Stopping to Think

Just a quick thought on grace. Reading in Matthew 26 in my devos today and Jesus tells them the will all fall away, and of course as we know, Peter says "not me! I'll die before I leave you!" Of course he's wrong. Peter's confidence is misplaced. Jesus reinterates that Peter will not only fall away, but more than the other disciples, will verbally deny Jesus three times before morning. imagine being Peter right now. You are Jesus' closest earthly friend. And you're told that you will fall away. You reassure him that you are faithful. And then you're told you're falling will be worse than the rest. Isn't that us? Does it not seem that every time we become more determined to be "good  Christians" that these are the moments we fall the hardest? Of course they are. That used to terribly frustrate me. Reading that today though showed me something beautiful. Those failures are the grace of God. If through grit and Will-power(pardon the pun...

Preface: This is the manuscript for a sermon I preached at Plummer Bible Church on 7/1/12. We had several people not at church that day who requested I get them CD's...and well, I haven't done that. Until that can happen, here is the manuscript. Faith in the Rock or faith in the sand? 7/1/12 Plummer Bible Church Prayer: Father God, I pray for this sermon. I pray that as Your word is opened that your Holy Spirit would open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, and soften our hearts to respond. I pray that we would seek to know you, Father. That we would long for the reconciliation you offer through Jesus, and the transformation done by the Holy Spirit. I pray that you would do these things in us for the praise of Your glorious grace. We pray in the holy name of Jesus. Amen. Intro: *Matthew 7:13-29 (ESV) “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and ...

This is a series of snippets from previous posts.  I have a tendency to clutter pages with many words, so I tried to sift through and pick out a few that I thought might be helpful. The first thing we need to know…is that ultimately, the glory of God is the primary reason our focus is to be on the Gospel. We see this in verses 5 and 6[of Romans 1]. We have received grace and apostleship to bring about obedience through faith for the sake of His name among the nations. Nations including us, right here, right now. All ministry, all personal growth, all faith, obedience, and work are meant not to somehow earn God’s favor, which Ephesians 2 makes very clear is a gift that we cannot earn. It is meant to display the glory, the weightiness, the importance, and the worthiness of Almighty God to the nations. -The Import of the Gospel in Youth Ministry God's glory is the Big Deal. I am saved, the Gospel exists, and God redeems sinners for the sake of His name among all the nations. ...

Let me open with this disclaimer-I am in no way referring to the physical fitness (or obvious lack thereof) of many Christians. That’s another blog for another day. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever get to that one, I’ll have to be getting pretty low on subjects to write about. So, if I use the term “Fat Christians,” what am I talking about? Well, if I were clever like Pastor Todd over in Harrison, I’d turn it into an acronym…however, I am not so clever, and am terrible with acronyms. I am speaking rather to the tendency many Christians have to spend all week gorging themselves on “Spiritual food,” and spend no time exercising any of it. I must admit here to a bit of cynicism on my part that really is probably unhealthy and possibly sinful. I find it very easy to poke holes in most anything churches do. The old joke is that Christian firing squads are usually aligned in circles, and the last thing I want to do is be a part of that. I really do have a love both for my home church and ...