A lot of big terms were thrown out about the tribulation and the millennium. Some people, and churches, base their entire belief system around what they believe are the “correct” interpretations regarding the end times. Sadly, these people are seeing the trees very close up and ignoring the forest. At Grace, we believe in the bodily return of Christ and the judgement of all of humanity. We can debate the specifics until Jesus’ return, but in the end, does it really matter to the steadfast believer when the millennium is? or the Tribulation? Watch out for those trees - they can blind you to the forest.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Jesus made that very clear to his disciples - only the Father knows the time, but that doesn’t stop us from trying to figure it out. Rather than spend all that time and energy in attempting to discern the time of Jesus’ return, we need to concentrate on being prepared for His return as if it could be any day. In Sunday’s message, Pastor Greg put it very succinctly: endure, be ready and be prepared - that is what Jesus said.

It should be noted (as Pastor did) that Jesus, who was alone, should not have been talking to a Samaritan woman of ill repute. Jesus, however, had no such misgivings as he knew her heart and what she needed. Rather than brow beat her about how much of a sinner she was and how she had messed up her life, Jesus started simply by asking questions. How does this relate to us?

If we are to truly reach out to other people, we need to inquire about them and learn their life situation. Rather than tell them how badly they need to repent and turn to God, we should tell them about what God is doing right now in our lives and in the world. As Pastor Greg said, nobody cares what happened to you 20 years ago unless it was you. How very true.

We are called to give generously, but how many of us give before we even feel the pinch? The woman in this passage gave all she had in this world to God. This is exactly the type of sacrificial giving that Christ calls his followers to practice.

For the entire message, please head over to its page and hear Bud expound on the widow and her mites.

What did the Sadducees ask Jesus? Well, you need to head on over to the message page and find out!

Instead, Jesus’ answer was remarkable: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Do religion and politics meld together or should they be completely separate? Pastor Greg tackles these and other issues in this week’s message: “Religion and Politics.”

How are you using your time money and abilities? Do you build yourself up or do you build up the Kingdom of God?

Check out the sermon outline and audio for today’s message.

For those of you with iPods or users of iTunes, you can now get the Sunday messages easily. Open iTunes on your computer, and click the podcasts link on the left-hand side under Library. Up at the top of iTunes, click on ‘Advanced’ and choose ‘Subscribe to Podcast’. A box will pop up asking for the URL, type in http://www.graceforme.com/feed/ and that should do it. Once you see Grace Bible Church, Holden Maine in iTunes, you can click the little white arrow to the left of the word Grace and that will show you all the podcasts you can download. I hope this helps whoever uses iTunes with their iPod. I, personally, don’t have one, but felt we needed to make this available.

For now, I have not been burning CDs of the service since the messages are available online. I am, however, saving all the services and have them available should anyone like a copy of a particular service. There has been little/no demand for CDs recently. So, if you would like a CD from any service, just ask me for it or drop me an email (srock@graceforme.com) and I would be happy to make them.

As always, if there are any problems with files or something not correct with the site, please let me know.

Steve Rock

Unfortunately, too many of us can identify with the Pharisee who desired God’s blessing because he fasted, tithed, and did what the law commanded him to do. Aren’t we sometimes guilty of the same thing? It is much easier to deny what is truly in our hearts than to repent for all we’ve done wrong.

Pastor Greg takes the issues head on with the message of today. We had a spartan crowd today, so please head over to the page for today’s message and have a listen. One point I took away from the passage of Scripture: God honors the humble.

How often do we approach God like the Pharisee as opposed to the tax collector?

As he mentioned during today’s message, there were points along they way that he could have easily quit, but he knew the Lord called him to Vanderbilt and was going to see it through to the end. It is very easy to give up when we don’t know how events in our lives will unfold, but God knows and He wants us to depend on Him for strength.

It was a very powerful message due to the fact that pastor Greg was the living illustration of persistent prayer. I highly recommend listening to, or downloading the message over at its sermon page.

Grace needs to strive to be an 80/20 church. What does that mean? Listen to Pastor Greg explain that and a whole lot more by heading over to the sermon page. Also check out this page listing the various spiritual gifts found in the New Testament.

Pastor Greg spoke about the means of Growth in Grace, how to find your gifts and then what to do with those gifts. He will continue on this topic more next week. You can find this message to listen to or download on this page, along with the sermon outline. Just what are the gifts of the spirit? Check out this post to read what Scripture lists as spiritual gifts.

The Scripture read was the whole of Psalm 51, but Dean touched on just the first six verses and will preach about the rest of the Psalm at a later date in February.