With all your strength
First Baptist Church invites the entire community to the Prineville Fitness Clinic
A man once came to Jesus and asked him a difficult question: Which commandment is the most important of all? (Mark 12:28)
In Jewish tradition, the Torah (or Law) contained 613 commandments. This is, of course, child s play compared to something like the U.S. tax code, but it was a weighty amount of rules, nonetheless. With so many, it would be to anyone s benefit to understand which are the most important.
Jesus answers the man with a stunning summary of Jewish Law: The most important is, Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:29-31)
We do not always have tomorrow April 25 2021
Live each day as if it is our last and make God our top priority because we do not always have tomorrow
Procrastination is one major cause of regret in our lives today. We know the things we need to do, however, we put them off. We believe we have all the time in the world to get them done. We never do today, what we can put off until tomorrow.
I know this to be true, because of personal experience. In 2007, my wife and I spent Christmas Eve with my parents. While we were with them, my dad shared with me that his doctors had told him he had lung cancer. The doctors had given him six months to live.
The pandemic has caused us to sift out what is precious in life April 18 2021
Instead of seeing things that aren t there, we must let ourselves feel the warmth of God s love For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16)
We just celebrated our second Easter with this uninvited guest otherwise known as the pandemic. Unlike the shock of it last year, we re now settling into a sense of normalcy we can more comfortably count on.
And as we get more confident in taking a longer look at life, I believe we re all much more open now to sifting out what is precious in life.
Jesus resurrection causes the new birth April 04 2021
The great mercy of God and the resurrection of Jesus are unchangeable and bring a living hope Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Peter 1:3
Imagine being a follower of Christ during Peter s ministry in the first century, to be sure, in the first three centuries many in the church were battered and put to death by people in power who didn t know Christ. This letter (1 Peter) was written to believers who were worn out and facing their own potential death. It s easy to imagine they were tempted to abandon the Savior.