Article by Dr. Les Hollon, Pastor, St. Matthews Baptist Church

Community – Communion – Communication … are linked to each other.  Linking us as a church family, they further the momentum that God is stirring in our midst.  Through Christ’s love, we serve as faith partners in God’s world to help seekers become believers and believers grow as disciples.

We are a Christian community who worships and ministers so every person may experience God’s love and peace.  We take no one for granted and every person equally kneels beneath the cross of Jesus.  As we continue growing stronger within ourselves, we strengthen our ability to reach out.

Our communion gathers us at the Lord’s Table and bonds us as we receive the living memory of Christ and “do in remembrance of Him.”  Our communion encircles us around fellowship tables and Sunday School class rooms and gathering places of ministry.

Our communication is spoken in love and truth so we can best do our work of peace. Communication is the life-line to community and communion.  We listen to each other as sisters and brothers.

God is molding us into New Testament peacemakers through the fascinating links of community, communion, and communication.

The gospel creates peace by creating people.  The gospel confronts, comforts, and counsels. The gospel says we can’t stay as we are; we must be transformed into Christ-likeness.  The Prince of Peace is to be our Lord so we can be princely servants of peace in a war-torn world.  

In light of Jesus’ promise, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God,” what more should we want?

Pastor Less Hollon

“Preach the gospel everywhere you go, and, if necessary, use words.”
-Saint Francis of Assisi

This article was written by Les Hollon, Pastor of St. Matthews Baptist Church.  For more information about God’s Peace, St. Matthews Baptist Church, or to contact Dr. Hollon, click over to St. Matthews Baptist Church.

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Article by Dr. Les Hollon, Pastor, St. Matthews Baptist Church

What is your spiritual vision?  20-20?  20-400? Blind?  

Frequently Jesus called out, “if you have eyes to see, then see.”  God did give us eyes of faith by which to see Christ’s presence, promise, and power.  The quality of our faith-eyes is nourished by a pure heart. So Jesus said, in the sixth Beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.”

Purify your heart and the wonders of God come into view.  You can then see God “up close and personal.”

Nathanael recognized Jesus as the Messiah.  His heart was not filled with worldliness but with God’s world. By the desires of our heart focusing on the one desire to see God, then everything else we need to see will be seen through God’s eyes.  When we look at life with spiritual vision then: money, jobs, talents, possessions, beauty, power, sex, the lonely, the thirsty, the naked - are seen for what they are and are not.

From the gospel of John’s opening we learn that Nathanael: 1.) studied the Scriptures, 2.) was a person of prayer, 2.) a man who had overcome prejudice, and 4.) one who had deep spiritual character.  He enacted the meaning of his name, the “gift of God.”  As we look at Christ as Nathanael did, our hearts are purified by:

▪ Pathways - The Beatitudes are the disciple’s continuous pathway along which God shapes our character and sets our destiny.

▪ Places – The Beatitudes place us in God’s grace-filled presence which purifies our hearts through humility, mourning, meekness, hungering, thirsting, and mercy.

▪ Positions – Purity of heart unclutters our lives and positions us to see God more clearly.

Is there anything in life you want to see more than God?  If yes, then you won’t see God.  If no, then God will reveal Himself to you.  As Soren Kierkegaard wrote, “The purity of heart comes by willing this one thing.”

In God’s view,

Pastor Les Hollon

“People see God every day, they just don’t recognize Him.”
-Pearl Bailey

“It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives.”

-C.S. Lewis

This article was written by Les Hollon, Pastor of St. Matthews Baptist Church.  For more information about faith, St. Matthews Baptist Church, or to contact Dr. Hollon, click over to St. Matthews Baptist Church.

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Article by Dr. Les Hollon, Pastor, St. Matthews Baptist Church

True love releases God’s presence, promise, and power.  This energy flows as we live the Great Commandment.  Jesus showed us how: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with your entire mind and with all your strength.”  From this love we are empowered “to love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:25-37, Mark 12:28-34, Matt. 22:34-40, John 13:34-35).

True love involves the intellect, which is what shapes ideas that in turn form our thoughts.  By mindful love we submit our thought patterns to God, and from this love we unlearn harmful ideas that have shaped sinful thoughts.  An example is the scribe unlearning that “neighbor” only meant good Hebrews and learning that the down-trodden and Samaritans were also neighbors.

True love involves the feeling-self, which is what shapes our values, which in turn forms our emotions.  By feeling-love we yield our value patterns to God and from this love we retrain the pathways by which our emotions travel.  As we love God, we love who and what God has made, and from this love response we desire to love others as God has loved us - with compassion.

True love involves the body, which enfleshes our intellect, feelings and spirit.  Until death our body is inseparably related to our own identity; consequently in John’s account of the Great Commandment, Jesus washed His disciples’ feet.  By this love act He claimed the role of servant.  By physically enacting our love for others as Christ has loved us, we can see God’s presence in others (Matthew 25:31-46).

True love unfolds as we allow our soul, the image of God within us, to lead our mind, our heart, and our body.  Our soul is the spiritual ligament which connects our entire being into God’s all encompassing love, and enables us to love ourselves as we love others.

Seeing what love can do,

Pastor Les Hollon

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
-C.S. Lewis

This article was written by Les Hollon, Pastor of St. Matthews Baptist Church.  For more information about God’s love, St. Matthews Baptist Church, or to contact Dr. Hollon, click over to St. Matthews Baptist Church.

If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg. Thanks! 

Article by Dr. Les Hollon, Pastor, St. Matthews Baptist Church

One man searching for life’s importance asked Jesus which Law was to be the sustaining guide for his existence.  The most important one, answered Jesus, is this: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the one Lord; love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.” (Mark 12:29-31).

Concisely Jesus explained that a full & balanced love - for God, for people, and for oneself - is the basis of thought-action for everyone who would follow Him.

At times we can find ourselves accepting a godly truth as a knowledge claim without allowing it to affect our lives.  The inquisitive man had progressed beyond the knowledge claim but still wondered if he should allow it to change his life.  Jesus expressed to him that a knowledge claim without a life response is meaningless.

What was true then is true today.  We hunger to be loved and to love.  Our enacting love with each other, our families, and our neighborhood helps the world to see the truth of God’s love, one person at a time.

You will notice in this love story (Mark 12:28-34) that the seeker connected with Jesus in four ways.  

He heard.  He listened with his soul which filled his mind, heart, body, and spirit with Jesus’ voice & message.  Are you hearing Jesus?  

He noticed.  Jesus was not playing games with the game players.  He was truth in motion.  Are you noticing Jesus?  

He asked.  Hungering for life’s importance, he courageously stood in the midst of a mixed-up crowd and asked for Jesus’ help.  To him, Jesus revealed the meaning of love.  What are you asking Jesus?  

He agreed.  As a scribe, the man knew the Law.  In Jesus he saw the Law’s meaning.  Before a treacherous crowd, he publicly agreed with Jesus.  His admission brought him to the edge of God’s Kingdom.

Come into God’s Kingdom of Love,

Pastor Les Hollon

“A man can’t be always defending the truth; there must be a time for him to feed on it.”
-C.S. Lewis

This article was written by Les Hollon, Pastor of St. Matthews Baptist Church.  For more information about living life, St. Matthews Baptist Church, or to contact Dr. Hollon, click over to St. Matthews Baptist Church.

Article by Make The Days Count Contributor Marie Monroe

One of my greatest pleasures has always been to sit high in the trees and watch the world.  Even in my adulthood I’ve managed this.  I’ve long since left the climbs and shimmies behind, but now I have a porch that serves the same purpose.  Even in the coldest times of the year I’m out on the 3^rd floor porch as much as possible. 

My porch and I live deep in a high density, very urban neighborhood that has activity at every hour:  pedestrians, neighbors, music floating from here and there and there … even wildlife.  I’ve had close encounters and long-term relationships with the likes of possums, raccoons, birds and squirrels on my porch.

Although I’ve lived in the city for many years, a good portion of my childhood was spent in the woods and creeks of Kentucky.  I took a pretty rough and tumble approach to getting to know the land and its creatures …

I could run across wet stones without losing my footing … 

I could climb up the side of a cliff instead of hiking the path … 

I could dangle upside down from a tree branch like a trapeze artist … Read More »