Pain Over the Holidays?

By: Jim Umlauf

When joyful or tragic things occur, it changes the way we view holidays. But when it’s the latter, the pain it produces can linger over many years, even a lifetime.

Here’s a thing to remember: though Christmas and Thanksgiving may be different—even radically different—from our perspective, in heaven, everything remains the same.

If you’re hurting right about now, or treading water, or barely hanging on, or lonely, or aching, know that God is unchanging. Grace is forever. Christ is still reigning. And God has NOT turned his attention away from you. He knows you intimately, understands what you’re feeling, receives you in Jesus, loves you with an infinite love, and has supplied his own Spirit in your heart.

Should the holidays heighten or ignite some embedded pain, you can bank on the unchanging God who loves you. That’s a promise.

A Fight to Proclaim

By: Will Savell

Although we’re always going to be dealing with elements of the old self, the reality of the new should overshadow. And this reality should become the greater reality.

Sinclair Ferguson writes:

While we continue to be influenced by our past life "in the flesh," it is no longer the dominating influence in our present existence. We are no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit. Christ’s past (if we may so speak) is now dominant. Our past is a past "in Adam"; our present existence is "in Christ," in the Spirit. This implies not only that we have fellowship with him in the communion of the Spirit, but that in him our past guilt is dealt with, and our bondage to sin, the law, and death has been brought to an end.

This new life is one that is now identified with Christ and directly opposes sin and the Devil. It’s one that shares in every spiritual blessing in order to fight the Devil.

So that is what we do.

Knowing that Satan and his forces will be bombarding us with old life temptations, we fight!

And we fight in order to live life as a picture of the Gospel…for the glory of God.

Perhaps that comes through rightly functioning in the certain relationships that point toward the gospel, like our relationship with our spouse and the ones with our children and the ones with our employers.

For the apostle Paul, he fought so that, as he wrote, “words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel…”

For us, it’s the same thing. When it all boils down to it, we fight in order to proclaim and display the Gospel.

May we do that well.

Isaiah 53:6 and the Reason for a Happy Melody

By: Johnny Coggin

If you've been in a worship service at Grace Evan over the last 5 weeks, you know that we've begun singing Scripture Songs together. These are all-new songs written and recorded by a team of musicians at Grace Evan, with word-for-word Bible verses as the lyrics. (You can hear the first batch of 10 songs at http://graceevan.org/scripturesongs, and even download them for free.)

This Sunday and next (Nov 7 & 14), we'll sing Isaiah 53:6 together (check it out at the link above). It's a happy, upbeat, celebratory tune, although the Bible verse is found in a sobering prophecy of the sufferings to be endured by the Messiah, who had not yet come in Isaiah's day.

So why sing a celebratory song for a passage with such a heavy theme? In this video, our own Jim Umlauf explains why we do so.

And while we're at it, why not take his challenge to read Isaiah 53 in its entirety to prepare your heart for Sunday morning worship?

John MacArthur & Joel Osteen

By: Johnny Coggin

You may already have an opinion of Joel Osteen, the pastor of the largest "church" in the U.S., but whether that opinion is a high one or a low one, you should watch and hear John MacArthur's confrontation of Osteen's teachings.

This is a prime example of how to call out dangerous, unbiblical teachings (and teachers) of our day, though it may not be considered "nice" or politically correct to do so. Eternal matters of life or death call for clearly-spoken truth, and MacArthur lovingly gives us just that.