Celebrate Freedom from Fear

How many times did Jesus tell his disciples not to be afraid?

It seems to have happened quite often. The disciples had a habit of giving into fearful emotion and letting it hijack the efficacy of their faith walk in Him.

Jesus told His disciples not to be afraid because He wanted them to be effective in their earthly ministry and have the abundant life that He came to give them.

He knew it all started with a critical reliance on Him. The disciples had to die to themselves to overcome the spiritual fear that was in their hearts.

I believe we can live a life free from fear today, but only if we renew our minds in Christ and become 100 percent reliant on God in our lives.

Fear is an emotion of our mind. Overcoming it means renewing our mind through the power of His presence and steadfastly walking in His love.

Yes, some fear is healthy and can keep you safe. As Proverbs 27:12 says, "The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it." A healthy sense of fear can be a sign from God to help you stay on the right path and avoid danger.

However, some fear is like a spiritual snakebite. It can paralyze you and keep you from doing the things you could or should do. The disciples experienced this paralyzing fear in their lives and struggled, until they learned to fully rely on God.

This week as we recall the celebrations of Independence Day, make a commitment to declare independence from fear.

Become dependent on Jesus for your daily bread and please, do not be afraid.

Love,

Pastor Steve

P.S. I want to thank everyone involved with “Feeding Families for the Fourth” Outreach this past weekend. It was a tremendous blessing to many families and we are so blessed to have had the opportunity to touch the community in this way. May you continue to be blessed for your obedience and experience the joy of God’s love today. Thanks to all who gave, served or prayed! You are the Church.

Life Made Whole

In the last few weeks, I’ve been speaking about the ways we scramble our lives and how we can make things better in a right relationship with God.

It’s my belief, there’s no habit, sin, or lack in our lives we can’t overcome if we correct our wrong thinking, now. We all need to seek the Lord for a fresh and re-newed way of thinking.

I believe it’s His ultimate desire to see us transformed. But it has to come through a process of learning to be in His presence and to love people.

As a church, our goal is to take people through that process every day to help them find significant living in Him.

It all starts with a commitment to Connect. The leaders at Bixby Community Church are committed to helping you connect with God and encounter Him in a real and meaningful way. By connecting we learn to love.

When we connect with God we will be lead by Him to connect with His people. We encourage you to connect with other people who are connected to God.

The next step in the process is to help you Grow. Through our Wednesday and Sunday services, Business Fellowship, leadership training, children’s classes, adult Sunday school classes, youth gatherings, prayer meetings, social media and Daily Bible Reading, we want to help you grow in your relationship with the Lord Jesus. Growing in Him helps us to be renewed in our minds and hearts.

How do we develop right thinking and better beliefs? By training! Through classes and Bible study, more light will appear in your life to help your beliefs line-up with what is true.

The final step in our process is to Serve. In fact, that’s the reason we connect and grow …to serve God and to serve the needs of others. By serving God and serving others we will have the greatest opportunity to impact the fourth generation.

Life is made whole by connecting, growing and serving.

I’m very blessed to connect with you as your Pastor, to grow together, so that we can serve and impact Gen 4.

Don’t miss our July 4, Sunday morning service. I will be preaching a powerful lesson on freedom. We are all in a form of bondage to ourselves. Let’s make this 4th of July Celebration, a life changing weekend as we learn to celebrate freedom from our limiting beliefs.

Please help us Feed Families on the Fourth. Visit our website if you would like more information. BCC will bless 100 families with a great basket of food on this holiday weekend. Be a part of the giving!

Love,

Pastor Steve

Fatherhood Made Whole

Fatherhood MINUS the father is simply the HOOD.

Too many Fathers are MIA from their homes. It’s clear the attitude of the world and many believers toward Fatherhood and parenting today has become an issue of convenience, rather than a responsibility in our homes.

I believe, however, we can become the parents God wants us to be if we’re willing to do what it takes to renew our minds today and align our hearts with right thinking in Jesus.

As the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4, we need to seek for the attitude of our mind to be renewed with fresh anointing from God, in His presence. It all starts with fresh anointing from God.

Make it a habit to bless your children with meaningful touches and words of love. Begin to speak to them in kindness and show them how valuable they are in God’s sight. Offer them a glimpse of God’s purpose for their lives and plans for their future. As often as possible, speak INTO what you see for them in the future. Speak to their possibilities.

I believe you’ll see a real change in their hearts as you train up your children in the way they should go. They’ll see you as a parent who wants only to build them up and love them as Jesus does.

Fatherhood becomes whole...when we bless our children as we have been blessed by God.

Let's keep fathers in the hood.

Love,

Pastor Steve

Learning Made Whole Blog

Are you closer to God today than you were last year at this time? Are you healthier, wealthier today versus last year? Are you happier?

If your answers to these questions are no, then maybe you're not learning from the lessons in your life. Learning impacts our beliefs at the point where we make our daily decisions. If our beliefs don’t change according to what we learn in life, then how will our decisions produce a positive outcome?

The reality is if you don’t make changes based on your learning…then the quality of your decisions will show it…and so will the outcomes in your life. We all need to learn that there is a vast difference between knowledge and learning. "Knowledge puffeth up." Learning causes change to occur in our life.

Consider King David in the Old Testament. David knew God and understood His precepts. Sadly, David, a man after God's own heart, struggled to learn. After David sinned with Bathsheba, he prayed in Psalm 51:10, "create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." David asked God to show him how to learn because his sinful nature was clearly getting in the way of his spiritual growth. He cried out to God with a strong heart seeking change.

Maybe you're like David and need a fresh touch from God to help you to learn and create true change in your life. Maybe you need a breakthrough that will help you apply your understanding to know God in a new and intimate way.

Whatever the case, I want you to know, your learning can be made whole through God’s fresh anointing today. Walk in the light of His Word and seek His face.

Flee from darkness and seek FRESH anointing from God today. "Here a little, there a little, precept upon precept, line upon line.

Stay out of the shade!

Love,

Pastor Steve

Reality Made Whole

We all have our definition of reality. This is a great time of year to think about how we define what is real in our lives.

Summer is when most of us go on vacation, weekend getaways, or head to the lake to have fun and relax. Most of us think of our our vacations or get-aways as an "escape from reality."

There are many, however, who want and seek a more permanent change in their everyday reality. These folks change jobs, churches, or even spouses in hopes of finding happiness and filling the emptiness they feel in their hearts.

I think people are unhappy in their lives because they have an unreal view of reality. They’ve been sold on the notion that a happy reality is gained through the pursuit of wanting more and getting more stuff. "I want it all and I want it delivered!"

We are on a constant search for bigger, better, new and improved. We shop. We buy. "But I still haven't found what I'm looking for."

We can search everywhere for contentment…but until we have contentment with Godliness, as in 1 Timothy 6:6, then we’ll likely never find true peace and joy.

Reality is made whole when we are content in the presence of God. Contentment comes from right thinking and right thinking comes from a pure heart before God.

Pray this prayer with me today. "Create in me a pure heart, Oh God."

Contentment will produce a Christ-filled reality.

Love,

Pastor Steve

Yesterday Made Whole

Throughout scripture, God shows us the importance of looking back on yesterday through Memorial Stones. These are times in which we remember His blessings and miracles in our lives through His sacrifice and the sacrifice of others.

We celebrate Memorial Day in America with this same spirit of honor and reverence. It is a day of reflection as we gather as a nation and remember those who fought and died for the freedom of our country.

Remembering yesterday, in this sense, is a Godly thing because it seeks purely to honor God and others and doesn’t get bogged down in our own guilt and personal past sins.

Unfortunately, many in the church live in their yesterdays perhaps because they feel condemned and guilty from what they’ve done in the past. They refuse to let go of their mistakes and then spend their time dwelling on their personal failures.

God’s admonition to you is to stop dwelling on your yesterdays and dwell with Him in a place of peace today.

God is not in the condemnation business. He is in the redemption business. The past is the past…we need to leave it there. As Psalm 118 says, “this is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

We also need to be careful in our memory of past successes. There's work to do today and talk of yesterday's good work has little to do with the task set before us today.

A box full of trophies is just a box full of trophies, isn't it? Do trophies really add to our sense of self worth?

Remember, "nows" quickly become yesterday and tomorrow is only a possibility.

Yesterday is only made whole by what you do today.

Dwell with the Lord today…and put your past at rest in Him. TODAY is the day the Lord has made.

Love,

Pastor Steve

"Why?"... Made Whole

Over the next six weeks we are going to be looking at areas in our lives that often get scrambled. Last Sunday we asked the question, "Why?" This is probably one of the questions Pastors dread the most. Even Rev. Billy Graham didn't feel like he could provide satisfactory answers to the "why's?"

It is a question that has been asked for centuries and one that reflects who we are as flawed human beings. We want to know the reason things happen and often want to confront God about why "bad" things happen.

I believe as Christians, our goal shouldn’t be to know why bad things happen; instead we should seek deep understanding of our own spiritual condition

I believe that suffering is the result of a fallen world through the original sin of Adam and Eve. Suffering is part of this world because of the fall of man and the evil found in man's heart (Jeremiah 17:9, Mark 7:21-22).

That would be condemning news if we didn’t have the saving knowledge and grace of Jesus in our lives. Even in the midst of suffering, we know God is present and His message of grace, mercy, and love is always with us. Suffering may be a part our lives but the power of God’s love and hope comes to set us eternally free.

Saints, when you feel alone, when you feel like you're suffering, that is when God is closest to you. In the midst of your trials, the shepherd's staff will comfort you.

Scrambled eggs in life should never be a surprise to any believer. Rest in the knowledge that God’s will is to make you whole today and give you a peace that passes all understanding.

If we know Jesus, really know Him, we won't need to know "why?"

Love,

Pastor Steve