Ephesians 4:11-16

God has really opened my eyes the last few weeks to the grand design of the church. He, according to our text, has placed us together that we may grow the body. You are an integral part of this body. We need you to be exercising the gifts that God has given you if we are to grow up into maturity. Remember the goal is to become like Christ, we are not there yet, and we will never get there this side of eternity. So, that tells me that we must continue to strive toward the goal of the upward call. We must all exercise our gifts in a way that brings glory to our king and builds up not only Shiloh Baptist, but the church universal. I am blessed to be a part of this body, and I commit afresh and anew to use the gifts God has given to me in order to instruct you for the work of service for the building up of this body. God bless.

Temptation Island

What a blessing it was to travel with eight of my brothers in Christ down to First Baptist Woodstock for their annual men's conference this past weekend. Our God is always at work and I thank Him for His work in my life and the lives of these men. May we not be foolish and only look forward to another mountain top experience this time next year, but let us be steadfast in our work for the King here and now, making disciples and growing up as a body together.

Study in Ephesians

Paul began chapter 4 by urging us to walk worthy of the calling. He pointed us back to chapters 1-3 to show us what that calling was. Praise God that we are not supposed to live out our faith in our own strength. We are daily to preach the gospel to ourselves, remembering who we are in Christ. Just think of the statements he makes in the first 3 chapters. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing, we are chosen, we are adopted, we are redeemed, we are given an inheritance, we are reconciled to God and to other men, and the list could go on and on. Is this your strength for the living out of your faith, or do you continually try to earn God's favor.
Paul continued in chapter 4 going into specific ways we walk worthy in the church. The buzzword there was humility. Do you consider others better than yourself? Do you love those who even hurt you? This is the practicality of walking out our faith.
This past Sunday we looked at the gifts of grace that Christ gives for the building up of the church. Did you realize that you were given a gift upon your salvation, a means of building up the church by an ability that Christ gave you? What is your gift? Are you using it for the glory of God, or are you sitting on it?
May God continue to bless our study of His word.

A Busy Couple of Weeks

It has been a very busy time here of late at Shiloh and you notice that by the lack of blogging that has been going on.
First off, let us all praise God for the life of our brother in Christ, Mayford Johnson. Mayford was one of the kindest men I have ever know and I am so thankful that he lived his life in such a way as to point people to the savior. Please be praying for Ruby and his family.
There are also many in the hospital with major things going on. Please continue to pray for Grace Johnson, Bob Sutton, Bobby Atchley, Duane Rulapaugh, and Carl "Monk" Plemmons.
God's grace is sufficient to handle all these things, along with some icy roads that we have been experiencing as well. May we be faithful to Him, who while we were yet sinners sent Christ to die for us.

Prayer for Obama

Check out this great prayer offered by V. Gene Robinson at the opening of Obama's inagural events. Simply sickening.

http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/faith_and_politics/gene_robinsons_prayer_for_pres.html

The Red Headed Stepchild of the Trinity: Knowing God Chapter 6

Is the Holy Spirit this red headed stepchild in your theology? For many people, including myself, we neglect the study of the Holy Spirit, thinking of Him as someone that is not worthy of our thinking. Packer says that we think of the Holy Spirit like we think of the spirit of Christmas. Is that all he is to us?
We must remember that the Spirit draws us to the father. We must remember that it is the Spirit who convicts us of sin. We must remember that without the Spirit's work we would never understand the bible. However, we tend to think that spirit thoughts should be left to Pentecostals or better yet ghost busters.
Spend some time right now reading back over how the spirit works in our lives. This book only begins to touch on his amazing work in us. Could you be saved if the spirit did not exist? Stop living out your salvation then acting as if that is true.
For next week, read chapters 7-8, and I will post about them next Friday. God bless, and have a great weekend.

Ephesians 3:14-21

I am so blessed to be able to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ. I can not begin to put into words how God spoke to me through our passage last week. The reality is, as believers, we will rejoice in the great love of Christ for all of eternity and never grasp how deep, long, wide, and high it actually is. Let us not wait until eternity to begin the task of understanding God's love though, let us be working steadily at this task now.
Let us be praying that the spirit would move in us and strengthen us by helping us to be filled, to be rooted, in the love of Christ.
Let us move toward knowing God's word. The Lord has dealt with me about memorization for a long time. I have memorized a lot of verses over the years, God is now leading me to memorize an entire book. I was challenged during my time in seminary to try and memorize books instead of just small passages because it was a much more worthwhile effort, however, I did not see how memorizing a book would ever be feasible, until I started running into normal everyday believers who had memorized books. The writings of Andy Davis, pastor of First Baptist Durham, have challenged me to undertake a memorization of Ephesians over the next six months, I challenge you to do the same. I have linked his manual which leads you in a method of how to memorize books, may this strengthen us in Christ as well. Please be in prayer for our message next Sunday as we move into the practical portion of the letter and examine the priority of unity. God bless.
http://www.fbcdurham.org/FCKeditor/editor/plugins/mediamanager/get.php?id=101