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80 Messages Is a Lot More Than 80 Hours
If it takes a shepherd hours to compress a message into a single hour, it’ll take hours for his sheep to decompress it.

M.A.S.H. - 4/4/16 blog
The objective of the local church is to equip soldiers for the heat of battle. Going to church should have a real purpose that extends far beyond merely building up oneself; it should have the greater purpose of equipping believers with the Gospel and encouraging them to go out and serve it up in the trenches.

M.A.S.H. - 4/4/16 blog
When Paul wrote, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7), he wasn’t writing as just a shepherd who tended to the war-torn souls of Jesus’ disciples. He was writing about having gone out to the front lines, himself, as commanded…

M.A.S.H. - 4/4/16 blog
...(cont.) He was conveying that being left here on Earth after salvation implies a fight. That is why we are here, my friends…not to hide in churches, merely dressing each other with bandages, but to gird our loins and take the Gospel out to a lost and dying world!

Jesus never feared.

‘By Grace Through Faith’ vs. Fear
Faith is a grace gift. During a crisis, a person with faith isn’t hysterical because they trust in God’s promise to protect them; nor are they gnostic (supposing to be “in the know”) because they  trust their ignorance is, by design, a God-given estate. Faith produces peace, lack of it produces fear that leads to folly.

MacDonald on 1Ti 6:4
These men are not spiritually healthy, and instead of teaching healthful words, as in the previous verse, they teach words that produce sick saints. They raise various questions that are not spiritually edifying…Since the things they talk about are not matters of Bible doctrine, there is no way of settling them decisively. As a result, their teaching stirs up envy, strife, reviling, and evil suspicions.

Deacon Johnson
Human nature always wants to be “in the know,” so if we can place ourselves in what we want to believe as correct, the arrogance takes over and God’s promises go out the window.

Pastor’s Response to Deacon Johnson
Well said - meanwhile the rest of the flock is disturbed and injured - seems pretty selfish to boot.

The Fruit of Arrogance
An arrogant person will always find themselves estranged from the peace of God; whether hysterical or gnostic. This estrangement results in fear.

Covert Arrogance - Hiding Out In Plain Sight (book)
Subsection: Arrogance Hates Being Judged - Arrogant people hate being judged. Why? Because their greatest fear is that they will fail to measure up. Sounds silly if you understand and have faith in the most fundamental aspects of scripture.

Arrogance and Fear
Arrogant people live in fear because that’s what self-righteousness does to a person, it forces them to rely on their own resources (as opposed to God’s grace, which is given to the humble - Jas 4:6) for strength, confidence, peace, etc. And yet, at the end of the day, they always fail to measure up.

‘By Grace Through Faith’ vs. Fear
Faith is a grace gift. During a crisis, a person with faith isn’t hysterical because they trust in God’s promise to protect them; nor are they gnostic (supposing to be “in the know”) because they  trust their ignorance is, by design, a God-given estate. Faith produces peace, lack of it produces fear that leads to folly.

Be Patient. Observe.
Do not be hasty in your judgements just so you can be the one “in the know.” Who is that about, anyways??? So-called “quick wittedness” is often among the greatest follies of all, and it injures the most people. Avoid being the fool in the end. This is wisdom. (ref. Jas 1:16-20)

Stop it - NOW!
I’m not asking.

MacArthur on “contentment” (1Ti 6:6)
This Greek word means “self-sufficiency,” and was used by Stoic philosophers to describe a person who was unflappable and unmoved by external circumstances. Christians are to be satisfied and sufficient, and not to seek for more than what God has already given them. He is the source of true contentment (2Co 3:5; 9:8; Php 4:11-13, 19).