Baptist City Blog

- Tuesday, 7/7/20  Are you a little perplexed these days? Wanna fix that?

Proverbs 2:9, THEN shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, EVERY good path. There’s just 8 verse in front of this: find the IF’s that trigger this THEN. It’s available to you, yes, even YOU.                                  Psalm 120:7, I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war. Doesn’t this sound like many conservative people today? We simply want justice and the liberty to serve God as we wish without hurting anyone, and yet we’re considered and treated like the malcontent dregs of society. What are we to do? Next verse:  121:1, I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. We’re to pray more, love deeper, serve more fervently, win souls more zealously. It’s His way or the highway...

- Wednesday, 7/8/20  Luke 8:1, ...he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God... We’re to have both a verbal and a visible Christianity. Do you? Or, is your “preaching voice” rather soft, and your “shewing life” rather obscure?                           Psalm 64:1, Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy. Notice the prayer: “Protect my life from my fears.” He didn’t pray (here) about protection from the actual enemy. Several lessons: 1) Bible “giants” were as human as you and I. They got scared too.  2) There is no thing about which we should not, or can not pray.  3) Fear is a natural response to a threat, but we can have supernatural help in natural problems: fear, anger, appetites, lust, etc.  4) God does not want us to live in fear. Any aspect/ingredient in our lives that is bringing us down from the victorious Christian life is worthy of prayer, and NEEDS to be prayed about.

- Thursday, 7/9/20  Proverbs 7:3, Bind [my commandments] upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart. What could we do to obey this verse? How, today, in our daily lives/schedules, what could we do to cue our memories to think on, treasure, and obey the Bible?                          Luke 14:3, And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day? Take note of how often Jesus asked questions. Oft times, if we make a statement, our listeners will critique it, or, in rebellion, simply deny it. But, if we ask a question, it gets their mental wheels turning, and if they connect the dots as you have, they will have learned something, and the lesson is much more likely to stick in their mind and heart. I was taught that His questions (especially to His critics) were designed to either shoot them down spectacularly or to open up a whole new vista of truth.

- Friday, 7/10/20  Genesis 6:2, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. This first human trait that upset God enough to destroy the world was that people were doing as THEY chose. Who chooses your friends? Pastimes? Videos? Dates? Activities?                             Psalm 68:5-6a, A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.  God setteth the solitary in families... To the lonely people out there, the never married, the widowed, the divorced: God did design humans to be social creatures, and it’s still true that “it’s not good that man be alone,” but until He brings a companion to you, get closer to Him. If you’ve lost parents and you feel lost, get closer to other seniors and adopt them. We singles must let God direct our social lives because we’re very apt to screw it up.

- Saturday, 7/11/20  Romans 5:1, Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. For us to have peace with any other, it must be as if they’d never done us wrong. Are you at peace with your aged parents? Your ex? Your former boss? Your kids? That former pastor? THAT person?                                    Psalm 68:28a, Thy God hath commanded thy strength. God is not unjust: what He’s ordained that you encounter today, He also has pre-ordered the strength for you to bear it. But, what good are His provisions for our problems if we don’t appropriate them? In your struggles, don’t neglect the basics: Bible, prayer, church, soul winning, tithing, repentance. Those aren’t just “cute little things” that the preacher mentions: they are our life preservers. Don’t drown when there is help available.

- Sunday, 7/12/20  Numbers 11:4, And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? It’s as true today as it ever was: we CANNOT choose to NOT be affected by the crowd with which we run, we can only choose the crowd.                                Numbers 11:29, And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them! God still wants all His people to proclaim His word (especially through soul winning) and to be filled with the Spirit. Are you an active, confrontational, purposefully-direct-the-conversation-to-the-Gospel type of soul winner? Do you regularly pray and BEG for God to fill you and thereby, direct and use you?

- Monday, 7/13/20  Luke 16:27b-28, ...that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. After death, EVERY human wants to be a soul winner. Do now what you can do and what you’ll want to do then but can’t.                          Luke 16:13, No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. The definition of mammon is “wealth personified.” Basically, the verse is contrasting being consumed with, and focused on God or being consumed with and focused on the things/system/emphases of the world. It says we will hate one of them. (This word “hate” seems to be less intense than what we think of today. Think of “I hate broccoli” or something.) A personal, introspective question: can you say that you think more highly of and value the eternal things of God or the temporal things of this world? How valuable to you is church, your Bible, obedience, forgiveness of others, tithing, purity vs. climbing the ladder at work, a better car/house, a good college for your kids, tickets to the game, a boat on a lake? Think on this thought, and ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and maybe do some cleaning.