Dick Ross

The condition that must be met is to fully believe that God will be faithful to His promise. When there is a shadow of doubt that He will give us what we need, we break the circuit between us and Him. When we can come to know Him as Paul did, there is no limit to what He can do for us. For me to partake in the promise means, for me, to be free of the worry of what may be waiting around the corner for me. Letting God take full control of my life lifts a huge burden off of my shoulders, and frees me up to focus on doing His will.

We are taught that we will be given in the measure that we have given. If we are willing to give all, we will inherit the kingdom. If we give nothing of ourselves, we can expect the same from our Father. Because the Phillippians

Paul is content because he has an unshakeable faith in Christ Jesus and in the Father. There is simply nothing in this life that can dissuade him from his pursuit of his ministry. Paul is

The accumulation of wealth is, for many, a religion. A prosperity doctrine causes us to focus on our temporal existence, not on pleasing our heavenly Father. This doctrine appeals to our need to feel comfortable, and to a primordial instinct to be the

It is easy for us to be overrun by worry, cares and concerns. We must condition our minds to process only the data that will be of benefit to us. This can help bring us peace. My focus, when I

Once we have an idea of what we are lacking in our lives, we can put our requests before God. What comes back to us is very often much different from what we asked for, but because we trust Him to do what is best for us, thereby building a relationship with Him that is solid. By trusting Him this way, we can cast our problems to Him, knowing He will handle them for us.

Offering our thanks to God while petitioning for help gives glory to God as our Creator, while we come to him, as His children, for our sustenance. Always giving thanks to Him reminds us not to be selfish, greedy or self-willed. All blessings flow from God, and we must be thankful to Him for what He does for us.

Rejoicing is primarily a spiritual thing. However, because we rejoice in the Lord, we display outward traits that are evident to others, in addition to our joyful worship by singing, raising of hands, dancing and etc. At times when we don

We are in this world, but should not be of this world. Our concerns should only be our relationship with God and loving our neighbors. Being consumed with a desire to keep up with the Jones

Paul was aware that he had matured in his faith, and that the people around him would be well advised to emulate him. He knew that he was not perfect, but he was also aware tat he was advanced way beyond most others. We, for the most part, are lacking in the certainty Paul was instilled with. For this reason, we are embarrassed to offer ourselves as models of Christian maturity. Jesus showed us by example as well as taught us how we should live our lives. I feel that recent converts, immature believers and youth are likely to imitate me. Thoughts like that should be enough to keep me on my toes..or on my knees!

There are moments when we know God is moving us around to suit his purpose. These moments often profoundly alter the course of our travel in this world (Even though we often have no recollection later that He has visited our secret places). He reaches out to us in answered prayer, through seemingly un-connected events in our lives or even by us making unconscious decisions that reroute our lives. The stresses of everyday living cause us to be easily distracted in our spiritual life. We wind up unsure if God has called our name or if we just bounced a check. We need to renew every day, often more than once in the day. We can do this by quitting the rat race for a few and becoming still in the Lord. We can pray, fast read the word or reach out to another believer for support. INn the end we must get back to the idea that this is all about Him, and it is for His glory that we have been loaned these bodies. He wants us to know that He loves us and that He feels our pain; that Jesus has made us right with Him.

We can only live in the now. The past is spent and so becomes irrelevant. We can plan for the future, but we always find that when we arrive at the future point, things are not as we had planned they would be. Our walk with Christ must, then, be in the now. Every waking thought should be tempered by our quest to have a deep and meaningful spiritual relationship with Him. I must constantly

To know Jesus is to have the faith that He is who he claims to be. In believing this, we start our journey with him at the helm. We, therefore, must trust him, become like him, be found in him, know him. We can only know him through faith, and only have a personal relationship with him if we believe in him. I still feel that I am an infant in my faith, still drinking milk while others are feasting.

By believing in Jesus, through faith we are saved and become justified by the Father, thus securing for us a place in heaven. Being a good citizen, and obeying the law, will only make us a good citizen. Most all of us, including our church congregations, periodically lapse back to thinking that by living right and obeying secular law that we get double coupons for heaven. However, we know that the only way to heaven is through a true faith in Jesus Christ. Subsequent to our being justified by faith, we begin to be sanctified by imitating Jesus and how he taught us to live. Society in general rejects this notion, and considers Christians to be extremists. Indeed, many people attempt to label us as dangerous to society. I think the idea of being justified and sanctified by faith alone is difficult to grasp, because the concept of a triune God is hard to grasp.

Because by taking great pride in his former accomplishments, he would not be able to get past his own personal pride. He, therefore, would not be able to focus upon what is most important-Jesus. For the same reason, all that I have done is as nothing compared to my personal relationship with Jesus. Pride in ourselves is contrary to the way we have been commanded to live. It is NOT about me-it is about our relationship to God the Father. It IS about Him.

I suspect this has a lot to do with the

The church seems to suffer from a real lack of strong, committed leaders. Timothy has the leadership qualities necessary to get the church back on track. By Paul calling attention to the need for the church to honor it

Serving as a slave means to totally obey and to do all that we have been told to do.. Serving as a matter of preference allows us to be self serving rather than being wholly dedicated to doing His will. The quality of our service, then is compromised, and fails to glorify the Father. Our commitment likewise suffers, because there is no firm foundation to the service we try to offer. Leaders who serve out of preference tend to pay more attention to their personal agenda than to actual selfless service to others. We see this on TV all the time..

There have been several leaders that have taken an interest in helping me along on my faith walk. I thank them for being patient with me, and for their gentle correction when necessary. As a result of my most recent instruction, our church is going to start up an accountable discipleship group that will be designed to challenge and support those of us in the group, as well as in aiding the pastor and the church as a whole. We will be inviting several potential new leaders into this group.

Timoth's concern was only for extending the kingdom by giving all of himself in the service to the church. Many church leaders want to satisfy their own ambitions rather than humbly serve the needs of the church. I spent many years thinking that I had all the answers to life

To be able to overcome our adversities, and yet be able to rejoice in our salvation, shows that we are finally beginning to mature in our walk of faith. Once we learn to extract the good from the bad we can truly begin to honor God. This brings value to us because we get more and more pure as we are refined in the fire.

Holding fast to the Word means to obey the Word as it was inspired by God to be written-not to alter the meaning of the words or to take passages out of context. We are to hold forth, or proclaim, the Word to all people.The purpose of the church is to be a vehicle to worship God and to proclaim the Good News to the world.

Once the church body quits infighting, there is the opportunity for unity. If each individual is just one candle , how much brighter the light from a whole unified church! This light signifies the glory of God

I believe Paul is telling the church to move forward in the sanctification process, towards the end of achieving holy perfection. He is not referring to salvation from sin so much as he wants the church to polish their mirror so as to better reflect the glory of Christ Jesus. This is to be done by abandoning their self-will and and coming to a spirit of submission to the will of God, and loving service to all brothers and sisters in Christ.

God