Agora Church

We open Phil 2: 12-18 we see Paul calling for unity amongst Philippian believers. This unity in brotherly love, and the way we care for each other and seek to put others before ourselves, should be attractive to our lost world. 

In the first chapter of Philippians we find the Apostle Paul in chains awaiting a decision from an insane Caesar. Does he live or does he die a horrible death? You would expect Paul to be full of anxiety and fear but he's not. So what is Paul's attitude to this? What can we learn from him to help us get through life's hardships, and to prepare us for death's certainty one day?

C.S. Lewis never claimed to have coined the phrase, but he is often credited with referring to Christians as "little Christs." His point is that if we claim to follow Jesus, we should resemble him. Just as an apple tree produces apples and a sheep gives birth to little sheep, those who love God should not only resemble Him, but also produce what He produces - love. While it's easy to say that we love our neighbour, it can be challenging to put into practice, especially since people can be difficult to deal with at times. Today we will be discussing how to truly love our neighbour and whether that includes everyone, or if we are allowed to pick and choose.

This Sunday we continued our sermon series on loving God. We opened the word of God and asked, "How do we love God with all our soul?” We explored both the New and Old Testament and see how different people longed for God. As we reflect on scripture, we should see how much we yearn for the Lord in our lives.

We continue our series based on The Greatest Commandment (Luke 10:27) and take a look at loving God with all our strength.  

We hear from Willy Florian who has seen many amazing answers to prayer as he leads a ministry in Tonga that uses radio to reach his people with the Gospel, and also runs village Bible studies and outreach in prison.

Today we'll be looking at what it means to love God with all of our heart. How does that look different to loving him with our mind, strength or soul? We sometimes say - or have heard it said - that we love someone with all of our hearts, which is so lovely, but what does that really mean? 

It's also interesting to think about how we really feel about God commanding us to love Him with all our heart. How can our hearts respond in the right way when we are being commanded to love? These are a few of the questions we'll be considering.

Looking at the greatest commandment of all.

I'd guess most of us can quote this, but could we explain the difference between loving God with your mind and your heart for example? How do you love God with your strength, apart from serving Him somewhere? This is a great series to dig into. Who knows where God might lead you as you draw closer to Him.

People ask us to do things all the time and often an initial “Yes” can be an easy (even exciting) response to give. But what about a second, third or fourth request?

God too has called us to say “Yes” to him and that first “Yes” can be very liberating, but then we sometimes find it hard to continue to say “Yes” to God. We explored this dynamic on Sunday with Sue Hanna, Executive Founder of Flame Cambodia

If you’re part of the Agora community then chances are at some stage you have asked “Who is God and what is he like?”  And if you know God, even a tiny bit, or want to, you’ve probably also wondered “So, what does God expect of ME??” These are two of life’s really big questions!! And every religion tries to answer them. But we have the Bible to give us the truth. 

The last two chapters of the book of Micah reveal the answer to these questions really clearly.  And what was true about God in Micah’s day is true today.  So today we will dive in to Micah chapters 6 and 7 and explore what this means together.