My Motto for Life

"By His Grace... For His Glory"

Back in Ohio, when I was a youth pastor, I established this phrase as our youth group's motto to go along with our purpose statement. Later, I found out that Dr. Tom Nettles wrote a book about Baptist history that was entitled "By His grace... For His Glory." (I don't think he'll mind me using his title in this blog).

Since that time, I have come to adopt this as my personal motto for life. I guess because it really does sum up life very accurately. First of all, everything that we are or have is by the wonderful grace of God. Are you living? Are you relatively healthy? Do you have a mind to think with and a body to move around with? Do you have friends and family that love you, and that you love in return? These are just mere drops in the bucket of a vast ocean of God's blessings and provisions, of which He owes us NONE!

I think people often forget this. People have a tendency to WRONGLY think that God owes them something. God doesn't owe us anything! The ONLY thing that we have justly acquired from our Creator is JUDGMENT AND WRATH in HELL!! I know, I know that sounds reallly harsh. But unfortunately, that's the truth. After He lovingly created us and gave us everything we could have ever possibly needed, we rebelled against Him, and said, "NO! We don't want You for our god! We want to be our own god!" As a result, we are all now born spiritually dead, with every aspect our being bound with and contaminated by sin. But thanks be to God again... for He has provided a remedy for our condition, and that is through His only Son, Jesus Christ. By turning from our sinful lifestyles and trusting in Him, the Holy Bible tells us that we can be assured of eternal life in heaven with Him.

And after we have come to know Him as we should, and we begin to study His word... we quickly realize that ALL of life... is for His glory! That is, everything that IS... all of creation... from the smallest plant life to every man, woman, boy, and girl... EVERYTHING was made to bring Jesus Christ praise and glory forever.

Do you know why you exist? To bring Him glory. Do you know why you have been blessed and provided for so abundantly? To bring Him glory. Do you know why you have been blessed with children, your home, breathable air and clean water? Yep, you guessed it... To bring Him glory!

So, the next time you're tempted to gripe and complain... remember this, that in reality you (and me) should be burning alive right now in the fires of hell... and it's only by the grace of God that we're not! Have you surrendered to Christ as Lord and Savior of your life? If so, by His grace, you will never have to endure His wrath. Praise God!! If you have not, it is by God's grace that you're still alive... which means you still have an opportunity to surrender to Him and be saved. Don't wait... Do it today! Then you too will come to fully understand what it means to say, "By His grace... For His glory!"

My New Flock

Well, it has been a long time since I posted a blog. I think the last one was in March. Nobody is probably even reading it anymore since I've been so unfaithful to keep it going. And I'm not sure why I'm writing this one except for the reason that I have reached an extremely momentous occasion in my life. And that occasion is, I will soon be moving to a small town in eastern NC where God has given me the privilege of serving as Senior Pastor for the first time in my life.



I can scarcely believe that the Lord God would entrust such an extremely responsible position to me, but the church voted today, and God spoke loud and clear through His people. Normally, a pastor would like to have 3/4 majority or at least 2/3 majority to consider accepting a call to a church. But today 98 members cast a vote, and for the first time in their history, the church voted 100% to call their pastor. I was simply overwhelmed and stunned silent, and I know... I KNOW it is only by the grace of Almighty God that this so. I'm extremly excited to get started in this new ministry, and I believe with all my heart that God has great things in store for our church.

This is a picture of where the church meets.