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Contributing Writers: Mike Mills, Spring Hill Church | Doug Fincher | Pastor Randy and Sue Smith | Mike Belgard | Tim Perkins
Faith
December 12, 2019 - Mount Calvary Full Gospel Church of Shelbyville will host their Christmas program on Sunday, December 15 at 6pm. The Christmas program is "O Come Let Us Adore Him." Food and refreshments will be served after the program. The church is located at 5525 FM 417 East, Shelbyville, Texas 75973.
December 12, 2019 - Strong Triumph Church, under the leadership of Elder Faye Dell Allen, invites everyone to join them in their Joyous Christmas Revival which will take place on December 20-22.
Speakers for each night will be:
- Friday night, Dec. 20th at 7pm - Rev. Javoris Gatlin, pastor of New Life COGIC, Bonham, Texas;
- Saturday night, Dec. 21st at 7pm - Rev. Richard McCowin, pastor of Lone Star Baptist Church, Chandler, Texas
- Sunday afternoon, Dec 22nd at 3pm - Prince Archie Thompson, Shepherd of Triumph Church, Todd Springs Community
The theme for the revival is Romans 15:13: "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost."
For more information, please contact Elder Faye Dell Allen at 936-368-2611 / 936-572-5810.
December 12, 2019 - Please come celebrate Praise 2019 with us on Saturday, December 14th, 2019!
This fundraiser will include an evening of live singing, silent and live auctions, drinks and refreshments, and door prizes! Praise 2019 will begin at 6:00 pm at the Senior Nutrition Site.
We are proud to announce just some of the items we will have for our live auction! You can place your bid on great items such as a Texas A&M Rocking Chair, Propane BBQ Pit, Ruger 22 Rifle, Signed Woodrow Foster Prints, Paintings from DavMar Art Gallery, 2-night stay at Holly Park Marina, Designer Sunglasses, 2-night stay at Pine Creek Lodge, and more!!! Door prizes will also be drawn throughout the night. You do not need to be present to win. Your purchase of a ticket will qualify you for the door prize drawings.
Praise 2019 tickets can be purchased at Shelby County Outreach Ministries. They are $10 each. We need your help. This event will help continue in feeding the hungry and assisting the needy of Shelby County. For more information, please give us a call at 936-598-4990.
“Tis a sad, sad story they relate, These weak and foolish beings, Who never get through the day, But someone hurt their feelings.”
December 11, 2019 - Injured feelings are given as an excuse for a lot of wrong doing. Alcoholics have used hurt feelings as an excuse for going on another binge and not a few Christians have forsaken the church because some member of the church hurt their feelings.
Let’s face it, there are tactless, ill-mannered people who are forever saying crude and harsh things that would puncture the feelings of most anyone. Yet, it matters little what people of this disposition say or do. No life has ever been lived without a few knocks. If every sensible adult would stand firm and fight their own battles with life, each little knock would leave them stronger and more knowledgeable than before. Remember, kites rise against the wind, not with the wind.
Hurt feelings usually spring from a well of self-pity and folks, life is too short to spend one minute in self-pity, or in seeking after the pity and sympathy of others. We must make sure we are not one of those tactless people who needlessly hurt the feelings of others, and we must also make sure we don’t “wear our feelings on our sleeve” just waiting for someone to hurt them.
It’s something to think about… tbp
Join us for worship this coming Lord’s day at the Center Church of Christ, 110 Hurst Street, Center, Texas or online at www.centerchurchofchrist.com
December 11, 2019 - The Pastor and Members of Carroll Chapel CME Church in Shelbyville would like to invite you to our Family and Friend Day Program on Sunday, December 15, 2019 at 3pm.
Our Guest Speaker will be Pastor La`Shan Hayter of The St. Mark CME Church in Shelbyville. Everyone is invited.
December 10, 2019 - (Click here to view the updated program) - Everyone is invited to attend Sacred Sounds of the Season Tuesday, December 10 at 6:00 PM in the Center First United Methodist Church sanctuary. Choirs and individuals from across Shelby county will perform musical offerings that celebrate birth of Christ in this holy Christmas season.
More Bibles have been bought and sold than any other book ever written.
This is good for within the contents of this book are all of the answers to the questions of life and death, of salvation and loss, of right and wrong, all questions can be answered by the study of God's Word.
There is a poem within the Bible entitled, "A Time For Everything" written by the great king Solomon, the man credited with being the wisest man who has ever lived.
It begins, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:" (Ecclesiastes 3:1)
There is much to be learned from the lines of this poem, (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8), it is most definitely worth your time to read and contemplate upon for it covers all of the works of man on earth, all of the seasons, not of weather, but of life.
The poem and its surrounding verses teach much of the life of man from his birth to his death and all points, past and yet to come.
We find from our studies that life is full of vanity, of false hopes and disappointments and that the only lasting things come from God, that only God and his holy plan for mankind are permanent, all else is vanity, a chasing after the wind.
"What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with." (Ecclesiastes 3:9-10)
God has placed mankind upon this earth and has given him work to keep him busy and out of trouble in life and God has given man a beautiful place in which to reside, as we look around us at God's creations we should marvel at his greatness and his glory.
"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God had done from the beginning to the end." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
God has put the longing for salvation into all people's hearts for without that yearning for something besides what we have from birth, we would die in our unrighteousness never knowing what was available to all who would simply ask.
"Ask, and it will be given you, seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7)
God has also given us a knowledge of eternity, a question of enormous proportions that cannot be answered in its entirety here on earth for we are not God and are not to know all that God knows. We are only the clay, he is the potter who molds the clay into useful vessels. Adam and Eve lost their sanctuary in the Garden of Eden because they wanted to "be like God" as promised by the devil in his deception of Eve.
It is no different today, we always want more, but is that God's plan for us.
"I perceive that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil - this is God's gift to man." (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13)
Why is man meant to work for his living, that he can appreciate what that God has given him and be happy and joyful in it. People who refuse to do as God intends will find themselves living miserable lives no matter how rich or how poor. Be thankful for what God has given you, not bitter for what you do not have for if you love God and obey his will all good things will be given you.
"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)
"I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him." (Ecclesiastes 3:14)
All else is vanity, a chasing after the wind!
December 9, 2019 - Grace and peace from our brother and savior, Jesus, Amen. Thursday morning my four-legged friends, Sam and Gunter, went to the city park with me for our morning walk. On Wednesday, I was all bundled up, but that morning I didn’t even need a jacket. It is too good to last, so I will just enjoy it while I can. On Saturday Sue and I went to the Arbor Assisted Living in Nacogdoches and had Christmas Brunch with Sue’s mom, Dixie. We enjoyed visiting with Dixie and Amy, Sue’s sister. We also met some very nice folks sitting with us at the table. Later that day we went to the Joaquin Christmas Festival. Downtown Joaquin was bustling, and we saw many friends there including many from our old church, First United Methodist Church of Joaquin.
Christmas will be here before we know it: Sunday is the Second Sunday of Advent. The Paxton Community Christmas Program and Dinner is Tuesday, December 17th at 6:00. We have had to alter our schedule for our monthly programs to area nursing homes due to the holidays. Our Focused Care ministry will be this Thursday at 2:00. We hope that you can join us as we will sing Christmas carols and listen to stories of faith and this special season. During this month, Paxton Methodists are collecting cans of soup to take to Community Christian Services. Each month we collect a different non-perishable item for the food bank at CCS.
Fannie had a really good Sunday School lesson for us today. The main focus was how faith and hope are tied together. Our author says that when our childish ways of religion are stripped away, two things that remain to us as adults are faith and hope. Our author said, “It is with confidence, as Fredrick Buechner put it, that we can say that the “worst thing” isn’t the “last thing”—the last thing is always hope.”
Two of the Gospels have genealogies. Matthew and Luke both have a miraculous birth story, and both have family trees tracing Jesus back to Father Abraham and to the royal house of David. The two are different from each other, however. We are in a year of Matthew in the Common Lectionary, so I decided to preach on Matthew’s genealogy. I usually stay far away from those strange-sounding names. But this is how Matthew begins his gospel, so it is obviously very important to him. An odd feature of his lineage is that he includes four women in his list—and controversial ones at that. This is peculiar for the time period; yet I think it is quite telling of the early Jesus movement and what Jesus thought was important.
Whoever you are, in whatever faith you were born, whatever creed you profess; if you come to this house to find God you are welcome here.” Paxton United Methodist Church is an inviting church that takes to heart the idea of “Open Doors, Open Hearts, and Open Minds.” Sunday School starts at 9:30 and Worship begins at 10:00. Our email address is paxtonumc@yahoo.com. If you would like the weekly email newsletter about Paxton Methodist you can send me your email address to the Paxton email address and I will add you to the list. God’s Speed.
Randy & Sue Smith/Paxton United Methodist Church
"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1)
December 3, 2019 - Almighty God is my shield in battle every day as I go through this wicked world, is there anything of this world that is stronger than He? NO, God is bigger than the world, stronger than the universe, for all who follow him there is the comfort of knowing that He is in charge of all things.
For those who seek to do me harm; "When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall." (Psalm 27:2)
Who shall stand against the Lord, NO ONE! For He is God and there is none other. For the blessed of the Lord there is peace and joy, even in this world of sin and evil.
"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling." (Psalm 46:1-3)
Even when the earth and the heavens are destroyed and the lost fear and tremble and run for the hills to hide, the blessed of the Lord will rejoice for the time comes closer when we will all be forever at home with the Lord.
"You have said, "Seek my face." My heart says to you, "Your face, Lord, do I seek." (Psalm 27:8)
All that God asks is that we seek his face, that we call on him for salvation and redemption from our sinful lives.
"Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you, for everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened." (Matthew 7:7-8)
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me." (Revelation 3:20)
All one must do is to allow the Lord Jesus Christ to come into one's heart, to cleanse his heart off all sin and shame and to accept one into the kingdom of God, forever. Do you seek after the Lord? Do you live in that emptiness that is to be apart from the Lord? Seek and you will find!
"One thing that I asked of the Lord, that I will seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple." (Psalm 27:4)
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)
If you seek to dwell in the house of the Lord forever, then you must first accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior for there Is no other way into the kingdom of God except through him.
How must I come to accept Jesus as my Lord?
"If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9)
Do you believe today that God raised him from the dead? If so, then finish the verse, "confess with you mouth that Jesus is Lord", and you will be saved, today and forever...
December 2, 2019 - Several local talents are scheduled to present live music entertainment during the Christmas Festival on Saturday, December 7th in downtown Joaquin. Beginning at 10:30 to kick off the festivities Mark Lawrence is inviting everyone to join in singing Christmas Carols an old fashioned Sing A Long to get everyone in a festive mood! Mark Lawrence is an accomplished vocalist and musician. Most know him as Coach Lawrence.
At 11am Sherry Lee (Morris) with Family and Friends will present a mixture of secular and Gospel Christmas Favorites. Sherry Lee (Morris) has performed many years traveling the U.S. and producing shows. She is a graduate of Joaquin. Rest of the group (Cox-Lambert Family) and friends are also graduates of Joaquin.
At 12:00 noon Trey Wilson performs. Trey Wilson is graduate of Joaquin and has performed in Branson as well as many other places.
These are accomplished musicians, composers and vocalists. Come on out and support these Joaquin Alumni who are joining us for this day of festivities. This is just part of the activities planned for the day. Hope to see you there!
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