Posts by Good Shepherd United Methodist Church (Page 5)

 Joshua 1:8 ESV This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.   The “you shall meditate on it day and night” sounds a lot like Paul’s “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) both send the same message; that…

Psalm 19:14 KJV  Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.      The words that we speak and the actions that we make are all affected by what lives in our hearts and minds.  We have to start there if we are going to live the life that God wants us to. We do that by reading his Word, following his teachings, sharing his love…

Psalm 119:9 NKJV How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.     It is the Word of God that keeps us on the right paths. We need to ask our selves if all of our deeds and words are in line with the scriptures. Now I know that following the rules isn’t always easy, but God gave us the rules because he loves us. Like any good parent he know that rules are necessary…

Romans 10:9 NIV  Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.      We read in John 1 that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  Jesus is the Word. So, if we keep the teachings of Jesus in our hearts and minds and we tell others about him then we are sending…

Matthew 5:43-44 You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.…      When I was a kid one of our teachers took us over to the VFW to meet the WWII…

Ephesians 4:29 BSB Let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building up the one in need and bringing grace to those who listen.      Physical attack can harm the body, but words can crush the soul even more. That old saying about sticks and stones is wrong. We can do far more damage to someone with words than we can with a stick and the damage done is harder to heal. The harm…

Matthew 7:3-4 BSB Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while there is still a beam in your own eye?      Romans 3:23 tells us that we all sin, James 2:10 tells us “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”…

Romans 2:1 GNT Do you, my friend, pass judgment on others? You have no excuse at all, whoever you are. For when you judge others and then do the same things which they do, you condemn yourself.          Hank Williams Jr had a song with the lyric “Well, if you mind your own business, then you won’t be mindin’ mine” and there is a great deal of truth in that. Not only are we not perfect, but we ought to be…

Proverbs 18:13 AB He who answers before he hears the facts— It is folly and shame to him.      Knee jerk responses are some of the worst kinds there can be. Belief, anger, rage, and judgement in the spur of the moment can cause a whole lot of trouble. We have all done it, reacted immediately to something and found out later we were wrong. We need to learn to practice the pause, to stop and breath and think and maybe…

Luke 6:37 NKJV “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.“      In the end, we get what we gave and that should give us pause. Every assumption, every word of gossip, every lie, every condemnation, every hateful word, all of that will come back on us. The good news is that every act of compassion, every act of mercy, every kind word, these will come back…

Exodus 23:1-2 BSB “You shall not spread a false report. Do not join the wicked by being a malicious witness. You shall not follow the crowd in wrongdoing. When you testify in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd.      Do we side with the crowd without looking for the truth out of laziness; or out of fear of speaking up; or do we just not care enough to find the truth? Are we just trying to…