Category: Uncategorized

Today’s church is already wired, and if your parish isn’t taking full advantage of all of these ways of touching people throughout the week, it is becoming increasingly irrelevant. By Greg Garrett, July 15, 2013 Yours are the tweets through which love touches this world, Yours are the posts through which the Gospel is shared, Yours are the updates through which hope is revealed. Christ has no online presence but yours, No blog, no Facebook page but yours. ~ Meredith Gould I don’t hang around at bars, strip joints or casinos. I do spend a lot of time on the internet and some folks seem to think that’s worse. I could gamble, have an affair or conspire against the government on-line. I can’t drink or do drugs online but I imagine someone somewhere is working on that. Just as I don’t gamble, hang around strip clubs or conspire in the “real world” I don’t do it on the internet. I don’t use filters. I’m not against them I just haven’t found any that really work for me, but they are available. Most of my posts and tweets are transmissions of my blog, the subject of which is Jesus, or […]

In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians  5: 18 Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ (2 Corinthians 2: 14). But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15: 57) Only fear the LORD, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you (1 Samuel 12: 24). Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5: 20 Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Colossians  3: 17 For a couple of weeks now our electric range has been on the fritz awaiting a part. The part came in today but didn’t work and has to be reordered. As my wife said today, it’s nice to go out to eat if you have a choice. There is so much we take for granted. When we do that it damages our praise perspective. Consider: • If you […]

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ… Titus 2:11-13 It’s God’s grace that convicts us of sin. It’s His grace that saves. It’s His grace that empowers us and teaches us how to live a post-lost life. After we are saved, we live in a new paradigm. That’s a fancy way of saying that we have new perspective, a whole new way of looking at things. The problem is we live in the same old world. Grace having saved us doesn’t dump us as new creatures into a world that hasn’t changed. It empowers us and teaches us how to deal with our new circumstances. Grace first teaches us to disown what ruled us before. Because of what Christ did for us, we don’t want to ever bring shame to Him. In place of what use to compel us, Grace teaches us about self-control and living soberly. To live soberly means […]

It’s clear that ISIS is bent on killing us Americans in general and us Christians in particular. It really doesn’t matter if this is radical Islam or something else. What should be our response? The government response should be based on its principal function to protect its citizens. Government is not there is educate us or supplement our incomes or take away our incomes or our freedoms. It’s function is protection. A government that doesn’t do that is failing in its fundamental function. There is only one way to deal with someone trying to kill you: kill them first. For those of us old enough to remember, Pearl Harbor was just on painful reminder that isolationism doesn’t work with fanatics. As Christians, our first response should  be to convert them, but it seems a little late for that. Right Mr. Robertson? Our response as Christians to radical Islam should be radical Christianity. That means it should not be fear and it should not be hate. We should respond by doing what we should have been doing all along. We should be radically following our Lord. We should be radically carrying out His commission. We should be radically loving, even […]

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.Romans 8: 28? Last week I read Model Man by Larry Stockstill. You can’t help but notice that Pastor Stockstill is a man of routines. He gets up at the same time each day, goes on a walk with his wife with whom he then does a devotional time and then eats the same breakfast. He has, or at least did when his family was younger, a family night and a date night each week. These patterns seem to have served him well as God has accomplished much through his ministry over the years. Sometimes patterns make us efficient and secure. However, sometimes they make us lazy, bored and comfortable. If we have too many patterns in our lives it makes it tougher to grow because growth is about change and patterns restrict change. If we are to affect the world around us that requires us to be creative and patterns tend to restrict our creativity. If God is doing something to move you out of your habits or patterns as I know He is […]

And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. Hebrews 10:25 NLT I attended my first connect group meeting at our church for the fall semester last night. It was good. It was a men’s only meeting studying Larry Stockstill’s Model Man. The message was very simple: Tell the truth. Keep your word. Pay your bills. It seems a bit sad that we need to hear a message so simple these days. Even sadder is that next week we talk about purity and that’s a message needed even more. It was the first of a six-week set of meetings. The book is very simple. I read it in one sitting. We watched a video then had a discussion. All of it was great. It was great to connect with other Christians, especially other men. It was great to get out of the house. It only lasted an hour but I know it will make a difference in my week. It’s not too late to join a group. Check out the possibilities.  You can fit in an hour in your week. Especially one […]

21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— Romans 3 If our experience of grace isn’t everything I’ve been talking about, it’s because we have tried to take a short cut to it. Romans 3:21-25 is the Gospel. I believe this is so because of the way Satan tries to chip away at the elements contained in these verses. See how he tries to drag the law back in. See how he tries to cast doubt on faith being enough. See how he tries to label only the “worst” as sinners. See how he tries to convince that nothing that’s free can be worth anything. Perhaps these days Satan has been most successful in taking […]

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16  We usually think of Mercy and Grace together like ham and eggs or biscuits and gravy. (I really should have breakfast BEFORE I write these things.) However, mercy and grace or different. Mercy is forgiveness for what we have done; grace is the power to not do it again. Mercy is God withholding the punishment we rightfully deserve. Grace is God not only withholding that punishment but offering the most precious of gifts instead. Mercy pays the penalty for our sin at the cross. Grace substitutes the righteousness of Christ for our wickedness. Jeremiah, David (2006-03-07). Captured by Grace: No One Is Beyond the Reach of a Loving God (p. 23). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. We can be merciful, in fact, God tells us that unless we forgive we won’t be forgiven, but we can’t pass out Mercy and Grace like God can. God forgives even though He has perfect knowledge of just how sinful we are. He also knows how soon we will repeat our sin. For us, it […]