Family News and Notes
PLEASE REMEMBER next Sunday is our Building Fund day. If you are able and wish to contribute you may do so then.
If you have something that needs to be included in the announcements...please make certain you get it to the person making the announcements ... in legible written form prior to announcement time.
Make a note each Sunday evening we are viewing a series regarding how we can get others to obey the Gospel. You won't want to miss one of these.
Please check the list of items for the Boles Home Christmas items. The list is on the table in the foyer. If you are able and wish to help in this effort please sign and show what you will furnish. The list needs to be completed by December 3rd. Thanks.
The McCain's should be in their new home at 414 Dogwood by this weekend. Their phone number is unchanged.
Be sure to mark your calendar for Friday, December 8, and reserve that evening for the Annual Holiday Dinner Party at the McCain's new house. All adult members of the congregation (college age and up) are invited to attend. More details later.
Wade Miller saw his doctor in Tyler Wednesday. The nerves in his legs and feet have deteriorated a little more. He should get the test results in about 3 weeks. He will be taking additional medications to help and then will return in 3 months for a follow-up visit. Please continue to remember Wade in your prayers.
Douglas Abbey (who has been in TRMC for the last week for a kidney infection) was scheduled to be released to go home after noon on Friday. He says he is feeling much better.
Hollis Lee has been having trouble with the circulation in his legs. This editor was unable to reach him or Joyce Friday for an update.
R. C. Grissom has been experiencing breathing problems, but states he is feeling a little better, but is still weak.
William Embree had heart surgery last Tuesday in Dallas. He had several spots of leakage in his heart and those were seared over to seal. He says he is feeling much better, but was not having a very good day last Friday.
Odis & Kim Duncan (son and daughter-in-law of Jim and Barbara Duncan) ask for prayers on behalf of her father, T. V. LeMay, who has cancer. Several months ago Mr. LeMay has surgery and Chemo treatments and the cancer has now returned with a vengeance. The doctors have now found cancer in several locations in his bones and state there is nothing more they can do.
Deloris Blackburn, of the Northridge congregation, has asked for our prayers. She fell last week and broke her left wrist and will undergo surgery on Monday in Houston. At this time her doctor thinks it will take two plates (one on top of and one under) in the wrist, and several screws, to repair. She states she hopes to be home sometime this coming weekend.
*********************************************
PRAYER LIST
Justin Barker, Rachel Barker, Jean Bell, Winell Blackard, Annah Brown,
Nancy Chastain, Josephine Cooper, Perry Cooper, Jan Hargrove, Hollis Lee,
Joyce Lee, Georgia Lide, Wade Miller, Wayne Pickrel, Marie Plemmons,
Helen Roper, Alva Mae Sheets, Edith Shiflet, Ola Mae Simpson, Julia Terrell,
Rebecca Tippitt, Wade Miller
ALSO: Bobby Brewster, Cristell Cato, Austin Cody, Lana Downs,
Juanita DuBose, Wesley DuBose, Carolyn Fox, Roy Fox, Edna Graves,
R. C. Grissom, Ruby Jeffery, Carlos Kidwell, Wayne Lineberger, Nola Vandusen
*********************************************
Religious Unity
Jesus prayed fervently for the unity of all believers (Jn. 17:20-21). However, denominationalism thwarted the Lord's prayer by creating hundreds of schisms and "isms," effectively dividing the body of Christ into many competing factions, all vying for position as the Lord's true church. Amidst all this confusion, is there any way we can achieve religious unity? Yes there is, if all people who claim to follow Christ would throw away their denominational names, creeds, and doctrines, and restore the New Testament church by practicing only what the Bible authorizes and commands. The following principles, taken directly from the Scriptures, must be adhered to, if we would restore the unity of the Lord's true church in our generation.
The foundation of the Lord's church must be Christ, and Christ alone, "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (I Cor. 3:11). The church of the New Testament was built by Christ (Mt. 16:18), and He alone is the head of His body, the church (Col. 1:18). Jesus built only one church. He has only one spiritual body of which all Christians are members (Rms. 12:5; I Cor. 10:17, 12:12, 25; Eph. 2:6, 4:4). Man's idea may be , "choose the church of your choice," but God's idea is: choose the church of My choicethe one for which My Son gave His blood (Acts 20:28). Any attempt to build religious unity on the foundations of man-made denominations is destined to eternal failure, for the Lord warned, "Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up" (Mt. 15:13)
The only creed or rule of faith and practice for the Lord's church must be the New Testament of our Lord. According to Hebrews 1:1-2, Jesus is God's final spokesman to mankind for these last days. In Jesus' prayer for unity, in John 17, Jesus said He had shared the Father's Word with His disciples, and that the Word was truth (vss. 8-17). In John 12:48-50, Jesus said His Word would be the standard of authority for judgment at the last day. Truly, if we would find religious unity, we will find it in the Scriptures, for as the Apostle Paul wrote, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (II Tim. 3:16-17).
This is the plea of all faithful churches of Christ, to restore in our time the original New Testament church. We believe progress can be made toward accomplishing religious unity only by going back to the Bible as our only pattern for worship and practice. David McCain
*********************************************
SALT TO THE WORLD
-Floyd Kaiser
(Guest article from The Southwesterner)
It may well be that the single greatest challenge of Christian living is summed up in one word: Salt. Jesus said, "Ye are the salt of the earth" (Matthew 5:13).
My first experience with salt, other than what I put on my food, came as a youngster whose job was to salt calf hides.
On the farm, we butchered our own calves for personal consumption and to sell. One of the byproducts of such events was the hide that could be sold for a nice price. However, we couldn't make a trip to town to sell a single hide as it came into our possession. Rather, we saved them until we had a truckload.
Without refrigeration, how was this done? With salt. Lots and lots of salt.
It was my job to spread the hide on the ground with the raw side up. I would pour a pile of salt in the middle of the hide and, while on my hands and knees, I would spread the salt so as to cover every square inch.
This was the cardinal rule of my job: No part of the hide could be left untouched by salt. Why? Because any part, even the smallest that was left unsalted would spoil before we could get it to market.
In other words, salt preserved the hides. Without salt corruption, would spread unchecked.
Now we know a little more about this challenge Jesus applies to us, to be the salt of the earth. As salt preserves, so do lives dedicated to the glory of the Savior.
It's witnessed all the time in the neighborhoods of humanity. Christians live out the character of the Lord they follow, and others are affected, preserved, if you will, by their influence. As the lost and distressed were drawn to the feet of Jesus in the first century, even so today, they are attracted to the grace-filled lives of His disciples.
Jesus warns us, however, about salt losing its taste or its saltiness. He said, "but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under the foot by men."
In our time, we cannot appreciate the meaning of Jesus' metaphor because we are not accustomed to salt losing its saltiness. In biblical times, it was different. Back then, salt was impure, polluted with organic and earthy substances. Therefore, it was not uncommon for a jar of salt to lose its unique properties, its taste and ability to preserve.
What Jesus says is that salt that is no longer salty is simply dirt. It becomes of no more value than the substance that makes up a footpath. When it does, then it should be treated as dirt, cast out and trampled under foot by men.
The applications are:
AS CHRISTIANS WE ARE UNIQUE: As there is no other substance with the unique features of salt, so it is only Christians that are truly unique because only Christians are given the privilege to live a higher standard than the rest of mankind. We alone are chosen to be holy (see Ephesians 1:4). We are more careful in speech (James 1:26). We are more loving (Matthew 5:43). No one is like us. Of all men, only Christians were foreknown, predestined, called and justified (Romans 8:29-30).
THE WORLD IS PRESERVED THROUGH US: No doubt, we know that Jesus died for the sins of mankind and that His sacrifice is one we will never replace by our own efforts. The world, thus, being preserved by us is not to suggest that we take the place of what only God could do. However, without the witness of our lives and the words of life we bring in the world, no one is going to know. Without our lives of salt, no one will ask us to give an account of the hope that is in us (see I Peter 3:15).
CHRISTIANS MUST CHOOSE TO KEEP THEIR SALTINESS: It is not the plan of God that He forces us to do anything. If God forced us to be salt, then why command it? With every command there is implied a choice. As we walk about in the world, we are constantly urged by our environment to become like the world, to become common dirt, of no use to the Lord. However, the call of God is to become godly different in the world and stand apart.
"You are the salt of the earth." In us alone is the preservative of men."
*********************************************
