Encourager Article

"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' (Matthew 22:36-39 NASB)

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20 NASB)

I put these passages at the first of this article for a reason. We have lost focus! If I were to ask the question, “What does Welsh Memorial Baptist Church exist for?” I am sure I would get a variety of answers from different people. But, I want you to seriously ask yourself that question and think about your answer not from a personal stand-point but a biblical stand-point. What does the bible say about why we exist?

Personally, my answer would come from those two passages at the beginning of this article. I think it would look something like this on paper. “Welsh Memorial Baptist Church exist first, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind and to love our neighbor by tell them about the wonderful gift that God has given us in His son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, for our sins, and was raised on the third day so that we might have eternal life. We seek to baptize them by immersion and to build up all who come in the knowledge of God’s revealed word so that they can live the wonderful life that God has called them to live.”

The question is how do we loose focus in a church? My personal answer is when we start looking internally at ourselves and not eternally and what God desires. William Temple was right when he said, “A church is the only organization that exists primarily for the benefit of non-members.”

We do what we do as a church for those outside the church and leaving the results up to God. It’s like what is said in any evangelism training I have ever gone through, you sow the seed and leave the results up to God. I believe if we held 100 events every year that presented people with the truth of who Jesus is and no one trusted him as savior or came to our church we have been faithful in what God has commanded us to do.

You look at the story of Israel in scripture and that was exactly their problem. They got so self focused and forgot about the promise that God had given them, they would turn to sin and ultimately ended up in exile.

Anytime our church reaches out to the community we must not be focused on how it benefits our church! We must ask ourselves, have we been faithful in what God has called us to do? If we can answer yes to that question, then we have done what we need to do whether we see any benefit from it!

Let us go out and fulfill the Great Commandment and the Great Commission together and leave the results up to God!!!!!

Jacob Update

Jacob got home on Friday Auguat 20 and is doing really well. The miracle that happened is amazing to think about. He came through the surgery and originally the doctors were able to open up his pulmonary artery to 2mm, they were hoping for 4. A day later his lung collapsed and all blood flow was cut off. By the weekend the lung started to fill with air again and blood flow returned from other vessels. The pulmonary artery did not return to normal function. They are looking at going back in and hoping to open back up the artery in 2-3 months.

The doctors said it was a miracle that the lung came back. They were prepared to take the lung out. We know that miracle was the hand of God in His life.

Continue to pray for Jacob that God would help the Doctors know what to do and that his body would allow the pulmonary artery to work properly.

Prayer for Jacob

Today I am in Morgantown, West Virginia with a family from the church. Their son, Jacob, is four years old and is having his fourth open heart surgery. When he was born one of his arteries was not attached and his heart was not functioning correctly. He was rushed to the hospital here when he was baby and had his first surgery. Then six months later he had another surgery. Last year he had his third open heart surgery. Earlier this year the doctors realized his pulmonary artery to his left lung was blocked. In March he had a heart cath to see if they could unblock the artery and it failed.

Today he is having his fourth open heart surgery to see if they can repair the problem. Please pray for Jacob and his family BJ (Dad) Margie (Mom), Peyton (older sister), Gracie (Sister) and Mason (younger brother). The first four hours of the surgery is to get through all the scare tissue from the previous surgery.