How We Often Feel

Where is The Safest Place on Earth?  The Church.

Taken from the book The Safest Place on Earth: Where People Connect and are Forever Changed by Larry Crabb:

You're tired. Life isn't turning out as you'd expected.  When you became a Christian, you packed your bags for Bermuda but your plane landed in Iceland. Without a coat, you need the warmth of community to survive.

You thought by now you'd be farther ahead spiritually, less tempted toward bad things..., more content in a church fellowship, better connected to family and friends. You expected, after all those years in church and mornings with your Bible, to struggle less with spiritual dryness, greed, lonliness, and anger; to be happier in career and ministry, more optimistic and relaxed.

After all, you've been at this thing called the Christian life for quite some time. Like Peter, you tell the Lord that you've been working hard all night and haven't caught a thing. 

And He says, "Let down the nets. Row back into deep water."

Reading this this morning, I had the thought:  He is describing me and many of us.  Has he been snooping around in my mind and heart?

I had to jump on to the end of the chapter:

It's time to build the church, a community of people who take refuge in God and encourage each other to never flee to another source of help, a community of folks who know the only way to live in this world is to focus on the spiritual life--our life with God and others.  It won't be easy, but it will be worth it. Our impact on the world is at stake.

Saint Patrick's Day

Happy Saint Patrick's Day.  Like all too many celebrations and commemorations, this one has suffered from a lost focus.  The essence of Patrick was not Irish culture, not the color emerald, or drinking to excess.  Rather, we should remember that Patrick was an Englishman who set out to evangelize lost people.  In fact, he set out to evangelize the barbaric people who had once kidnapped and enslaved him.

Remember Patrick's Morning Prayer this day: http://grantian.blogspot.com/2012/03/st-patricks-morning-prayer.html.

And for a more detailed look at the life of Patrick, read the short biographical sketch written by the late Dr. Francis Nigel Lee:

Dr.  F. N. Lee

The Britannic Christian Padraig Converts Ireland, Going into All the World

By Rev. Professor-Emeritus Dr. Francis Nigel Lee

According to Britain's oldest Historian, the North-Brythonic Celtic Christian Gildas,¹ the Gospel arrived in Britain before 37 A.D. According to Eusebius, Maelgwyn, Isidore, Freculph, Nenni, Baronius, Cressy, Hearne, Rev. Dr. James Ussher, Rev. Dr. John Owen and Rev. Dr. H. Williams—there is some evidence that Joseph of Arimathea preached (and was also buried) in Somerset's Glastonbury.²

Also according to the American Rev. Dr. A. Cleveland Coxe in the Ante-Nicene Fathers,³ there is strong reason to conclude that the great Anti-Roman British General Caradog became a Christian—perhaps even while still in the West of Britain before his exile therefrom in 52 A.D. Too, from A.D. 75 onward, his relative the apparently-Christian Prince Merig is said to have ruled over the Britons from near my own birthplace Kendal in Cumbria's Westmorland.⁴

Read More....

Lenten Reflections--The Blood of Christ

Lenten Season Reflections

The New Testament uses the concept of Christ’s blood as a way of describing His sacrificial death and what it accomplished.  It makes several affirmations about Christ’s blood:

• Acts 20:28: God acquired the church through Christ’s blood.
• Romans 3:25:  God publicly set Christ forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood.
• Romans 5:9: Christians have been justified by Christ’s blood.
• Ephesians 1:7: Christians have redemption through Christ’s blood, the forgiveness of trespasses.
• Ephesians 2:12-13: Gentiles have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
• Colossians 1:20: God was pleased to reconcile all things to Himself and make peace through the blood of Christ.
• Hebrews 9:12:  Christ entered the Most Holy place once for all through His own blood.
• Hebrews 9:14:  The blood of Christ cleanses our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God.
• I Peter 1:2: God’s elect were chosen for sprinkling by the blood of Jesus Christ.
• I John 1:7: “The blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.”
• Revelation 1:5:  Christ loved us and freed us from our sins by His blood.
• Revelation 5:9-10: Christ purchased for God by His blood men from every tribe and language and people and nations, and made for God a kingdom and priests who will reign on earth.

[Adapted from A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith by Robert L. Reymond.]

Donate-A-Smile

Dr. Rick Skowronski

On Sunday, March 25, we will be hosting Dr. Rick Skowronski and his wife Joe'l.  Dr. Skowronski will be talking about the mission work of Donate-A-Smile.  http://www.donateasmile.org/about_us.php

This organization will be sending a medical missionary team to the Central African Republic in April.  Pray for this mission and for the fundraising efforts needed to make this possible.

Out to Pasture, Part 2

Currently, these are the places where I have been enjoying spiritual feasts:

Slave: The Hidden Truth About Your Identity in Christ by John MacArthur highlights those many times that Scripture reminds us that we are SLAVES, not just servants or bond-servants, to Jesus Christ.  And, amazingly, that is our Freedom.  Prior to that, we were slaves to sin.

This book is also a powerful defense of the Doctrines of Grace, or what we often refer to as the Five Points of Calvinism.  This is not a TULIP exposition, but the doctrines of total inability and irresistable grace and perseverance of the saints are all ably supported.  What a great blend of theological and exegetical study with devotional encouragement. 

I do not recommend that you read this book:  I am planning on borrowing extensively from it for future sermons!

Still reading from Eugene Peterson's delightful and really soul-shaking Pastor: A Memoir.

THE CHALLENGE: Bible Readings for January 1-7

Sunday, January 1: 

 Genesis 1-2

Matthew 1-2

Psalms 1

Monday, Jan. 2

Genesis  3-4

Matthew 3-4

Psalms 2

Tuesday, Jan. 3

Genesis  5-6 

Matthew 5

Psalms 3

Wednesday, Jan. 4

Genesis 7-8

Matthew 6

Psalms 4

Thursday, Jan. 5

Genesis 9-10

Matthew 7

Psalms 5

Friday, Jan. 6

Genesis 11-12

Matthew 8

Psalms 6

Saturday, Jan. 7

Genesis 13-15

Matthew 9

Psalms 7

Did you get this week's readings done?  Celebrate with a Starbucks coffee or Bluebell icecream and rejoice in God's blessings.



Happy New Year

Resolution One: I will live for God.

Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will.

Jonathan Edwards

 

Dear Congregation:

 

We hope you all enjoy ringing out the old year and bringing in the new.  A new year is a great time to renew commitments, make good resolutions, and seek to serve Christ more faithfully.

 

Several announcements concerning worship tomorrow:

 

1.  No Sunday school.  Worship service will begin at 10:40.  The break from Sunday school has been nice in light of Advent services, but it will also be great to get back to the routine next week.

 

2.  No Fellowship Meal tomorrow.  Many members have other family events to attend. 

 

3.  We will have a Fellowship Meal next Sunday, January 8. 

 

4.  We will also be announcing other January plans tomorrow.  These include the resumption of Kids' Quest and a renewed prayer focus for the church.

 

5.  Today's bulletin and announcement will go to print shortly, but let me know of anything we need to include for announcements and prayer requests in future weeks.

 

A CHALLENGE:

 

One my birthday, last Wednesday, Dec. 28, (Thanks to all who called or left FB messages.) I bought the Daily Reading Bible, English Standard Version.  It is designed for reading through the Bible in a year.  Actually, the program in this Bible is reading the Old Testament once, the New Testament twice, and the Book of Psalms twice.

 

This version of the Bible is on sale at Lifeway Books for six dollars.  Other versions of a "through the Bible in one year" are also available.  Guides for daily reading can be found in the backs of some study Bibles and on numerous Internet sites.  So, you can use the Bible you have for this.

 

My yearly Bible reading usually involves reading and rereading certain parts of the Bible.  This past year I read the New Testament in the King James Version because it was the 400 year anniversary of the publication of the King James Version.  I also read portions of the Old Testament. 

 

The  Bible does not include a command to read it over the year in a certain method.  You can read the Old Testament, or the New Testament, or portions of both.   One could, for example, just carefully read the Gospels or the Epistles.  But there is a place for reading the whole work from cover to cover.

 

I encourage you to join me in my plan to read through the whole Bible.  I hope to accomplish the goal of the Daily Reading Bible, which as stated above is OT once with NT and Psalms twice.  I might fail.  I may only get through the NT once and about half of the OT. 

 

Let us see how many of us can publicly commit to trying to read from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 this year. 

Let us see how we can encourage one another and keep one another accountable. 

You have permission to fail, permission to fall short, permission to fall down and get up again.

 

See you at church tomorrow.  Happy and Christ-centered New Year's Eve. 

 

And another thing, if you stay up to see the New Year arrive, take time to offer up a prayer for not only your family, but our church.  2011 was a trying time.  God's hand was heavy upon us, but He never left us.