First Baptist Church of Diana, Texas

Scripture Reading : Exodus 1:1-20 — Protect Your Relationship

The community I grew up in hosts a Bluegrass Festival each July. Bands from all over Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico gather for a good time playing music. The first year of the festival, several of us got together and built a stage to be used during the performance. It was designed for the platform to be about four feet off the ground enabling all the gathering crowd to see the band on the stage.

Our relationship with God gives Him a platform from which He can be seen in our lives. The first one who sees God on this platform is the individual in the relationship. The final result is that others see him as well. The first four of the ten commandments God gave to Moses concerned personal relationships between humans and  God. The next six commandments deal with relationships between humans. Both are important to maintain a godly relationship.

As a human keeps his relationship with God free of idols, he puts a solid plank in his platform. Other planks are added when he has no other God before him. The New Testament parallel warning comes when Jesus said you cannot serve two masters.  Taking the name of God seriously adds another plank to the platform as does remembering to rest one day per week including worship with other believers. These are the God relationship planks.  Now would be a great time to renew your commitment to the Lord and the observance of these first four of the ten commandments.

Prayer Challenge
Ask the Lord to help you grow closer in your relationship with Him today. As you read the ten commandments, perhaps the Lord revealed idols in your life or neglect for His Word or something else. Come clean in confession and ask Him to grant you the gift of repentance. 

Pray for your Life Group teacher and those who lead your group. Pray for them to be full of the Holy Spirit  with a Word from Heaven to share with you and your group as you make preparations to attend this Sunday.

Ministry Challenge
Send a message of encouragement to your Life Group teacher today.

Mission Challenge
It is prayer walk Friday. As you approach your place of employment today, be sure to pray for the salvation and spiritual awakening of the employees where you work.

Reflection

What did God say to me from this Scripture reading, devotional, and or  prayer time?

What did I say to God?

Scripture Reading 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 — You Better Believe It

Followers of Jesus Christ give everything to God. This includes not only their spirituality but also their material possessions and their physical bodies. This is a hard truth to wrap our hearts around.  Our Scripture reading for today is calling for a radical surrender of all we are to the Lord.

If believers drop their spiritual guard, they easily fall into a belief pattern that compartmentalizes different aspects of life forgetting that everything is connected spiritually and has an effect on our walk with Christ. There must have been those in the Corinthian church who were engaged with prostitutes not fully realizing or really not caring that it influenced their Christian walk and damaged the entire body. The thought comes to a climax in verse 19 where we are reminded that our bodies do not belong to us, they are a temple owned by the Lord.

Men and women have actually believed they could cheat on their spouses and not affect their relationship with each other. It seems like a strange thought to me, but I know some have believed this

lie of the enemy. By the same token, believers knowingly and willingly engage on a daily basis with thoughts and actions that are untrue to the God they claim to serve. How can such a believer think that his or her relationship with God will go untarnished?

The devotions this week have been strong and confrontational of our sin. I expect that will be a reason for some to forgo the reading. I wonder if we really understand that we serve a confrontational God. Remember, he confronted Adam about his sin.  When Abraham lied about Sarah, God also confronted him. He sent Nathan to confront David about immorality. In our Scripture readings for this week, He sent Paul to confront the Corinthians.  Is He sending these devotions to confront you? My friend, it is only through confrontation for our sin and ensuing repentance that we can be made right with God.  Perhaps this would be a good time for us to welcome the confrontation of a Holy righteous God.

Prayer Challenge
Examine your attitudes and actions seeking to see what you might be withholding from your walk with Christ. Now is a great time to make a full surrender of everything to the Lord.

Please pray for our services for this Sunday Morning. Pray for our members to have such a hunger for the Word of God and fellowship with His people that we would be faithful in attendance and attentive in spirit. Pray for you pastor and worship leader to be filled with the Spirit. Pray also for the invitation that someone would be saved and all would be obedient.

Ministry Challenge
Stop and thank God for your family asking Him to show you some special way you can minister to them today.

Mission Challenge
Ask the Lord to give you an opportunity to minister to someone today in a way that would be an encouragement. Pray also that God would give you a sensitive spirit to opportunities to share Christ with those you encounter today.

Reflection

What did God say to me from this Scripture reading, devotional, and or  prayer time?

What did I say to God?

Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 — Don’t You Know Better

The way people settle disputes with one another, bears great testimony to their spiritual maturity. I remember as our children were small the conflict would arise over who could play with what toy at what time. These thoughts remind me that we are each born with a sin nature that is selfish to the core and if we are to be selfless and think about others, we must be disciplined. Early in the lives of our children we taught them to share their toys and to be considerate of each other. As parents, we understood we had the responsibility to set the standard of acceptable behavior in the family. Our kids easily caught on to the accepted standard and their lives developed to live within the standard.

The Bible reveals the poor standard that had been set by the Corinthian church. It even goes so far as to say in verse 7 of our reading that lawsuits they had filed against one another were evidence to the depth of their defeat. Why do you think Paul was so strong in his warnings to this church?  I believe it was because he understood they could not walk in the spirit while they were so into living in the flesh. There could be no power of the Holy Spirit because they had empowered their own sin. Pride had taken over in their hearts and there was no room for the Spirit.

The Bible is calling for radical repentance in this Scripture. It is no doubt calling the Corinthians and those of us who read it later to a close examination of our own spiritual maturity. How are we doing in the area of relationships?  Are we suing one another at law rather than sitting down and under the influence of the Holy Spirit that comes in humble prayers working out issue with our brothers?  Are we learning to be obedient to the Scriptures that teach us to love our neighbor as ourselves?

The strongest question is this, is our level of spiritual maturity cooperating with the working of God through the Holy Spirit or are we a hindrance to the working of the Holy Spirit?

Prayer Challenge
Pray today for the membership  of First Baptist Church. Ask the Lord to free us of pride that might cause us to strain our fellowship and destroy our witness to the community. Pray for the delivery of our membership from the temptations sent from the enemy.  Please remember to pray for the service

tonight. Pray that FBC members might develop a hunger to for the Word of God and attend services tonight.

Ministry Challenge
Send a note of encouragement, an email, a notice on facebook, or make a personal  phone call to someone in your Life Group today.

Mission Challenge
Review your prospect list today and work to invite at least one person on your list to attend your Life Group this week.

Reflection

What did God say to me from this Scripture reading, devotional, and or  prayer time?

What did I say to God?

Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 5:9-13— Why Don’t you Change it? 

I am reminded of the words John spoke when he saw Jesus the Christ, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” It was through the sacrifice he made at Calvary that made this freedom from sin a reality.  The heart of Paul’s plea to the Corinthian church is found in verse 8 of yesterday’s reading.  Our celebration of the Passover feast in the new covenant, the covenant of Christ’s shed blood, is to be done without malice and wickedness and with sincerity and truth. This is an appropriate condition to be placed around church discipline. Church discipline is the subject of our reading today.

The Bible addresses two relationships for believers as it continues to discuss this immorality among the people. First, the relationship to unbelievers is examined and instructions are given for believers to maintain relationships with unbelievers. This makes sense in light of the great commission. For us to be witnesses to the world, we must have an acquaintance with the people who make up the world. We are not to judge them but to remember they are blind in their sin and cannot see the truth. We are to pray for them, love them, and bear witness to the truth.

Believers and fellow church members have a different standard of fellowship than the relationship with nonbelievers. With believers we share a common forgiveness and common devotion to the things of God. When one of our members falls into open immorality and no one deals with it as a manner of church discipline, the entire body suffers. In the end of this passage the Bible says remove the man from fellowship. These words are extreme. 

The Bible not only frees us to execute church discipline it commands church discipline. Even so, we must take the whole counsel of God on this subject. Matthew 18 gives us a specific method to employ in the process of church discipline. First he says when someone is aware of such sin of another, the one is to confront the other privately.  If the brother repents, they rejoice together. If the brother fails to repent, the confronting brother is go and get one other to assist him in confrontation. The reasons for this are obvious and include giving the alleged sinning brother the benefit of the doubt. After all, the accusing brother could be wrong in his accusation. It is only after the three have seriously considered the matter that anyone else is brought into the equation. If this attempt fails, it is to be brought to the church. Very probably in the early church this was either to the apostles, or later the elders, and possibly the deacons.

I am of the persuasion that church discipline is most effective and most common in an intimate relationship among brothers. Most church discipline does not rise to the church confrontation level. It is a beautiful fellowship when brothers successfully hold one another accountable in quiet loving relationships.

Prayer Challenge
Stop and think about 5 specific members of your Life Group and pray for them to maintain a pure heart before the Lord. Every member of your Life Group will face some kind of temptation today. Your prayers of intercession will make a difference in their lives.

Ministry Challenge
Think about someone in the church not in your Life Group that you make contact with for encouragement. You might want to plan a special deed to serve them.

Mission Challenge
First Baptist Church will be hosting a block party this Saturday evening. Would you pray for those who are helping and think about an un-churched family you could invite to attend.

Reflection
What did God say to me from this Scripture reading, devotional, and or prayer time?

What did I say to God?

Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 5:1-8 — A Bad Report

The fellowship bonds that develop within a church continue long after a person has moved to another community. It has been my privilege to serve two churches as pastor and in two others as a ministry leader in a lay position. (Quite frankly, the only difference in the two is that one is paid and one is not. Both require the same commitment. ) In each of these churches I have made some wonderful relationships with other believers and have developed a desire for each of these fellowships to be faithful in carrying out the great commission. When I hear of great spiritual devotion among the members, it brings a level of satisfaction to my soul to know that they are doing well.

Paul could not say good things about what was going on in the Corinthian church. He had been instrumental in their ministry and made many close relationships. Truly his heart was grieved when he received the report you read about in your Scripture reading for today. The church had two major problems. First, there was open sin among the membership that even the immoral national culture would not condone. In reality it was a sexual immorality known as incest. Second, there seemed to be no shame or remorse among the congregation. The Bible indicates they were arrogant without mourning even though this abomination to God was going on right in their own congregation.

Paul warns the church that he is going to pay a visit. Evidently the church had enough respect for Paul that it would be unpleasant for him to come and confront the sin directly and he gives them an opportunity to make things right. The greatest warning comes later in the chapter but in verse 6 he openly confronts the sin of the people by saying their “boasting is not good.”

How would Paul write to your congregation today? What sins would he confront? Would he find us broken to the point of mourning over the sins of the congregation or would he find us cold and indifferent overlooking with apathy the immorality among us?

This seems like a hard truth to consider on a Monday morning. However, we call these little times in the Word and contemplation devotions. This one tests the depth of our devotion. The Bible is teaching us if we are devoted to Christ and His church, open immorality among our members will cause us to at the very least pray with fervency. May the thoughts of praying fervently travel with you today.

Prayer Challenge
Be sure and thank God for your fellow laborers in First Baptist Church. You might want to follow that in a time of asking the Lord to reveal to you anything that might cause you to be a stumbling block or hindrance to the ministries of your church.

Ministry Challenge
Call a fellow member of your Life Group today and express your appreciation for their service and friendship.

Mission Challenge
Look over your list of prospects for your Life Group and see if you have met someone this week who needs to be added to your list. Pray over this list with a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit for guidance in reaching out those you are praying for.

Reflection

What did God say to me from this Scripture reading, devotional, and or prayer time?

What did I say to God?