MAC KIRK

 I John 3:11-18   Love is Visible in our Lives   "It’s not always your business to pay attention to every controversy or news story. We’re not called to always be in this state of anxiety and to be all worked up. If I’m constantly reading my phone or watching YouTube or whatever I’m missing the real world, I’m missing what is actually out there, and I am being that distracted, I’m not focusing on what the actual call of my life is. If you’re all in a frenzy, you can’t shoot straight. Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled,” and I take that seriously. If the news is troubling you in this unproductive way, turn it off!"  from the article below I found. "Just another day in the life of a cowboy priest" by Nathan Beacom , Plough Articles for the week … article I came across on Friday when I sum up the thoughts for the week on the text.  "Father Bryce was born and bred in Wyoming in a reasonably religious home, but priesthood was not on his radar. He w...

 I John 3:4-10   Christ Has Appeared!  Good News for Christians who are wishing Encouragement.    Not only will Christ appear, but He has already come , and it means that we as Christians should live our lives now in the light of that fact.  I would imagine there are certain things we expect of those who profess to be Church members and are now on the way to heaven.  We should expect that they are trying to be holy, practice righteousness and in general live lives that are different from the ordinary folk we encounter that do not attend Church, or envision that the Church has nothing to offer them today.     I was talking to one of my neighbors,  who is actually not a neighbor but comes every morning or so to work and re-do the house across from me that he bought, and will sell after he is done with the renewal of it.  He said he was not doing  too well, and then he showed me an x ray picture on his phone of his broke...

 More on the Obedience Test- Righteousness ---Christ's Future Appearing I John 2:28-3:3 " The doctrine of the Lord's return was part of the primitive apostolic faith. Four words...are used by Paul to describe it ---His coming parousia. His appearing phanerosis, His epiphany epiphaneia , and His revelation apokalupsis.  John uses the first two in this vs 2:28...parousis was the usual expression for the visit of a King..." Stott "When He comes , we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming" 2:28 Ashamed or confident? The wedding feast account in Mt 22:12 of the man who was sitting at the Table with other guests but he forgot the one thing the King had asked---to be in proper attire. Lloyd Jones comments on this, " Everything ! except the wedding garment! Everything , except giving up our wills, our very selves to God, everthing except the one thing which is essential, namely , that we should cast ourselves entirely on His mercy and ...

 I John 2: 24-27  The Word and the Spirit of God     Today because we will spend time in a visible Sacrament of the Wine & the Bread , as the faithful in Christ receive the spiritual food of His Body and Blood to their soul's strengthening we will only give the main or salient points of the Scriptures through the Epistle of I John.      Remember John tells the people to let what they heard from the beginning to remain in them, and then they will continue in the Son and the Father. 2:24 What was that really? It was the Gospel of God, the truth of Jesus, eternal and human saving us from our sin. 1. We hear the Gospel from the Holy Word of God, the Scriptures inspired and eternal as well as the Lord we worship. I Peter 1:23-24 say it well for us: "  being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The ...

 A Denial of Jesus is a loss of Eternal Life and a Relationship with God I John 2:2-23 Denial of the truth is a problem in John's time and in ours as well.  One of the most popular murder mysteries that captures this is " Murder on the Orient Express"  Of course everyone denied it.  Someone had to be guilty. There was the matter of the body on the floor.  Someone was lying. A little girl was being read to by her father. He had a book about animals at the zoo.  They came to the giraffe.  She had never seen anything like that before. So she said she did not believe it really existed.  Her father took her to the zoo to prove it.  They came to the giraffe section.   She exclaimed, "  Look at the horse with a long neck!" Denying was also a problem in the Church at the earliest days after the Resurrection of Jesus.  Vs 22 talks about those who were denying Jesus as the Christ.  They were called antichrists by John, that is ...