Prayers For Veteran’s Day

 
On Veteran’s Day, let us all pause to honor our service men and women, and to recall the sacrifices of those who gave their lives in defense of freedom and liberty.This year, our thoughts especially turn to those who were killed at Ft. Hood, and their families.
The following prayers are from the A Book of [...]

The Parson’s View: All Hallow’s Eve & All Saints Day

I have to say it–I don’t like Halloween. I have my reasons, and in my mind, they are good ones. Maybe part of the reason I’m grumpy about Halloween is that I cut my finger carving up a pumpkin this evening. No…that’s not my problem!
It is too gory, too dark, and has far too much [...]

The Starting Place…

I want to revisit a quote I made from Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion about the starting place for all theology, worship, doctrine and morals. This is what he said:
“Man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he have previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into [...]

Independence Day

Deuteronomy 10:17-21  For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:  (18)  He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.  (19)  Love ye therefore [...]

Trinity Sunday

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday.
Act 9:1-8  And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,  (2)  And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound [...]

Receiving With Meekness…The WORD

James 1:21  Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
There is something we are to “DO” in the Christian life, and there is something we are to “RECEIVE.” Doing is active, receiving is more passive. We are to “lay apart” [...]

Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy

I was reading in Luke 13 this morning–I’ve been preaching a series of sermons from that chapter. As I came to Luke 13:10-17, I read with great interest about our Lord being at the synagogue that day, where He encountered the woman with the “spirit of infirmity” as the King James Version puts it. This [...]

The Good Shepherd

The Good Shepherd (A message preached on 4-26-09)
1 Peter 2:25  For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. (KJV)
When we think about all that this title means we realize that His being a Shepherd for us is meant to communicate that He cares for [...]

Holy Week

Holy Week, an ancient designation for the week preceding Easter, begins this Sunday with Palm Sunday.
Our Baptist congregation usually observes Palm Sunday in an understated way–we do not have elaborate processions. Sometimes the children come in with palms, and we do usually have traditional readings and choral songs.
Following Palm Sunday, we participate in our ministerial [...]

An Ash Wednesday meditation…

It seems to me that more than anything else, the spirit of the Lenten season is about our self-surrender to the God Who by His grace and mercy has saved us. We cannot do anything in our lives to make Him love us any more than He already does–fasting will not impress Him. He has [...]