Hello Everyone,
When am I the best patriot? When do I truly have my country’s best interests at heart? When I have first things first and am seeking first God’s righteousness. And when I am living a life of honor in every respect before God and man.
Message Title: Serving with Honor!
Message Text: 1 Timothy 6:11-16, Deuteronomy 20:1-9
Oops! Well, if anyone was “watching,” I forgot to post last week’s handouts.
Message Title: Do We Believe What God Says in 1 Corinthians?
Message Text: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Here are the handouts for Sunday.
Mothers, you want to feed your children good, wholesome food so they will be healthy, right?
Same thing with God’s word. Healthy (sound) doctrine means spiritually healthy children. This week we are going to look at maybe the best comfort food there is: contentment.
Basically, God says, “Live the life you have with honor in every respect and trust him to care for you.” This is sound doctrine. A good, healthy spiritual diet.
What happens when materialism chokes our perspective and “things” become too enticing? We have “a different doctrine” Paul says.
This different (unhealthy) doctrine creates a craving for controversy and quarrels about words, which produces:
Yuk! Not very tasty for the children of God. What we need is a good dose of godliness and we’re going to the kitchen to see what’s cooking.
Message Title: Contentment: The Best Comfort Food!
Message Text: 1 Timothy 6:1-10
Hello All,
My, oh, my, what a beautiful day in the neighborhood!
The Apostle Paul tells us this in 2 Corinthians 10:5 …
Have you ever noticed how eager we are to examine and judge the thoughts, religions and philosophies of other people? Likely yes.
But have you ever noticed how reluctant we are to examine our own thoughts? Likely no. And why would we, I mean, we have all the answers, right? We are Christians and go to Bible-toting churches, we know we are right.
“Hmm … Examine my thoughts? Novel idea.”
As Lee Corso would say on an ESPN broadcast, “Not so fast, my friend!”
Unless and until we are willing to bring our thoughts to obedience before Christ, how can we even think about insisting that other people do this? But we do. We believe what we believe and don’t tell me differently.
So then are we sharing our stuff and calling it God’s stuff, or are we actually sharing the truth of God?
“Know thyself. Really?”
Message Title: Ministry God’s Way – Truth Past This Room!
Message Text: 2 Corinthians 10:1-13
Hello to You,
Had to take my sweatshirt off earlier. Getting a little warm. Oh yeah! Do a little grass cutting next week maybe. That’s what I’m talking about.
Anyway … on to “spiritual” things. 🙂
This week is what many regard as Palm Sunday. The event in the following text takes place several days before the crucifixion of Christ. They are celebrating what they believe to be their Savior and their salvation. The problem is that it seems many of the same people are just days later joining the masses and calling for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Jesus knows this, thus his lament.
From the garden of Eden to this present day the same dynamic cycles through every generation of humans. God offers life as he intended and designed, but many people choose their own plan. And, not only do we choose our own plan, but we call it God’s plan.
In this week’s text, we will look at such a group. They chose their plan of salvation, and then they discover too late that they have missed the most important thing about salvation, that being – God saves only his way, only one way, only one plan, only one Savior.
There is only one plan that ends in life – God’s!
The tragic irony is that they did use the Bible to build their spiritual houses. They heard the words but didn’t do the words. When they read and studied, apparently they didn’t hear God speaking because they sifted and sorted until they found something to fit their plans. And if they couldn’t do it on their own, they found “teachers” to validate their choice.
But the person who hears God when he reads and studies doesn’t sift and sort. He obeys.
Message Title: “Lord, Lord, save me … My way!”
Message Text: Matthew 7:13-29
Dave
The Narrow Gate: http://thenarrowgate.info/index.html
“Hear, O Israel …” (Mark 12:28-34 ESV)
The LORD our God, the LORD is one!
There may be other gods, illusions contrived in the religious minds of men and women. But there is only one God, and he desires a love relationship with you and me. Blows me away! I bow low in worship.
Good Morning to All!
It is April. Yay! We had quite a rain on the prairies of western Illinois last night. Very fresh and springy this morning. Grass is getting green. Again … Yay!
We finish our Ezra study this Sunday, and I have to say that I have been very blessed, and God, as he does, has been over-the-top in his grace and wisdom through the last several weeks.
Lessons in Ezra:
God is God. People are people. People do really stupid and sinful things. God is full of grace and there is always hope. God will move heaven and earth, kings and kingdoms for his people if we will bow before him and make things right. We need each other. We must have strong leadership. We must all have a strong, faithful sense of mission and purpose as directed by God. God tells us who we are; no one else. We are who God says we are. We must move in faith toward the vision that God has for us that he sets out in his holy book, the Bible.
More lessons in Ezra:
One king, many pawns. There is no panic button in heaven no matter who is the president of the U.S. or Russia or the prime minister of the UK or the dictator of North Korea. God should be our main media outlet. If our news source cultivates fear and despair, then we are listening in the wrong place, whether it is labeled Christian or not. God is God. God is full of grace. God is there, always has been and always will be. Same God as in Ezra’s time rules the universe today.
Did I happen to mention that “God is God!”?
Here are this week’s handouts.
Message Title: Yet There Is Hope!
Message Text: Ezra 9 & 10
Hello All,
Happy Friday! Yay!
Help, humility, the hand of God and honor.
Recurring themes throughout Ezra it seems. God is there. But he is not just there. He is also very active in our lives and in the affairs of the world. Not just then, in the Bible stories, but now in our lives, in our world. We will see this very clearly in retrospect from heaven, but we need to see this now by faith. We need to allow God to build our perspective of life on the planet. God needs to be our major news source.
The Bible story of Ezra, Zerubbabel and the others is actual and historical. Not fable and myth that help us along our merry religious way, but real life and real truth which we can bite into and trust. Anchor. Rock solid. God was there. Is here. Has always been and always will be. He is Sovereign LORD, God Most High, and he determines the course of humanity.
Let the mountains fall into the sea! Our God still reigns! (See Psalm 46.)
If God is our major news source, this is what we hear: The darkness has had its day and is passing away.
So who are we listening to?
What are we telling each other?
If we are trembling in our boots before anything other than our holy God who is a consuming fire, then we’ve got it wrong. Way wrong.
This week Ezra sets out for his place of service and confronts his fear of the journey, asks for help, bows in humility, looks to the hand of God for deliverance and worships God when he comes through again.
Dave
Hello to You,
This week we will be studying Ezra 7, and Ezra the priest, the scribe, will make his first appearance. There has been a 57 year gap between Ezra 6 and 7. Ezra comes in as part of the next wave in God’s rebuilding project.
KEY VERSE: “For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel,” 7:10.
■ Have I set my heart firmly …
■ Why do I need to set my heart firmly?
Dave
