Below is part 2 of an outreach and discipleship booklet I put together for my church based on an April 2013 sermon series by the same name. You can find Part 1: Give Up Your Life for Jesus, here. Value Jesus Above All Else Luke 14 tells us how Jesus was walking along and an exceedingly large crowd followed. At one point Jesus stopped and turned towards them, and said some very difficult things to them. Imagine Jesus speaking these words, and listen as you read: 26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, … [Read more...] about Follow (pt. 2): Value Jesus Above All Else
Follow (pt. 1): Give Up Your Life for Jesus
Below is part 1 of a booklet I put together for an upcoming sermon series, and a booklet we will hand out to all in attendance on Easter Sunday. I posted the rough draft as a .pdf file a couple of weeks ago. I want to now provide each section as an individual blog post. I hope it is both encouraging and challenging to you as we enter into this Spring season of 2013. FOLLOW We all follow something… Who (or what) do you follow? ____________________ “Follow Me” ~ Jesus, Luke 5:27 Everybody in life follows something or someone. So who, or what, do you follow? Who is the person that … [Read more...] about Follow (pt. 1): Give Up Your Life for Jesus
Breaking News: Dr. Russell Moore Elected President of ERLC
In a move that shocked and amazed absolutely no one, Dr. Russell Moore was elected today as the eighth president of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. You can read the details in Baptist Press. From the time that Dr. Richard Land announced his retirement, Vegas odds-makers had Dr. Moore as the prohibitive favorite to be elected to this position. (No, Vegas does not make book about Baptist politics - relax!) The Baptist Press article has a series of quotes by a wide range of SBC leaders, all praising the selection. From Dr. Land: "I am … [Read more...] about Breaking News: Dr. Russell Moore Elected President of ERLC
Born That Way vs. Born Again? (by Bart Barber)
Editor: I'd give Bart an introduction, but you pretty much all know who he is, right? While we await a Supreme Court decision that could possibly re-define marriage in American jurisprudence, would you entertain with an open mind an argument from me to the effect that the marriage debate, while very important, is not the most important question that the homosexual movement has placed before us as Christians? Rather, the most important question that the homosexual movement has raised for Christians is the question of whether reparative therapy (a.k.a. conversion therapy, ex-gay ministry, etc.) … [Read more...] about Born That Way vs. Born Again? (by Bart Barber)
The Not Created
I was looking at Genesis today, and noticed something I had taken for granted. Ever notice what was there before God starts to create? The first thing God created was light, the energy that is radiated from a light source, God created light before the sun and the stars, He of course is the original light source. For light to exist, it had to be created. If you go back, you see before there was light, it was dark. This is sort of a "duh" sort of thing, if there is no light, it's dark. Darkness, however, exists before creation, it's not a created thing. It is, in fact, the absence of a thing. … [Read more...] about The Not Created
Where Is My Plow, and Where Is Yours?
8:23 am Hey Andrew. 8:31 am Who this? 8:39 am Your mother. 8:42 Mom! You have a cell phone now? 8:47 am I'm using your sister's phone. Beth's phone. 8:51 am Oh, hey. Don't have Beth's number in my phone, so didn't recognize it. How are you? Everything cool? 8:58 am No, not really. Your father fell again last night. Few fractured ribs, busted wrist, wounded pride. 9:05 am Wow! He ok? Doing alright? What happened? 9:12 am He will survive, but in lots of pain. Will be in hospital till 27th. 9:20 am Man, that's awful. Thnx so much for letting me know. 9:25 am Your … [Read more...] about Where Is My Plow, and Where Is Yours?
How to Rock Twitter Like a Pharisee
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 6:1 ESV) I wonder what it would look like if the Pharisees had a Twitter account. It would probably look a little like this: Maybe it isn’t so hard to imagine… There is a fine line between facebragging and giving God-honoring information. I’ve been working through taking the log out of my own eye before attempting to take the specs out of my brothers and sisters. I started out by making a list of a few … [Read more...] about How to Rock Twitter Like a Pharisee
PASTORS – Could We Use a Little Self-examination? (by Andy Hynes)
Andy Hynes is a PhD candidate at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. Follow him @ABHYNES on Twitter. There is much to learn from our Puritan brothers. As pastors they spent countless hours studying, praying, and pouring over the souls of people. They were deeply embedded in pursuing the things of God. They diagnosed the plight of man not merely as guilt for sins, but a greater pollution and bondage to sin. Not bondage to sins of particular weaknesses of character or bad habits, but a state of being. The depravity of man’s heart was the concern. “They sought to expose the sinfulness … [Read more...] about PASTORS – Could We Use a Little Self-examination? (by Andy Hynes)
Did the Same People Shout “Hosanna” and “Crucify?”
This morning, I saw a question on the Holy Rev. Dr. Marty Duren's Facebook asking: Is there biblical evidence that those who cried 'Hosanna' on Palm Sunday were the ones who days later cried 'crucify Him'? Most in the discussion answered the question in the negative. They seemed to think that the group that praised Jesus at the Triumphal Entry was pretty much a different bunch than the ones who later that week screamed for Jesus' blood. One commenter referenced an article on Challies.com (by guest blogger John Ensor) called "The Crowd Was Not Fickle." He argues that "the crowd" in Matthew … [Read more...] about Did the Same People Shout “Hosanna” and “Crucify?”
Why We’ve All But Lost the Gay Marriage Debate
Back in 2011, Focus on the Family conceded that “we’ve probably lost” the gay marriage debate. Two years later “probably” would be an understatement. We have all but lost this debate. I am making the argument in this piece that this happened years ago when we swallowed certain cultural virtues instead of confronting them. In their book, The Narcissism Epidemic, authors Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell make the argument that narcissism is on a relentless rise in our culture. Starting in the 1960s, “Americans core cultural ideas slowly became more focused on self-admiration and … [Read more...] about Why We’ve All But Lost the Gay Marriage Debate