First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge

The reason we are given such a privileged title, "Priests of the LORD," is so that we may proclaim God's mighty acts of mercy toward us to the world. We have been called in order to be sent. We are the ones who get to make the connection between the Triune God and the world of lost humanity.

Welcome George Gillam! George is a graduate of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is licensed to preach by the United Methodist Church. George currently works as the Operations Manager at the UpLIFTD. Thanks to a grant from our Session, George also works part time in urban ministry under the auspices of First Presbyterian Church and Whitney Alexander. His experience as a prisoner in Angola for 25 years give him a unique effectiveness with youth.

When you come to Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you have as much of Christ as you ever will. He has made sure of that. The question is how much of you have you given to Christ? Is there room in your boat?

Isaiah envisioned the redeemed people as being the result of God's own gardening efforts in the world. The LORD calls us "the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified” (60: 21). The LORD is both the gardener and the ground in which we grow. He nourishes us with his life so that we become what we were made to be. God is the garden itself: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17: 28). His soil is filled with righteousness. This means that if our lives are grown in God, there will be an essential rightness, a wholeness, in all our living. We will be living from an organic relationship with God.

Before blame and shame, we let tears be tears. We just agree that this isn’t right. And then before our emotions are corrupted by an angry agenda, we embrace. And we say, “I am in this with you. We’re together.” Because the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases. He calls a people to himself, and then sends us to suffer alongside the suffering. In a thousand, thousand ways, from that place of tearful love, we discover how to live out the name, “Repairer of the Breach." Keep claiming the tears of Christ. Keep praying for your enemies and your friends. Keep calling up faith in the mercies of Christ. Keep repairing the breach in his name. It’s how God see us. It’s who we are.

Delight is a word full of pleasure, surprise and laughter. Delight can make you belly laugh or even feel for a moment that you’ve tasted heaven. If we knew God’s delight, what would change in us?