NEW BEGINNINGS

Colossians 3:12-25

Today is the last day of 2009. God has given us 365 days to serve Him. If you did not serve God this year, today is a great time to begin. In our Bible reading today, Colossians 3:12-25, Paul is the writer and he gives us many ways in which we can serve God. We can show mercy, we can worship God, we can have the right relationship with our family and our co-workers.

In other verses in the Bible Paul reminds us again and again that our time here on earth is time we should use in service to God. In Galatians 6:10, Paul says when we have an opportunity to do good to any person we should do it. In Ephesians 5:16, he says you should use every chance you have for doing good because the time is evil. In Colossians 4:5, Paul says use your time in the best way you can. Redeeming the time is the idea.

Tomorrow a new year begins, so today we have an opportunity to examine our lives, to look back. I know a lot people this day will be reflecting on things that have happened. On every news channel you will be able to see recap shows of the year 2009. Think about your own life for a minute. Think about how you have served God this year and think about how you can serve God even more in the year 2010. Decide today to serve God every day of the new year. Decide today that you are going to hear his word and really listen to what it says, that you are going to make a new commitment to do what God tells you. Make the commitment that you are going to be willing to repent of sins, confess your faith with your own mouth in Jesus Christ, and be willing to be baptized.

Let this year be the year that you attend every service of the church, and let this year be the year you teach somebody else. Let this be the year that you read the Bible all the way through, and you memorize some Bible verses, and you spend a lot of time in prayer. Let this year be the year that you give of time talents and treasures.

There are many times in life that we have opportunities for new beginnings. The song says, each day is a day of new beginnings. Certainly that is true, because we can’t go back to yesterday and we are not even promised tomorrow. But if God lets us have tomorrow, we should spend this year, this day, this hour, this minute, this second even, serving God, doing something for God. Does this mean we have to be weird and have to do something and say something every second that lets people know that we have God on our minds and that God is part of our life? No that is not what we are suggesting. In fact some people are too weird and drive people away from God.

What you need to do is think about this minute and say, “Okay, what can I do good so that people can be influenced for God’s benefit. Friendship religion, or evangelism, is the best kind. Let 2010 be the year of new commitment for service to God.

~Philip

Let Us Meditate!

Psalm 119

Our scripture reading today is Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible. I won’t ask you to read the whole thing, although it would be good for you if you do. The Bible says, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” Reading the Bible is how our faith grows. I would ask you to read beginning with verse 9 and going at least through verse 16, then maybe you’ll even want to read the next section through 27. Verse 27 says “Lord, help me to understand your laws. Let me study about the wonderful things you have done.

I don’t know if you are planning to make resolutions this New Year. We’re only about a day away. You need to be making your list now and planning if you are. Maybe you can put on your list--Meditate on God’s word. That is an interesting word isn’t it. What do you think about when you think of the word meditate? Maybe you think of a person sitting in a strange position chanting a word over and over. Christian meditation is a little different. It is thinking about what God says in the Bible. This means you think about what these words mean, and how you can apply them in your life. Psalm 119:11 of our text says,” I study your teachings very carefully so I will not sin against you.” The reason we need to study God’s word very carefully is so we will not sin against God.

Here is a suggestion for your New Year’s resolution: I will resolve to meditate on God’s word daily. The way you do that is to choose a verse or two daily. Maybe even our Bible reading, hint, hint, would be a good place to start. You read the verse very carefully, then you pray about what you just read, and ask God what He wants you to learn from these verses. Ask God to help you see clearly what He would have you do with this passage. You then read it again, and maybe look up words to have an extra definition of them. If you don’t clearly understand the verse, go to someone and ask them for help.

Finally you ask yourself, “How can I obey what God is saying here? How can I apply this truth in my life? I encourage you to start meditating on God’s word today. You don’t even have to wait for the New Year. The sooner we can start obeying God the better. Spend time today studying your Bible and learning what God wants you to do, and spend time today actually doing it. Don’t be hearers only but doers of God’s will this day and every day of your life.

Maybe there are other things you will resolve to do in the New Year. Let me encourage you to do two or three. Not only should you meditate on God’s Word every day, you should also put on your list, “I am resolved to attend all the services of the church. I am resolved to teach someone else the gospel. I am resolved to pray day and night. I am resolved to give of my time, talents and treasures. If these are on our New Year’s list, the next year will certainly be a great one for all of us.

~Philip

To Live in the Light

John 12:27:36

I love my job for a lot of reasons. One of the things I like best about my job is that I get to be involved in peoples’ lives. I have met all kinds of people over the years and made a lot of friends with different abilities and even disabilities. Through these friendships it has blessed my life and helped me to grow as an individual.

We have many people who attend our church services who are deaf and hard of hearing. We have a great deaf ministries that is an active part of our church here in Elba, and have a lot of things going on now here. I had a girl in my class once who was an amputee, which was interesting. I had a friend who was blind. When he was in a familiar area, he was able to go places very easily. He might use a cane, a guide dog, or even a friend to guide him. In unfamiliar places things change a lot. It is then a lot more difficult for my friend to get from point A to point B. He runs into things and gets confused.

Some people are spiritually blind. These people live without Jesus, without His light. They live in darkness and they live in sin. This is a much worse place to be than physically blind. This confuses people also, and they don’t know what they should do and how they should go. They need Jesus to lead them. In our Bible reading today, Jesus told His followers, “So put your trust in me, or in the light while you still have it. Then you will become sons of light. John 12: 36

Our scripture reading today is John 12:27-36. I hope you will read it again and realize how important it is to be able to see spiritually. If you are spiritually blind, you need to seek Jesus. You can rely on Jesus to show you the way. Jesus says “I am the way and the life and no man goes to the Father but by me”. In another verse, John 8:12, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. The person who follows me will never live in darkness.” That person will have the light that gives life. Do you want light? Do you want eternal life. The way to have it is to faithfully obey God’s will.

Many of us on New Year’s eve will be in the dark. Maybe we will be outside to watch the fireworks. It will be dark, then the fireworks will light up the sky for a moment then fade away. Our spiritually life should not be just a flash of light, then in darkness again, but consistently living a Godly life. I want to encourage you today to get into the light spiritually and to stay there. Then you will have a home in heaven when this life is over. My friends who have struggles in life, like my friend who is blind and my friends who are deaf. I think heaven may be a really special place for them because they will be able to see and hear….but it will be special for all of us because of the special light that is there.

~Philip

FIREWORKS

Galatians 5:13:26

It’s fun to watch fireworks. In a few days we will be watching fireworks bringing in the new year. It’s fun to watch how these fireworks start. They start as nothing special, then they shoot up as bright lights and loud noises becoming something spectacular to see. Soon the noise and lights are gone and all is still.

Some Christians are like fireworks. Maybe you did really well before Christmas, focusing on Christmas and thinking about Godly things. Maybe when you became a Christian you were that way. You were excited about studying your Bible and telling people about Jesus, but soon started doing things that were wrong and sometimes you listened to things that were wrong and pretty soon you were not where you needed to be.

In Galatians 5:13-26, the Bible talks about very bad things to do…things we should have no part of. It talks about sexual sins, hatred, anger, envy, and the list goes on. These are things we should stop doing because we might become like fireworks. To be a bright light for a minute, then quickly go out. We need to walk with God every day. We need to do this because it helps us develop the characteristics that Paul mentioned in verse 22 of our Bible reading. There he mentions love, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control. Many of us know these things to be called the fruit of the spirit. What are you doing? Are you letting your light shine before men, and thereby letting them see your good works before your Father in heaven.

I hope as you approach the new year, you will take the text from Matthew 5:14-16, and make it part of your life the rest of this year and if God gives us a new year, it will be your charge for the year to come. I hope you are not like the fireworks, and practice fireworks Christianity, but you will be consistent and strong in your service for Christ. I hope you will give your time talent and treasure to God and be a bright light for Jesus in our community, and be what God would have you to be around others. We as Christian people should be an influence for good to happen here and throughout the world. I hope our church shines as a bright light and example for good, but it doesn’t begin as a whole, but as each individual - - you and me letting our light shine, even if no other lights are shining in the darkness. We should be a shining example of what God would have us to be...be faithful obedient servants of God today. In doing that you kindle that fire within you, knowing it is the light of God and it will be shining and people will see it and will be influenced to do what is right. This is what God would have us to be doing this day and every day.

~Philip

Stars

Matthew 2:1-12

I enjoy walking outside at night. I especially enjoy seeing a beautiful sky at night, maybe no clouds--just stars. As you look up at the sky you can see the Big Dipper or the Little Dipper and other star formations of which we are familiar. One night I walked outside and saw a very, very bright star. My son and I were talking about this star. He enjoys walking and looking up at the sky with me sometimes. This star reminded us of a special star which appeared a long, long time ago. Many people are thinking of this special star at this time of year as we think about the birth of Jesus Christ.

About 2000 years ago, God used a special star to guide some people to see Jesus. These people were wise men from the east. Our Bible reading for today is Matthew 2:1-12. In verse 2, the wise men asked the people, “Where is the new baby who is the king of the Jews? We saw the star that showed us he was born. We saw the star rise in the east and came to worship Him.”

A wise man will follow the star that God lays to make sure he ends up where he needs to be. God in that case used a star to guide the wise men. I am reminded when I see a star in the sky, or even on a Christmas tree, that God wants everyone to find Jesus--rich people, poor people, hurting people, happy people, sick people, well people, lonely people, or people who are surrounded with friends. God wants us all to be wise men. He wants us all to find Jesus. He wants you to know that Jesus came--was sent into the world for you. He wants you to know that He lived, then died on the cross for our sins. He became our hope--the hope that we need this day and every day of our life.

The questions really becomes are we where we need to be in our relationship with God. Are we faithful in our obedience to God, have we repented our sins, confessed our faith, and been baptized? Are we living each day for God.

Many times people are reminded again to be Christians at special times of the year, like Christmas and Easter. As a matter of fact, many of our churches have better attendance on those days than other days. People say this is a religious time of year and we really need to go to church. The truth is though, we need to be that way all the time, don’t we? We need to always be obedient to God’s will we need to be praying every day. We need to be studying our Bibles for ourselves every day we need to be teaching other people and giving of our time, talents, and treasures, We need to be attending all the services of the church. We need to be putting God first in our life. That really is what it’s about isn’t it? We need to be focused on God. Where is your focus? Is it on God? If not, change your focus today.
~Philip

Traditions

Luke 2:1-7

There are many accounts today of how many of us got to the point of having Christmas trees in our homes. History records that many years ago, a lot of the people couldn’t read or write. The church leaders would take large trees and put things on these “Paradise” trees or Christmas trees and teach people. On Christmas Eve they would often tell of the point when we began needing Jesus. They would tell first of the story of Adam and Eve and as they told different facts about Adam and Eve they would wound more things around the tree. They told how sin came into the world and more stories were added until they got to the top of the tree. At this time, they would talk about Jesus coming, then a star would go on top of the tree.

Later people would put these trees in their own houses and they would repeat the stories over and over again. Many people would learn about God through these stories told on trees. Today it is just a family tradition for many of us. No matter how beautiful the tree might be, we should not forget to take the time and opportunities at this time of year to teach about the coming of Jesus Christ.

The Bible does not tell us the exact time of His birth, but this is the time man has set aside to celebrate it and to tell of the birth of Jesus. I would encourage you to read Luke 2:12--“Today a Savior is born in the city of David.” There is a very good account of Jesus’ birth in Luke 2-1-7 and also in Matthew 1:18-24.

It has been said that Martin Luther who was from Germany, was the first to have a Christmas tree in his home. It had candles on each branch, and presents under it. After dinner Martin Luther would tell the story of Jesus, and they would open their presents.

During the Revolutionary War, the Americans got Germans to come over and help them fight the British. These German soldiers would bring some of their traditions with them. Many believe they brought the tradition of Christmas trees with them. American Colonists strung cranberries together and popcorn together to put on their trees.

It’s a lot of fun to learn about Christmas traditions and see different things done. I have spent some time this year asking my friends and some of my church family what they do at Christmas. It is interesting to hear all the different things. Let me encourage you to make it a tradition of telling of Jesus’ birth. Take time this Christmas to read the story from Matthew and Luke. Parents, take the time to tell your children about Jesus. Explain to them the importance of Jesus coming to the world and becoming the sacrifice or the Payment for our sins. Stress to them the importance of faithful obedience to God’s will. “She will give birth to a son, your Bible says, and she will call the son Jesus, so He will save His people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21

~Philip

Are You Under God’s Protection?

Matthew 2:13-16

Most of the time when we think about the story of Christmas, we think about a cute baby wrapped in swaddling clothes laying in a bed of straw. It makes us feel happy as we read about the shepherds coming to see Jesus. We see this picture and have the idea visualized in our minds of a beautiful scene. However, our Bible reading today, Matthew 2:13:16, tells about King Herod and the fact that He wanted to kill this baby. That doesn’t make us feel very happy. God did not let Herod kill baby Jesus though. He protected Mary and Joseph by sending them to Egypt. God sent an angel in a dream to talk to Joseph in verse 13 of our text. In the dream the angel says “Get up!” Get the baby and his mother and escape to Egypt. King Herod wants to kill the baby. Stay in Egypt until I tell you it is Safe.” God protected Jesus, and He will protect us too.

It is so beautiful to see how many times in scripture God’s people are protected by God Himself. God wants to take care of us. I know with all the problems going on in the world, we may wonder sometimes, but the fact is, God is in control. God wants to take care of each of us. Psalm 34:7 says “The Lord’s angels build a camp around the people who follow Him. The Lord’s angels protect His people. What a beautiful idea.

God will be with you today if you are with Him. We need to be with God in order for Him to be with us. We need to be on the same team. That is the key. Sin separates us from God, so says the book of Isaiah. We know that our sins make a space between us and God, because God can have nothing to do with sin. The blood of Christ erases those sins and allows us to be re-united with God. It is then and only then, that we as His people can be protected by Him in this special way.

Are you where you need to be today. Take a minute, evaluate your life, and ask yourself some questions with me. One: Have you heard God’s word, really listened. Two: Are you willing to believe the Gospel? Mark 16:16 tells us “Without faith it is impossible to please God”. Three: Have you repented? Peter gives a good example of this in Acts 2:28 when asked what the people should do, he said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you shall received the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Four: Have you confessed your sins before men as commanded in Matthew 10:32, “Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.” Five: Have you been baptized for the remission of your sins as commanded in Acts 22:16. Here in this text, Saul, who became Paul, had heard and believed, and Ananias told him “Why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.”


~Philip

Love and Punishment

Hebrews 11:1-3

When I was a child my parents would punish me when I did something wrong. They didn’t enjoy this. In fact, it made them sad. They might even shed a tear, or say it was very disappointing that I had disobeyed them. It hurt them inside. I remember my parents saying to me “This hurts me worse than it does you” You may have heard that from your parents. My parents still loved me, you see, but they were disappointed with the decisions I had made and actions I had taken.

We know that when we choose and make our decisions we have to consider what the outcome will be, and make the right kind of decisions. Today I am a parent myself, and I know how hard it is to have to punish a child. Brantley and Bryson sometimes do things wrong and we may have to give the “time out” or take some privilege away. Sometimes we even have to use the paddle. Brewer has not reached the age yet of punishment. We need to make sure though that they are learning and understanding from this.

The idea is that we as children need to make our parents happy. I was laughing the other day because we were talking about Santa Claus coming and my kids were saying, “We’ve got to be good because he is watching.” You know the song, “He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.” We know God is watching us and sometimes He feels that same way as disappointed parents.

God is not happy with us when we don’t do it His way. In Hebrews 11:1-3, verse six in particular. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” God is not happy when we do not believe He can take care of us. God is real and he still loves us and cares about us, even when we have disappointed him. We have made Him sad.

As you go through this day, let me encourage you to look around at things and know God is real. Look at the trees, the clouds, the rainbow, or the rain, or whatever may be happening and see how it is that God is working and alive. Then you will know that God wants to be part of your life. God wants to make you happy. He wants to bless you. It’s our job to make God happy. We ought to do those things that please Him. That really should be our top priority in life-- obeying God. The Psalmist would say “Lord I trust you, you are my God” Psalm 31:14.

Do we trust God enough to say I’m going to trust you enough. I’m going to do everything I can to make you happy. This time of year we are so concerned with making others happy. We are giving gifts and all the rest. What we should do is take time out today to make sure we are pleasing God Himself.

~Philip

Week In and “Weak” Out Week in and week

GOD FORGIVES
Luke 15:11-24 1 John 1:9

Maybe you have done some terrible things in your life and think God could never forgive you. Maybe you’ve said “If I went to church, the roof would fall in, or lightning would strike.” Maybe you have said’ “If God knew the things I have done, He would certainly never let me in.” But God can forgive each of us no matter what we have done.

The Bible teaches about many people who did wrong things. There were all sorts of people. Some we look at and think, maybe they weren’t so bad, but others we think, “Wow, how could they do anything like that!” But God used these people. Even people like Abraham and Jacob told lies and deceived people at different times in their lives. Abraham even committed adultery. King David committed adultery, was a murderer, and did so many things. Jonah tried to run away from God. Saul arrested Christians and persecuted them. But you know what all those folks had in common? God forgave each of them for what they had done, and He will forgive you as well.

In our Bible reading today, Luke 15:11-24, there was a young man who left home and did a lot of bad things. He wasted his money and later that young man realized he had done wrong and decided to go back to his father’s house.

In verse 20 of that text, it says when the son was far off, the father saw him coming and the father felt sorry for his son. He ran to him and hugged him and kissed him. It is a beautiful picture of how the prodigal son, having gone away and as he comes back the father meets him. That is what God does with us. If we move toward God, God will move toward us. He will meet us and accept us back.

God doesn’t want us to live in sin. He hates sin. He doesn’t want us to be living in all that stuff that we have done wrong. It bothers me sometimes how many preachers tell all their story. It seems like sometimes you have to have a good story to be a really popular preacher, but the fact is, we ought to all be ashamed of ourselves, shouldn’t we. Yeah, I‘ve sinned but I don’t want to tell everybody about it. As a matter of fact, I’m just thankful that God is willing and able to forgive me for all of those sins I have committed. God knows all those sins we have committed. He wants us to repent, He wants us to change, and then He wants us to come back to the Father.

In our Bible reading today, the father accepted the son back and had a party. He killed the fatted calf, and rejoiced that his son had come back. Maybe some of us are like that bad older brother. We should spend time one day talking about him. He was there the whole time, but when the brother came back, said, “What gives him the right to come back?” God wants us to understand that He is a loving and forgiving Father that wants us to be with Him, not separated from Him by sin. 1 John 1:9, says if we confess our sins God will forgive our sins. God forgives all sins, but loves the sinner.
~Philip

WORRIES
Matthew 5:3-12 Matt 5:12

It’s very hard for some people to forget about their worries and turn them over to God. Every day some people worry about what will happen that day. Some people worry about how they will pay the bills, or how they can take care of some problem in life. Other people worry about their marriage, or the church, or you name it.

Let me encourage you today to stop worrying. Our Bible reading today comes from Matthew 5:3-12 Jesus talks about the blessings God gives to people. In verse 6, Jesus says what great blessings there are for people who want to do right more than anything else. God will satisfy their needs. What a great idea from that verse. If I’m trying to obey God more than anything else, if I do what is right, then He will take care of all my worrying.

Maybe you are worrying about money, or family members, or your job, or even the weather. You don’t need to carry those burdens with you. You don’t need to carry that stuff around and worry about all the concerns of life. 1 Peter 5:7, says to give all of your worries to Him, speaking of God, because He cares for you. Give all your burdens to Him for He cares for you. Many people spend too much time worrying.

I understand that there have been studies done on the physical effects on worry, and worry certainly does make us sick. I know a guy who worries all the time, and he says it just makes me sick to think about it. Well it does. It literally makes us sick to be worried all the time. It shortens our lives. It hurts us, and it even hurts the church when we ought to be working and growing and helping the church.
Sometimes we worry about what if this or what if that. Let me encourage you today to just give this a try. Just say, “I’m not going to worry, I’m just going to let God take care of it.”

I’m sometimes called upon to be a counselor, and I confess to you I am a terrible counselor. Someone will come and say “I did such and such.” I do understand that the idea of counseling is to then say “Okay, you did such and such” But I don’t do that very much. My reply is usually, “No! Why did you do that! So I am not a very good counselor sometimes, and I’m certainly not a very good counselor when it comes to worry. I don’t do very much of it myself. I’ve gotten pretty good at this idea of not worrying.

Maybe it’s too hard for me to explain to you, and to get across the fact that God says we have to get to a point in our lives when we can trust Him enough to just take care of things. When someone asks the question, “How am I going to pay this?” or “How am I going to get through this”, the answer is - God.

Please understand, there has never been a problem where God says, “Oh, no, I never saw it coming.” Or “I don’t know what to do.” It just doesn’t happen that way. So let’s decide today that we are going to trust God no matter what happens.

~Philip

BE THANKFUL
Luke 17:11-19

If somebody does something nice for us we are pretty good at saying thank you, but whatever it is, some of us need to do better . I know, I need to do better at sending out thank you notes. Someone told me the other day that they were so far behind on their thank you notes they would never get them mailed out. I said, "Maybe you should just tell them face to face instead of sending a note." It is very important though to say thank you when someone does something nice for us.
In our Bible reading today found in Luke 17:11-19, we see several men, ten of them to be exact. These men had leprosy. Leprosy is an awful disease that eats the flesh. A few years ago I was able to travel to India, where they still have a problem with leprosy. I met a young lady there who had leprosy. It had eaten away her legs, her fingers, her eyes, and part of her nose. It’s a terrible disease.

In Jesus’ time they dealt with this disease by labeling the person unclean and then sent them away. They could not live with the general population. This was the case of these ten men in our Bible reading, which, by the way, you should read for yourself in your Bible and see what this story is all about. As these men were leaving, Jesus held them back and said, "Go and present yourself to the priest." (Verse 14). The intention was that they would be healed as they went. As they were going one of them realized that he had been healed, and he did what all ten should have done, but didn’t. He came back and fell at Jesus’ feet and praised Him, saying thank you for what Jesus had done.

We need to not only say our thanks for big things , but all good things that God sends our way. Sometimes we have so many good things that we can’t say thank you for all the good things. Think about all the good things for which you should be thanking God. I Thessalonians 5:18 says "Give thanks to God at all times."
Parents like to have their children thank them for things, and so do our friends. Thank all the people who do good things for you. You might think you can’t do that, but try.

God likes to hear thank you as well. The most important thing to thank God for is eternal salvation. God has promised us eternal salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ if we will faithfully obey His will. The faith part is hearing His word and believing it, the obedience part is repenting of our sins, confessing our faith, and being baptized, and living faithfully the rest of our lives. The Bible tells us to seek and we shall find. We should do that by studying our Bible daily, and thanking God for saving us.

~Philip

LOVE

1 Corinthians 13:8-13

The Beatles sang it, about it, people have hoped for it, and even Presidents have talked about a time when love would be the predominantly feeling among all the people of the world. God certainly encouraged us to love and to care about others.

Sometimes I enjoy talking to my Grandmother and others, and they would talk about love and falling in love. I recently heard a story about a young man and woman, and the young man said, “I saw her and I knew she was the one I was in love with.” They married young. At one point in time, people would marry at fifteen years old, or something like that. In this case, it was the girl’s age. Now if people did that today we would think—wow, that’s way too young to be married, but they were married for fifty-one years. That is a long marriage together, and a lot of great memories to share, all around this idea of love.

My grandparents, both sets, married for their entire life. My grandfathers have died, but my grandmothers still talk about how they fell in love. We like to hear about love, don’t we? Sometimes we wonder why there isn’t more love in the world today. The musicians of our day sing about love.

In our scripture reading for today, 1 Corinthians 13:8-13, God Himself talks about love. He reminds of us some things about love. In our text, Paul is the writer, and he is describing love. In verses 4 through 7, it says love is patient, kind, is not jealous, is not rude, is not selfish. All of those things we ought to be able to say about ourselves—if we pass the love test. Here’s what I mean about the love test. You insert your name, or the word I, instead of the word love. For example, say “I am patient”, or “Philip is patient.” True or False Well, sometimes I’m not so sure it’s true, so we have to be careful.

I encourage you today to take the love test to see if you are loving, and the kind of person God wants you to be. By the way, verse 8 in our text says “Love never ends.” It is good to know that God’s love will continue forever. I’m a Christian and I hope you are as well. God wants me to show His love toward everyone that I meet, but I have to remember that I have to have the love that Paul talks about in these verses if I’m ever going to be the kind of person that shows love the way that God wants me to show it.

Look for ways to show God’s love today to people around you. Verse 13 of our text says, “So, these three things continue, faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.” Be loving God, and loving others today enough to show them God’s love in your life.

~Philip

PRAISE GOD

John 15:1-10

Each and every day of our life we see things around us God has made. Genesis 1, tells us about God making the world for us. God made all the people, all the animals, all the plants, the ocean, and the fish. He made it all for us.

Maybe in the summer when you travel and see unique things, maybe the mountains, or the National Forest, or the ocean, you look around and see all the great things God has done for us. We don't even have to go anywhere to see how great God is. You can just look out your window and whatever you see, whether it be clouds, or the sun, or the stars, you can be reminded again that God has made everything and every day for us. We also see the flowers and the trees, and we know that God is the one who has loved us and cared for us.

Our scripture reading today is John 15:1-10. I encourage you to get your Bibles and read this, and be reminded again in God's own words about how we should praise Him, and what we should be doing.

As we look around us, how great God truly is. Be sure to take the time to look around you, and to notice all the wonderful things God has made. Then, praise Him and thank Him for what He has given you. God is the one who used His power and made the earth. In His great wisdom He built the world, and stretched out the sky over the earth, Jeremiah 10:12 says.

As we look around us, we are reminded that God is truly in charge. He has given us this great place to live and so many things to be thankful for.. Make sure you give God thanks and praise this day, and every day of your life.
~Philip

Come Near To God

James 4 7:10

When I was younger, I would get to go with my Dad and others on campaigns doing mission work in the summer on some island. It was good. It seemed like it drew us closer to God, and I know it drew us closer to each other. Even today, we will take off – a group from our church – and do mission work together and when we return, we will be close friends. There are folks I have become very close to because of those times working together and getting closer to God.

One of the things I have discovered, when we draw closer to God, we draw closer to each other. Husbands and wives need to learn that great lesson—that as an individual we should focus on drawing closer to God. We will then naturally grow closer to each other. That will help with the divorce rate.

As we go on mission trips, as we work for Him, as we are busy serving Him this week here in Elba even, , we should be focused on getting closer to Him. As we do that, we need to remember that God likes us spending time with Him. He wants us to be with Him and to talk to Him. He wants us to pay attention to Him, and He will pay attention to us.

Our Scripture reading today comes from James 4:7-10, and as always, let me urge you again to get your Bibles and check me out. There are a lot of people saying a lot of things days. You need to make sure of what the Bible says by using 20/20 vision—reading 20 verses before and 20 verses after the verse. It will give you a clear vision of what’s happening in that chapter. In verse 8 of the Bible reading, James says “Come near to God, and He will come near to you.” What a great blessing that is. It means that if we will communicate with God through faithful obedience, then God will move closer to us. As we move to Him, He moves to us, and the ultimate thing is that we are close to each other, and are ultimately together for all of eternity. God promises that He will come near to us if we will come near to Him.

I hope that you will start moving in God’s direction and will come near to God today. I hope that you will make sure that your life is one of faithful obedience to God’s will, so come near to God with a sincere heart. If your faith is what it needs to be , Hebrews 10:22 says, you can be sure of coming near to God.

I hope you will be able to look back on this day, Monday, November 30, 2009, and say, "I moved closer to God."

~Philip

Praise God (continued)

Psalm 117:1-2

Well tomorrow is the day. Thanksgiving will be here. Many of us have plans with our families, and have started making our way other places for Thanksgiving. Maybe you have family making their way into town.

We are busy at this time of the year praising God, and we’ve been encouraging you over the last couple of days about the idea of praising God. We talked on the first day about the idea that praising God is worshiping God, giving Him the honor and glory that is due Him.

Yesterday we talked about the fact that when we have troubles and worries, part of praising God is handing that over to Him, and allowing Him to have His way with our life.

One reason we praise God is the way that He loved us, His wonderful love for us. In our Bible we can read about many ways God showed His love for us. In our scripture reading today from Psalm 117: 1-2, the psalmist talks about God loving. In 1 John 3:1, the Bible tells us of God’s love. He tells us the Father does so much. This shows how much He loved us, and that we are called ”Children of God” isn’t that neat—that God loved us enough to call us His children. I know with my children, I certainly love them, and I’m sure the same is true with you. We see how parents love, and are reminded again about that kind of love within family groups, right now at holiday times.

Another way God loves us enough is how He pays attention to our prayers when we pray. In Psalm 17:6, David said, “Every time I called to You, God, you answered me. So listen to me now.” David said that every time he called God answered, and David wanted to thank God for that.

God truly tells us how much he loved us when he sent his son Jesus to die for us. God knew that all people needed a way to have their sins forgiven, so He sent Jesus to be that perfect sacrifice for our sins. This is so wonderful that it is hard for people to even believe it, but God’s love is more than we can even understand. He sent his Son to suffer on the cross of Calvary bearing the sins of all people and giving us the hope of salvation when this life is over. God’s love is so great and awesome. John 3:16 is probably the most familiar text in all the Bible “For God so loved the world He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Praise God for His love for us, and for what He has done for us, and take advantage of the salvation He offers through Christ by hearing his word and believing it, repenting your sins, confessing your faith, being baptized into Christ, and then living faithfully each day of your life.

~Philip

PRAISE GOD

Psalm 68:19-25

We started talking yesterday about the fact that Thanksgiving is quickly approaching. I know we have a lot of things to be thankful for, although a lot people have a lot of problems, it seems. There are people who worry all the time about all kinds of problems in their life. Sometimes I think we try to make up trouble to have something to complain about.

There are all kinds of solutions in books written on how to solve problems and how to build yourself up. Many of them are good books...I've read many of them, and I find that they help me. I would recommend some of them to you even. But there is one book that really tries to settle all the problems of life and all the difficulties here on earth.

Sometimes life here on earth can be difficult. If we don't give God our problems though, it can even get worse, and our worries will become such that they literally will kill us. It will be one of those things we will be so caught up in that even on Thanksgiving we can't even take a minute to say thank you to God.

In 1 Peter 5:7, we read,"Give all your worries to Him because He cares for you." This means that we should give our troubles to God, to the all-powerful God who could speak things into existance, and by His word things would happen. God can help us with any of our problems in life. Maybe you're facing some serious problems today, maybe it is something that is major. Perhaps you are sick, or someone you love has died, or maybe you have lost your job, and facing financial troubles. Maybe you are facing divorce, and during holidays, those family issues seem to come to the top.

We try to do a marathon during holiday times, when you have to go to the parents and all the grandparents, and all the step parents. The Bible teaches that in all of that be sure to talk to God about your problems, and let Him decide what to do. Let Him be the One to guide your steps.

Our scripture reading for today is Psalm 68:19-25. As always I would encourage you to have your Bibles and be reading every day and through that you will continue to grow spiritually. The psalmist is dealing with problems himself, and he says he needs to give them to God. That's what we need to do, we need to give those problems to God, and we need to praise Him for His great wisdom.We have small troubles now, but those troubles are helping us to gain an eternal glory. That eternal glory is much greater than our troubles, so says 2 Corinthians 4:17. What are you doing today? Are you giving God your problems?

Are you praising God.

~Philip

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY
Psalm 55:1-24

Our Scripture Reading today comes from Psalm 55:1-24. It is one of those Psalms that reminds us not to worry. You can see in this text that the writer is thanking God for being God, and for being in control. Sometimes in our lives, something reminds us more than usual that God isin control. I remember when I was a boy, we were at a shopping center andan interesting thing happened. We were standing in the middle of the building and you could see out both sides. It was pouring down rain on one side of the building, just a deluge of rain, and out the back the sun was shining. I pointed it out to my parents, and we were amazed.

I was reading again in the book of James 5, about Elijah praying that itnot rain, and for three years it didn’t. Then he prayed that it would rain, and sure enough, rain came again upon the earth. God is in control. God is the same God who would be in the boat with the disciplesand the storm would be raging, and Jesus would waken from sleep and say they were lacking in their faith. Then he would say to the wind, “Peace,be still.” It was. Then the disciples would say to each other, “What kind of man is this,that even the weather obeys His command.” I’ll tell you what kind of manthis is. He is the Savior of mankind, our God, the same God of Abraham,Isaac, and Jacob. He is our God today.

He wants to be in control of ourlives, and wants us to always remember and to realize that He is incontrol. When we watch the raindrops falling, and we see rain on one side and sunshine on the other, we are reminded that He is in control. You will have days in your life that will remind you that God is in control. He wants you to stay in the fight, to keep doing what’s right without worrying, or complaining, or murmuring. He wants us to trust in Him. Our Bible reading today reminds us that we should pray to God and give ourworries to Him. I hope that you will do that today.

I hope that you will say, “God, I want to give you all the problems, all the concerns, all ofthe worries. I want to trust You completely.” In doing that God will bewell pleased. One of the verses in that text, verse 23, says “Give your worries to the Lord, and He will care for you.” It’s true. If we will give our cares to God, He will take care of us. He wants to do that. He wants to be a partof your life, and if you will faithfully obey His will He will do that. In the New Testament there are verses like this, “You confess Me before men, and I will confess you before the Father.” It is a give and take kind of relationship. He gives us so much more than we give Him, but ifwe give Him ourselves, our being, He will receive us, He will accept usjust as we are. He’ll forgive our sins, and He will establish arelationship with us that is like none other. I hope you will put Him first in your life today and every day. ~Philip

GIVE THANKS

Ephesians 1:15-23

I hope you get your Bibles and really read our scripture reading each day. In our Bible reading today, Ephesians 1:15-23, Paul is giving thanks to some folks. We see this story developing a long time before. In Acts 19, the Bible tells us that Paul was traveling and he stopped in his travels in a city called Ephesus. Paul told the people there about Jesus and some of the people believed his teaching. Of course, when people faithfully believe the teachings about God, they become obedient to it and start to live their life in an obedient fashion.

Paul stayed there two years teaching them, and showing them how they ought to live their lives. During that time Paul helped to establish a great church there in Ephesus. Later Paul would be writing back a letter to the Christians there, and that book is in our New Testament, the book of Ephesians. In this book he continued to teach and he said he thanked God always for them. Ephesians 1:15 says, “I always thank God for you.”

Paul thanked God that these Christians had faith in Jesus and they loved all God’s people. I am happy that I have a Christian family around me to encourage me and to help me. I mentioned yesterday that we had experienced death in our family again. My wife’s grandfather passed away earlier this week, and we have already received many cards and notes of encouragement. There were flowers at the funeral from several different churches, other family members, and others, and I’m always thankful that we have those kind of people around us. I’m thankful for my best friend, who is not only my best friend, but he wants to help me get to heaven when I die. I’m thankful for all those people around me who help me be a better Christian. I want to encourage you today to thank God for your Christian family. You know, often we forget to think of our Christian family as just that. This family is really part of one body and has several members with different jobs to do, but we are to work together as one. We are to be a family serving God.

I hope you will do what you need to do to be a part of that family, which means you will hear and believe the gospel, then repent, confess, and be baptized into Christ. Then you are added to the family, and can begin your Christian journey in life by living faithfully there after. Then you will know what it is to have a family of God around who is interested in your going to heaven.

I always thank my God for the grace He has given me through Christ Jesus. In Jesus you have become a blessing in every way. You have been a blessed people in your speaking and in your knowledge, I Corinthians 1:4-5 says. I hope you will realize how God has blessed us, how He has made us one people who are truly blessed in Him.

~Philip

SALT OF THE EARTH

MATTHEW 5:13-16

When the Bible was written salt was very important. Important as a preservative, and very important for seasoning food as it cooked. In some cultures salt is still used for a a lot of things around the world. In some cultures salt is still used as money. At one point in time salt was even traded as a monetary good that would be traded for other services or products.

Today we use salt to make our food taste better, and probably over use it, along with butter and some other things that aren't very good for us. The Bible talks about and compares a Christian to some salt. In Matthew 5:13, the Bible talks about being salt, Jesus said it this way, "You are the salt of the earth." Jesus wants Christians to be like salt. How can this happen? How can we give an example of our life so that we can season people and things around us?

Maybe we have a bowl of soup and it's kind of plain, but by just adding just a little bit of salt, it seems that things can change. It's the same way with Christians, and the way that Jesus wants us to be living our life. Just a little influence can make a big difference to people around us. If we do good things and have a good attitudes we can influence to follow Jesus. In verse 16, Jesus says to live so that people can see good in you. Live so that people can see good things in you each day. The thngs I do and say can help other people become a Christian -- If I smile at people and make people happy when I see them in a store, or meet them on the street, or if I treat people the way I ought to be treating them. If I treat my family the way I ought to treat them, not using bad words--words Christians should never be saying, then I am salt that is used for good.

The question for us today is: Are we really being salt for Christ? One Christian can influence many people to follow Jesus. Look for ways today to be salt. Look for ways to do good and be the salt of the earth. Mark 9:50, says "Salt is good, but if the salt loses its salty taste, then you cannot make it salty again. So, be full of goodness and have peace with each other.

I hope that today we can be full of Christ, that we can be the salt of the earth, and that God will use us in ways that only He can. Let Him have your life. Let Him have His way with you.

As we were going to a funeral earlier this week, I was thinking about this man, this Godly man. He was Paige's grandfather and had been a Christian all his life. He led many people to Christ. I was thinking about him being salt. We can be the same, and I hope to encourage you today to let that happen in your life. One way is to be together with other Christians. I hope you will come and be with us tonight for Bible class.

~Philip

Matthew 5:13-16 You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness

Look For God

II Chronicles 7:11-16


We, of course, live in America. This country was started by people who loved and worshipped God, but people in America do not worship God like they did then, or at least it seems like that to many of us. I have heard people say again and again, that things are a lot worse than they used to be.


It’s true many bad things are happening in America. Some people are trying to stop Christmas from being in our society. Some people have tried to take Bible study out of schools. Prayer was suspended from school. Other people try to force us to do things that are immoral, and things God does not want us to do. These are the same people that God has said “forever have their rule over the earth.”


This same bad stuff that happens is the same bad stuff that has always been happening, but God says “There’s nothing new under the sun.” So we know that God is still in charge, and ultimately God and His people will be victorious over all people. In our Bible reading today, God is reminding King Solomon that the Israelites needed to love and worship Him. Verse 14 says “If my people who are called by My Name become humble and pray, and look for me, and turn away from evil ways, then I will hear them in Heaven and I will forgive their sins, and I will heal their land.”


Whether we live in America, or some other land today, we need to pray and ask God to help us. We need to look for Him each day. We need to do the same things He suggested to the Israelites. We need to spend some of our time focused on God.


Today I want you to look for God. Look for Him wherever you are. Look for Godly things and embrace them. See things that are good and honor them. See things that are Godly in nature and take hold of them. I would ask you to be people who would spend much time praying for our country, our leaders, all the folks in our Government—local, state, and national. Whether you agree with those guys or not, we ought to be praying that God would forgive sins and heal our land. I know that God will take care of us.


Luke 11:9, says “So I tell you, continue to ask, and God will give to you, continue to search, and you will find, continue to knock, and the door will be opened for you.” I hope today you will continue to ask, continue to search, continue to knock, and allow God to open doors of opportunity that will lead us to places that we can only imagine. If we trust God it will make all the difference in our lives.


~Philip

Happiness
Psalm 36:5-10
It’s now fall where we live, and you of course, are very well aware that leaves are changing colors and the temperature has cooled off substantially. Even with the recent tropical storm, we still have fall-like conditions.

There are many things in life that make us happy, sometimes theweather helps, sometimes there are other things in life that makes ushappy. As a matter of fact, I’m recording today’s topic because Bryson is one of the things that makes me happy. She is still here with me today. I want to take a minute and ask her what some of the things are that make her happy.... Bryson's answer, “Having a Mom and Dad,and saying my prayers at night, and being good in school makes mehappy. Also, having a good day and night might make me happy.”

Okay, and there are a bunch of other things that might make ushappy. We have all sorts of things in life that make us happy if welet them. I guess stuff can make us happy for a while, but I wantyou to understand today, that many things in life do make us happy, but the problem is they won’t make us happy for ever. If we want tobe happy for ever, if we want that kind of happiness, we have tohave forgiveness -- a special kind of forgiveness that comes frombeing obedient to God.

To some people special things make them happy-- a special blanket, ora certain smell, a picture, or some thing that happens, like a breeze blowing. Maybe it might be some of those things that Brysonmentioned today; but whatever it is that makes us happy, we need to realize that what makes us eternally happy is our faithful obedience to God’s will. Life, you see, is full of problems and sorrows. Things that make us happy will last a little while, but we will face problems and uncertainties. There are still things that make us unhappy.

In our Bible reading today, we find out there are some special things that make us happy. The scripture comes from Psalm 36:5-10. Verse 5talks about God’s love and loyalty, verse six tells us about God’sgoodness and fairness, and in verse 7 David tells us that nothing ismore precious than God’s love and kindness for us. Maybe you willface problems today, but be sure to think about the special things inlife, the things that can truly make you happy, the blood of Jesus Christ and His giving Himself on the cross of Calvary for us.Continue to think that through all the things that might happen in life no matter what is going on, always serve God with faithful obedience. The way that we do that is to hear what he says,believe, repent of our sins, confess our faith, and then we are baptized, and spend a lifetime of prayer and attending church services. We also spend time giving of our time, talents, and treasures, teaching others, and studying the Bible for ourselves.. I hope today we can encourage you to be happy and to notice what true happiness really is. It’s a blessing from God.

Psalm 36:5-10 Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O LORD, you preserve both man and beast. How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart.
~Philip

MY HERO

Psalm 18: 1-6, 28-33

Today's a special day because I have my daughter Bryson with me. She is out of school today because it is Veteran's Day. We were talking about heroes. Bryson's heroes are Superman and Supergirl. I told her that real people could also be our heroes, like grandfathers, or fathers, or mothers. Then I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. "I want to be a teacher," she said. "Just like who" I said. "Like my Mom," she replied.

A lot of times teachers and coaches are our heroes. We are all aware of people we can look up to and call our heroes. Many times they are people who spend a lot time serving others. Today, of course, is a special day honoring those who are serving our country and defending our freedoms. We surely wouldn't want to live in a country where we wouldn't have freedom that God has blessed this country with. You know, we are free to think good or think bad.

I know a guy who had cancer. He had served in the military, and had been a hero in a lot of ways in his life. He decided that he would make the most of every day that he had, whether he had a 100 days, or however many days he had left. He was going to make the most out of life that he could.

Our Bible reading today states that David said God had given him strength and his family a special kind of strength to face each day. I think He still does that. God gives us the strength that we need to face the challenges of life.

I heard on TV this morning a reporter interviewing a soldier. He asked the soldier, "How do you have the courage to do what you do?" He said, "I don't know, it just kind of comes from inside." I think he is describing there the strength that comes from God that's within all of us -- that strength that we need to be working on and building. I hope that people can see Jesus in my life. I hope that they can see, not me as a hero so much, but Jesus living in me, as the hero. What a great hero for us all.. If you skip down in the text of Psalm 18 to verses 31 and 32, the Bible says, "There is no God except the Lord. There is no rock except our God. God gives me strength, He helps me live a pure life."

He not only helps us, but He helps our country, and as we thank God for those who are willing to serve today, we should also remember who is behind the man who is serving.
~Philip

Please God

Galatians 1:6-10

When I wake up in the morning, especially when I was young, I worry about what I am going to wear for the day. Those of you who know me now might be in agreement with my secretary who says I just get up in the morning and whatever happens, happens.

A lot of times we still see people who worry about "What are people going to think about me?" We may worry if we are going to be accepted, or will people like the clothes we have on. We worry if people think our hair is goofy. We need to remember that we should please God and not man. Oh, it’s important, I guess, to try to look as good as I can and to set a good example for people around us. We certainly need to dress modestly. We certainly need to learn that important lesson. But in our Bible reading today, Paul reminds us and the Galatians, that there is only one message from God, and that message is the good news about salvation.

His message was not one of being concerned about how you look or concerned about your hair. Instead it was a message to be concerned about your salvation, about your soul. In verse 10 of our scripture reading, Paul said, "Now do you think that I am trying to get people to accept me?.... No!" God is the one I am trying to please. I’m not trying to please people. Am I trying to please people? No! If I wanted to please people I would not be a servant of Jesus Christ..

Kind of an interesting verse, isn’t it. Paul said he was not trying to please man, but trying to please God. Paul didn’t care if people around him thought he was popular or not. He only cared that he was preaching God’s truth, and what God thought about him. We should be like Paul. We should try to please God in everything that we do. Don’t worry about what other people think, just try to please God. If we do that, things will work out for the very best in our lives.

There’s another verse in our Bible over in I Thess. 4:1, the last part of the verse. "We taught you how to live in a way that would please God so that you would abound more and more.." Are you pleasing God today? Are you doing those things that God would have you to do. If not, why not make those changes that God would have you to make.

STAY IN THE GAME
(Teamwork)

John 14

Yesterday we were talking about teamwork, and today I want to again mention the idea of making sure that we are on God’s team.

Recently a young lady from one of the surrounding schools wrote an e-mail to my office. In that e-mail she asked that I write an article on teamwork. Her volleyball and softball teams seem to struggle with understanding teamwork. I realize that Christians do too, and we as Christians need to really be part of God’s team. We need to be serious about what we are doing and we need to stay in the game. See, that’s the problem. That’s where so many people have problems with teamwork.

It’s not so much that they have problems wanting to be a member of the team, but instead, it is a problem with consistency , a problem with staying in the game. A well known coach and writer said, “There’s a secret to understanding teamwork and staying in the game. “ “The first thing is we should let the leader whoever that leader is, the coach, or in the Christian’s case, God , take us to where we can’t take ourselves.”

Isn’t that an important truth. We need to let God take us to where we can’t take ourselves. We need to allow God to direct our steps. I know that in games and sports---those kind of things. A lot of times coaches certainly have influenced our lives, have directed us in the direction we need to go and helped us make decisions, and all sorts of other things. When we allow them to do that it has really helped us. It is the same way with God. If we allow God to make decisions in our life, our life will be the best it possible be could be. Are you letting God make your decisions? Are you letting Him lead you in the direction you should go?

Now, the second thing he said was, “Realize how important it is for you to have a game plan when you start, for you and your team.” Again, as Christians we need to have a game plan don’t we? Our game plan should be reaching the lost. Our game plan should be that “I am going to set a goal this month of having one person that I lead to Christ.” What if all of us did that every month? Wow, it wouldn’t be long until our whole town was converted to Christ. It wouldn’t be long until we would see great things happening where we are.

The third thing he suggested was understand the five “C's” of teamwork. The first one is communication. We certainly need to talk to each other and God wants us to communicate with Him through prayer. He says also that we need to co operate with each other. We need to just get along don’t we, and do what we need to be doing. It says in our scripture reading today in John 14 “If you love Me keep My commandments.” For our purposes we might say as in verse 15, If you love Me you will co-operate. You will do what I ask you to do. Then, of course, we will contribute. God wants us to give of our time, talents, and treasures. He wants us to use what we have in service for the team. We need to commit. Certainly, God has told us to be faithful for a lifetime, hasn’t He. If we are faithful until death, then God will be well pleased with us. Finally we are to have Christ in our lives.The way to have Christ in our life is faithfully obeying His will. Faith + Obedience = Salvation. Have you obeyed God today? If not, you need to get right with God and serve Him until death.

~Philip

TEAMWORK

Hebrews 11

I remember very well as the clock was about to expire at a ballgame. It was fourth and goal and the team was behind, going in to score what could have been the winning touchdown. The players reported that the coach called time-out, came out and talked to them, asking one player, the biggest guy on the line, "Hey, can you block for one play?" The answer came back, "Yes, for this play I can." And sure enough the ball was snapped, the play was run and the guy missed his block. The tackle was made just short of the goal line and the game ended, the team we were pulling for losing the ballgame.

You know, sometimes,it doesn't matter so much what is going on, but whether we are willing to work together or not. Teamwork is one of those areas in life where we have to be willing to work. Whether we are the quarterback who gives the play, or who says where to line up and tells everyone to listen in the huddle, or whether we are the one who actually gets the ball and is running the play, or whether we are the lineman who needs to block and for some reason doesn't, we all need to learn to work together.

The final outcome is that everybody wins if we work together, but if we fail to work together, the fact is that everybody loses -- the coaches, the players, and everybody in between. The game was lost that night because everyone didn't want to do their part.

What about us? What went wrong with that game, and what goes wrong with us sometimes is that we let our guard down. We don't even attempt to do what we should be doing. As a result we let our team down. Let me encourage you to be a team player. Let me encourage you to help your team win, especially when it comes to our spiritually team.

I believe that Christians should wear the team uniform. We should look like Christians. We should talk like Christians. We should act like Christian team members should act. We should do all those things that God wants us to do, because if we love Him we will keep His commandments. John 14:15 says, "If you love Me you will obey My commandments."

We know that as individuals-- as parts of a team, we all work individually to make up the whole, and as we do our job, however big or small it may seem, then and only then, will we be successful. Oh, with God on our team we already have advantge don't we? But things can be even better you see, if we are willing to work together be on a team for God, and if we are willing to do it His way: To let Him be the leader of our team, to guide our steps. In Galatans 2:20, Paul said, " I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life I know lives in the flesh. I live by faith and the Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me." See, Paul was willing to be a team player. To listen to God and to do His instructions. What about you?

In our scripture reading to day, Hebrews 11, we see what is commonly referred to as the "Roll call of faith" Here are all of these people who by faith took action, who by faith they did God's will. They were warned of things that had not been seen, and prepared an ark like Noah. Or they moved, not knowing where they were moving to, just knowing where they were moving from, like Abraham. The list goes on and on about people who faithfully served God. The question is "Will you faithfully serve God today?" I hope the answer is yes.

~Philip

GOD CHOSE ME

EPHESIANS 2:4-10

There are a lot times in our lives when we can't understand why God can love us. How God can love me. Our young people sing that song, "Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so." Truly the Bible tells us that God loves us and cares for us. Jesus loved us enough to die on the cross for us. But still, we sometimes wonder how God could love us. We look at our bodies and think they are not what we would like for them to be. We realize that we are weak in one particular area. Sometimes we might think about our fingers being stiff, or it might be difficult for us to walk. Sometimes we might not be able to think clearly, and all the rest. But God does love us.

If we wonder how God could love somebody who is not perfect and doesn't have all things together in life, what we realize is, God created us for a purpose -- chose us to be His children.

He loves me even though I have physical problems, even though I might not be perfect physically or spiritually, God loves me anyway. Our Bible reading today comes from a very encouraging text. Let me encourage you to get your Bibles and read that scripture for yourself (Ephesians 2:4-10). Don't take my word, or any other preacher's word for it. Check it out and make sure we are accurate, and if we are then apply them in your life.

Verse 10 of that text says "God has made us what we are. God made us new people so that we can do good works." God has already planned those things for us. God has planned for us to live our lives doing those good things. What a great verse. God created you to do good works and serve God. If you do those things God is well pleased, despite not being physically strong, or whatever the case may be. God knew that I would sin. He knew that I would need salvation, and that is why he sent Jesus to pay the price for my sins.

God's mercy is very great, and God's love is very strong. Wow, it does not matter what our condition might be. Oh,I think we should keep our bodies in good shape, but in the end, that doesnt' really matter so much. What matters is, God loves me, and if I will love Him back, which means that if I'll do what He says, then I will have a place in eternity. God has chosen you to be His child too. I would encourage you to accept His love, to accept His salvation. To faithfully obey His will today.

If you repent of your sins, confess your faith, be baptized for remission of your sins, then live faithfully until death, then you will save your life. God will be pleased and we will spend eternity in heaven together. Won't that be great to spend an eternity there with others we know and with God Himself. I want to go to heaven and I hope you do too.

~Philip

NO RETIREMENT
Psalm 92:1-15

Many people look forward to one day when they will retire from their jobs; maybe their plans are to travel. My wife and I want to buy a motor home and travel, maybe do some sojourning, doing church work, and enjoying retirement as well. Maybe it is that you want to enjoy your hobby, or whatever it is you like to do on the side. Maybe you plan to retire, but when you do, your list of things to do at home is so long that you can't retire for a while.

Whatever the case, there seems to be that goal out in front of us in life that we look for that day.

I've got some news for you. There is no retirement from God. God uses people until the day they die. It doesn't matter if people are physically strong or weak, they can still serve God and do things God wants them to do. Even the weakest of people could pray and be a witness for God. Even through retirement that stretches out through all of those years, we need to be busy working for God. The question is, how can you serve God? You can share your life experiences and wisdom with young people. You can be a teacher and you can encourage young Christians. You can volunteer at a hospital, a nursing home, or school. You can be busy teaching others. You can do great jobs for God.

Don't forget that when we retire, our job is not only with the local church, but it may expand even beyond that. You may find after you retire you can go back to Christian Camp or go somewhere else and do great work that you haven't been able to do for God before.

My encouragement for you today is simply not to leave God out of our plans. Verse 92:14 of our Bible reading says these words: "Even when they are old will continue to produce fruit like young healthy trees." God uses all peope, both young and old. There is no retirement from Christian service. Look for ways that you can serve God, look for ways today that you can be busy working for Him.

~Philip

WARNING!

II Timothy 3:1-13

In God's Word He warns about several things. In fact, He has always taken the time to warn His people about things that were going to happen, or things that were happening to them. He would also give them instructions to prevent things from happening.

God is again warning us today. In today's Bible reading , God wants us to be aware. He warns us that people will do some bad things to Christians. Some people will say,"Well, why? Christians are nice folks." For the most part I think that's true. Christians follow Jesus, and for some reason, people who don't follow Jesus seem to always want to try to tell Christians that people who believe in Jesus are foolish.

People have tried to say that Jesus, Himself, really did not live on earth, or that His plan of salvation is not right, and on and on the list goes. You may even recall that when Jesus lived on earth, the persecution was great even then. After His ascention into Heaven it continued.

Christians today face challenges as well. Our Bible reading today reminds us that there are always going to be people who will try to deceive us about Christ. In fact, the suggestion may be that it gets worse and worse before it gets really good. I don't know; I'm torn here I think, sometimes the situation is worse, but then there are those passages in our Bible that say "Things are the same today as they have always been. There's nothing new under the sun."

I know that as a Christian it gets easier and easier to do what's right -- if we really trust in God. So that really is the warning today. Let me just give you a warning: There are people who will try to deceive you, there are people who will try to lead you away from God. There are these people around you even today who will make it hard for people to do what's right. But, we need to trust in God. I want to give you some ways that we can stay close to God.

Here's number 1. Be aware that some people will try to fool you. Sometimes it's intentional and sometimes it's not intentional, they just simply don't know the truth themselves. That is why we urge you to take your Bible, and see for yourself what God has to say . Don't take the word of some preacher here on televeision or the radio. Instead, check him out. See if what he is saying is so,and if it is, then start applying it in your life. If it is not, I would suggest that you go to that person, and say, "Look, let's open our Bibles together and see what it is that God would have us to do."

The second thing we want to do is keep our minds focused on Christ. If we stay focused it is harder and harder for somebody to lead us down the wrong path.

The third thing I want to give you is to read our Bibles and pray every day. This is what I used to say, but one day one of our teenagers said," Mr. Box, you've got that wrong, We're supposed to read and pray every day and every night." Let me encourage you to pray every day and every night, and also, have fellowship with other Christians.

If you do these things God will help you stand strong for Him and in His truth. Trust in God. We can depend on Him. The question becomes not... Can we trust God, but can God trust us? I hope your answer is yes.

~Philip

God's Strength

Isaiah 40:28-31

There's a really steep hill close to my house, just as I am going back up at the end of my walk, or my bike ride every morning, I'm convinced it is the steepest in Elba. Some days when I walk up, it is really hard to get to the top.

One day as I was walking up the hill one of my neighbors was walking down. We both stopped, and he and I were both out of breath. He said "This hill will make you strong." and I said, " Yeah it will...it'll help anyway." and then we were talking about how to gain physical strength. I started thinking about that song we sing that says, "I am weak, but thou art strong." As we stood on the hill, we were in agreement with the words to that song.

God certainly is strong, and we only have physical strength to get up the hill, and to do a little bit, but even that strength that we have is because God has given it to us. Through many times during our life God has given us just the strength that we need. He has given us the spiritual strength that we need. He gives us the emotional strength that we need. Everything that we need comes from God.

In our Bible reading today, Isaiah 40:28-31, Isaiah says "The Lord helps weak people to be strong. He causes the people without power to become powerful." Verse 31 reminds us again that the poeple who trust the Lord will become strong again. Like eagles that grow new feathers.

I hope that you will trust God today. I hope that you will depend on him to be the one to give you the strength that you need. Your strength can only come from Him. This idea of renewing our strength like an eagle or growing new feathers like an eagle, is the idea that it comes from underneath, from the inside out. And when It grows, it is strong and ready for use. The same is true with our faith, our desire for God. It comes from inside and grows, and when it is grown it is ready for use.

Let's use our faith today to reach somebody who does not know about God. Maybe you could go to somebody today, and say "Hey, do you know about God's word. Let me tell you about it." And maybe a person is at the point where they need to understand that belief is a necessity. They may be at a point in their life where repentance is necessary, or at a time to make that great confession of faith in Jesus Christ. It may be that a person is in the need of being baptized, or maybe a person just needs to be restored.

Whatever the point is in our life, physically or spiritually, we know this: The strength that we need comes from God Himself.

I hope today will be a great day for you, that you will do great things and that you will show strength, and will remember where it comes from. That you will be showing God's strength as well.

I want to take just a second and remind you to come be with us this weekend, especially . We will have a table at "Pumpkins on the Square" and would love to see you there. Beyond that on Sunday, we are having a Ground Breaking for our new building and are excited aout that and would love for everyone to be at our services at 10am, our 1st Sunday Fellowship Meal at 11am, and our Ground Breaking at 12pm.

~Philip

SUN AND SON

Revelation 22:1-5

The words "Sun" and "Son" are spelled differently but they sound alike. Let's look at these words today. The word Sun is the center of our solar system and gives us heat and light. Without the sun the earth would die. If the earth were any closer to the sun we would burn up and if the earth was any further away we would freeze to death. Everything in our solar system depends on the Sun.

Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the light that leads us to salvation. If we are Christians, Jesus should be the center of our lives. Without Jesus we would die spiritually. All people need to depend on Jesus. Revelation 21:23 tells us about a place that God has prepared for His followers. "The city did not need the sun or the moon to shine on it. The glory of God gives the light, the lamb Jesus is the city's light."

Wow! God's son, Jesus will be the sun in Heaven. I hope that Jesus is the center of your life today. If not, faithfully obey His will this day. Become right with God, so that when this life is over we can go to Heaven in the light that gives life to all the world.

Revelation 22:1-5 And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.

WET PANTS

Psalm 61:1-4

Come with me to a third grade classroom....There is a nine-year old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possible imagine how this has happened. It's never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they'll speak to him again as long as he lives...

The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, "Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I'm dead meat."

He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered. As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water...Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy's lap. The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, "Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!'

Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful.

But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else - Susie. She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. "You've done enough, you klutz!"

Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Susie whispers back, "I wet my pants once too..."

May God help us see the opportunities that are always around us to do good....Remember.....just going to church deoesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car...

Each and everyone one of us is going through tough times right now, but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that only He can. Keep the faith.

TANGLES

Psalm 37:1-9

I mentioned to you several times before that I have three children. Brantley is nine, Bryson is six, and Brewer is 8 months old. All of them have some things that go on in the morning time. A couple of them, the boys get up gquickly and they are ready to go. They don't care if their hair is fixed or not, and they are always in a good mood in the monring. They talk, talk, talk, and are busy doing things.

On the other hand, Bryson and I are not morning people. Often she will get up and have tangles all in her hair. She would have so many tangles, especially when she had long hair. She will start working on it, and often will I will go over and help her with it. We do pretty well as long as she is real still, and doesn't really fight it very much. But sometimes, she'll become impatient with the tangles, and the one trying to de-tangle. She will then fight against it, which just hurts her head, then she cries.

I was thinking about our lives. We have a lot of tangles in our lives. We as individuals have all kinds of problems and things that we face and each day we deal with these.

Some days life seems real easy for us. I was just talking to some folks just in the last fwedays about howeasy life seems when you are doing what is right and you don'thave a lot of thing to worry about. I believe it gets easier and easier, but there are those who will tell you otherwise, and say, "It just gets harder and harder. I guess some things get harder, but many aspects of life become easier with time. That is the case with a lot of things, but we still have those areas that tangle us up.

There are writers in the New Testament who write about sin being an entanglement. Perer writes that even if we have been baptized and we have been faithful in our obedience to God, if we are not careful we get entangled therein. It's the idea of just getting mixed up in sin again. We need to be careful, don't we, what we should do is just be patient.

Just like with Bryson, who would be better off to just sit there still, and let me help her brush out those tangles; so we would be if we would sit still and listen to God. We should let God help us to get those problems solved in our lives.

Oh, how often it is we go to the wrong place for help. We go to the exact opposite place of where we need to go for help. We might have a financial problem and go to someone who is as broke as we are. We might have a martial problem, and go to someone who has been through a divorce, for advice. We'll have some other problem in life, and we need to go to the one who has been through it and overcome it, not someone like we are. Of course, uiltimately we need to go to God. God wants to help us. God wants us to go to Him and let Him solve those problems in our life.

Our Bible Reading comes from Psalm 37:1-9. Verse seven says, "Trust the Lord and wait for His help." If you will let God help you today with your problems, your tangles, life will run much smoother. God is someone you can depend on. Trust Him with your life, and He will do somthing that will amaze you.

~Philip

THE GREATEST LOVE

John 15:7-17

In our Bible reading today Jesus talked with His disciples about love. Why? Because Jesus was about to be killed on the cross for them and for all of us, and He wanted His followers to know that important message. I guess if we are scholars of the Bible we realize this is the most important message--the message of love. In verses 12 and 13 of our text, Jesus said this. "This is what I commanded you, love each other like I have loved you. The greatest love a person can show is to die for his friend." His disciples did not understand all He was trying to teach them at the time, but soon Jesus would be dying on the cross of Calvary and they would have a greater understanding of what it meant for someone to die for His friend.

All people of the world would have an understanding of what that kind of love looks like. When Jesus died on the cross He truly showed us that He loved us. Jesus arose from the dead, and showed us that He wanted us to live forever with Him.

Because of that great thing that happened, the Bible calls it the Gospel. In I Corinthians 15:1-4, we see Paul recapping the Gospel. He calls it the "Good News", the same thing he had been teaching. The things that the people in Corinth already knew--that Jesus had died, was buried, and rose again--The Good News of the Gospel, the Good News of the love of Jesus Christ.

Jesus wants His friends to love Him the way that He loved them. In verses 14 and 17 of our text, Jesus said this, "You are my friend if you do the things I tell you to do. This is my commandment, Love each other". Isn't that interesting. He said, you're my friend if you do what I tell you to do, and this is what I'm asking you to do. I'm asking you to love each other.

There are several other commandments in the Bible, and I'm not trying to tell you this is the only commandment that we are to follow. There are many others that we are responsible for as Christians and as individuals before we even become a Christian. But we as followers of Christ must realize this great, and maybe the most important of the commands, or requests, that He gave us, and that is to love each other.

When we obey Him by loving other people, He is pleased with our actions. Look for ways to love other people. Look around you; sometimes there are people who aren't very loveable, people like me. But we know that we need to, and need to spend time loving and caring for the needs of other people.

Sometimes it is hard, and sometimes it is very frustrating. Often we have people who request help, or we see people in our church and our families making the same mistakes over and over again, and we get to the point when we say "Oh, I don't even want to help anymore." But God will look at them and say "I still love them and you should too.

I know the lesson this day helps me, and I know it helps you as well to keep putting God first, caring about others, and loving the way He loved. If we will do that it will make a difference for this world, and for the world to come. In both places things will be better because of you having loved like you should.

Again let me stress, God said "If you love me you will keep my commandments." You can do that by faithful obedience to His will. I hope today, you will make a special effort to do that, and to follow Him every day of your life, by walking by faith and not by sight.

~Philip

TODAY

Psalm 90:12-17

Someone told me on Monday of this week that every new day is a gift from God. When we wake up in the morning, truly it is a great gift from God. God has given us another twenty-four hours to live for Him.

Probably most of us have the same routine that we follow every day. We do some of the same stuff. We eat, we sleep, we work, we spend time with our friends. Whatever it is, we fall into a routine of doing the same stuff over and over again. The things that we do over and over again may seem like we live a boring kind of life, but the truth is God wants us to realize every day is important.

Our scripture reading today comes from Psalm 90:12-17. In verse 12, the Bible says, "Teach us how short our lives really are, so we can become really wise." A wise thing to do is to redeem the time God has blessed us with. We don’t know how long we have to live on earth, so God wants us to use each day in the very best way that we can in His service.

God has given us today, Wednesday to be His people, to be His kind of person as we live our lives. Think about how you can use this day for Him. Draw closer to God through Bible study and prayer. Take some of your time and talents to go out and help other people. Maybe it’s caring for a friend’s need, or a family member, or whoever it may be. Or you may want to go and share the good news of Jesus with someone else. Don’t forget to tell them that it is faithfully obedience that results in salvation. That’s what it takes. We need to hear God’s word and believe. That’s the faith part of the equation. We then need to put it into action with our repentance of sin, our confession of faith, and being baptized. We, of course, need to faithfully continue to obey God as we live our lives each day, trusting him completely as we walk by faith and not by sight.

The question is, what are you, going to do with this day. What are you going to do with the time God has blessed you with? Are you going to use it for Him in His service, or will you just waste the time? You know there are a lot of things in life that we just waste. We see somebody with a plate full of food and then they don’t eat it. Somebody says, "you’re wasting that. There are a lot of hungry people in the world." I guess all of us have said, "Well, you can mail it to the hungry people" or whatever, but there are a lot of areas in our life in which we do the same kind of thing.

We waste a lot of time doing a lot of different things that are not important, that don’t even matter in the scheme of things. We need to be careful how we use our time. Today is the day of salvation, the Bible teaches. Today is the day we need to do it God’s way. Today is the only day that we have. Someone says, "Well, what do you mean by that?" Well, we can’t go back to yesterday, and we are not promised tomorrow. So, that means that today is the day. The question today is, "What are you going to do with it?" I hope you’ll use it in God’s service. Another good way is to join us in our Bible class today. We start at 7pm tonight, this very night. We would love to see you there–come and be with us!

~Philip

SLEEP

Psalm 4:1-8

All people need to sleep. Sleep is a healthy part of a healthy body. When somebody doesn’t sleep, they develop all kinds of physical problems. Someone says, "Yeah, I sleep all the time through the preacher’s sermon." Maybe that’s the time that you can catch a nap. God built us in such a way that we can get some rest.

Genesis, chapter 1, tells us about God creating day and night. Gen. 1:16 tells us about two lights – one is a great light that God made to rule during the day, and a smaller one, the Bible says is to rule during the night. God plans for us to sleep so that our bodies can rest and receive strength.


Sometimes like you, I have trouble sleeping. Sometimes if my wife leaves the TV on, or if I get a book or something, I find myself staying up late, and then sometimes I have trouble getting to sleep at all. Used to I had even more trouble than I do now. I told someone before, that I hadn’t slept since 1989, when I graduated high school. We go through these cycles.


We see ads on TV about sleep aids, but there is something we can do. When we are having trouble sleeping, we can go to the Bible. In Psalms 4:1-8, our bible reading today, David tells us what we can do. I want to specifically give you verse four of that text. " The Lord listens to his good people." The Lord hears me when I pray to Him." Think about these things when you go to bed. Then relax. This is from the easy to read version of the Bible, an interesting version of the Bible to read sometimes, to give the text a simple kind of language today. The idea is, have you talked to God, have you prayed to God? It will help you relax.


If I’m having trouble sleeping, I can pray. I know God wants to help me so that I will not be troubled, and not be afraid; and I won’t get to a point in my life where I am sick even, physically. God helps with those things as well. You can ask God to help you to sleep this night, or any night.

God is with you. He loves you and will never leave you. In the new testament the Bible says, "I leave you peace." It is my own peace that I give you. So I don’t want you to be troubled. And don’t be afraid." (John 25:27). God doesn’t want us to be afraid, He doesn’t want us to be troubled. He doesn’t want us to be sleepless. Instead, He wants us to be able to rest in the promises that He has given us.


I think it carries over into physical sleep. Especially, we know that He wants us to be assured spiritually of eternal rest that can be found in Him. The way we can be assured of finding eternal rest in God is if we faithfully obey His will; That we hear his Word, that we believe it, repent and confess our faith, and be baptized. Then when we have done these things, we continue to live faithfully every day. We spend time in prayer like we have talked about today. We give of our time, talents, and treasures. We teach other people. We study for ourselves. We attend all the services of the church. All of these things lead us to a healthy life spiritually, as well. I hope you will put God first in your life. The way we do that of course, is walking by faith, and not by sight.

~Philip