Teague Bible Church

Please join us in today’s word. And let us know what you think….either in our comment section or in person at our next service. Join us every Sunday at our new worship times–9:30am for Sunday School and at 10:45am for Worship Service. We’d love to see you here!

Please join us in today’s word. And let us know what you think….either in our comment section or in person at our next service. Join us every Sunday at our new worship times–9:30am for Sunday School and at 10:45am for Worship Service. We’d love to see you here!

Please join us in today’s word. And let us know what you think….either in our comment section or in person at our next service. Join us every Sunday at our new worship times–9:30am for Sunday School and at 10:45am for Worship Service. We’d love to see you here!

ONE MORE LIGHT GONE
While in a building the other day I hear this great song of longing. I have heard it many times since. The song is called “One More Light,” by Linkin Park. The world gives no power to overcome the thing that mocks all our activities and all our achievements. Even if you care, it is not enough.

This world was never enough to satisfy our eternal nature. Only the Word of God can help us to live with power and purpose now, as we face temporal death, then beyond to all we were really intended to be. It is not fair to taste good things only to have them all ripped away by death. This song was written to remember someone lost to cancer. It is especially hard is to lose a loved one.

We may care but who can do anything about it? What the world cannot answer or give, Jesus Christ can give. The power and life of a future kingdom living now in our hearts and making since of this temporal life. Not some wishful hope, but an actual reality proved out in history before us! We will get to that later, but first to the song.

“Should’ve stayed, were there signs, I ignored? Can I help you, not to hurt, anymore? We saw brilliance, when the world, was asleep. There are things that we can have, but can’t keep.

(CHORUS) If they say, who cares if one more light goes out in the sky of a million stars, it flickers, flickers. Who care when someone’s time runs out if a moment is all we are, or quicker, quicker. Who cares if one more light goes out? Well I do.

The reminders, pull the floor from your feet. In the kitchen, one more chair than you need. Oh, your angry, and you should be,
it’s not fair. Just cause you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it, isn’t fair.
CHORUS again.

This song was released a few months after the singer took his own life. He had said he could not end the voices in his head. He was very depressed.

In John 11 we see Lazarus had died. The grief was terrible and it so moved Jesus that he wept. Martha knew Jesus could have prevented the death if he had been there in time. Jesus deliberately delayed his arrival there for a greater purpose. He cared, but unlike others He could do something about it. Besides, what good is done just to delay the inevitable?

John 11: 23-27 “Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to Him,’ I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live ( spiritually, and eventually a new body also) even if he dies (physically), and everyone who lives (physically) and believes in Me will never die (spiritually). Do you believe this?
Now that makes since of all the loss and all the pain. Will somebody do something about all this misery? Yes they have. The situation was so desperate that only the bloody cross of Christ could bring a solution. Only the resurrection could infuse a new life in us that fills us with joy, and the power of a message that goes way beyond just caring when others are hurting.

Somehow, I am not sure how, for any who will cry out to Jesus for help, they get that help! They was a guy in the Bible who so willing to do whatever he needed to do to have this changed life, so willing to follow Jesus, yet had so many doubts about it that he cried out,” Please Lord, help my unbelief!”

It is not about how many people have lived and died, but rather about crossing over into eternal life right now, right this moment.
Look, He is either really there are He is not. How willing are you to find out? It is a free gift given but you have to fully grasp it as it is held out to you! Are you for real? He certainly is for real. Do this now and find out. ” All who call upon the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10: 8-13 JWP 12/15/17

BARE MINIMUM ?
In 1975 I worked, part-time, at Auto Convoy in Dallas. Two of us believers made it a point to not isolate ourselves from the others at lunchtime. Some of the guys, however, wanted to smoke dope at their lunch time, hidden away in their car from the rest of the crew. We were not invited, of course, and we sat in a car right beside them and had a Bible study time, and ate our lunch.
One day, when lunch was done, a man from the “smoking car” ask what we had been doing at our lunch break. My Christian brother told him. The man said he believed as we did, but did not restrain himself from any pleasure, as we did. In fact, he ask us,” What is the bare minimum to follow Jesus?”
In a speech I will never forget, my Christian friend said this to him; ” _____, Nobody who knows anything about Jesus would ask that question! He was murdered on a cross for you, and you casually ask, as you stand here stoned out of your mind, ‘what is the bare minimum?’ ”
I have never felt such love and rebuke coming from the Holy Spirit, through my friend. The closest thing I could give, in relationship to it was Jesus’ speech in Matthew 23. Please go read that!
My friend began to cry; and I began to cry. It was a powerful and overwhelming moment. The unbeliever understood a reality that day that could not be denied. I never know what happened to the man in the “smoking car” after a few years passed. I hope he turned to Christ. I know that day he was touched by the tender call of the Holy Spirit to repent and believe.
We, as Christians, have to continue to make sever breaks away from the lust of the world to be effective in our witness for Christ. Simply saying we will “try harder next time” to keep our heart clean, will not cut it! You have to surrender again to do God’s will. Romans 12:1-2 is the only solution to walking in the power of the Spirit.
At the time, my friend and I were about 20 years old, and struggling ourselves to live a holy life. Yet, there is a difference in learning to become stable in your walk as a believer and saying what this man said. There is no hypocrisy in learning to grow from one level of maturity to the next.
God’s DNA has entered into every child of God and they have a supernatural hunger to grow in God’s character and purpose. Romans 8:28-39. Christians never ask. ” Hey, what is the bare minimum on this thing called the Christian life? I will try to work that into my schedule!”
” For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him. You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, who remembers You in Your ways.” Isaiah 64:4-5a. JWP 12/15/17