Where Is Jesus in Your Storm?

September 2, 2016 Jim Duggan

As you read this today, Hurricane Hermine is making her way across the lower third of the state of Georgia. Hopefully she will bring an abundance of much needed rain to Central Georgia. I made a previously planned trip to the grocery store last night and saw plenty of available bread and milk. We are not accustomed to a storm like this in our area, so we might over-prepare just a bit.

We may not experience a weather phenomenon like this very often, but we all experience with storms of circumstances. Storms of circumstances come in many forms including but not limited to health challenges, relationship troubles, job issues, financial difficulty. These life storms can seem devastating. Where is Jesus when circumstances blow up a powerful storm in our lives?

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When Life Is a Bungee Jump

August 30, 2016 Jim Duggan

I have absolutely no desire to bungee jump. If that’s your gig, then more power to you, but if any of you ever hear tell of me doing it, you will then know for certain what you expect even now – I have finally and totally flipped my lid!

The more I think about it, however, the more I realize how closely real life can resemble a bungee jump. Life consists of a series of ups and downs, bouncing between extremes of good and bad circumstances. How can we prepare for the extreme bungee jump of life?

4 Reasons Young Families Need Church

August 28, 2016 Jim Duggan

Besides my family, one of God’s greatest blessings of my formative years, was attending a Bible-believing and teaching church. God used Pine Forest Baptist Church to shape me into the man I am today. I’ve learned much since my younger days in church, but the lessons I learn today build on their foundation. Because of my experience, I am convinced families need church.

families need church Church taught me much about God’s Word, and how to live in community with other believers. Thankfully, I sat under the preaching of some gifted pastors, and loving staff members modeled ministry skills for me. Lay leaders and teachers provided learning opportunities that helped me prepared for God’s calling on my life.

Recently, both the church I currently pastor and my home church have experienced the grief of losing long-standing members. I have reflected much over the last couple of weeks on the blessings so many people have been in my life. Yet today, my generation of parents and those just younger than me seem to miss the importance of family involvement in church.

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The church today faces increased competition of the time, attention, and resources of young families. School, sports, and a multitude of other options provide distractions from the important role church plays in child development. With that in mind, I offer a plea to young families to get involved in a Bible-teaching church.

Make Your Waiting Times Productive Times

August 25, 2016 Jim Duggan

I witnessed a funny sight the other day as I made hospital rounds. When I arrived at the elevators, a woman stood there waiting ahead of me. Since the up arrow light was on, I knew she had mashed the button at least once. While we waited for what must have been about 60 seconds, she mashed the button again four times – as if the more she mashed the button the faster the elevator would descend. Finally, just as she mashed it the fourth time, the doors opened. She probably still thinks the door opened when it did because she mashed the button for that fourth time.

We spend a lot of time waiting, doctors even have a room specifically for waiting. I guess that’s why they call us patients, because the we have to wait patiently for our appointment. We wait in checkout lines, we wait at traffic lights, we wait for customer service, we wait for the preacher to get through (and wait, and wait, and wait). We despise waiting, but since it is inevitable, why not learn to make waiting work for us. After all, the Bible speaks highly of waiting.

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Passion In the Right Direction

August 23, 2016 Jim Duggan

Our culture is not lacking passion these days, but passion is often misplaced. We are passionate about our sports teams, our families, our jobs, and even about our hobbies. We are passionate about politics and current events. Yet, when it comes to things of God, we replace passion with either a robotic ritualism or general apathy.

How can we direct our passion toward God and living for him? Consider as a role model a King we read about in the Old Testament. Here’s how the Bible summarizes his life, his epitaph, so to speak.

[he did] “what was what was good and right and faithful before the LORD his God.” – 2 Chronicles 31:20

His name was Hezekiah, and he excelled above the other kings of Judah. If you study his life, you find a man with a passion for God. Why did the Bible say that he did what was good, right, and faithful? How could he accomplish this on a daily basis?

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Passion Properly Directed

“In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.” – 2 Chronicles 31:21

I believe Hezekiah demonstrates four truths that will help us focus passion in the right direction.

Gold Medal Living

August 21, 2016 Jim Duggan

The 2016 edition of the Summer Olympics drew to a close Sunday. For me, these games were some of the most entertaining in memory. The accomplishments of Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky in the pool, Simone Biles on the mat, and Usain Bolt on the track amazed us. The U.S. Men’s and Women’s basketball team not surprisingly dominated their competitions. At the end of the games, the U.S. led all countries in gold medal and total medal count. Unfortunately the games also provided some unnecessary and embarrassing off-site moments, but the accomplishments far outweigh the ridiculous.

(Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

The Olympic athletes did not just show up and compete; they trained for years preparing for these 16 days. They deprived themselves, pushed themselves, and extended themselves in trying to prove themselves best in the world. Each one had a goal of winning a gold medal in their field of competition.

Conversely, what would happen if we applied the same effort to our Christian life? How different would our lives look if we worked at our faith likes these athletes worked at their sport? Is it possible for us to “win” a gold medal in the Christian life? I think the Bible indicates we can. Look with me at 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.

Preparing to Stay Awake During Sunday’s Sermon

August 18, 2016 Jim Duggan

Out of respect, I’ll not name him. But when I was a kid growing up in church, one of the men in our church fell asleep during the sermon almost every Sunday. He was so obvious because he sat in the back row of the choir, the highest point in the church. He fell asleep with his head tilted all the way back and mouth wide open.

Now that I am a pastor and preach every Sunday, I know how our pastor felt about sleepers. I take preaching very seriously, though I try to have fun with it. I want my sermon to be moving, educational, inspirational, motivational, challenging, encouraging, and yes, to some degree even entertaining. I understand my preaching style is not everyone’s cup of tea, and I am OK with that. That doesn’t stop me from working towards the goal of being the best that God wants me to be.

As preachers, we bear the responsibility to prepare and deliver sermons prayerfully under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. We are SO dependent on HIM for everything that we do. The moment we begin to believe that we have anything of ourselves that makes us good preachers, we are DOOMED.

However, listeners also have a responsibility. I have heard too many people say (about my preaching as well as others’), “I just don’t get anything out of it.” Granted, we preachers are apt to have a “bad day” from time to time, and some who stand to preach do so consistently unprepared and under-prayed. Yet often the fault of a boring sermon may fall upon a listener who is not prepared to hear what God is saying.

I Am Pronouncing Myself DOA

August 16, 2016 Jim Duggan

My sister works for the local Coroner’s office. Hers is not a job just anyone can do, and I am proud of her for doing the job so well. She often receives calls in the middle of the night to go to a scene where a body lies dead. The first thing the Coroner’s office has to do is to confirm the body is in fact dead. Sometimes they make that call at the hospital after an ambulance delivers a victim of an accident. When that victim dies before arriving at the hospital, the Coroner applies the term Dead on Arrival, DOA for short.

Spiritual DOA

From a spiritual perspective, God calls us to pronounce ourselves dead while at the same time living for Him. This death, of course, is symbolic but vital if we want to grow in our faith. To truly live the life God desires us to live, we have to surrender control of life to God. Paul stated it well in Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

How Do I Declare Myself Spiritually DOA?

Scripture teaches us at least three areas to which we need to consider ourselves dead. I begin each new day reminding myself that I am DOA – Dead on Awakening – to these three areas of life.

Living Sacrifice and The Walking Dead

3 Comments August 14, 2016 Jim Duggan

One of the more popular television programs these days is The Walking Dead. The series, based on a comic book series by the same title, depicts life in a post-zombie apocalypse. Survivors struggle to rescue society from “Walkers” (zombies) who threaten their existence. Though the zombies seem somewhat alive, they are actually dead and are merely shells of former human bodies.

While the show is purely science fiction, there is a sense in which following Jesus calls for us to be alive and dead at the same time. Jesus calls us to be a “living sacrifice.”

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. – Romans 12:1

Three Reasons We Need Bible Study Today

August 9, 2016 Jim Duggan

According to an article in the New Yorker from about a year ago, 88 percent of Americans own a Bible. About 25 percent own more than 5 copies. The Bible is not only the best-selling book of all-time, it is also the best-selling book of the year every year. According to www.guinnessworldrecords.com, more than 5 billion Bibles were printed between 1815 and 1975.

photc by Abby Henry

With so many Bibles in American homes, we should expect our country to act more Christian than it does. The sad truth is that although the Bible is readily available, it is scarcely read and studied. Even many who identify as Jesus-followers seem woefully Biblically illiterate. We are living in days that reflect God’s prophecy in Amos 8:11:

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.”

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