THE ONE YEAR BIBLE CLUB

    This is our hope, when there is no hope. That God is a "Master Orchestrator", orchestrating events on our behalf, in our favor. Though God is not "specifically" mentioned throughout the Book of Esther, He is interwoven throughout the whole book. God is not speaking directly to Esther or Mordecai. God is not even sending Angels to speak to his people; as in other stories. The story of Esther is  a story that the 21st Century Christian should be able to relate to, more than any other story in the bible.  In our day and age, we are not seeing appearances of God nor speaking with Angels. We pray and we believe God; once we've prayed and sought his help to guide by divine guidance and to orchestrate, we, the 21st Century Christian, rely heavily on Providence! Often we quote Mordecai as saying to Esther "for such a time as this you have come to be Queen", but the actual quote is "who knows if perhaps you were made queen for such a time as this"...

     I think, God gave man an ego and I believe God gave man an ego so he could use them as leaders of his people, specifically, Shepherding his people. As you have heard before, Pastor's have ego's and God capitalizes on that to draw them into the call. Why else, would any man ever want to Pastor? I know, I know...it's rewarding, it's service to The Lord, it's "a calling" and it is "all that" BUT at the end it will also drive you crazy and cause you to "lose it" over and over.  I know you are more spiritual than Moses, but Moses would agree with me and so would Nehemiah, our subject at hand. Many young men have the glare in their eyes of one day being called "Pastor" and God will use that as bait. No doubt, God will also make sure there is a shepherd's heart and character in that man, but ego will play a big part. This statement is offensive to both receiving ends isn't it.  The people are insulted to be told they can...

    If you don't have time to read Paul's discourse on Christian benevolence, let me sum it up for you today! Stop being dogmatic with each other; especially young Christians, if you want to be fruitful and see people saved. This is all nit picking and petty stuff, the kind of stuff that repels people, not draws them in. Paul writes that his end focus in everything, is to see people saved.  It's not about you, it's about them.  But I wonder if his words are falling on deaf ears, I wonder if our words today, are falling on deaf ears.  It would be like gathering a group of men together in a room and delivering your dissertation on bargain shopping and how to find the best sales at Macy's and the best yard sales to find great deals. You may have all the wisdom and expertise in the world on the subject matter, but you just don't have the right crowd to share that with. "Well, the church is definitely the right crowd to share this with!"  Is it?  I won...

     WAS the Apostle Paul a Calvinist?  While we can debate all day long; as to whether Paul was a Calvinist in theory, more importantly is how he lived. And when we look at how he lived it appears more than anything, that he believed in Arminianism. Jacobus Arminius was a Dutch Pastor and Theologian who rejected his teacher's theology (John Calvin) that it is God who unconditionally elects some for salvation. Instead Arminius proposed that the election of God was of believers, thereby making it  conditional on faith . The scriptures that John Calvin used to prove his theory of "predestination" mostly, if not all, came from the Apostle Paul's writings.  No doubt many of Paul's writings do refer to the "elect in Christ" and those "whom God predestined and chose", but yet while Paul might have seemed Calvinist in theory, look at how he lived his life! For a guy who taught allot about "the elect" & predestined" he lived h...

   Paul, in his writing to the Corinthians opens up about this stigma, that he has had to live with. As hard as he has worked and as faithful as he has been, Paul is still not considered an "Apostle" within many circles. He is not regarded as being in the same class and group as Peter, James & John. They are the "Apostles".  Paul is like the black sheep of the Apostles, at best. Paul writes himself, "even if I am not considered an Apostle to others, I am to you!". In other words, "don't you start treating me like that too, enough is enough!". We think that to be able to flourish in our Church, to be able to flourish in the Kingdom of God, we have to be that Christian that everybody loves, everybody accepts and everybody thinks the best of. "It's easy for them, everybody thinks they're so great, let them try living with the stigma that I have to live under". Paul teaches us that we can flourish as a Christian, despite wha...

     DON'T be so free to exercise your freedoms lest you cause others to stumble, Paul warns us, what a lost concept this is. Actually it's not just a concept, it's a command. Paul goes on to write, "when you sin against your brothers by doing this and wounded their weak conscience, you sin against Christ."  It's almost as if God makes sure it is phrased like this, "you sin against Christ" because otherwise we would not change our behavior. If all the scripture said is that we sin against our brother, most would say, "oh well, to bad, he/she just needs to suck it up, grow up and mature. I believe God really knows human nature very well, doesn't he!       I have been a Christian for 20 years and have yet to meet a Christian that practices this.  Have you?  I have met the opposite. Christians who refuse to stop drinking, because it is their right to drink and nowhere in the bible does ...