focus on faith

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – Be thankful for God’s many gifts

Taking the time to find God in our everyday lives isn’t as easy as it would seem.  Because our lives our so busy, God often takes a back seat to everything else that is happening.  After all, there is always someone or something demanding our time.  Most of us seem to be in a constant state of alert there just don’t seem to be enough hours in the week to get everything done.  It is so easy to get TOO BUSY to notice God, TOO BUSY to see God’s presence all around us.

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – God works to draw people to Himself

Lately we have experienced some pretty amazing growth at our church. We have been praying for younger people and couples to come for a couple of years. And God has been steadily bringing them to us!     This week we baptized four people at our church! We are thankful for each one of them. Thankful that God broke into their lives and revealed his love for them and that they,

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – That’s impossible!

Here I go again with another pop culture moment. Let me tell you about another one of my favorite movies, “The Empire Strikes Back.” This is second of the three original Star Wars movies. There is one scene in particular in this film that has stuck with me over the years. 

    A boy, Luke Skywalker, is trying to use the ‘force’ to lift his spaceship out of a thick and murky swamp, where it stuck after he crashed it there.

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – Because he lives

The title of this article is also the title of one of my all-time favorite hymns. “Because He Lives” was written by Bill Gaither in 1971. According to Bill Gaither, the song was written after a period of time when he had had a kind of dry spell and hadn’t written any songs for a while. 

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – In the Breaking of the Bread

   In the ancient Church, Christian worship was centered on two things: the Word and the Lord’s Supper. They very simply modeled what happens on Sunday according to the pattern demonstrated in Acts 2:42, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (ESV) Out of this vague order of worship arose two major parts of the service: The Service of the Word and the Service of the Sacrament. 

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – Dr. Seuss and Sam-I-Am

One of my favorite children authors was Dr. Seuss or Ted Geisel. When you look back at his books it is easy to see that although Dr. Seuss never thought of himself as an exemplary Christian, his storytelling did have a Christian orientation.

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – A Transfer of Power

In recent days the Church has had its problems. According to a recent Gallup Poll, church membership in the U.S. has declined steadily over the last two decades. Since 1998 church membership has declined across denominational lines by 20%.

The Washington Times published a piece in July that says, “Just 59% of 18 to 34-year-olds in the U.S. say they believe in God, a prime factor in the decline of overall belief in God from 90% in 2001 to 74% in May of 2023.”

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – Stillness, a foreign word

Psalms 46:10 - “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

Still. Webster defines the word “still” as remaining in place or at rest; motionless; stationary; free from sound or noise; silent; subdued or low in sound; hushed: free from turbulence or commotion; peaceful; tranquil; calm. 

Stillness does not come easy for me. Having grown up in a world where business seemed to be the sign of success, stillness was never in my dictionary. Yet it is definitely an important word in the Bible.

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – ‘The Authority of Jesus’ (Pt 2)

One of the crucial questions throughout the Gospel of Matthew is where did this guy get his authority? Who authorized this man from Nazareth, the son of a carpenter, to gather disciples, preach on mountaintops, heal the sick, and forgive sins? As the Gospel progresses, the question shifts a little to take into account the Church after the Ascension. Who received this man’s authority and who carries it out now? Two questions that require two columns.

Last time we looked at direct questions concerning Jesus’ authority. Jesus first spoke with authority (and not like the scribes) in the Sermon on the Mount. Then very deliberately, Jesus ramped up the miracles in Matthew 8-9 to show that He not only speaks but does. Later entering into Jerusalem, the chief priests questioned Jesus’ authority head on. Ultimately, no man could determine Jesus’ authority (and no one still can) without beholding the man upon the cross. In that earth-shaking moment, we see that Jesus has divine authority and uses it not for self but for the sake of the world.