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Winning Over Fear

In this month’s blog I want to share with you some thoughts from God’s Word about fear. Fear is one of Satan’s most used weapons against us. Fear tries to rob us of our faith in God and fire for God. We all face and experience fear but its what we do when it hits that determines whether we win or not.
 
Fear is a negative faith robbing emotion that brings a feeling of dread or terror. It causes us to be afraid, anxious, or apprehensive about a possible or probable situation or event. Fear is one of the greatest weapons and faith robbers Satan has mastered against the church. Many times fear is the first fiery dart the devil releases on us because it paralyzes and brings torment into our lives. Fear is designed to produce doubt and unbelief which keeps us from the promises of God. God knew fear would be one of Satan’s most used weapons against us and such a formidable enemy that He said to us, “Fear not”, 80 times in the scriptures.
 
So how can we win against fear? Well, we should remember that Jesus established belief or faith in God as a principle to live by, not fear. “And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God… Therefor I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” (Mark 11:22,24 KJV). “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” (Ephesians 6:16 KJV).

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4 Calls You Should Take

In this age of technology we live in, we’ve all probably had a phone call or two we didn’t take for whatever reason after seeing the caller ID. Then there are other times, as soon as we see a certain persons name appear, we immediately answer the call. Chances are you can relate to both experiences. In this blog, I want to talk about taking a different kind of call, one that comes from God. So I want to share with you 4 divine calls or invites that we can receive from God. These are not only calls God gives us but these are calls we should take or answer.
 
First, God issues a divine call to come to Him. The call of the gospel is a call to come to Him. In Mark 2:17 Jesus said He came to call sinners to repentance. Romans 1:6 tells us we are called to belong to Jesus Christ. First Corinthians 1:9 says God calls us into a relationship with Himself. We need to know we have had a divine call from the Lord, inviting us to come to Him and making Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
 
Secondly, God issues us a divine call to bring others to Him. One of the clearest descriptions of God’s call on our lives is found in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 where God calls us to the ministry of reconciliation. We are called or invited to be ambassadors of Christ who carry the message of Christ to the world. The ministry of reconciliation is a divine call to bring others to Him.

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Knowing How God Leads Us: Part Two

Did you know that God didn’t make it hard for His children to hear from Him and hearing from Him isn’t something that just a few special people experience. Never has there been a time it was more important to hear from God, as our lives and success may depend upon it.

 

In part one of Knowing How God Leads Us, I share how God uses His Word to lead and speak to us. Today in part two, I want to share how God will lead us by His Holy Spirit. Both Jesus and Paul remind us that one of the jobs of the Holy Spirit is to lead or guide us, “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.” (John 16:13 KJV)

 

One mistake that we can make is to expect God to lead us some other way than He tells us He will. We may have all kinds of thoughts and ideas but that doesn’t make them right nor the way God tells us He will lead us. With that being said, I want to talk about the primary way (the main way but not the only way) God tells us in His Word He will lead us by His Holy Spirit. It’s called the inward witness, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God…The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” (Romans 8:14,16 KJV)


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Knowing How God Leads Us: Part One

In life, we all face times when we need God’s guidance or direction in our lives. None of us want to make the wrong choice or decisions in life. The good news is we don’t have to! God wants us to know His will for our lives and He does not leave us without a clear understanding of how. In part 1 of this blog, I want to begin to share how we can all know the ways God tells us He leads His people.

 
Chances are you’ve either thought or asked the question, “How do I know I’m hearing from God?” Well, that is the same question we all have until we learn how. As God’s children, we need to understand the significance of both God’s Word and His Holy Spirit, and how the two work together for us to hear from God. So, in Part 1 we will look at how God uses His Word to lead and speak to us.
 
First, we must understand the Bible is God talking to us. That means we can know the will of God for our lives and the direction we should go by knowing the Word of God. This is why the Bible is so important to us in hearing from God. Another way to say it is, the Word of God should be God’s voice to us. God’s word should be the first place we look in order to hear from God. When we need direction in our lives, the first thing we should ask ourselves is, what does the Bible say, what does the Word of God say? Then never go against its counsel. So, there you have it, one way God leads us is by His Word.

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Our Macedonian Calls

Sometimes I wonder how many people read the Bible or hear a message preached about a Bible character and think, God could never use me like that. One such story is found in Acts 16:1-10 and is known as the Macedonian Call. In short, the apostle Paul had a vision in which a man from Macedonia was asking him to come share the gospel to the people of that place. Wow, pretty supernatural right? We read this and probably think of God only using a few special people in things like this. Well if you have, you’re wrong. In this blog I want to share a few points that can help you be used by God in ways you may have thought impossible.
 
We need to understand that God wants to send us or give us divine opportunities to help others know Him. I call them our “Macedonian Call”. They are times when situations and opportunities present themselves and we are ready to be used of God to help bring people to Jesus. The following are a few things that we can do to prepare ourselves to be used of God.

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Two Important Things in Your Growth: Part Two

In our last blog, I began to share two important things believers must learn to do in order to grow spiritually. The first was to renew our minds. Remember God said that it was through the renewing of our minds that our lives would be transformed (Romans 12:2). I want to encourage you to take a moment and go back and review what was shared there.   Now in this blog, I’d like to share with you the second part of this which is, learning how to develop our spirits. Many times, we have developed our bodies and educated our minds, but we have left the spirit of man almost unnoticed. We need to understand our spirit can be educated just as our minds can be educated. We need to understand our spirit can be developed, built up in strength, and trained just as our bodies can be.

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Two Important Things in Your Growth: Part One

So many times in life we face things we don’t know how to do. Even when it comes to our walk with God, we may want to grow but simply don’t know how. In this blog, I want to share two important things believers must learn to do in order to grow. They are first, to renew our minds and secondly, to develop spiritually. Although neither is difficult, they both will take continued attention from us in order for us to grow. In this blog we will deal with the first, renewing our minds. Mind renewal is certainly an important part of our Christian walk because it plays a vital role in our spiritual development. Romans 12:2 tells us, “and be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

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God’s Grace

In this blog, we will take a look at the very important topic of Grace. One reason studying grace is so important is in doing so it helps us to better understand the author and giver of that grace, God the Father Himself. Knowing God is vital to our lives and understanding what the grace of God has done and provided paves the way for us to know Him and His plan for our lives better. So let’s take a quick look at God’s Grace. Grace is…

  • God’s unmerited, unearned, or undeserved favor
  • God gives us what we don’t deserve
  • God’s willing and free bestowal of His goodness and favor upon the unworthy and undeserving
  • God’s ability is given to man in order to reach and know Him
  • God’s power or strength
  • God’s power or ability to do in you and through you what you couldn’t do yourself

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5 Important Topics in Today’s Church

In this blog, I want to give you a few thoughts on 5 Important Topics in Today’s Church. I will only briefly cover each topic in this blog. For a more intensive study, we will link you to the messages that delve deeper into each topic.

  • Evangelism is about God’s mission to the world.

 

Evangelism is about helping people to see the good news of Jesus Christ and helping them to take steps to Him.

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My Big Mouth

We all can probably think of a time our mouths got us in trouble. The good news, however, is we can learn to use our mouths to get us out of trouble as well. In this blog, I want to share some important thoughts on the power of our words. Too few believers realize that affect their words have on their lives, either for the good or the bad. So here are just a few examples of the power of our words and the influence they have over us.

 


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