TheChurch

09/06/2026

08/26/2026

The ultimate teacher is not your favorite preacher, teacher or pastor. The ultimate teacher is not on YouTube or Facebook or any social media. The ultimate teacher is not you, not life itself.

The ultimate teacher is the Holy Spirit. He is the one who takes everything that we hear or see or experience and drives it home into a prepared heart. He makes everything effective for the individual.

Without the Holy Spirit, even Bible study can be fruitless. Knowledge without wisdom is dangerous. Facts without spirit is misleading.

Jesus said he would send the comforter, the teacher. The one who makes all things make sense and fit into place. It's not a person, it's the Holy Spirit

Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?
If unsure .. Jesus said to look at the fruit. The fruit of our own life. Are you more holy, more like God, than you were last year?

That's fruit .

08/26/2026

Preaching motivates you to know Jesus
Bible study teaches you about Jesus
Music and singing let's you feel Jesus

But only prayer actually brings you to know Jesus.

According to scripture, Jesus spent most of his spare time in prayer with the Father. Not entertainment, not resting, not study, not reading, not practicing, not training ...

Prayer.

Perhaps the most beneficial practice in the universe.

Come and see

08/25/2026

This is scriptural. This is "church".

It's not about buildings and crowds. It's about serving and discipling on a daily basis , walking with people, forming family committee relationships, working together as God's hands and feet, a body of different parts, different focuses, different talents all committed to one vision.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19GSjdV6Hb/

Francis Chan spent years leading one of America’s most influential megachurches. Then he walked away.

Chan said the decision came after he and his elders began asking a hard question: What does the Bible actually call the Church to be?

The answer, he said, forced him to admit that much of what they had built was shaped more by church culture than by Scripture.

“There was just too much attention on me,” Chan said.

Today, Chan says the church community he is part of has no budget, no paid pastors, and gives every dollar to the poor and to missions. When a gathering reaches about 20 people, it splits and starts again somewhere else.

“It’s amazing when you take pride and money off of the table, how differently you make decisions,” he said.

Chan said the American Church has lost something deeper: gatherings where people leave talking about Jesus, not production, personalities or sermons.

“The Church exists to please Him, not us,” Chan said. “And we’ve lost that.”

Photo: Shutterstock

08/25/2026

The law says to give 10%.
Jesus said to give 100%

Sound unreasonable? How can anyone be expected to give everything? How is that fair? How is it doable?

Simple.. When you start following Christ, you count yourself as dead, and you follow, paul describes it is a voluntary slave. IF you are a "dead" "slave" you have nothing to keep! you gave 100% of all you had (money, time, dreams, wants, etc) to Jesus. That is what repentance and baptism mean!

So how can any believer give less than 100% to God?

08/25/2026

"Church" is not about the preaching, it's about the family you commit to
"Church" is not about what you get, it's about what you can give
"Church" is not about feelings, it is about Spirit
"Church is not about being serves and fed, it is about feeding and serving
"Church" is not about events or crowds, it is about relationships

The Church of Jesus is a family of families, under His leadership serving communities day in and day out, throughout the week, to make disciples for Christ.

"Following" is an action word, that means
stop leading
stop deciding
stop wanting
stop complaining

start following
start moving
start doing
start changing
start serving

Do not expect to feel comfortable in a true church, not all the time, probably not most of the time. disciplining means change, and accepting change requires humility and is hard. If church is not "hard" , you may well not be growing.

Go to Church to serve
Go to Church to follow
Go to church to change
Go to church to die to self, completely, every day of the week.

08/25/2026

This is truth. Every believer is called, right where you are. It's not about doing something big, or public. It's about living out the life God gave you, for His glory.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it as unto the Lord.

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One of the most dangerous things we have done in American Christianity is make “God’s calling” sound mysterious and difficult to understand.

Pastors are called. Missionaries are called. Church planters are called. Everyone else, we assume, simply works, pays bills, raises kids, survives the week, and searches for meaning in whatever time remains.

But that is not the New Testament.

When Paul writes to ordinary believers in Corinth, he does not say, “To the pastors who are called.” He says, “To those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2).

The teacher, nurse, mechanic, contractor, postal worker, retiree, stay-at-home mom, business owner, and exhausted parent all live within God’s calling.

The tragedy is not that most Christians have never found their calling. It is that many were taught to look for it somewhere other than the life God has already given them.

Calling is not outside ordinary life. Calling is ordinary life surrendered to Jesus.

H/T James Bell