Calvary Chapel Casa Grande Sunday

Robert Castro is assistant pastor at Calvary Chapel.

Titus was sent to set things in order on the isle of Crete, located to the east of Greece, at the connecting point of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. The island was 150 miles long and at its widest, 35 miles wide. Yet it was a very busy island with a number of major cities serving the Roman forces and the shipping industry. For a while in its history, the island was made up of primarily a population of pirates. Neither the island nor its inhabitants had a very good reputation in the ancient world.

Do you ever ask "Why Me" in the midst of a trial?

Mike Stangel is pastor of North Shore Christian Fellowship in Haleiwa, Hawaii.

Man has verbally communicated since his creation in the Garden. Then beyond verbal communication, early on God gave man the ability to express his words in a written form. Even secular archeologists, anthropologists, historians, and linguists actually agree about the first arrival of any written form of communication – it was around the time of 3500 B.C. Interesting how they place man’s existence “as Man” back hundreds of thousands of years ago, but he only learned to write down his thoughts some 5500 years ago… an even more interesting thing about that is, if we can receive the Biblical dates as accurate (and I believe we can), Adam was actually still alive when writing began for the human race.

Hmmm, funny how that worked out according to the biblical timeframe!

The Apostle Paul was anything but silent during his life, but the words of 2 Timothy have often been described as his “Swan’s Song”, and in particular, the words found in chapter 4. He knew full well that his time on the earth was short. His earthly ministry was soon to be over as his execution had already been ordered. His message to Timothy was solemn and direct,

There is a lot of talk about “The Last Days” going on in many churches these days. We look at the situations of Blood Moons, planets and stars aligning, Israel on the brink of war with her neighbors, world-wide and national catastrophes (like fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes), we see a rise in social unrest with major racial and political tensions, authority being questioned on nearly every level, we as well as a host of other democratic nations seem to be on the edge of anarchy at times, and on and on the list goes.

Robert Castro is Assistance Pastor at Calvary Chapel.

As Paul had earlier warned Timothy about the false teachers, their false doctrines and the impact on Believers and the Church as a whole; lifestyles of honor verses lifestyles of dishonor; he now brings in a very practical and understandable illustration – household dishes.

If there is one thing that would make the Church more affective in the world at present, it would be for us all to keep our eyes upon the goal. One of the difficulties of being a Christian in our current culture is the distractions we face in having a consistent and continual focus on the goal.

Throughout the Bible there are names mentioned that we know very little about: no background; no history; no before or after; simply a name mentioned in the Biblical record to live on for all time. Sometimes, those names are equated with greatness or goodness, and sometimes they’re tied to wickedness or examples of those who moved far from the plan or purpose of God.