First Baptist Church Cedar Vale

  Dear Campers and Student Pastors,   I know we are in the throws of camp right now and I’m excited for that fact.   But can I caution all of us?   The push to ‘rededicate your life’ is going to be real.   The push to rush to the alter and pray a prayer of rededication is going to be prevalent in your camp experience.     The doctrine or teaching of ‘rededication’ is not taught anywhere in the scriptures.   The idea of rededication was thought up by some well meaning person, I’m sure, but what it does is lesson the weight and gravity of sin and makes it easier for a person to ‘come forward’ which is one of the biggest measuring metrics a camp has.     Pastors and student Pastors I would encourage you NOT to pressure or even present this as a viable option for your students.   Rather, present what is biblical for young believers in their walk when they are convicted by a sermon.   REPENTANCE.    I know that the p...

  It’s easy to take our spouses for granted.  It’s easy to pick apart flaws in the person you married. For some reason, this inclination comes naturally to us.  It’s difficult to praise our spouses. For some reason, it’s hard for us to see the good and focus on that good over the bad. Bottom line, it’s because of sin, which has fractured everything in our world.  However, that is not an excuse that we should snuggle up to in hopes of being proven right. We have to make war on our sinful nature. We have to rise above what comes naturally to us. So I listed three different ways we can see the best in our spouses, three ways we can change our marriages. 1.  When your spouse messes up  (and they will) be ready to show the kind of Grace that has been extended to you by Jesus Christ. “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful”  (Luke 6:36). I want you to honestly think about this for a moment. How often does Jesus forgive you?...

  Football season is over after the BIG GAME tomorrow. Men all over the country are in mourning. The thing that really just blows my mind is how we as men take this thing called football so seriously.  I know men who know every stat and every ounce of information that they can possibly know about certain players or teams, and the sad thing is, they don’t really even know these players personally. If I knew everything there was to know about you and your job…like what time you took breaks and your title and how well you did your job, you’d be totally creeped out, right?   But yet we are OK with doing this with football players and sports guys in general. I think we need to take a hard look at how much time we spend focusing on these men. Look at these verses,  “ fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer, and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Co...

   I woke up with this verse on my heart. ‘Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!’ -2 Cor. 13:5 I grew up in the church. My dad is a pastor. I have been around the church world my entire life. I went to church camp; I went to youth retreats; I walked to the front of a church; I prayed prayers…I did all that stuff. It was not until the summer of 1998 that it truly connected, and made sense.  The pastor  was preaching out of this text: ‘Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!’ -2 Cor. 13:5 ‘TEST YOURSELF.’ Then he went to the following text…. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are fu...

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates  – Deut. 6:5-9. We live in a “Christian parent culture” that, by process of elimination, is teaching by example. In and of itself, this is what we are called to do. We are to lead our kids. We are to show them what it looks like to love Jesus. We are to show them what it looks like to love the church and to truly be committed to the body local of Christ. But there is a problem. The stats are showing something different. More than 80 percent of students are walking away from...

  We've all heard the saying 'To forgive is divine...' but the thing I think we forget most of the time is that we are to imitate that divine action.  ( Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.  Ephesians 5:1 ). What a way we are to imitate God?   I'm glad you asked. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.  Ephesians 4:32 We should keep short accounts.  We should be willing to forgive often because we've been forgiven often.   So what happens when we don't forgive others? When we don't forgive we lose sleep.   Sleep is something that God has given us as a gift!    In fact  Jesus has given us the mandate to rest ...and when we live in a state of bitterness our rest is blocked.    When we don't forgive our health goes downhill.   According to the  MAYO CLINIC  these are some of the things that happen when we don't exte...

The fight is real. I am watching it in real-time. I am seeing the warning signs that are telling us we are almost at the point of no return. What is it that I’m referring to? Our view of God, the Bible, and humanity. Let me explain. Theological liberalism has crept into the church, and it’s destroying us. I’m not talking about a political party. Although that is problematic, it's not the main issue.  I’m talking about our worldviews. How we view God, the Bible, and humanity actually matters.  We have seen in just a couple of weeks Christian “leaders” step out and denounce their Christian faith and say they are no longer Christians. This entire thought process is foreign to me and the people in the Bible. Men and women who truly encounter the God of the universe were transformed. Let me be incredibly clear.  These “Christian leaders” were NOT Christians. God’s Word proves this.   “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antic...