Preparing for the Lord's Day In Matthew 7 the Lord Jesus teaches that following after him is not the easy road in this life. He explains, "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." (Matthe...

Preparing for the Lord's Day Why is it so difficult to see our own faults? We tend to be able to spot what is wrong with others but when it comes to our own shortfalls and destructive patterns we remain in the dark. It reminds me of a time in college when I was driving through campus and everyone was pointing and waving at me. I wasn't sure what was happening, so I just w...

Preparing for the Lord's Day As many of you know Pastor Mike Palombo is going to be a father soon. Watching him and Whitney prepare for this time has reminded me of when my first child was born. I was excited and desired to be a good father. April and I read books on parenting. We asked family and friends for their advice. However, nothing could prepare us for the reality...

Preparing for the Lord's Day Perform a Google search of "phobias" and you'll find an almost endless list of conditions characterized by fear. Acrophobia is the fear of heights. Atychiphobia is the fear of failure. Anthrophobia (not introversion, incidentally) is the fear of people. I'm convinced I have an 'unnamed' phobia the fear of losing control. Sometimes, I fear losi...

Preparing for the Lord's Day What happens when we stop meditating on the Word of God? We cannot simply shutdown our thoughts or unplug our mental motor. Our thoughts will continue to meditate on everything else around us: our needs, our wants, and other's prosperity. As we meditate on the prosperity of others, our meditation can easily take us to a dark place of destructi...

Preparing for the Lord's Day This Sunday as we gather for worship we will take a break from our series on The Psalms and be reminded what God has done for us in Christ by looking at Titus 3:1-11. In this passage Paul commands us to obey authorities and be kind to unbelievers. He recognizes the pride we may have as the people of God and reminds us what we were once lik...

Preparing for the Lord's Day Leland Ryken called them Worldly Saints. It is a name that might not fit your perception of the Puritans. Yet central to the Puritan movement was a quest for all of life to be conformed to the word of God. Puritanism was a movement to do what God commanded and to live for God's glory not just in the Church but in the world. The Puritans were s...

Preparing for the Lord's Day This Sunday we return to the study of Christian meditation as we come to Psalm 119. Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm in the Bible and it provides for us an extended meditation on the Word of God, itself. Six times in this Psalm there is direct teaching on the concept of meditating on God's word (vv. 15, 23, 27, 48, 78, 148) and many other refere...

Preparing for the Lord's Day What is man? In some way or another we have all been face with this question over the past week and a half. For we have been confronted with a blatant disregard for the sanctity of the life of a fellow human being. We have been reminded of the pain and the struggle of racial tension that continues to plague our nation. We have seen how this ...

Preparing for the Lord's Day Last week we celebrated the ascension of Christ which occurred forty days following the resurrection. Ten days later, or fifty days following the resurrection, the ascended Christ sent upon his people the promised Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The Lord Jesus promised that he would send the Holy Spirit upon the Church so that they might ...