All the charade needs volunteers, and truck loads of them. And to keep them coming back week after week, you need to guilt-trip them into thinking that if they don't return, they won't flourish as a believer. Lies. Cheap shots. And it's all law, no grace.
I know these excuses, because hello, I use them all the time. But the Great Commission of the church is to 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all nations.' That was a commandment from Jesus, not a 'suggestion'. The Gospel needs to be preached because there is no other way for men to be saved.
When the story of Jesus birth, life, death, and resurrection is told, it's not just an isolated one-off incident. Every facet of Jesus' life on earth was a fulfillment of one or more prophecies. And by the time He ascended, no fewer than 353 were fulfilled.
The miry clay pit is a place of hopelessness. It’s a dead end, literally. You are left to rot, with no access to food, water, and maybe even light.
Let our love for Thee increase, May Thy blessings never cease, Give us plenty, give us peace, God defend our free land. From dishonour and from shame, Guard our country's spotless name, Crown her with immortal fame, God defend New Zealand.
If you’re like me, then you’ve probably heard a hundred sermons on this chapter, and are probably thinking ‘Oh no, not another sermon on 1 Cor 13!’
Now, I love alliterated sermons – I love to play around with words mainly because they keep my focus and interested. I’ve always been jealous of preachers who can come up with a 7 point sermon that all start with the same letter, or the first letters of each point spell the word ‘Prayer’ or something.
When I lived in Christchurch, I often saw a funny little man with a moustache who would stand on a step-ladder in Cathedral Square at lunch times. He would yell out stuff about breaking God's law, sin & repentance. I remember thinking 'I could never do that!'. It seemed to me that he never got a lot of return for his hard work.
"Without a vision, the people perish...".That means the leaders of your church need to get together and establish a 'God-given' vision, a plan forward for the congregation to follow, right?Wrong.