Michael Harrison's e-devotion

  Please pray for our mission team serving in West Virginia this week.  We will share about the trip on Sunday.  Also pray for the trip to Cuba that begins next Tuesday. A few months ago my brother shared an article or devotion titled “stir the water”.  Read and think through this great truth. SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO STIR UP THE WATER The religious leaders were conservative, highly trained experts who had memorized large swaths of the Old Testament.  They got the PRINCIPLES and but missed the PERSON.  Jesus said to them, "You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.  These are the very Scriptures that testify of me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39-41).  Their Messiah was standing right smack in front of them, and yet they missed Him.  They missed the PERSON.  They got RELIGION but not the RELATIONSHIP. Notice, all Scripture points to Jesus: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus… Psalm...

This Sunday we do one of the things that is most important and exciting about being part of a New Testament church.  Baptism is a big deal for several reasons, and I want to invite you, if you have never been baptized, to join us. Baptism is the next step after accepting Jesus as your Savior.  In fact if you read Acts 8 and the story about Phillip and the Ethiopian you get this picture lived out. Acts 8:36  NIV   As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” A change was happening in the Ethiopian’s life, and he was ready to keep walking with Jesus.  Is that true of you? From our church new member class you will find this: Christian baptism by immersion is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer's death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Chris...

Matthew 6:21   NASB for where your   treasure   is, there your   heart   will be also. This is one of those subjects that is hard to share and maybe even hard to hear.   I mean you talk to people who have been to churches where all they talk about is money.   I have heard people say that tried one church and another, and while they were there they were asked for their money.   Let me address this issue.   We ought to be people who are generous.   The one thing that God told us to test him in is through our giving.   Too often the church is the place where we give people a pass on not giving.   That is just not fair.   All of us are called to be faithful and to follow what God leads us to do. Give.   Bring your tithe in to the storehouse.   And be generous! Proverbs 11:25   NLT The   generous   will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed. When we a...