Showing posts with label God's Word. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God's Word. Show all posts

Thursday, September 13, 2018

Thursday, September 6, 2018

God's Word Never Fails

These two photos showed up in my “memories” on Facebook today, this was from one of our trips to my parents house after Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on our little island, this page, Genesis 1, was sitting on the floor just outside of what was my bedroom at their house, just a powerful reminder and example of how God’s Word never fails, no matter the storm you’re going through or have gone through, God the creator is still working on your behalf! His Word never fails! 

“so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭55:11‬ ‭ESV‬‬  

His Word will accomplish what He sends it out to do and it will succeed, trust Him in this principle and rely on the Word, its the only road map for life that is never wrong!

Friday, June 22, 2018

What To Do In The Face Of Adversity

I’m often asked by friends and acquaintances how they should respond when facing adversity, one of the first things I want to encourage folks not to do, is to declare, “all is lost” or “this is the worst possible thing that could happen to me” - because it’s not and it isn’t. Don’t compare your hurts and pains to others, your pain is your pain, I’m not arguing that, but it doesn’t mean to throw in the towel and give up, the book of James, especially the 1st chapter is somewhere you should spend a great deal of time in study and meditation, 

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” 
- James‬ ‭1:2-4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

When we go through difficult times, trust in the Lord and allow your faith to grow and strengthen. God is not going to abandon you, God is not going to forsake you, don’t convince yourself that Jesus died for everyone else, that’s a lie, he died for you, and if had been for only you, he still would’ve gone to the cross. Whatever you are facing, whatever you are going through, let steadfastness have it’s full effect and you’ll lack for nothing. 

 May God bless you and strengthen you as you navigate the challenging waters of adversity.

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Easier Said Than Done...

I know this is very much one of those, “Easier said than done” kind of a things, but put this Word in your heart and allow God to take “Easier said than done” and turn it into, “Done because He said it!”

““In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭4:26-27‬ ‭NIV‬‬
http://bible.com/111/eph.4.26-27.niv

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Priorities...

pri·or·i·tynoun
plural noun: priorities
  1. a thing that is regarded as more important than another.
    "housework didn't figure high on her list of priorities"

 What are your priorities?

 Family? Work? Pay the Bills (Kind of a combo of the first two...), maybe "You" are your priority...
To truly have a successful life, and I don't mean the Billionaire successful life, I mean a life that has a point/goal/purpose/value and will lead you into heaven, to truly do this, God and the things of God must be priorities in your life.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...

Sunday, February 23, 2014

How We Got the Scriptures...

Let me preface this post by stating that a lot of the content you will read in this post will be from a lesson in a course I took from Global University, some of this will be verbatim from my book, some from my notes, and some will be my comments. I'm terrible at citing and other such APA MLA BLAH BLAH BLAH rules, so consider this my blanket, I'm not plagiarizing statement, I learned this in my Intro to Theology course and am now sharing.

Now with that out of the way, let me say this, we had a discussion in my Young Adults Connect Group this morning about "where did we get the Bible from?" Very good question, I'll do my best to answer that here.

The word Scripture means "holy writings." The Scriptures are holy because God gave them. The term canon means "a rule, a standard, a measuring rod." The canon of scripture refers to books that have met a standard and that the church has accepted as the inspired Word of God. At the time of Jesus, the Jews used the Scripture  about a fixed, well-known group of books - the 39 books of the Old Testament. The 27 books in the New Testament formed over a period of three centuries. During those years, church leaders discussed the list often, and the majority of the church agreed on God's inspiration of certain books. Ultimately, the books that were truly from God testified for themselves. Their placement in the canon was not just the decision of the authors or the church council. Although church councils did meet and discuss the different books, their main purpose was to confirm which books the church agreed on. I believe that the Holy Spirit led the people of God in this process.

In AD 367, the theologian Athanasius considered all the books that were being passed around the church as apostolic writings (writings by apostles). His examination reveled twenty seven books, the same ones in our New Testament today, although he placed them in a different order. Thirty years later, in AD 397, a church council met in Carthage to discuss which books were truly Scripture. Before deciding to include a book in the New Testament canon, the Council measured it by four tests-

 The 4-Way Scripture Test in the New Testament


1. An Apostle or someone close to an apostle had to be the author. For example, the Gospel of John was accepted because the apostle John wrote it. However, although apostles did not write them, the gospels of Luke and Mark were accepted because Luke had traveled with Paul and Mark was a friend of Peter.

2. The book had to match what the church already knew to be Scripture. If there was any conflict, the book was not accepted.

3. The book had to be widely accepted by the church. The church as a whole had to recognize that God had inspired the book. If only a small portion of the church believed that a book was inspired, it was not placed in the canon.

4. The book had to have a quality that revealed divine inspiration. In other words, it needed to change people's lives.

After considering all the books, the Council of Carthage confirmed that the only books that measured up to the standard were the 27 books we call the New Testament.

The topic of the Apocryphal books was brought today as well, "why don't we use them and the Catholics do?" Also another very good question, so here is what I can share to shed some light on that. Over the years some have claimed that other books should be placed in the canon. The Catholic Bible and some Eastern Orthodox Bibles contain additional books referred to as the Apocrypha. However the early church did not consider these books to be inspired by God, the books were not included in the Hebrew Scriptures. Some of these books, such as First Maccabees, contain history, but are not clearly inspired by God, while others clearly contain errors and doctrines which are contrary to the rest of the Bible. Other people, like Joseph Smith who wrote the Book of Mormon, have claimed to write for God. Yet their books contain obvious conflicts with Scripture, and they were not written by either an apostle or someone close to an apostle. All of these books, along with the Apocrypha, are not in the canon because they did not pass the necessary tests.

Old Testament - 

 Let's talk about the Old Testament for a little bit.

 What is the Old Testament?
As said previously, the Old Testament contains the first 39 books of the Bible. The Old Testament was a covenant/agreement between God and Israel, the children of Abraham. God promised to keep His part of the covenant if the Israelites kept their part.

 Who wrote the Old Testament and when? 
The OT is a part of the Bible, a term derived from Greek and Latin words for "book." the bible is the book above all other books in that it contains 66 books written by about 40 authors over a period of roughly 1600 years and inspired by the same spirit. God guided the writers to write what he wanted them to write. He carried them along by His Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21).

 How did the books of the OT get into our bible?
We refer to the books from Genesis to Malachi as the canon of the old Testament. The OT canon is the list of books that meet the standards for being in God's Word. the 39 books in our OT are the same books that Jesus and the Jews of His day accepted as God's Word. As I said before The Catholic Bible and some Eastern Orthodox Bibles also contain books that are grouped in a class called the Apocrypha. The word Apocrypha means "hidden books" but later came to mean "not in the canon or list." During the time of Martin Luther, the Catholics accepted 7 apocryphal books as well as minor additions to the books of Esther and Daniel. the Catholics did not officially accept the books of the Apocrypha until 1546 at the Council of Trent. Although some of these books were included in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures), they were not part of the Hebrew Scriptures during Christ's time. Neither Jesus nor the apostles quoted any of the apocryphal books as Scripture. While the books in the Apocrypha contain some truth, they also contain error. therefore, they do not meet the standards set for recognizing Scripture.

Some other time I'll do a post about authority and inspiration of Scripture, which is a GREAT topic. Although this is not the most thorough and exhaustive explanation of where the Scriptures came from and why we accept them as they are, I hope it does help to shed some light and understanding on the subject. Again the majority of this content came from my Intro to Theology course and a tidbit from my OT Survey course. I'm not nearly as smart as the blog sounds, I promise.

 Be Blessed,
Ryan

Monday, March 11, 2013

Going the extra mile...

Sorry that I haven't been blogging lately, kind of been a little behind with church stuff and have been playing catch up all year so far. A young man got saved this past week and it really just stayed on my mind and I wanted to share about it.

 We have a Discipleship Ministry at our church on Wednesday nights, WednesdaysOnPurpose. The ministry consists of discipleship classes that last about 90 minutes. Right now we have 4 different classes going on, to learn more about the ministry, visit our site: WednesdaysOnPurpose.com. 

 Right now we are in the 2nd round of "Man Up", a men's class. Well the teacher of this class and his two sons took a first time visitor (who I'll refer to as Young Man) out for pizza after church. The class, as far as I know, went just fine and was engaging and interactive as always. The men of our church just love the class. Steve Gann, the teacher is one of the best we got. I digress, back to the heart of the story, Steve and his sons took this young man out for pizza after church and continued to minister to him, speaking life, testifying about all the great works that Christ had done in their lives, and the importance of living for God. 

 The young man obviously was looking for God to show up in a big way. I met him before church, very polite and pleasant, I shook his hand, said hello, and moved onto what I had "going on" that night, I was too busy or caught up in my own schedule to really take the time to realize what God was about to do in this young man's life. But these guys, Steve and his 2 sons...they went the extra mile...the young man sat in church that night listened to the message God had for him, then some "church people" asked him to come join  them after church for some fellowship time. 

 They continued ministering to him, outside the walls of the church, after church was over, probably past a time that was convenient for their "schedule". Long story short, that night, at the pizza place...they led this young man to the Lord. He accepted Christ, came to church Sunday Morning, came to my Sunday school class (new believers class), and as far as I know came to church Sunday night and I'm pretty sure is planning to come back to church this Wednesday. 

 Steve and his family are continuing to lift this new believer up and encourage him. I'm praying God continues to show up in this young man's life in a new and awesome way.

 My whole reason for posting this is to encourage any of you who might read this, to realize that Christianity isn't just coming to church, sitting down, clap a little, put a tip in the offering plate, then go home. Christianity goes beyond the walls of the church, it goes beyond our personal agendas, it takes us outside of our comfort zones sometimes. We need to daily be praying that God helps us to recognize the opportunities he gives us to minister to the hearts of those who are searching for Him.

 go the extra mile...