What you worship owns you! So what do we worship? What do you spend your time thinking about? Do we have any idol’s? Some could be sex, money, fame, fortune, sports, offspring, houses, land, religion, gambling, work, school, health, success, cars, boats, airplanes or do we worship ourselves? These things have power to enslave you but not save you! All of these will one day leave you and forsake you! Pride will cause people to surround themselves with these idol’s! There is only one who ransomed His life to save you from yourself! Is it time for new management? Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you and has proven that to you by sacrificing His life for you on a Cross! Good Friday Message, Grace Community Church, Fulton, Maryland.
Tag: church
Last Supper 1 Corinthians 11:24-25 (Greek Translation)
Verse 24; “And when Jesus had prayed over the meal and broke and divided the bread He said, “Take eat; this is my human body which is broken for you, this do in remembrance, in recollection, in repetition, to know again and recall of me.” Verse 25; “After the same manner Jesus took the cup after the evening meal and said, “This cup is new which is not impaired by time or use and is a divisor will in my atoning blood and as often as you drink it come to know me again.” Comment: Why do we take Communion? The Lord has instituted it according to His Word! Human nature tends to forget! When we honor someone it is usually in memory of the past. However the Hebrews or the Jews have a very different perception of the word remembrance! The Jews look at the word remembrance as his presence is still with us! At the Seder meal the Jews have an empty chair seated for Elijah! Jesus is with us today! I will never leave you nor forsake you! Remember Jesus has set the Communion Table before you as an invited quest! Your sin required the Table be set! You did not pay anything for the Table or the meal. You were invited even though you were unworthy! Jesus is personally sharing a meal with you! He is present with you! Why would you turn down a meal you did not pay for and did not deserve and made no sacrifice for? This meal purchased your freedom from sin, death and Hell yet you will not partake? His broken body and shed blood remind us that the Cross was very costly to God and His Son for the redemption of your spirit, soul and body! Pastor Oscar Cope, Mount Vernon Baptist Church, Fairburn, Georgia.
Life & Death!
He that fears death losses the joys of life! John Huss (1369-1415) John was a Czech Priest, philosopher and Professor at Prague University. He was considered the first church reformer and key predecessor to Protestantism! He was burned at the stake for heresy against the Doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church! At his trial he told his accusers he would recant anything he ever wrote or said if it contradicted the Holy Bible! Otherwise I stand on solid ground! His ashes were thrown into the Rhine River.
Is Sunday School Important?
“I can truly say, and in saying it I magnify the infinite Grace of God as bestowed upon him, that I have never seen few persons whose minds were spiritually darker than was his when he came into my Sunday School class; and I think that the committee of the Mount Vernon Church seldom met an applicant for membership more unlikely ever to become a Christian of clear and decided views of Gospel truth, still less to fill an extended sphere of public usefulness!” Edward Kimt, Sunday School Teacher, Congregational Church of Mount Vernon, Boston Massachusetts 1856. Comment: Edward wrote this letter to the Pastor of Mount Vernon describing one of his students! The student name was Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899) Dwight L. Moody became the founder of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and one of the most powerful Evangelists on the North American continent! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Christian Burial 1 Chronicles 16:1
Verse 1 (Ark) Comment: It is interesting the same Hebrew root word for Ark is also the same word for coffin! It is a sacred box which is kept in the Holy of Holy’s below the Mercy Seat. It originally contained the stone tablets (Ten Commandments), the pot of manna and Aron’s rod that budded! The original intent of the word was to gather together! Remember Joseph’s coffin that was carried out of Egypt during the Exodus! We have the Ark of the Covenant! The Saint’s are gathered together in His Church on earth and will be gathered together in Heaven! Christian burial is not cremation! Fire represents judgment! Jesus was not cremated! The heathen cremate their dead! Let us look at Matthew 27:52 When Jesus died on the Cross many things happened! One thing was that the graves were opened and many bodies of the Saints which slept arose from the dead! John 5:28 says, “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in which all in the graves shall hear His voice!” Remember at the resurrection the dead in Christ will be raised first! Jesus had a coffin or tomb and that tomb was sacred! Why? Because he returned to the grave to be raised from the dead after three days in the heart of the earth! I believe cremation is an attempt by man to escape the grave! One of the big problems with cremation is that you get no closure of the deceased! You have a memorial service with no body? Like being married to a woman that has a spirit but no body! I try to pattern my life after Jesus in living and dying! The money you save in cremation is not worth it! Thankyou. James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Suffering and Success! Acts 9:15-16
It seems that everyone is trying to show the world how successful they are! The American dream! Mansions, land, gold, money, private jets, limo’s, fame, status and the rest of the vanities! However though everyone wants it there is a problem? Success tends to put the spotlight on us rather than God! Our failures can put the spotlight on Jesus rather than us! God delivered me from the death bed! Jesus raised me from the dead! I was a street person but now He has given me a family and a home! No one else ever cared for me like Jesus! He loved me when no one else would! The disciples were afraid of Paul and rightly so but Jesus told them that Paul was going to be a great leader in the church and suffer many things for my name! In my weakness i find His perfect strength! Much of the modern church has adopted the ways of the world! Then they wonder why there is no power to do the things Jesus commanded them to do? You cannot do it without Him and the Cross you must carry! Pastor Robert Jeffress, Southern Baptist Missions
Church! Make America Great Again!
The millennial generation sometimes know as the Y generation is made up of people between the age group of 22-35 years old. The Great Recession has hit this generation the hardest! Not only do they suffer from high unemployment rates they have abandoned the church! According to the Barna Group and other studies only 2 in 10 attend church services! 59 percent of millennials who were raised in church have dropped out! 35 percent of millennials have an anti-church stance believing the church does more harm than good? Millennials are the least talked about age group in church! Can you sense the hopelessness here? If the church is going to help make America great again we have to catch this generation! If not the church in America is just one generation from extinction! There are some underlying possible reasons for the exodus! The baby boomer generation neglected their kids while pursuing the American dream! The teaching by secular public funded schools promoting evolution and other atheist doctrines! They feel abandoned by the low economic status and abandoned by the culture! We have to restore hope to this generation and the first step of the church of Jesus Christ is to identify the problem and then to do something about it! Perhaps our mission programs need to also make America first and focus on this generation as they feel like foreigners in a strange land! Let us not abandon them to Islam and the socialist Bernie Sanders types! James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
America’s Greatest Threat? Romans 1:28
Is it external? Russia, China or Iran? Is it internal? Financial, political or social? Is it Islamic terrorists? Is it the divide between liberalism and conservatives? All the greatest minds cannot seem to unwrap the mystery of our decline? If we would just get the right people in office or throw a few more billion dollars at it? If the government would just take over then we would be secure! If we could just get rid of certain groups of people? The answer is clear but you will not find it in the Halls of Congress, the Senate or the White House! However our Pastor Oscar Cope in a little old Baptist Church down in Fairburn Georgia has it figured out! Last Sunday morning he told us that the real problem in America is that her people are losing their consciousness of God! He is not in their thoughts! They are unconscious of God! They are brain dead towards God! They are in denial of Him and trying to live without Him! They are dis-functional in their thoughts! So what fills the vacuum left by a dis-functional mind? Many things! Atheism, communism, fascism, evolution(Junk Science), liberalism, false religions, secularism and whatever man can invent to fill the void! God has warned us in fact Paul wrote over 2000 years ago in our Bible about the threat to any culture! God has promised us Blessings or doom if we reject Him! Here is the Greek Translation of Romans 1:28. “And even as they did not prove to retain God in their acknowledgement, God gave them over to a worthless immoral intellect to promote those things that are descending in moral character!” Comment: Is there any proof in your life that you have acknowledged God by living a moral life before God and man? If you want that kind of knowledge you are going to have to work towards it! You need to read and study your Bible everyday for the rest of your life! If you are to busy you are too busy! Thankyou. James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com
Christmas and Family! Matthew 1:18-20
Many fascinating things can be learned from the Christmas story! One thing cannot be denied! God always wanted a family! He started off creating one man and one woman! Not two men or two women but one man and one woman! The challenge got bigger when God wanted a son born of human parents! He looked over His creation to find the right parents. They had to be Jew for salvation comes by the Jew! The new millennium had just begun and the signs in the Heaven and earth were just right! The virgin birth predicted hundreds of years before by the Prophets was ripe for fulfillment! God found a young Jewish couple from Nazareth that were about to be engaged. Their names were Joseph and Mary. Then Joseph found his espoused bride pregnant? Joseph minded to put her away privately! Then an Angel appeared unto Joseph and told him his bride Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit! So Joseph became the step-father of Jesus! Years later Jesus told us that pure religion was taking care of widows and orphans! God always wanted children to have both parents! My Bible says God hates divorce! He wants to come to the aid of the victims! It seems American culture today does not hold the values God has established for the well being of the family? Jesus God’s son could not increase the size of His family until He went to the Cross! Today Jesus Father is your Father! Christmas means many things but most important you are now in God’s family now and forever! Pastor Oscar Cope, Mount Vernon Baptist Church, Fairburn, Georgia.
Baptism
In the early church Baptism was done outside a building in a lake, stream, pond or on the ocean shoreline! During this time in church history this was a witness to the unbelievers as well as the believers since many unbelievers saw this testimony displayed! At least in America most baptism is done inside a church where only believers witness! Suggest if this is your case you can record the baptism on YouTube and other social media to share with the unbelieving world! Thankyou. James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com