unity

Your Local Church

August 10, 2017 by Tim Sherfy

No one is off the hook when it comes to serving Jesus. In our American culture, church has become a place we go to on a certain day of the week. It’s a place where we sit attentively and interact minimally. We watch a select few lead in worship and a single individual deliver a message. Then we get up and shuffle orderly out the door and back into our lives.

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We might have some coffee, donuts, and shallow conversation on our way in or out of the building, but that’s about it. For many, this is the extent of their church-going experience. We’re not involved or invested. It’s become a selfish and borderline narcissistic exercise.

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Faith Without Works is Dead

January 23, 2017 by Tim Sherfy

Every so often, I like to increase the amount of hate mail I receive. There’s no better way to assure this than discussing the faith (or grace) vs. works topic. As I have stated previously, I don’t fall into either the faith or works camp. I believe one without the other is useless, and believe there is strong Scriptural support to say the answer isn’t either faith or works, but rather faith and works. James says plainly in his letter faith without works is dead (James 2:14-26).

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Coming from the brother of Jesus, I’m going to consider him a strong authority. There’s more to say about this, however. To those in either the faith or works camp, I urge you to keep reading. Not so I might persuade you to agree with me, but rather to take an honest look at what Scripture says about this and consider the eventual logic behind each view.

Worshipful Wonder

July 13, 2015 by Tim Sherfy

I like to read authors from fifty years ago or more. It’s interesting how much of what they said so many years ago is still relevant today. They told it like it was without a hint of the political correctness that has become the rule of our day. One of my favorites, which will come as no shock to you if you have followed this blog for very long, is A.W. Tozer.

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This morning I read the following comment from him: “In the majority of our meetings there is scarcely a trace of reverent thought, no recognition of the unity of the body, little sense of the divine Presence, no moment of stillness, no solemnity, no wonder, no holy fear.” Sadly, this applies all too well to many of our modern churches.
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Brothers and Sisters

April 10, 2014 by Tim Sherfy

If you are fortunate to live in a country where you are free to worship as you please, it is vitally important to pray with those in countries where they are not. Notice I said to pray with them and not for them. It is a subtle, yet significant difference. Praying for someone sets up a sort of invisible boundary between you. It invokes thoughts of “us” and “them”. When we pray with someone, we identify with their situation. We place ourselves in their shoes the best that we can. It’s the difference between praying for a family member and an unknown person we have been asked to remember.

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Unity in Christ

June 14, 2012 by Tim Sherfy

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I’m surprised how many people are searching for the “12 steps to Discipleship” or the “5 keys to being a follower of Jesus”. We don’t need any gimmicks to learn what it means to be a follower of Jesus. He has already clearly spelled out the process in His Word. The problem is that following Jesus is hard and requires us to make wholesale changes in our lives. That is not the Jesus most people want; they want the Jesus that spares them from spending eternity in Hell, but not much else. For too long, Christianity has been synonymous with inactivity. We have been taught that once we pray the magic prayer, our eternity is covered regardless of whatever we might do from that point forward.

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