Upward Awards Night

The last day of Upward Basketball was today. What a year!! It will be exciting tonight as we celebrate awards night! I'm praying for a mighty move of God!

Legalism

I know I'm bringing up some hot topics, but this one is soooo dangerous! I recently heard a story of a missionary working by God's grace in the country he had been called to. He was walking down the road of a busy market when he noticed a man in a turbin talking to himself. He walked up to the man and asked "How are you today?" No response. He proceeded to ask again "How are you today?; again nothing. As he turned to leave, he noticed someone in another booth of the market motioning for him to come over. He walked over and the gentleman explained that he had noticed him trying to get the attention of another seller. He pointed out that the seller wasn't being rude, but it was 3:00 O'clock, and at that time he talked to God, and if he didn't talk to God at 3:00 O'clock; God would be disappointed with him, and it would be dishonoring. He proceeded to tell him that if the man's cassette tape player wasn't broken; he could have played his recorded prayer that he does sometimes to take care of his customers when they come by at the appointed time of, you guessed it, 3:00 O'clock. Now, what's wrong with this? Everything!!!
#1. There is absolutely nothing you could ever do to gain God's favor, that's why we need GRACE.
#2. God is not wanting you to have some sort of systematic approach to a relationship with Him with rules and regulations. He wants YOU!, and He wants you to be yourself (Godly) self that is, in your approach to Him.
#3. If God has all of you (as pointed out in #2), you will want to be submissive to Him and want to obey Him, because you will realize what a privilege it is for this Almighty, Holy, God (JESUS CHRIST) to want to have a relationship with you.

Now make sure you understand, I'm not saying that there isn't any boundaries here, or do's and don'ts, I'm just saying practicing the do's and don'ts doesn't bring us to God, only what Christ did for us on the cross did that. People get this backward; they work or practice do's and don'ts to gain God's favor. Instead of practicing do's and don'ts BECAUSE OF God's favor.

I've rambled long enough,
Have a Blessed Day!

P.S. I invite you to go to youtube and watch this 5 part video series about the subject of Legalism.

Here's the first video:

Election

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:

http://www.gty.org/AudioPlayer/Sermons/GTY106

Just A Little Fun!

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?

Snow again

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

Best Guitar Player In The World?

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:

Wordless Wednesday;

But Please Watch And Listen:





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 ?

Tommy Walker

Tommy Walker's Song: "I Have A Hope"

Pretty Neat Song, And One Of The Best Christian Guitarist Out There!

Contemporary Questions? Biblical Answers!

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!!!!

Wake Up America!!!!!!!

All Church Services Canceled!

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!

See you then!

Sammy

"This Hope" Comes To Waterville!

The Christian Group "This Hope" Will Be At Waterville Sunday Morning!

Check Out This Video Of Their Song Break My Plans:




Check Out More Songs Here.

Tim Lovelace

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: