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Paul saw himself as a steward. Paul saw Timothy as his responsibility. You can see this in his encouragement to Timothy in chapter 1 and verse 18 and following. He urges Timothy to fight the battle well. He knows that Timothy must do that, but Paul sees it as something he should bring to Timothy’s mind, Paul is building Timothy up in the faith. Paul is using his role as the opportunity to tell the young preacher to keep fighting.…

The awesome responsibility of being a father has been laid upon countless men throughout the ages. Men continue to struggle, many becoming successful fathers, some not. One way that men can be sure that they’ll do the best job possible when it comes to leading the family is to include God and His instruction. Nothing is more important than a godly father. Those of us who were blessed to have fathers that feared and served God, can easily see the…

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers represented in our audience today. We certainly hope that you have a wonderful day and are able to be surrounded by family. As we gather to worship today, our morning lesson will focus on a mother from the New Testament that everyone should be able to learn from. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was not perfect by any means and certainly had her moments of struggle, but it is vital to remember the…

Come and let’s study the “grace of Christ” today! We have such an awesome privilege to serve the risen Lord. We have been called to live in His grace. We all look like Paul, who was also called to live in the grace of Christ. In our chapter examination we will find some obvious clues of what an incredible life he found in Christ Jesus. We will celebrate the life that the power of the grace of Christ can produce.…

“Because I said so…” “I am the parent, you are the child. Never forget that.” “If you don’t stop, I am going to lose it.” “I brought you into this world and I can take you out.” These are all phrases used in the Hollywood representation of parenthood. Sadly, I admit that most of these have been used in my house. It is a tough thing to be a parent! Remember that you are human and so are those children…

“I can’t get enough,” is a phrase we hear, or say occasionally, about certain things we are interested in. Someone might say, “I can’t get enough money,” “I can’t get enough land,” or “I can’t get enough of sports.” Do we ever use this phrase speaking about spiritual things? For example, have we ever said, “I can’t get enough of God’s word?” Knowledge of God is more important than knowledge of worldly things. Knowledge of God should be a priority…

Our house is our refuge. In some cases, it becomes like a medieval castle where we raise and lower the bridge for those that are invited into our highly protected area. We treat our houses as showpieces, as places of protection, and ultimately, as the most important physical part of our earthly life. Our financial situation testifies to that, as does our attention. However, within the physical structure of the house, there can be nightmarish homes. The emotional, mental, physical,…

There’s a struggle mankind encounters daily between right and wrong. This struggle is ancient. How can man be at peace within himself? DNA causes man to consider this question, but only God can answer it (Eccl 3.11). While man resists any reply from an all-knowing God, he suffers the results of sin and separation from God. This only intensifies man’s quest for peace. If man would understand the word of God, then peace would be found with God, which is…

There are days that feel so heavy that it seems like we cannot travel one more step. Those days come in the form of stress, loss, disappointment and other things that take away our joy. God has spoken to us through His word and encourages us to remember Him and His words in those heavy days, however, it can be easy to follow the world’s example of self-pity and self-loathing. Today, we examine what we should do with the next…

The instinctual response when we fail is to look around us and survey the damage that is done. The most basic response is to examine yourself first for damage, then examine your surroundings. It hurts to admit, but there are times in my life where I have seemingly escaped the damage of my failure only to look around and see tremendous damage done to those in my sphere of influence. It is in those moments that we fully come face…

No one likes to fail. No one ever likes to feel that they have let someone (or themselves) down. However, if you have lived longer than about 5 minutes, you have failed in some capacity. When failure comes, how do we respond? One article suggested there are four ways that people respond to failure and only one is helpful: 1) The Godzilla response – When we fail we explode in anger and try to destroy everything and everyone in our…

Today is the first Sunday of the new year. Passing from one year into the next carries many reflections with it. There is something lost. We can never again go back into 2020. There will be things gained this year, but they are not yet a reality. Those things are only imagined. The point of saying this is to say that we tend to think reflectively about something lost or gained when a we embrace a new year. Now, let’s…