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It has been very well said throughout the years that sin will take you further than you ever wanted to go. Sin will keep you longer than you ever intended to stay. Sin will cost you more than you ever wanted to pay. Sin will require of you more than you ever wanted to give. In our modern culture, the word sin is rarely, if ever, used. However, God’s Word speaks plainly to the idea of sin. Sin is the…

One man said, “Discouragement is having faith in the devil.” In some ways that is true. Discouragement means we do not think Jesus has the answers for our life and our many problems. Here are four causes of discouragement:  Taking your eyes off the Lord Jesus.  Yielding to self-pity and false pride. Self is always your BIGGEST enemy.  Expecting God to solve your problems quickly and miraculously. God seldom uses the dramatic explosion or the proverbial earthquake to solve dilemmas.…

Every year our nation pauses on the second Sunday in May to pay well-deserved honor and respect to those special women we call MOM. In my life there have been several women who have served an important role in helping me to become the Christian I am today. Since I was born to parents who were up in years when I was born, I only had one grandparent still alive when I was born, my mother’s mom. Ma Dial gave…

In this world, two groups of people exist. One group has hope. The other group has no hope. Ephesians 2:12, 1 Thessalonians 4:13 and Revelation 21:8 all deals with the man with no hope. Hope is a choice and so many today chose to have hope. This morning, let’s explore what that means. What is hope? According to Romans 8:24, biblical hope is desire plus expectation. We often confuse the idea of “wishing” with hope. One might say, “I hope…

This past April 16th was the 103rd anniversary of my mother’s birthday. That day on the calendar is always a tough day for me. Even though it has been almost 20 years since my mother left our world, hardly a week goes by that I do not think about her in some way or another. Memories of her flood my soul.  My mother was the foundation for my faith. If I was picking cotton by her side in the fall,…

In our world today, we find ourselves in the mental state as if we are in jail. We equate our homes during quarantine as if we are sentenced to the department of corrections penal facility, never to get out again. This is the classic human condition. We cannot see the bigger picture, or maybe we will not see the bigger picture. We focus all of our time and attention on why we cannot go and do this or that. Allow…

We are all in an odd place in history. This is an interesting time as we maneuver through this very strange time of virus and quarantine. We can talk to others around us and hear the grumblings of the desire to get back to our “normal” life. Our older generation wants to go back to work. Our younger generation wants to see their friends. But let’s focus in on the church during this time of uncertainty.  The 70 West congregation…

Sometimes the ‘LITTLE THINGS’ can be so important. A little extra effort can go a long way especially when it concerns the impact of God’s Word.  Take for example the simple step of clicking on SHARE and SHARE NOW after watching one of the Bible class videos being produced by Tim Togami, Billy Hayes, and myself. Please, after studying with us, click on that SHARE and invite your own Facebook friends to join us in the study.  I recently established…

The current situation in the world has served as a reminder to me of certain key principles that sometimes I forget.  It has reminded me of the surpassing wisdom of the great Heavenly Father. It was God who commanded His church to gather together (Hebrews 10:24-25 ESV And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more…

We are living in very weird times. We are living in a time when a virus is sweeping over the world in a pandemic format. For the church, this time of quarantining our worship together looks very different from anything we have ever seen. It is a period of isolation and healing of our nation and yet we still see the Divine obligation to come together as a group of saints. All those things being understood, we need to understand…

In some ways it feels like the proverbial script for a classic Hollywood movie. You know the type of movie. The good guy hero that you have rooted for during the entire movie seems defeated up to the very end but comes back in a grand way to claim the victory. You and I can make a long list of movies with that theme. But the story of Jesus is more than a mere Hollywood movie. This day almost 2,000…

The following six main points were originally written by another minister. I am borrowing his six points so that I might expand in further explanation considering the current crisis.  1. PAY ATTENTION TO THE WORLD BETWEEN YOUR EARS (I Peter 1:13) In many ways, you and I are influenced by what we think and what we think is linked to what we hear. Instead of the constant ‘bad news’ the media presents, I have doubled my efforts to study the…