Glory of Christ Fellowship

  Listless words linger in my mind. Half-thoughts swirling around innermost parts. Sentences start, quickly fade, their endings unknown. Imaged impressions float through hazed vastness, just out of reach. Stretching out, trying to grasp anything, only to pull my hand back, empty. Trying to shake them off, deliberate discouragements, carefully chosen, trigger my flesh. Familiar emotions surface, the sound of their voice a reminder, they are still with me. Failure memories, horrible happenings, the movie flickers while the soundtrack plays in my soul. I fight, struggling against an enemy who knows the ugly details of my weakest weaknesses and my darkest darkness. All strength is taken up in this recurring battle. Fog begins to roll in, thinking becomes incoherent. Life presses on  blurring the line between intentional living and auto-pilot. Struggling to not fall asleep at the wheel, I am wooed into a slumber, my past takes over. Loudly reminded,...

Over the last few weeks I have been writing about a document I keep on the desktop of my computer entitled, “My Motivation.” It is designed to remind and inspire and focus me toward Christ-centered living, but it’s comprised of pictures rather than words. Nine of the fifteen pictures are of various men of God who inspire me for a number of reasons and play important roles in my life. One man who has played a major role in my life but who doesn’t appear on my “Wall of Faith” is Doug Goodno. Why? Simply because I don’t have an electronic picture of him! But if I did, his would be the most prominent of them all. Doug was not the one who led me to Christ, or who first discipled me in Christ, but the Lord brought him into my life at a crucial time and, in many ways, he became a kind of father to me. I don’t think I could write a book about him, but I could certainly write a chapter of a book about him, and perhaps someday I will. But for the purposes of this devotional, let me just summar...

THIS POST was written by Corey Larson, one of the youth at Glory of Christ Fellowship.  Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.-Mat 7:3-5 First off, I am writing this book because of the wonderful analogy the Lord has given me. It came to me when I was thinking of multiple popular verses and phrases (one being the log and the speck) and combining them together. They fit so perfectly I was shocked. I knew right then and there that it was from the Lord, and I wanted to share it with others. The verses above imply that the purpose of taking the log out of your own eye is to help your brother, which by all means is true, but is there another meaning that we ...

 "Then Asa called to the LORD his God and said, "LORD, there is no one besides You to help   in the battle   between the powerful and those who have no strength; so help us, O LORD our God, for we trust in You, and in Your n ame have come against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God; let not man prevail against You.""   12   "So the LORD routed the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah, and the Ethiopians fled." (2 Chronicles 14:11-12)   Our Lord has many promises for His people. Those who confess Christ and walk in obedience to Him should have no fear, but have a simple faith in Almighty God to help and save and rescue in His time...making us strong and persevering along the way!   Our faith will grow as we go through trials, not around them, and it is God who will get the praise as we trust in Him and watch Him work.    

 "When the kingdom of Rehoboam was established and strong, he and all Israel with him forsook the law of the LORD." (2 Chronicles 12:1) How careful we should be when we are in times of "supposed" strength. What do we say to ourselves when we are feeling strong, with no "apparent" troubles, no particular strong sin we are fighting? Do we then neglect God?! May we never forget that our lives are in God's hands, and while "conscious" of no trouble, pride causes many to forsake God. Solomon's words to us: 8 "Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion," 9 "That I not be full and deny You and say, "Who is the LORD?" Or that I not be in want and steal, And profane the name of my God." (Proverbs 30:3-9)

Over the last few weeks I have been writing about a document I keep on the desktop of my computer entitled, “My Motivation.” It is designed to remind and inspire and focus me toward Christ-centered living, but it’s comprised of pictures rather than words. Nine of the fifteen pictures are of various men of God who inspire me for a number of reasons, the ninth of whom is Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon came to know Jesus at the age of 16, and only four years later was called to be the preaching Pastor of New Park Street Chapel in London, England, later called The Metropolitan Tabernacle. Spurgeon would serve the Lord there for some thirty-nine years, during which time he preached to around 100,000 people! Of all the preachers who might appear on my personal wall of faith, I chose Spurgeon for several reasons. First, his preaching was deeply rooted in and saturated with the Bible. He was committed to the Word of God without apology in an age where modernism was sweeping the culture, and the c...

This song has been ministering so deeply to my heart, I just had to share it with you all. If you want to know more about how this powerful little song affected the life of Hudson Taylor, you can read a one page summary here .

And [Moses] said to [God], "If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?" (Exodus 33:15-16 ESV) "It seems to me that there is no hope for revival until you and I, and all of us, have reached the stage in which we begin to forget ourselves a little, and to be concerned for the Church, for God's body, his people here on earth....We stand before the world ans we say the only hope for the world is Christianity.  We say the Church, and the Church alone, has the message that is needed.  We see the problems of society, they are shouting at us and they are increasing week by week.  And we know that this is the only answer.  Very well, then, if we know that and if we believe that, let me ask you in the name of God, how often do you pray that th...

A scripture passage to share with everyone: Isaiah 61:10-11 (NIV -1984) says: 10 I delight greatly in the Lord ; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. Cool how the Lord clothes us with a robe of righteousness. Also wonderful imagery of righteousness and praise springing up like a vegetable garden. And not just in America, but before all nations. your brother, David Gunderson

What a joy to have a God-fearing wife! Every so often my beautiful bride forwards devotionals to me, and they always seem to hit the spot. I would rather have a wife who points me to Jesus than all the riches in the world, so darling, I'm thankful to God for you! Today, Kimmy sent me the following devotional from Mrs. Charles Spurgeon. I hope it touches you as deeply as it touched me. Mrs. Spurgeon writes, "At the close of a dark and gloomy day, I lay resting on my couch as the deeper night drew on; and though all was bright within my cozy room, some of the external darkness seemed to have entered into my soul and obscured its spiritual vision. Vainly I tried to see the Hand which I knew held mine, and guided my fog-enveloped feet along a steep and slippery path of suffering. In sorrow of heart I asked, 'Why does my Lord thus deal with His child? Why does He so often send sharp and bitter pain to visit me? Why does He permit lingering weakness to hinder the sweet servi...

This morning in my quiet time I was scheduled to read Romans 5-6, which I did. But as I read slowly and prayerfully, the Lord was speaking so powerfully to me that I couldn't stop reading! So I read chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 9, chapter 10, and finally decided to stop at the end of chapter 11. If you've ever read these chapters, you know that they are dense and profoundly meaningful. By the time I got to church, I felt like I was glowing. I was sort of intoxicated with Jesus. I felt in awe, stunned, by what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. I didn't quite know how to express what was in my heart, but I knew that I wanted to live my life knowing Jesus and making him known. And then as the worship service progressed, one of my fellow Pastors, Mike Perry, stood before the church and preached a simple but powerful message on the gospel, or good news, of Jesus Christ from the book of Galatians. It was the perfect compliment to what the Lord had been speaking into my heart...

THIS POST was written by Jason Ruzek, soon to be Pastoral Intern for Worship at GCF.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident , that all men are created equal , that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable Rights , that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This phrase from the Declaration of Independence gets a lot of use. It is cited when anyone wants to do anything, regardless of what it is. It is cited to defend the right of the unborn. It is cited in defending the right to an abortion. It is cited to defend the right to less government intrusion. It is cited to defend the necessity of more government intrusion. Can all these be correct? I will be writing several blog posts on the notion of “rights” and how the Christian should understand the concept, how the world uses the concept, and how we should relate to the world in light of this. Firstly, how should we understand the concept? If I were to say that I have a right t...

In what is perhaps his most well-known book, Knowing God , J. I. Packer writes this: "What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it—the fact that he knows me . I am graven on the palms of his hands [Isa. 49:16]. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters. "This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort—the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates—in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of...

Sometime ago I spent some time meditating on Proverbs 22:17-19 which says, "Incline your ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply your heart to my knowledge, for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are ready on your lips. That your trust may be in the LORD, I have made them known to you today, even to you." Solomon is urging us to seek the wisdom of God as if it were treasure--which it is--and then to discipline ourselves to put that wisdom into practice. Therefore, he counsels us to keep wisdom within us so that it's always ready on our lips. In other words, he thinks we should memorize portions of the Bible, in this case Proverbs, so that we'll be ready to apply what we've memorized in real-life situations. Why? Simply because our lips bleed what our hearts ponder. Think about this. Pay attention to the movies and TV shows you watch, the web-surfing you do, the radio stations you listen to, the MP3s you listen to, the ...

“We may be assured of this—the secret of all failure is our failure in secret prayer” (12). So writes the anonymous author of the classic little book on prayer entitled, The Kneeling Christian (Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids: 1971). He means that the reason we so often fall into sin or live in discouragement or fail to bear fruit is because we do not cling to God in Christ above all things. We do not diligently seek him or lean on him or plead with him or draw on his strength. We give ourselves to busyness over communion with God and in this way we seek to accomplish in our flesh what can only be accomplished in the power of the Spirit. Giving first place to what our dear author calls “secret prayer” is indeed a key to the Spirit-filled life but let’s be clear: prayer is not magic, its relationship. It’s not as if we simply have to file requests with God, being careful to use just the right words so that we can get him to respond as we wish. God is not a vending machin...

In his book Counted Righteous in Christ , John Piper writes this about the exaltation of truth in the life of the church, or lack thereof, and church growth:  "[T]he older I get, the less impressed I am with flashy successes and enthusiasms that are not truth-based. Everybody knows that with the right personality, the right music, the right location, and the right schedule you can grow a church without anybody really knowing what doctrinal commitments sustain it, if any. Church-planting specialists generally downplay biblical doctrine in the core values of what makes a church 'successful.' The long-term effect of this ethos is a weakening of the church that is concealed as long as the crowds are large, the band is loud, the tragedies are few, and persecution is still at the level of preferences. "But more and more this doctrinally-diluted brew of music, drama, life-tips, and marketing seems out of touch with real life in this world--not to mention the next. ...

In his book entitled The Glory of Christ, John Owen writes: "The greatest desire that Christ expressed in his prayer was that his people might be with him to behold his glory (John 17:24). It is clear that in this prayer the Lord Christ was referring to his own glory and the actual sight of it (John 17:4-5). He is not concerned that his disciples should merely see how glorious he was, but that the beholding of his glory might bring encouragement, strength, satisfaction and blessedness to his disciples.  "This was the whole reason why his mediatory glory was given to him. When Joseph had revealed himself to his brothers, he charged them that they should tell his father of all his 'glory in Egypt' (Genesis 45:13). He did not do this to boast of his own glory, but because he knew how happy and satisfied his father would be when he knew in what a glorious position his son was. Similarly, the Lord Christ desired that his disciples should see his glory in order th...

In his classic book Holiness, J. C. Ryle, pastor and bishop in the nineteenth century Church of England, commented on the place of the Word in the life of church in terms that sounds eerily modern. In his day there were several movements within the evangelical church that, though they differed in the particulars, were not all that far removed from our modern day "seeker" and "emergent" movements. At the end of the introduction to his venerable work he writes this: "There is an amazing ignorance of Scripture among many, and a consequent want of established, solid religion. In no other way can I account for the ease with which people are, like children, 'tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine' (Eph. 4:14).  "There is an Athenian love of novelty abroad, and a morbid distaste for anything old and regular, and in the beaten path of our forefathers. Thousands will crowd to hear a new voice and a new doctrine, without con...

In a little book entitled Daily Readings with Saint John of the Cross (Templegate: Springfield, IL, 1985), Saint John writes, “To have God in everything a soul must have nothing in everything, for how can a heart belong in any way to two people at once?” (59). This, of course, is reminiscent of Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” I think Saint John is really onto something here, but the question arises, How does one have nothing in everything? Answer: have nothing but God in everything. For instance, I’m sitting at my computer right now and I have two choices as to how to think about it: (1) I can rejoice in the wonder of the computer itself and the genius of those who invented such a thing, or I can rejoice in the fact that I have resources to own it, or I can rejoice in the fact that I have requisite skills to use it, or I can take it for granted...

Lately I’ve been reading a book by William Perkins entitled, The Art of Prophesying (Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA: 2002). Perkins was a late sixteenth-century Puritan (1558-1602) who had an “enormous impact on generations of preachers” (foreword, vii). So much of what he says speaks to modern times that I have often forgotten I was reading an ancient book! In the preface of the book he writes, “In keeping with its dignity, preaching has a two-fold value: (1) It is instrumental in gathering the church and bringing together all of the elect; (2) It drives away wolves from the folds of the Lord. Preaching is the flexanima, the allurer of the soul, by which our self-willed minds are subdued and changed from an ungodly and pagan life-style to a life of Christian faith and repentance. It is also the weapon which has shaken the foundations of ancient heresies, and also, more recently cut to pieces the sinews of the Antichrist.” I was particularly struck by the idea that one of the ...

"To prayer, then, are we indebted for penetrating to those riches which are treasured up for us with our heavenly Father. For there is a kind of intercourse between God and men, by which, having entered the upper sanctuary, they appear before Him and appeal to his promises, that when necessity requires they may learn by experiences that what they believed merely on the authority of his word was not in vain.  "Accordingly, we see that nothing is set before us as an object of expectation from the Lord which we are not enjoined to ask of Him in prayer, so true it is that prayer digs up those treasures which the Gospel of our Lord discovers to the eye of faith. The necessity and utility of this exercise of prayer no words can sufficiently express. Assuredly it is not without cause our heavenly Father declares that our only safety is in calling upon his name, since by it we invoke the presence of his providence to watch over our interests, of his power to sustain us when w...

Over the last few weeks I have been writing about a document I keep on the desktop of my computer entitled, “My Motivation.” It is designed to remind and inspire and focus me toward Christ-centered living, but it’s comprised of pictures rather than words. Nine of the fifteen pictures are of various men of God who inspire me for a number of reasons, the eighth of whom is Jim Elliot. Jim was born in 1927 to Christian parents who taught him to love Jesus, read his Bible, and live  adventurously   for Christ. He entered Wheaton College in 1945 where he grew in the passion to preach the gospel to unreached peoples, and where the Lord focused his attention on Ecuador. After some years of preparation, he and a friend arrived in Ecuador on February 21, 1952. Their passion was to reach the Waodoni Indians, who were both unreached and reportedly brutal. They commenced their work by first assisting with existing outreaches, and then later expanding the work toward the Waodoni....

Over the last few weeks I have been writing about a document I keep on the desktop of my computer entitled, “My Motivation.” It is designed to remind and inspire and focus me toward Christ-centered living, but it’s comprised of pictures rather than words. Nine of the fifteen pictures are of various men of God who inspire me for a number of reasons, the fifth of whom is one of my Pastors from Bethlehem Baptist Church, David Livingston.    I first met Pastor David in the summer of 1990. I was new to Bethlehem and he was teaching the new members class at the time. I was immediately struck by his love for Jesus, his love for people, and his boldness in evangelism. As we got to know each other a little better, I shared my story with him and he helped me work through some issues that were plaguing me in those days. I had known Jesus for only three years and I really needed men in my life who were mature, wise, and merciful in the Lord. Pastor David was one of those men, and for ...

Over the last few weeks I have been writing about a document I keep on the desktop of my computer entitled, “My Motivation.” It is designed to remind and inspire and focus me toward Christ-centered living, but it’s comprised of pictures rather than words. Nine of the fifteen pictures are of various men of God who inspire me for a number of reasons, the fourth of whom is the fourth century pastor and theologian, Augustine. When I was in college, I read one of Augustine’s most famous works,  Confessions.  Given my past, it was very encouraging to read the story of a man who sinned so terribly and suffered the consequences of his actions, and yet who received so much grace from Jesus. Augustine’s honesty and humility made a great impact on me, as he helped me see that God could heal and use a broken person like me. Then over the years, as I grew in the knowledge of the Bible and theology, I read several of Augustine’s more theological works and some of his sermons. Having ...