Balancing Ministry N' Work

Here we are with week two of our virtual service. I want to remind everyone, of something that Mrs. Linda reminded me of. We have a couple of videos on our YouTube page from a month or so ago of a couple of guys playing guitars and singing songs. They were a blessing then and can easily be a blessing today. You can also pull up lyric videos on YouTube of your favorite hymn. I posted a couple on the Littleby Baptist Facebook page. We will continue with our break from Daniel today and the plan is to pick up where we left off in Daniel chapter 4 the week after Easter. James 5:13 “Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises.” Talked a bit about how prayer is our conduit to God last week and how we should be chatting with Him. Today I want to use the second half of this verse as our starting point. ‘Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises.’ When we are excited about what God is doing in our lives, when we have recei...

Anxiety, worry, concern, restlessness, tension, nervousness, panic, are things that all of us deal with from time to time and at a higher rate with all that is going on today. Stress is the root of this and we all have the common job, house, retirement, bills, medical, school type of stressors but the uncertainty of everything going on with Covid-19 adds a whole new level to it. Stress is not our friend or even an acquaintance that we want to spend time with. Most of the anxiety, stress, worry, tension, panic, etc… that we are hit with is because we are trying to control something that is outside of our ability to control. We cannot control the economy, but we worry about the impact it is has on our finances or our retirement income. We cannot control the future, we cannot control who is going to get sick, we cannot control a lot of things, but we worry about them more than we would like to admit. We cannot control what tomorrow will bring, what will happen next week, next ...

Hello Littleby Family! A quick message to share with you our plans for the near future. This Sunday March 22 nd we will not have service in the church building, instead we will have a virtual message. We will record a video here at the Hudson house and post it on our YouTube page. I will share the link on our Facebook page, you can go to our website Littlebybaptist.org and click on the YouTube logo on the top right, or if you want me to send you the link I can. Just shoot me an email or a text saying where you would like it sent. At this point we are planning on doing the same thing for Sunday March 29 th and will make a decision by April 1 st for the what to do after that. If the need to have virtual services extends, we will look at a way to do ‘virtual’ Bible study or Sunday School. I want to encourage you to use this time to dig deeper into God’s Word. With the uncertainty around us today, the only thing we can truly count on is that Jesus is King and throu...

The king built a 90ft tall gold statue of some pagan god. He summoned anyone and everyone that might have some level of influence in his kingdom and then he commanded them to bow down and worship this statue or face immediate death. It is likely that he was motivated by trying to regain control after a recent revolt, but he basically wanted everyone to recognize that he was in charge. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were not there when he ordered everyone to worship the statue and some of the other guys, made sure the king knew that they were ignoring his command and were not worshiping his pagan statue. The king being his usual hot-headed self, summoned them and gave them one last chance to follow his command. The guys took a stand and stated that they will not bow down and worship some statue or serve the king’s gods. They had a little bit of doubt stating ‘If’ the God of heaven exists, but ultimately, they put their trust in the One True God believing that if He wanted to r...

King Nebuchadnezzar built a giant gold statue, summoned all of the leaders of Babylon, and commanded that they all bow down and worship it. The king wanted those with influence and power to fall in line under his leadership. He expected that no one would even consider resisting his command. He expected that when he told people to jump they would jump without question. He expected that when he told them to bow down and worship some gold statue that they would submit to his command. The king was going to assert control no matter what and to help ensure that people would follow his command, included an ‘or else’. People were to bow down and worship what the king had created, or they would be thrown into a blazing furnace. He was saying, do what he tells you or die. He was making a statement and trying to get everyone to agree that he was powerful enough to tell you who to and when to worship and that he had power over your life. The king made his point pretty clear and everyon...

When we last talked about Daniel and his friends, they were being elevated to esteemed positions in the Babylonian empire. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were appointed to manage the province of Babylon and Daniel remained at the king’s court. In a short period of time these guys were taken by force from their homes to now being leaders in their new home. While the events of chapter 3 appear to follow chapter 2 chronologically, the Bible does not give us a clear picture of how much time has passed since God used Daniel to interpret the dream. From everything I have read I believe it has been at least several years and maybe 10, 15, or 20 years. There is a level of familiarity between the guys and the king and they were given a second chance, which could imply some level of knowing each other. We have talked some over the last several weeks at how God was using the challenges before Daniel and his friends to grow their faith. Those events were preparing the guys for the eve...