Bartimaeus Baptist Temple

Hello friends.  It has been a tough week for many of us, but we choose to put our trust in God.  Priscilla got her surgery a day early and is on her way back home as I write this.  Cindy is seeking urgent care for pain in her left leg that has become unbearable.  Ruth’s results came back and she does not have cancer in her brain but her frontal lobe is severely atrophied.  I don’t think Don will have his test results back yet but I have not checked with him.  The young man I asked prayer for on Sunday did get into a rehab program.

This is one of those times when we can take comfort in the knowledge that this earthly life is not the sum of our existence.  We are citizens of an eternal kingdom, and our king is all powerful and the very definition of good.  The New Testament is full of references to the kingdom of God.  WE use the words, but do we know what they mean?

Our culture doesn’t care much for kings.  We do fawn over British royalty, which doesn’t make much since to me since we fought a war to get away from them, but they are more like movie stars to us.  We have an entirely different opinion of anyone who actually tries to tell us what to do.  So I wonder if our terminology sounds particularly strange to someone unfamiliar with the Christian subculture.  Then it really gets weird when we start talking about reigning with him.

The Jews of Jesus’ day would have had a different response.  They were looking for a messiah.  They were looking for a new king who would come in and bring them deliverance from their roman oppressors.  When John the baptist and then Jesus Himself began to talk about the Kingdom of Heaven, they didn’t hear the things they might have expected.  Jesus seemed to turn the whole concept of a kingdom upside down.  His message was one of hope, but also one that demanded a response.  He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17)

As Jesus began His ministry with this message, so we will begin our study of the kingdom of Heaven.  He is my king, and i am attempting to follow His lead.  If I have heard Him correctly, we will spend several weeks exploring Jesus’ references to the kingdom of Heaven and possibly beyond to the writings of the apostles.  His kingdom operates differently than anything we know from this world.  He has set the example.  Our king gave His life for us.

When I think about what that means, I get excited.  If we really get an understanding on the laws that govern God’s kingdom, we will find a whole new way to live.  I hope you’ll join us as we worship King Jesus and learn about His kingdom together.

Love y’all!

Larry

Blessings to you, fellow citizens.  This Sunday will be on Independence Day, and we’ll be celebrating accordingly.  I hope that you would agree with me that we are richly blessed to be living in the United States of America, but there’s a citizenship that’s much more important.  Most of all, I pray that you are a citizen in the kingdom of Heaven.

We celebrate freedom, and well we should.  But what do we mean by freedom? Do we really have a right to it?  Some don’t think so.  Our founders thought we did.  What makes us free? Is it the law, the society we live in, or something greater?

If we exclude God from the picture, there’s really no such thing as freedom.  We’re all just machines running out our programming.  Of course, then one has to believe that something as complex as a human being can grow out of nothing with no intelligence to direct the process, but that’s another conversation.

Jesus summed it up in one phrase, “the truth will set you free.”  We can argue over the foundation of the United States.  We can debate what is good and what is bad about it.  Some things are true and others are not, but none of it is significant unless we get a hold of the only truth that really matters, the truth of Jesus and His word.  As we celebrate our freedom this weekend, let us consider the true source of freedom.  We will focus on John 8:31-36.

We will have a fellowship after services.  Please bring something to share if you are able.

I do have some good news to report.  We were able to work out the insurance issues on Monday and they should be able to begin repairs on the building next week.  We are receiving a wonderful blessing.  I’ll give credit where it’s due once we have finalized everything with a vote this Sunday.  The air conditioning in the fellowship hall is already fixed.

Remember Ruth and Cathy in your prayers.  We missed them last Sunday.  Priscilla does need the gall bladder surgery and has a hiatal hernia. Further testing is needed to learn if there are greater concerns.  I don’t know if we will see her Sunday or not with the amount of pain she is experiencing.  Remember Kimi also.

Love y’all!

Larry

Blessings to you, loved ones.  My prayer for us this week is that we all draw closer to our Father in Heaven.  This Sunday will be Fathers Day.  For most of us regularly attending right now, our father on Earth is also in Heaven.  Though that may sadden us, it is also an occasion to rejoice as they knew the Lord and we will one day see them again.  For anyone reading who, like me, can still connect with their dad down here, I hope you’ll take a moment this weekend to show them a little extra love.

Jesus often spoke of the Father.  Taking from His example, we often speak of our Heavenly Father.  We usually direct our prayers to Him.  What do we mean when we call Him father?  if that’s even an appropriate way to address the creator of the universe, why so?  It is and has always been about relationship.  He has made a way so that we may not only call Him Father, but Daddy.  He has adopted us into His family.  Our text is from Romans 8:10-17.

Keep Priscilla in prayer.  She did get an appointment with the surgeon next week, but she is in pain until the problem is addressed.  We are appealing to the Great Physician on her behalf.  Remember Kimi as well.  She has her appointment with a rheumatologist today.  Ruth sounded happy this week.  They got the testing done without incident.

Love y’all,

Larry

Hello loved ones.  My prayer for us this week is simply that we will grow to love each other as He has loved us.  It sure was good to see Ruth participating with us on Sunday.  I wish everyone had been there, but that is in the Lord’s hands.  Let’s keep on praying for each other and building each other up.

This week I have been thinking about tradition.  It can be a good thing.  It binds us together.  It can be used to teach us things that we need to remember.  Yahweh established traditions to do that for His people.  It can also be a bad thing.  It becomes a bad thing when we forget its purpose.  It becomes a bad thing when the tradition becomes the thing we worship instead of our Lord.

One of the first things children learn to ask is “why?”  Somewhere there still may be an incriminating cassette tape of a very young me asking it over and over again. It’s built into us to want to know the reason for everything.  We explore our physical world through science, but science can’t answer the deeper questions in life.

Somewhere into adulthood, many of us stop asking.  Life gets too busy.  Sometimes we’re discouraged from asking.  Sometimes we stop caring.  Sometimes, most dangerous of all, we think we know all the whys that matter.  It’s good to stop and ask once in a while as my wife says, “what are we doing and why are we doing it?”

These are good questions in our personal lives.  They are also good questions to ask ourselves as a church.  We all claim the Bible as our source for the things we do.  Does it have anything to say about how a church should operate?  Actually, though it has a great deal to say on how we should conduct ourselves as the church, it says little about what should happen when we meet together.  There’s no order of service or prescribed program to be found.  What did they do?  Are we obligated to model ourselves after them?  Why do we do things the way we do?

I’m sure one could fill a library with books on the subject, so we will hardly be able to do it justice in 20-30 minutes.  Instead, we will take one short passage, 1 Corinthians 14:26-33. and draw some conclusions from what we find there.  Now if you know your Bible, you probably already have an objection.  This is part of a chapter where Paul is issuing a correction to the behavior going on in the church meeting.  It hardly seems a good place to get ideas on how a service should be run.  Stick with me and I’ll explain.  I hope you’ll be able to join us.

Blessings to you, loved ones.  If you were there last Sunday, you’re probably wondering what we’re doing this coming week.  As of this writing, we are meeting in person, but if things change between now and then I will make sure everyone gets the message.  If work on the building is in progress that makes it a problem for us to meet in person, we will resort to a virtual service.  As of now we are still waiting for the details to be finalized and work can’t start until we have approved any expense in a vote.  Since it’s highly unlikely that there will be no expense to us, the work will probably not be underway.

Also Cathy has her hands full right now.  Ruth is still unwell and requires a lot of attention.  Keep both of them in prayer.  It was great to have Priscilla and Kimi back with us.  We have missed them.  Pris was still in a lot of pain but she’s getting around.

Last week as I was praying, the Lord asked me a question, “Do you want to walk with me?”  For a long time, I have been conscious that some of my entertainment choices are not healthy for me, but I have not been willing to give them up.  I knew that I was putting things into my mind that are a corrupting influence, causing me to think in ways that are not pleasing to Him.  It seems like a small thing, but because I knew that the Lord was not pleased, it became a barrier to our relationship.  I could not go to Him with an open heart because I was holding something back.

That question would not leave my mind.  Almost every time opened that book I was reading, I would hear it again.  “Do you want to walk with me?”  I’m being offered a choice.  I can join my Heavenly Father to walk together in a deepening relationship, or I can run off to find my own cheap and temporal amusements.  Why did it take me so long?

I choose Yahweh!  I want to walk with him and talk with him the way I used to do with my earthly father growing up.  I didn’t appreciate those times as much as I should have at the time, but now I remember them with fondness and gratitude.  He’s calling to me just like that.

Remember the story of Adam and Even in the garden of Eden?  After they had broken the one commandment He gave them, they heard the sound of His coming.  The scripture doesn’t tell us, but we imagine this was a common occurrence.  I imagine peaceful walks through the beauty of His creation, sharing the love and unity between them.

But this time was different.  Immediately aware of their shame, they had already made a feeble attempt to cover themselves in fig leaves, and now they cowered in the trees as Yahweh called out, “Where are you?”  The relationship has been broken.  Where once there was love and unity with the Creator, now there is fear and shame.  In body and soul they stand before him naked, but no longer unashamed. (Genesis 3:6-13)

That is what happens when we sin.  That is what happens when we believe Satan’s lies, and choose to satisfy our own lusts.  We replace the creator with the creation.  We take the imitation instead of the real thing.  True love is sacrificed on the altar of self.  From the start we have been faithless, but He remains faithful.  He knew from the beginning of time what would be necessary to redeem us.  Jesus is the remedy.

Because of His sacrifice, we can still have that relationship that Adam threw away.  He calls to each of us, “Do you want to walk with me?”  Join me in saying, “YES!”

Love to you all.

Larry