Devoting Ourselves to God’s Word

Acts 2:42

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

As we head to the fall season – I think this is a powerful reminder of what the first believers did. The first century church devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

We are called to devote ourselves to the Bible – that is the Word of God – which contains the teachings on the Apostles – the Epistles or most of the books in the New Testament. Do we study the Bible on a regular basis? If we don’t have the time at home in the morning – may I suggest a few options.

On our computer at work or at home – let’s look up BibleGateway – here is a link to their site – http://www.biblegateway.com/. They have a reading plan that will help keep us on track and get us through the Psalms – the whole Bible – the Gospels – etc. If we are on the move a lot and not at our desk much – if we have a smart phone we can look up BibleGateway on our phone’s browser or we could add the Bible to our phone with a program like YouVersion – here is their link – http://www.youversion.com/.  My iPhone has an app for this program and it allows me to post Scriptures to my Twitter and Facebook account. We can also use YouVersion on our desktop computer from our browser. It is a great program that I highly recommend. Both of these programs have a wide variety of translations to help us find our favorite and to compare passages.

I’m All About Competitions

Ephesians 2:5

…it is by grace you have been saved.

I love it when I win something. I’m all about competitions. For instance – I enjoy hearing someone say – cover Ray – when I used to play basketball and lining up for a three-point shot. Or – don’t leave Ray uncovered – as the person on me leaves to help double team someone else. It means someone respects my ability (as meager as it may be). I wish I could still play some ball – but my knees bark too loudly!

I love it when I win something. I’m all about competitions. For instance – I love the challenges on my iPhone – both the personal challenges and the group challenges – on some of my apps. I love it when this old pastor can at times keep up with the younger pastors in a step challenge.

I love it when I win something. I’m all about competitions. For instance – I love playing golf with a friend of mine – we are fairly equal in our abilities (we can both play a round in the 70’s or as high as the low 90’s from time to time). When I come out on top – it feels good – I know I have beaten a decent golfer. (I sure hope my knees don’t keep me from playing golf). I like it when my knees allow me to walk 18 holes.

Lent 2021 – Faith Doesn’t Require Understanding

Isaiah 55:8

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.

I’m typing on an iMac in my home office – and I use a MacBook Pro at work. They are amazing computers with technology I cannot completely understand. I have an iPad Pro I use to preach Sunday’s sermons. My iPhone connects to all of them – but don’t ask me how? The MacBook Pro is hardwired to a router that is connected to the modem we have for the Internet at work. The iMac is connected the same way at home. Neither the iPad nor iPhone are hardwired – they both are connected through our Wi-Fi or through a cellular system. I’m not sure how it all works – but I use them all to write these daily devotions – preach each sermon – search the Bible – keep up with social media – send e-mails – and much more. The point is – I don’t have to understand something to get use out of it. I don’t need to have any special knowledge to get benefit out of my devices.

I’m very tech savvy using devices – but not too tech savvy with how they work. For instance – I used to work on my cars in the 70’s but haven’t tried much since – as they have become more and more complicated. I have a friend who is an excellent mechanic and he has worked on my vehicles for going on 40 years now it seems (thanks Woody). My brother has also helped me out – he can do anything. My younger brother is my hero (thanks Tim).

It Is By Grace…

Ephesians 2:5

…it is by grace you have been saved.

I love it when I win something. I’m all about competitions. For instance – I enjoy hearing someone say cover Ray when I’m playing basketball and lining up for a three-point shot. Or don’t leave Ray as the person on me leaves to help double team someone else. It means someone respects my ability (as meager as it may be). I wish I could still play some ball – but my knees bark too loudly!

I love it when I win something. I’m all about competitions. For instance – I love the challenges on my iPhone – both the personal challenges and the group challenges – on some of my apps. I love it when this old pastor can at times keep up with the younger pastors in a step challenge.

I love it when I win something. I’m all about competitions. For instance – I love playing golf with a friend of mine – we are fairly equal in our abilities (we can both play a round in the 70’s or as high as the low 90’s from time to time). When I come out on top – it feels good – I know I have beaten a decent golfer. (I sure hope my knees don’t keep me from playing golf). I just walked 18 holes and the knees weren’t happy.

For The Time Will Come…

2 Timothy 4:3

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.

Have you ever been warned about something that was pending – something that was going to happen in the future? I had a teacher who would often say – mark my word – and then tell us something that was going to happen – like – mark my word – this will be on the next test.

Maybe as a parent you have said something like this – or your parents did – mark my word – if you do that again – you will get punished. Maybe it was like this – if you don’t stop fighting – if you make me get out of my chair – if you don’t get up now – if you don’t eat all your food – than “whatever” was going to happen – mark my word.

Paul gives us warning in today’s passage – 2 Timothy 4:3 – For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. He could have added – mark my word.