Blog
Pastor Ray’s thoughts on issues in the church and contemporary culture.
Priorities
How sad for us human beings that it often takes a tragedy to get our priorities right. Haven’t you found after some tragic event that things that you and I thought were very important have become insignificant? What is our purpose on earth? What is really important?...
Spiritual Warfare
There is a real personage known as the devil. His name means ‘Destruction’ (‘Abaddon’), or ‘Destroyer’ (‘Apollyon’). Jesus described him as a thief who comes ‘to steal, and to kill, and to destroy’. He also stated that the devil is a murderer and liar, and the father...
A Word of Reminder about the Company You Keep
1 Corinthians 5:7-11 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but...
Renewing Our Vows
In 2 Chronicles 15, the Spirit of God spoke through Azariah to King Asa about the need to cleanse the nation of its idols, and to return to a pure worship of the LORD. The promise was given that if Asa and all his countrymen would seek the Lord, He would be found of...
Reactions to Truth
Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Acts 7:54 When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their...
The Three-Fold Cord
Godly principles for marriage attack our selfishness to the core. The natural woman will not submit to her husband, nor the natural man die for his wife.
The Covenant Of Marriage
Every age of the Church has characteristics that reflect the influence of the world instead of, or in place of, the influence of God’s Word. Our age is the age of secularizing, or redefining, Biblical terminology. A prime example of this is the redefining of the...
Biblical, Not Critical
When a person is living in sin or some form of compromise, they usually accuse the person who is speaking God’s word to them of being critical, when in fact they are being Biblical. God’s word is corrective and instructive, and does indeed judge (the Greek word means...
Who is Right?
Accept the fact that believers do indeed disagree and have different opinions on non-salvation, day-to-day practical matters. Pray that those differences will not divide you. Pray that God would allow you to see the opposite view and not interpret it as them rejecting you.
The Idolatry of Worship
Acts 16:14 And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. John 4:23,24 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the...
Satan – Defeated, But Not Destroyed
In every trial or temptation we face, there is a victory to be won as we yield ourselves to the power of God’s Spirit and the strength of Jesus!
The Spirit Of God Or Striving?
Jesus the Messiah was anointed by the Spirit of the Lord. One of the recorded evidences of this was that He would not strive. In our lives one sure way to detect sin is when the flesh is striving against the Holy Spirit. The flesh, manifested in strife, aspires to...
Prayer Precedes Pentecost
As we read in Acts 1, to wait for the “power from on high”, the disciples prayed. The lesson here is that the praying person or church is the one that walks in the power of the Holy Spirit. When told to wait for the promise of the Spirit they prayed. The most...
Active Holiness
A quality that should mark every Christian is holiness. Unlike the deceived Pharisee in the temple who thought he was holy because he observed religious duties, true holiness is the fruit of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. In fact, have you ever heard the...
Prophecy – More Than The Eye Can See
We are seeing and reading on a regular basis now about the human atrocities in places like Syria and Afghanistan. It wasn’t that long ago when the same horror was going on in Kosovo and Somalia. My sister-in-law tells me about the ethnic wars that she and her family...
Test The Spirits
2 Corinthians 11:3,4 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive...
Purpose
Without purpose in life, a person merely lives from day to day, paycheck to paycheck, gathering all that one can get until they die. The writer to Ecclesiastes called this lifestyle that is limited to an existence under the sun as vanity. This is never how the Lord...
Let’s Plant A Garden
What kind of a ‘garden’ do you want your home church to be? What kind of seeds are you sowing?
Prayer for Our Nation
What should our response be to the evening news and wickedness that is running rampant in our nation? Prayer.
Priorities
How sad for us human beings that it often takes a tragedy to get our priorities right. Didn't you find after the events of 9/11 the things that you and I thought were very important became insignificant? What is our purpose on earth? What is really important? As...
Signs And Jesus
In a study of Jesus' Olivet Discourse about the end of the world, we take note of particular signs that will precede His return. If we are not careful, we can become trapped watching for signs instead of being secure by looking at the Son. As unbelievers are...
A Heavenly Battle Plan
Jesus intends that our faith be a victorious faith. Prayerfully study 2 Chronicles 20 and ask the Holy Spirit to minister to your heart these keys to spiritual victory. The results of following God’s battle plan will be joy, worship, and peace.
Strength in the Storm
Saints, it may indeed be dark in the world in which we live, but God’s Kingdom is coming, and “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord”
The Sin of Michal – Worship Police
Do you realize that the vast majority of evangelical churches today would consider some of the worship practices described in the Bible as being carnal, fleshly and unacceptable?
Which Translation?
Okay, I have to admit that I lured you to read this blog this morning with a somewhat controversial title.
Legalism or The Lord?
In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul, by the inspiration of The Holy Spirit, shows how the letter of the law is superseded by the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul makes the comparison that, if the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the...
Active Faith And A Healthy Body
No doubt, Paul was a wonderful servant of the Lord Jesus. However, even Paul learned the valuable lesson that no child of God can ever walk with Jesus effectively as a "lone ranger". We find in Acts 20:4 that other ìliving stones accompanied Paul on his journeys. At...
Who Touched Me?
One of the sweetest episodes in the life of Jesus is found in His encounter with the woman who was bound by a hemorrhaging problem for twelve years. Can you imagine how horrible this poor woman must have felt in her culture? That physical condition would isolate her...
Holy Ground
The absence of holiness in the life of the church has caused the church to be irrelevant in its call to reach the world for Christ.
Did Adam And Eve Live Together?
If any couple were justified in living together, it certainly would have been Adam and Eve. After all, there were no other options. Also, they didn’t know about adultery or fornication because those sins didn’t exist yet. Thirdly, they were in the truest sense ‘made...
About Me
I am the Lead Pastor of Koinonia Fellowship, a husband, father and grandfather. I also serve on the worship team as one of the drummers.