Water Of The Word 120 Newsletter

Presented by Free Bible Study Lessons

MESSAGE: A Prophet Without Honour

"And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor." Matt. 13:57

Jesus was not welcome in His hometown. They knew Him. They had bought furniture or farm tools from Him. They had seen Him grow up from Boy to Man. They knew His mother, Mary, and had known His adoptive father, Joseph. His brothers and sisters were still living in the community. Now this ordinary hometown Jesus stands up and tells them He is the Messiah. It was too much. They could not accept it. Their eyes were blinded by familiarity.

We shake our heads sadly. How could they be so foolish? Jesus. Jesus! And they missed Him! We know we would never have been in that crowd. We would have welcomed Him.

Good News! Jesus is in the world today. Do you recognize Him? He has a plan and a purpose today to expand the Kingdom of God to fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. Just as the family is the primary building block of society, so the local church is the primary building block of the Kingdom of God [which invades every area of life]. The local church is key...and the local pastor is the God-appointed leader under Jesus Christ. If we are not respecting and treating our pastor with honour, then we would have been in the crowd which rejected Jesus. [Matt. 23:29-30]

Sometimes we allow extra-church ministries to steal our affection and commitment from the local church and our pastor. There are great [and no-so-great] ministries out there, but their purpose should always be to strengthen the local church or Christians in their relation to the local church. [One reason we like the TV or Internet ministries is that we can be in control. We can hide behind the TV or computer screen and avoid dealing with issues in our life.] If these ministries are drawing people away from their commitment to the local church...run. No matter how spiritual they sound, they are not in the plan of God for the earth.

Familiarity sometimes causes us to take our local church leadership for granted, or - God forbid - to treat them scornfully. We seek their weaknesses and personality quirks [like they see ours]. If we unfavourably compare their speaking or pastoral abilities with our "favorite" extra-church ministry [or some else's pastor], then we are as unwise and immature as a husband who admires another woman's beauty in the presence of his wife.

We should be our pastor's greatest and most loyal supporter. We should treat him/her and their staff with respect and honour at all times. [Sometimes we treat the pastor with respect but his/her secretary like dirt. This is people-pleasing prideful sin.] The pastor is responsible for directing the local church to fulfill its purpose in the local community and beyond. He/she is the general under Christ, we are the soldiers. Soldiers do not give orders to generals! May we never have a "prophet" without honour in our midst.

Some will say, "You don't know my pastor." Doesn't matter. God does. Even if you are in disagreement with your pastor, your job is loyal support and love. Loyalty is never tested until there is a disagreement with authority. The local church as led by our pastor and his/her staff is to receive our prime focus, our greatest support - financial, verbal, time, etc.

Other than the change of physical location, is there ever a time to leave the local church? There are a very few reasons when it may be necessary to change churches within a community. If the pastor is leading people into sin, is involved in unrepentant sin, or supports ungodly lifestyles/doctrines, then we have a reason to leave. Loyalty to Christ is always more important than loyalty to a human being. [However, to use loyalty to Christ to leave for a lessor reason is deception...and Jesus knows the heart.] Leaving a church is to be considered as serious as a Biblical divorce. There must be a Biblically legitimate reason to change churches within a community or else we commit spiritual adultery. Even when we are compelled to leave it must be with integrity, respect, and without unnecessary division.

Bottom Line: The local church is the plan of Jesus in the world today. If you are actively involved in your local church, positively supporting your pastor and his/her staff - great - you are on the right track. If you are not involved in a local Godly church - get committed and involved. If you are not going to get involved with a Godly local church, then quite pretending and get out of the way because the church of Jesus Christ is marching on.

May there never a "prophet" without honour in our midst.

ANNOUCEMENTS

We have a new section on our site called Christian Virtues. There will be more articles appearing here as the days and months go by. Keep an eye on it!

The other change on Free Bible Study Lessons is on the Navigation Bar. I have removed the numbers [100, 300, etc] which allows me to reorder in the best order. Also, the "Cult" page has been renamed "False Beliefs" which will allow me to write on false beliefs within the Christian Church as well as without it without accusing genuine Christians of being "cultic."

Thank you to all of you who took the time to fill out the Webinar Survey. It was truly informative. If you are interested here are some of the results: 56 people responded, 60% were extremely interested, 76% said to use as many sessions necessary to finish the course, 57% thought 30 minutes would be the right length for a session, 60% wanted weekly lessons, 70% would like a certificate upon completion, and 59% were only interested if it was free. There are certainly exciting possibilities here so we will continue to think about it.

For those of you who may be interested we had people from 140 different countries visit our website this month. The United States made up the vast majority [72%], Canada was second at 4%, the Russian Federation was third at 3%, and the Philippines, India, and South Africa tied for fourth at 2% each. Finishing the top 10 were Great Britain, Hong Kong, Italy, and Australia.

CALEB'S CHOICE

We have added four new CD Messages to our selection: 2 by Ryan Cook and 2 by Matthew Barnett [of the Dream Center]. Plus, we have started a CD series by Judson Cornwall - Jesus Better Than... You will not want to miss these uplifting messages! Also, if the speakers in the General Message DVD or CD section have their own webpage, I have linked their name to their bio page so you can discover more about them before borrowing their DVD/CD. Check out Caleb's Choice DVD Club today. No point in spending hundreds of dollars for DVDs you may only watch once or twice. Borrow them instead at our low monthly membership rates. If you don't want to commit yourself to a membership, you can rent the DVDs on an individual basis.

FINAL NOTES

Encourage your friends and help us spread the news about Free Bible Study Lessons by recommending one of your favourite pages or courses to them. It is also simple to add a link to Facebook, Twitter, and others by clicking the link on the bottom of each page. Don't keep this a secret! Over 1,000 e-mail courses have been sent out so far this year - let's keep it growing! Freely you have received, freely give.

Those of you who would like to advertise to our growing number of readers [12,000+ per month] now have a variety of inexpensive ways to do so from sponsoring a page to a listing in the Business Directory. Check out the details.

God bless you,
Glenn Davis
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