Probably one of , if not the most debated topics within the church is the doctrine of election. I once heard John MaCarthur talk about this during one of his question and answer sessions at his church in California. I wasn't there in person, but I came across it on the web and I thought I would share it with you. I'll post later about the subject, but for now, here is the link:
Now this is funny, as you can see we had 2 patients and 4 doctors! Where in Cleveland do you get that doctor to patient ratio? These pictures were taken a while back and they just reminded me of a 3 hour ordeal I had today at the church to remove a virus on one of the Administrator's computers. Why do people create viruses to infect computers? I know the immediate answer; of course to try and create a program to steal vital information from someone, but the virus doesn't normally accomplish that. It just makes the techno world a terrible place to live in for some innocent victim. Is there a doctor in the house?
Wow! It's actually snowing again in Cleveland, TN. That's hard to believe, especially since we're experiencing all this global warming. (Ha!Ha!Ha!) I think Al Gore has been making too many trips to the south here lately, and the heavenly Father is snowing on his parade. How funny. On a serious note, the snow does remind us of God's beauty, and also God's all-knowing power. Snow covers up a lot doesn't it? I think sometimes we think we can cover up things that are wrong in our lives from this all-knowing Jesus. The Word says: Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Heb 4:13) That makes us uncomfortable sometimes because in the flesh we like the darkness, but we need to always run to the light of God's love and knowledge. The Light will then expose what we need to repent of and ask God to forgive us of. Try this sometime, oh you do it every day, but think about this experiment: Turn off the lights tonight in one of the rooms of your house and then quickly turn the light back on. Did you notice what happened? Where did the darkness go? It had to flee! It can't stay in the light. Let's get close to the light of the world and let go of all those things in our lives that we like to hide and cover up in the blanket of the darkness. Praying For You Bloggers, Sammy
This Australian guitarist would probably have my vote as the best guitarist in the world. I do not listen to all of his music, or follow him because he doesn't play Christian music, but I have never seen anyone like him. In Nashville in 1999, Tommy was honored by his mentor, Chet Atkins with the title of "Certified Guitar Player" for his contribution to fingerstyle guitar, a rare distinction shared by only three other people in the world (Jerry Reed, Steve Wariner and John Knowles).
Check out one of his clips from youtube:
Please Note: I do want to be fair and say; Snopes says that most of the info in the video is false, but they're not saying the statistics are far off. By the way, can we trust SNOPES ?
Our church is doing a series of messages concerning major topics of concern on Wednesday night. Tonight is about abortion. I am sickened by this legalized murder within our blessed country. I did a little research for Pastor Allan and Pastor Joe regarding this topic and even I was completely shocked by what I saw. Please understand, there is forgiveness at the cross, but stop, stop, stop, the killing!!!!
Unfortunately, all church services for Waterville Baptist are cancelled tomorrow, Jan 31st. This means that "This Hope" will be here next Sunday morning, Feb 7th. All of you out in blogger world who were coming to the worship service tomorrow to see This Hope; please forgive me. My little boy is really in to Alaskan Huskies, and was really looking forward to meeting these Alaskan fellers, so he is really disappointed...., but there is next week!
Tim Lovelace came to our church last night and it was a blast! That may sound a little funny talking about a church service and Tim would hope it would. Seriously, it was very worshipful and moving. He is a true Christian comedian, but he knows when to get serious and let God move...Here's a little sample from a video:
I had a wonderful visit today with one of my choir members who is battling cancer and has accepted the fact that God may want to have her with Him sooner than later. She is such an encouragement even in the midst of this battle, and she said something today that was astonishing. She said it was a job to die. I never thought of it like that. We all have a job to do throughout our lives. Here is the question: Are you/we faithful with the job God has given us at this point in our lives? I pray that I am, and will be, when God gives the final job to do. I pray like this precious saint I visited with today, He will find all of us faithful and ready in doing the task He gives to us daily.
I think we as fallible people find ourselves reaching out so much for commonality around us, that we can fall into a cloning mentality. I'm not saying that we shouldn't look to others around us that are a little more spiritually experienced and try to learn from their journey; even Paul exhorts in all of his letters to the churches by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, clear examples of how to live. 1 Corinthians 4: 15 and 16 says: For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Therefore I urge you, imitate me. Now putting this in context, we know that these are believer's Paul led to the Lord ("In Christ Jesus, I have begotten you"), but still Paul is telling them to imitate him. Wait a minute, did you get that? "In Christ Jesus". Paul is just the mouthpiece; but he is an example that can be followed as long as God is the one getting the glory. I just think there's a fine line that we could cross and we will be following an idea, a fad, a person, a family, etc. There are many men, families, that I look to. Men like: John MacArthur, Steve Maxwell, Voddie Baucham, J.R. Miller, the late-great Adrian Rogers, but out of all of these, this is the one who amazes me...:
