Just a few days before Christmas two ladies stood looking into a department store window at a display of the Nativity scene with ceramic figures of the baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men, and assorted animals. Disgustedly, one lady said, “Look at that, the church trying to horn in on Christmas!”
Sadly, that little apocryphal story may not be all that far removed from reality. More and more the world around us—and many so-called churches—have totally removed from their consciousness any semblance or recognition of what Christmas is truly about. Read more…
Posted on December 7th, 2010 by Pastor Larry
Filed under: From the Pastor’s Pen
Three ministers were talking about prayer in general and their opinions regarding the most appropriate and effective positions for prayer. As they were talking, a telephone repairman was working on the phone system in the background of the study where they were meeting. One minister shared that he felt the key was in the hands. He always held his hands together and pointed them upward as a form of symbolic worship. The second suggested that real prayer was conducted on your knees. The third suggested that they both had it wrong—the only position worth its salt was to pray while stretched out flat on your face.
By this time, the phone man couldn’t stay out of the conversation any longer. He interjected, “I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended forty feet above the ground.”
I cannot speak for you, but personally, I think the repairman had it right! Read more…
Posted on November 7th, 2010 by Pastor Larry
Filed under: From the Pastor’s Pen
There is a significant change within a person when he or she comes to Christ. By the power of the Holy Spirit, a metamorphosis takes place within the individual, transforming that person into a Christian. Read more…
Posted on October 1st, 2010 by Robert
Filed under: From the Pew
Ever notice how some of the clearest truths are among the hardest to live out with understanding? There often seems to be such a disconnect between what a truth plainly says, and what we think it somehow must mean. Usually, of course, this is because what the truth plainly teaches us is rather uncomfortable when laid alongside the way we usually live. Read more…
Posted on October 1st, 2010 by Pastor Larry
Filed under: From the Pastor’s Pen
As Christians, we are not surprised that the Bible declares Jesus Christ as the only way by which one can be saved (Acts 4:12). So, we are not at all alarmed when the Gospel message of Jesus Christ is offensive or divisive to others. To the rest of the world, especially other religions, the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as the sole way to heaven sounds absurd, presumptuous and downright abhorrent. Read more…
Posted on September 12th, 2010 by Robert
Filed under: From the Pew
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
This well-known Bible statement is found in Matthew 6:11. I can recall making a plaster plaque with this verse upon it in a Vacation Bible School as a child. In fact, it is part of a beautiful calligraphy and pressed-paper art piece that hangs in the dining room of my condo even now. It is a frequently quoted, alluded to, paraphrased and applied Scripture verses out of the whole of the Gospel of Matthew.
It is also one of the least understood. Read more…
Posted on September 12th, 2010 by Pastor Larry
Filed under: From the Pastor’s Pen
Our book review this month is a review of a review at Pastor Larry’s request. We now have two copies of the 900-page Meet the Puritans in Elim’s library. One endorser of this wonderful resource stated that the authors, Joel Beeke and Randall Pederson, “not only provide accurate biographical and theological introductions to every Puritan whose works have been reprinted in the last 50 years, but [they] also combine with their helpful summaries an analytical analysis.” Read more…
Posted on August 12th, 2010 by Scott
Filed under: From the Church Library
How is your conversation with God?
I ask because over the past several months this column has been used to explore how each of us might better learn how to utilize the “Lord’s Prayer” in light of the entire context of where that model prayer is given to us in Matthew 6:5-13. Read more…
Posted on August 12th, 2010 by Pastor Larry
Filed under: From the Pastor’s Pen
It goes almost unnoticed when people read through the Gospel, but in His teaching regarding prayer Jesus says, “When you pray” (Matthew 6:5, 7;compare verse 9 where He says, “Pray then like this”). The Master does not say, “If you pray”; He expects those who are truly His disciples to pray! Of course, when Jesus made this point, He was talking about real prayer. Read more…
Posted on July 1st, 2010 by Pastor Larry
Filed under: Elim Refresher Newsletter, From the Pastor’s Pen
For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:4-7; emphasis added).
Two months ago I wrote emphasizing the power and exclusivity a bold, straight-forward Gospel message has concerning salvation. As opposed to relying on various ineffective methods. Pastor Pauley, who has been expositing through the 13th chapter of Acts, recently taught that Christians ought to focus on the Lord of the work, and not the workers of the Lord. Read more…
Posted on July 1st, 2010 by Robert
Filed under: Elim Refresher Newsletter, From the Pew