Grace Blogs

Today, we will continue our tour of a church that had its fill of spiritually gifted people, yet had serious issues with acting in ways that were, at times, completely not spiritual. The letter to the church at Corinth provides us some rock solid guidelines in how God’s Spirit is expressed through each of our lives. MP3 download.

 

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On Friday (June 20), Dennis Rainey of Family Life sent the following email to some of his friends regarding the death of his newly-born granddaughter, Molly. The e-mails have now been made public since they hold a wonderful testament to God’s grace in the lives of the extended family. Dennis recounts his emotions and surrounding circumstances of the last precious moments spent with family and Molly before she passed to be with Jesus.

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How do you ensure that the expression of spiritual gifts do not turn into “spiritual” liabilities? How do you know when an expression or outworking in a church is truly of God? Is there a way to really know? Today, we will take a tour of a church that had its fill of spiritually gifted people, yet had serious issues with acting in ways that were, at times, completely not spiritual. In Paul’s teaching to the church at Corinth, we discover pivotal truths that must govern any and all expressions of spiritual gifts. Today’s teaching will help you to avoid becoming a “spiritual” liability. MP3 download.

 

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There are few issues like politics that inspire question marks in the minds of Christians. Questions like, Do I vote for a candidate who is “pro-choice” when the other candidate is not only “pro-choice” but “pro-tax”, “pro-big government,” “pro-liberal social programs”, etc? Living in a society in which we are given the freedom to participate in the political process in turn demands that we learn to think through finding balance in how we cast our vote as a follower of Christ. Let’s face it, to abstain completely from voting because a candidate holds a view that you or me would consider to be “unchristian” will leave us with no candidate at all. A person with this …

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As you probably know, we have a team “on mission” with Mustard Seeds and Mountains in McDowell County, West Virginia. We have set up this blog to serve as a message board since “up in the hollers” there is practically no cell phone coverage.

The first two entries come from my wife, Vicki, who happens to have three of our kids with her - Ben, David, and Alexa.

Special Thanks to Will “LEGS” Bowman (team member and hill climbing extraordinaire) for making this connection possible!

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In Segment one of this series, we took three weeks to examine the marks of a God-owned Church (Knowing Who You Are).  Last week we began segment two (Knowing How You Function), and addressed how our oneness as a church is expressed through our distinctness in our spiritual gifting.  Today we will continue to see, based on account of what Christ has done in the atonement, how we can now shape each other with such effectiveness as to actually contribute to the spiritual health of one another.  MP3 download.

 

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ChristianAudio.com is offering a free audiobook of Pilgrim’s Progress (10.5 hours) free in the month of June. Just use the code JUN2008 when checking out.

This is a great resource for the kids to listen to at bedtime or for those long family car trips during summer vacation.

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When we speak that there must be a necessary change when a person trusts in Christ there is often an undercurrent of distinction between the message of Jesus and the teaching of Paul. Advocates for looking toward Paul for the Gospel (and not the messages of Christ) will appeal to the sections of Scripture like Romans 3 and 4 because it is in these chapters we see the clearest picture of justification by faith alone. The reasoning goes something like this, “if there must be fruits of obedience to express a person truly being justified, then Paul would have most certainly included that teaching in these chapters.” At this point, a citation of a teacher(s) such as …

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There are those who would have you believe that trust in Christ is all that is needed when it comes to the foundational element in starting a relationship with God. Furthermore, if anything is added to this basic formula the Gospel message will become corrupted. Consider the following:

In the same way [as first-century legalism], the most telling modern assaults on the integrity of the Gospel do not deny the cruciality of faith in Christ. On the contrary, they insist on it. But to faith are added other conditions, or provisos, by which the essential nature of the Gospel is radically transformed. Often, in fact, a distinction is drawn between the kind of faith which saves and the kind which does

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Over the last three weeks, we have been moving through issues of identity of the Church. Today, we start the second segment in our ChurchWorks series: Knowing how you function as the Church.

 

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