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CONSIDERING GOD'S GRACE TO US By Bobby Harris Titus 3 (New King James Version) Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, 2 to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. 3 For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. 4 But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 8 This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works.

Doing Good for the Sake of the Gospel By Bobby Harris Titus 2 1 You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine.2 Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. 3 Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. 6 Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. 7 In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness 8 and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us. 9 Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try

Product of Salvation is Doing Good By Bobby Harris Titus 1:1-9 1 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness, 2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, 3 and which now at his appointed season he has brought to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior, 4 To Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. 5 The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint[a] elders in every town, as I directed you. 6 An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe[b] and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. 7 Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must

Become Complete and Grow Up How do you really say good bye to the ones you love dearly? And what do you say at the end after you have said so much? We can all remember famous last words of people past gone. Last words are very important. Apostle Paul says good bye to the Corinthians in His Letter until he sees them in person. He is planning a third visit to the Corinthians. In the first visit he spent 18 months with them when the Church was established. Subsequently he made a short visit after writing the First Corinthians Letter. Paul has also sent ministers like Titus to the Corinthians to encourage them. We can see that he loves these people and has vested interest in their welfare as much as God does for His children. Like a good parent, Paul wants to see growth and progress from his spiritual children. Imagine the initial joy of a parent when a child is born. Then imagine the heart and anguish of that parent when the baby has remained the same baby-size and still in diaper

Am I Really in the Faith? On May 29, 2012, ABC News Good Morning America reported that a “Serpent-Handling West Virginia pastor (Mark Wolford, 44) died after his rattlesnake bit him during a church ritual, just as the man had apparently watched a snake kill his father years before”. Mr. Wolford thought he had faith in God but obviously his faith was in the snake and in himself. God did not fail him the snake failed him. He had faith but in the wrong thing and place. Many in the Church today are playing with “other kinds of snakes” and don’t know it. Many think they are in the “Faith” but are not. The Words of Jesus are so true today than ever before. “13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because[a] narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it”….. 21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but

I want you not your possessions Most of us would like to be friends to the wealthy and famous. It is just natural and in fact Proverbs speaks about it. “20 The poor are shunned even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends”. (Proverbs 14:20). The implication is that the rich have something that we want and hope that their wealth and connections will rob off to benefit us. This is the heart of the natural man/woman who walks after the fleshly human selfish thinking. The Corinthian Church was apparently well-to-do compared to other churches in that region. Corinth was a major commerce city so I would guess that some of the members of the Church flowed in money though there still some poor in their midst (see 1 Cor. 11: 20-21). Now we have a better understanding while these false “super apostles” flocked to Corinth to get their piece of the pie from the Church. Apostle Paul would have nothing to do with the wealth of the Corinthians. He said, “14 Now I am coming to you for

My Weaknesses and God’s Power Webster dictionary has a couple of entries for the word “weak” and weakness being the state or quality of being weak: “Lacking physical strength, energy, or vigor; feeble. Liable to fail under pressure, stress or strain; Lacking resistance; Lacking firmness of character or strength of will etc”. We are not speaking about weakness as license to continue in personal sin. We are speaking about infirmities, weaknesses, disease, sickness or conditions where you lack the power to change the situation by your own strength and power. There was a fifteen year span of my life when I had the “infertility weakness”. God allowed my wife and me to go through this period of feeling helpless and powerless. A period when we wished things to happen that did not happen. Only God got us thru this painful experience by his power, mercy and grace. I now have other weaknesses and I am trusting God as I cry out to Him. Do you have a God-allowed weakness? Pastor Lon Solomon

False Apostles and Deceitful Workers May 9, 2012 was a sad day for the Church of Jesus Christ in America. President Obama misused the word of God to further his political ambition. The President in reaching his “evolved” decision to endorse gay marriage said, "We are both practicing Christians, and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others. But, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it's also the Golden Rule," he said. "Treat others the way you would want to be treated." Mr. President, I respectfully disagree with you as you already predicted. This is a different gospel. Jesus Christ died for our sins. One of those sins is homosexuality as the bible unequivocally declares it an abomination against God (Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9). We use the “Golden Rule” to live out our faith and not to justif

A Different Gospel A Different Jesus In its claim to relate with the present postmodern culture there is now “The Emerging Church Movement”. Google it and read. As summarized by Steven W. Cornell, “They believe the Church should be a welcoming and authentic community of creativity and learning—a place where people with different views are treated with the utmost respect and dignity (rather than being looked down on). ..They desire to move beyond a creed-based identity to a spirituality-based identity. They recommend embracing and celebrating the mystery of the world, life and God rather than conquering it. They prefer theology as a quest for the beauty and truth of God rather than a search for propositional statements, proof texts and doctrinal formulations ----used to measure those who are in and judge those who are out”. One of the big names in this controversial movement is Brian McLaren, a founding pastor of one of the churches in the Washington/Baltimore metro area. On the

The War in Our Minds (Spiritual Warfare) Have you been caught off guard like me? All of a sudden you are involved in a situation that you cannot discern the origin and you are left with self doubts and doubts of who God is and what He can do. You see yourself playing various scenarios is your head and the what-ifs in your relationships. May be I am not making any sense to you and that is the point. There are situations that will never make sense to us and we are just recipients of fragments of unseen warfare going on in the spirit world. Paul saw himself in a similar situation in relating to the Corinthians. Apostle Paul is now defending his authority as a minister having labored and won the Corinthians to Christ. Some false teachers have come and poisoned the minds of some of the Corinthians and brought all kinds of accusations against Paul. Paul by the grace of God recognized what was going on as spiritual warfare. Paul told the Corinthians, “3 For though we walk in the flesh, w

Handling and Administering God’s Money The headline this week reads: Small Town Treasurer arrested in Staggering $30 million Theft. “Rita Crundwell was a familiar face in Dixon , Illinois , a sleepy town of 15,000 where Crundwell also worked, managing the town's finances for about 30 years. But on Tuesday, federal authorities arrested the 58-year-old civil servant, accusing her of stealing $30 million in taxpayer funds in the past six years. The FBI was tipped by the city's mayor to the comptroller's suspected malfeasance. Crundwell's arrest leaves many Dixon residents wondering how she might have managed such a feat in a town as small as Dixon . Crundwell allegedly used money stolen from the town treasury to fund a lavish lifestyle, which included the purchase of a 2009 Liberty Coach motor home for $2.1 million, a 2009 Kenworth T800 tractor truck for nearly $150,000, as well as two more trucks and a horse trailer for hundreds of thousands of dollars more”. How coul