Good News

After the sober word posted earlier, it only seemed appropriate to post this encouragement from God's Word.

- Cephas

Psalm 27
Of David.

¹ The LORD is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?

² When evil men advance against me
to devour my flesh,
when my enemies and my foes attack me,
they will stumble and fall.

³ Though an army besiege me,
my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
even then will I be confident.

⁴ One thing I ask of the LORD,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple.

⁵ For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle
and set me high upon a rock.

⁶ Then my head will be exalted
above the enemies who surround me;
at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make music to the LORD.

⁷ Hear my voice when I call, O LORD;
be merciful to me and answer me.

⁸ My heart says of you, "Seek his face!"
Your face, LORD, I will seek.

⁹ Do not hide your face from me,
do not turn your servant away in anger;
you have been my helper.
Do not reject me or forsake me,
O God my Savior.

¹⁰ Though my father and mother forsake me,
the LORD will receive me.

¹¹ Teach me your way, O LORD;
lead me in a straight path
because of my oppressors.

¹² Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes,
for false witnesses rise up against me,
breathing out violence.

¹³ I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.

¹⁴ Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.
 

More On Effective Church Action

Town turns to prayer to fight pornography
Courtesy of OneNewsNow

An adult entertainment facility in Lavonia, Georgia, has shut its doors, and opponents believe it was due to the power of prayer.

Café Risqué opened six years ago, and the city lost several lawsuits to try to close it or force it to move from its location along the nearby interstate highway. The business was deemed an embarrassment to the city, but residents turned to prayer in order to shut the place down.

Larry Finger is senior pastor at First Baptist Church. "We prayed and hoped and trusted that the Lord would help us, and then eventually a situation came up where the property owner was prepared to sell, and using a third party, the city had someone buy the property," he details. "Then the city bought the property from them and closed the establishment."

Out of all the approaches to try to shut down the business, the only one that worked was prayer, says Finger. "It was a scourge on our community and we knew it, but we had come to the point where we thought we were almost hopeless outside God's miraculous help -- and we finally got the victory, and a great one it has been," says a joyful Finger.

The senior pastor is hopeful other towns with a similar problem -- perhaps that are ill-equipped to deal with the situation -- will not forget about prayer. He notes that Lavonians prayed for six years before there was a solution.

What?! You mean prayer actually WORKS?

Did you notice how long it took?

Have you ever quit before 6 years was finished?

I think that I probably added a couple prayers to theirs without knowing it on trips to Atlanta and Florida. I'm glad that place is gone... just like I'm glad Dockside Dolls in Mebane is gone. I credit prayer with that one too.

It is really amazing what the Church could accomplish if we would simply BELIEVE what the Bible says and act on that belief.

A Quote For You

I am being pressed forward in the Spirit to assume my position. How about you? Each one of us in Christ has a position that we MUST assume. His Bride must be ready for her Groom! We can't fulfill our life's mission if we don't boldly step into that rightful place He has for us.
- Deborah @ Thoughts Along The Way

SJB On The Road

The SJB took it on the road tonight to Troutman's Barbecue in Concord, NC. We played for a great crowd of around 100 folks and got some great feedback.

We are playing this Saturday at Dixie's coffee shop on Main Street in China Grove at 1:00. It will be a great opportunity to see the band and check out one of China Grove's coolest establishments. We will hope to see you there.

The band is getting noticeably better with each performance. That is very gratifying, and the experience has been great for stretching me out of my comfort zone.

At our very first practice I was faced with soloing - something that I had never done before. As you can imagine, I was pretty awful, but Justin and the rest of the guys were very supportive and patient as I began to develop some chops. It has really taught me about not being afraid to try something new and not being afraid to make mistakes.

I guess I still have a ways to go in overcoming this fear. Even tonight as I was getting ready for the concert, I was very nervous, thinking, "I'm not good enough to be playing for folks!" There was a part of me that didn't even want to play. Yet once we got started everyone was great and I played a solo that I felt very good about. Of course there is room for growth, but I am having a blast.

I hope that this will be the beginning of a trend for me to be more bold and adventurous. It is time to put these silly fears in their place and begin to live and enjoy life. Sometimes that will mean messing up publicly, but it is OK. My experience teaches me that no one is perfect - even the ones who look like they are!

Hope to see you Saturday!

An Admonition From the Word...

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Ephesians 6:10-18

Prepare To Be Rocked...

I just read this in a post and it blew me away.

“Don’t you ever stop, and don’t you ever let anyone stop you. I let a church full of lazy Christians steal my passion away from me. They did not want to change, they wouldn’t reach out to anyone, and they did not care about people dying without Jesus. All they cared about was making church easy and convenient. I let them scare me into doing what they wanted. And I slowly died. I would give anything to be your age again, Clayton. I would do it differently and I would obey God no matter what people said. Trust me son, you don’t want to end up like me, dying in hospital with regrets hanging over your head. Once you let anybody other than Jesus tell you what to do, you begin to die.”

I'm not going to explain all of the quote or the background. You will be far better off if you click HERE and read the entire post. I know this isn't what we want, so we have to break through our fears and touch our community if we want to have a reason to exist.

Quote Of The Day

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, gift, or skill. It will make or break a company...a church...a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes. "
~ Charles R. Swindoll

Attitude

Attitudes:

Tonight Bruce was praying for our attitudes and something that he said spurred this thought:

Good, bad, or indifferent, our attitudes are a direct reflection of our faith and belief in, and knowledge and understanding of God's claims about Himself.

Time and time again - in the Scriptures, in my own life, and in the lives of others around me - I see the evidence to support this claim. The degree to which we understand God's claims about who He is and the degree to which we BELIEVE those claims is constantly played out in our attitudes. In fact, our attitudes become a billboard on which the world can see how well we know (and trust) God. Sadly, all too often our "billboards" are advertising something that the world around us just doesn't want. If John Piper is right in saying, "God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him" then how much glory is God receiving from our lives?

Although several scriptural examples come to mind, the story of the Israelite spies' report of the promised land provides both good and poor examples of attitudes in action. The account can be found in Numbers 13:25-33 and Numbers 14:1-12 The text quoted below comes from the New Living Translation.

After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land. This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! The Amalekites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. The Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan Valley.”

As the leaders of the tribes who had gone to spy out the land returned they brought back tremendous reports of the goodness of the land. They even brought back a bunch of grapes that was so big that it had to be carried on a pole between them! They began their report by acknowledging that the land was every bit as good as God had told them that it was. So far so good, right?

Yet on the heels of the acknowledgment that God had been truthful about the goodness of the land was a BUT. Had the spies left the "BUT" out they would have been fine as they described the strength of the inhabitants of the land. Their attitude showed right away that they didn't believe that God would keep His promise to them.

Now enter a good example. Caleb was one of the twelve sent out to survey the land. As the other spies began to horrify the people with tales of fortified cities and even GIANTS, Caleb tried to calm the people, "Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!” Caleb's attitude demonstrated his FAITH that God would do as He had promised and deliver the inhabitants of the land into their hands.

As Caleb's words began to calm the crowd, the fear of the ten other spies rose, and they persisted in their declaration that the war was a lost cause before it even began.

But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!” So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”

Their words were the last straw and the unbelief of the congregation was revealed through their response.

Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. Their voices rose in a great chorus of protest against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in Egypt, or even here in the wilderness!” they complained. “Why is the Lord taking us to this country only to have us die in battle? Our wives and our little ones will be carried off as plunder! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?” Then they plotted among themselves, “Let’s choose a new leader and go back to Egypt!”

First it began with grumbling against Moses and Aaron and they let themselves get so carried away that they even accused God of plotting their destruction.

These are the same people that had seen the ten plagues that God brought against the Egyptians, resulting in their freedom. They were the ones who had walked on dry land through the midst of the Red Sea and had witnessed the destruction of one of the mightiest armies in the world at God's hand - they hadn't lifted a finger in the battle. These people had eaten manna every day and they had quail without hunting for it. Their flocks and herds were fed and watered as they passed through the wilderness by God, and yet they accused God of wrongdoing.

I hate to admit that I too have committed this great sin. I have allowed myself to accuse God of not loving me and not caring for me in the midst of a great trial - and I used the very air that He gave me to breathe to do it with. My attitude was reflective of how little I knew and trusted my God.

Moses and Aaron knew it was time to duck. They fell on their faces before the Lord as one last effort was made to curb the bad attitude of the congregation of Israel.

Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, tore their clothing. They said to all the people of Israel, “The land we traveled through and explored is a wonderful land! And if the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey. Do not rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land. They are only helpless prey to us! They have no protection, but the Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of them!”

But the people would not be restrained. Instead, they became even more irrational. They were hysterical, acting as if the armies of the promised land were encircling the camp, when in reality there is no evidence that they were even aware of or concerned about any pending Israeli invasion.

But the whole community began to talk about stoning Joshua and Caleb. Then the glorious presence of the Lord appeared to all the Israelites at the Tabernacle. And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? Will they never believe me, even after all the miraculous signs I have done among them?

Why was God angry? Because they had treated Him with contempt and refused to believe someone who could not lie after all that He had done for them. The end result? Everyone over 20 years old died over the next 40 years in the desert except for two people - Joshua and Caleb. Why? Because they believed that God would do what He said and their attitudes demonstrated this belief. God said of Caleb, "But my servant Caleb has a different attitude than the others have. He has remained loyal to me, so I will bring him into the land he explored. His descendants will possess their full share of that land." Numbers 14:24 NLT

Now, if you aren't reading closely, you might think that I am advocating a sunny disposition in the face of all of life's trials. That isn't my point. My point is that our attitude is a REFLECTION of our belief in God's goodness and His care for us. As I have endured the trial of the past year, I have gone through stages very much like the children of Israel. There have been moments, as I confessed earlier, that I have accused God of wrongdoing. Thank God that He is patient with us and understands why we do things better than we do ourselves.

It is evident from the scripture that good things follow those whose attitude reflects a firm belief in God's goodness and His care for them. Just consider Job, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Daniel, and Paul and Silas. All saw glorious deliverances on their behalf because their faith was reflected in their attitude, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY they saw the people around them influenced to believe in the Lord God as a result of their rewarded confidence. You see, their attitudes were powerful tools in the hands of God to bring people and glory to Himself. However, if we seek the attitude as a means to the faith we will encounter futility as certainly as a dog sledder who tries to hitch the team behind the sled and coax them to push.

Their attitudes were the direct result of what they had learned about God through the Scriptures, and, perhaps just as importantly, by their experience and remembrance that He had always been faithful to keep His covenants and promises.

How can we attain to this knowledge of God, this godly confidence, this faith and belief? Ephesians 4:21-24 exhorts us:

Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy. Ephesians 4:21-24 NLT

Another thing that has helped me during this period of trial in my life has been to acknowledge the wonderful ways that I have seen God move on my behalf. I have majored on not focusing on the worries of tomorrow - there have been plenty of worries for each day! As I have done this, I have been less blinded to the many provisions that God has made for me, and I have begun to trust Him even when I have no idea from where the next provision will appear. The confidence that I have is this: "God is good and His lovingkindness is everlasting."

What better season than Thanksgiving to ponder the many blessings that God has poured out upon us - the many provisions that He has made on our behalf? When we focus on the promises already fulfilled, we can patiently endure while we wait for the promises that have not yet been fulfilled. GOD IS FAITHFUL!!! GOD LOVES ME!!! GOD LOVES YOU!!! HIS PLANS FOR YOU ARE FOR GOOD AND NOT FOR CALAMITY TO GIVE YOU A FUTURE AND A HOPE! It is hard to have a bad attitude when you meditate on all that.

Go get to know God. Spend time with Him. Consider all of the things He has done for you. As you do, you will find that your belief is growing deeper and deeper and your confidence will not be so easily shaken in the next storm.

For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too. So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up. Romans 14:17-19 NLT