We are leading a Freedom from Smoking Group Clinic on July 1 through August 19th. Register at this link.   NCC Freedom From Smoking

Although the first steps can be hard, finding your path to a tobacco-free life is easier with the right help. The American Lung Association’s Freedom From Smoking®program is a proven way to quit tobacco use—and stay quit—even if you’ve tried before and went back to using tobacco.

The Freedom From Smoking group clinic includes eight sessions and features a  step-by-step plan for quitting tobacco use.  The clinic format encourages participants to work on the process and problems of quitting both individually and as part of a group.

“There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’ “So the father divided the property between them.

It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to feel it.

He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corn-cobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any. “That brought him to his senses.

He said, ‘All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’ He got right up and went home to his father.

“When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’

“But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a prize-winning heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.  Luke -The Loving Father

We are given free will to live our lives as we choose and all have stumbled and fallen short.  As this story illustrates, there are second chances in life to become better people.

Know this my friend:  God Loves You.

• What if the cross changed everything?
• What if Jesus is who He says?
• What if Jesus’ coming was God’s Way, to communicate the Truth of the base fundamental reality of Life? Could it be?

We believe Jesus’ death on the cross and His defeat of death in His bodily Resurrection redeems and rescues us, reconciling humanity to God. And not just humanity to our Creator God, but also you and me – that is people to one another other. We believe in the freedom and true peace Christ offers.

Consequently, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built up together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Paul- Ephesians

Unity in diversity is God’s design and we are not citizens of separate countries, but we have been called to something much greater.

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.” C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Your actions matter. You matter. What you believe about what’s “real” really matters. Come and see. Don’t let the world tell you who Jesus is – ask Him to reveal His identity and yours. Seek and find freedom in the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

You’re welcome here.