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Showing posts from July, 2012

The Gospel Sequence

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There is a story in the Gospel message. However, there is no end. The story line follows beginning, middle, beginning structure. Let's start in Genesis...the beginning: Genesis 1:1- "In the beginning, God..." God was in the beginning, He created, and everything was perfect that He created here on earth. In fact He called man, "very good." Psalm 90:2- "Before anything was, there was God..." But something happened, you see, and know that things are not perfect now. What happened? Genesis 3- Until we understand the magnitude of what happened in the garden that day, we'll never understand why there is sin, and so much evil in the world today. Man sinned! Forever separating ourselves from God. As a result: Romans 3:10- "No one is righteous..." SIN! Sounds like hope is lost huh? Romans goes on to say that the wages of sin is death. You must die for the sin you commit according to the law. BUT! There is a hero in this

What if.....

“You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased.” -Revelation 4:11 What if we allowed the Holy Spirit to lead to lead in our lives? What if we allowed Him to lead in our Worship at church? I believe our services would change drastically. We would experience God on a whole new level. There are times our services and lives are so planned out to the second that The Holy Spirit couldn't move in you if He wanted to. We desire for perfection, but forget the Holy Spirit makes it all. If our services are not for the Lord then why do we even bother? We long to create an environment that will attract people, and feel something, when all the while we should be concerned about the environment of our hearts. What is the Holy Spirit up to in your life? As I discussed with my spiritual mentor friend this week, not only is it important to have worship at church corporately as the bod

Worship. What is it?

Team Jesus!

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"And He [Jesus] called His twelve disciples together and sent them out two by two, with authority..." -Mark 6:7 I was on my Facebook page today and I came across the status of my friend who is a Pastor at one of the local churches here in town. What's even cooler is he happens to be my next door neighbor. His status was very thought provoking that it lead me to read the scripture he posted and answer the questions He imposed. Here is his status: "As I prepare for Sunday's sermon, I am focusing in upon Mark 6:1-13. I am intrigued by the simple fact that Jesus not only taught the disciples. He sent them out into the community to put into action what he had taught them. He gave them authority to live like his Kingdom had come. I think it's pretty interesting how he sent them out in teams of 2. So often I think it's easy to get caught up in meeting to talk about the faith, think the faith, soak up the faith, then treat a new insight and/or feeling lik

He Who Has an Ear.....

“Commit yourself to instruction; attune your ears to hear words of knowledge.” -Proverbs 23:12 I believe a whole dissertation could be written on this verse. When we commit ourselves to something the first thing that comes to my mind is marriage. Being married to instruction is a good thing, it will guide our lives, and keep us out of trouble. We will do more of what is right. I am reminded of the 7 letters to the churches that Jesus told John to write in his Revelation. To each church Jesus had instructions, pointing out where they were falling short and needed to fix ASAP! At the end of each letter Jesus closes saying, “Anyone who is willing to hear should listen to the Spirit and understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” (Revelation 2:7; 2:11; 2:17; 2:29; 3:6; 3:13; 3:22) Basically, Jesus is telling us that if we listen 2 things will happen. One, we will hear the Spirit speaking, and two, we will understand what He is saying. The scripture truth is that cri

Just a Closer Walk with Thee

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Since it was so cool this morning, I took a walk with my dog, Millie. The Lord spoke to me on my walk this morning, and gave me the perfect example of how He is to me. You see, we adopted Millie in 2001 from the pound. She was really sick when we got her, she was just a puppy, and was so scrawny. We are assuming she was hit by a car or something because she has a bad back leg, it doesn't bend well. When we brought Millie home I took care of her and nursed her back to health. I carried her everywhere I went. It wasn't long till she was fat and happy. As I was walking her today I was watching her and kinda relating it to scripture, and what Jesus says of me as His little sheep and He my shepherd and keeper. Millie has beagle in her, and lab so her sniffer makes her ADD. She goes off and sniffs things and I'm like Millie just walk on the straight and narrow here. Ah! Lightbulb! How many times do we do that in life? Walk on the straight and narrow and get distrac