Prayer
List
Don
Hickerson is scheduled to have cataract surgery August 9.
Corey Miller
is having problems with his throat.
We need to
keep Kerry King’s mother in our prayers.
Greg Count’s
cousin Jim Hallman is having back problems.
Tabitha
Griffin has begun taking cancer treatments.
Gary Hodges
is not doing well.
Robert
Embry’s niece son Ryan Pattie is having health problems.
Eddie
Griffin, Florene Griffin, Jimmy Griffin, Jerry and Betty Harris,
Billie Phillips, Billie Bradford, Betty Clark, Doris James, Jo
Gordon, Gary Hickerson, Thomas Mako, Audrey McKin, Beryl Miller,
Carol Moore, Della Price and Loretta Rhoden.
Serving in
the military:
Faith Balzen,
Cody Blomstedt,
Travis Counts, and
Dakota
Smitherman all are in the U.S.
Chris Johnson is in Kuwait.
Let us pray
for our country and government leaders and those who are in harms
way, military and civilian personnel.
“The
effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much…
Men’s
Meeting will be next Sunday August 13 after evening worship service.
All men are invited and encouraged to attend.
August 13
Prayers: Morning: Robert Embry – Butch Balzen
Evening: Jerry Harris – Kerry King
Scriptures: Don Harrington
>>>>>>>>>>
First Century Christianity
By Charles Box, Greenville, AL
Is it
possible for people living today to simply be New Testament
Christians? Can we be first century Christians in the twenty-first
Century? So much is said today about “change” is evident.
Computers, communications. and candidates are constantly changing.
Must the Gospel be changed to fit a changing world or is the message
of Christ’s sacrifice still sufficient for
today (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)?
MAN HAS NOT
CHANGED. In what is thought to be the oldest book in the Bible
(Job), Job’s friend said that man “drinketh iniquity like water…”
(Job15:16). That could have been a description of people today. Man
now struggles with the same greed, lust, and bitterness as those of
previous generations. Human nature today is as it was yesterday.
Man has always been given the choice of good or evil (Deuteronomy
11:26, and has always—to some degree—chosen evil (Romans 3:23).
MAN’S
PROBLEM HAS NOT CHANGED. In Noah’s days people were wicked:
“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually” (Genesis 6:5). In our day sin is still our
problem. Man is sinful—un-God-like. “For there is not a just
man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not” (Ecclesiastes
7:20). There is not even one accountable people who has not sinned
(Romans 3:10, 23). Our problem is a common problem—SIN.
MAN’S HOPE
HAS NOT CHANGED. Jesus is our only hope. Paul spoke of
“…Christ…the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Jesus
bore our sins in His own body on the tree (1Peter 2:24). Without His
death man would be without hope. ”For Christ also suffered once
for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God,
being out to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit”
(1Peter 3:18). Man’s hope is in the fact that Jesus suffered sin’s
penalty in man’s place.
Man is the
same, sin is the same; man’s hope is the same. First century
Christianity is possible today. Through a return to the New
Testament teaching in loving obedience to the Gospel we can be
Christians only (Acts 2:36-47; Romans 6:1-6). God requires: learning
of Christ (Romans 10:17), belief in Christ (john 3:16), repentance of
sin (Acts 2:38), confession of faith (Romans 10:9, 10), and baptism
(Mark 16:16). Have you obeyed the Gospel? If not, now is the time!
>>>>>>>>>>
9“The
thing that hath been, it is that which shall be done: and there is no
new thing under the sun. 10 Is there any
thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already
of old time, which was before us. 11There is
no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any
remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come
after” (Ecclesiastes 1:9-11)