Gold City Church of Christ

02/15/2026

Sometime in the next few weeks, the FB page for the Gold City Church of Christ will be closed.

Another page that's been in existence for several years has been renamed ThePowerOf.Life.

The website — up and running — but without content yet, can be found at https://thepowerof.life.

It's corresponding FB page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/thepowerof.life1189/

An explanation for the slight difference in name appears in the first post.

Older posts that were part of the former FB page will, over time, be removed.

The plan: Shorter studies will be posted on the FB page for ThePowerOf.Life. And longer, more in-depth studies will appear on the website.

Please take a few moments to go to https://www.facebook.com/thepowerof.life1189/ and follow that page.

Thank you.

11/03/2025

The Gold City Church of Christ met for nearly three years just North of Dahlonega.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, we were unable to continue that work.

We will close down this page before the end of 2025.

Before then, we will provide a link to another page you can use for ongoing Bible studies.

Until that time, please follow the Middle Fayette Church of Christ's page.

My classes and sermons are usually livestreamed and archived on both the church's website and YouTube.

Here's the Middle Fayette page: https://www.facebook.com/mfcoc

Thank you.

Jody

PostScript: Here is the link to yesterday's study of the opening verses of 1 John 2. It's part of an ongoing series. Browse the page for related videos in the series.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19dZEf38NE/

We are a group of people who are simply New Testament Christians. We are committed to the Bible as the all-sufficient and verbally inspired Word of God.

03/18/2025

True peace requires genuinely addressing and correcting the underlying rift in every conflict.

This applies to individuals and families, communities and nations, citizens and governments.

For peace to be lasting, it must be more than emotion—it must be grounded in virtue and moral principles that transcend personal opinions, counting noses, and politics.

It must be an integral part of character at every level for all souls involved.

Peace is not found in signed agreements but in the transformed behavior of those once at odds.

Love,
Jody

03/12/2025

Sweet dreams start with many "at peace" moments throughout your day.
....

Every moment between now and day's end determines how you will feel when your head hits your pillow.

• Think good thoughts. • Say good things.
• Do good. • Love your neighbor at every moment.
• Be kind. • Even when you disagree.
• Doing so at every moment increases the likelihood of being at peace as you drift off to sleep.

Blessings to all.

Love,
Jody

12/25/2024

Divine promises, rooted in divine grace, give us the saving faith, hope, and love we need. We need nothing else. Nothing else!

12/12/2024

How many times must a truth appear in Scripture for it to be accepted, believed, followed?

12/07/2024

Move
…..

It's difficult, if not impossible, to offer a singular statement that sums up everything that Scripture teaches.

My thinking, for what it's worth: The "best" summaries are those that address principles so fundamental, so basic, that they encapsulate divine truth on the grandest of scales.

For example: Through Scripture God says …

“Here’s where you are.

There’s where you need to be.

Move.”

That sounds over simplified to be sure, but there’s a very real sense in which that statement accurately depicts the totality of biblical teaching regarding God’s redemptive will for us and our response to that will.

First, God clearly identifies where we are, and he does so from his perspective.

Christians in Sardis thought they were alive. God said they were dead. (Rev 3.1)

Christians in Thyatira said: “I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing.” But God said that they “do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.” (Rev 3.17)

Before we critique the Christians in Sardis and Thyatira, remember ...

It’s easy for us to paint a better picture of our spiritual condition than God does. It’s not wrong to want to be better. But it's certainly wrong to assume we are better than we really are. When we make that kind of assumption, God lets us know about it.

Second, God clearly states where he wants us to be. Please note that God does not direct us to where WE THINK we should be, or where WE WANT to be. God tells us very plainly where *HE* wants us to be.

God told Moses to go before Pharaoh and to plead his case — God's case — for letting Israel go. Moses clearly did not want to go. (cf. Ex 3.1ff).

Read through all of scripture and it will become obvious to you that a large portion of biblical revelation does nothing more than show us the direction and the place that God wants us to move toward.

Finally, God tells us to move. It’s not enough that God identifies our current spiritual location. We need to know that, but we need to know more.

It’s not enough that God identifies what and where our new spiritual location should be. We need to know that, too.

In the most important step, God also tells us, prompts us, urges us to move. God encourages us saying, in effect ...

“Take the step that will lead you away from the place where you are now and move to the place where I want you to be.”

It would be a powerful exercise in self-evaluation and self-control if we began to read the word of God with these thoughts in mind. If it’s true that we can sum up the Bible as God saying — “Here’s where you are. There’s where you need to be. Move.” — then we need to train ourselves to ask these key questions.

Does God, in this passage, tell me where I am?

Does God, in this passage, tell me where I need to be?

Does God, in this passage, tell me to move?

And if the answer to these questions happens to be "yes," then it is our duty, if we want to be pleasing to God, to act appropriately and do just what God desires ...

Move.

Love,
Jody

PostScript • Our desire should always be to move ourselves to the place where God expects us to be. • But, if we are truly where God wants us to be, then God's message will be summed up a little differently. Rather than saying "move," God would say "stay." • We need to MOVE to the place God wants for us. And we need to STAY there when we get there.

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Image by Jo Wiggijo from Pixabay • orig post: 12/06/2021

12/07/2024

Believing Is Thinking
__________

Believing with the heart is in contrast with oral confession, not with intellectual belief. “Believing is a mode of thinking not of feeling. It is that particular mode of thinking that is guided to its object by the testimony of another, or by some kind of inter-mediation. It is not intuitive” (Morison). [Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, 4 vols.; 2004), paragraph 13121. • Vincent wrote the first sentence. The remainder was by Morison. See PostScript below.]
__________

For some—believers and non-believers alike—faith will always be "firm belief in something for which there is no proof." (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith; 2.b.]

This "faith" goes beyond knowledge and evidence or runs away from them. In both cases, faith appears to operate on a different, perhaps "lower" plane, one more closely akin to emotion than fact, reason, or knowledge.

Biblical speaking, faith, though it will always include feeling, must be more than emotion, intuition or whimsy. Paul's statement: "for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day" in 2 Timothy 1:12 reflects an interesting blend of knowledge (oida), belief (pistis) and conviction/persuasion (peitho), one that applied not only to HIS faith, but to biblical faith generally (cf. Jn. 6:69; 10:38; 17:8; 1 Jn. 4:16 - ginoskw/pisteuo).

Morison's comment (via Vincent) that “believing is a mode of thinking not of feeling" may not resonate with some religious devotees, but surely the biblical directive to "test all things; hold fast what is good" (1 Th. 5:21; cf. 1 Jn. 4:1) means that we need to give some thought to what we claim to believe.

Let's devote more time and energy to THINKING FAITH as both an action (verb) and an outcome (noun).

Love,
Jody

PostScript: Vincent references several works on Romans written by Dr. James Morison, but he does not cite a specific source for this quote. Most of Morison's works were published in London in the 1880s and appear in the following form: "Morison, James: An Exposition of the Ninth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. New edition. London, 1888." • Morison's thoughts about thinking/believing appear in Vincent's remarks regarding Rom 10.10. • Pagination was not cited in the digital source (Accordance).
______

Image: pixabay.com; type edit - jla • orig post: 12/06/2016, with minor typo, thought, and postscript updates

12/05/2024

The prophets make me uncomfortable.

"Guessing" that's their intent.

Love,
Jody

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Trivia (or not): Of the 71 times the term "woe" appears in the NKJV in the OT, 63 of them appear in ...

The prophets.

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An invitation: Read the first chapter of the first prophet in our First Testament Scriptures.

That would be Isaiah.

Here's a very quick, very cursory, overview of some of God's concerns as Isaiah voices them in that chapter:

-> • God’s children rebelled against him • 1.2

-> • An “ox knows its owner,” a “donkey it’s master’s crib,” “but Israel does not know” … does not “consider” God • 1.3

-> • God, through Isaiah, tags Israel as a “sinful nation” • “a people laden with iniquity” • “a brood of evildoers” • “children who are corrupters” • a people who “have forsaken the Lord” • who “have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel” • that “have turned away backward” • 1.4 [Yes, all in 1.4]

-> • They “revolt more and more” • Their “whole head is sick” • “the whole heart faints” • 1.5

-> • “From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it,” just “wounds and putrefying sores,” • sores that are open (“not …closed up or bound up”) • with no attempt to heal their sores (not “soothed with ointment”) • 1.6

And that’s just the first six verses of chapter one.

There are many more shortcomings, many more of Israel’s sins, listed in the chapter.

It’s simply heartbreaking to read.

God’s people were not acting like God’s people.

Mid-way through the chapter, starting in 1.16, God through Isaiah prompts the nation to change.

To wash.

To make themselves clean.

To put away all of their evil.

To seek justice.

To rebuke the oppressor.

To defend the helpless, i.e., the fatherless, the widow.

Though Israel’s sins were “like scarlet” they could be, if they returned to God, “be as white as snow.”

If they became “willing and obedient” to the will of God, they would prosper.

But, if they refused and rebelled against God, they would fail.

Read through all thirty-one verses of the chapter …

And weep.

Not just for what Israel was.

But for what we might be …

For what we are.

God, because he included Isaiah in Scripture, intends for us to see Israel’s sins …

To see Israel for what they were.

Yes.

But God also wants us to see Israel’s sins …

And realize …

That we can be just like them.

Rebellious.

Like a marred, nearly unrecognizable body …

Totally unlike what God made us to be.

Yes …

Reading the prophets makes me uncomfortable.

Not just “guessing” that’s their intent.

But knowing that's their intent.

God wants me/you/us to see the sins of others …

Not just to point out their failures …

But for me/you/us to realize that …

We might be just where they are.

-----

Praying that the uncomfortable reading of the prophets …

Does what God intended it to do.

Move me to change …

To move away from everything evil …

And to move toward everything good.

Thankful that uncomfortable teaching designed to change me …

Does just that.

Double Love,
Jody
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Image by woody93 from Pixabay • orig post: 12/04/21

12/02/2024

We are to be .......

Disciples • Learners • Followers • Students

Initially.

Continually.

We are not masters.

We will never be masters.

So, let's be careful how we come across to others.

It's our "job" to point others to the singular master, Jesus.

It's not our "job" to point anyone to ourselves. • Or to any other person.

If we are the disciples that Christ wants us to be ...

They will, hopefully, see Jesus in us.

Love,
Jody

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Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus. • Acts 4.13, NKJV
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Graphic • freebibleimages.org

12/02/2024

Deferring To Others • Just One Way To Love Your Neighbor
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To defer does not mean you agree ...

To defer does not mean you are wrong ...

To defer does not mean you do not care ...

To defer does not mean you have lost your mooring ...

To defer does not mean you are spineless.

Sometimes it simply means you are committed to "fighting" only those battles that are really worth fighting.

Sometimes it means nothing more than saying, "I love you ... you are my neighbor ... and I will support you in anyway I can."

And saying it because you really mean it.

If it's not a life or death ...

Or a heaven or hell matter ...

It's not wrong to defer to another.

It's not necessarily an indication of weakness ...

Quite often it's a sign of humility ...

And strength.

Love your neighbor all the time • Defer to your neighbor whenever possible.

Love,
Jody

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Consider this passage • Gen 13.5-12

The flocks and herds of Abram and Lot were more than the land could support if they remained togther.

When tensions arose between their respective herdsmen, Abram asked Lot where he wanted to settle.

Whatever land Lot chose, to the right or to the left, Abram was content to live in the other.

Lot saw and chose the "well watered" region eastward, in the plain of Jordan.

And Abram lived "in the land of Canaan."

To be sure, there are more significant elements going on in this passage. Not to diminish them at all by not bringing them up here ... just wanting to note the easy-to-miss attitude of deference that Abram demonstrated. It says something powerful about his character in this context.

Other examples:
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-> • David repeatedly deferred to Saul, God's anointed • 1 Sam 24.1-7, 26.9ff

-> • David deferred to Abigail, re Nabal • 1 Sam 25, esp 25.14ff

-> • John the baptizer deferred to Jesus • Jn 1.15

Other passages:
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with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, • Eph 4.2, NKJV

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. ¶ Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. • Phil 2.3-11

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; • Col 3.12

Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, • James 1.9

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With hopes that we will, as much as possible, defer to others whenever we can ...

For their good ...

And for God's glory.

Double love,
Jody

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Image by Thanks for your Like @ Pixabay • text edit - jla • orig post: 12/01/2021

11/28/2024

If we understood and appreciated divine sovereignty, we would have greater faith.