Behold, God is mine helper: the Lord is with them that uphold my soul. He shall reward evil unto mine enemies: cut them off in thy truth. I will freely sacrifice unto thee: I will praise thy name, O LORD; for it is good. Psalm 54:4-6

Pride

Pride is a strange and mysterious thing, and our natural thoughts do not help us to understand it in times of recognition and some success in the ministry, I have had people say, “I pray that the Lord will keep you HUMBLE.” I would much rather that they pray the Lord would give me more wisdom, grace, and the opportunity to preach His gospel to many sinners.

If a man knows Christ, rejoices only in Him, and has no confidence in the flesh, how it pleases God to use him and what God is pleased to do through him DOES NOT MAKE HIM PROUD! It is when a man moves in the strength of the flesh, tries to be what he is not, and tries to do what he is not called to do that pride is to be feared.

It all depends on one’s being WHERE God puts him, doing WHAT God has called him to do. The first lesson any true servant of the Lord learns is, “Without me, ye can do nothing.” From then on, whether acclaimed or criticized by men, it matters not; for the glory of God and the gospel of Christ are my chief concern.

Pastor Henry T. Mahan (bulletin 1986)

THE BELIEVER’S RULE OF LIFE

I left the pulpit one night and a fellow asked me, “Do you believe the law to be a believer’s rule of life?” He seemed surprised when I told him I did not. His very next question was, “How do you know how to live?” I told him immediately that I lived just as the Apostle Paul, “The life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God” (Galatians 2:20). This was the rule of life for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Abel and all others who have nothing but Jesus Christ to live upon. Someone would say, “You mean you live as you want to?” I wish I could: I would be filled with the Sprit, I would never sin again, all my motives would be pure, and I would be delivered from the body of this death. Oh, I wish I could live just like I want to. The closest thing I have found to living just like I would like to is living by faith upon Jesus Christ the Dear and Blessed Son of God.

Pastor Bruce Crabtree

Taste and See Psalm 34:8

The LORD has created our bodies in such a way that we experience this physical life through our senses. One of those ways is taste. We can taste and see if something is sweet or salty, etc. Even so it is spiritually. By faith we taste and see that the LORD is good. He is all that is good, “none good but God” (Mark 10:18). He is good in what He gives and in what He takes away. The LORD gives us righteousness and takes away our sins. He gives us peace and takes away our unrest. He gives us hope and takes away our despair. He gives us joy and takes away our sorrow (Psalm 30:5).

Everything the LORD gives to us is good, and everything He takes away from us is good also. Pastor John Chapman

Why Do We Preach The Gospel?

Why do we insist upon preaching the word of the Lord, the gospel of God concerning Christ every time we meet to worship? I can think of at least four essential things about preaching and why the church is to always contend for the truth of the gospel (Jude 1:3).

1). We preach the gospel of Christ for the glory of God and to give the Lord Jesus Christ all the glory for the salvation that is of the Lord (1 Cor. 1:30-31; 1 Cor. 10:31; Gal. 6:14; Rev. 5:9-12).

2). We preach the gospel of God because the Lord has commanded His church to do so (Mark 16:15-16; 1 Cor. 9:16; 2 Tim. 4:1-4).

3). We preach the gospel of Christ because it is the very means God has ordained to call out His sheep and to quicken them with spiritual life and light (John 3:3-6; 10:27-30; Rom. 10:13-17; 1 Cor. 1:21-24; James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23-25 ).

4). We preach the gospel of Christ to feed the sheep the Bread of Life (John 6:35; John 21:15-17; Acts 20:28-32; 1 Peter 5:1-2).

May we all say with Cornelius and his house when Peter was sent there to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ; “Immediately therefore I sent to thee; and thou hast well done that thou art come. Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God” (Acts 10:33); nothing more, nothing less and nothing else.