THE ONE YEAR BIBLE CLUB

       The reality of Ministry is…the very people you are in ministry to reach and help are the very people that will want to make you quit the ministry, if you let them. We always have to remember that we are not in “the ministry” to help the people (that’s a by-product) we are in the ministry to serve God. If we are in the ministry out of some noble quest to “serve the people”, once the people start stepping all over you and spreading rumors about you, you will say, “well, if that’s how they are going to treat me, if they don’t appreciate what I’m doing for them; then forget this, I quit!” However if we are in the ministry to serve Christ, who is always grateful and appreciative of our efforts and service, then we will not quit even when the people we are trying to feed, bite us! As the saying goes, “don’t bite the hand that feeds you”, well people don’t seem to abide by that a whole lot, in the Church. The Elders in  Jerusalem  explain to Paul that the J...

   I'm not one to rip apart my clothes in despair, but I have been there, it's a bad place to be. The King of Assyria is definitely personifying the voice of Satan in our story.  "Don't let King Hezekiah deceive you into thinking your God will deliver you from us, look what we have done to other nations".  You have to remember this whole scene started with Hezekiah trying to bribe the King of Assyria into not marching out against them. Not exactly a sign of strength. Perhaps it was Joash who started this pathetic display of unbelief by trying to bribe his way out of battle. Israel has fallen and sunk quite low from her former stature of Faith, Power and Dominion. Now she is weak, cowardly and begging the enemy not to hurt her. The thought of fighting and winning is a bygone era. Now she will compromise, bribe; anything because she knows even herself how pathetic she has become. Does this remind you of some Christians you once knew? How the mighty have fallen! Unfo...

        I'm so confused..are you?  They worshiped the Lord (well that's good) BUT, they also served their own gods...."      At least there's a "but" in between, but that's a big  butt..... I mean, which is it, did they serve God or not? I'm confused.  Confusion, that's what we get when we try to serve God along with our own gods along the way.  Confusion, is what you get when you try to serve God along with your own religion.  The world looks on and they are confused. The world ought to be able to look at an individual and either see a sinner or a saint, Christian or Heathen, which one is it? Choose, make a decision and then let it be clear what you are. I am confused by this.....they worshiped the Lord...BUT they also served their own gods. This confuses me just as much as our duplicate lives confuses the world that looks on at us in the church. And to add to the confusion  Verse 34  says,  "They neit...

  Always be very Leary about an individual who stresses to you that their Christian life is private, it is between them and God. Every Christian must possess both a private and a public life with Jesus Christ. Jesus woke up early in the morning, privately, to pray with the Father. The rest of his day was very public. Even his sufferings were not in private. And of course his death and crucifixion was very public. Jesus could have been slain in private and He would have still died for our sins, The Father could have orchestrated his death a private death, but God orchestrated Jesus' death to be public. We want our Christianity to be private and we want it not to have to "cost us" anything. Our text from the book of Acts today gives us a lesson in making our Christian life and profession...PUBLIC. The word "publicly" is specifically used in verse 19. "A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them  publicly ." Now let...

    I'm sure any title with "racism" in it is not going to surprise anyone, but what is surprising is the racism I am writing about is between Jews.  Jews fighting Jews.  How it must have broken God's heart to see this war between Judah & Israel. A civil war between God's people. Racism, it's a hot topic today's media onslaught. America had it's own civil war, Ireland has had it's own sort of civil war, the Protestants killing the Catholics and vice-versa. What we can learn about racism is it goes deeper than skin color. Today's headlines focus' on skin color, it's the blacks against the whites, but these are naive people. What they don't realize is racism goes deeper than skin color. Racism is basically about anyone who is "not us", "not in our group". As I mentioned, Ireland for years had whites killing whites, same skin color, but yet still racism. I grew up in Montreal and we had racism. It was blacks tha...

        You can find some comfort today, in reading about God's inspired description of Joash. We read at the beginning of Joash,  2  Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the years Jehoiada the priest instructed him. " 2  Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the years Jehoiada the priest instructed him ." However, as we go on to read about Joash we find out that his life was not so stellar after all. Immediately after that verse we read..." 3  The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there."   And it doesn't stop there, further on we read...  " 17  About this time Hazael king of Aram went up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he turned to attack Jerusalem.  18  But Joash king of Judah took all the sacred objects dedicated by his predecessors—Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah, the kings of Judah—and the gifts he himself had...