Sunday Worship December 18th started with great praise and worship. Many attendants experienced the presence of God and were blessed.

Afterwards there was a presentation of home groups sharing lots of testimonies, thus emphasizing the importance of being part of a home group (a spiritual family), and to have a “home pastor”. This is because, through the home group God brings changes, strengthens, directs, gives us hope for the future.

It was a festive service and also the birthday of a Pastor Liliya Kislova who was congratulated during this service by the whole church . Pastor Bose also congratulated pastor Lily and prayed for her. Then the children`s ministry joined the festive service making it a wonderful service!

Bishop Anatoly Belonozhko continued the service with a sermon on the topic "Your Goals For The New Year 2012". He shared with the church the important truths on how to make the next year successful and effective.

"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you”. (Philippians .3 :13-15).

Bishop Anatoliy revealed the following :

1. Your destiny depends on you. Do not hope that the new year will bring something for you, by itself. Success and happiness comes only through your efforts, sacrifice, faith, and your doings. All depends on your choices and decisions. "Destiny is not a matter of chance, but a matter of choice" - said Winston Churchill. Your life and your future depends on you only.

2. One has never considered himself apprehended of something. It is a law of success. As soon as you begin to consider yourself apprehended, you are stopping your growth. Life - is progressive when there is constant forward motion. This is a problem when you think you know it, you heard that before and not develop further. "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall" (1 Cor.10:12). Since we eat food for body, so does our spirit spiritual needs food. There is a principle that once a person has ceased to burn, to be interested, that means he stopped and start to degrade. We should not ignore innovation. You have to know much, but you can never consider yourself knowledgeable (ie apprehended). We have always to improve our self, to grow. There is always something you could learn.

 3. Our past should not close our future. One need is to leave what you have achieved already, as well as to forget your last film. The past should not control us and pull us back. "... No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:62). Live in the past, even if it was good - not always helpful, not always right.

4. We need to set goals and achieve them. Everyone should move forward: to set goals and achieve them. Need to focus on their goals and thus shape their future. The apostle Paul said that he was forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, press toward the mark for the prize... (Phil. 3:13-14). Each of use should do the same!

5. We should have the image and likeness of God. The main thing is to be God's man and to achieve God's purposes. One can set a goal to become a millionaire, but if you lose the image and likeness of God - this is not a will of God! Therefore, every believer must remain a Christian in any case, above all, to express the character of Christ, to be like God. The spiritual must always be more important than the material!

6. We need to resume the passing year and make plans for the next one. We should review the passing year, to rethink our lives and to draw conclusions: what you need to fix that refine that to continue to do so. Based on this, to put God's purposes for next year: multiply, enlarge and create (for example, ministry, home group, family, etc.), ie make next year more successful and effective for the dissemination of God's kingdom.

Let us remain God's people and reflect the image of God in 2012 wherever we will be!

Sermon by Bishop Anatoliy Belonozhko
Press center of the Embassy of God Church                      
Translation by Anna Krets