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  Love   your   neighbor  – It’s not a suggestion The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command : “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Throughout the Bible, in both the Old and New Testament scriptures it tell us, yes it even commands us as Christ-Followers, God’s People, Women of God and God’s Girls, to Love Our Neighbor as ourselves. Matthew 22:39 and Mark 12:31 are just a couple. It’s easy to think that religious ceremony, going to church, devotion and Bible Study are more important than love for God and our neighbor, but it isn’t the case. A thousand empty burst offerings or meaningless good faith gestures do not mean more to God than a single act of love done in His Name. God didn’t say it would always be easy but He does promise to never leave us or abandon us. We can do so much more in Hi...

  Love Your Neighbor (Matthew 22:39)   What does it mean to “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself?” It’s easy to say “I love the Lord,” or I love Jesus;” or even to love and take care of ourselves. Some days it’s hard to love my neighbor when my neighbor doesn’t love me. When social media posts of people you considered friends are so hateful and divisive. But who REALLY is our Neighbor ? Jesus has commanded us to love each other, in the same way we take care of ourselves and are concerned about our own interests. It means we should take care and have concern for the interests of others. Respect, honor and dignity. If the love of God is real in our lives, it will be shown by the presence of love for God and for others. In Genesis chapter 1, God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” God created all of us – mankind – the same; we are made in the image of God, His likeness, His representative. Even though we come from different backgrounds, God’s comm...

Where's Your Fear?   We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts (1 Thessalonians 2:4, NIV).   A major snare for many people is their fear of other people. So many people fail to make decisions or take action because they are overly concerned about what family, friends, workmates, or peers might think about them. Essentially, in such moments they are more concerned about what people think than what God thinks.   But we cannot be people-pleasers and God-pleasers at the same time. To live in obedience to God, we’ll have to be okay with disappointing some people and making decisions they don’t understand. Our fear of God must become bigger than our fear of man, and no amount of temporal satisfaction or approval from others is worth compromising the destiny for which we have been created.   Together, let’s determine to please God more than each other or ourselves!  

LIFE IN THE SPIRIT One of the things that God promises us is a new life. That’s a great promise, but what does it actually mean? Well, imagine that you’ve been in jail for the last twenty years. Finally, the day comes for your release. You step outside with fresh clothes into the bright sunlight, and finally, the jailhouse door clangs shut behind you for the last time.   Going from captivity to freedom on the one hand would of course be wonderful, but coming to grips with this new-found freedom would take time.   In this devotional series, we’ve spent time looking at the central problem in our lives: sin. God dealt with sin so decisively on the cross, when Jesus died a brutal death for our sins. That tells you the priority God puts on dealing with this problem!   But stepping into this grace is a bit like stepping out of that jail. We have to come to grips with our new life, and make sure we don’t end up in the prison again. How do we do this?   ...

Juneteenth, Friday, June 19, 2020 (also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Liberation Day) is an unofficial American holiday and an official Texas state holiday, celebrated annually on the 19th of June in the United States to commemorate Union army general Gordon Granger's reading of federal orders in the city of Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, proclaiming all slaves in Texas were now free. Although the Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed them almost two and a half years earlier, and the American Civil War had largely ended with the defeat of the Confederate States in April, Texas was the most remote of the slave states, with a low presence of Union troops, so enforcement of the proclamation had been slow and inconsistent. Celebrations date to 1866, at first involving church-centered community gatherings in Texas. It spread across...

  There are a lot of raw emotions over the last several days over the death of George Floyd.   There is a long history of racial inequality and racial unrest in this country. Our world continues to bear the weight of a global pandemic and the pain of racism. We witnessed a life taken by someone paid to protect him.   Silence damns us all.   COVID-19 is not a red or blue issue, it’s a human issue.   Racism is not a red or blue issue, it’s a human issue.   The financial crisis is not a red or blue issue, it’s a human issue.   Police brutality is not a red or blue issue, it’s a human issue.   Oxygen is not a red or blue issue, it’s a human issue.   There is a difference between peaceful demonstrations & rioting and looting. There are five freedoms outlined in the First Amendment are: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to assembly and the right to petition...