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.

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.

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.

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.

Don’t Compromise on the little things

Over the past couple of weeks at Southern Calvert Baptist Church, we have been learning about Daniel. His life is powerful. The reason that his life is powerful is because he never compromised in the little things. When Daniel was a child, he was taught the Word of God. His parents had a few short years with him but, they did such a wonderful job impacting his life in a positive manner that, he was faithful in the little things for the rest of his life. Daniel was taken prisoner to Babylon when he was around 15 years old. That means that his mother and father had about 15 short years to invest in this boy. They did it so well that Daniel became a champion of the faith. As I mentioned earlier, the secret to Daniel’s success was the fact that he did not compromise on the little things. As a teen, living in a foreign land, learning a new language and culture, even having his name changed from a godly name to a pagan name, Daniel chose to remain faithful to the Lord.

God’s Provision for Salvation

In our previous lesson, we looked at Numbers 13-14, specifically at the contrast between the children of Israel and Caleb and Joshua. The people had the chance to enter the Promised Land and, as a result of their unbelief, they are cursed to wander in the wilderness until they perish. Now, we get to Numbers 21. God is still faithful yet, the people have not changed. Some of our previous lessons are:

Belief is more than a confession

I am getting ready to teach tonight at our church. I have a lesson with the AWANA kids and we are going to study John 11. This is a fascinating chapter because in verse 35, we find the shortest verse in the Bible. Why did Jesus weep? Some say that it is because He was heartbroken over the death of Lazarus. Others claim that He wept because Mary and Martha were mourning over the death of their brother. While those seem like logical conclusions, I do not feel that the text leads us to that conclusion. We read that into the text based on our own experienced. There are three key players in this text that work together to explain the purpose of this passage in the Bible. One of the key players is Jesus. He is referenced more in this passage than anyone else. The verb “believe” is referenced 8 times in this chapter, making it another key player in the story. Another word that is mentioned three times in this chapter is “resurrection”. All three of these key players lead us to the logical conclusion of the text.

The Importance of Daily Bible Study Habits

I have noticed that there are more and more church goers who do not seem to think that personal and corporate Bible study is that important. From a Biblical perspective, daily Bible study is a necessity. God writes to us all through the Scriptures about the importance of the Scriptures in our daily lives. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is II Timothy 2:15.

A Picture of Faith

I am getting ready to teach at our AWANA group tomorrow evening. I am so excited to work with these kids. I have been teaching them since last Fall. It is so neat to see what happens when kids learn to study the Word of God for themselves. Last week, we learned about Running the race of faith. This week, we are going to see a picture of what faith is. Our text to consider this week is Luke 9. In this lesson, we are going to see an example of faith’s actions, a need for adjustment along the journey of faith, and finally, we are going to examine faith’s acknowledgment (confession).