Forgiveness of Sin and Spiritual Healing

As Father’s Day approaches this Sunday, we are all remembering the men in our lives who have impacted us in a positive way. When we think of influential men, the primary example is Jesus Christ. In our Connect Groups this Sunday, we are going to study a powerful passage of Scripture in Matthew 9.

Only God can forgive sins

As I sit and prepare our Connect Group lesson for this coming Sunday, I’m simply amazed at how clear the Word of God is! The more I studied, the clearer things become. This week, we are going to study Luke 5. Our main passage is verses seventeen through twenty-six. In the first eleven verses, Jesus teaches by the seashore. He calls Peter and his coworkers to follow Him and become His disciples. As He gives the calling, He performs a miracle. Peter and his coworkers are amazed and answer the call to follow Jesus. After this amazing moment, as Peter and his coworkers are following Jesus, another miracle takes place. Jesus heals a man suffering from leprosy. These events cause Jesus to become very popular and people want to hear Him teach. This is where we will pick up this week as we study.

Satan: Our Adversary

What immediately comes to your mind when you hear the name, “Satan“? Some of us may imagine a human like being with horns, dressed in red, wearing a cape, and carrying a pitchfork. That’s the Hollywood version of Satan. How does the Bible describe Satan? That is what I want to focus on with this article.

Cancel Culture: Not a new phenomenon

I am preparing to study the Word of God tonight with our middle school kids at AWANA. Our lesson is about transformation. These kids have been studying the book of Acts this school year and their passage tonight is Acts 9:19-31. Saul encountered the resurrected Jesus Christ and it transformed his life. He even demonstrated that transformation by changing his name from Saul to Paul. We know him today as the Apostle Paul. Before encountering the resurrected Jesus Christ, Saul was a murderer. He hated Christians and persecuted them in every way possible. From this moment on, Paul preaches the Jesus he once opposed. This proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ leads us to our examination of Cancel Culture. It is not a modern phenomenon. It has been around as long as sin has been around.

Jesus heals blind Bartimaeus

Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending our church’s ministry to one of our local public elementary schools. The ministry is called, “Good News Club“. We meet weekly with over 20 elementary students and study the eternal Word of God. Over the past 4 weeks, we have been learning about the miracles performed by Jesus, recorded in the Gospel of John. We have learned about how Jesus turned water into wine and the reason behind it. We learned about Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus and the miracle of being born again. Then we covered Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well and how He forgave her sins. After that, we learned how Jesus healed the royal official’s son and transformed an entire family. Finally, yesterday, we covered Jesus’ encounter with blind Bartimaeus. The story of blind Bartimaeus is not found in the Gospel of John. The Gospel writer Mark mentions this encounter in Mark 10. Chapter 10 in the Gospel of Mark is all about faith. The word “faith” means being convinced of the Truth of reality based on the Word of God. A synonym for faith is “trust“. Another word that could be used for faith is, “surrender“. Faith literally means trusting the Word of God and surrendering to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In the Gospel of John, the author informs us of why Jesus performed all of these miracles.

Jesus’ first miracle

On Tuesday of this past week, we began our Good News Club at one of our local elementary schools. What a great opportunity to share the message of the Gospel in our community! Our children are being bombarded daily with all kinds of ungodliness and as Christ followers, we have a sacred calling to take the life changing message of the Gospel to these kids. I take this calling seriously and I pray that you do as well. Along with a group of volunteers from our church, Southern Calvert Baptist Church, I had the privilege of teaching Christ to over 20 children. I want to share the lesson with you here in this article.

We must obey God!

Today, I am going to teach from Acts 5 to a group of kids at our church in the AWANA program. This group of kids is learning the book of Acts. This lesson is about obeying God rather than man. Just like there is such a thing as righteous indignation, there is also such a thing as righteous rebellion. This seems like a contradiction but, it actually complements the teachings in the Bible about subjection to earthly authority. In the heart of every human being, there is a spark of rebellion. We have this rebellious streak because of our sin nature. When raising children, we do not have to teach them to be rebellious. It comes naturally to them, just as it comes naturally to us. The definition of rebellion is “resisting an established law“.

Fighting False Information

I have the privilege of studying the Word of God tonight with our high school students during AWANA at Southern Calvert Baptist Church. The theme for tonight is fighting falsehoods. In the Greek language, the word that is used for false is the same word that we get pseudo from that we use in the English language. When something is pseudo, I remember from by days of studying 10th grade biology, it seems like the real thing but it is not. When it comes to Biblical teaching, there are many false teachings that seem genuine but, upon a deeper dive, it becomes evident that the false teaching is not the same thing as the genuine teaching.

Jesus: Our Lord and Savior

I have the honor of meeting with our elementary aged kids this week during our AWANA program at Southern Calvert Baptist Church. The kids have been learning about Jesus over this past quarter. Tonight will be a review where we put several passages together and get a clear view of who Jesus is. Many people in the Western world grow up hearing something about Jesus. Some of what they hear comes from the Bible while other aspects come from popular culture. I have ministered to a tribe in Myanmar where the majority of the people had never heard the name Jesus.

Born again to holiness

I am so excited about this week’s lesson in our Connect Groups at Southern Calvert Baptist Church! In our three year journey through the Bible from cover to cover, we are finishing up Israel’s time in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land. This was a very difficult period in the history of Israel. The children of Israel were battling their sin nature just like we battle our sin nature every day of our lives. It is easy to look at them on the pages of the Old Testament and ask, “why were they like that“? Are we not the same today? I am excited about this lesson because we are going to talk about being born again. It’s a phrase that we do not use as often as we should in the Protestant world. We talk about getting “saved” but we do not mention what we are saved from, how we are saved, what it means to be saved in a literal sense. I think we try to keep it vague on purpose because when we get specific, we become accountable. When we use the phrase “born again” explanation is needed and that is a good thing. The Apostle Peter really liked the phrase “born again” and he used it often in his writings.