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Perfect Love – December 27, 2020

December 26, 2020 By Denton Presbyterian Blogger Leave a Comment

We know that holidays can be a mixture of blessings and challenges – especially during times such as these. It can be a joyous time – but can also be a lonely – even fearful – time. God sent us His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, for just such times. His birth, death, and resurrection all occurred during times that were filled with challenges, fear, and confusion. He shed His grace – then and now – on the weakest, the most vulnerable, the most needy. He continues to meet us as we truly are and to offer us His redemption. He is no stranger to our fears, our hopes, our successes, and our failures. We thank God for the opportunity to come together and worship Him and hope you will join us – either virtually or in person.

Church services begin at 10:30 am. You can join us in person in the gymnasium at First Presbyterian Church (1114 West University Drive, Denton, TX). You can join us virtually through the weekly broadcast on our YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9-l2Yf1biBIwHxIirI53IA   You can also visit the channel to watch prior services.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we are respectfully asking that everyone continue to wear a mask when joining us for worship at the church. Our Worship page has additional information on the special precautions we are following during COVID-19 for everyone’s safety and comfort. We want to do as much as possible to help those who are at risk to feel like our worship service  is a safe and healthy place to gather. If you have any questions about the gathering process after reviewing the information on the Worship page, please reach out via the Contact Us form or directly to any of the Elders or Deacons.

Sunday Bulletin

Reading of God’s Word: Psalm 46
Hearing God’s Word: 1 John 4:7-21

If you would like to be included in the weekly email that includes additional information about Bible studies and other church activities, please go to the Stay in Touch page and submit the completed form. 

Filed Under: COVID-19, Fear, First Presbyterian Church, God's Love, Good News, Virtual Service, Worship Tagged With: 1 John, fear, Jesus, perfect love

Fear and Love – A Devotional from Dave Wilson

May 2, 2020 By Denton Presbyterian Blogger Leave a Comment

1 John 4:17,18 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 

This is for my children, my wife, my friends old and new, and anybody else that wants to listen in. I am a fearful person, a worrier to the nth degree. I am afraid of pain, of other people’s pain, of my own pain but I don’t think I’m afraid to die. I realized this when I was in a bus accident when I was 16 years old. I won’t give you all the gory details, but it was conceivable that I was about to die and I was OK with it because I knew where I was going. Today I want to look at I John 4:18. I want to look at two things: fear and love.

The first thing is fear. Let me give you some context. In verse 17 John talks about the day of judgment. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the great Welsh preacher of the 20th century, gave some advice with regards to the day of judgment. He said, “Stand in front of the reality of the day of judgment.” Now, you’ve got a few types of folks and maybe you will see yourself in one or more of these.

The first type are those who out and out reject the day of judgment as nonsense or maybe even as evil. They are appalled by the very idea of it, it smacks of trying to control people with fear. If you have a commitment to free will, then this is you. We’re going to rebel against anyone trying to mess with our free will. Or the day of judgment seems to them as the epitome of ignorance. Once again the epitome of knowledge to them is self-determined; to say that all mankind is held to a standard other than the one they make up themselves or have agreed to follow is offensive to them. We can all say that we fall along this spectrum most days, meaning, whether you’re a Christian or not you don’t like the idea of judgment and to be afraid of it would mean that it seems reasonable to not like it. Some of us are more brazen – we hate the idea, we hate anything about it – but all of us have some hatred of the idea, if we’re honest.

The second group are those who, probably in a way to suppress fear or hatred of the idea of judgment, choose to ignore it. These are not the ones actively hating the idea or hating the idea that God is judge. They instead are seeking a life void of anything to be afraid of. They are usually the fun people in life. They don’t want to ask the question of “What is life‘s meaning?” Life‘s meaning to them is to avoid this question altogether. But things like war and pestilence and disease and the insane bombardment of information we currently are subjected to make this way of living impossible, and that is ruining our worldview and exposing us to the stuff we’ve done everything we can do to suppress. And out of these moments bubbles up the overflowing fountain of fear and hatred. The unknown is all of a sudden made known, and we are forced to confront a reality we have so desperately tried to keep far away from us. Christian and non-christian alike are equally affected.

Right now in the Covid 19 world in the United States of America it all depends upon your age, where you live, your economic status, and where are you are on this spectrum. If you are a teenager or college student with a good family situation and you have parents on the age bubble for this thing, you are going to whistle in the dark until someone close to you gets this disease and dies. If this thing went after the young I guarantee you folks like me would be way more freaked out, but as it stands right now we are worried to some extent about our health and infinitely more worried or fearful about money. So we whistle in the dark until a financial ruin day of judgment becomes too apparent to mask with a $2,400 check and our baseless hope in a brighter financial future is torn away. So, we should all stare the day of current and financial judgment in the face and be terrified by it. Yet the Christian answer, the one that comes from God, is that yes there is judgment, there is awfulness, there is true and real fear, but there is something else. Every time my phone buzzes with yet another report, the one I’m really looking for is the one that says, “FEAR HAS BEEN DEFEATED!”

Before I get to the category of love, there is one more group that we need to address. Those are the Christians who, as Lloyd-Jones put it, are “believers who feel it their duty to be miserable.” These are the folks, and all of us have been here, that want love and fear to coexist. Really they just want fear to exist because their biggest fear is that God‘s love for them is impossible. They can’t submit to love so they enslave themselves to fear. These are the older brothers trusting in their good works to save them and using fear as a full body hazmat suit to ensure that love isn’t needed. They have chosen to fear everything else but God. The fear of the greater drives out the lesser. Two months ago you were afraid that it might rain on your wedding day, today you were afraid you might die or someone close to you might die. Two months ago you were afraid that you would not be able to afford a good vacation, today you are afraid of losing your house. Greater drives out lesser. So why not fear (I’m both using the term as reverence and true fear of) God and it will drive out the lesser fear of death, pain, ruin. Why would you choose this? One word, love.

This leads us to our second point: love. God is love. His love for Himself and for you drives away fear because it is greater than fear. It offers life, it offers freedom, it offers forgiveness even in the face of inescapable judgment. I’ve been studying the book of Zechariah with a friend of mine these past couple of weeks and in Zechariah 3 Joshua the high priest is staring judgment in the face. He is in the courtroom of God and he is covered in his priestly garments and they are covered in excrement of every gross conceivable kind. He is according to God‘s law 100% guilty. Satan also stands there as his accuser, he has an airtight case against Joshua. Yet even here the greater drives out the lesser. God’s love dismisses the charges, clothes Joshua in clean robes, and crowns him with glory, not because Joshua did what was right but because God made him clean simply due to his eternal love for him. Oftentimes we become like Satan in that we want to point out the unacceptable nature of ourselves or of others. We make ourselves and others feel as though they can never be clean, much less worthy of glory. But love is greater than this and we must use it to drive away fear, both the fear of being found out ourselves and the fear of others “getting away with it.” This is the teaching, the doctrine, the way of life known as justification by faith. It is the imputation, the declaring, by the only one who can, that we are right before God so that nothing can touch us; it is Romans 8:31-39 type stuff.

So how can we know this love? First, by believing it and second, by practicing it. Especially with those overcome by fear. Love them, sacrifice for them, listen to them, pray for them, serve them. Don’t hammer them for their fears and their commitment to fear. Instead, love them in the midst of it. As you practice love, you will drive out your own fear and you may by God’s grace drive out the fears enslaving those around you.

In conclusion, there’s an article my friend sent me that was in the most recent Harvard Business Review The author was saying that the feeling that we are not acknowledging during this time is grief, basically grief over the thing we love the most that has died, security, control etc. His advice was to acknowledge that. Yes, acknowledge. But is that all? NO! fear and grief can go hand-in-hand, but the good news is that we grieve as those with hope, HOPE founded in love. So go to battle today armed with love, and let God’s love expressed in the sacrificial love of Christ drive out your fear and the fear of those around you.

Filed Under: COVID-19, Devotional, Fear, God's Love, Grace

Devotional 4/8/2020

April 10, 2020 By Denton Presbyterian Blogger Leave a Comment

“The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:5-7


 As I try to navigate this time I keep thinking about Paul’s words here in Philippians 4. He says so much that speaks directly to my heart right now. He tells us that:

1.  The Lord is at hand.
2.  Therefore we do not need to be anxious.
3.  Rather we should be moved to pray.
4.  And in our prayers we are to give thanks.
5.  And tell him everything that we need.
6.  And his peace will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

One of the hardest things in all of this is the feeling of helplessness. I feel like I am just sitting around waiting to see what happens. Will I get sick? Will Michelle get sick? The best thing I can do is nothing! What’s going to happen to the economy? But Paul says to remember – the Lord is at hand! I may be helpless but he is not. I may not know what to do but he is working all things according to the counsel of his will for my good. I may be in the dark but he knows all things – including when this will be over. The Lord is at hand, he is near – and he is my shepherd, he is my Father, he is my shelter in the storm – and I can trust him. That is why I do not need to be anxious. If I forget that the Lord is near, I have every reason to be anxious whether I acknowledge it or not. But if he is near then nothing will happen to me that he is not in control of and will use for my good.

So rather than being anxious – worrying – I should pray. THAT is really the best thing that I can do. Knock on the door of my heavenly Father’s throne room just like a four year old knocking on his daddy’s office door and tell him how I am feeling and what I need. I should tell him that I am afraid. I should tell him that I am anxious and worried about my job, about my future, about money, about school, about having enough toilet paper, etc, etc. I should tell him that I need HIM. I should ask him to help my unbelief; to help me believe that he is all-powerful and all-good and that he is for me and not against me.

And then I should remember all the things that I am thankful for. I am thankful for Jesus – that he who knew no sin became sin for me so that in him I might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:2). I am thankful that he who was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but made himself nothing, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-8). I am thankful that Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18) – which means that COVID-19 is under his power and authority. I am thankful for my wife, and kids that they are healthy and that we have a roof over our heads and food in the pantry and a church body that we love, and friends who love us and pray for us. We could go on and on.

And his promise to us is that as we remember that the Lord is at hand, and as we pray with thanksgiving, HIS peace will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. That is what I need. That is what I want. Is that what you need and want? Then join me in praying and believing as we struggle through this difficult time.

I have started using our denomination’s call/guide to prayer for the month of April as I seek to follow Paul’s wisdom. Would you join me? Start on whatever day of the month it is and let us cry out as a congregation to the God who loves us and gave himself for us. Here is the link.

Filed Under: Activities, Corona Virus, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Devotional, Fear, God's Love Tagged With: love, service

Uncertain Times

March 2, 2020 By Denton Presbyterian Blogger Leave a Comment

If you have access to any type of media, you have been inundated – perhaps overwhelmed – by the news of the coronavirus outbreak, political upheaval both here and abroad, and the historic plunge of the stock market. It’s enough to make anyone concerned – if not downright afraid.

It would be easy to share some platitudes:

  • Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm
  • It’s always the darkest just before dawn
  • Take the lemons and make lemonade

While they might make for interesting signs or tee-shirts, they don’t mean much when your heart is racing with fear, your gut is tied up in knots, and you are wondering how any of this is going to end up being “OK”.

What’s a Christian to do – for themselves and for others? The good news is we serve a LIVING God. He doesn’t serve up feel-good platitudes – but real answers to navigating a world that often feels it has gone off the rails.

He cares about us. So much that He sent His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to dies for our sins, to cover our unholiness with His righteousness, and to live for us and through us. No greater love has ever been shown to mankind.

He is with us, through all times and all circumstances. ALL times and ALL circumstances.

He wants us to communicate with Him, and He communicates with us – through scripture, through prayer, through the Holy Spirit, through interaction with other believers. His door is always open to us.

He will not fail us. The world will. Stock markets will go up and down. Diseases and disasters will come and go. He never leaves to walk alone through life’s circumstances.

This is just a blog post and there is not enough room here to go into all the facets of a relationship with the living God. Please join us on Sunday to more gain a deeper understanding of God’s love and faithfulness through prayer, study, and fellowship. We invite you to participate in our Bible Study groups, our Small Groups, and our opportunities to serve one another and the larger community.

Times may be uncertain – but God is not.

Filed Under: Fear, God's Love

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