Our current exciting series of messages and small group studies called "40 Days in the Word" Learn is underway. Learn how to dig out the truth of God's word and how to apply His word to your life.

Join us on Mother's Day, May 13, for "Child Dedication". As a church we are to pray for and help spritually support the children of our church. This is one of the most favored services of the year.

Becoming a Blessing

Among the other nations, Judah and Israel became symbols of a cursed nation. But no longer! Now I will rescue you and make you both a symbol and a source of blessing. So don’t be afraid. Be strong, and get on with rebuilding the Temple! - Zechariah 8:13 (NLT)

God's people had been unfaithful. Instead of obeying Him, they had defied His laws and disregarded His principles. Instead of worshiping Him, they had given themselves to idols. As a result, He removed His blessings, and they became "a curse among the nations."

Yet God continued to care about them. He loved them and wanted the best for them. In fact, He promised to restore, save, and bless them.

But God also reminded them that He had a purpose for His blessings. Yes, He delighted to meet their needs, allowing them to prosper and enjoy the fullness of life. But He also wanted them to realize the importance of being a blessing to others with the resources He was giving them. He wanted them to share the lessons they had learned, to teach, to pray, to give from their financial resources, and to help lift people's burdens.

This same pattern is true today. God is eager to bless us, but He wants us to realize we are not to hoard His blessings or think just about ourselves. Instead, we are to be eager to share with others, to meet needs, and to make a difference in our community and the world.

Today, consider the many ways God has blessed you. Think of ways you can use your resources, talents, and gifts to impact the lives of others. Remember that He promises to bless you in proportion to your commitment to bless others.

Use what He has given you. Look for ways to give. Show His compassion and love. Be His instrument of peace. Give to support the work of spreading the Gospel.

Can WeTrust the Bible?

 2 Timothy 3:16-17, All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. ¹⁷ God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. 

2000 years ago a singular event launched what we call today the church. God’s Word was fulfilled when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. The Bible tells us that the Word became flesh so that a final sacrifice could be given to pay for your sins and mine. 

Jesus had lowered Himself to live among humans and to die for us. Think about the implication of that. The King of kings and Lord of lords loved us so much that He was willing to give His very life so that you and I might have eternal life with God. God’s promise was sealed for eternity by the resurrection. God’s Word was fulfilled. His Word is truth; His Word is life itself. 

Join us on the adventure we call the 40 Days in the Word.  My goal is that we will learn to love the Word, learn the Word and live out the Word during these next forty days. 

How do I know I can trust it? 

Seven reasons to trust the Bible …  

1. The Bible is historically accurate. 

Why is that even important?  Because the Bible tells us in Hebrews 6:18 “It is impossible for God to lie because God is truth.”  

If the Bible has one lie in it, it’s not a book of God.  Psalm 33:4, For the word of the LORD holds true, and we can trust everything he does.   

So how do we know that the Bible is historically accurate?  You go by the test of good history. For instance, one of the ways you test good history is from eyewitness accounts. The Bible is primarily eyewitness accounts.  That’s why it’s good history.  Moses was there when the Red Sea split.  Joshua was there when the walls of Jericho fell. 

 The disciples of Jesus sat in the upper room and saw the resurrected Jesus appear and then they wrote down what happened and we read about it. Luke talked to all of them, including Jesus’ mother and heard about what had happened.  So its eyewitness accounts of what had happened. 

The other test of history is the extreme care with which the Bible was copied.  You may have heard people say, “It’s been passed down generation after generation and changes occurred.” If you’ve heard that you know somebody just hasn’t taken the time to study it. 

The Old Testament copyists, the scribes, when they would copy scrolls from one to the other, they had to be exact.  They had this long list of rules they had to go by to make sure it was exact. 

When they had a scroll, they had a specified number of columns throughout it so it would always be the same.  And the length of those columns always had to be from forty-eight to sixty in length and it always had to be exactly thirty letters wide so they could always check it out.  

To make sure that it was always right, they had this rule that you had to copy letter by letter and not word by word.  They knew how many letters of the alphabet were in each book.  So for instance our letter “a”, they would know that there were 1,653 “a”s in this book.  And if it had 1,654 when they counted it, they threw the scroll away and started over. 

They were so exact that they knew the middle letter of the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch.  They knew the middle letter of the whole Old Testament.  And after they copied all of this, they would go to that middle letter and count forward and backward; and if it didn’t come out exactly the number it should, they would throw it away and they’d start over.  That’s how exact they were. 

(One of the ways we can see that they were exact is through the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The Dead Sea Scrolls were written about a hundred years before Jesus.  They have in them copies of all of the Old Testament books except Esther.  The earliest copes we had before that were from nine hundred years after Jesus.  So there’s this thousand years gap.  All of a sudden we get to check out how much change came in in those thousand years. 

You wonder how much?  About five percent; almost all were the spelling of words and the spelling of the names.  Over a thousand years, those copyists were proved to be right as they copied again and again and again and made it right.  That’s another proof of the historical accuracy of the Bible. 

Another proof is in archeology. The Pool of Siloam where the blind man was healed, portions of Herod’s Temple, all these places that are talked about in the Bible, they’ve dug them up.  We can see them. 

Archeology has again and again shown that the Bible is more accurate than our ideas of history.  There have been many times when thought the Bible must be wrong.  And the Bible has proved itself to be right. 

For instance, for a long time historians thought Solomon didn’t have horses.  They only had camels back then.  At Megiddo, they discovered one of Solomon’s chariot cities with thousands of stables for horses!  So the Bible was proved right.

One of the greatest examples of that is an empire called the Hittites.  The Hittites were talked about in the Bible but nowhere else.  So for centuries historians said the Bible just made it up.  In the early 1900s Professor Hugo Winkler discovered ten thousand clay tablets at the capital of the Hittites.  

2. The Bible is scientifically accurate. 

People who think the Bible is scientifically inaccurate have either never studied the Bible and/or probably don’t know science.  The truth is God set up the laws of science and he made sure that his Word does not contradict those laws. 

The Bible was not given to be a scientific textbook, obviously.  You don’t study the Bible to build a rocket.  There are things the Bible says that we’ve just discovered in the last two to three hundred years to be true.  

One thing about truth is it never changes.  But one thing about science is it constantly changes. There’s nothing more worthless than an obsolete science book.  I guarantee you that the science book you had in the third grade is not being used in the third grade today.  

In 1861 here was a very famous book called Fifty-one Incontrovertible Proofs that the Bible is Scientifically Inaccurate.  Today, a hundred fifty years later, you can’t find a single scientist on the planet who would agree with any one of those incontrovertible facts.  They have all been disproven by science.  

One of the proofs God directed the writers of the Bible is what is not in the Word of God.  If this were a human book, you would expect it to be filled with scientific facts of the prevailing day.  But they’re not here.  

For instance, for thousands and thousands of years, people believed that the earth was flat.  So you would expect the Bible to say the earth is flat.  Not a single verse in the Bible says the earth is flat.  In fact it says the exact opposite.  

Two thousand six hundred years ago, God said in the book of Isaiah 40:22 “God is enthroned above the circle of the earth.”  When that was written nobody believed it.  But God said it. 

For thousands of years, people believed that the earth had to be held up by something.  For instance if you were Greek you believed that the world was held up by a giant name Atlas. Hindus believed that the earth sat on the back of giant elephants and when they moved it caused earthquakes.  The elephants stood on the back of a giant sea turtle.  And the giant sea turtle stood on the back of a giant sea serpent who swam through a cosmic sea.  

The Egyptians were brilliant.  They built the pyramids; they were masters at architecture, at engineering, at astronomy.  But the ancient Egyptians believed that the earth was held up by five pillars.  

The oldest known writing of man is likely the book of Job.  Job 26:7, “God stretches the sky over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing.”  How did he know that?  God told him. 

For years it was the accepted science that there were about a thousand stars in the universe. But it doesn’t say that in the Bible.  Two thousand six hundred years ago the Bible said in Jeremiah 33:22, “The number of stars are infinite.”  

For thousands of years people believed that too much blood in your body made you sick.  Doctors would cut a sick person and bleed them thinking that was going to make them healthy.  That was accepted science. 

Many people don’t know that George Washington was killed by doctors bleeding him to death.  George Washington had a heart problem.  Doctors bled George Washington.  He didn’t get well so a few days later they bled him again.  He didn’t get well so a few days later they bled him a third time and he died from blood loss.  

Today we do the exact opposite of what they did for thousands of years.  You give people blood because we know the life source is in the blood. 

Thousands of years ago, in Leviticus 17:11, God said “The life of every creature is in its blood.”   

During the Middle Ages was the bubonic plague.  The plague killed one fourth of Europe, because we didn’t understand germs. So they had sick people with the bubonic plague sleeping right next to healthy people; and people just kept dying. It became an epidemic and then a pandemic.  They should have read the Bible. 

Thousands of years before the bubonic plague God said in Leviticus 13:4 “Put an infected person in quarantine for seven days.”  That’s thousands of years before we even knew what germs were.   

I could go on and on.  The Bible is always scientifically accurate.  It is always ahead of science. 

3. The Bible is prophetically accurate. 

That means that the predictions in the Bible always come true. 

The Bible is filled with over 1,200 prophecies. Over the centuries most of these prophecies have already been fulfilled, every one of them exactly as God said.  And some of them are still yet to be fulfilled. 

There are over three hundred prophecies in the Bible about Jesus, the Messiah, up to a thousand years before he was born. What are the odds of me making three hundred predictions about you and every one of them coming true?  

The odds are so astronomical you couldn’t write that number down.  It takes more faith to believe it was all just a coincidence than to believe that God planned it.   

A thousand years before the Romans are even thinking of crucifixion, David describes what the death of crucifixion was like.  He didn’t use the word “crucifixion” because nobody knew that word.  How did he know that?  Only God could have told him. 

The Bible says in 2 Peter 1:20-21, Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, ²¹ or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God. 

During Bible times nobody wanted to be a prophet.  You know why?  Because the law was this in Israel: A prophet of God had to be correct one hundred percent of the time.  If you were wrong just once, then you were considered a false prophet and you would be put to death.  

John said in Revelation 22:6, Then the angel said to me, “Everything you have heard and seen is trustworthy and true. The Lord God, who inspires his prophets, has sent his angel to tell his servants what will happen soon”   

4. The Bible is thematically unified.   

What do I mean by that?  It has the same theme through the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation.  It is the theme of redemption with Jesus as the star.  So, I know a lot of books that carry the same theme from beginning to end.  

It’d be one thing if one person wrote this book.  The Quran was written by one person – Mohammed.  The Analects of Confucius are written by Confucius.  The writings of Buddha are written by Buddha.  You would expect them to be uniform. 

The Bible was written by forty different people, in every age and stage of life, on three different continents, in three different languages, over one thousand six hundred years.  And they got the same story.  This book was written by poets and prophets.  It’s written by princes and kings. It’s written by sailors and soldiers.  This book was written by attorneys and a doctor.  It’s written by prisoners.  It’s written by common people.  

Some of the Bible was written in a cave.  Some of the Bible was written on ships.  Some of it was written in homes.  Some of it was written in palaces.  Some of it was written in prison.  And they all come up with the same theme.  

Luke 24:27, “Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” 

Did you get that?  Most people think the New Testament is about Jesus and the Old Testament is about Israel.  Wrong!  The New Testament wasn’t even written when Jesus said that.  He’s talking about the Old Testament.  It says he went through all the Scriptures and showed what it said about him.   

Jesus said in John 5:39, You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to Me!   

5. The Bible is confirmed by Jesus.   

If I trust Jesus then I have to trust the Bible, because Jesus trusted the Bible.  Jesus proclaimed the Bible as a unique book above all others. 

Matthew 5:18, I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God’s law will disappear until its purpose is achieved. 

John 10:35 Jesus said “Scripture is always true.” Jesus says that every sentence and word of the Bible is true, that’s why I believe that every sentence and word of the Bible is true.   

When Jesus talks about the Bible, He talks about it as something that is life changing.  Jesus said in Luke 11:28, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”   

Jesus, as He talked about the Bible, talked about it as a real book, talking about real people, and real places by a real God who’s really at work in our lives. 

Stories about Noah, Adam and Eve, Sodom and Gomorrah and Jonah are the most disputed stories in the Bible. Some say, “It’s just a bunch of fables.  They’re good stories, good moral stories, but they didn’t really happen.”  Jesus believed they really happened.  I trust in it because Jesus trusted in it.  

I’ve found that my emotions, my opinions are not always trustworthy.  I trust Jesus.  He trusted the Bible.  That’s one of the main reasons why I trust the Bible. 

6. The Bible has survived all attacks.   

The Bible is the most despised book, the most derided, the most denied, the most disputed, the most dissected, the most debated, the most outlawed, the most destroyed, the most banned book ever in history.  Millions of people have died because they refused to give up their Bible.  It’s still illegal in some countries.   

The Bible has been under attack for centuries by everything you can imagine.  Yet it is still the most read book in the world, the most published book in the world, the most translated book in the world, the bestselling book in the world and it is still making a difference in people’s lives.  

The Bible is the greatest single source of music.  The Bible is the greatest single source of art.  And the Bible is the greatest single source of architecture throughout history. It is the source of our culture.  

Voltaire, the famous French philosopher, was a brilliant man and an atheist He wrote a number of tracts deriding the Bible.  Voltaire made a very famous statement in which he said “One hundred years from today the Bible will be a forgotten book.” 

 Everybody’s forgotten that quote!  After Voltaire died, for nearly one hundred years, his homestead was used as the book depository for the French Bible Society.  

1 Peter 1:24-25 As the Scriptures say, “People are like grass; their beauty is like a flower in the field. The grass withers and the flower fades. ²⁵ But the word of the Lord remains forever.” And that word is the Good News that was preached to you.  

The truth will always be the truth.  Whether I believe it or not, it’s the truth.  I could say I believe the moon is made of cheese.  We know and it’s proven that the moon is made of rock.  We’ve brought rocks back from the moon.  And no matter how much I say I believe the moon is made of cheese, it doesn’t change it.  It’s still made out of rock. 

I could say to you, what’s good for you is good for you.  What’s good for me is good for me.  And that’s the way most people are living their lives.  God gives you the freedom to totally rebel against him your entire life.  You can run from God the rest of your life, but then you’re going to come face to face with God.  And all of the thinking of “I don’t believe in him!” isn’t going to stop that event from happening.  

7. The Bible has transforming power. 

Nothing can change the lives of people like the Bible.  Your life has been changed by it.  I’ve seen drunks, irresponsible addicts, get their life clean and sober because they start reading the Bible. I have seen the most self-centered, narcissistic, it’s-all-about-me people, read the Bible and have their lives transformed. 

You can make a law that outlaws racism and bigotry, but no law is going to turn a bigot into lover.  God’s got to do that. God’s got to change the heart.  I’ve invested my life in the heart changing business and I’ve seen it happen because of this book.  It changes people you would never imagine it could change. 

John 8:31-32, Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. ³² And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 

I want you to be free.  The Bible never lies to you.  Even when I don’t like what it says, even when I disagree with it, even when it hurts, even when it’s uncomfortable, it will always tell me the truth.  That’s why it’s called Holy Bible! 

The fundamental question, the most important question you’re going to ask yourself in life is what is going to be the final authority for my life?  You need to decide today.  Is it going to be the Word?  Or is it going to be the world?  Am I going to listen to what God says is true?  Or am I going to listen to public opinion or my own set of feelings?  Who’s going to be the authority in my life?  God or me? 

The reason I don’t want to accept the Bible as my authority is because I want to be boss.  I want to be Lord.  I want to be God of my own life and I don’t want God telling me what’s moral and immoral, what’s right and what’s wrong.  I want to do it my way.  

So let me ask you, how’s that working for you?  Is that solving all your problems?  Has all your stress and worry and irritations vanished because you’re God?  Everything turning out the way you want it?  I don’t think so.  

So the big question is what’s going to be the authority of my life?  

My salvation depends on the Bible being right.  And so does yours.  This book tells you your life is not an accident.  Science doesn’t tell you that.  This book tells you there is an overarching purpose for your life.  Science doesn’t tell you that.  

This book says God made you to love you.  This is the book that says you can be forgiven.  This is the book that says your past can be forgiven, you can have a purpose for living, you can have a home in heaven.  This is the book that says no matter what problem you go through, God can use it for good in your life.  This is the book that says there is a reason for hope.

The Bible says in Romans 12:2, Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. 

God’s plan for your life is good.  God’s plan for your life is pleasing.  And God’s plan for your life is perfect.  But you’re only going to know it through the perfect Word of God.

Prayer: 

     I want you to settle this issue today, to accept the Bible as the flawless Word, as the final authority for your life.  Say in your mind: Dear God, from this day forward I will accept the Bible as your flawless Word to me.  I will make it the final authority for my life.  I’m going to make the Bible the final authority for my life, even when I don’t understand it, even when it’s not popular, even when it’s not easy, or even when I don’t like it.  

Thank you, God, for loving me enough to speak to me through your Word.  Thank you that you are not silent.  Thank you that you spoke through forty men and women, over sixteen hundred years, on three continents, in three languages, to tell me one story.  That you wanted me in your family and you wanted me to know you and that you made me for a purpose.  Thank you that you’re not silent.  I want to love your Word, I want to learn your Word, and I want to live your Word.  Use Forty Days in my life to set me on the right path.  In your name I pray.  Amen. 

Needed: A Radical Commitment

“Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” - Matthew 19:21 (NLT)

Here was a religious man, who knew the Bible and tried to do the right things. But Jesus said he faced a crossroads - a point of decision. Jesus asked him to make a "complete" commitment, to hold nothing back, to surrender everything and follow Him. Everything! Even to the point of selling all his possessions.

This message made the man sad. Though he wanted to "obtain eternal life," Jesus seemed to be demanding too much. Yes, the man hoped to find an inheritance in the life to come, but he still was committed to this present world, for he "owned much property."

Many people are just like this man - interested in following Jesus and wanting to live a good life, yet holding back, clinging to this world, compromising.

Jesus asks of us the same things He asked of this rich young man. Are we willing to follow Him radically? Completely? Without holding anything back? Are we ready to quit living for ourselves and surrender everything to Him...our time, talent, and treasure?

Those who make this commitment enter into a new dimension of faith. God's supernatural power begins to flow, and His Kingdom comes alive in them.

Jesus offers you this same possibility, but it requires a radical commitment. Which way will you decide? Will you cling to this world? Or give up everything to follow Him?

Right now, don't hold back. Step out in faith. Commit everything to Jesus. He offers you His Kingdom, with victory, power, blessing, and a New Beginning in your relationship with God.

Not everyone is willing to take this path, but it's the only way to be "complete" and find fullness of life in Him.

Love and Truth

Saul told his son Jonathan and all the attendants to kill David. But Jonathan had taken a great liking to David and warned him. 1 Samuel 19:1-2a (TNIV)

David had been a champion and hero in Saul's kingdom. But when David became more successful in battle and popular with the people, Saul began to see him as a rival. He became obsessed with jealousy and felt that those who supported David were disloyal and even guilty of treason.

Instead of focusing his life on serving God, Saul increasingly sought to protect his own interests. Tormented and insecure, he began to see enemies everywhere. And David became his primary target.

But Saul's son, Jonathan, had a different attitude. For him, David was a friend, not a rival. Instead of being influenced by his father's jealousy and insecurity, Jonathan could see things for what they really were. He could trust David and examine his actions objectively.

Rather than seeing David as his competitor, Jonathan "loved him as he loved his own life" (20:17). While Saul was consumed with thoughts of himself, Jonathan truly cared about David. While Saul became self-centered, Jonathan was motivated by compassion.

It can be easy for us to be like Saul self-centered, biased, jealous, and concerned with our own reputations and "kingdoms." But Jonathan demonstrated how everything changes when our lives are filled with God's love. Paul described the impact of this kind of love when he wrote that love is patient, kind, and not jealous. It never seeks its own, but always "rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

Today, ask God to fill you with His love and show you His truth about your relationships. Instead of seeking your own way, seek the good of others.

The Future

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end." Ecclesiastes 3:11 NKJV

What will happen in the coming year? Looking back, consider the changes we've seen in the last year, or last month, or just yesterday--things we didn't anticipate, that surprised us. We can be certain that the future holds many similar surprises.

At times like these, it's important to remember that God knows the future and is sovereign over time. Everything is in His hands. He has a plan for our lives and the world. Ecclesiastes describes this truth with utter clarity: "He has made everything beautiful in its time."

In the days to come, we may face trials and struggles. We may experience problems as well as successes; victories and apparent defeats; pleasures and pains; gains and losses. But the Bible promises that "all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). We can watch as God unfolds His mysteries and His sovereign purposes in the days to come.

Although none of us knows what will happen in the future, God already knows. He knows what will happen today and tomorrow, and He wants us to trust Him. We also need to remember that He has an eternal purpose for our lives. As Ecclesiastes says, "He has put eternity in their hearts."

Are you ready for the future? Are you worried? Afraid? Confused? Concerned? Remember: God has made everything beautiful in its time, and this is true for you! He knows the future. You can trust Him, confident that He will take care of you in every situation. He will work everything together for your good!

Sharing His Love,

Pastor Russ and Kathy

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