“PASTOR”…..A MOST HOLY AND SACRED CALL FROM GOD

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors  and  teachers, for the equipping  of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying unity of the  body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to be a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;  that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does it’s share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love”  Ephesians 4:11—16 (NKJV)

*PASTOR—(The original meaning of the word was shepherd, and in this sense it is sometimes used in the Bible.  The Eastern shepherd must both protect  and feed his sheep—so there is a derived meaning of spiritual leader, minister, one given charge of a church of Christ, to care for spiritual interests of the people and feed their souls with spiritual food.  This meaning also is found in the Bible) *this notation is taken from Cruden’s Complete Concordance.

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Psalm 23:1 (NKJV)

This is a tribute to my Pastor Dr. Thomas Batts, his wife Lynda who is our Choir Director, Musical’s Coordinator and our Women’s Ministries leader and Todd their son who is our Worship Leader and also works tirelessly with our growing Youth Group.  Also Included in our Pastoral Staff is our Youth Ministries Pastor, Rev. C.J. Fussell. Brother Fussell has such a burning and compelling desire that each youth accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior at an early age.

I could never begin to list all of the wonderful and individual things that Dr. Batts and his precious wife Lynda, their son Todd and C.J. Fussell have brought to our congregation.  Each one has God given ministries, that work together to make our church a complete WHOLE in Jesus Christ.

I am speaking for each member of Welcome Assembly of God, as I invite you to be in attendance tomorrow, September 21, 2014.  Our Sunday School begins at 9:30 (csdt) and our Morning Worship will begin at 10:30 (csdt).  Immediately after the Morning Worship service, we will share a meal together, so bring your favorite veggies, casseroles, pies, cakes and all things good to eat  The entrée’ will be provided by the Church.

WE LOVE YOU Dr. Batts, Precious (Lynda), Todd and C.J.   We all pray that God will let you continue to be our Pastor’s until Jesus Christ calls us home in the rapture of His Church.

With love and blessings, Gloria

Copyright 2014 Gloria B. Powell. All rights reserved.

SEEING THE FACE OF JESUS

After praying this morning, I found myself just meditating and thinking on Jesus, how real He is to me, how much I love Him, trying to count His blessings to me.  I finally gave up because there are so many blessings that He gives that we do not even know about.  He keeps us safe and secure in His care; His eyes are always on His children.

I think of Jesus as a perfect specimen of a young man, one without any physical or mental flaw.

I try to picture that wonderful face. In my mind I could see His chin, a strong chin, and one that was set, and deliberate about being faithful to do His Father’s business.

His teeth, beautiful and white against his sun tanned skin, He was a carpenter, so I believe He spent the biggest part of His time out of doors, making things as His earthly father before Him had taught Him. So I believe He had a strong suntanned face and arms.

His lips, I always see Him smiling, or saying, “I love you, I forgive you.”

His nose, a strong, straight nose , the nose of a king, because He is The King of kings.

Then I see His eyes, and it almost stops my heart.  His eyes so full of love for ALL mankind.  So full of mercy, mercy like no other has ever had or ever will have.

Then my mind goes to the Jesus that gave His ALL for me and all mankind.

A  man that after much prayer and agony over what lay ahead, said, “Not My Will but Thy Will be done Father.”  He had been given peace from God and He was willing to give His ALL, because it was the only way to pay once and for all, for the sins and transgressions of all mankind.

He faced a mocking court and was accused of  false charges, but He submitted to the verdict of the court.

He was beaten and marred as no other man.  With a torn, beaten, bloody body, a cruel, brutal crown of thorns tearing His head and scalp into shreds as He was mocked by the crowds.  His Mind and His Spirit were completely One with His Father God.

As he walked to Calvary, and was nailed to the cross, I still see His eyes of love and mercy, I hear Him say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  I hear Him say, “It is finished. Father into thy hands I commit my Spirit.”

Please commit your life to Jesus Christ who died for anyone that will accept Him as their Lord and Savior.

Blessings Gloria,

Copyright 2014 Gloria B. Powell. All rights reserved.

GOD WILL GIVE YOU PEACE

“Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always in every way.  The Lord be with you all.” 

II Thessalonians 3:16 NKJV

God will give us the peace that passes ALL understanding; if we will allow Him to do so.

When we’re willing to live in and by the All Powerful Peace of God, we can have His Peace. We give aside our ways of trying to figure out things.  How to make 2 + 2 = 4; how to make all the loose ends come together.

There is no peace in constantly trying to “one-up” God on how to make life’s problems and situations work.  There is no joy, no peace, no constant relying on God as our Source. If anything, we are actually relying on ourselves and only using God as our “standby”.

God sees us as we go to and fro trying to “make a way”, trying to “pull it all together.”  We become so consumed with the problem we forget that this is completely against God’s will for our lives.  We can never solve our problems the way God wants, because only He knows our future.

His Word says to us, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28-30 NKJV

This means we are to STOP trying to be the God of our life.  Just be His child and let Him be God. And let Him be IN CONTROL.

The equation has to be in the correct order.  His is God, we are His child.  We depend on Him.  He is Almighty.  He depends on NO-ONE.  HE IS THE ANSWER TO EVERY PROBLEM!

We hurt and injure His Holy Spirit when we try putting ourselves in His Place.  The Holy Spirit is constantly hovering over us just trying to get us to STOP trying to be the problem solver, and just let Him have control of everything; and I do mean EVERYTHING!

Nothing is too large or too small and insignificant for Him!  This is the way and the ONLY way that the God-man relationship can and will work. He is God, we are His children.  Oh! What peace we forfeit when we do not “let go and let God” be completely in charge of our lives. 

The only thing that God does want us to do is have a constant praise on our lips and a prayer in our hearts, because no matter what is going on in our life, we can trust God to be the Captain at the helm of our life boat.  He will steer us through the storm and into calm waters.   

Blessings Gloria

© Copyrite 2014   all rights reserved Gloria Powell

ALWAYS ABIDE IN HIM, WHO LOVED YOU FROM THE BEGINNING

“Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning.  If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.  And this is the promise that He has promised us—eternal life.” 1 John 2:24 NKJV

Oh, Lord I realize that I am guilty of wanting to abide with you only in the circumstances I choose for me, instead of being comfortable to abide with you in Your Choice of circumstances for me.

Jesus was always willing to abide with and in You in the circumstances You chose for Him.  That is why there was always an unbroken abiding between The Father and The Son.

When I was saved by the Atonement for my sins by Jesus Christ giving His life on the cross in my place for my sins; I have to begin the act and life style of abiding in You.

There are so many hindrances that seem to get in the way of praying and reading The Word of God.

I have to discipline my mind and my body to be persistent to abide with You through and in the middle of any circumstance that is going on at the moment.

In circumstances where we are uncomfortable when we are not in our comfort zone of our own choosing.  I must give these things over to Him, and determine to abide with Him.

As we grow in our faith in Him and learn to trust Him in any circumstance; abiding with and in Him becomes so much a part of us, His nature becomes our nature.

Determine to abide in Jesus wherever we are and we will find that Jesus will always lead and guide us through every situation. Remember the Book of Revelation shows us THAT IN THE END WE WIN, PRAISE THE LORD.

I DO NOT KNOW THE DEFINITE DAY OR HOUR HE IS COMING BACK BUT I DEFINITELY KNOW THAT HE IS COMING BACK FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM AND ARE LOOKING FOR HIM,

 Love and Blessings Gloria

Copyright 2014 Gloria B. Powell. All rights reserved.

'WE LOVE HIM. BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US" (KJV)

During my devotion time today, I was just sitting quietly thinking about how much God loved me before I even gave Him a thought. Oh, I believed there was a God and His Son is Jesus Christ, I mean you can’t be born in the Bible Belt, grow up and not be aware of God. I am talking about a PERSONAL  GOD, A MY OWN PERSONAL GOD RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM AND HIS SON JESUS AND THE HOLY SPIRIT. A deep down. life changing, mind changing whole way of thinking changing. relationship with GOD.

Have you ever just took the time to be quiet and think on all the ways that God loves us?   Ways that sometimes does not even seem important and we really never give them the thoughtfulness and thankfulness  they deserve.

Before the foundation of the world was laid, God chose the WORD which would become His only begotten Son, Jesus, (Immaneul, God With Us). born of a virgin as a human baby, grow up, live a sinless Earthly life  be betrayed and beaten and be sacrificed on the cross where He shed every drop of His Precious Blood  to pay the sin debt for each of us that would accept  His sacrifice for us and give our lives forever to Him, to serve Him and to proclaim Him as KING of KINGS and LORD of LORDS.

This was our debt that the perfect Son of God did not owe, and also our debt that there was no way we could ever pay.  But God did not have to persuade His Son to do this for us.  Jesus  FREELY, LOVINGLY AND IN PERFECT OBEDIENCE, TO HIS FATHER DID THIS FOR EACH OF US.  There is no way we can ever pay for even ONE DROP OF BLOOD  that Jesus shed  for our sins.

Precious reader if you do not have that special life changing relationship with God the Father, God the Son Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit, just stop right now and accept with all you heart, your mind your intellect and all of your being the forgiveness of your past sins and become new in the Lord Jesus and from this moment on live each moment for Him.  He is coming soon and very soon for a people that are looking for Him, are you one of these, Oh, how I hope you are.

God’s Blessings and His Love to you,  My Love  Also, Gloria

(C) Copyright 2014 Gloria B. Powell. All rights reserved.

New Years Promise from the WORD of GOD

“For I know the plans I have for you ,” declares the LORD, “ plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you  hope and a future.”  Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

Jeremiah 29:11 has been my verse in God’s WORD to start the New Year for many years.

The very first time I read this verse It captured my spirit and dropped into my heart just what and who God REALLY is to me.

Even though our earthly father’s love us with all their hearts, they cannot always keep every promise they make to us because they are earthly. But GOD ALMIGHTY CANNOT AND WILL NEVER FAIL US.

This verse helped me to see and believe that God would NEVER deliberately let me down, or forget what He had promised me.  He would never deliberately hurt or disappoint me.

His plans for us are not to harm us, but to give us a hope and a future.  I also love the way the KJV version reads;

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thought of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

God, from the very beginning of time knew when we would be born into this world and He already had a plan for us.

No, the verse does not promise me a life on easy street or that I would never have any problems or obstacles to overcome.  But He did promise in this verse that his plan was to spiritually and physically prosper me out of the problems and to give me a future and a hope beyond any trouble or trial I may face in this life.

The ultimate promise from God is that when this earthly life is over, if we have made our self secure in the blood of His Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, we will live with HIM forever with out end. 

Dear Reader there is no better promise to us in this world than this.

I do wish you a Happy New Year with all my heart, may this be the best year you have ever experienced in God, and who knows, He may come for us in 2014.

Blessings, Gloria

I do not know exactly when HE is Coming, but I DO KNOW that HE  IS COMING!!

Copyright 2014 Gloria B. Powell. All rights reserved.

JOY TO THE WORLD

“Shout out praises to the LORD, all the earth!  Worship the LORD with joy! Enter His presence with joyful singing! Acknowledge that the LORD is God.”   Psalm 100:1-3 ( The NET Bible)

There are so many, many things that can be written about CHRISTMAS.  I have been praying and studying for a post for December about Christmas.  I felt like my mind was just rolling with ideas about what to write.

This morning I started into Shug’s den to ask him what his favorite Christmas Carole is, and It Hit Me, like a vision in my mind, I heard “Joy to the World the Lord Is Come.”!! (I do not remember who wrote the song as many times as I have sung it.)

Until the birth of  the Messiah the whole world was wondering around in spiritual darkness and most of them did not even realize their situation.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.  For to us a child is born to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders And he will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.” Isaiah 9:2,6,7  (NIV Bible)

Precious reader this Baby boy, born of a virgin girl, grew up, lived a SINLESS LIFE, and in Father Gods time, willingly spilled every drop of His blood by the use of a tortuous whipping by the prison guards.  On the cross a spear was used to pierce His side, He was nailed in His Hands and in His Feet, to the cross where He willingly gave up His life and died on that cross. This was the most horrible shameful death; used for the most foulest of criminal’s.  Jesus who had not a single sin in His life ever spoke one word of anger or hate. Why?  Why?  Because He LOVED mankind enough to endure the shame of the cross to make a way for us to be reconciled to a Holy God, His Father.

The story does not end with His death of love for us.  In three days HE AROSE from death to life.  If anyone will accept His sacrifice He so willingly gave for all mankind on the cross and let His blood cover our black sins.  He will wash us white as snow.  When He comes in the clouds for His children please make plans to be one of them; to go to live with Him for all eternity.

I do hope you have a blessed and wonderful Christmas.

Please remember that Jesus IS the  ONLY REASON for this SEASON.

Copyright 2013 Gloria B. Powell. All rights reserved.