Dear Subscribers,
Congratulations to my parents who just had their 38th wedding anniversary! We hope you guys have a great week and many more anniversaries. My wife and I have been married for 7 years and we know how the Devil likes to attack marriages, so being married for nearly 4 decades is quite an accomplishment.
Would you like to help drive traffic to JCSM? There are all kinds of advertisements you could purchase to help people find the rich, biblical resources and the gospel that we freely offer on our web site. Please reply to this email if you'd like more information.
If you have a child in San Diego who has no school this summer, you may want to send him or her to a Christian camp. My daughter is going to three camps with HYP (Horizon Youth Programs). They're inexpensive and a lot of fun, so click here for more information.
Welcome to the new readers of this message! Here is your Devotion, some Cool Facts, A Moment of Introspection, JCSM's Challenge, the Word of the Week, a faith-builder from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained," and the Quotes of the Week. Have a fantastic week and God bless you!
Love in Christ,
Jason Gastrich, Ph.D.
Contact Us: http://jcsm.org/contact.php
JCSM's Weekly Devotions (click here to listen!)
"Finding Your Church - Part 2"
1 John 4:20, 21 "If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also."
John 4:23, 24 "But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
Insight: You'll want to avoid churches without love. God is love and everyone will know His disciples by their love. It's one of the most important qualities and you'll want it and you'll need Christian friends who have it.
Prayer: "Dear Lord, thank you for the people who love others. Thank you for loving us so much. Help us to love others and you too. Help us to avoid keeping track of blessings or wrongs, but help us to love others all the time. Thank you for the joy You give us when we obey You. Remind us that You are in control and our life becomes easy when we simply let go and do your will. In Jesus' name, Amen."
We apologize, but there are no Cool Facts this week.
We were created to bring God pleasure. Are we?
Ask yourself each day how you can be like Jesus.
God bless you as you meet this week's challenge!
agapao (Greek, see 1 John 4:20): to love
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained
"The Skeptic's Annotated Bible" claims:
Matthew 1:18 - After listing the genealogy of Jesus, Matthew tells us that Joseph was not Jesus' father after all, which of course makes the entire genealogy meaningless. The Holy Ghost, not Joseph, was the one who impregnated Mary, contradicting many scriptures which clearly state that Joseph was the father of Jesus.
"The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained" responds:
The Holy Ghost did impregnate the virgin Mary. However, Joseph was Jesus' adopted and earthly father.
(This explanation came from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained", by Dr. Jason Gastrich. This book is on CD and gives over 4,000 answers to alleged Bible errors, regarding the entire Bible at http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.org. There is also a 300 question workbook that accompanies the CD-ROM.)
Someone else's vision for you may not be God's vision for you.
Humans are compelled to please our earthly father and our Heavenly Father.
Take a stand for the name of Jesus.
We are the people who can change the world.
Do you want God to give a positive testimony about you?
Churches today have passion for many things, but they've lost the passion to be like Jesus.
God can teach you lessons through your discomfort.
If you haven't made a decision to avoid sin, how will you be able to stay holy?
It's imperative that we cry out for our nation because it's in perilous times.
The Spirit of God brings conviction, not condemnation.
A closer relationship with Christ can only make your life and your eternity richer.
The Lord wants to bless you with His presence.
These quotes came from the Holy Spirit, Atma Ram, and Jason Gastrich. If you'd like to read more wise quotes, you can either visit our Quotations Archive or get a copy of Dr. Gastrich's book called, "10,000 Wise Quotes and Spiritual Sayings"! It's the largest collection of Bible-based quotations in the world.
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
Jason Gastrich, Ph.D.
Executive Director
______________________________________________________
JCSM is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization. Copyright © 1997-present.