Hey Grace Bible Fam! I’m looking forward to another day of worship and The Word with you tomorrow. We’ll be wrapping up our Healthy Church series in the subject of prayer. A healthy church understands the blessing, power, and responsibility we share in prayer. Our sermon passage will be from Matthew 6:5-13. I encourage you read over this passage if you have the opportunity between now and tomorrow. I’ll have a couple of special guests, people I know to be prayer warriors, at the beginning of the sermon. They’ll be answering the simple question “Why do you pray?” You’ll be blessed by them for sure.
As I said, I’m looking forward to it, and I hope you are too. Hope to see you all tomorrow at 10:45am. Come as you are! -Roy

“If every problem you see looks like a nail, and your only tool for it is a hammer, it may be that you just like beating on ppl!” — A wise and godly pastor named John Brown said this to a group of us during a ministry training program. So true, isn’t it!?
Lord, free us from the tendency to “bring the hammer” when ppl really need patience, grace, prayer, and love…Like you give us!

I got a text message from an old friend yesterday that simply read “20 year 2day!” He went on to tell me that he was celebrating 20 years of being “clean and sober.” Then he said “The Lord and I may not have beaten alcoholism but we dang sure have it on the ropes and bleedin'” Haha! I love it! I love sobriety and hate alcoholism, and all addiction for that matter. Notice I said I hate alcoholism, not alcohol. I don’t drink, but you don’t have to hide your Corona if we run into each other at a Mexican food restaurant, that’s just weird for both of us. Alcohol is not the problem, abuse of it is. And for some guys, like me, we tend to abuse it. Alcoholism, along with a score of other substances and sinful habits, can cost you your family, your friends, your health, your home, your job, your freedom, it can even kill you. But worse than all of that, addiction affects our relationship with God. Ephesians 5:18 says “do not get drunk with wine…but be filled with the Spirit…” It’s not that God JUST wants sobriety for us, although that is true, it’s that He wants us to experience HIM, His Spirit.  
Addiction is no easy thing to deal with. Don’t be quick to look down on someone who is caught in the lie that addiction tells. We all believe the Devil’s lies, sober people are sinful people too. So people caught in addiction need our love, our prayers, and our friendship. They need the truth,and they need reality. But they don’t need our condemnation or ridicule.
We can learn a lot from people who struggle with addiction. One of the things I find especially refreshing about people who are walking in recovery, they KNOW they can’t live a day without God. That’s true for all of us, but they KNOW IT. 
20 Years sobriety is a big deal! Praise God! And in honor of my friends sobriety, one of my favorite songs that means more to ME than you know. Sing it Kenny:)

In Sunday’s sermon we discussed the role and blessing of elders in the local Church. We talked briefly discussed how New Testament elders are Biblical. There are qualifications for elders outlined 1Timothy 3 and in Titus 2. Also we see elders were evident in Ephesus (Acts 20:17), the Churches that the Apostle Paul Founded (Acts 14:23), the Jerusalem Church (Acts 15:2), the Churches of Crete (Titus 1:5), the Churches of the of the Roman Empire (James 1:1; 5:14), and also in the Churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia (1 Peter 1:1; 5:1). But for a look at WHAT an elder does and HOW he does it, in order to get a sense of the blessing and benefit God has given us in the role of elder, we looked at 1Peter 5:1-3.

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 

At the end our time in church I said a few things about each of the men who currently serve as elders of our church. They’re pictured above from left to right: Brent Wilkins, Theron Whitley, (myself), and Jeff Crelia. I love these men. They are a divine blessing to me and to our Grace Bible, Church Family. As the pastoral elder of our Church, I don’t make decisions that effect our whole Church without them. There’s great benefit confidence and security in that. These men, love our Church, and they love Jesus. They are the kind of leaders God wants us to have, and I’m thankful to God for them. I hope all of our Church is thankful for them, as well.

If you’d like to hear the sermon you can find it by clicking here.

I prayed where Jesus prayed. The picture above is one that my wife took of me a few years ago, praying in the Garden of Gethsemane (which means “oil press” in Hebrew). This is where Jesus and his disciples prayed the night before he was crucified for my sins, all who put their faith in Him. The tree pictured is an olive tree. Some of the olive trees in Israel are over 3000 years old. Could Jesus have prayed at this very tree!?!? Well, not exactly, the olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane were all cut down by the Romans in AD 70.

BUT, when an olive tree is cut down, many times the roots left behind will produce shoots that resurface and produce a new tree, an ancestor to the one cut down. So the tree pictured could be an ancestor of a tree where Jesus prayed!! Pretty cool, hu? Want to hear something even cooler, you don’t have to go to Israel, or Jerusalem, or the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. Prayer is just as effective wherever your reading this post. Prayer isn’t about a location. To pray, communicate with God, no matter where you are.

In one sense, prayer is a place all it’s own.  A place where pride is abandoned and hope is fostered.  Prayer is the place where we admit our needs, find humility, and show our dependence on God. Prayer is the great privilege of reaching out to the heart of our heavenly Father. And we can do that ANYWHERE, ANYTIME. So you can go to the Wailing Wall, or the Garden of Gethsemane, or to your favorite church building to pray if you’d like, but prayer is just as effective, no matter where you are.

I loved our time in Israel. I loved praying there! But I am so thankful that the privilege of prayer is not limited to a location. Have you prayed today? You can do that, right where you are!

The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:5-7)

“Find the things that stir your affections for Christ and saturate your life in them. Find the things that rob you of that affection and walk away from them. That’s the Christian life as easy as I can explain it for you.” – Matt Chandler

What a great quote, hu!? Simple, but so true!

This morning in our weekly staff meeting we discussed some things that stir our affections for and some that rob our affections for Him. Hope these encourage you as they did us!

Things that stir affections for Christ:

Looking at God’s wonders in creation, knowing that God made everything around us, sunsets, sunrises, mountains, waters and stars, so BEAUTIFUL! He created it, and saw that it was “good”, for us!

Seeing people grow in Christ – when God miraculously opens someone’s eyes to his worth and beauty and there’s no way to explain it but Him.

Learning something new about God – even down to the little details that God saw fit to be included in Scripture that teach us about his character and ways.

Worshiping God through singing with other believers, and sometimes, just driving down the road or at home with family.

Extended time of study of God’s Word and prayer. The aha moments that come from Scripture when God feels so close you’d think you could reach out and touch Him.

Looking back and seeing how God has answered prayer 

Being in community with other believers, learning God’s Word TOGETHER.

The feeling of love that you have for your child as a parent and realizing, that’s how God loves me, because I am HIS!

Things that rob us of our affections for Christ:

Anxiety, worry, becoming overwhelmed by circumstances, being critical of situations and other people.

These were just a few that we discussed. What about you? What stirs your affections for Christ? What robs you of your affections for Christ?

I love the theology and genuine love for Christ expressed in many of the old hymns of the Christian faith. You just can’t help but grow spiritually as you understand more of what God has done for you in Christ Jesus! Hymns like Charles Wesley’s ‘And Can It Be?’ help me to do that. Here’s an excerpt from this great hymn from the year 1738:

And can it be that I should gain
An int’rest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me?

Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me!

He left His Father’s throne above,
So free, so infinite His grace;
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race;
‘Tis mercy all, immense and free;
For, O my God, it found out me.

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him is mine!
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me!

For a little more history on this hymn and some Bible references to go along with it. Click here.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” -Jesus (Matthew 6:19-21)

Jim Elliot embodied these words from Jesus. He lived with a reckless abandon for the sake of the gospel. Jim was speared to death by natives in Ecuador, January 8, 1956. He, and others, died at the hands of those they so deeply desired to reach with the hope of the gospel. His life was cut seemingly short on earth, but his reward is great in heaven. Also, his work was carried on by others including his widow, Elisabeth Elliot. You can read the inspiring story in her book ‘Through the Gates of Splendor’. Also, there was a movie made about these events entitled The End of the Spear. I own it if you’d like to borrow it. I recently watched it with a group of high school and college students, they agreed it was inspiring, encouraging, and sobering to the Christian heart.

I’ll leave you with 10 great quotes from Jim Elliot, a man who stored treasure in heaven. May they aid us in gaining an eternal perspective ourselves.

1. “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
2. “God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with him.”
3. “Wherever you are – be all there.”
4. “I many no longer depend on pleasant impulses to bring me before the Lord. I must rather response to principles I know to be right, whether I feel them to be enjoyable or not.”
5. “The will of God is always a bigger thing than we bargain for, but we must believe that whatever it involves, it is good, acceptable and perfect.”
6. “Lord, make my way prosperous not that I achieve high station, but that my life be an exhibit to the value of knowing God.”
7. “I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you Lord Jesus.”
8. “I couldn’t have asked for more than God in deliberate grace has surprised me with!”
9. “When it comes time to die, make sure that all you have to do is die.”
10. “Lord, give me firmness without hardness, steadfastness without dogmatism, love without weakness.”

Take advantage of this FREE audiobook from Christian Audio, Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening devotional. This would be great to listen to on your commute to and from work, or if you don’t enjoy reading, but still enjoy the blessing of devotional time with The Lord. The devotionals are short, but POWERFUL.

Christian Audio Description:
There have been many devotionals written in church history, but few are as strongly Biblical or shine as bright as Morning and Evening by renowned preacher and author C.H. Spurgeon. The penning of Morning and Evening more than 100 years ago became an instant classic and has led Christians worldwide to engage and reflect on faith. Free for the month of January.

Link below:

Morning and Evening By: Charles Spurgeon