Remission is still a good word, no...it’s a great word. Becky is still in remission, we saw her doctor in Denver and she said that Becky was to continue her treatments twice a week, so we continue on. And we saw my doctor on the Tuesday before we left and everything is looking good there also. So….PRAISE THE LORD!!
Did you know that next week is Senior Adult Sunday? Well it is, and our senior adults will be involved in our service and it will be a very special service. But I have a favor to ask of you, we will be honoring our senior adults next week with a potluck dinner after church. Now I don’t know if you know it or not but they bring a lot of food when we have fellowship meals, so for next week can we who are not senior adults bring lots of food so they don’t have to? They may wish to bring a dish but they should not have to bring as much as they do most of the time. So can you help me honor our senior adults next week? Let’s all show up in force and stay and eat lunch, our senior adults are worth it, they are the ones who have kept things going for many years and we can take time to honor them. So one more time...be here next week, bring lots of food, stay and eat, honor our senior adults, and, and tell them how much you love and appreciate them. Next Sunday, Senior Adult Sunday!! Be here!!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
PASTOR'S PEN 4-11-10
This the last week of our Annie Armstrong Easter Offering which is used to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ in North America, that means right here where we are. So far we have not reached our goal, but we are getting close. Our goal is $700 and so far we have brought in $616. Every penny given to this is used for missionaries in North America; all we need to reach our goal is $84 more.
Well what did you think about last Sunday? We started off with the Sunrise Service and then we baptized two, had a great service, and ended it with communion and an Easter Egg Hunt. After church Amy, Zach, Zoe, Becky and I went to Amarillo to spend some time with Jody, Sarah and the girls. We watched the girls hunt eggs together and then went to church with them as they were having Resurrection Week. We had a great time with them and at church, and got home way, way, way late, but it was worth it.
Have you received your census yet? I don’t mean to sound political, but does this seem like a big waste of money to you? First we receive a letter telling us that the census will be mailed soon, this cost money for postage, paper and envelopes, plus someone to write the letters, copy them and send them. And then we get the census in the mail, and then we get a second census in the mail and I’m told that we will be getting a third. Does this sound like overkill? Now I’m finding out that census workers are being told to slow down, stall, waste time and stretch out their work unnecessarily, they are being told that in order to make unemployment look better they need to be slower. They are being sent to soup kitchens, parks and shelters to count people, not talk to them, just observe their race, sex and approximate age, 2 or 3 times. It just seems to me like a lot of wasted money at a time when our government is out of money, but what do I know? The census is also being used in ways that it wasn’t meant for but the information that it asks for is just about the same as was asked for in the Madison administration, how it’s used though is another matter. But, I have filled out our first census, thrown the second in the trash as I will the third. My beef isn’t with the census, but the waste and misuse. Isn’t this why Jesus was born in Bethlehem, because of a census?
Well what did you think about last Sunday? We started off with the Sunrise Service and then we baptized two, had a great service, and ended it with communion and an Easter Egg Hunt. After church Amy, Zach, Zoe, Becky and I went to Amarillo to spend some time with Jody, Sarah and the girls. We watched the girls hunt eggs together and then went to church with them as they were having Resurrection Week. We had a great time with them and at church, and got home way, way, way late, but it was worth it.
Have you received your census yet? I don’t mean to sound political, but does this seem like a big waste of money to you? First we receive a letter telling us that the census will be mailed soon, this cost money for postage, paper and envelopes, plus someone to write the letters, copy them and send them. And then we get the census in the mail, and then we get a second census in the mail and I’m told that we will be getting a third. Does this sound like overkill? Now I’m finding out that census workers are being told to slow down, stall, waste time and stretch out their work unnecessarily, they are being told that in order to make unemployment look better they need to be slower. They are being sent to soup kitchens, parks and shelters to count people, not talk to them, just observe their race, sex and approximate age, 2 or 3 times. It just seems to me like a lot of wasted money at a time when our government is out of money, but what do I know? The census is also being used in ways that it wasn’t meant for but the information that it asks for is just about the same as was asked for in the Madison administration, how it’s used though is another matter. But, I have filled out our first census, thrown the second in the trash as I will the third. My beef isn’t with the census, but the waste and misuse. Isn’t this why Jesus was born in Bethlehem, because of a census?
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
PASTOR'S PEN, 3-28-2010
Happy Palm Sunday Everyone! Is this an appropriate greeting on such a day? This is a day when Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem among shouts of acclamation, much as a king would, and He was heir to the throne of King David, but then again so were a lot of other people. He was a very popular man, feeding thousands, healing the sick, raising the dead, doing miracle after miracle, gaining in popularity. When he topped the hill over looking the city He wept for the city, not for the bricks and streets, for he knew that in forty years the temple would be destroyed, but He wept for the people He loved because He knew they would betray Him and reject their one true Messiah. Their only hope for salvation was and is Jesus Christ, but they couldn’t see it; they wanted a warrior-politically savvy king who would led them out from under the Romans, although they never realized that every time they were given their freedom they stopped serving God and then fell back into bondage. It was a vicious circle, freedom - turn from God - bondage - cry for mercy - prayer heard and answered - freedom given back by God - turn from God……. Do you ever find yourself falling into this trap? The Jewish people could not stay out of it because they let other gods; other things come between them and God. Have we as a nation fallen into this trap? We are the land of the free and the home of the brave except now we have lost more of our freedom to politically savvy politicians. This isn’t the first freedom we have lost, we have been losing them for a while and we have accepted them, now we have lost in a big way. I don’t mean to get political but I have to wonder if we are ready to cry out to God for mercy for our nation, if we as a nation are ready to turn back to Him yet and I don’t think so. Too many people believe that they are still as free as their parents and grandparents, but with 1,600 more I.R.S. agents coming on board to watch you and me, I don’t think so. It’s time that we as a church, city, county, state and nation began to fall on our faces before the one and only true living God and cry out to Him. But then maybe these things are happening to bring us to that point.
On a brighter note...Next Sunday is Easter...Who will you bring to church? If you begin asking today, you will be surprised how many will come with you. Try it and see.
On a brighter note...Next Sunday is Easter...Who will you bring to church? If you begin asking today, you will be surprised how many will come with you. Try it and see.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Pastors Pen 3-21-10
Wow, Thank You to everyone who helped with the Vietnam Veterans Run Sunday evening and Monday morning, we had a great turn out and served about 100 bikers. If you missed it you missed out on a blessing. We had adults and youth working to feed and bless the riders, and as always they could not say thank you enough and neither can I. One of the riders, Myron Peterson, the president of the Chapter 404 of the Vietnam Veterans of America in Borger wrote us a note. He said, “Thank you all for your unselfish service. I’ve been enjoying your hospitality here in Childress since 2005. May God bless you all richly. Thanks Again, Myron.” He is just one of many who told us thank you. And I want to add my thank you to theirs, Thank You everyone for the way you step up, Morris and Carolyn, the food was great as usual, Ladies the pancakes were awesome and the fact that you were here at 5:30 am and cooking by 6:00 am made it work. Thank you to everyone who moved chairs one way or the other, set tables up or put them up, cooked food or served food, vacuumed the floor or picked something up off of it, greeted a biker, shook a hand or hugged a neck, without you Carey Baptist Church could not and would not show the love of Christ the way we do, you will never know what this means to me as your pastor. You make my heart swell up and my eyes fill with tears, you truly are the best. I love you and God loves you even more.
On a different note; Have you checked out the new web-site for the church? Its www.carey1stbaptist.com and it looks great, there is a page for all kinds of things, like Kidzone, reFuge, staff, photos, our ministries, the church calendar and for prayer. This is the page that I want to talk to you about. On the prayer page you can request prayer for someone; you just add in the info and send. It lets me know when a new name is added, when you write in the comments section, let me know if you want this name added to our church prayer bulletin or the web-site prayer page. Also I need to get anyone’s e-mail address or phone number who wants to get an update on these prayer requests. With this it will send you an e-mail or a text on you phone. So if you want to be added, please let me know.
On a different note; Have you checked out the new web-site for the church? Its www.carey1stbaptist.com and it looks great, there is a page for all kinds of things, like Kidzone, reFuge, staff, photos, our ministries, the church calendar and for prayer. This is the page that I want to talk to you about. On the prayer page you can request prayer for someone; you just add in the info and send. It lets me know when a new name is added, when you write in the comments section, let me know if you want this name added to our church prayer bulletin or the web-site prayer page. Also I need to get anyone’s e-mail address or phone number who wants to get an update on these prayer requests. With this it will send you an e-mail or a text on you phone. So if you want to be added, please let me know.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
THE SOLID MARRIAGE, pt. 1
It was fun being a baby boomer...till now. Some of the artists of the '60s are revising their hits with new lyrics to accommodate aging baby boomers. They include:
Herman's Hermits - Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Walker
The Bee Gees - How Can You Mend a Broken Hip
Bobby Darin - Splish, Splash, I Was Havin' a Flash
Ringo Starr - I Get By With a Little Help from Depends
Roberta Flack - The First Time Ever I Forgot Your Face
Johnny Nash - I Can't See Clearly Now
Paul Simon - Fifty Ways to Lose Your Liver
Commodores - Once, Twice, Three Times to the Bathroom
Marvin Gaye - I Heard it Through the GrapeNuts
Procol Harem - A Whiter Shade of Hair
Leo Sayer - You Make Me Feel Like Napping
The Temptations - Papa's Got a Kidney Stone
Abba - Denture Queen
Tony Orlando - Knock 3 Times on the Ceiling if you Hear Me Fall
Helen Reddy - I am Woman, Hear me Snore
Willie Nelson - On the Throne Again
“IF I HAVE NOT LOVE ...”
Now, I know that the origins of Valentine's Day may have a pagan feel since it was established in Rome centuries ago, but the main emphasis of Valentine's Day today is filled with expressions of love and appreciation. And we all know what today is…, many people throughout the world celebrate this day with flowers, candy and cards with meaningful messages. Many of you were here last night for our Annual Sweetheart Banquet. Poems will be read and new commitments made to one another. Valentine's Day is a wonderful thing.
Remember the old 1965 song by Jackie DeShannon:
"What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of ...No not just for some, but for everyone."
The song went on to say, we don't need any more mountains or meadows, but lots more love. Makes sense to me.
The Apostle Paul had a similar idea when he wrote to the Corinthians that I can possess all the characteristics of a Christian, "but have not love, I am nothing" (1 Cor. 13:2). In 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Paul wrote about what love is;
1 Corinthians 13:4-8. Read this out loud with me, let’s all stand.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. (Don’t look at your wife). Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always perseveres. LOVE NEVER FAILS.”
Stay on your feet because I want us to read this again, only this time we are going to do something a bit different. We are to be the love of Christ to a lost world, we are to love our spouse, and we are to be love! But do we practice love? We are going to read this again, but this time we are going to put our own name in the place of love, ready? Everyplace there is a blank add your name, are you ready, now this mat get a little confusing but concentrate.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
“______ is patient, ______ is kind. ______ does not envy, ______ does not boast, ______ is not proud. ______ is not rude, ______ is not self-seeking, ______ is not easily angered, ______ keeps no record of wrongs. ______ does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ______ always protects, ______ always perseveres.
LOVE NEVER FAILS.”
You may sit down.
We have seen it, we have read it out loud, but, do we truly live the message of 1 Corinthians 13? Are we truly love? Do we live it?
John wrote about this topic in his first epistle. "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth" (1 John 3:18). And, again in chapter 4:20, 21: "If anyone says 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar ... Whoever loves God must also love his brother." It would seem to me that the church has a whole lot of self-examination to do, some valentines to send, some more love to pass around.
Note: The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year world-wide. Yet, in spite of all those that are exchanged, the valentines that really matter are the ones we receive and give where love is unconditional, that say, "No matter what ... I love you!"
"... but the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:13).
1 Corinthians 14:1 says, “Follow the way of LOVE”.
BUT WHAT IS LOVE?
We all want a marriage that lasts, before we get married we are giddy with love, everything is good and everything is right and this is the marriage that will last through eternity. Then we get married and 6 months down the road this is not the person I married. But how many of you realize that you are not the person they married either? We need to know what real love is.
1 John 2:4-6; “The man who says, “I know Him,” but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys His word, GOD’S LOVE is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.”
Before we decide if we love someone, if we want to marry them, we need to watch and see if they love God, their life will show it, they should be bearing fruit, we should be seeing fruit.
1 John 3:11 says, “This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another”.
There must be love in that person, real, true love.
2 John 6, “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to His commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”
John 3:16
Jack Kelly is the foreign affairs editor for USA Today and has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He tells the story of a boy’s sacrificial love:
We were in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, in East Africa, during a famine. It was so bad we walked into one village and everyone was dead. There is a stench of death that gets into your hair, gets onto your skin, gets onto your clothes, and you can’t wash it off.
We saw this little boy. You could tell he had worms and was malnourished; his stomach was protruding. When a child is extremely malnourished, the hair turns a reddish color, and the skin becomes crinkled as though he’s one hundred years old.
Our photographer had a grapefruit, which he gave to the boy. The boy was so weak he didn’t have the strength to hold the grapefruit, so we cut it in half and gave it to him. He picked it up, looked at us as if to say thanks, and began to walk back towards his village.
We walked behind him in a way that he couldn’t see us. When he entered the village, there on the ground was a little boy who I thought was dead. His eyes were completely glazed over. It turned out that this was his younger brother. The older brother kneeled down next to his younger brother, bit off a piece of the grapefruit, and chewed it. Then he opened up his younger brother’s mouth, put the grapefruit in, and worked his brother’s up and down. We learned that the older brother had been doing that for the younger brother for two weeks.
A couple of days later the older brother died of malnutrition and the younger brother lived. I remember driving home that night thinking, “I wonder if this is what Jesus meant when he said, and “There is no greater love than to lay down our life for somebody else.”
Herman's Hermits - Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Walker
The Bee Gees - How Can You Mend a Broken Hip
Bobby Darin - Splish, Splash, I Was Havin' a Flash
Ringo Starr - I Get By With a Little Help from Depends
Roberta Flack - The First Time Ever I Forgot Your Face
Johnny Nash - I Can't See Clearly Now
Paul Simon - Fifty Ways to Lose Your Liver
Commodores - Once, Twice, Three Times to the Bathroom
Marvin Gaye - I Heard it Through the GrapeNuts
Procol Harem - A Whiter Shade of Hair
Leo Sayer - You Make Me Feel Like Napping
The Temptations - Papa's Got a Kidney Stone
Abba - Denture Queen
Tony Orlando - Knock 3 Times on the Ceiling if you Hear Me Fall
Helen Reddy - I am Woman, Hear me Snore
Willie Nelson - On the Throne Again
Leslie Gore - It's My Procedure and I'll Cry if I Want To
“THE SOLID MARRIAGE”
I want to begin talking about marriage this morning, and what I am using this morning is based on personal study and 31 years of marriage. I will be the first to tell you that I am not an expert on marriage, if you don’t believe me you can ask my wife, and I also know that there are those in this church who have been married longer that we have, but… I am the one preaching. Maybe, just maybe during this series we will get to hear from some of the others in our church who have been married for a while and hear what they have learned about marriage.
Now you may think that this sermon series is only for people who are married, or for couples who haven’t been married long enough to figure out whose boss. But I believe that it is for everyone who is married, has been married or may get married in the future. Many people have ended up divorced or in a miserable marriage because they did not learn what I will be sharing. Much of what I will be sharing is good for every person to learn, married or single.
“THE SOLID MARRIAGE”
I want to begin talking about marriage this morning, and what I am using this morning is based on personal study and 31 years of marriage. I will be the first to tell you that I am not an expert on marriage, if you don’t believe me you can ask my wife, and I also know that there are those in this church who have been married longer that we have, but… I am the one preaching. Maybe, just maybe during this series we will get to hear from some of the others in our church who have been married for a while and hear what they have learned about marriage.
Now you may think that this sermon series is only for people who are married, or for couples who haven’t been married long enough to figure out whose boss. But I believe that it is for everyone who is married, has been married or may get married in the future. Many people have ended up divorced or in a miserable marriage because they did not learn what I will be sharing. Much of what I will be sharing is good for every person to learn, married or single.
“IF I HAVE NOT LOVE ...”
Now, I know that the origins of Valentine's Day may have a pagan feel since it was established in Rome centuries ago, but the main emphasis of Valentine's Day today is filled with expressions of love and appreciation. And we all know what today is…, many people throughout the world celebrate this day with flowers, candy and cards with meaningful messages. Many of you were here last night for our Annual Sweetheart Banquet. Poems will be read and new commitments made to one another. Valentine's Day is a wonderful thing.
Remember the old 1965 song by Jackie DeShannon:
"What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of ...No not just for some, but for everyone."
The song went on to say, we don't need any more mountains or meadows, but lots more love. Makes sense to me.
The Apostle Paul had a similar idea when he wrote to the Corinthians that I can possess all the characteristics of a Christian, "but have not love, I am nothing" (1 Cor. 13:2). In 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Paul wrote about what love is;
1 Corinthians 13:4-8. Read this out loud with me, let’s all stand.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. (Don’t look at your wife). Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always perseveres. LOVE NEVER FAILS.”
Stay on your feet because I want us to read this again, only this time we are going to do something a bit different. We are to be the love of Christ to a lost world, we are to love our spouse, and we are to be love! But do we practice love? We are going to read this again, but this time we are going to put our own name in the place of love, ready? Everyplace there is a blank add your name, are you ready, now this mat get a little confusing but concentrate.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
“______ is patient, ______ is kind. ______ does not envy, ______ does not boast, ______ is not proud. ______ is not rude, ______ is not self-seeking, ______ is not easily angered, ______ keeps no record of wrongs. ______ does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ______ always protects, ______ always perseveres.
LOVE NEVER FAILS.”
You may sit down.
We have seen it, we have read it out loud, but, do we truly live the message of 1 Corinthians 13? Are we truly love? Do we live it?
John wrote about this topic in his first epistle. "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth" (1 John 3:18). And, again in chapter 4:20, 21: "If anyone says 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar ... Whoever loves God must also love his brother." It would seem to me that the church has a whole lot of self-examination to do, some valentines to send, some more love to pass around.
Note: The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year world-wide. Yet, in spite of all those that are exchanged, the valentines that really matter are the ones we receive and give where love is unconditional, that say, "No matter what ... I love you!"
"... but the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:13).
1 Corinthians 14:1 says, “Follow the way of LOVE”.
BUT WHAT IS LOVE?
We all want a marriage that lasts, before we get married we are giddy with love, everything is good and everything is right and this is the marriage that will last through eternity. Then we get married and 6 months down the road this is not the person I married. But how many of you realize that you are not the person they married either? We need to know what real love is.
1 John 2:4-6; “The man who says, “I know Him,” but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys His word, GOD’S LOVE is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.”
Before we decide if we love someone, if we want to marry them, we need to watch and see if they love God, their life will show it, they should be bearing fruit, we should be seeing fruit.
1 John 3:11 says, “This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another”.
There must be love in that person, real, true love.
2 John 6, “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to His commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”
John 3:16
Jack Kelly is the foreign affairs editor for USA Today and has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He tells the story of a boy’s sacrificial love:
We were in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, in East Africa, during a famine. It was so bad we walked into one village and everyone was dead. There is a stench of death that gets into your hair, gets onto your skin, gets onto your clothes, and you can’t wash it off.
We saw this little boy. You could tell he had worms and was malnourished; his stomach was protruding. When a child is extremely malnourished, the hair turns a reddish color, and the skin becomes crinkled as though he’s one hundred years old.
Our photographer had a grapefruit, which he gave to the boy. The boy was so weak he didn’t have the strength to hold the grapefruit, so we cut it in half and gave it to him. He picked it up, looked at us as if to say thanks, and began to walk back towards his village.
We walked behind him in a way that he couldn’t see us. When he entered the village, there on the ground was a little boy who I thought was dead. His eyes were completely glazed over. It turned out that this was his younger brother. The older brother kneeled down next to his younger brother, bit off a piece of the grapefruit, and chewed it. Then he opened up his younger brother’s mouth, put the grapefruit in, and worked his brother’s up and down. We learned that the older brother had been doing that for the younger brother for two weeks.
A couple of days later the older brother died of malnutrition and the younger brother lived. I remember driving home that night thinking, “I wonder if this is what Jesus meant when he said, and “There is no greater love than to lay down our life for somebody else.”
BLESSED
Can I tell you how proud I am of you? I am. I am extremely proud of you. We had our annual youth dessert auction last week, and by the way, if you missed it, you missed a good one, and we raised over $2000 for the youth, wow, thank you. Also if you saw the financial report for this last month you saw that for the first time since I have been here we went in the red in our account. We were steadily taking in less than we were spending every month last year, and then January came along and giving was down, we had a 5 Sunday month but we had an ice storm and only had income for 4 Sundays. So January we spent over $2200 more than we brought in and ended up $59.45 in the red. I have never seen a negative balance in our checking account, but now I have. And then last Sunday you gave, and as you can see from the report on the back of this bulletin, our offering last week was over $6200, WOW!!! But don’t quit on us now, this isn’t enough to carry us for the entire month, let’s keep on giving with a cheerful heart as it says in 2 Corinthians 9:7 “Each one must give as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (ESV)
Something else I want to brag on you about, it seems that our numbers are up some in worship, Bible study is still floating around 50, but it seems that some are coming in for church. Did you know that 82% of the people you invite to church come? 82% are pretty good odds, that means that 82 out of every 100 will come if they are asked. Did you also know that when someone is invited it makes them feel wanted? And everyone wants to feel wanted, so keep on inviting and bringing and we will keep on loving those who come.
I want you to consider something; I need some people to volunteer to visit our visitors. When we have people come and visit us for the first time we need someone to go and visit them. All you need to do is go and tell them that we enjoyed having them with us. Very simple and easy visit, takes about 5 minutes but it means so much to our visitors. Did you know that we are losing visitors because our people do not go to see them? Sad but true! Will you help?
Something else I want to brag on you about, it seems that our numbers are up some in worship, Bible study is still floating around 50, but it seems that some are coming in for church. Did you know that 82% of the people you invite to church come? 82% are pretty good odds, that means that 82 out of every 100 will come if they are asked. Did you also know that when someone is invited it makes them feel wanted? And everyone wants to feel wanted, so keep on inviting and bringing and we will keep on loving those who come.
I want you to consider something; I need some people to volunteer to visit our visitors. When we have people come and visit us for the first time we need someone to go and visit them. All you need to do is go and tell them that we enjoyed having them with us. Very simple and easy visit, takes about 5 minutes but it means so much to our visitors. Did you know that we are losing visitors because our people do not go to see them? Sad but true! Will you help?
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
BLESSING OR CURSE?
What is the responsibility of a church member?
We all know that the church has certain responsibilities to her members, like praying for you, providing spiritual leadership and guidance, biblical teaching and preaching, fellowship, friendship and love. But what are the responsibilities of the members of the church? Well Sunday morning Bible Study and Worship Attendance, a Public Testimony, to be involved in the ministries of the church and giving. Why do we give our time and money to the church? It is real easy to say, “This is my money, I worked for it and I will keep it.” Robert Morris said in his book, The Blessed Life, “There are over 500 verses in the Bible concerning prayer; nearly 500 verses concerning faith; but more than 2,000 verses on the subject of money and possessions.
Jesus talked about money in 16 of his 38 parables. Clearly, from the Bible’s standpoint, we need to understand money and how to handle it. Why? Because money is actually a test from God.
How you handle money reveals volumes about your priorities, loyalties and affections. In fact, it directly dictates many of the blessings you will (or won’t) experience in life.”
Did you know that the Bible says that we are not to test God, except when it comes to money. God tells us to give our tithes (10% of our income) and offering to the church. He says that if we will, we’ll be blessed, and if not we won’t be. God says in Malachi 3:10, “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do," says the LORD Almighty, "I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in! Try it! Let me prove it to you!” (NLT) There it is, a challenge from God Himself! He’s not only saying, “I dare you.” He’s saying “I triple dog dare you, go ahead and do it and see if I am not a God of my word.” Did you know that God takes pleasure in blessing you? Let me ask you a question, if you are a giver and you miss a week, say we have an ice storm and don’t have church, or you are gone or sick; do you still give for that week or do you feel like it’s yours to keep? If we do not give all of the tithe to God, He says that we are robbing Him in Malachi 3:8-9, He also says that because of this we are under a curse. Now let me think, Blessing or Curse, I choose Blessing, how about you?
We all know that the church has certain responsibilities to her members, like praying for you, providing spiritual leadership and guidance, biblical teaching and preaching, fellowship, friendship and love. But what are the responsibilities of the members of the church? Well Sunday morning Bible Study and Worship Attendance, a Public Testimony, to be involved in the ministries of the church and giving. Why do we give our time and money to the church? It is real easy to say, “This is my money, I worked for it and I will keep it.” Robert Morris said in his book, The Blessed Life, “There are over 500 verses in the Bible concerning prayer; nearly 500 verses concerning faith; but more than 2,000 verses on the subject of money and possessions.
Jesus talked about money in 16 of his 38 parables. Clearly, from the Bible’s standpoint, we need to understand money and how to handle it. Why? Because money is actually a test from God.
How you handle money reveals volumes about your priorities, loyalties and affections. In fact, it directly dictates many of the blessings you will (or won’t) experience in life.”
Did you know that the Bible says that we are not to test God, except when it comes to money. God tells us to give our tithes (10% of our income) and offering to the church. He says that if we will, we’ll be blessed, and if not we won’t be. God says in Malachi 3:10, “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do," says the LORD Almighty, "I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in! Try it! Let me prove it to you!” (NLT) There it is, a challenge from God Himself! He’s not only saying, “I dare you.” He’s saying “I triple dog dare you, go ahead and do it and see if I am not a God of my word.” Did you know that God takes pleasure in blessing you? Let me ask you a question, if you are a giver and you miss a week, say we have an ice storm and don’t have church, or you are gone or sick; do you still give for that week or do you feel like it’s yours to keep? If we do not give all of the tithe to God, He says that we are robbing Him in Malachi 3:8-9, He also says that because of this we are under a curse. Now let me think, Blessing or Curse, I choose Blessing, how about you?
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