Saturday, May 31, 2008



This is a great book by Hank Handegraff. It gives much insight into a biblical view of the second coming of Jesus Christ. It is worth your time in study and thought!

Daily Readings - 1 King 13
Man of God who meets with King Jeroboam - the prophet was given specific orders from God to speak to the king and he does. The king becomes very angry and order his guard to seize him. Immediately the King's hand dries up and he cannot use his hand. The king pleads with the prophet to intercede for him. The prophet (man of God) entreats the Lord and the king's hand is restored. In appreciation the King invites him to come to his home. But the prophet turns it down because God told him "You shall eat no bread, nor drink water, nor return by the way which you came." The prophet leaves.

At this point it is a good story about a faithful prophet speaking to a bad king. But the story does not end well. The prophet is intercepted by another prophet and invited to his home to eat and drink and he accepts. Suddenly the faithful prophet is now a disobedient prophet and before long is dead on the side of the road because of his unfaithfulness to God's command.

Great care must always be taken after times of faithful obedience. We are not allowed moments of rest from obedience to our Lord. We cannot act faithfully with one and then disobedience with others. Peter says in 1 Peter 5:8 - "be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." May God give us grace to be faithful all day long!

Daily Readings - John 5
Jesus speaks about the resurrection of the dead in this chapter. He makes some very simple statements about the final resurrection.
  • An hour is coming - He uses this phrase twice (5:25; 5:28)
  • Jesus uses hour in John 17:1 - Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son. . .
  • "Hour" is even more specific than "day".
  • In that hour - all the dead will hear the voice of God
  • All who hear will live - resurrection of all the dead
  • Dead - all in the tomb (v.28) - will hear his voice
  • All who hear - will come forth - both good and evil (v. 29)
  • No one is excluded from the resurrection - all are resurrected on the same day - one resurrection.
  • Two places to go - resurrection of life and a resurrection of Judgment.

One of the first confessions of Southern Baptist says of the resurrection - The bodies of men after death return to dust, but their spirits return immediately to God-the righteous to rest with Him; the wicked, to be reserved under darkness to the judgment. At the last day, the bodies of all the dead, both just and unjust, will be raised.

Simple truth from scripture but one with profound eternal implication - Question always arises - Do you believe in Jesus Christ? - all who believe will be raised on the last day to eternal life.

Friday, May 30, 2008

My daily readings today are from 1 King 11.

1 Kings 11:4 - For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.

This is such a sad verse in the Bible! The older man who has accomplished much, is not finishing well in life. The women in his life have turned him from the Father in heaven who has so richly blessed him. Solomon loved his wives more than he did God!

The next very sad verse is 1 Kings 11:6 - Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not follow the Lord fully, as David his father had done.

A man filled with such wisdom, becomes foolish at the end of his life. His foolishness leads to doing evil before God. There is a great warning here to all of us - that we exercise great care in our lives and that we allow nothing to hinder our love of the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

My weight lifting is starting to pay off. I hired Dock Parker of Spectrum to be my trainer last October. I work out with him 3 days a week. Today we were testing my leg strength to see how much I could lift. I had just finished my Friday workout doing 20 squats at 175 on the machine. I asked how much I might be able to do with free weights. He guessed about 500 lbs. By the time we took this picture I was doing 600 lbs. After this picture we add 90 lbs more and I was able to do 690 lbs not just once, but eleven times.
I was shock, but a great lesson learned about perseverance - staying with the situation, will do nothing but make you stronger.
Monday we are going to see if I can do over 900 lbs at least once. Stay tuned to see!

Season of Change







We are in the process of change at Village Parkway Baptist Church. We have started a major remodeling and building program this month. We are painting the outside of our education building. We are building a new platform for the worship center. Our architect has just about finished the plans for the three new buildings. We hope to start construction on them in July.

School is out today and we will start painting in the nursery and preschool areas and also remodeling all the bathrooms in education building. We are excited about the changes.

We are also having a new website developed. It is going to be a major change with several new capabilities. It should help us to stay in contact with each other in a greater way.

We are having a special night of prayer on June 1 to ask God's blessings on our church as we move forward with our changes. I hope you will join us at 5:00 p.m. in the fellowship hall.