Praise God for old friends! Elyse and Evelyn and Ethan visit the Chinese Church CBCC

 

How Firm a foundation, thoughts on what is a good church.

 Marks of a safer spiritual environment :

The Bible and preaching as a priority:

Multitude of elders:

Diverse in leadership:

Family friendly

Instructions in righteousness:

Prayer and concern approachable:

Bible instruction in Sunday school

Encouraging growth in grace

We had tremendous expectations for a church when we were young christians, starting our family. Not as much consumer oriented, as we are now, but, doctrinal expectations. I think we should have had a greater expectation for ourselves and our service to the Lord in this regard, but we were young spiritual consumers, so to speak. And we wanted truly bang for our buck, as it were. I speak this to my shame.

I dont think we were totally off. But selfish to be sure. Good preaching, notwithstanding, doctinally sound, a history of biblical leadership and diversity in the makeup of the church, were important to us.

With all of these things in our discussions for what we expected we searched and searched to much dismay, sunday after sunday, until the day we were smitten with spiritual infatuation with what was to become our church for our early formative years of family building.

Seek ye first the kingdom...

That was a right priority, i do think in retrospect, seeking a good and godly church to rear our family in, but, probably way too mentally focussed than it ought to have been.

His word was our guide and historical confessions Heidleberg and 1689, we were definitely believer baptists and so as comfortable and a few of the Presbys were they were out of the question for that reason alone.

We dont want our children deceived into believing that the decision was made for them by their parents and lulled into an expectation that they have nothing to do for their own spiritual development. You are not some specially presaved individual that doesnt need to trust Christ yourself. We may have been deceived like that, but we dont want that for our children.

The privilege of having the Bible in your home makes you more accountable.

"I set my feet on Gods road"

We set out to seek God in our family rearing and He has led us thus far and we are still trusting him...

The Church is for God's people!

 Faithfulness means Everything, you see

January 25, 2026

Pastor Loran:

4  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

5  And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

6  And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

7  He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

Full proof of your ministry…

Works prepared for us

The tendency to cruise and compare is a nono!

7  And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;

8  I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.

Dont let anybody take your crown!   We receive a crown but someone can distract us from our work.

Communities that God sets us with an open door.

 

The Holiness of the call of God.

The awesomeness of serving God   keep the fresh  on fire and alive 

On your knees and with your face in the bible

Matt 25

​​24  Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed:

25  And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.

26  His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:

The one with one had squandered his opportunity..seems unfair

3  And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.

4  Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

5  Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

Jesus wants you to love him

Not just love your works

True worshippers must worship the father in spirit and truth!

Do you love Him?

Do you love Jesus?

Get back to where you used to be…

Don’t forget who called you and what he called you to do!

Be faithful and be a worshiper 

The “or else” is the loss of influence and ability and reality and seriousness of the ministry.  Getting people ready to step into eternity!  You will spend eternity where you are readied for.

It makes us fall in love with people again.

Represent him!  

The example of a man jumping out of an airplane checking his parachute and others around him checking all the straps and things.

Revival of conviction and prayer warriors    I can do nothing without you   i need a touch from heaven   .

PReaching is second to ministering to the Lord daily!!!

The Holy Ghost said…

The holy ghost cant talk to you with all the noise that is around and about!...   A sermon or a message.

Sermons are a dime a dozen.  But God’s word that is relevant is nothing like it!

 God has a special word for his sheep and my sheep.  Boney sheep or malnourished sheep are the result of packaged and prepackaged sermons.   Waiting on the LOrd is most important. Preach the word!   The word will feed them.  But your sheep are your sheep.  God has given you the vision for them.

The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrines.   No impact or power is in the old wives tales of storytelling.

All longsuffering and labor.  Be extremely careful how you handle the word.

Renounced the hidden things of shame   “not walking in craftiness”...etc.

Not ashamed to call sin what it is.  Don’t use the word.  Preach the word.   Not a battering ram.  He is not a manipulator.  He is not a man who tries to get the credit.  

Why you do…what you do is important    kill the fatted calf.  

Submission to the orders that are above you notwithstanding you have to be true to the Lord.

If you preach the word the word will produce.

The word will do the work!!!

The whole counsel of God is what is important.   

Revelations 22:

15  For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

16  I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

17  And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

18  For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

19  And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

20  He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

21  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

It isn’t easy, but he called us to labor in the word

“CANT LIVE A DAY”

How firm a foundation in our aging? just a thought

 6 “E’en down to old age, all my people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne.

How do we prove His love in our aging?

1 How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in his excellent word!
What more can he say than to you he has said,
You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

2 In every condition – in sickness, in health,
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
At home, or abroad, on the land, on the sea,
“As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.

3 “Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed;
I, I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

4 “When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

5 “When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace all-sufficient shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

6 “E’en down to old age, all my people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne.

7 “The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavour to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.”

Day of Judgment

The Calculus of Christmas

 1. Joy to the world; the Lord is come;

Let Earth receive her King;
Let ev'ry heart prepare him room,
And heav'n and nature sing.2. Joy to the Earth, the Savior reigns;
Our mortal songs employ,
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains,
Repeat the sounding joy.
3. No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
4. He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness,
And wonders of his love.

The Glories of His Righteousness and wonders of His Love! How do the nations prove this?

Mark 4:

40  And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?

41  And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?

When Jesus rules the world, it is with truth and grace.   The Theorem of the nations Theorem of Truth and Theorem of Grace.

Righteousness exalts a nation and sin is a reproach to any nation.  Any nation reproached by sin?

Rich nations who can cover their sins are reproached openly… Poor nations who cannot employ means to cover sin sometimes are reproached in not as embarrassing a way.  Still, both are reproached.    

Exaltation of nations based on sins acceptance seems obvious, but perhaps not.   The promulgation of deceptions is just one of the reproaches used to whip the naughty nations into the real acceptance of the Theorem of Truth and Grace!

Faith is to truth as Unbelief is to Heresy}  If x = the wonders of His Love

X +truth+grace=the proving of the nations!!!

The Voice of Truth...

 Be not many teachers?

Thank God for those who have risked much to teach us truth in spite of themselves.  Life that backs up the truth they teach is an impossible task.  We stumble and trip ourselves up, but God uses His word in our mouths to win others to himself and grow his people into what they should be.   Godly examples in this world.  If our works are burnt up with the wood, hay and stubble, we still have our souls to show for the time spent serving him.   I want to see true increase in His word and not the fake gold of worldly accolades. 

If I am a Master of this world’s estimation, I am not a master of God’s people.  I am a servant.  Great are they who give God the glory in humility and not in what people call mastering it over the flocks.  God give grace to pass on the intimacy of a real relationship with the Jesus who was ridiculed for making mud on the Sabbath, without a degree.

The Coverage of Grace:

  "Lord, your grace,   covering me like a soft gentle shower" Fred Hammond

We, who know the Lord have comforts and treasures that are immeasurable.  We know that we have them, but often the viscicitudes give us pause for our complaints.  This is unfortunate and weighty, we know God is good and our worship is true and given with much intensity at times and then at other times the weights of sin and complaints choke our praise and worship and give us liberty to give words to them that they indeed do not deserve.  Magnifying our complaints is indeed our felt condition.

The Lord's grace is greater than insurance and greater than a blessing.  It is bigger than we are.  It reaches us wherever we are and lifts us from the dungheap of our own makings.  Jesus paid it all for this great privilege of access to God in prayer and praise.  It comforts and protects us from even the designs of our own malignancies.  

We seek it and reach for it, when we are not feeling well and it is more present in the goodness of God, than we are.  It is new daily.  It is unmerited and it is everpresent in the knowledge of the love of God.  Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.   We need but to open and look into the Word of God and the eyes to see it will be granted us!   Halleluia, what a Savior!

just thinking out loud

 Pastor Loran preached today April 6, 2025

Talking about the school of faith and the school of anti-faith…

“What do you want the Lord to say?” Song came to mind

“What do you want the Devil to say?”  “Ha,ha, I made her quit?”

The sacrifice of praise is Praise Halleluia! Anyhow!

Above the fray.

In spite of praise

Glory to God in the highest, when you are lowest

Make the devil mad, praise

No matter when and how many times it happens, Satan doesn’t quit his attacks.   His goal—-   to make you quit.   Did God hold you up in the last traunch of attacks?   He has an allotment of attacks for each season.  Is that surprising?   He has them scheduled and set, for the dispatch at just the right or wrong time in your life.  

What do you want the Lord to say?   That is the song.  The answer is "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter in the joy of the Lord"

Diddys like that remind us of a strategic concept in a repetitive way that helps us remember that we are in a fight.   Float like a butterfly sting like a bee, was the song of Mohammed Ali.  It kept him floating and stinging, when the discouragement kicked in.  Nice strategy.

Often we lose sight of our part in the spiritual battle of the church, giving God praise when there are seasons of struggle.  Lifting Jesus up and seeing HIM draw men to himself is a concept swiftly forgotten.   The “talkatives” have convinced us that it is us who draw people to Jesus.  

Praise is a team

Prayer intercession

Soul winning

Praising and worship in unified manner is part of the hedge of protection that guides and guards us from the strength of the onslaught that comes against us in the battle of living for Jesus. 

Some of the victory is given to us individually, as part of the corporate relationship of our individual church and part of the corporate interchurch battle as we intermingle with the church Triumphant and the “church militant”.   The vision of the church militant’s labor of fighting against the onslaughts of the enemy.  “Confessing our faults one to another”, Not holding long term grudges, bearing one another’s burdens, giving to the needy, holding one another accountable are the areas where we are Lifting Jesus up that HE may “draw all men”.  Hedges of protection that God sets up for His people are not words only they are laid out in scripture for us to earn them and grow them sowing the seeds that God has placed in our hands through his word.

Give Grace that we may see your servants protected and guarded by your hedges of protection and that we may live on earth as a visual expression of Your letter of intention of what life on earth should and can be.   We love you Lord and we would exalt your word as you do above, even all your name.  Help us not make the Devil rejoice.

In Jesus name Amen.

End times sermon???

 Toxic Masculinity Unleashed!  In the pulpit…

The Lord is high and lifted up and He is lowly to condescend to men of low estate.  What an impossible balance maintain,perhaps?

As a sensitive soul, I must say that I am strengthened in my spiritual walk by the preaching of many an overzealously pounding ministerial style.  It is my preference, I would say.  Still, the whispering, whimpering slow speaking terrorists, who use the scripture to bludgeon God’s defenseless sheep into oblivion always, always stuns me.   They hide behind supposed scripture knowledge and a heady professorial gait; behind which they conversationally batter their hearers with present sins and future events of Jesus’ second coming to gain a control and lordship that I don’t believe God intended.  Religion intends it!  Religion seeks to control the masses through the gnostic expressions of knowing more about what God intends in the future.   Jesus doesn’t do that!

He said search the scriptures.  Do we preach Christ and Him crucified and seeking to save?  Or make we fearmongering and cowering minions to our subjection?

There are so many who love to watch the women clutch their pearls as though at a horror film at the future of the earth’s demise, because they hate the green movements and political pundits.  Is that your calling?  Did the Holy Spirit inspire this?

Jesus is Lord and he spoke to the woman at the well with no single threat in his mouth.  He didn’t seem as though he would giggle in the judgment when he sees her burning and begging the rocks to fall upon her.  He didn’t.  “He loved at her”.  The cursedness of self exaltation and fearmongering is everywhere in scripture, but it nearly never finds its way into the sermons of the towering!

Oh, You are so great and you are so versed and you are so beautiful in language and form, but is your message prayed over and spoken to your people, of whom you will give an account or to the untold unknown who you think, are eavesdropping.   What has God called you to do?  Set a trap to ensnare the outside world or preach the gospel?

Jesus is Lord of His Church and not you and not me.   We must pray not to enter into temptation of sowing fear and torment.   Jesus came that men might have life not that Christians would leave church saying “he told those sinners today!”

The meditation of Rev 10

"Lord, show us the reality of the victory that you have attained for us"

Pastor Loran prayed in this way, on the second Sunday of this new year, 2025.  It is January 12th.  It was a sunny Sunday and freezing cold.  We had a sense of accomplishment for having braved the frigid temperatures after the expected blizzard that turned out to be just a dusting.  North Carolina has weakened us.   What started out as an admirable quality of Charlotteans that they are "so submissive to the providence of God that they shut down the city for storms, has become in us an excuse for a limp and weak lack of perserverance to do the will of God.  Shame on us for taking an attribute learned and using it to excess.

Nevertheless, we laid aside our limp laziness, both of the holiday vacation and of the region we abide in and we pressed our way to the house of the Lord, which was certainly not as full as it usually is.  Pastor Baker commented on it in his welcome...  We must all be Northerners, who have braved the elements, he said.  Our Northern pride that we don't consider the elements as "providential hinderances" to the privilege of worship make us feel good at such times.  We have something admirable, coming from New York and the northern regions of our country.  These things we couldn't appreciate when we migrated here.  We could only see the beauty of the culture of common graces that had been so affected by Christianity that there was more sky to look at than sultry billboards.  We are Charlotteans now.  We have been adopted and we have adopted them.  We use their language and we follow some of the mores of the natives.

The worship was more sober than usual.  Four of our sisters are travelling to Italy for a missions trip to contend with the trafficking industry that we support and pray for.  That is a dark trip to contend with principalities and powers that project worldwide.

Jesus paid it all and Jesus has won it all and Jesus still has work for us to accomplish was the gist of the music.  They sang, Take Me to the King, which I haven't heard in quite awhile.

And then Pastor prayed for the preaching.  I always wish I could be taking notes on the prayer.  There are always gems of truths that Pastor just tosses out in prayer that make me need to chew more and more on, but because my eyes are closed, I never get the whole thing when I try to write it down after we say amen.

Jesus does something and we do something, but we have the victory, whether we can sense it in our part of the battle right now!  Lord help us see it.  

He started with Psalm 16:8.   My paraphrase is when we "set" the Lord (like my volleyball) always before our eyes that is the reason that we won't be moved.  Imagine that?   If I take the Lord as a practice and place him as dear to myself as the skill of setting with the silent skill, he stablizes us and improves our skill in the spiritual battle.  He gives us some of himself as a result.   

I had been meditating on God setting us,  because I know he is a much more skillful setter than I am.  But this word picture was far more challenging to me.   I love to have a moment to practice 100 sets to myself just because I like the part of my mind that is engaged and the memories of tremendous spikes that have  won us games so many years ago.  

At present the setting is God before my eyes.  God has the game mapped out and he has his team working against the principalities and powers.  I see that He loves to be engaged in the warfare of the spirit and to show off how his people notice the nuances of his presence in worship and in ministry.  Do we really seek His face to do for us what we have asked?   Do we really notice His pleasure and His displeasure in our service?

The consequences Pastor inferred about "Sin always makes you feel empty" Righteousness has rewards.  We seek those rewards of righteousness.  The protections of His presence.  The angels encamped around those who fear Him.  God's adding blessings without sorrow, etc.,etc.,etc.

Then, on the way home we discovered David Jennings song.  It is my new prayer for our nation!  God grant that we may get home to heaven and see that we are dancing around his throne because of the righteousness that has exalted our whole nation.  Use your word to draw our politicians to You and living for Your glory and not their own.  After Jimmy Carters funeral, it made me imagine all of us as the young people singing for Jesus and rejoicing in the Victory in Jesus.   This is truly God's Country.  I believe it and I pray you would set it before your eyes and be glorified in Your people for the sake of the Church. In Jesus' wondrous name,  AMEN

Zechariah, Coming alive in 2025

 

Matthew 23:35 

• "So that upon you will fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar."   

Waking up to our condition in and under judgment and making our confession before God to undergo the changes that need to take place in our hearts is essential.   How shall we not escape if we neglect so great a salvation?  Jesus paid it all and we need to access the health and redemption and restoration that is available through grace, by faith!   Halleluia, What a Savior.

God is satisfied in His wrath, by the blood of Jesus and we are able to access that redemption. 

There is no greater resolution than to access redemption not just for a couple of days, into the new year but for eternity.   Accessing fellowship with God's people in the local church and letting God work through your personal life out into the culture in your work-life, the Church of Jesus is working and changing the world around it, one soul at a time.   

I used to be lost, now I know where I am going.  I am now running headlong into Heaven and into a Heavenly mindset.   The lostness is dissipating into the fog of yesterday and our culture is growing to reflect the new inhabitants and their new mindset!  Halleluia that God exalts His word above all His name!   Create a new spirit in me, Lord.  

Bring us alive and breathe upon the dead bones to raise them to new life for Your glory!!!