Worship: Confession, Gratitude, and Sanctification

When is the last time that you studied the book of Leviticus? I hear many people complain about Leviticus, about how boring it is or about how it is a bunch of rules and regulations that don’t apply to modern man. I kind of felt that way until I actually studied the book of Leviticus and understood what the Lord is communicating to us through the beautiful book of the Bible. Take a look at what the great Apostle Paul has to teach us about the Old Testament, including the book of Leviticus.

Powerful Prayers

Powerful prayers pray powerful prayers. Read that again! Last night, I had the privilege of leading a Bible study with a group of high school kids at our church. The topic was prayer. We studied Colossians 1, focusing on the powerful prayer of the Apostle Paul. I would like to share that with you via this article.

Prayer is something that can be taught and caught. Jesus’ disciples caught prayer from hearing Jesus pray. They were then taught how to pray when they came to Him and asked Him to teach them how to pray. Jesus was a powerful prayer. The disciples became powerful prayers. The Apostle Paul was taught directly by the resurrected Jesus so his prayers were powerful. Paul gives us some insight into his prayer life via the letters that he wrote during his time in ministry. Letter writing was the modern technology of Paul’s day. He used the Roman road system to send out those letters, written in the common language of the day, Koine Greek, so that many people could hear the Gospel and respond to the Gospel. Because the Apostle Paul used the modern technology of his day, we get a glimpse into his prayer life. I have to admit, I do not pray as much as I would like so this lesson was very challenging to me. I was also encouraged and motivated by it. I hope that it will do the same for you. On a side note, the last article that I wrote was also on the subject of prayer. Maybe the Lord is trying to tell me something vital.

Coming under the protection of the Lord

I am so excited about getting to meet with my Sunday School class this week at Southern Calvert Baptist Church. I have not been in the class for the past 4 Sundays due to ministry work in South Asia. I was so blessed to have members of the church fill in for me while God directed me to teach the Word in a difficult area of the world. This Sunday, as we are walking through the entire Bible in a three year period, we have come to the Old Testament book of Ruth. We have been tracing the line of the Messiah from Genesis and we have found Jesus in every book of the Bible. This week, we are going to learn how a Gentile pagan chooses to believe in the coming Messiah and come under the protection of the Lord. It is an amazing story for us Gentiles.

God, My Protector (Psalm 141)

I am so glad to be back in writing mode. The past 2 months have been crazy for me and my family. I have changed jobs and, as a family, we have moved across the country. I have not been able to study and write like I normally do. I am getting settled in and I am so glad to be able to study and write on a more regular basis. Last week, our Sunday School lesson was based on Psalm 32. David left some practical advice for us to learn from his mistakes. Another of the Psalms that I have a lesson on is Psalm 19, Restoring the soul.

Praying for your Disciples

Over the past month, I have been teaching through II Thessalonians with one of my many Bible study groups. It is so neat to study the Scriptures with others and discover the Truth of the Word of God for ourselves. II Thessalonians teaches us how to plan our time knowing the the Lord will one day return. Here are a few of the things that we have been learning as we have walked through II Thessalonians together. 

A letter from God and Gratitude

This past week was a good week for me and for the pastors of Hoffmantown Church. We had our annual pastors’ retreat in beautiful Pagosa Springs, Colorado. While there, we reflected on the love that the Lord has for us and the high calling that we have all answered, to shepherd the Lord’s flock in His local church. I was privileged to be with my brothers in Christ and hear their stories of how the Lord called them. I was able to share my story as well. It was a blessed time. One of our personal assignments was to write a letter to ourselves, from God. It was a neat assignment. We had to spend some time alone with the Lord and then write, from a Biblical perspective, a letter that we thought He would write to us. After that assignment, we were to list all of the things that we were grateful for that the Lord has given to us or done for us. Here is what I wrote:

Being grateful in 2015

Well, a new year is upon us. I am sure that you have already made some resolutions. Have you been able to keep all of them up to this point in 2015? Was one of your resolutions to be more grateful in 2015? I have already written several articles on being grateful and you can read them here. The Bible constantly reminds us to be grateful because gratefulness is not our nature. Our sinful nature encourages us to be selfish. This is why we must constantly be reminded to make an effort to be grateful. A resolution to be more grateful this year is a great resolution to make.

Thanksgiving – Reminder to be grateful

Tomorrow during Kids’ Express, we are going to celebrate our Thanksgiving, thank you Jesus feast. I have the privilege of attending and I have been invited to share a short message from God’s Word. I want to talk about being appreciative or grateful. We have to be taught and reminded to be grateful because gratefulness is not our nature. Because of our sin nature, we are selfish. Gratefulness comes out of a selfless attitude. This is important because if we do not teach each generation to be selfless and grateful we cannot expect them to be. Once we teach people to be selfless and appreciative, we have to remind them of it over and over. We have a tendency to forget. God has set up annual holidays that remind us to be grateful. These are good reminders for 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.

Have Common Sense: Be Grateful

I love the subject of “Common Sense” because there seems to be such a lack of it in our world today. I have written about how we are not born with common sense and we must be taught it constantly as well as reminded of it often. As I work with the youth of today I have noticed that the simple things that we take for granted as “common sense” are not