Congratulations!!!

How awesome is God who is so BIG but also cares about a small town like Bacchus Marsh and a small church like BMLC. 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' Says the LORD of hosts. No man could have achieved what God has in this church but at the same time much honour and respect must go to the faithful leaders Pastor Merv and Heidi who have stood strong through good and bad times. If any one ever needed an example to follow then it is people who have put their lives on display week in and week out and have been proven to be true.

In the time of BMLC many people have been saved, healed and set free in Jesus name. Many people have been helped and much has been given back to the community of Bacchus Marsh through the work of this church. How awesome is God!!!

Feel free to reply to this with your story of your time at BMLC. If you have testimony feel free to share it.

For some reason I am today reminded of a time when I was called one night to an emergency where a friend of mine had overdosed on a bad shot of heroin. This mate of mine had been going to our church on and off for a few years and had struggled with addiction. Many times he had thought he had beaten it and there were times where he was going strong and was advancing strongly in Gods ways. This one night I got to the place on the street where he had collapsed and he was there with another member of our church and a ex-medic who served in the Vietnam war. The medic told me that his pulse was very weak and he wasn't going to make it. I didn't know what to do so I laid hands on him and started praying in tongues. The medic must have thought I was mad but he didn't say anything except to give me updates on my mates condition. I hadn't gone to raising the dead 101 or helping overdose victims 101 but when the medic was struggling to find a pulse I felt God say to me, "command the Spirit of Life to come into him". As I started to out loud command the Spirit of Life to come into him the medic excitedly said, "I don't know what you are doing but it is working! Keep doing it!" God was returning his life. After a while the ambulance turned up and gave him a shot of adrenaline and my mate came to. He did not want to go to hospital so I got him some food and took him back to my house where we prayed with him and he asked Jesus to come back into his heart to be Lord of his life again. I then took him home and before he went inside we prayed again and he then went into his house and I went home. I went to work the next morning and I then got a call at about 10:30 am to be told that my friend had passed away that morning. I felt bad and thought that maybe I could have done more. I was told that he was watching Benny Hinn and he got up to do something and had a heart attack. God gave me a peace and over the years He showed me that my friend struggled and battled but his heart was for God, his problem was that he just couldn't shake the addiction. God allowed him to have a moment and receive Jesus as his Lord and Savior for the last time. It was only by Gods grace and mercy that allowed this. Many people would just see my mate as another sad story and lost cause but in seeing the last moments of his life, God showed me that He cares. I was able to later sit down with his mother and sister and tell them about the last hours of his life and that I know without a doubt that their son and brother is in heaven.

No matter what we struggle with, God cares. God has never turned His back on anyone except His only Son who took the sins of the world so that we did not have to suffer the same fate. When Jesus died, He died for all of our sin and He conquered them and rose again to now sit at the right hand of God. He conquered everyone of our weaknesses so that we can call on Him as our strength. We don't have to battle on our own and it doesn't matter how many times we fail. What matters is how many times we get back up! God can defeat addiction! I know many people who has been set free but it depends on whether you really want to be free. If God is to take your addiction but you need to swap your addiction for His Son Jesus. The addiction is like a friend and without it you can feel lost and alone but Jesus is so much stronger. When you turn your back on addiction and turn to Jesus, don't look back. What was you is no more and what Jesus has for you is much greater. There is a story in the bible in Genesis 19 where a man called Lot and all of his family was told by an angle of God to get out of Sodom and Gomorrah because God was going to destroy it. Sodom and Gomorrah was such an evil place that God was left with no choice but to destroy it. It was by God's grace and mercy that He took Lot and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot was a good man and honoured God. When they left Sodom they were commanded not to look back. Lots wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. I believe that in this story God is showing us that there is nothing to go back to in our past lives and if we look back we get stuck (not literally but in terms of growth and moving on in life). God does not want us to desire our past life but He wants us to desire the things He now has for us. You cannot have both. You must choose either God or your past, one will lead to life, the other death. Life is a journey and you never know when it will end. Don't wait for the last minute because you don't know if you will have one.

HEB 3:12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15 As has just been said:

"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion."

Today, there are believers who still cannot believe that the work of Jesus is truly complete and finished. They are trying to complete a completed work, finish a finished work and defeat a defeated devil. There are believers today who are always working and trying to produce their healing, prosperity, success and victory. God wants us to stop trying and start trusting in His love for us. He wants us to stop working and struggling, and start resting and believing in His grace toward us.

HEB 4:1 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. 2 For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. 3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, "So I declared on oath in my anger,
`They shall never enter my rest.' " And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world.

A baby learns to sit first before he starts to stand and walk. The Christian life also begins with sitting. God “raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”. (Ephesians 2:6) How well we walk after that depends on how well we sit and rest in the finished work of Christ.

The Bible tells us, Heb.10:12 “For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified”. Did you get that? You have not only been sanctified, that is, made holy, but by the same offering of His body, you have been perfected. You are both holy and perfect in God’s eyes!

HEB 4:8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. 9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.

But for 40 years, God’s people wandered in the wilderness because they refused to believe that God had given them a land where everything had been prepared — the work was finished. They could not believe that God had given them a land full of riches to enjoy, a land which just flowed with His goodness.

DT 6:10 When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you--a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant--then when you eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

It is our privilege to rest in the finished work of Jesus, and to serve Him from a position of victory.