Treasure Hunting

So have you started your Christmas shopping yet? Friday was the largest shopping day of the year for retailers and has earned the title “Black Friday.” The police department in Philadelphia is credited with coining the term due to the heavy traffic jams in the city on this busy shopping day. For online retailers, the Monday after Thanksgiving is known as “Cyber Monday” and is usually the peak of their virtual traffic. So what drives all of this frantic activity? It is the desire to obtain the perfect gifts for family and friends, and to do so at a bargain!

Sometimes we miss some special gifts tucked into God’s Word. They are hidden to us because the culture of the Bible is foreign to us and the original languages of the Bible are quite different than English. It takes a little extra effort to find treasures that are perfect for our lives. Tonight we will continue our treasure hunt as we seek to find some hidden treasures from God’s Word. We will step deep into that which is beneath the surface to find nuggets of truth. So join us tonight at six; it will be more fun than Christmas shopping!

Digging Deeper

For the next three Sunday Nights we are going to be going a little deeper into the Word to find some hidden treasures for our souls. As we look beyond our English translations to the original language of the Bible and see the concepts and ideas that do not translate well into our language. As we do we will find some amazing truths that has been buried there all along.

A sample of this kind of study can be found in the video one this page.

So I hope to see you Sunday night as we prepare to dig.

Jesse Waggoner

Grateful?

If you were given the assignment to list all the truly great sins in the world, what would be on your list? According to a BBC poll, the top sins are: cruelty, hypocrisy, selfishness, wastefulness, dishonesty and adultery. However, you know that evil is not determined by opinion polls, but would it surprise you to know that ungratefulness is near the top of God’s list? In a passage that details the downward spiral of this world into sin, ungratefulness is the second one mentioned (Romans 1:21). A careful reading also seems to indicate that the human heart that is not thankful for God’s provision and involvement is ripe for (what is to us) even greater offenses.

So as we launch into a week that contains a day of national thanksgiving, it is a good time to take stock of our own gratefulness to our God. We will enter into worship this morning and may I invite you to join us for our Thanksgiving Eve service Wednesday evening at 7:00 PM in our Worship Center. It will be a great way to start your observance of Thanksgiving and a great reminder to remain grateful.

Living out of a suitcase

For most of the week just past I have been staying in a hotel and I have been living out of a suitcase. I am glad to being back in Charleston, in my own home, sleeping in my own bed, and today to be back with you. But there is something one can learn from living out of a suitcase. I am (for a brief time anyway) able to live quite well with only a limited amount of stuff, and even at that I usually pack more stuff than I really need. But maybe I am not the only one who is a little “over packed.”

In 1 Peter 2:11 the apostle Peter appealed for believers to live a life of purity because believers are “Pilgrims” or travelers in this world. In essence, this side of heaven, we are all “living out of a suitcase.” Our real home is with our Lord --our present location is only temporary. But during this trip we often overload ourselves with baggage we were never meant to carry. Our God really wants us to travel light by casting our burdens of worry and care on him (1 Peter 5:7). As we look at another portion of God’s Word that provides for us some amazing reasons to trust God, I hope you will leave with a little less baggage today. It is my prayer that God will cause you to trust Him more today. Will join me in praying that God will help us all do a little unpacking?

Crossing the border

I vividly remember the first time I was outside of the United States and was crossing the border back in. I was a teenage and with my family had crossed the bridge that connects El Paso, Texas, and Juares, Mexico. In those days a passport was not required but you had to verbally declare to the border patrol officer the nation of your citizenship. I enthusiastically stated that I was a citizen of the United States because I was proud to be, but also so I would not be stranded on foreign soil!

In a spiritual sense, we are citizens of one “country” (Phil. 3:20) but are currently residing in another (John 17:16). As we continue our Bible study series, “Amazing Reasons to Trust God’, this Sunday’s study in the Word will help us see more clearly our spiritual connection and help us overcome the fears that our “alien status” sometimes causes us. I also trust as we can focus more on our spiritual connections that we will be enthusiastic in our declaring before others that we are part of the kingdom of God, and that they too can enjoy the benefits of citizenship through faith in Christ.

If you want to get a head-start on this study read Luke 12:22-34 / If you missed any of this series, you can get caught up at www.biblecenterchurch.net

Jesse Waggoner

Amazing Reasons To Trust God

In case you haven't noticed there are many reasons to fear, in fact it seems like just about anything can scare us. God obviously knows this, for more than 60 times in the Bible we are told not to fear. If you would like some help in this area I want to invite you to go along on a spiritual journey over the next two months.

We are going to use these "fear not" passages to uncover some amazing reasons to trust God. You will be blessed -- and perhaps you know of someone who is needing some encouragement that you can invite to join you. Make plans to be part of this encouraging study in these troubling times.

Sundays 9:00 and 10:45 p.m.

Fear’s greatest nemesis

In our worship services this Sunday, I will be sharing on the topic of fear and how that emotion, if pervasive, can weaken our faith and affect our testimony. Fear can have a corrosive and powerfully negative impact on our lives. When we are held captive by fear, we forego the abundant life on this earth that Jesus Christ desires for us.

Fear’s greatest nemesis is faith. When we strengthen our faith in our great God, fear retreats. As we review Daniel 3 this morning, we’ll examine three “twenty-something” faithful young men who refused to cave in to fear. Instead of retreating in fear, they stood behind the God that they served. Rather than fearfully denouncing God, they were willing to give their lives faithfully for God. These three men of God weren’t supernatural heroes; they were frail humans like you and me. Yet they displayed faith during the most fearful of circumstances. That made all the difference.

Sometimes we reduce God to the size of our biggest fear. That’s faulty thinking. Our God transcends our fears and wants us to stand with Him when fear strikes. That’s when fear retreats.

Dr. Bill Tanzey
Associate Pastor of Community Ministries