Bartimaeus Baptist Temple

Cool blessings to you, loved ones.  Fall is finally coming to Texas and not a moment too soon.  I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am.  Here’s what’s happening.

Not everyone had such a happy transition.  Cindy would have preferred to celebrate Fall without a tree literally falling on HER HOUSE.  She’s ok as are her four-legged companions, but she is without power and there is some damage to her home.  If I understood correctly it is minor considering the size of the tree.

Cathy wasn’t feeling well last week, but they made it to church.  Ruth would not have it otherwise.  Cathy is fine now and Ruth assured me they will be in church tomorrow.  🙂

When you’re little, people ask you, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”  I think for most of us that changed a few times over the years.  A better question might be, “Who do you want to be?”  The ways in which we define ourselves are as varied as we are.  A child of God might use words like Christian or believer, but I want to add one you might not have considered, “disciple of Jesus.”

That might sound strange because we’re used to thinking of Jesus’ disciples as the 12 men who were closest to Him during His earthly ministry, but Jesus had other disciples beyond these.  A disciple is simply a student.  In the culture of Jesus’ day, the disciple would physically follow the rabbi around in order to learn from him, but Jesus invites us all to follow Him.

In Matthew 28:18-20, not long before he ascended back to Heaven, Jesus gave His disciples some instructions.  He said, “…make disciples of all the nations…”  He was not telling them to create their own batch of followers to be disciples of disciples.  He was telling them to make disciples of Himself.  Our mission is to be and to make disciples of Jesus!  He is our model.  He is the one we follow, and as we seek to bring Him ore followers, we do so by “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.”  Our job is not simply to get people to make professions of faith or even to get baptized, though this He also told us to do.  Our objective is to make disciples.  How might this focus change the way we evangelize and conduct church activities?  Let’s consider that together.  Come join us.

Love y’all,

Larry

Blessings to you, loved ones.  I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.  Linda and I pray for all of you throughout the week.  You are always in our hearts.  Here’s what’s coming up.

Last week was not a typical service.  We took the time to celebrate the life of Tim Terrell, who went to be with Jesus the Thursday before.  There is always sadness at such times because we love and miss those who have been taken from us, but there is also rejoicing as we know they are whole and happy with Jesus and we will see them again.

Cindy is doing ok, but keep her in prayer and stay in tough.  Priscilla is recovered and expects to be back with us. Keep Kimi in your prayers for her health.

We will have the communion ceremony as part of our service this week.  I want to share with you a little encouragement.  It can sometimes seem like nothing we do really matters.  Maybe we’ve come to a place when there isn’t much we can do.  Maybe we look back on what we have done and it doesn’t seem like enough.  We can’t change the past, and as for the future it might help if we could see things just a little from God’s perspective.  His accounting system is not at all like ours.  He looks at the heart, and when He find faith and devotion there, He is most pleased.  Others may think we’re fools, but His opinion is the only one that matters.

This is wonderfully illustrated by the account of the woman who anoints Jesus with expensive perfume just a few days before He is to be crucified.  We’ll read the account in Mark 14:3-9, but you can also find it in Matthew 26 and in John 12.  Jon gives us some details the others leave out.  What this woman did seemed silly and wasteful to those who saw it, but Jesus set them straight, telling them, “wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.” (14:9)  And so it is.  We’ll speak of it again Sunday, and I hope you’ll be there.

Love y’all!

Larry

Good morning all.  I pray that whatever has come to you in the past week, you have been able to see the goodness of our God.  During these trying times we all need each other.  Don’t miss out on what God has for you.  It often comes by means of another of His children when we spend time together.

Whenever I share something that feels a little heavy, I like to follow it up with something encouraging.  So when God gave me the topic for today, I didn’t want to do it.  Then He showed me how it is in fact an uplifting message.  Actually, all of them should be.  After all. Jesus said that the truth will make us free.  It only becomes heavy when we resist it.

Many years ago when I was going through a tough time, someone shared this verse with me and it stuck.  Proverbs 18:1 reads, “He who separates himself seeks his own desire, He quarrels against all sound wisdom.” (NASB)  I don’t remember the context of the discussion anymore.  I do remember that I handled a situation badly and had skipped Sunday morning services that week.  Now that I’ve studied the verse, I’m not even sure if it could be applied that way, but now I think about it every time I read it, and there are some important truths that we can learn from it.

Based on the significant differences in translation, I think the Proverbs are one of the most difficult things to translate from the original language.  They often rely heavily on the cultural background and thought processes of the people to which they are addressed.  This is a challenge in all translation, but it becomes most evident in the proverbs.  Just look at the wide variation among the many versions provided by Bible Gateway.  This can be intimidating to a budding Bible student.  For me, it was a challenge to my faith when I was younger.  How can we trust in the infallibility of scripture if we can’t even decide what it says?  Since then, I have learned that we actually can have more confidence by far in the Bible text than we have in any other ancient writing , so again, the truth sets us free.

In this case, three points can be made from just about all the attempts at rendering this verse in a way we understand today.  The isolation being warned against is that which we choose.  This choice is a selfish one.  This choice is a rejection of wisdom and good judgment.  God meant for us to be in community with each other and with Him.  Just as we learned last week, nothing good comes from working against His design.

Come and join us.  We look forward to sharing with you and learning from you as we grow together.  You belong in God’s family.  Whether you are coming for the first time or coming back, He waits for you with open arms, and so do we.

I saved this for last because it didn’t seem right to have it screaming from the top of the Facebook page.  Tim remained in the hospital last week and they say that cancer is throughout his body.  Cindy says he may get to come home tomorrow and will be in hospice care.  It is never too late for God to do a miracle, so keep praying.

Love to you all,

Larry

Blessings to you, friends and family of Bartimaeus Baptist Temple.  As I write to you on this rainy evening, I am reflecting on all that God has done through this church and all that He has brought us through.  We’ve heard that many are closing their doors, but despite what many would consider to be more than our share of suffering, we are still here.

That is something to celebrate, and celebrate we will!  Of necessity it will be a less elaborate celebration, but we will have our Homecoming service this Sunday.  We will begin at our usual time.  We will share a meal together after the service.  We have not sent out invitations, but anyone is welcome to come.  It would be helpful if you let us know that you plan to attend.  If you are able, please bring something to share.  I would also like for us to share any special memories we have from the life of the church.  Let us rejoice together in what the Lord has done over the years.

I will be giving the message.  I try not to repeat myself too often, but this one is suited to the occasion, so I am going to deliver it again.  At Homecoming we reflect on who we are and where we’ve been, but where do we want to go?  I want to share a vision with you, and I want to do it by talking about a blind man.  Actually, he isn’t blind, and that’s the point.  Our church is named after Bartimaeus, whose story is found in Mark 10:46-52.  We call him blind Bartimaeus, but he hasn’t been blind since that day when he heard Jesus passing by and would not give up until Jesus answered him.  Jesus healed Bartimaeus, and then Bartimaeus followed Jesus.  We will always be a church that makes a special effort to include people with disabilities.  That’s part of who we are.  But it is my desire that we are also known as a church full of faithful Jesus followers who will not give up!  That is the nature our namesake, and that is who we want to be.

Love y’all!  See you Sunday,

Larry

Blessings to you, loved ones.  Our Texas summer is still hanging on, but I hear the worst will soon be behind us.  Thank the Lord that it really wasn’t so bad this year.  The worst of the heat may be breaking, but things are heating up here at BBT.  Read on for more.

This will be a fifth Sunday, which usually means food, but since our Homecoming celebration is just two weeks away, we ‘ll wait until then.  I’ll provide more details on that later, but for now I will just say that due to lingering concerns over the virus, we will be scaling back our traditional Homecoming activities in order to keep the crowd a little smaller.  Anyone who wants to come is welcome, but we will not be sending out invitations or catering in the meal.

We missed Tim and Cindy last week as Tim was in the hospital.  They were able to find out what was preventing him from being able to eat and he is back home resting.  Keep him in prayer.  One of the things they did was remove a mass and sent it for biopsy.

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen extensive coverage of the Democrat and Republican national conventions.  I don’t remember this much attention ever being paid to them before.  I think the mood of the country, the conditions resulting from our response to the corona virus, and therefore the presentation format of the conventions contributed to the unusual amount of coverage.  I see it as a good thing.  I hope people were taking note.

One of the things that happens at these conventions is the construction of the party platform.  This is a document that outlines the core positions of each party.  Anyone running for office under the banner of that party is thereby making a statement that he or she is in agreement with the platform.  That is why it’s important to be familiar with these documents before you go to the polls.  Yes, that oversimplifies things a bit, but it is a very useful starting point.

But there’s another question that we need to answer first.  What is your platform?  On what foundation do you stand?  What forms the basis for the decisions you make?  Is your life built upon the rock of God’s word, or the shifting sands of worldly philosophy, the word of a talking head, or whatever is hot this week?  The storms are going to come.  I think our nation is on the edge of a big one that will make Hurricane Laura a footnote.  Are we ready?  Is the church ready?

Our study this week is from Matthew 7:24-27.  The passage begins “Therefore,” so I kept backing up to see how much material that there therefore was for.  But the clue in this case is to go forward.  Jesus is wrapping up what we call “the sermon on the mount”.  That’s a bit much to cover in one message unless I want to try like Paul to talk all night.  We’ve just one floor so I don’t have to worry about anyone falling out of a window, but I do want y’all to come, so I’ll be content to start back in verse 13 for some context.  🙂

See you there.

Love you all!

Larry