Always the Fish is about helping people to live in the power of the gospel of Christ. Jesus Christ has given the most wonderful gift we could ever receive - his life. Now as Christians we must learn to walk in this newness of life living out what the Lord is doing in ours hearts depending on the Holy Spirit's help.
Friday, June 26, 2015
God & Country Day
Several
of local Churches are celebrating God and country day this Sunday. Some of our elected officials will be
visiting various local churches rather than attending their home church. For this I am grateful. Sometimes a guest speaker brings a message or
shares a testimony of how Jesus has changed their lives. If I were to proclaim a message it would come
from these passages, “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves,
and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear
from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14), or
this one, “But he gives more grace.
Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the
humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he
will draw near to you. Cleanse your
hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and
your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves
before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” (James 4:6-10). The message to the body of Christ is very
clear “Repent of our sins!” If you have
called on Jesus to save you from your sins and to take you home to heaven when
you die this message applies to you. How
do we expect a world that is dying apart from Jesus to believe our message if
we do not live out the gospel in our own lives? God is not mocked! The
truth is that we will reap what we sow, more than we sow, later than we sow. Here are some of the sins we may need to
repent of “haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a
heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false
witness who breathes out lies and one who sows discord among brothers”
(Proverbs 6:16). “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality,
impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of
anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things
like these. I warn you, as I warned you
before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
(Galatians 5:19-21) “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and
slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:31) What sin are you holding on to? Take a moment to look up 1 John 1:5-10 in
your Bible or on your phone. Ask the
Lord to help you to confess all known sin to him. Join with me in searching our hearts before
the Lord and confessing the sin that he shows us we need to repent of. He is faithful and just to forgive us of our
sin if we confess it to him. Thank you
for reading this article today, I pray that this helps us to become a Church
that Jesus can use. I would like to
invite you this Sunday to our God and Country day, here at First Baptist Church
in downtown Lake City. If not here then
I invite you to attend one of our other Churches in Lake City where God’s word
is being taught.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Celebration At Disney in Orlando
This past
weekend, my bride and I celebrated five years of being married. We
celebrated our anniversary at Disney World in Orlando , Florida .
This is where we got to spend the day being a kid all over again. It was fun, seeing the characters interacting
with the kids. The rides were fun, but one thing we both agreed on was
this: we will go back when it is cooler. We got to hot. We drank lots
and lots of water but that still was not enough to stay hydrated. I am
learning that being a husband is the same way. I am learning that it
takes lots of preparation to stay hydrated as a husband. I remember the
vow that I took, the pledge that I gave not just to my wife but also the Lord
Jesus. So how did we get this far in marriage when the average marriage only
last a year or two? May I say, “Lot 's
and lot's of prayer.” You say this sounds cliché but it is not really.
Here let me explain. When we have a disagreement, I have to ask the
Lord to help me understand what the disagreement is. Then I have to ask am I being selfish in
this. To help me grow in my faith and in
being a good husband I memorized this “I have been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the
life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me
and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) This one verse helps me in our
marriage because no matter what we are going through I want her to see Christ
and not me. To stay hydrated as a husband I spend time with the Lord
Jesus. I purposefully read through the
Bible from Genesis to Revelation on a regular basis. Then as I read the Bible,
I pray the Scripture back to God asking him to make me like Jesus. You see to stay hydrated I need the Living
Water in my soul, because how I respond as a husband comes from the over flow
of my heart. I would like to invite you as a person to spend time with
the Lord in his word and in prayer asking God to do the same work in you.
This way if you are married your spouse will see Jesus and not you.
This way as a spouse, the love that you show will be real love that gives
not expecting anything in return. This is just one way to stay hydrated
in your marriage. If you are not a follower of Jesus let me invite you to
follow him. Give him your heart and ask him to make you like him.
This will be the best exchange you will ever make in your life.
This way you to can stay hydrated in your marriage. If you would like to learn more may I invite
you to come and worship with us at First Baptist Church in downtown Lake City , if not with us then may I invite you to
one of our local Churches where the Bible is taught.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
A Balanced Prayer Life
Balanced
prayer life
Romans 1:8-10
Have you ever
had to walk on a balance beam for gymnastics?
Have you ever been asked to walk a straight line by an officer of the
law? I don’t know what your response is
but learning how to have a balanced prayer life is essential in our
relationship with God. Let’s read, Romans
1:8-10 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your
faith is proclaimed in all the world.
For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his
Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that
somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. In this passage of Scripture we learn about
the balanced prayer life of Paul in this letter. For each of us to have a balanced prayer life
we need to be thankful for what the Lord has done. When we acknowledge what God has done
creating us for his pleasure and providing for us not just our physical needs
but also our spiritual needs (including salvation from sin) we ought to express
genuine gratitude from the bottom of our heart. He did not have to create us
for his pleasure, nor provide a way to have all of our sins forgiven and to
have a restart. When was the last time we
sat down and counted our blessings, naming them one by one? Paul wrote to the Philippian believers that
with thanksgiving they could let their request be known to God. Making our request known to God is not the
difficult part, I will readily admit I ask God some big prayer request, a lot
of times however they are big in the sense that they are selfish. For example, the other morning over coffee
with a friend we were discussing church matters and I shared with him my dream,
my prayer request. My friend had the
nerve to ask me the hard question, was that a selfish prayer. I honestly had to say yes it was. There is a lot that Jesus teaches us on
prayer, everything from thanksgiving, ask whatever you desire. I have done a lot of that in my life. Ask Jesus
for just about everything, a lot of times the answer is no, for that I am
thankful. This brings us to the second
part of our verse today, that somehow by God’s will, I must be submissive to
God’s will in my prayer life. Being
submissive to God’s will is the key to a balanced prayer life. James writes, Submit yourselves therefore to
God. Submitting to God is the best
advice anyone has ever given. When we
submit to God we are coming up under his authority. When we learn to pray with thanksgiving in our
hearts for what the Lord has done, submit to his will, he will teach us what we
should pray for. When we learn to listen
to the Lord and ask according to his will we will receive that for which we
ask. If you are a person who believes
that just because you prayed and asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins and to
save you without submitting to him, then your prayers where not heard for
salvation. But if you have genuinely
submitted to the Lord, not matter what your sin is, your church affiliation, your
lifestyle at the moment. He will hear
your prayer and answer accordingly and for that you will be thankful.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Bearing fruit
This morning as I sit in our sanctuary, I am reflecting on what John the Baptist preached, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." He told those who came out to hear him to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Repentance, having that change of heart about my sin. I cannot do anything else about your sin except tell you about the one who can take it away and make you a new person. But true biblical repentance does have fruit. The question is this: Am I bearing fruit in keeping with repentance as John the Baptist preach?
Monday, June 1, 2015
Obedience
I find it amazing that a lot of people say that preaching from the Old Testament is not applicable today except for a few good stories. I don't find this true. It my current reading of the Old Testament, I happen to be in the book of Deuteronomy. This book is load with the blessings and curses. Blessing's if one obeys and curses if one doesn't. I don't know about everybody else but Jesus said if you love me you will obey me. Since Jesus is the God of the Old and New Testament, and he changes not, my obedience to him expresses my faith in him and my love to him.
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