Jesus First Church, Eagar, Arizona

04/03/2026

The Message We Proclaim
. . . Good Friday

1 Corinthians 1:18ff — For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”
20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

> The Cross Defines the Message We Preach: 18a

>The Cross Divides the Listening Audience: 18b

>The Cross Diagnoses the Listening Audience: v. 18

>The Cross Determines Our Response: v. 22

Application: What is the great defining moment in your life? We all have one. What is yours? For the Christian that great moment is when he/she came to the cross by faith and trusted in Jesus as Lord and Savior. You will never understand Christianity from a logical, philosophical, secular point of view. You must first bow before the cross before you can understand!

01/11/2026

Our backyard

10/21/2025

The Gospel of God's Grace
A Study in the Epistle to the Galatians
Lesson One—Introduction

Who Where the Galatians?

The people who first became known as Galatians came from the barbarian tribal stock known as Celts, one branch of which Julius Caesar knew in France as the Gauls. Some of these had invaded Macedonia and later Asia Minor in the third century B.C.. They were distinguished from the West-European Gauls by the term "Gallo-Graecians," from which the name "Galatians" comes. They inhabited a region in what is now central Turkey that included the south central cities of Antioch, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra—cities Paul and Barnabas visited on their first missionary journey (Acts 13 & 14)—where churches were established.

Why Did Paul Write to Them?

Soon after the conversion of the Galatians and Paul's subsequent departure (1:6), members of the circumcision party (Judaizers) infiltrated these young congregations. They appear to have been Jewish Christians, whether or not directly related to Jerusalem. For them Jesus was the Messiah of Israel's hope, but circumcision and submission to the Jewish law remained mandatory for all, Gentiles as well as Jews. One needed to believe in Jesus Christ and submit to circumcision, in order to be right with God.

To gain leverage for their teachings, the Judaizers claimed that Paul was not a real apostle (1:1), thereby seeking to undermine his authority. They charged that he was a man-pleaser (1:10) who either preached or did not preach circumcision as the occasion demanded (5:11; cf. 1 Cor. 9:19—23). They likely felt that the Gentile converts needed allegiance to the law to keep them from lapsing into pagan immoralities and that Paul's "liberalism" left them in a precarious position.

Thus the Galatian letter was written by Paul to defend the Gospel of God's grace from the legalistic perversions of the Judaizers.

Important Definitions:

1. Adoption: God's loving action making people who receive salvation His children and heirs, (Romans 8:15,23; Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:4.

2. Circumcision: The removal of fo****in as a sign of inclusion among the covenant people of Israel (Genesis 17:13). Demanded by some Jewish church members as necessary for salvation, a demand Paul opposed as heresy (Galatians 5:1-6; cf. Acts 15).

3. Gospel: The good news of the redeeming work of God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

4. Grace: The unmerited favor of God that provides our salvation.

5. Justification: Linked to righteousness, it is the process by which an individual is brought into an unmerited, right standing with God. In Christian theology a person is made right with God by (on the basis of) faith in Jesus Christ who died as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, and who was resurrected from the dead (Romans 3:20—31).

6. Law: God's instruction to His people about how to love Him and others. When used with the definite article, it may refer to the OLD TESTAMENT as a whole, but usually to the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the OLD TESTAMENT). Used by Paul and others in the NEW TESTAMENT to refer to oral interpretations of the law by Jewish rabbis developed into a system seen as necessary for salvation, a development condemned by the NEW TESTAMENT (Romans 3:20; Galatians 2:16).

7. Legalism: The belief that a person to have salvation must keep God's law (as interpreted by professional teachers) as well as having faith in Christ. An attitude of pride that conforms to a set of rules in order to glorify self.

8. Righteousness: Linked to justification, righteousness is God's gift of rightness to the one who has faith in Him through Jesus Christ. It is the quality or condition of being in right relationship with God; living out the relationship with God in right relationships with other persons.

09/02/2025

Brenda George:

September 1, 2025 around 3:00 PM Brenda left her earthly body to be at home with the Lord. Her presence was one of a kind, she loved deep and wide. We are posting this on her page to notify all others of her passing. The past year she had undergone many trials. She suffered a stroke, not long after she received a pacemaker, then not long after that she fell and broke her hip. While she fought and made amazing recoveries through all of this, she was battling UTI’s, CHF, and some other things on a reoccurring basis. For the past 2 months she was cared for around the clock in her home by her husband Robert, daughter Lea, and son in law Ricky. May you keep the memories you have with her close to your heart. She is deeply missed. We are thankful for the peace we have knowing her faith has delivered her into the arms of the Father where there is no more pain or suffering. There will not be a service at this time. She requested for shared service with Robert in Texas when he passes.

07/27/2025

It Takes a Lot of Faith to Not Believe in God!

Genesis 1:1— “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Psalms 33:6-9— “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. 7 He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deep in storehouses. 8 Let all the earth fear the Lord; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. 9 For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”

Leaving God out of the equation has led to the Big Bang theory. Simply put, this theory holds that the universe began from an expansion of a single point fractions of an inch in size and of high density. In the first second after the universe began the surrounding temperature was 10 billion degrees Fahrenheit according to NASA.

My first question would be: “Where was this singularity, this single point, since there was no universe to house it?”

My second question is "Where did this singularity come from?"

My third question would be: "Why did it explode/expand?"
My fourth question would be: "What material matter could survive such temperatures of 10 billion degrees?"

And, “Can we create such temperatures today? The simple answer is “No.” At the core of a nuclear explosion it is only 150 million degrees Fahrenheit.

My next question would be: Could there be any organic material surviving such temperatures? Obviously not!
So, leaving God of out the equation, we are asked to believe the following:

❖ Nothing produces everything
❖ Non-life produces life
❖ Randomness produces fine-tuning
❖ Chaos produces complexity
❖ Unconsciousness produces consciousness
❖ Non-reason produces reason

TRUTH: It takes a lot of faith to believe in this theory and chance existence! It makes far more sense to me to believe “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth!” There is no adequate substitute for God!

05/22/2025

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03/08/2025

Colossians—Paul’s Letter to the New Age
The Gospel—Truth & Grace

Colossians 1:3-6

Do heavenly bodies have any influence over our lives? Millions of Americans consult their horoscopes daily. 1220 out of 1750 newspapers in our nation include horoscopes. Is there any relationship between your diet and spiritual living? Does God speak to our minds directly, or primarily through His Word? Do eastern religions have anything at all to offer the believing Christian? These are all very contemporary questions and issues that Paul dealt with in the book of Colossians. So, I’m calling this Paul’s Letter to the New Age.

Pure Christianity lives between two ever-present dangers: the danger that it will evaporate into a philosophy . . . and the danger that it will freeze into a form. This book of Colossians is the chart and compass that will enable us to sail a straight course between those ever-present dangers. Heresy will subtly infiltrate the Church if we drop our guard. We have the Word of truth, the Gospel of grace. We believe it. We receive it. We study it so that we may live a life worthy of the Lord.

✦The Gospel Is the Word of Truth. The Roman world had no problem with a plurality of gods. In fact, it had no concept of monotheism... (Except for the Jewish concept in the remote land of Palestine). The Gospel tells the truth about God, about man, sin, and salvation.

✦The Gospel of God’s Grace. Many religions were vying for disciples in the 1st century Roman Empire. There was the “gospel” of good works. Paul referred to this “gospel” in Galatians 1 as “no gospel at all” (1:6). Good works are good, but never get the cart before the horse. Good works do not save us. The great dilemma is what do we do with sin? We cannot atone for sin ourselves. Our good works cannot erase the sin/evil we have done. Good works which we do as a result of our salvation and out of love for our Savior are those that God asks for.

There was “gospel” of fear. Many religious people live in fear that somehow they will fall short of what God expects of them. They can never have the assurance of salvation. That’s not “good news,” it is the bad news of fear and it is akin to the “gospel of good works.”

There was the “gospel” of self-help which is new ageism. This is one of the current religions making strong inroads into Christianity. Many pastors have quit preaching the Bible and have turned to telling people how to have a good day, how to have a better day, how to have a better day everyday. Their sermons become books which make these cult leaders rich.

Unique in Christianity is the Gospel of God’s Grace. Grace tells us that God sent His Son into the world to atone for our sins. He came to do what we cannot do. Jesus is the man without equal. He was God who, through the miracle and mystery of the incarnation, became man. Only Jesus lived sinlessly in this world. Only Jesus went to the cross to atone for our sins: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Only Jesus was resurrected from the dead to indestructible life. He is the only Savior of the world. This is the Gospel of Grace. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Application: People can have a relationship with God only by believing and receiving the Gospel of truth. Our culture is intensifying it’s attack on the exclusivity of the Gospel. We need to continually appropriate the truths of God’s Word daily in our lives so that we will not be taken in by false teachers and false philosophies. As we appropriate God’s Word, it continually and increasingly bears fruit in our lives.

01/18/2025

Seeing the Unseen
2 Corinthians 4:16-18— “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
Christians live by seeing invisible things. You can measure the authenticity and depth of your spiritual life by this statement: Do visible or invisible things dominate your life? Faith, love prayer, and fellowship with the risen Christ are all invisible things. Yet these invisible resources presently give you inward renewal and ultimately will give you future glory.
Paul now gives a deeply moving testimony. It helps us to know that the church at Corinth knew nothing of persecution. In this it was exceptional among the early Christian churches. Paul’s first letter to them conveys the impression that, far from feeling the weight of repression, the church there appears to have been on the best of terms with its pagan environment.
✦ Invisible resources give us inward renewal:
Two undeniable facts mark every life. Something is happening to us outwardly and something inwardly—something physically and something spiritually. Our invisible resources— Faith, love, hope, fellowship with Christ, the indwelling Holy Spirit—give us the daily renewal we need while living our our faith in this fallen world.
✦ Inward resources transform present troubles:
Faith-sight gives us insight into what is really happening to us. Burdens can become blessings. Stumbling blocks can become stepping stones, and obstacles can become opportunities for ministry.
✦ Inward resources demand our primary attention:
We are to fix our focus on the invisible spiritual resources and realities! Faith must be the foundation of the totality of our lives as Christians. If it is not, then our faith just may be a farce and not a force in our lives! Do visible or invisible things dominate your life? Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at something that does not matter.
Application: What one factor dominates your life—your time, resources and attention? You can answer that question. I would urge you to be as objective as you can possibly be in considering this question. The Christian increasingly lives for the great, unseen realities of life!

10/08/2024

Someone is telling me this page is inappropriate. HOW??? We are Christians.We talk about the Bible. We pray for each other. SHOW ME HOW IT IS INAPPROPRIATE!

09/30/2024

Lost email sometime back. Lost all contacts. You can email me at HamblenLarry.gmail.com if you wish to be on my contact list.

09/09/2024

Currently thousands of Christians are 'deliberately' being targeted and killed in Nigeria: 'Human rights catastrophe!'