homes for me and helping me move and getting settled. He has also blessed me with an awesome church family that is Purpose Driven and focused on the Great Commission of bringing more people to the Lord. The Lord created us to worship, have fellowship, discipleship, serve in ministry, and evangelize or spread the news. The more you study, worship, celebrate, serve, pray, have fellowship, confess, and submit yourself to the disciplines the more you will grow and mature spiritually. My walk with the Lord has turned into a changed life that has even begun to bear the fruits of the spirit talked about in Galatians 5:22. But it is only through the disciplines of engagement above that I can continue to be re-filled by the spirit to prepare for eternal life.

In closing, I wanted to pray with you and encourage you to read the next page if you need or want to start the walk with Jesus Christ or maybe you just want to know if you are going to heaven. Thank you Lord for your word that so plainly promises us our salvation no matter what the sin and for showing us that we all fall short of your grace and how magnificent you are to take on human form in Jesus Christ, whom is our savior, thank you Lord that you are so graceful in accepting me and forgiving me, thank you Lord for all of my family and for the wonderful opportunity to Glorify you, I ask that you continue to re-fill me with your spirit to guide me, walk with me, counsel me, and live within me. I love you so much Lord, I say this in your Son's name Jesus Christ, Amen. Thank you for reading my many thanks, and I am glad that I could share some of my testimony. Please keep in touch through phone, email, or website. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, I love you all and God Bless.

Thankfully,

Tonya
tarmenakis@hotmail.com
www.flywithchrist.blogspot.com

Learning to Love

Hello 20-somethings, October 29, 2005

I am sorry for not being here this evening, but I wanted to contribute to the discussion. I went to the Chargers game today and I hope by the time you are all reading this that they have won. Since last Sunday when the group met I have been thinking and praying about all the reasons I come to group and my true purpose and expectations of this group. My thoughts and prayers kept leading me back to learning how to love. This life is about learning to love, just like Rick Warren said in the beginning of the 40 days of community, see Pastor, I did learn something.

A small group of believers in Christ is the best way of learning to love the way Christ did when he walked the earth. We are together as a small group to teach each other how to love Christ and in turn how to love others. If I wasn't learning how to love through you guys and Christ's word, then all of my relationships would suffer. I wouldn't know how to deal with emotions such as anger, envy, resentment, jealousy, guilt, shame, etc, etc.

I am here in this small group to be loved, accepted, welcomed, challenged, encouraged, inspired, re-filled by the Holy Spirit, listened to, to be built up, and most of all to learn from the Lord's word and through all of you. We all bring experiences through our relationship with Jesus Christ and our relationships with others that can help everyone in the group learn to love. Maybe we should change our group name to learning to love. I hope my expectations aren't too much to ask. At the same time I am setting my own work ahead of me and I need to let go of the self to concentrate on each and everyone of you in the group. I also recognize that we aren't perfect and we will make mistakes as Dan and I did recently. The important thing is that we learn from this experience and future experiences. Realize that Satan doesn't want us to get close. He wants dissention, fighting, and us ultimately destroying each other. I am a firm believer in doing unto others what I would want done unto me, quoting scripture:

"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."

Matthew 7:12

I want to start opening my home once a week for all of you to come for fellowship and prayer. We can watch a movie, encourage one another in fellowship, make each other accountable, pray with each other, and grow in our relationships with the Lord and others. Each Sunday that we meet, I can let you know what day would be good that week and you can start your invites. I love to cook and don't mind feeding everyone, however finances are tight since I am in some debt and trying to save money. So maybe if everyone can volunteer some monies for dinner, I am down for cooking. My normal meals for 10-15 people have been $40-$60 dollars with plenty of fluids (non-alcoholic of course.) I can feasibly pitch in $20 of that each week, since my raise, praise God. We can set up the first night for November 11, 2005 for dinner and then the El Camino VS Oceanside football game. GO WILDCATS!! Be at my house around 6:00-6:30 and we can walk to the game after we eat. Let me know how many of you will be able to make it or not. Also, please check the BLOG site for updated posts and even post a comment or two to show you were there. Pastor Martin posted a great article about swearing that is all good advice and Dan has recently posted a testimony on forgiveness, thanks Dan. Expressing ourselves through writing can be a powerful tool in all our lives as we learn and grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ and all others. I love you all and God Bless.

Tonya
tarmenakis@hotmail.com
www.flywithchrist.blogspot.com