Advent Sunday 1

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent so I decided to look up what  Scriptures are used on the first Sunday of advent according to the Catholic Church. I did not grow up celebrating Advent so I decided to take a look at the Advent calendar and see what the Scripture references were for the Sundays leading up to Advent. The first Sunday of Advent contains four Scripture passages:

The Transfiguration

This coming Sunday at Southern Calvert Baptist Church, we are going to cover the subject of the transfiguration of Christ during our Connect Groups. This is an important event for Jesus’ disciples as well as an important event for us today. Our passage is the Gospel of Matthew, chapter seventeen. In our last lesson, we took a look at the faith needed to walk on water. It was an important lesson for us because of the times in which we live. Peter and the other disciples had to make a choice; to surrender to faith in the midst of life’s storms or, to surrender to fear. They immediately chose fear yet, Jesus reminded them of faith and it made all of the difference.

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.

Mary’s Song of Praise

This week, I was preparing for our Connect Group lesson at Southern Calvert Baptist Church. We are walking through the Bible over a three year period and, after two years, we have finished the Old Testament and now we are going to begin the New Testament. Our study of the New Testament begins with the Gospels. We are going to focus on the Gospel of Luke. The lesson for this week does not focus on Mary’s song of praise, but, I want to write about it because it really moved me. Depending on the denomination, Christians generally have two views of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

Patriotism and the Gospel

Did the title get your attention? I hope that it did. I have recently seen a lot of information coming from pastors, good God-fearing men, who claim that the idea of patriotism is not Biblical. Do you agree with that statement? I sure don’t because I see the exact opposite taught in the Scriptures.

We have THE WORD of God

I am preparing to teach during our AWANA program this evening and the theme for the night is the Word of God. The Bible is a unique book in human history. It is the very hear of God, communicated to us in a language that we can understand so that we can discover what God wants from us. Many people have asked throughout the ages, “what does God want from me”? Many others have tried to answer that question. The definitive answer is found in the pages of the Holy Bible. Parts of the Bible were written by different men over a 1,600 year period time. These people lived on different continents and came from vastly different cultures. Yet, the central message of the Bible is the same. Other parts of the Bible were written by God, Himself.

Christ’s Resurrection and Commissioning

I have been teaching through the Gospel of Mark with a group of men and it has been amazing to see the ministry of Jesus Christ, especially how relevant it is today. This is the final lesson in a 3 part series on the Gospel of Mark. I began teaching it back in the Fall of 2018. We are currently in the Summer of 2019. It is the shortest Gospel in the New Testament but, it is powerful and full of amazing information that stirs up life transformation. If you have not been following along through the entire study, the following 16 articles will be very helpful in helping you catch up.

Jesus’ Trial

I have been teaching through the Gospel of Mark in an online Bible study that meets once a week. Mark has been racing through the stories to get to the cross. In Mark 15, we take a look at the trial of Christ. In a couple of the previous lessons, we covered:

• The Second Coming of Christ
• Peter’s Denial of Christ

Forgiveness, Love, Service, and Salvation

I am getting ready to teach during our AWANA class tonight at church. The subject of our study is Luke 23. We are going to focus on the crucifixion of Christ and the fact that will suffering unjustly, Jesus was still ready to offer to His enemies:

1. Forgiveness
2. Love
3. Service
4. Salvation

Praise and Service please the Lord

I’m preparing to teach during our AWANA program this evening at church and we are going to study the topic of praising the Lord in our daily lives. Our passage of study is Luke 19.

The context of Luke 19 helps us understand why Jesus wept over Jerusalem during the festive time. The Triumphal entry marks what we call Holy Week today in the Christian calendar. It was a time of praise and worship, Palm Sunday, and yet, during the height of the festivities, Jesus wept. Why? Luke 19 explains why.