Episode #37

Anyone with a human heart would counsel the discouraged church planter to throw in the towel and come home. 

Here’s the thing; the way to plant a church is to keep on doing it. It won’t get done unless someone keeps at it. Church planting is not just hard, it is impossible. If God doesn’t step in the whole work is hopeless. But God does step in. God honors faithfulness.

I can’t tell you how many times I would have quit if only I had had someone to give me permission. Fact was, I didn’t. I didn’t come from a larger, established church. I came out of a church plant that had come out of a church plant. If I had called my sending pastor to bellyache about how difficult it was … well, I just would not have done that. He was in the very same difficult spot I was. We could commiserate together, but there was no use going back home. It wasn’t any easier there.

 

To my listeners

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For more than 4100 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

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Episode #36

What a big deal was made of what Jesus did.

Nothing much has changed these two thousand years. Some people still find great benefit in Christ. Some find hope in the work of Christ in others. However some are threatened by Christ’s work, some see it as superstition and some believe it to be of the devil.

Those of us who have been helped by faith in Christ simply enjoy what God has accomplished in us.

 

 

 

To my listeners

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For more than 4100 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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The other day I watched a man perform what I am confident he believed was a service to God. He did what he did:

* Faithfully

* Cheerfully and

* With great talent

He was able to demonstrate at the same time skill and humility. 

Some would say he is spiritually gifted.

 

To my listeners

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For more than 4100 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:

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One of the great devices of Satan, and one that is frequently employed right now, is that of elevating the many religions and, indeed, no religion at all to the same place as Christianity. To imply that the Christian faith is a better faith, a higher faith, or even more true than a different faith is tantamount to hate speech these days.

…

We are losing perspective as Baptists. We are coming down to the level of Protestants and, in doing so, we are lessening the value of the work we do, even if we think we are doing more work.

 

To my listeners

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For more than 4100 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:

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My author Page for Kindle/Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

 

Nehemiah 6:1-3 I Cannot Come Down

My son, Pastor Caleb McKenzie, preached a powerful message on The Victorious Christian life May 9, 2018. If you can get a copy of the message, you should. His message, based on the book of Joshua, outlines three steps to victory:

* Put away your past

* Put your trust in God

* Put yourself on God’s side

The issue of authority was big then as it is now. In our day people are taught to question authority. I suppose it has never been that much different. But that authority is a necessary element of civilized people is obvious to all but the basest of anarchists. The origin of authority is varied:

There is enforced authority

Such as that of the police; the authority is demanded because of a badge. Sometimes the man with this authority is as guilty as those he may be policing. His own integrity has little to do with his authority. In some instances to challenge his authority is in itself a crime.

There is inherited authority

Such as belongs to a military officer whose authority is the result of an education and commission.

There is earned authority

When a man has proven himself a leader and those who may have at first followed out of duty begin to follow out of devotion.

There is voluntary authority

When people follow a man because they believe in his cause or His message.

The highest of all authority is that which is given by God

It is seldom (except in the case of government which is ordained of God) forced upon its subjects.

 

To my listeners

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For more than 4100 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:

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My author Page for Kindle/Amazon

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Everywhere we look these days it seems like there is someone else screaming about the injustices of the United States.

* We were terrible to the blacks

* We were terrible to the native Americans 

* We were terrible to the poor

* We were terrible to the Chinese 

Turns out Columbus was a bad person. So was, the way many tell it today, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln. Oh forget it! It’s useless trying to name all the scum that has surfaced in the history of the US.

But I listened to the final episode of a podcast called Revolutions. The host did not publicly note the significance of this, but he did remark that, in 1848, at the bitter end of all the world revolutions of that year, all of those failed revolutionaries fled for their lives to, you guessed it, the United States.

Truth be told they weren’t the only ones making their way to America. They came from Spain, France, Russia, Ireland, Germany. Name the place, name the culture, name the race creed or religion and you will find people from them who came here for a better life.

Did it work out for everyone? Of course not. Success in life is not guaranteed by governments, no matter how beneficent. But they did come and they did have a chance and many more of them than not did improved their place over where they had been.

No one has ever claimed the earliest people in our country were perfect. But I for one am still thankful for the country they created and I am thankful to be a part of it.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag

Of the United States of America

And to the republic for which it stands

One nation under God, indivisible

With liberty and justice for all”

Bad is nondescript.

It is a negative without any definitive reason. It’s a word that is used when we can’t think of anything more specific to say.

 

To my listeners

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For more than 4100 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:

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My author Page for Kindle/Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

 

Here’s the thing, there is nothing in the Bible that has ever been scientifically proven to be false. Nothing. 

* Not archeologically 

* Not anthropologically

* Not historically 

Nothing 

Not even evolution. Though evolution is almost universally accepted in the scientific community there is a great deal of disagreement in evolutionary theory. That is, as much as the atheist and agnostic hates to admit it, because there is no scientific proof for it. No one has ever observed or replicated an evolutionary process. 

They say that the early bird catches the worm.

The Bible says these women came to the sepulchre of Jesus “very early in the morning.” Not just early, I would have still respected that, but very early.

 

To my listeners

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For more than 4100 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:

My author spotlight at Lulu.com:

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/marvinmckenzie

My author Page for Kindle/Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie