Sunday, 6/21/15 Job 23:12 I
have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. Perhaps
the most helpful vow you could make to God is “No Bible, no breakfast.” Don’t
allow yourself to eat until you have read a chapter or two. Try it... for a
month? (Maybe make a it a public decision at church.) 1 Sam 5:1-3 And the Philistines took the ark of God...into the house of Dagon, and
set it by Dagon...on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face before
the ark... You can try to make your God subservient to your other gods (alcohol,
hedonism, love of money, sports, illicit sex, etc.) but He will not play second
fiddle. Shortly after this, He smote the Philistines with a horrendous disease.
His character has not changed.
Please read this story from the Heritage Foundation!
- What God Requires He Also Provides
- The Path of Pleasure in Pain
- Will the Next Generation Know?
- Breathing Room
Four messages that will aide you in your Christian life this summer for the week of 6/21/15 are now up at Baptist City.
Enjoy!
Hebrews 11:1
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
A fingerprint means that someone has been there. Whenever you see a
fingerprint on a window, it reveals someone has been there. Hebrews 11
is the fingerprint of faith. Throughout this chapter, you can see when
faith has left its fingerprint on someone’s life. Of course, you could
study this fingerprint and come up with several results of the
fingerprint of faith on someone’s life, but there are four glaring
results that faith’s fingerprint leaves on one’s life.
"We've got an authoritarian megalomaniac ruling like a monarch. The opposition, the Republicans more often than not just bend over. And according to the highest court in the land, words (and therefore laws) have no meaning." -Rush
Judges 9:9
“But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness,
wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the
trees?”
Israel was at an unstable time in their history. Abimelech
violently took the throne of Israel by killing all of his brethren but
one. The one brother, Jotham, after hearing of his brethren who were
slain, went to the top of a hill and in an allegorical speech show
Israel their foolishness in following Abimelech. Inside of this allegory
is a hidden truth that can be applied to many areas of your life.
The 06/21/15 FBC Hammond bulletin is now up at Baptist City.
2 Timothy 1:3
“I
thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that
without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;”
Paul makes a bold statement about his prayer life when he says, “…without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;”
Paul wanted to be an encouragement to Timothy, and he chose to be an
encouragement to him by reminding him that he was remembered in his
prayers. I’m sure this was a great encouragement for Timothy because
Paul was his mentor in the ministry.
1 Timothy 3:1
“This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.”
There used to be a day when homes and churches made an emphasis for
young men to grow up and desire serving the LORD in the ministry. The
programs of youth departments were geared towards sending young people
off to become full-time servants of the LORD. Parents would often make
it clear to their children that they wanted them to become full-time
servants. Pastors would make calls for full-time service in their
services. The result was that many young people surrendered to serve the
LORD full-time, went off to get training and eventually became
full-time servants of God.
Sunday, 6/14/15
Pro 9:8 Reprove not a scorner,
lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee. Reproving is
less intense than a rebuke. Seemingly, any corrections angers a scorner, while
even a harsh correction is readily accepted by the wise. To which end of that
spectrum are you closer? (An additional application that came to me after I
sent out the text: those who are the bosses [business owners, husbands, maybe
pastors] and who seldom get corrected, how do you react when it comes? Or, those
of you who are really smart and usually right, when you do mess up, how do you
take it.) 2 Kings 6:17 And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he
may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw; and behold,
the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
All of us worry and fret over the enemies we see. Few of us rejoice over the
allies we don’t see. I guess that falls under “living by faith”... Nothing
happens to God’s child (YOU) without His knowledge and approval.