“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

Happy New Year Grace Bible Family!!! By faith in Christ we’re starting this year LOVED, REDEEMED, FORGIVEN, and filled with HOPE, JOY and ASSURANCE.
I look forward to another year of growing in God’s grace and truth with you all. In 2015 we get to be a part of God doing GOD-SIZED things in and through Grace Bible. Can’t wait!
It’s such an honor and a privilege to serve as your pastor. Love y’all.
Christ is all!
Roy

I was thinking and praying about the coming of the new year and this verse came to mind:

…let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2

May 2015 be a year that has the GOD, by way of the Gospel at it’s center. May we leave behind any sins of the mind, heart, and hands, hindrances that “cling so closely’. These things hold us back from being the God-glorifying vessel God has called and privileged us to be. But 2015 can’t chiefly be about what we leave behind, but what we fully embrace. We must be “looking to Jesus”, the founder, author, perfecter, finisher and the object of our faith. The greatest thing about 2015 will be the same as what was greatest about 2014, Christ “endured the cross”. We will receive no greater news in the coming year than message of our being reconciled unto God through the blood of Jesus Christ. He died the death that we deserved to die. He lives, that we may live. He’s given us His Spirit. By faith in Christ, we are made children of God. Christian, if God is for us, who can be against us? Think about it! It’s going to be a GREAT year!

Christians, we are in a race. It’s a marathon. As we run with our eyes fixed on Jesus, our view of Him keeps growing larger as we draw closer. May our view of Christ be BIGGER, this time next year!

As we all know, runners train. One way that we can train, and keep our focus on Christ is to read and meditate on His Word, daily. Why not start each day reading God’s Word before you do anything else? I promise you all time in the Word will be time well spent. Below are some links to a few reading plans that might aid you in making God’s Word a priority in your daily life in 2015.

10 Bible reading plans from Crossway

Bible app

Reading plans from Ligonier Ministries

A daily devotional

The wise (in his own way) Forrest Gump once said: “…you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes, where they go, where they’ve been.” Well, for the Christian, and really anyone, we can tell a lot about us by looking at Genesis, things like, where we go, and where we’ve been:)

Beginning January 11, Sunday evenings, at our house, from 6-8pm, for High School and college age, I’ll be teaching through Genesis ch’s 1-11. We’ll learn among other things, creation, the fall of man, God’s plan of redemption, The Flood and Noah’s Ark and how it points us toward Jesus. Also, form these 11 ch’s, students will learn how to biblically answer 4 major questions of life: Who am I? Why am I here? What’s wrong with the world? What can be done about it?

As an added bonus 🙂 we’ll open our time each week in Proverbs, learning and applying God’s practical wisdom to our lives.

Looking forward to it! Email me if you have any questions.

10 ways we can remember to be Christians this Christmas. By pastor and author, Kevin DeYoung

Christmas is almost here.

And that means many of us are tired, frazzled, stressed, and busy. The next two weeks will go by in a blur–from family, to church, to food, to family, to football, back to church, back to family, back to food, and then back to work.

We love Christmas. We can’t wait for the day to come, and many of us can’t wait for the season to be gone.

But whether you love every nook and cranny about the holidays–or consider most of it “noise, noise, noise!”–there is no excuse to be grinchy and scroogeish. Here are ten ways we can remember to be Christians this Christmas.

1. Sing like you mean it. Sure, there are a some Christmas carol clunkers, but there are some amazing hymns too (see Hark! the Herald Angels Sing, Of the Father’s Love Begotten, Let All Mortal Flesh, and many more). Belt them out with gusto. Smile and take delight in the familiar sounds of the season. You may not hear them for 11 more months.

2. Say thank you. Over the next week you’ll get gifts someone picked out for you and eat food someone prepared for you and enjoy hospitality someone laid out for you. We’re told to give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thess. 5:18). Surely, this includes Christmas. Stop to offer a sincere “thank you” to your mom, your husband, your kids, your aunt, your grandma, whomever–it will be good for your soul and it may just make their day.

3. Put the phone down. Go ahead and take a few pictures and post a few updates, but let’s not turn our Christmas experience into another commodity to be bought and sold. Look people in the eye. Be present in the moment. Let the world’s tragedies and scandals and funny cut videos take a back seat for a day.

4. Enjoy some cookies. Oh, the dreadful holiday pounds. Sure, we need to be on guard against gluttony. But we need to be on guard against censorious asceticism too. God created food to be received with thanksgiving. Eat up, and don’t feel bad about it. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected that is made holy by the word of God and prayer (1 Tim. 4:3-5).

5. Talk to your family. Why not put in five minutes worth of thought on the way to your grandma’s house to think of five questions to ask of five different people? Maybe conversation flows easily with your family. But for many people, it takes some effort to engage our relatives, especially those we don’t see often and those with whom we have little in common. Give people the gift of your curiosity.

6. Find time to be quiet. At some point, get away and be still. Even if just for 10 minutes. Even if it’s in your bed after everyone else is asleep. Go on a walk. Take a long shower. Get up early. Sit in the dark. Stare at the tree. Just be quiet, ponder, and pray.

7. Pray for opportunities. What if we prayed for at least one opportunity in the next two weeks to share the gospel? I bet God would honor that prayer. Maybe we can talk to a friend or family member. Maybe we’ll find a surprisingly open door for conversation at the mall or out to eat or on the plane. Maybe we have not because we ask not.

8. Make a year-end gift. Your church is probably trying to make budget. So are rescue missions, crisis pregnancy centers, Christian schools, mission agencies, and dozens of other kingdom causes. Go ahead a be generous. We won’t out-give God.

9. Quit complaining. Something will go wrong this Christmas. Someone will hurt your feelings. Your parent’s house will be too hot. Your brothers house will be too cold. A meal will be barely edible. Your obnoxious friends will be extra obnoxious. Still, God is more pleased with gratitude than with grumbling. If we learn to overlook a few offenses we’ll be happier too.

10. Rejoice to hear the Story one more time. Matthew 1 and Luke 2 are coming at you. So are Isaiah 7 and 9, Micah 5, and many of the same passages you hear ever year. No bother: “To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you” (Phil. 3:1). Let us pray that God gives us ears to hear, again and again, with fresh wonder that God came down to be with us and that he is with us still.

Find more great resources from Kevin DeYoung here

Grace Bible, 2014 Baptisms. To God be the glory!

http://vimeo.com/84479585

http://vimeo.com/92986406

http://vimeo.com/102437293

http://vimeo.com/111976335

http://vimeo.com/115142998

I mentioned this book in a sermon a couple of weeks ago. I highly recommend it! A short, easy, VERY powerful read.

Here’s a quote:

“The personal desolation Christ is experiencing on the cross is what you and I should be experiencing–but instead, Jesus is bearing it, and bearing it all alone. Why alone? He’s alone so that we might never be alone.”
― C.J. Mahaney, Living the Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Cross-Centered-Life-Keeping/dp/1590525787/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419274478&sr=1-1&keywords=living+the+cross+centered+life+mahaney

.

..there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them…And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord…And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”…the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they went with haste...

Shepherds — the outcasts of their day. They smelled like the animals they worked with. They were considered ceremonially unclean, meaning they were excluded from temple worship. Shepherds had daily contact with the carcasses of the animals they tended, and under Jewish ceremonial law they could not be in the temple. But it makes sense that “unclean” shepherds would be the first to come to Christ, because it’s on the basis of uncleanliness that we approach Christ. It’s the sick who are in need of The Great Physician.

God could have chosen anyone to notify of the coming of Christ. He could have dispatched angels to the Chief Priests, Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees or other religious leaders. Or he could’ve chose great political figures or military leaders, people with power!  But instead, the underdog, the lowly, stinky, forgotten shepherds. What sort of God is ths?!?! He is the same God who is still seeking humble people to use for his glory. That hasn’t changed. It’s not about your occupation, social status, past, or popularity. It’s about having heart in need of Christ. Where is your heart this Christmas? Are we, like the lowly shepherds, eager to WORSHIP Jesus? Let’s not, in our pride, miss our opportunity to WORSHIP the King who is WORTHY.

Galatians 4:4-5 tells us that, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman…so that we might receive adoption as sons.

The son of God became human, so that humans might become sons and daughters of GOD.

Christmas is a reminder that God loves us! He loves us in spite of our sin (Rom 5:8). He doesn’t see any of us as a lost cause. He sees us as worth serving, living, and dying for. God sent his Son on Christmas to live and die for us…To save us from our sins…and save us to Himself.

Like Christmas, Christianity is a gift exchange: we give Jesus our sin, and he gives us eternal life. No matter how many times we repeat that message, it never gets old.

Augustine, speaking on the incarnation of Christ said this:

Man’s maker was made man,
that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast;
that the Bread might hunger,
the Fountain thirst,
the Light sleep,
the Way be tired on its journey;
that the Truth might be accused of false witness,
the Teacher be beaten with whips,
the Foundation be suspended on wood;
that Strength might grow weak;
that the Healer might be wounded;
that Life might die.

– Augustine of Hippo (Sermons 191.1)