Dear Readers around the world! God’s Peace!
During this Holy Week, I am so thankful that we have the Holy Word of Almighty God that we can read and hear preached from so we can learn ever more about our His great unending love for us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died of us! May the life of Jesus, His suffering, His death on the cross, His victory over the grave, death, hell and the power of the devil, and His Glorious resurrection be revealed by His Holy Spirit to each of our hearts to an even fuller extent during this week!
This week our article is by Pastor Andrew Kandoll from Michigan USA
May God Grant you a Blessed Week! John R.
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Dear friends,
God’s Peace!
The Bible tells us a brief story about a family that Jesus helped in John 12:1-3: “Then Jesus six days before the Passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. The Mary took a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the whole house was filled with the odour of the ointment.”
What a miracle occurred in the house of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. Lazarus who had been dead sat at the table with Jesus to eat with Him. This is a marvelous picture of those who have been born again from the death of trespasses and sins to sit with Jesus in heavenly places.
Ephesians 2:4-10 says: “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, hath quickened us (made us alive) together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
When Lazarus was raised from the dead, his heart was filled with love, thanksgiving, and praise for the Lord Jesus Christ. He sat with Jesus. Martha and Mary also showed their love by serving and worshipping Him. This love for Jesus and desire to be with Him is the fruit of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5:22, 23: “ The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”We are filled with love for Him who has loved us first that we might love Him. We have joy in fellowship with God the Father and His son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3,4). Jesus forgives us and gives us peace that the world cannot give. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” John 14:27a.
Dear friend, have you been raised from the dead like Lazarus, been born again from God, and received the forgiveness of your sins? Jesus is powerful to save, forgive and wash you clean through the blood that He shed on Calvary’s cross. Believe in Him today, praise, worship and thank Him always, and sit in fellowship with Him and His people.
In God’s precious love,
Pastor Andrew Kandoll
"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Isaiah 55:1
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Saved By Grace!
Dear Readers around the world!
This week our article is written for us by Pastor Rod Johnson. As we get closer to the time of year when we gaze upon our Saviours’ suffering, death, and resurrection, we can really get a clear view of His great love, mercy and grace for us! The message of this season of Lent is who we are in Christ Jesus! Our Salvation is all completed, and it is by grace we are saved through faith! Therefore, I feel that even though this article is not for this time specifically, yet it is very fitting for this season.
May God Bless your week! John R.
FOR BY GRACE ARE YE SAVED!
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Titus 2:11-14
I love the message of this text, for it puts all things in the perspective of God’s gift, will and desire for all of mankind! God’s amazing gift of grace provides all things necessary for our salvation. As it is written:
• Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. • Romans 5:1-2 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
The primary points of this passage:
1. Grace bringing salvation by: His work alone in Christ Jesus!
2. Grace teaching us denial: Of ungodliness and lust in this world!
3. Grace teaching us how to live!: Self-controlled, upright, (soberly, righteously) and godly lives in the present age
4. Grace teaching us what to look for!: “The blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;”5. Grace teaching us, how it was accomplished!: “He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people …..”6. Grace teaching us, what kind of people we are!: “A peculiar people, zealous of good works”We may then ask, “What else is there that we are to do?” The Lord tells us in the next verse the fulfillment of all things, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10 It is His work (For we are his workmanship) by which we are transformed into His image (created in Christ Jesus) that His will would be accomplished to His honor and glory and the exaltation of His Son Jesus Christ, as Lord! To be transformed into His Image cannot be done by our works. Not by the keeping of the law, or to minister His Word, or loving our neighbor, or anything else, but only by His work of grace alone.
Yet in love for Him, because He first loved us, as a fruit of the faith He has given to us by grace, we desire to submit ourselves unto His will to do what He sets before us! Praising the Lord for His Grace!
THIS IS WHAT IS SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE! Therefore, let us praise the Lord!
Saved By Grace!
In His Love serving Him!
In Service to His People,
Pr. Rod
This week our article is written for us by Pastor Rod Johnson. As we get closer to the time of year when we gaze upon our Saviours’ suffering, death, and resurrection, we can really get a clear view of His great love, mercy and grace for us! The message of this season of Lent is who we are in Christ Jesus! Our Salvation is all completed, and it is by grace we are saved through faith! Therefore, I feel that even though this article is not for this time specifically, yet it is very fitting for this season.
May God Bless your week! John R.
FOR BY GRACE ARE YE SAVED!
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Titus 2:11-14
I love the message of this text, for it puts all things in the perspective of God’s gift, will and desire for all of mankind! God’s amazing gift of grace provides all things necessary for our salvation. As it is written:
• Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. • Romans 5:1-2 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
The primary points of this passage:
1. Grace bringing salvation by: His work alone in Christ Jesus!
2. Grace teaching us denial: Of ungodliness and lust in this world!
3. Grace teaching us how to live!: Self-controlled, upright, (soberly, righteously) and godly lives in the present age
4. Grace teaching us what to look for!: “The blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;”5. Grace teaching us, how it was accomplished!: “He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people …..”6. Grace teaching us, what kind of people we are!: “A peculiar people, zealous of good works”We may then ask, “What else is there that we are to do?” The Lord tells us in the next verse the fulfillment of all things, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10 It is His work (For we are his workmanship) by which we are transformed into His image (created in Christ Jesus) that His will would be accomplished to His honor and glory and the exaltation of His Son Jesus Christ, as Lord! To be transformed into His Image cannot be done by our works. Not by the keeping of the law, or to minister His Word, or loving our neighbor, or anything else, but only by His work of grace alone.
Yet in love for Him, because He first loved us, as a fruit of the faith He has given to us by grace, we desire to submit ourselves unto His will to do what He sets before us! Praising the Lord for His Grace!
THIS IS WHAT IS SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE! Therefore, let us praise the Lord!
Saved By Grace!
In His Love serving Him!
In Service to His People,
Pr. Rod
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Christianity Begins at Home!
Dear Weekly Readers! God’s Peace!
Well, our mission group has safely returned from a wonderful mission trip to India! God truly blessed the trip. During this trip about 10,000 people came to the services. We also had pastors training for about 300 pastors. What a blessed and wonderful time the Lord allowed us to have by His great grace! Please pray the God would add His blessings to the words spoken even now after we have returned home.
To the others in India and neighboring countries that I would have loved to visit on this same trip, please be forgiving and understand! This trip was for 3 weeks and every day was booked solid. The Foreign Mission did not have extra funds or time to visit more than we did on this trip. I pray that someday we could visit your area also. We must trust that the Lord will allow for that in His time! His timing is always correct, and we must be still and know that He is God!
This week I am very busy trying to get caught up on my administrative work. Therefore, I asked for articles from some of our pastors and God provided a willing servant to send me an article for this weeks blog. His name is Pastor Wayne Juntenen. Please enjoy! John R.
Christianity Begins at Home
Many times in the Bible we can read how important is the home in the eyes of God. God begins with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1:26 - 3:24) from whom have come all nations, kindred, peoples, and tongues. But as they yielded to Satan’s lie, the effects of that “Fall” infected all of creation and home life became a battle ground. And from there the infection of sin has spread to all peoples.
God, the All-Knowing, All-Powerful, and Everywhere Present Lord of all, provides the blood sacrifice Himself in and through Jesus Christ to reclaim and restore all that was lost in the Garden of Eden. Jesus, God in the flesh, is born of a woman. A new home begins through Mary and a substitute father, Joseph; God, the Father, being the true Father. Even though Joseph was not the true father of Jesus, it was necessary that he be a godly man. The beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew records a long history of Joseph’s godly heritage (Matthew 1:1-16). Mary, too, came from a godly heritage being a relative of Elizabeth (Luke 1:36), the wife of Zacharias, a priest, whose genealogy would go all the way back to Levi from whom the entire Old Testament priesthood started.
While it was important that the home was a godly one into which Jesus was to be born and in which he would be raised to manhood, the timing of Mary’s conception was, also, important. Engagement in Bible times was as binding as the marriage, itself. So it was important that Joseph and Mary were engaged before the angel brought the message from God that she was to conceive a son through the power of the Holy Spirit. Had it occurred before Joseph and Mary were engaged, Joseph could simply separate from her and have no further connections. He would be breaking no law but Mary, quite likely, would have been stoned to death -- the punishment for adultery (Deut. 22:23). Or at best she would have been left to raise Jesus outside of marriage. God waited until they were engaged to guarantee the marriage, although an angelic message to Joseph was necessary in order for him to understand the reason for Mary’s pregnancy. Mary was not to raise Jesus as a single parent. Beginning with Adam and Eve, the blueprint for marriage is one man with one woman for life. Children need both a mother and a father for proper nurturing.
As Jesus began the work of saving creation and mankind from sin, death, hell, and the devil, the first miracle he performed was at a wedding. (John 2:1-11) Why? Because only a home where Jesus Christ is present can mankind’s history and civilization, itself, survive and flourish. In every home where Christ is not enthroned as Lord, there the fruit of our fallen nature will reign. Since the original home from which God was to build humankind had departed from the word of the Lord, Jesus, the Word made flesh, began in a home at a wedding to reveal both his human and his divine nature that was needful not only for life after death, but life before death. For, as the Apostle Paul said in his sermon to the gathered crowd on Mars Hill in Athens “in Christ we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
While Christ, through his life, suffering, death, and resurrection, has finished the work necessary to save mankind from his destructive course, each of us is still responsible to be the “doers of that Word” (James 1:22). And the Bible is full of instructions as to how marriage and family life is to be carried out in the home. Each of us has a responsibility to live in harmony with God’s Word as parents, children, brothers and sisters within a household. It has been said, “The light that shines the farthest shines the brightest at home.” May the light of God’s Word, the two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12), penetrate into our hearts. And as it reveals our thoughts and intentions, may each of us yield to its truth. The only way Christianity can spread is from heart to heart, from house to house because the church, as a body of believers, is only as strong as each household within it. Then out of each heart and out of each home, Christianity can then spread to the neighborhood, the community, the nation, and the world.
May God Bless your week!
Well, our mission group has safely returned from a wonderful mission trip to India! God truly blessed the trip. During this trip about 10,000 people came to the services. We also had pastors training for about 300 pastors. What a blessed and wonderful time the Lord allowed us to have by His great grace! Please pray the God would add His blessings to the words spoken even now after we have returned home.
To the others in India and neighboring countries that I would have loved to visit on this same trip, please be forgiving and understand! This trip was for 3 weeks and every day was booked solid. The Foreign Mission did not have extra funds or time to visit more than we did on this trip. I pray that someday we could visit your area also. We must trust that the Lord will allow for that in His time! His timing is always correct, and we must be still and know that He is God!
This week I am very busy trying to get caught up on my administrative work. Therefore, I asked for articles from some of our pastors and God provided a willing servant to send me an article for this weeks blog. His name is Pastor Wayne Juntenen. Please enjoy! John R.
Christianity Begins at Home
Many times in the Bible we can read how important is the home in the eyes of God. God begins with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1:26 - 3:24) from whom have come all nations, kindred, peoples, and tongues. But as they yielded to Satan’s lie, the effects of that “Fall” infected all of creation and home life became a battle ground. And from there the infection of sin has spread to all peoples.
God, the All-Knowing, All-Powerful, and Everywhere Present Lord of all, provides the blood sacrifice Himself in and through Jesus Christ to reclaim and restore all that was lost in the Garden of Eden. Jesus, God in the flesh, is born of a woman. A new home begins through Mary and a substitute father, Joseph; God, the Father, being the true Father. Even though Joseph was not the true father of Jesus, it was necessary that he be a godly man. The beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew records a long history of Joseph’s godly heritage (Matthew 1:1-16). Mary, too, came from a godly heritage being a relative of Elizabeth (Luke 1:36), the wife of Zacharias, a priest, whose genealogy would go all the way back to Levi from whom the entire Old Testament priesthood started.
While it was important that the home was a godly one into which Jesus was to be born and in which he would be raised to manhood, the timing of Mary’s conception was, also, important. Engagement in Bible times was as binding as the marriage, itself. So it was important that Joseph and Mary were engaged before the angel brought the message from God that she was to conceive a son through the power of the Holy Spirit. Had it occurred before Joseph and Mary were engaged, Joseph could simply separate from her and have no further connections. He would be breaking no law but Mary, quite likely, would have been stoned to death -- the punishment for adultery (Deut. 22:23). Or at best she would have been left to raise Jesus outside of marriage. God waited until they were engaged to guarantee the marriage, although an angelic message to Joseph was necessary in order for him to understand the reason for Mary’s pregnancy. Mary was not to raise Jesus as a single parent. Beginning with Adam and Eve, the blueprint for marriage is one man with one woman for life. Children need both a mother and a father for proper nurturing.
As Jesus began the work of saving creation and mankind from sin, death, hell, and the devil, the first miracle he performed was at a wedding. (John 2:1-11) Why? Because only a home where Jesus Christ is present can mankind’s history and civilization, itself, survive and flourish. In every home where Christ is not enthroned as Lord, there the fruit of our fallen nature will reign. Since the original home from which God was to build humankind had departed from the word of the Lord, Jesus, the Word made flesh, began in a home at a wedding to reveal both his human and his divine nature that was needful not only for life after death, but life before death. For, as the Apostle Paul said in his sermon to the gathered crowd on Mars Hill in Athens “in Christ we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
While Christ, through his life, suffering, death, and resurrection, has finished the work necessary to save mankind from his destructive course, each of us is still responsible to be the “doers of that Word” (James 1:22). And the Bible is full of instructions as to how marriage and family life is to be carried out in the home. Each of us has a responsibility to live in harmony with God’s Word as parents, children, brothers and sisters within a household. It has been said, “The light that shines the farthest shines the brightest at home.” May the light of God’s Word, the two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12), penetrate into our hearts. And as it reveals our thoughts and intentions, may each of us yield to its truth. The only way Christianity can spread is from heart to heart, from house to house because the church, as a body of believers, is only as strong as each household within it. Then out of each heart and out of each home, Christianity can then spread to the neighborhood, the community, the nation, and the world.
May God Bless your week!
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