PJ's Journal

I spent some time this morning reading the first seven chapters of the book of Hebrews to get a general idea of what the author was saying and will finish it up later. I will be diving in to this book passage by passage over the next several months and my plan is to blog my thoughts. Hebrews is a fascinating book written to a Jewish audience to assure them that Jesus is the Son of God and that God desires true belief that results in obedience. As these truths are uncovered, I am fully expecting God to reveal Himself in a richer manner to me. "See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God." Hebrews 3:12 "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess." Hebrews 4:14 God is challenging my belief and yours through this book... Do we really believe God? Do we really believe that Jesus is the Son of God and autho...

So it's 4:45am on a Thursday in Tennessee and I am wide awake. I have been awake for the last several hours struggling to fall back asleep because of the thoughts racing through my head. I have been thinking about the church... what is its intended purpose? As I contemplate that question, here are some thoughts of mine that I will spit out based on years in ministry and hopefully the Scriptures. If you know me at all, you know that it is important to me that what I believe about what God designed comes from His revelation... The Bible. So I am going to type out my thoughts and we can evaluate together whether they are from the Scriptures or just simply my thoughts. 1. The church is organic in nature! What do I mean by that? What I mean is that the church is the people of God working together for the purposes of God. It is living, breathing, and has the power to forcibly advance the Kingdom of God (Matthew 11:12, Acts 8:1-4). It is not a building or an organization. I th...

The Gospel! What is it? And what difference does it make? Certainly you can look at the lives of the early disciples and see the centrality of the Gospel. It affected what they did with their time and it affected their character as well. They were driven by it! "I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the Gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous will live by faith.' " Romans 1:16-17 There is hope for the hopeless based on the merits of Christ alone! He has made His righteousness available for the unrighteous to be clothed with! "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Cor. 5:21 It's in the Gospel that we find hope! It's because of Christ and His work on the cross that we s...