From the Blog
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Being a Blessing
Every committed Christ-follower will face persecution. It’s inevitable wherever light and darkness intersect. Yet, we don’t have to be afraid. We can even live out a blessed life and be a blessing when persecuted.
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus taught His disciples how to be a blessing even when people persecuted them for following Him. We can be a blessing even when we’re persecuted for following Jesus. -
Keeping Our Peace
What is this peace that God offers through Jesus? It is more than the absence of hostility. It speaks of a deeper peace, or as the Jews call it, “shalom.” This peace that God offers means a sense of quiet, of harmony with others, a sense of security and well-being, wholeness, prosperity, a tranquil state of the soul without anxiety or fear.
How do we overcome our anxiety, our worries and fears, to receive and thrive in God’s peace? In John’s gospel, Jesus prepared His disciples to face His soon departure by giving them His peace and teaching them to how to continually keep themselves thriving in His peace. We can receive the peace of Christ and continually to keep it. -
Becoming Pure in Heart
If you’ve taken an honest inventory of your heart then you know that broken things, unclean desires well up from there. You know that this blessing is truly impossible because your heart is so broken either by your own desires or by external circumstances that have made your heart filthy over time.
Who can possibly understand it? Who can make it pure? Only our Lord and Savior Jesus. In 1 Peter chapter 1, the apostle Peter encouraged the persecuted believers scattered throughout Asia that through the mercy and power of God they could become pure in heart even in their time of exile. We can become pure in heart by God’s power. -
Receiving God’s Mercy
Mercy is defined as compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm. Mercy is choosing to forgive when you have every right to punish.
We can only be merciful when we have first received God’s mercy. In 1 Peter chapter 2, the apostle Peter expounds on Jesus’ 5th beatitude and instructed the believers scattered throughout Asia that since they had received God’s mercy for themselves they could now live His mercy out among the nations. We can understand how receiving God’s mercy empowers us to be merciful. -
Confessing Our Guilt
We want to please God, but still have sin areas that cause us to feel guilty and defeated or past sin areas that we still feel guilty about. This robs us of living the blessed life, the happy life.
What is guilt? It’s that feeling of shame and regret we feel over a sinful attitude or behavior. It can be appropriate guilt when we are indeed responsible for an offense and feel remorse for it. Or it can be false guilt when we feel responsible for something that we had no control over, yet still feel we could’ve prevented in some way. Guilt feels heavy, like baggage that we carry with us. It fills us with shame and regret.
Some will try to help us deal with our guilt by trying to convince us that we shouldn’t feel guilty. But the Bible tells us that the reason we feel guilty is because we are guilty! But it also tells us how to give it to God! In David’s Psalm 32, he described how confessing his guilt led to living under God’s blessing. We can understand how confessing our guilt leads to living under God’s blessing. -
Releasing Our Grief
For many of us, we don’t know how to grieve. We don’t know how to mourn. So, we just bottle it up. We deny it. Or we try to medicate it with booze, or pills, or overeating, or over-working, or materialism or… But the pain remains. Unresolved grief can cause us to give up on happiness.
The blessed life, the supremely happy life, is ours when we are willing to admit that we’re powerless to change, to overcome our hurts, habits, and hangups. And that we need to mourn, grieve, and trust Jesus as the only One truly able to comfort and heal us. In the gospel of John, Jesus called those who were grieving the death of Lazarus to believe in Him as the only One who could truly comfort their grief and turn their mourning into blessing. We can release our grief to Jesus to receive His comfort. -
Admitting Our Brokenness
We all have problems. We have hurts, habits, and hangups that we can’t overcome. It’s like something inside of us is broken and it leaves us powerless to change. We’re held captive and can’t get free!
How are you doing at overcoming these hurts, habits, and hangups? For most of us, no matter how hard we try, we find ourselves powerless to break free, so we continue to be held captive by them.
The apostle Paul wrote about these feelings of brokenness, of feeling powerless to change. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he described how admitting our brokenness can move us toward God’s blessing. We can see how admitting our brokenness can move us toward God’s blessing. -
Releasing Your Children to the Lord
Have you noticed that every child is unique? No two are the same. And as they grow, they change. So the parenting style that seemed effective when they were small, doesn’t work when they’re older. These differences need different parenting styles. Godly parents recognize their call to be leaders who make disciples. If we want to be effective, we have to match our parenting style to every child’s situation.
In his first letter to the Thessalonians, the apostle Paul told them that he had discipled them like a parent according to their situation, sometimes gentle and affectionate like a mother and sometimes strong like a father in order to release them to live up to God’s calling. We can parent our children following God’s Word to match our child’s situation with a goal of releasing them to the Lord.
For more details and to get a close look at some of the charts and graphs shared, please see Pastor Gary's blog article: <a href="https://www.garycombs.org/blog/2023/07/adapting-your-parenting-style-to-the-child.html?fbclid=IwAR2VpyX4y8EZPZzupOjNi9894l0OUZrGvsgc56ryMo9qejgYVtQulxncL8g">Adapting Your Parenting Style to the Child</a> -
Raising Up Children in the Lord
What is your parenting approach? Where did you learn how to be a mom or dad? Was it from your parents? From friends or a book? Or are you just winging it?
The apostle Paul told the Ephesians how to raise up their children according to God’s plan. As Christians, we can follow God’s Word in the training of our children and raise them up to maturity according to God’s plan. -
Receiving Children as a Gift from God
In Psalm 127, Solomon wrote about the necessity of recognizing the Lord as the One builds families and watches over them. As a result, he wrote that children are to be received as a gift from the Lord.