New Series: Overcoming Fear L1

This past Saturday night, we began a new study with our youth group, Generation of Purity. Many people fear because we live during difficult times. Many do not know what the future holds and therefore, worry and fear. I chose to teach the 40 minute Bible study, Breaking free from fear, written by Kay Arthur. It is a great study of the people of the Bible and how they overcame fear. I want to write this article based on lesson 1 of the study.

The Harvest is here, time to produce fruit for the Lord

Yesterday at Good News we celebrated the harvest. God really blessed Moldova this year, physically and the members of Good News spiritually. Our dear senior pastor, Vasile Filat preached a wonderful sermon on being grateful to God for the fruit that He gives and produces. I was encouraged and challenged by the sermon and would like to share it with you here.

We all understand the value of fruits and vegetables. They give us the necessary vitamins and minerals to live a healthy life. Without them, we will not be very healthy. Along with vitamins and minerals that we get from fruit, there are other things around us that want to get inside of us and destroy us, viruses, microbes etc. These things compete with the good things around us and they want to tear us down instead of build us up. This is the same in the spiritual world around us. There are things that we need to build us up and then there are also parasites, viruses, and microbes that want to destroy us.

Harvest Celebration service

This Sunday, at Good News, we are celebrating the harvest. This is similar to Thanksgiving in the States but it is only done in Evangelical churches here in Moldova. The church is decorated by the produce that the members bring. We show our gratitude to God for blessing the year with a good harvest. I am excited because I will be able to take part in 2 harvest celebrations this Sunday. In the afternoon, I have been invited to one of our church plants to preach/teach on the importance of being grateful and thanking our great God. I would like to share the message with you in this article.

The main passage for the message in Psalm 100. I invite you to read it first and then we can walk through it, step by step.

Can we love Jesus and not serve in the local church?

This is a subject that I would like to tackle tonight at our church. At Good News, we are an active church, not sitting behind the four walls waiting for the people to come to us. We take the church to the people. There are many different ways that we do this. Some use English (like I do) while others use sports. There is also ministry via computers. There are many opportunities for our members to get involved. What happens when the members get so busy with the ministry that they start missing church services? When confronted, the pat answer is, “Jesus teaches us to go and make disciples and that is what I am doing”. Is this a good answer? On first appearance, yes, it seems like a good one. I would like to take a quick tour through a couple of passages, from the first church, to see if this is a good answer or if there should be a balance between outreach and serving in the local church. Before getting started, I would like to share a few quotes that people use when excusing themselves from coming to church or serving in the local church.

Being a leader according to the will of God

This Sunday, I had the privilege of attending our church, Good News, where our Senior pastor, Vasile Filat preached an amazing sermon about being a leader according to God’s will from the book of Ephesians. I was blessed by this sermon and wanted to share it with you.

We are all leaders in some way or another, even if we do not own a business or run an organization. Even among children, when they play games, we find leaders. Within the family there are leaders; the father leads the family, the mother leads the children, and even among the children, usually by birth order, the children lead each other. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are all called to make disciples, which makes us all either leaders or future leaders.

Advice on getting married

The other night, we were blessed at the youth group to have our Senior pastor, Vasile Filat, come and join us and teach us the Biblical perspective on how young people are to act while waiting to get married and what are the proper steps to take in order to get married. It was an interesting and helpful lesson so I decided to share it via an article, especially for those who do not speak Romanian. So, here are the 9 simple steps to the process of marrying according to God’s will.

Genuine Worship

I had the privilege of attending a Bible study last night on genuine worship. There are many worship wars taking place these days over style and many who are passionate about “worship” do not pause and consider what the Object of our worship has to say on the subject. I am so thankful that I am part of a church where the Word of God is the authority on all things, even on the subject of worship.

Impacting the lives of your classmates

I taught at our youth meeting last night, the first one of the new school year. I preached a message on the importance of impacting your classmates with the Gospel. I would like to share the message with you here, especially if you are a student.

For the history buffs, I began the message with a motivational quote from the great General Grant,

Hold fast to the Bible. To the influence of this Book we are indebted for all the progress made in true civilization and to this we must look as our guide in the future.

Caleb – a brave and loyal warrior

Today during our monthly Precept meeting, I was blessed to take part in a Bible study on the life of Caleb. He is an interesting character, whom we do not hear much about these days. Many times we hear much about Moses, Joshua, and others yet Caleb seems to be overlooked. He was an amazing example of loyalty and courage. There are several passages that explain his life. I will list them here and link to them so that you can read about him.