A Litttle Thought

The more unrest I see all around the world makes me realize the rest I have with Christ.

More Changes…

Just when you think you have your techie stuff in order and everything is set, something comes along that you just have to check it out.

Recently I have spent time checking out live.com and officelive.com. People are always asking me what techie thing I have found that is interesting. Enter… OfficeLive. You get a free website, photo storage, document storage, email account, and many other add-ons. Once you sign up all you have to do is open your account and start typing, click to add images, and click to add ready made forms and other modules. It is pretty cool.

Have a look at my OfficeLive website. See what you think.

This discovery helped me to get the church website moved over to OfficeLive.  Check their OfficeLive website.

Hello Again…

I have been encouraged by a friend to start blogging again. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say. I’ve been busy. Our church has started projecting slides during worship services. We project the hymns, liturgy, scriptures, and other content. I have been creating the content and projecting the slides for worship services.

I want to freely offer some of the slides I have created over the past year to anyone involved in projected images/slides for worship services. 

Here is the link and I welcome your comments. CLICK HERE 

These are my original © copyrighted images but free to use for the glory of God.

Can Anyone Explain This To Me?

The Epistle Reading for tomorrow is… Romans 1:16-23, 28-32.
What happened to verses 24, 25, 26, and 27?

I usually hear a canned answer. It does not fit the theme. I just can’t see a need for cutting out part of Paul’s message to the Romans of any portion or God’s Word. Could some make a case for Political Correctness here? At some future point will we skip Jesus’ miracles, or even his suffering, or God forbid justification by grace? I want the entire Word of God, even when it is hard to hear. I need the two edged sword to bring me the whole truth. “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Every word and every line.

Read it for yourself and pray for our spiritual leaders.

 Romans 1:16-23, 28-32 plus verses 24, 25, 26, and 27

16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.
17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

EXPLANATORY PARTICLE

This morning I was listening to a respected and seasoned radio preacher. I was getting into the flow of his message and he mentioned the term explanatory particle.  My ears perk up when I am going to get a mini Greek grammar lesson. He was pointing out the word for, and that you must pay close attention to what is said after that word, because it will explain the previous thought of the text.

At that point my mind started to drift away from the lesson and started to think on the Gospel reading for the 2nd Sunday of Lent. The Gospel of John… Chapter Three…

No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven–the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

Now here are the explanatory particles…

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

and…

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

(I have always thought that verse sixteen was incomplete without verse seventeen. Whenever I hear someone quote John 3:16 my mind automatically plays John 3:17.)

This brought home once again how we should pay close attention to the scriptures, especially when there’s an explanatory particle, and keep out ears and hearts wide open to what God wants to say to us.

First Corinthians One Eighteen

John Three Sixteen

Hebrews Twelve Two

Hey World! It’s A Gift!

There’s a video of Tom Cruse going around the Internet which is said to have been taken at a 2004 International Association of Scientologists meeting where Tom is saying… “It’s a privilege to call yourself a Scientologist and it’s something that you have to earn,”

Most world religions say… “It’s a privilege to call yourself a _(fill in the blank)_ and it’s something that you have to earn.”

Even some “Christian” groups say… “It’s a privilege to call yourself a “Christian” and it’s something that you have to earn.”

When God in his mercy reveals his glory and majesty to us and we see what Jesus Christ did for us by His grace we know that if we had a thousand lifetimes we could never earn the right to take one step toward God’s throne by our own merit.

A Christian will say… ”It’s a privilege to call yourself a Christian and it’s something that I accept as a gift from God.”

Paul said it best in Romans 8:23-25 - ”For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”

And in verse 28 Paul says… 

“Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.”

As this wonderful hymn says…

I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

For nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim,
I’ll wash my garments white
In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb. And now complete in Him
My robe His righteousness,
Close sheltered ’neath His side,
I am divinely blest.Lord, now indeed I find
Thy power and Thine alone,
Can change the leper’s spots
And melt the heart of stone.

When from my dying bed
My ransomed soul shall rise,
“Jesus died my soul to save,”
Shall rend the vaulted skies.

And when before the throne
I stand in Him complete,
I’ll lay my trophies down
All down at Jesus’ feet.

You Are Now Entering The Mission Field

Not to long ago I needed to drop something off at my mother’s church. There is another story there. My mom will be 83 years old on Saturday and she still goes to church on Sunday and fold the service folders on Thursday. She does this pushing a small oxygen tank everywhere she goes. She just keeps on going. Anyway, I dropped off this package and as I pulled out of the church parking lot I saw a small sign that everyone leaving the parking lot after the Sunday morning service sees. There’s no fanfare. It’s just a simple sign.