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Bakers Chapel UMC Bakers Chapel United Methodist Church
Worship service at 9:30am on Sunday

10/21/2026

Thought of the Day

Thought of the Day

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. - John 14:15 (ESV)

Growing up, I loved my mom and dad (this hasn't changed since becoming an adult). One way I showed this was by obeying them. Did I always obey? Of course not. But for the most part I wanted to make them proud. The problem was that I struggled between my desire to do their will and my own will, which at times went against theirs.

It's the same way with Jesus. If we call ourselves Christians, He is supposed to be Lord of our lives. Will we ever disobey (sin)? Yes. That comes because we're still struggling with our sinful nature. But if we truly love Jesus, we will have the desire to make him proud, which means we will want to obey him.

So if we love Jesus, we will keep his commandments. We will strive to obey and do our best to be the people he wants us to be. The result will be the same as when I obeyed my mom and dad. We will be better off for it because He knows best.

In the love of Christ,
greg

10/20/2026

Thought of the Day

God's way seems foolish to the Jews because they want a sign from heaven to prove it is true. And it is foolish to the Greeks because they believe only what agrees with their own wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended, and the Gentiles say it's all nonsense. But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the mighty power of God and the wonderful wisdom of God. This "foolish" plan of God is far wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God's weakness is far stronger than the greatest of human strength. - 1 Corinthians 1:22-25

To an unbeliever in Paul's day, the message of God coming to earth in the form of a man to suffer and die for the sins of the world must have sounded foolish. I suppose nothing has changed, though. Many today struggle to believe in a loving God when so many bad things are happening in our world. Many struggle to grasp how a person can be 100 percent human and, at the same time, 100 percent God. Others can't understand how any being has simply always existed without having a beginning. And so the message of the cross is foolish to them who are perishing, for they simply cannot believe.

The problem is that we too often try to package things into something we can understand so we can believe. But faith is not logically thinking things through until they make sense. Faith is believing even when we don't understand or comprehend.

We'll never completely understand the totality of God's wisdom. And that's alright. We don't have to. We simply have to have faith.

In the love of Christ,
greg

10/19/2026

Thought of the Day

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. - Philippians 2:1-4 (NIV)

Paul is asking the Philippians to make his joy complete. But as I read this, I see that what he tells them (and us) to do will unlock our own joy. In his book Victorious Living, E. Stanley Jones talks about our desire for happiness in one of his devotions. Let me sum up what he said.

We are all looking for happiness. It must be a God-given instinct to want to be happy, and there is nothing wrong with this. The problem comes in how we go about seeking happiness. When we are bent on being happy and continually seek it by our own means, we will fail. It will elude us. There will be brief encounters of it, but lasting happiness simply cannot be found by us. As a matter of fact, Jones said that the most miserable and fed up people he knew were people who were most bent on being happy.

So it seems that there is a dilemma, at least until we realize who created everything, including happiness. We stumble upon Jesus, and he tells us to "follow him". We walk with him. The journey takes us to others who are saddened and broken. We want nothing more than to alleviate their pain. And in the process, we forget our own happiness. But as we do, our hearts are filled with joy. This is when God uses us to love others.

That is what Christianity is all about. That is what denying ourselves is all about. It's about putting aside our own desires for happiness to love others and finding complete joy in the process.

In the love of Christ,
greg

10/14/2026

Thought of the Day

Never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord enthusiastically. - Romans 12:11 (NLT)

We do different kinds of work each week. Some we get paid for. Others we find fulfillment purely in the act of doing them. Some are called honey-do's, while others may come from a to-do list that we've made ourselves. Some tasks require a lot of manual labor, while others make us think. But no matter what kind of work we do, no matter how unimportant or important it may seem, let's do it as if we're doing it for the Lord and His approval. Instead of going into it with a bad attitude and complaining about it, we should be enthusiastic, giving every job our best effort. This will bring us joy and let us be a witness to others.

In the love of Christ,
greg

10/12/2026

Thought of the Day


Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. - Colossians 3:15-16 (TNIV)

Attitude. What will yours be today?

We can have an attitude filled with negativity, complaining about things in our lives. And we don't normally have to go far to find something to complain about. But what kind of day will that make? Have you ever seen someone who was complaining about their spouse or their church or another person or their job, etc., smiling?

On the other hand, if we look just past those things we can complain about, we can find something to be thankful for. Even those of us with great difficulties in life can be thankful for something. When we look to God, give Him thanks, and live out our day in this thankful spirit, we find we have more smiles than when we complain. And it's much more fun to smile than to cringe.

What can you be thankful for today? Give thanks to God today for your many blessings and remember these blessings whenever you're about to complain about something today.

In the love of Christ,
greg

10/08/2026

Thought of the Day


Don't long for "the good old days," for you don't know whether they were any better than today. - Ecclesiastes 7:10 (NLT)

We can long for a past when things seemed much simpler...much easier...much better. We can also live our lives in the past, trying to relive what happened, only to be disappointed by the fact that we can never truly go back.

We can try to hold on to the past so that we are unchangeable in the future. Or we can treasure the memories of the past, while preparing for the future by making today worth living as well.

Life is ever-changing, and when we fail to realize this, we get left behind in despair. Let God share His future with you, then go and share that future with others. In doing this, we won't complain about today and wish things were like they were way back then. Instead, we will make a future worth living as well.

In the love of Christ,
greg

10/05/2026

Thought of the Day


Then the Pharisees met together to plot how to trap Jesus into saying something for which he could be arrested. They sent some of their disciples, along with the supporters of Herod, to meet with him. “Teacher,” they said, “we know how honest you are. You teach the way of God truthfully. You are impartial and don’t play favorites. Now tell us what you think about this: Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
But Jesus knew their evil motives. “You hypocrites!” he said. “Why are you trying to trap me? Here, show me the coin used for the tax.” When they handed him a Roman coin, he asked, “Whose picture and title are stamped on it?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
“Well, then,” he said, “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.”
His reply amazed them, and they went away.
Matthew 22:15-22 (NLT)

Today I’d like for us to focus on the fact that there are two kingdoms. One is the Kingdom of Heaven, and the other is the kingdom of Caesar (the world or our culture). One’s a spiritual kingdom, and the other is a physical kingdom. Though the physical kingdom might feel more real to us, it’s not. The kingdom of Heaven is what’s eternal. It begins here and now and lasts forever, while the worldly kingdom will be gone before you know it.

You don’t belong to the worldly kingdom. The worldly kingdom is the one you were born into, the one you get sick in, the one you reach a certain age and then return to the dust you came from.

The spiritual kingdom (Kingdom of Heaven) is where you belong. You were created for this kingdom. This is where you’re seen as a child of God. You have powers that you can’t quite understand now because, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13, we now see things as through a cloudy mirror, but later will see things with perfect clarity.

In the world, we’re often defined by what we’ve done in life or where we’ve been or the color of our skin or family affiliation, etc. We’re either good or bad based on whose kids we are, what school we attended, or what we’ve accomplished.

In God’s kingdom, our identity is found in Christ, so we’re all the same. We’re all precious. We’re all loved. We’re all of great value or worth. In the world, these things can often be determined by how much we have or what we can do. We have to earn everything we have. In God’s kingdom, they come to us because of grace.

We’re to live in this kingdom we call the world. But we should be about the kingdom of God. Our decisions are so often based on the worldly physical kingdom because it’s what we see and what’s easiest. But if we live our lives for this kingdom, we’ll never reach the place we belong, which is where Jesus is. If we live for the spiritual kingdom (live for Jesus), we’ll find everything we need and so much more. In this kingdom we’ll be complete with peace and joy.

In the love of Christ,
greg

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1965 Johnston Road
Hernando, MS
38632

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