The Periodically

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with some church leaders who are ministering in a difficult environment. I won’t go into all the details of what they shared with me, but essentially these are brothers and sisters whose lives are in danger because of their love for the Lord Jesus Christ. Furthermore, the dangers they face are partly due to policies enacted or at least tacitly encouraged by their government. I asked them how they planned on responding to these dangers. “We are going to stay here and do what we always do. This is normal. We are here to share the gospel.” What a great understanding of purpose...and a perspective that those of us in Central Illinois would do well to adopt. The temptation to want to leave Illinois due to frustration with leadership in Springfield or a poor economy is understandable. The failures of our state leadership are overwhelming. No other state in the union has mangled their budget this badly. But our brothers and sisters in hard ...

Grace and peace to you our brothers, you saints of God, we give thanks for you. Your hope laid up in heaven waiting, the gospel message bearing fruit. By God’s grace continue walking in a manner worthy of Him. Praise Him for His kind deliverance from death and darkness, the power of sin. Extol the One who grants salvation, the image of the invisible God. He’s the firstborn of creation, He’s reconciled us by His blood. We must continue in the faith, shifting not, but stable in, The gospel hope, which we have heard, proclaiming Christ, He’s coming again! Abounding in thanksgiving, yes, we who’ve received the Lord, Walking in Him, built up in Him, but my brothers be forewarned, There are those who’d take you captive by the cunning craft of man, Those who hold onto tradition, the grace of God don’t understand. For in the body of our Lord dwells all Deity, And in Him we find our fullness, He’s o’er all authority. Though at one time we were dead in ...

I have been slowly making my way through the book of 1 Peter in my recent time with the Lord and have found a number of verses that have challenged me in my thinking so I thought I share them and my thoughts with you. 1:13 - Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Peter has just finished discussing our future salvation and calls us as believers to 3 actions… 1) prepare your mind – mental preparedness at least for me can take the hardest work. It is not enough just to do some good things, my mind is to be set toward thinking & acting like Christ. 2) keep sober in spirit – not getting distracted with a focus on the inner man. What does my heart and mind dwell upon? 3) fix your hope – even now in this present life, even in sufferings like Peter is discussing, my eyes are to look ahead to my future hope and take heart. I live for eternity 2:9 - But you are ...

It's my turn to blog this week, and it is Vacation Bible Camp week. Dilemma. Am I copping out by letting someone else write for me. Maybe. This blog post by Trevin Wax on the Gospel Coalition site is a much better post than you could squeeze out of me this week. I posted this to my Facebook page and some of you have liked it, so I thought I'd try for an even wider audience here. Here is something to wet your appetite from the post: "I often meet Christians who are uncomfortable with the idea of evangelism. Whenever I dig down to the root of the discomfort, I encounter issues related to the nature of truth, what it means to follow Jesus, and the role of worship.  Here’s a fictional example of how this kind of conversation usually goes…"  As I endeavor to continue equipping the saints at Bethany in evangelism, I think each of us would benefit from reading Trevin's post  here . Remembering the Gospel is for all of us, every day... Pastor Ben

The Apostle Paul instructs the believers in the churches in Galatia to bear one another’s burdens, and tells them that when they bear one another’s burdens they will fulfill of law of Christ (Gal 6:2).   The instruction is clear: Bear burdens. But what is the law of Christ, the law that we fulfill in burden bearing?  The  law of Christ includes the law of love, and the law of love says that believers are to love their neighbors as themselves (Gal 5:14). Followers of Jesus are repeatedly instructed in the New Testament to love one another (John 13:34, 15:12; Rom 12:10; 1 Thess 4:9; 1 Pet 1:22, 4:8; 1 John 3:11, 23; 4:7, 11, 2 John 5). Therefore, we can conclude that bearing one another’s burdens is a practical outworking of the love that believers have for one another. Burden bearing is to be a mark of the Christian. How are we to do this? How do believers bear one another’s burdens? First, we recognize that the command to bear burdens is broad, encompassing numer...