Who did Jesus eat with?

I was combing through notes in the back of my Bible and came across these from  a recent Sunday evening sermon by Jake Grogan.  I thought these straightforward points have a lot of bearing on our everyday lives and are worth thinking on again. Jesus ate with SINNERS (Luke 15). Jesus ate with SNOBS (Luke [...]

Hearing for the First Time

This is the reaction of a 28 year old deaf lady hearing for the first time.   Watch and then meditate on what it must have been like when Jesus healed people. Mark 7:37  And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the [...]

A Word of Grace from a Dead Baptist Preacher

“I have always felt, in my own mind, that it was one of the clearest proofs that I had God’s forgiveness of my many sins, when I was trusted to preach the gospel. I should think that, if a prodigal came back to his father, the old gentleman would kiss him, and receive him, and [...]

A God Who Delights to Make Wrong Things Right

“We serve a God who delights to make wrong things right.”  The words from Dr. Dan Davey’s message have been ringing in my ears this week.  They rang in my ears as I stood with the Emr family and prayed that God would heal little infant, Vera.  I heard them again as I prayed for the Stolvoort family as they hope [...]

Par is Not Perfection: Born to LIVE as well as Die

At the Christmas season we often hear the phrase “Born to Die.”  While this is certainly an accurate statement there are other glorious gospel truths that complete the story.  Christ was also born to live for us. Let’s consider three gospel thoughts  (original by Dave Harvey):  par is not perfection, perfection for us, and the [...]

Cool Picture

I took this picture on a hilltop in Israel about 2 miles from Nazareth.  The town is down to the right out of the picture.  The valley to the left is where Gideon defeated the Midianites.  The hill we were on is where people tried to hurl Him from because He taught He was God.  This [...]

A Confident Prayer

One thing that we know about prayer is that when we pray according to God’s will, we will receive that petition. And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:  And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, [...]

“Freely Eat”

“It’s a free country!” In our sarcastic society, we’re used to hearing that phrase when someone wants to excuse their obnoxious or inappropriate behavior. “Don’t run in the kitchen!” But it’s a free country. “Don’t spit your gum out on the sidewalk!” Free country. Of course, we all know that real freedom exists within sensible [...]

A God I Don’t Get

I’m glad I serve a God I don’t always get. Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God.” There are a lot of things about God I don’t fully understand: that’s why He’s God and I’m just me. Take the problem of evil. “Evil, a problem? No kidding.” Let me be [...]

I Shall Not Be Moved

Thanks to Jack Kauffman, a deacon at Bethel Baptist Church, for this guest post. The Easter season is a time when Christians tend to look inward. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately, and more often than not, I don’t especially like what I see. Two premises come to mind as I do this: [...]