Pastor's Blog (Page 17)
Supporting the Saints
The Philippian, Thessalonian, and Berean followers of Jesus were begging. Begging earnestly, begging insistently, begging urgently. For what? They were begging for the favor of participating in the support of the saints.1 You see, the believers in Jerusalem were suffering from poverty and a famine. And hundreds of miles away in the Macedonian province of Greece, these…
The Good News for the World
The Global Impact Celebration (GIC) is almost here! So this Sunday we’ve asked guest speaker Dr. Bill Jones to whet our appetites for all things missions. We’ll be pausing our journey through the book of Galatians for these next 4 Sundays. Actually, however, you might say it’s not so much a pause as it is an opportunity to flesh out (catch the pun?) an important theme in…
Walk in the Spirit
Hypocrite. What a stinging indictment! In the letter to the Galatians, Paul charged some people with hypocrisy. Ouch! No doubt you’ve seen the masks ancient Greek actors wore on the stage: a smiling mask for when they recited lines of comedy, and a frowning mask for when they spoke of tragedy. The actors who wore these masks had their true identity hidden so that they…
The Permanence of the Bible
Ever heard of Diocletian? He was the emperor of Rome from 284 to 305. What was his claim to fame? He sent an edict around the Roman empire in 303 that all Christian scriptures were to be gathered up and burned.1 Then, over a burned and extinguished Bible, Diocletian built a monument on which he wrote these triumphant words: Extincto nomene Christianorum (“The name…
Glorify God
And they were glorifying God because of me.Galatians 1:24 What a wonderful life outcome! People were glorifying God because of Paul.1Not so with these: Diotrephes, a leader in the church, “loved to put himself first.”2 Others were proclaiming Christ, but were motivated by selfish ambition.3 Still others wanted to impress people by external matters.4 They took little…
Stir Our Hearts, Lord.
Twenty years have now passed since those 2,977 lives were mercilessly snuffed out by heinous perpetrators of terrorism. Do you remember the spiritual shock waves that reverberated across our nation in the weeks and months after 9/11? People were suddenly conscious of God. And their mortality. And how they were living. At least for a season, people prayed, supported…