We had a good day in the house of the Lord today. In our services today we had missionary Bro. John and Sis. Diane Faucette with us. They are missionaries to struggling churches in America. Bro. Faucette preached for us in all three of our services today, and what a blessing and help each message was.
The bus ministry is still going strong and we are still having kids to come every week. This morning we had 14 kids to ride the bus, which is a blessing and an encouragement to us. It is good to see familiar faces each week, and it is also good to see new faces as well.
This morning Bro. Faucette preached for us in Sunday school. The adults, teens, and juniors stayed in the auditorium this morning to hear Bro. Fossett preach. He preached on “The Need for the Spirit of the Church to be Revived” out of Revelation 2:1-4. Our spiritual man needs to be revived from time to time. We can only revive something that is not dead, and since our spiritual man is not dead, it needs reviving from time to time. A lively church will occur when the church building is revived and the people in the church are revived. We gather together to strengthen and encourage one another. The business that the church is to be about doing is found in Matthew 28:19. We are to tell others about Jesus, we should baptize them, and we should train them. The world is sucking the life out of us personally and out of our churches. So, what will happen when the church is revived? 1) There will be a renewal of the church’s vision. The vision of the church is souls. Over time our vision can get blurred about lost souls. Our vision gets blurred when we are rejected at the door during visitation and when we don’t see God moving in our church. Even if someone does not want to hear the Gospel message, we need to give it to them anyway the best that we can. 2) There will be revived joy in the services. Are we glad to be in church and around God’s people? God does not have to help us in the church services, but He helps us anyway because He loves us and cares for us. 3) There will be a renewal of a Biblical vision. A Biblical vision is different from the church’s vision in that a Biblical vision speaks of a vision of separation. We do not need to be separated for show, but it should be real. The world ought to see something different in us.
In the morning service Bro. Faucette preached out of Mark 6:45-53 on “Why Keep Rowing?” Why do we do what we do? Why do we keep rowing, why do we keep going? The word “toiling” in these verses speaks of rowing with pain or torture. It does not matter how bad the storm is in our life, if we will listen real close, we will be able to hear God say “It is I, be not afraid.” When things are going wrong, we need to have a “Be not afraid, but believe” moment in our life. God knows exactly where we are at, what we are doing, and where we are going. Why should we keep rowing? 1) Because there are those in the ship with us. We should look around at those around us in the church. Young people will a rough spot one day in their life, and they will keep rowing because we kept rowing. Those that are around us are watching us. If we stop, they will wonder if it was worth it, and they will wonder if it is worth them rowing as well. They will want to give up because we did; which is why we do not need to stop rowing. 2) There is an observing Savior. God called us to do something for Him, and we just need to keep doing it. When we need Him the most, He will be right there with us and beside us. When we feel alone, don’t fear because God is right there. He is a perfect bookkeeper, and he keeps record of everything. People will let us down, but God will never let us down. That is why we can always look to Him and rely upon Him. He’s always there for us. 3) There is another side. We will get through the storm because storms do not last forever. One day our life will all be over and things will be better. This is as bad as it is going to get for us that are saved, because when we die we are going to a much better place, heaven, the place where God abides. We need to just keep rowing! We do not need to give up! Just keep serving God anyway.
Tonight Bro. Faucette preached for us again, and he preached on “The Real Enemy” out of Jeremiah 12:1-6. God has put us her for this generation; He has put us here at this time with a purpose in mind for our lives. We are here for such a time as this. If we are not careful we will get in the heat of the battle and we will lose sight of the real enemy. Losing sight of the enemy will mess us up more than anything else will. We need to always keep our enemy in our sight. The devil is our real enemy, and he is out to destroy us. He is real and we need to NEVER forget that. What does the real enemy do? 1) He continues to tantalize our lives. The devil never stops. The young people in our churches are watching all that we do. We cannot allow the devil to tantalize our lives. Everybody has their problems. 2) He continues to traumatize our homes. We are traumatized by something we never saw coming, or by something we see coming in the future. When we are traumatized it leaves scars and it leaves bad memories in our mind. Trauma will scar our mind. The devil does everything he can to traumatize our lives. 3) He continues to terrorize our heart. When we are terrorized we have a sudden fear. We should NEVER negotiate with the devil. 4) He continues to tranquilize our worship. When we do not care about what goes on in the church the devil has tranquilized us. We are tranquilized when we only do our part in the church service, but the message does not register with us because we do not want to hear. We are just going through the motion not caring about a thing. The danger of being tranquilized is we do not realize we are being put under until it is too late. How can we continue to fight the real enemy? 1) Remember who God is. He is still God. God still loves us, and He never changes. 2) Keep our eyes on the enemy. 3) The church needs to mobilize. We need to get on the offense some. NEVER lose sight of the real enemy.