Yesterday in Rogers, Arkansas, a teenager was taken into custody and questioned after allegedly impersonating an officer. He tried to pull a young girl over and even flashed his fake badge to her. She didn’t buy it and called the police. Good for her! He later claimed he thought she was driving erratically. We’re beginning a new study tonight on what authentic Christianity looks like, and authentic faith in Christ always begins with a new birth.

(By the way, this series is loosely based on Warren Wiersbe’s book The 20 Essential Qualities Of An Authentic Christian.)

WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Tomorrow we kick off our Men’s early morning Bible study at 6:15 a.m. I invite you to come if you have the time and can get out of the bed. It’s a challenging time together, in spite of the donuts and coffee.

This semester, we’re going to be studying from the book Because We Love Him by Clyde Cranford. It’s all about “embracing a life of holiness.” Frankly, it’s one of the single best books I’ve ever read on what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Cranford was a personal disciple-maker and spent untold hours pouring his living beliefs into young Christians.

He died prematurely, but not before making a mark on many believers and leaving behind this great work. I’d encourage you to get a copy (click the photo) and dive in. It’s life-changing.

We’re down to the final study in our Wendesday night journey through the “one another’s” of the New Testament. This one is pretty awesome - we’re to comfort one another. It’s based on 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, a familiar passage to many. It concerns itself with Jesus’ second coming, which forms the basis of our comfort of one another. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Just a quick announcement that I’ll be posting some Bible study notes here on my blog. These will be primarily Wednesday evening message notes which don’t have an audio counterpart over at BibleJourney.org. You can browse the collection as it grows by clicking “Bible Study Notes” in the right column.

I’ve struggled a bit for direction in what to teach in our midweek Bible study. I had wanted to tackle the subject of grace as it relates to living the Christian life. But I also wanted to touch on the subject of joy and how seldom we possess it. I thought also of the subject of the fulness of the Holy Spirit. All seem interrelated and books and materials abound on the subjects. Therefore, I’ve been reading from about six different books on the subject. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

In our midweek Bible study last night, we went through a supplementary study on creation and evolution. There were many things I wished I’d had time to cover in the Sunday messages but simply couldn’t. In preparing, I studied areas of science that fascinate me. I wanted to have some basic knowledge on everything from the fossil record to quantum physics (like I said, fascinating!). I was so blessed by the exchange. People asked questions, gave their thoughts, and generally expressed their faith in Scripture as God’s perfect Word.

At the end of the night, I decided to close discussion on the issue. This Sunday, we’ll be moving on to the more personal nature of Genesis, chapter two. I couldn’t help but to add this one thought, however, after reading Job 38. The creation-evolution debate is much like the theological battle that took place between Job and his friends. They reason with one another about the nature of God and God’s world. Then God finally speaks.

What does He say? To summarize the chapter, it is “Were you there when I created the worlds? Then how do you think you know anything?” He goes on to illustrate His majestic and dynamic creative power. Can you make the sun rise? Have you ever seen the center of the earth? Can you make an intricate snowflake? Can you make rain or suspend clouds of water over the earth? Good questions! We can study, we can observe, and I believe we ought to explore the amazing world God created around us. Science is good, until it goes to our heads.

God ultimately settles the argument. We might say in modern vernacular, the buck stops with Him! God, the Creator and only eyewitness of creation, knows exactly what happened in the origin of all things. So at the end of our quantum theories, evolutionary theories, and Big Bang theories, all of which are questioned and debated regularly by men more skilled than I, God sits above the circle of the earth, stretching out the universe like a curtain and calling out, “Seek me and find me with your whole heart!” The debate ultimately ends with worship!

This past Sunday was perhaps the most awesome day of ministry I’ve ever experienced. Like the old gospel song says, “Heaven came down and glory filled my soul.” It wasn’t great planning, great music, or great preaching that made the day great, it was our great God visiting us in a powerful way in response to a whole lot of concerted, passionate praying.

Last Wednesday, our prayer service, which normally consists of calling out some requests, a short pastoral prayer, and a long Bible study, turned into an extended session of a concert of praise. Multiple people were praying out loud for their lost friends and family and giving praise to God for His working in their lives. At the conclusion of our payer, I almost felt that teaching would be an interruption in what God was really doing, and perhaps it was.

Sunday began with an intense prayer circle, seven men gathered together a half hour before Sunday School. We prayed over our time and it was well worth it. Together we asked great things of God. Sunday School itself was right on target as we learned about “serving God with holiness.”

Then the worship hour came and we sang songs to honor the King with a particular emphasis on the Holy Spirit’s role in our lives. The message was all about the power of the Holy Spirit. I left out two illustrations that I later realized would have been detrimental to the point of the message. I felt an anointing more powerful than ever in my ministry. I had boldness to say things without regard to the approval of people.

The invitation came and God did an awesome work. The altar filled with people praying and weeping for the fullness of the Spirit, praying for lost loved ones and other needs. A young man and a young lady received Christ as Savior. The invitation went through three movements as things kept happening. Joy Ewalt, for whom we have been praying for healing from cancer came and testified that God had completely healed her from brain cancer. Tests show that her head is now clear and she gave all the glory to God and the credit to prayer.

We left later than ever before and people continued to attest to God’s working in their lives in a very powerful way. I left church feeling so small, so undeserving, and so grateful that God would allow me to experience such an event.

Sunday afternoon our Deacons gathered for a time of training and we exchanged testimonies of the godly men who have inspired us in the past. I recalled my grandfather’s strong convictions as a Deacon for over a half century of time and the other stalwart men who influenced me throughout my childhood. In the evening service I preached about “The Sanctity of the Womb” where God has performed some great miracles in the lives of John the Baptist, Jeremiah, Paul, and others.

We had prayer for young girls facing this difficult decision to choose life, for women who have had abortions to find the freeing forgiveness of God, and for America to turn a corner on the abortion issue and repent before God. We also had prayer for some couples currently struggling with infertility and for Loving Choices, a local pregnancy support center. We’re also currently praying for healing in the life of one of our Deacons, Nick Gann.

One thing I am continually remembering is that we cannot dwell on these now past events in the “remember that day…” sense. Instead we must look forward to the awesome things God can do every time we meet. There is no reason why each worship experience cannot grow in intensity so long as our hunger for God, our commitment to holiness, and the passion of our prayer grows as well.

May God continue to visit us in special ways in our individual lives and every time we meet together, and may He continue to raise up Spirit-filled, Bible-drilled, prayer-skilled warriors for Christ’s Kingdom!

The other day, Angie and I happened to tune in to one of America’s most popular preachers. I’m usually careful not to jump to judgment when it comes to another man’s message. I know the pressure placed on pastors to invent and deliver the perfect message, but I could not help but become a little upset about the blatant misuse of Scripture.

The speaker quoted Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.” In context, this verse refers to the spiritual ignorance of people who assume they can worship God and other gods at the same time with no contradiction. This preacher, however, applied the verse to eating healthier. His explanation was that because we are ignorant of the content of food today, we are physically being destroyed. His more specific application had something to do with cold cuts, hot dogs, and other processed meats.

Granted, I need to eat healthier, but is it okay to take verses and apply them in the way they sound rather than in the way they were intended? It reminded me of the old saying that “a text without a context is a pretext.” I have no problem with preaching a fresh and relevant Bible-based message about eating healthy, but there are much better texts to be used.

Another popular preacher chooses verses from translations to make applications not according to the literal meaning of the verse, but according to which translation makes his point best. I promise, I try not to be picky. I can get along with preachers from a variety of perspectives, but I’m offended when God’s book becomes our little box from which we draw a word of encouragement for each day. When we handle Scripture in this way, we miss the truth of it.

Great men have endured great persecution to defend a literal, historical-grammatical interpretive approach to Scriptures. That is, we ought to interpret Scriptures according to the historical context and the grammatical meaning rather than simply the context of our modern felt need. Paul admonished young Timothy to be very careful to “rightly divide the word of truth.”

As a surgeon with a delicate procedure, so preachers must approach every sermon as though eternal life depended on it for some lost soul. It is a grave offense to utilize Scripture in a haphazard way. We must handle the word of life carefully. God wants to speak to us today through His word, which is always fresh and always relevant, but we need not help Him out in the task of making it more relevant than it already is.

Let me share with you some personal fears of mine, rational or otherwise. I have a fear of wasps. After doing a little yard work, it seems that Northwest Arkansas (or at least Bethel’s property) is infested with the big red angry ones. My Dad once told me “If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.” Yeah right, Dad…

I’m also afraid of embarrassing myself in a softball game. Though I’ve proven to be mediocre at best, at least I did not do any belly-flops-while-rounding-the-bases this past Tuesday night. Another fear for me is oversleeping and missing something important at church… like church! If you haven’t heard already, I arrived at our Tuesday morning Men’s Bible study 25 minutes late after a sunrise panic attack when my alarm clock did not go off. We all have to face most of our fears sometimes. Now let me share a wonderful word with you…

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” -1 John 4:18

In context, John is describing the wonderful effect of God’s love upon us as we face the inevitability of standing before God someday. His point is that God’s love frees us from the fear of God’s judgment. God’s powerful love throws, with intense violence, our fear to the side and allows us to live in boldness.

When you are afraid, whether it be of wasps or witnessing, rest in the love of God for you. If you’ve received Jesus Christ as Savior, God’s wrath toward your sin was abated when Jesus died on the cross. You are forgiven! The truth of His love sets us free.

If you’ve never been saved, then you need to fear God, to fear death, and to view eternity with trepidation. Thankfully, God offers freedom from fear to all who will place their full trust in Jesus alone as Savior. You need only to turn to Jesus and ask Him to save you once and for all to have your ultimate fear eternally laid to rest.