“We don’t place any confidence in physical things…  These things that I once considered valuable, I now consider worthless for Christ. It’s far more than that! I consider everything else worthless because I’m much better off knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. It’s because of Him that I think of everything as worthless. I threw it all away in order to gain Christ and to have a relationship with Him.”    (Philippians 3:3 , 3:7-9 – GW) 

So, how is your relationship with Jesus? Maybe I should ask ‘Do you have a relationship with Jesus?’ As a Christen, we should ALL have a vibrant, continuous, honest, and a heart that is reflecting, Jesus. The Apostle Paul had such a wonderful relationship with Jesus Christ, that he gave up his confidence in physical things. He traded in his life, as a well decorated, high ranking Pharisee, for a relationship with Jesus…. Who had already gone to heaven. 

I could go on and on, but I won’t. Please hear me when I say, “A RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS, HIS FATHER, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT is worth more than anything you have or will have in your lifetime!” In a few months it will be 40 YEARS AGO when I accepted Jesus as my Savior. (Thanks to Tony & Katia Banfield) And I feel like it just happened yesterday. I guess I am like, Paul, “I consider everything else worthless because I’m much better off knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

In Him, 

Pastor Kevin Kinchen

SAY, WHAT?
In the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul refers to our speech in several verses. In the first two instances he sets the positive way of our speaking against the negative. “So then, get rid of lies. Speak the truth to each other, because we are all members of the same body.” (Eph 4:25). And… ”Don’t say anything that would hurt another person. Instead, speak only what is good so that you can give help wherever it is needed. That way, what you say will help those who hear you.” (Eph 4:29).

A lot of people think that deeds, you know ‘good deeds’ are all they need to be on the right side of God. However, the thought that WORDS CAN BE DEEDS might sound crazy, but it’s not new at all. In Hebrew, WORD, and DEED are not distinct from one another; WORD and DEED have the same root. In other words, ‘to SAY something was to DO something.’

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had discovered this, and he witnessed to it in the Flossenberg Prison during World War II where he had been condemned to die. He walked the narrow corridors visiting the cells, speaking to prisoners and encouraging them, laughing and joking with them, reminiscing with them and praying with them. His words were his primary means of ministry. Still his words were deeds. He wrote:

“God has put His Word into our mouth in order that it may be communicated to others. The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs that friend again and again and again.”

WORDS are powerful, and Paul calls us to use them as deeds of love, for edification, that we would “Be kind to each other, sympathetic, forgiving each other, as God has forgiven you through Christ.” (Eph 4 :32) (Some info. from The Preacher’s Commentary)

In Him,
Pastor Kevin Kinchen