Thoughts On Teaching

Most Fellowship pastors think that teaching adult Sunday School is just another sermon except you get others to read your scripture references for you. This is not teaching, this is still just preaching. For example, why not get off the stage and stand down on floor level with a podium. Ask questions and take answers. Teach doctrine since the bible is full of doctrine and lists. If you teach and no one learns anything upon review, go back to school and learn how to teach effectively.

Pastors must teach. If you do not know how or if your teaching isn't working  get help. Watch You Tube to learn how to teach. Teaching is valuable to get sinners saved by grace into Heaven. It is profitable.

"And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers." Eph. 4:11

We have pastors in our Fellowship. Our evangelists we call missionaries (I guess). We have no apostles or prophets at all. In discipleship we have gone from creating pastors out of converts to making sure the couple follows our pattern of outreach and evangelism. A good Bible teacher would teach on these ministry gifts and explain them to us. And they would know why we have pastors but no apostles. They would know why pastors teach as well as preach.

Take the word office off of the door, and replace it with Study. Study to show yourself approved. 

Two Masters Is Impossible

 "No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Chat GPT." Mat. 6:24 (not exact.)

AI is a tool. Nothing more. It is not divine. It has no God-like properties. It cannot save you from your sins. It cannot heal your body. It cannot meet your financial needs. It cannot restore a failing marriage. It is just a tool to use.

You make a great error when you give technology more credit than it deserves. When you give AI attributes which it does not have. When you trust Claude more than you trust God.

I used Gemini to find my text today. I did not ask it what it means or how to apply it. I rely on the Holy Spirit to do what I cannot do. 

I am not anti technology. I am anti other gods that demand allegiance and loyalty.

If you love Claude more than you love God you are in deep trouble. It's time to repent. Ask Chat GPT what it means to repent.

What Must I Do?

The common question of a lot of people is what must I do to be saved. What steps must I take, what list must I follow, what work must I do, what rules must I obey, to earn God's salvation? There is one answer to all of man's questions and the answer is, nothing. There is nothing that you must do. There is nothing that you can do. Christ did it all. God did it all.

"this is the work of God, that you believe on him who He has sent." John 6:29

The main thing that we must do is to simply believe. Until you have believed there is nothing you can do. Once you have believed there is a lot that you can do to live the Christian life. Until you have been born again you cannot even see the kingdom of God. Once you have been born again you not only can see it, you can experience it and live in it.

The other thing that we can do is to ask Jesus to save us. You have to ask Christ to save you. You have to open your mouth and ask.

"For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Romans 10:13

So you believe in your heart, and confess with your mouth. A child can do this. Why can't you? 

Do Not Be Afraid

"Thus saith the Lord unto you,  be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God's. ...You shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you." 2Chronicles 20:15,17

There are times in life when you have to fight. There are times in life when you have to be strong and courageous. I understand this. But then, there are times when God fights for us. There are times when the obstacle is too large or the enemy is too strong, or we do not know what to do. It is times when we are spent and our resources are used up And our spiritual weapons seem weak that God has not yet begun to show us what He can do.

In all of life and in your ministry to God's people you need to know that the battle is not against people or circumstance only. And that always, the battel is not ours, but Gods. It is in times like this when we need to stand still and shut up. We need to rest and we need to wait and we need to not worry. God is still God and you and I are not God.

Do not be afraid or dismayed. You do not need to fight. And watch what God will do when we let Him be God. Christ has promised to go with us to the end. He is faithful who promised. The salvation of the Lord is with you today.

Why We Go To Church

Last night at the end of the service one of our pastors prayed for me. Immediately I felt a dark cloud of despair lift off of me. I felt in my body that something had changed. Today I fell happy and joyful and at peace. 

This is just one more reason why we go to church. This is another reason why our local church is better than some mega church with a celebrity pastor. We have pastors who can actually pray for us with grace and power.

Today is a new day. 

"In righteousness you shall be established: you shall be far from oppression; for you shall not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near you." Isaiah 54:14

The Gospel is good news, not just to the world, but to me!

Faith, Faith, Faith

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things that do appear." Hebrews 11:3

You do not need truckloads of faith to simply believe that what God said in His word is true. You need truckloads of study and advanced degrees to begin to understand the rational view of life. If you read the first two chapters of Genesis and you accept that God created the natural world, you are exercising faith. If you prayed a sinners prayer and were born again you have exercised faith. You do not need a whole lot of faith. You just need to use what you have.

In our text we read that faith has substance. Faith has evidence. Faith sees things and makes things and understands things about God. Faith is taking God at His word.

Science is exclusive, reserved for those with special knowledge. Faith is inclusive, anyone can believe in God and can live by His word. Faith is how we connect, and how we trust, and how we obey a God we cannot see. Rationalism is self centered and self exalting. Faith is Christ centered and God exalting. It is because they did not or would not honor God that God turned them over to wander in the wasteland of rational science, to waste their lives on things that do not matter.

Every time you pay your tithes, you have faith. Every time you pray, you have faith.  You have more faith than you think. It only takes a little faith to do a whole lot.

"...and be not faithless, but believing." John 20:27b

The Creation Thumbnail

 " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Genesis 1:1-2

There are some theologians who think that there is a historical gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. That God created a perfect world which became dark and empty. They tie this ruin to the fall of Lucifer. I think that this is a big stretch of the scriptures.

How about looking at Genesis 1:1 as the title page or the heading. Then beginning in 1:2 the writer begins to lay out how God created the natural world and in what order they were created. This doesn't just involve planet earth. It involves the entire universe. Before there was a natural world, there was darkness. The first thing that God created was light. Viewing Genesis 1:1 as the title makes it much easier to understand for me.

The first two chapters of Genesis were never intended to be a scientific explanation of the creation story and the origin of life. It was not important in God's mind that we know the physics of creation. It gives us a thumbnail of how life and the universe came to be. Science wears itself out trying to come up with a story that omits God.