Creative Ways to Disobey God

As children, we often look for ways to be disobedient, and dealing with God there is often no difference. From the life of Pharaoh, we can learn six creative ways to disobey God…

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Accountability in Mentoring

I imagine that most Christians have no argument about being accountable to God. After all, He is our heavenly Father, He is perfect and He has the right to check up on us to see if we are on course. But these same people think being accountable to someone on earth is, to say the least, a touchy matter…

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What’s Your “One Thing?”

Most men are pretty confident… in their work, personality, abilities, marriages, golf game and maybe even that their favorite baseball team is going to win the pennant this year. Men are also pretty confident when it comes to spiritual matters. Perhaps this comes out of an American desire to be self-sufficient. We often want to come to God on our own terms rather than come to Him on the terms He has already laid out. As long as I’m in church on Sunday, God can’t expect more out of me than that. I watch my language, don’t cheat in my business, and am faithful to my wife. Not bad stuff, but what is that one thing that you protect more than anything else?

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Follow Through and Finish Well

Any married man might identify with this situation, we had the best of intentions, we never intended to not follow through, we never planned to let our wives down, but we did not finish what we started.

After being delivered from centuries of slavery in Egypt, the children of Israel followed a pattern. God gave His chosen people a simple instruction to possess the land, which meant they were to completely drive out the current residents. If they didn’t follow through, the Canaanites would drag them down spiritually, which was seen over and over, and the Israelites chasing after false gods rather than sole loyalty to the One True God… they needed to completely drive out the Canaanites…

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Marks of a Mature Christian

I was able to give the message at King’s Grant Baptist recently and the topic of the day was, “What are the marks of a mature Christian?” Since Paul encourages believers to examine themselves to see if they are of the faith (1 Corinthians 11:28), I found at least twelve “marks” or “tests” to see whether one is a true follower of Christ, all from the letter of First John. My prayer is that as you read this list, allow God to bring you to a proper understanding of where you stand with Christ…

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A Picture of Grace

These are notes for my Bible study class on Sunday mornings at 9:45, a book called Downpour by James MacDonald. Today we will look at what Jesus was doing on the cross…

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A Picture of Repentance

These are notes for my Bible study class on Sunday mornings at 9:45, a book called Downpour by James MacDonald. Today we will look at five marks of genuine repentance.

Repentance is the funnel through which all personal revival flows. After we have seen God’s holiness and been brought to a place of personal brokenness over our sin, repentance is the first step in the personal cleanup of the wreckage that sin brings…

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A Picture of Brokenness

We have an umbrella that keeps the showers of God’s blessings from reaching us, it is called sin. Sin is not in the neighborhood, or in the newspaper; it’s in the mirror. If you have ever asked the question of why you don’t feel as close to God as you used to, the answer is sin. You can study the Bible all day and serve faithfully in the church, but the bottom line is that you have to deal with sin; and deal with it God’s way…

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Models of Effective Mentoring

I’d like to share three models that illustrate what mentoring is all about, and I see these in the lives of three people named in the Bible (Barnabas, Timothy and Epaphroditus)…

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Portrait of a Mentor

As I think about mentoring, Barnabas is a name that pops into my mind. We read a little about his life and ministry and I sense that putting his story into a mentoring context is not doing him injustice…

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