Do you value people over things?

I am working on my lesson for our Connect Groups that will meet this coming Sunday at Southern Calvert Baptist Church. As a church, we have been walking through the entire Bible over the previous two and a half years. I am so excited to see how all of the things that we have been learning are all coming together in the person of Jesus Christ. This week, our journey takes us to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12. What do you value in this life? What do you spend the majority of your time doing? What do you invest your time and energy into the most? For many humans, we invest our precious time and energy into acquiring wealth and possessions. In and of themselves, wealth and possessions are not a bad thing. Money is simply a tool in the hands of God that He uses to reveal our priorities. We all have a choice; we can use the precious gift of time to invest in temporary things, like wealth and possessions or, we can use the precious gift of time to invest in eternal things, like the souls of our fellow human beings. Jesus challenges us to pick one or the other because we cannot do both. In other words, we cannot serve two masters. We cannot serve wealth accumulation and God both at the same time. We will give lip service to one and really devote ourselves to the other. This is what Jesus addresses in Luke 12.

Faith and Obedience go hand in hand

This coming Sunday, at Southern Calvert Baptist Church, we are going to study John chapter five. This is the story of the healing of the lame man. Last week, we learned about Jesus, the healer in the Gospel of Mark, chapter five. This week, we are also going to learn more about Jesus the healer. The healing that Jesus offers leads to eternal life. This healing changes us for all of eternity.

As a church, we are walking through the entire Bible, from cover to cover, over a three year period. We are now in year three. It took us three years to walk through the Old Testament. We have been studying the Gospels for about two months now. Each lesson just keeps getting better and better.

The vanity of happiness

“But God wants me to be happy, doesn’t He“? I have heard people declare this many times, in the form of a question of course, even though their minds are already made up. Mantras like “YOLO” were popular at one time. “If it feels good, do it” was another popular saying for a time. If you do not know, YOLO means “you only live once” which implies, have fun at all costs because you only get one time around. Each older generation declares that the younger generations are selfish, unlike themselves, when they were younger. I want to look at a passage of Scripture that speaks of people about 3,000 years ago. According to our modern way of thinking, the people 3,000 years ago should have been much less selfish than we are today because each generation claims that the next generation is much more selfish. Let’s take a practical look at the people of Israel, almost 3,000 years ago.

Time, Talents, and The Kingdom

I am preparing to preach this Sunday at Southern Calvert Baptist Church. I am going to preach on the parable of the talents. Our main passage is Luke 19:11-26 and I will also use Matthew 25:14-30 to add some details to the story.

There are two major gifts (talents) that the Lord has given to every single human being. Those two gifts are the gift of life and the gift of time to live life. The Bible teaches us that we can use time one of two ways. We can spend our time wisely or we can spend our time unwisely. Time is a commodity that we spend daily. We receive it as a gift and then we choose how we use it. In the parable of the talents, Jesus wants to teach us how to use our time wisely until the moment when He establishes His earthly kingdom.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

I am preparing to teach our upcoming Connect Group at Southern Calvert Baptist Church and the title of this article is the title of our lesson. We are going to take a look at Job to discover why bad things happen to good people and what that means for us today. For the purpose of time, we have selected chapters and verses that will capture the heart of Job’s story. Our chapters for consideration are Job 1, 9, and 42. The three main characters of this story are God, Satan, and Job.

Ungodly Mocking

If you have been paying attention to our culture over the past two or three decades, you may have noticed that the animosity aimed at God and His Word has grown tremendously. It seems that way but, in reality, it has not. Animosity toward God and His Holy Word has been around since Satan fell from heaven. His first attack on God’s perfect creation was to get the man and woman to doubt God and His Word. Read Genesis 3. Did God really say . . . . , that is his strategy. During the days of the Apostle Peter’s life, things were no different. Things had not changed much in 4,000 years. They have not changed much in the last 2,000 years. Peter has much to teach us on this subject. Although written 2,000 years ago, the teachings are relevant to the 21st Century person.

Working in your planner daily

In the previous two posts, we have covered the subjects of the importance of planning your time and the value of getting a personal planning notebook. We learned about identifying our values and then setting goals based on those values. Then, there was a practical assignment to help you determine what your values are. I really hope that you were able to do this.

Personal Planning Notebook

Happy New Year 2017!!! In the previous article, we learned about the importance of being a planner because God is a planner. He calls those who plan and act according to their plans wise. He calls those who fail to plan and who do not work according to a plan foolish. God then places the ball in our court and allows us to choose if we want to be wise or foolish. I do not know about you but, I want to be a wise person and have chosen to plan 2017 with God’s goals in mind and then working according to those plans so that I can reap the spiritual benefits.

The Pro-death liberals strike again!

It is bad enough that pro “deathers” support the murdering of innocent babies in their mothers’ wombs but they have taken their diabolical actions even further. Now they seem to think that it is o.k. to murder people just because they do not like the signs that they display or the views that they hold. Read this article to see how low liberals view life in this country and around the world. I really believe that if abortion were illegal then we would not have to

Why abortion?

As I sit here taking care of my baby girl (a true gift from God) I am truly saddened by the fact that the president of the USA has decided to promote abortion not only in our great nation but also all around the world. I am so glad that my conscience is clear because I did not vote for this man. I will continue to fight for the innocent babies who have their short lives ended in the name of convenience (95% of all