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There are 'Jebusites' in Every Christian Heart!

1/28/2019

Pastor Bill Farrow
2 Samuel 5:6

"The king and his men marched to Jerusalem,
to fight against the Jebusites who inhabited the land."

   The Jebusites still held a stronghold in the heart of the country, never having been dislodged. Just so, there are 'Jebusites' in every Christian heart!
     In every heart, there are little 'Jebusite strongholds', which it seems impossible for us to conquer. Sometimes it is a secret sin which lives on, unconquered, amid the general holiness of a life. Sometimes it is a remnant of the old nature--such as pride, worldliness, selfishness, lust, or bitterness. There are many other such citadels of evil, which rear their proud towers and defy conquest.
     "We all have our faults!" we say, and under this cloak we manage to tuck away a large number of dear idols that we do not want to give up!
     We ought to give attention to these unsubdued parts of our life--that every thought, feeling, and temper may be brought into subjection to Christ. It is perilous to leave even one such unconquered stronghold in our heart!

"If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of Hell!" Matthew 18:9

"For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the evil deeds of the body, you will live." Romans 8:13

"Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived." Colossians 3:5-7

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36 Purposes of God in Our Suffering

1/14/2019

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Pastor Bill Farrow

When difficulties, trials, and suffering come in our lives, often the first question we ask is, "why?" How could God allow this? Why does God allow suffering at all? Could there be any purpose in suffering?
Joni Eareckson Tada knows hardship firsthand and shares her experiences and reflections on suffering in many of her books. The following is an appendix from her book When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty.

To read this post in its' entirety click the link below...

36 Purposes of God in Our Suffering

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Worthy Examples to the World

1/11/2019

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“Let love of the brethren continue” (Hebrews 13:1).

To be a testimony to the world, Christians need to live what they profess.
The nineteenth-century preacher Alexander Maclaren once said, “The world takes its notion of God most of all from those who say they belong to God’s family. They read us a great deal more than they read the Bible. They see us; they only hear about Jesus Christ.” Sound biblical doctrine, as important a foundation as it is, is inadequate by itself to influence the world toward Christ’s gospel. To read this post in its' entirety, click the link below:

Worthy Examples to the World

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What Kind of Hearer Are You?

1/10/2019

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Pastor Bill Farrow

Genesis 18–19:29; Matthew 13:1–43; Ecclesiastes 4:1–7

While parables were often told to make truth tangible, in Matt 13, we find that this wasn’t always the case. When His disciples question why He speaks in parables, Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah:

“For the heart of this people has become dull, and with their ears they hear with difficulty, and they have shut their eyes, so that they would not see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them” (Matt 13:15).

     This is the case in the parable of the Sower and the Seed. The seed hits the open path, the rocky ground, the thorns, and the good soil, and Jesus describes four hearers who receive the good news in different ways. We should examine this parable and ask ourselves, “What kind of hearer am I?”
     Do we seek to really understand the gospel? When we hear it told again and again, does it merely lie on the surface as commonplace? When our faith is put to the test, do we find ourselves putting hope in everything else but the good news? Or, when we become anxious about the cares of this world, do we find ourselves grasping for a firm foundation that isn’t there?
     The seed that falls on the good soil describes a completely different reception. This hearer receives the word and “hears it and understands it.” It doesn’t stop there, however. The hearer is also known for his good works, which display a heart that has been changed. These hearers bear fruit according to what they have been given:

“But what was sown on the good soil - this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces, this one a hundred times as much, and this one sixty, and this one thirty” (Matt 13:23).

Jesus emphasizes that the pursuit of Him isn’t lethargic, or merely emotional, and it isn’t cerebral. It involves pursuing Him with all of our being—in a posture of humility, with an ear that hears and a life that is changed. It involves complete surrender to His will.
What is your posture before God? Do you come with humility—ready to hear the good news?

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Our Triune God

1/8/2019

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One of the most often given questions that I hear as I bear witness to people AND as I read the comments of folks on the various social media vistas around is "Haven't we just invented God for our own purposes?". The fact of the matter is that the Scripture is very, very clear about God's genuine existence and about His nature as He moves in His world to reveal Himself to us...Let's think about this manner of revelation available to all those who are seeking Him for a bit...to read more about this idea - click the link below:

Our Triune God
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God’s Great Mercy

1/2/2019

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Pastor Bill Farrow

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1 Peter 1:3)

Because of His mercy,
God desires to lift sinners out of their pitiful condition.

   Several years ago I spent about a week in India. Each day I saw countless starving, diseased people with no home but a few square feet of filthy street. I could not help but feel compassion and pity on those people who lived in such misery.
     In a spiritual sense, though, before God saved us, we were each even more pathetic than any beggar in India. Spiritually, we “were dead in [our] trespasses and sins … and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:1, 3–5). God saw our wretched condition and was moved to do something about it.
     How does mercy compare with grace? Mercy has respect to man’s wretched, miserable condition; grace has respect to man’s guilt, which has caused that condition. God gives us mercy to change our condition; He gives us grace to change our position. While grace takes us from guilt to acquittal, mercy takes us from misery to glory.
     Doesn’t it give you great joy to know that God not only removed your guilt but looked at you and had compassion? And He’s not through giving us mercy: “The Lord’s many lovingkindness indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness” (Lam. 3:22–23). We can always “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).

Suggestions for Prayer:
     Thank God for His great mercy, for the forgiveness and blessings you have as His child.

For Further Study:
     Luke 15:11–32 contains the well–known parable of the prodigal son, a moving illustration of God’s loving compassion. What was the son’s condition when he returned? ✧ What was his father’s reaction? ✧ How does God respond to us when we turn to Him in repentance and humility?

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There are 'Jebusites' in Every Christian Heart!

36 Purposes of God in Our Suffering

Worthy Examples to the World

What Kind of Hearer Are You?

Our Triune God

God’s Great Mercy

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