New Mid-Week Service Time in Durant!
Durant is moving the mid-week service to Wednesdays beginning this week! Don’t miss out. Join us in person or online on Wednesday, November 2nd at 7pm!
Remember – from now on, mid-week service is on Wednesday.
Read MoreWhy Prayer?
Luke 11:1 says, “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’ ” Even the disciples, who were with Jesus face to face, felt the need to ask him to teach them to pray. We all need to be taught how to pray!
Why do people not pray? Because they think it doesn’t matter if they pray or they feel like they’ve seemingly tried and failed to get an answer. Many of us have a misunderstanding or misapplication of the sovereignty of God. We think and say things like, “Whatever God allows, God wills.”
So, in Part 2 of his current series, “Lord Teach us to Pray,” Pastor Duane answers the question:
Why do we pray?
- Fellowship and relationship with God (Rev. 4:11).
It’s a two way conversation! (But sometimes it’s good to seek Him in silence.) - Prayer changes us, circumstances, and our world.
- Prayer is the avenue by which God has ordained for us to receive our provisions provided in Jesus.
- Prayer is God and man working together in the earth.
I Cor. 3:9, “For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.” Man working independent of God is death! - Prayer is not me convincing God to change His will and conform to mine.
- Prayer is not me convincing God that I’m right and know what’s best.
- Prayer is not a tug-of-war to see who wins.
- Prayer is God and man in partnership, releasing and establishing God’s will in the earth.
When God speaks something it is a covenant. It cannot be changed. God does not break His word. (Psalm 89:34) He binds himself to his own word…
We encourage you to listen to this message and the entire series by clicking here.
Read MoreReaping the Harvest
Pastor Duane started a new series last week, “Reaping the Harvest,” and this week’s message was titled, “Fishers of Men.” In Matthew 4:19 Jesus says, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” We are all called to be fishers of men. He has called us to go fishing!
So how do we fish? With:
1. Equipment – us (God uses us as nets)
2. Bait – passion and knowledge
3. Method – love
1. Nets. We are the net that God wants to cast in the sea of humanity. God uses people to catch people. When we assemble we are mending nets. Matt 28:19 says, ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ When we GO, we are God casting His nets. We are important to God!
In John 17:14 when Jesus is praying for the disciples, he says, “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” We are to shine as a light and not be embarrassed to be moral.
In John 17:15 Jesus goes on to pray, “Don’t take them out of the world, but keep them from sin…”
So how do we fish for men? How do we keep them (and ourselves) from sin?
The answer is in Romans 10:17: So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Verse 13: Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Verse 14: Believe? How? Hear? How?
Verse 15: By you and I as believers speaking out His word! Who is sent? US!
2. Bait. The very life of Christ in us… Our own passion and knowledge of God! People are tired of phony plastic Christians. Being real draws them in. This stuff is REAL. This stuff is GOOD!
3. Method. How do we witness? Not out of guilt, but LOVE.
LOVE GOD
LOVE PEOPLE
SERVE BOTH
If you love God, but not people, you push people away from God. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. It’s not about rules; it’s about relationship with people. Religion doesn’t love people.
We encourage you to listen to this message and the entire series by clicking here.
Be blessed!
Read MoreFour Faces of Love
God’s love and knowing His love for us changes us like nothing else can.
Pastor Duane started a new series on Sunday entitled, ‘Four Faces of Love.’ Today’s message was entitled ‘Extravagant Dimensions.” He opened with one of my favorite prayers which is found in Ephesians 3:14-21:
“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.”
I love it… this is my prayer! The prayer applies to all of us:
- Christ may dwell in our hearts,
- Being rooted and established in love,
- Grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
- Know this love that surpasses knowledge,
- Be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God…
I’m really looking forward to the rest of this series. To hear the entire message click here. I’ve only touched on a few key points – there’s so much more.
Be blessed!
Read MoreGod Uses Failures
Pastor Duane started a new series on Sunday, ‘God Uses Failures.’ I think that’s pretty good news – don’t you? Who hasn’t felt like a failure? Who hasn’t felt unworthy?
But God USES US! In our miserable failings, he not only loves us and sent his son to die for us, but he uses us. Pastor Duane reminded us on Sunday that many of the characters in the Bible failed. Paul was persecuting and killing Christians before he was turned around – and USED by God. Peter denied Christ three times and then later was USED by God. King David murdered a man and took his wife – yet he is one of the most tender-hearted lovers of God in history and writer of many beautiful Psalms. Most of us have probably not failed nearly as dreadfully as some of the Biblical Patriarchs did.
We all need to be on the road to perfection. None of us are what we ought to be. As Pastor Duane said, “I am better than I was, but I will be even better in the future!” Galatians 1:15 says, “…but when He, who had set me apart before I was born…” God had a plan for your life, a purpose for you, from the day of your birth. And he is not surprised, nor does he change his mind about you, when you fail. It’s just as simple as that!
We encourage you to click here to listen to the entire message.
Be blessed!
Read MorePower vs. Authority
Pastor Duane wrapped up his series, “Doing the Works of Jesus.” This has been such a dynamic series, I’m sorry that it’s over! I love that God uses us to do His work here on earth, and I want to understand that aspect of my relationship with Him as much as I possibly can.
Sunday’s message was “Power vs. Authority.” I think sometimes we perceive power and authority to be one in the same. But they’re not really. Pastor used a great illustration (you’ll have to listen to the message to hear the whole story!) of the power of a moving vehicle vs. the authority of a traffic officer. God has the power. But he has chosen to give US the authority. It’s mind boggling when you think about it. I walk in the authority of the power of God. When I am walking in the Spirit, applying His Word to my life, seeking Him and following after God’s ways and His will, I am endued with his authority. You know, I have sensed God working in my life and the lives of others. I have heard His still quiet voice. I’m not saying it happens every minute of every day, but there have definitely been times that I had a sense of His authority – and I’ve seen it in others.
Many years ago, I participated in an intensive training class for a new job with about 20 other people. It was a six week training program and we grew very close as a group. We studied together, trained together, ate together. It was a special bond. About four weeks into our training, one of our fellow students didn’t show up. And there was some talk about a motorcycle accident, and we all knew this young man came to class each day by motorcycle. We found out before long that, indeed, it had been our classmate in that accident, and he had died. There was an older Christian woman there (I was too stunned to react) who pulled our tearful group together and led us in prayer. And we all followed her, and leaned in to her, and submitted to her AUTHORITY to comfort us in prayer. She knew who she was in Christ, and she exercised her authority.
Genesis 1:26 says that ‘God gave man dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ God gave that dominion to you and me. We have the authority to go in the name of the Lord and do His will; to pray for the needs of others, to speak on His behalf.
When Jesus was doing his work as a man here on earth 2000 years ago, he had a body which was provided to him through his mother Mary. Today, we are his body. We are his eyes, his hands, and his feet. Everything that he did then, we are to be doing now. Pastor Duane summed this up:
Jesus needed a body to do God’s will.
He still needs a body.
We are that body.
We encourage you to listen to this message and the entire series by clicking here.
Be blessed!
Read More