Our New identity in Christ

I am so excited about teaching from Colossians 3 this weekend in our Connect Groups at Southern Calvert Baptist Church. Our goal has been to teach through the entire Bible over a three year period and we are finishing up our third year on this journey. We have discovered that the red thread that flows through the entire Bible is the Promise of the Chosen One who will deal with mankind’s sin problem, the working out of that plan, and finally, the fruition of that plan in the person of Jesus Christ. Now, we are learning how to live in the light of the appearance of Christ. Jesus does not just save us for eternity, He also saves us from ourselves, especially focusing on our sin nature. As followers of Christ, we receive a new life and a new lifestyle. The Apostle Paul focuses on this aspect in his epistle to the Colossian church. Are you a follower of Christ? Has that decision to follow Christ changed your daily lifestyle? If it has, then this lesson is for you. If your lifestyle has not changed, this lesson is also for you.

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.

Receiving Spiritual Sight

As we continue to walk through the Bible, and specifically the New Testament, we are discovering that Jesus came to rescue us from our age old enemy, our sin nature. In the previous lesson, we discovered that Jesus leads us to faith to rescue us from our sin nature and that faith is manifested in our obedience. They go hand in hand.

Jesus’ Call to Discipleship

Here are Southern Calvert Baptist Church, we are continuing our journey through the entire Bible over a three year period. Currently, we are in year three and we are studying the Gospel of Luke. We spent two years walking through the Old Testament tracing the promise of the coming Messiah and how God worked in human history to fulfill that promise. Almost two thousand years ago, several Jewish people who had spent their lives looking forward to the coming of the Messiah were blessed to be an integral part of the fulfilled Promise. These people all had several things in common. They were all good students of the Word of God. They had all surrendered to the will of God in their lives. In other words, they all had a relationship with God, based on the fact that they were looking forward to the coming Messiah to be their Savior.

Jesus the King, Savior, and Servant

This week in our Connect Groups at Southern Calvert Baptist Church, we are going to study about the birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. We are studying the Gospel of Luke. Last week, we covered the birth of John the Baptist. The lesson was about overcoming doubt and fear by choosing to praise and serve the Lord. This week’s lesson will focus on the birth of the Messiah. This event has been 4,000 years in the making. I love the fact that Jesus is the King of the universe yet, when He comes to His creation, He comes as a humble servant. All throughout human history, we have records of kings and rulers who are served by the people. Jesus sets a different example as He has the right to be served by the people whom He created yet, He chooses to be a humble servant. How is this going to impact humanity? Let’s take a look and see.

Your Worldview Matters

Tonight, I have the privilege of meeting with the Journey kids during our AWANA program at Southern Calvert Baptist Church. The kids are learning about worldviews during this section of their book. This week, we are going to take a look at Isaiah 44. God teaches about worldviews all throughout the Bible. All of us have a worldview, even if we do not realize it. The idea of worldview is defined as a “particular philosophy of life” a “conception of the world lived out in daily life“. A worldview is often inherited from parents and shaped by society. Even politics is impacted by worldviews. Politics is the battle for worldview application in daily life. Every single political party has a worldview. The Bible teaches us to have a worldview. The Biblical worldview is best summed up in the 10 Commandments. God shapes our worldview in the first 4 Commandments.

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.

The Word, Confession, and Dedication

Nehemiah is a great book of the Bible that demonstrates the connection between the Word of God, confession of sin, and dedication to the Lord. This is a question that many are asking today, that is, “why are there so few dedicated people to the Lord in our society”? Have you ever asked that question? Have you ever heard someone else ask that question? Well, according to Nehemiah, dedication comes as the result of the Word and confession of sins. In this article, I would like to examine Nehemiah 8-10. This is the study for next week’s Connect Groups here at Southern Calvert Baptist Church.

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.

Christmas means surrender

Does the title of this article strike you as being odd? What in the world do Christmas and surrender have in common? Jesus surrendered to the will of the Father by taking on flesh and blood and being born into His own creation. Jesus is not the only One to surrender on that first Christmas. Mary surrendered and so did her husband, Joseph. Christmas is all about surrendering to the will of God! The family time is nice. The presents are nice. The food is amazing, but, the central focus of Christmas is worshiping the King of kings and the best way to do that is to surrender to the will of God.