A Youth Impact Event - Walking In The Father's Love

It's THAT Time of The Year Again - CHRISTMAS!

Dear Youth Impact-ers,

Christmas is coming in about 1.5 months time and I couldn't be more excited!

There's the peppermint drinks, gorgeous decorations, snowflakes AND gifts!

We have been celebrating Christmas, YI-style for two years running now (if my memory serves me right) and this year is no different.

We will be hosting our very own Christmas Celebration to wrap up 2011 in style!

It will be our final youth meeting for the year and can I encourage you... Bring a friend.

We have spoken all year of the 3G-s: Growing, Glowing and Going. If you have not remembered any of the sermons, we (Uncle Vive, Lin Ken, Aaron and I) forgive you. No sweat.

But, it is not too late to put the 3G-s into action.

Can I challenge you to make it count before 2011 comes to an end? Invite a friend for this event, it could be the one evening that will change the life of your friend, forever.

I'm looking forward to be back, celebrating Christmas with all of you - caroling, gifts-giving (Did I mention that we have an awesome door gift this year? If I didn't, YES, we do!) and dining together on December 17th.

*A special note to all visitors reading this: You are most welcome and cordially invited to join us in our Christmas Celebration 2011. If you need directions or someone to talk to, please do not hesitate to drop us an email at youthimpactrocks@gmail.com.

Much love to all of you reading this,
Melissa.

Youth Camp

February - A season of farewell

Growing in the Lord

Growing is a natural process that must occur in our daily lives. We grow from being an infant to adulthood over a certain period of time. Yet, not too many people have come to the realization of this fact. For instance, if a child refuses to grow, the parent will not be happy and very concerned. For sure they will seek all medical help to understand why their child is not growing.

Spiritual growth is equally important as physical growth. 2 Peter 3:18 says "But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ". Important to note that God becomes your spiritual father when you give your life to Christ (John 1:12). So God becomes unhappy when you as his child refuse to grow just as a natural father will not be happy with his kid who has refused to grow. The Christian faith is a personal walk with God which requires a deliberate choice to undertake. You do not just grow because you get born again, but you grow because you hunger and thirst after it; Matthew 5:6 says "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled".

There is an exact parallel between physical growth and spiritual growth—except perhaps that spiritual growth is less measurable. Spiritual growth cannot be demonstrated by marks on a door-frame. Still, there are many similarities. When we come to know Jesus Christ as our Savior, we receive a new nature, and we become God's children—spiritual infants. All the potential for our spiritual life is given to us at the moment we trust Christ, because the Holy Spirit comes to live within us, never to leave us. At point of salvation, we start our "bottle-feeding" process of being a disciple. Being taught the basic elementary teaching of Christianity. However, this "bottle-feeding" is not supposed to go on for a lifetime. As you grow in your understanding, you will become able to digest and assimilate the meat of God's Word on your own. You'll be able to study and apply the Scripture for yourself.

God's goal for each of His children is maturity. Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:12-13, "Prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" .

Grow in the Lord. Grow towards the potential that God has planted in your lives.

Purity

In the forests of northern Europe and Asia lives a little animal called the ermine, known for his snow-white fur in winter. He instinctively protects his white coat against anything that would soil it.

Fur hunters take advantage of this unusual trait of the ermine. They don’t set a snare to catch him, but instead they find his home, which is usually a cleft in a rock or a hollow in an old tree. They smear the entrance and interior with grime. Then the hunters set their dogs loose to find and chase the ermine. The frightened animal flees toward home but doesn’t enter because of the filth. Rather than soil his white coat, he is trapped by the dogs and captured while preserving his purity. For the ermine, purity is more precious than life.

How do we handle our purity in Christ Jesus? This is the question we have to ask ourselves every day. Do we compromise our faith for the sake of convenience? Or do we watch pornography on the internet, magazine or TV for the sake of entertainment? Do we back down from what we believe in Jesus for the sake of not being left out by the “in-crowd”?

We would do well to take a lesson from the ermine when it comes to purity. Are we careful about our reading material, our viewing habits and the company we keep? Or are we entertained by the impurity that surrounds us?

Purity may seem to be a thing of the past, but rest assured, it is still ever bit as much worth fighting for as it ever has been. We need to be diligent in guarding our purity.

1 Timothy 4:12 - Purity