Let’s just praise the Lord

In the early 1970s there was a popular chorus with the following lyrics: Let’s just praise the Lord, praise the Lord Let’s just lift our hands to heaven And praise the Lord Let’s just praise the Lord, praise the Lord Let’s just lift our hands to heaven And praise the Lord Now put us in […]

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I confess

I confess I find confession hard. Don’t we all? There is nothing easy about admitting one is wrong.  And compounding the difficulty of confession is the further requirement to ask for forgiveness from the one to whom we are confessing.  And when we confess to the Lord, it additionally requires a desire to change — […]

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When God doesn’t answer prayers

A company in Chicago is one of the largest magazine fulfillment firms.  They send out renewal and expiration notices and handle the re-subcriptions for many different magazines.  A number of years ago there was a mistake in a piece of computer software.  A short time later the error was realized when a rancher in Powder […]

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How gracious is God’s grace?

A number of years ago I cleaned out and rearranged my bookshelves and in the process found a number of empty binders that I was no longer using. Seeing this accumulation of treasures, my then 6-year-old daughter asked me for them so she could “play school.” [Now she teaches English at a middle school in […]

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Sin is not liberating

Sin is not liberating. People will say it is liberating.  Advertisers will attempt to convince you it is liberating.  Those who engage in habitual sin will assert that Christians who follow the way of Christ are in bondage and enslavement.  Sinners will smile, laugh, and appear joyful when engaging in sinful behavior, asserting that they […]

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One thing God does in our suffering

Suffering is not embraced by most believers.  The flesh compels us to avoid suffering, to call suffering “bad,” and to assume, like Job’s friends, that something has gone terribly wrong spiritually if we or our friends suffer or are persecuted. But the consistent testimony of Scripture is that suffering is normal and to be expected […]

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A theology of ministry…pictured

This morning the sermon dealt with the theology that undergirds GBC’s philosophy of ministry.  The statement, “Shepherding God’s people by God’s grace for God’s glory,” is shaped by 13 theological truths. Here is a diagram that illustrates what we mean by shepherding God’s people, and how those theological truths relate to our philosophy of ministry.

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Sunday Leftovers: You can pray

Because the believer in Christ is secure in his salvation, he can be sure that God has saved and will save Him through eternity (1 Jn. 5:13). But that’s not the only benefit of salvation; because the believer is saved, he also can be confident in going to God in prayer, not withholding anything from […]

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