Great Sunday

Yesterday was a great day. We had a powerful time in our services. We are in week two of our series entitled "The Invitation". Our hope and aim for this series is to give our people a clear understanding of the mission that God has called us and invited us to. Our mission statement at Summit is..."Summit Church exist to glorify God through presenting the Gospel to every man, woman and child and connecting them into a loving relationship with Jesus Christ and with others." Last week Jamin unpacked and defined according to God's Word what the "church" is and also what the unique vision God has given to Summit is. Yesterday I spoke on "glorifying God". It was a huge challenge for me, because the glory of God is something that is so amazing and so huge that it is difficult to put into words. The bottom line yesterday was that God is most passionate about His own glory and our only plausible response is to live for His glory and reflect it to the world around us.

Last night we hosted a get together for about 60 men from the church to come and hear Nate Larkin speak. Nate is the author of the book "Samson and The Pirate Monks." If you are a male and have not read this book, do yourself a favor and go get it right now. In this book Nate shares his story and he is ruthlessly honest. I am not going to tell you too much about it because I do not want to spoil it for you, but in the opening chapters he talks about his experience the first time he picked up a prostitute...on the way to preach at his church's Christmas Eve candle light service. Yeah, it's that honest, and it maybe easy to read that last statement and think what a scum bag but the reality is that we all have sinned an fall short of the glory of God and we all are in continual need of God's grace. Nate's book will challenge you to take a long hard look at your life and at those sins that can so easily entangle us. I repeat if you are a man and have not read this book, go get it today or better yet drop me an email and I will give you a copy! Anyway all that being said, last night the thrust was to challenge men to not live in isolation but in brotherhood. A man who is not accountable to another runs a huge risk to fall into a whole lotta crap...It was really good to see and hear Nate share his story with such transparency, humility and conviction. Nate will be speaking at Summit the weekend of September 6th and 7th at both the University and Naples Campuses. We will also be hosting a dinner on Sunday night for men only where Nate will deal ruthlessly and openly on the subject of pornography, lust and sexual addiction. We are praying that God would use this weekend to draw men out of the darkness of sin into His marvelous light.

I was really encouraged to see our men engaged last night. Our prayer is that last night would serve as a strong springboard for the launch of some Samson groups, which are basically accountability groups for men. I have seen so many good hearted Christian men fall due to the lure and trap of sexual sin. What of the Scriptures that God has used in my life to remind me of what I am to do to stay on the path of holiness and not fall victim to sexual sin is 2 Timothy 2:22

"Flee the evil desires of the flesh and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart."

It's clear that God calls us to RUN FROM those things that are destructive and RUN TO those things that will truly satisfy as well as RUN WITH those who also desire to honor God with their lives. I am thankful for God's grace in my life and for those He has placed in my life to run this race of faith with. Hope you are running well today and I pray that you are running with others. God Bless!