Be Content and Be Confident

Someone wrote that Martin Luther’s strength and confidence lay in the fact that he believed so strongly that the ministry in which he was engaged was not his own but the Lord’s. He often prayed, “Lord, this is your cause, not mine.”

What would this persuasion do for you and me? Is not most of our depression and unhappiness caused by the desire to SEE more than we are seeing, DO more than we are doing, HAVE more than we have, and to BE what we are not?

If this is THE LORD’S CAUSE AND NOT MINE, then I ought to be content to serve diligently where He has placed me, with the gifts He has given me, doing all that I find to do, and rejoicing in His love. “Where two or three are met in my name.” Enoch walked with God in a day few did. Paul rejoiced in the Lord when all had forsaken him except Luke.

Pastor Henry T. Mahan (bulletin 1985)

Upcoming Conference Dates

Todds Road Grace Church, Lexington, KY March 8-10

Bible Baptist Church, Madisonville, KY April 5-7

Katy Baptist Church, Fairmont, WV April 19-21

Central Grace Church, Rocky Mount, VA May 3-5

Hurricane Road Grace Church, Ashland, KY May 10-12

“For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25-26).

The Holy Spirit revealed through a man named Job that God’s saints, those who experience the natural process of physical death and decay, those who are buried in a natural body and raised in a spiritual body, those who are sown in weakness and raised in power, will be raised to actually see their glorious Redeemer…the One who has eternally stood for them as their Surety and Savior standing on the earth in the latter day. And according to that revelation, though we see through a glass darkly now…in that day we who know Him shall also see Him with perfect sight…never to be without that sight again! O the glorious and inexpressible consideration of that sight. Pastor Marvin Stalnaker

Alone With God

Paul learned more in Arabia than he had ever learned at the feet of Gamaliel. None can teach like God, and all who will learn of Him must be alone with Him. Job learned about God and about himself only when he was alone with God. Pastor Scott Richardson

Natural Enmity

“Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be”(Rom. 8:7).

There is a natural enmity in the heart of every person born into this world. We naturally hate God for who he is. This enmity comes out in several ways.

1. 1. Hatred of God’s people. Cain slew Abel because he hated him, he was jealous of God’s acceptance of his (Abel’s) sacrifice.
2. 2. Hatred of the Truth. The truth is offensive to the natural man. He will receive anything but the truth; 2Thes. 2:10.
3. 3. Envy of God’s favor. Gen 27:41;“And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him…”
4. 4. Hatred of Jesus Christ. Matt. 21:38;“But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, this is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.”

John 15:18; “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.”

John 15:24’ “If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.”

However, here is where God’s amazing grace shines; all who believe had this same enmity until the Lord saved them and gave them (us) a new heart to love him with. “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me…”

Pastor John Chapman

“Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).