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Calvary Baptist Churches of GB
Dr. B. J. Stagner Jr.  |  Cardiff and Aberaman, Wales, UK
41°F
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www.helpminuk.com
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336-793-5477
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Beddoe Street & Davis Street
Aberdare, Rhondda Cynon Taff CF44, UK CF44 6PY
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toencourage 27 May 2017 Vol. 5 Issue 19
SATURDAY, MAY 27, 2017
Posted by: Calvary Baptist Churches of GB | more..
2,740+ views | 260+ clicks
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.  But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;
Hebrews 10:31-32

It was a typically warm December day in southwest Florida but the air was less humid than during the oppressive summer months of the year.  It was a little past two o'clock in the afternoon and, unknown to me at the time, this would prove to be a pivotal day as I stood at the crossroads of eternity faced with a life-changing dilemma of making a yes-or-no decision, whether to accept or reject the path before me. 

I had been home for three weeks while on Christmas break.  I was  a young nineteen years old, a sophomore in college, preparing to transfer during the semester break from Mississippi where I had been playing football to Nebraska.  Like any other college athlete, the holidays were spent training for the next season.  This year would be no different, or so I thought.  A close friend of mine from high school, Travis, who was playing football in Illinois was also home for Christmas and we took advantage of our time to work out together, pushing one another to lift more and run faster.

I had sensed that something was different about him, however, and that his demeanour and speech had somehow changed since I had seen him last.  As a matter of fact, I noticed that his entire outlook on life seemed to have been completely realigned.  Virtually every day during the three or four weeks of our Christmas break, my friend Travis spoke to me about going to see his pastor and persisted in encouraging me to to visit him.  Unfortunately, I had no desire to accommodate his wishes at that time, but not for the reasons you may think, for seeds had already been planted.  

Eleven months earlier while in my first year of college in Mississippi, I had met a young man who was the RA, or Resident Advisor, of the dorms in which I lived.  He was likely an upper class-man whose responsibility was basically to oversee the behaviour of the students and athletes housed in the dorms (a task only slightly easier than storming the beaches of Normandy!).  Although he did not play any team sports, we occasionally worked out together and happened to cross paths regularly while on campus.  One evening following a workout session, the RA began to tell me about a man he met, one who had revealed all that the RA had ever done wrong in his life and who knew of every sin he had ever committed.  He then assumed the penalty for these sins and paid the ultimate price for each and every one of them, sentenced to death on a cross.  In his conversation, he used the terms "saved" and "lost" as if they were adjectives commonly used to describe people.  I was interested in what he had to share, convicted even, because I had heard these terms before.
                                               
A full year and a half before my friend Travis' first invitations had been extended, “BJ, come meet my pastor.  You'll like him.  He's just a good ol’ boy.”, I was a recent graduate from high school and was just over a month away from entering college, working as a lifeguard.  I had enrolled in Lifeguard and Water Safety classes with several of my high school friends and we were all looking forward to earning some money over the summer before we left home to go our separate ways.  One of the other students we became acquainted with in our classes was a young man whose name was Troy.  As each class would come to an end and we became more cordial with one another, our new friend Troy began to hang around us more, but I noticed he did not really "become one of us".  As we received our individual assignments, Troy and I began to work together at the same swimming pool and began our workouts together as well, training for the next football season.  Troy would often invite me to the youth group at his church where I had attended a couple of times.  He would discuss the Bible and the need to be “saved”, using that term again and again in stark contrast to another more foreboding term, "lost".  I was skeptical and would rebut my new friend with some typically ignorant remarks, challenging him with irrelevant questions about dinosaurs and aliens, but all the while in my heart, I knew he was right.  But why?

Turn the pages of your calendars back with me eleven years to when I was but an eight year old little boy visiting my grandparent’s farm in central Alabama.  For some strange reason, as everyone else was busy working around the farm, I found myself walking through the house alone.  Almost as if I was drawn to them, I discovered two pamphlets that rested on a very cluttered kitchen counter and I ran to the back room with them firmly in hand.  I sat on the hard wooden floor with my back resting against the bed and began to read the brochures, vivid in their detailed accounts of a time when the earth would be filled with unimaginable violence and of a world ruler who would emerge from the chaos seeking to destroy anyone who chose not to worship him as a god.  In retrospect, this one was so detailed I doubt it was intended for any eight year old child to read.  The second tract was about a day when Jesus would return to earth in the air and everyone who knew Him, all who had been "saved", would ascend into the skies to join Him and live with Him forever.  I was amazed that this also included those who had died and been buried!   There was a picture in the leaflet of Jesus standing in the sky above a city with souls traveling in what appeared to be beams of light speeding toward Him, including pilots and drivers whose sudden disappearance caused planes to crash and cars to collide.

Now at nineteen years of age, in that valley of decision, on the last day of December in 1990, I finally complied with my friend Travis’ request and agreed to visit his pastor.  I found myself seated in the office of Dr. James Ellis on this Monday afternoon, my eyes drawn to a book that rested on his desk between the two of us with its title boldly printed on its binding, "The Book of Revelation".  In those moments, thoughts of what I had read eleven years earlier were recalled and conversations with my friends Travis, Troy and the RA were replayed.  It came to me suddenly of all of the ground work that had been laid and all the seeds that had been planted which led to this very moment.  I had to make a decision and was presented with a choice to accept the precious gift of salvation and become “saved" or to reject the offer and remain “lost” forever.  I remember glancing over my right shoulder as I sat in that chair across from Pastor Ellis as if to say to God, “You caught up with me.  You win.”  I surrendered myself and chose the offer of salvation.  I remain grateful today for all of those people, now my brothers in Christ, that the Lord placed in my life who would eventually win me to the Lord Jesus Christ so that I could be gloriously saved and born again.

My friends, I offer this testimony as a means of encouraging all who witness and testify to others that do not see any immediate fruit.  You are planting seeds in eternity that will render the fruit of everlasting life.  Press on and remember that it is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,
Philippians 1:3

Category:  Encouragement

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     PAST BLOG ENTRIES     

toencourage 6 May 2017 Vol 5 Issue 17
SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2017
Posted by: Calvary Baptist Churches of GB | more..
2,900+ views | 320+ clicks
“And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.32And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him,...
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toencourage 29 April 2017, Vol. 5 Issue 16
SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2017
Posted by: Calvary Baptist Churches of GB | more..
2,900+ views | 270+ clicks
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” Psalms 16:11 Last week we addressed how joy is (or at least can be) present in our life even during times of...
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toencourage 22 April 2017 Vol 5 Issue 15
SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 2017
Posted by: Calvary Baptist Churches of GB | more..
2,780+ views | 230+ clicks
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” Psalms 16:11 In issue 13 we briefly touched on the joy we have in God, with a clear understating how King David found joy...
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toencourage 15 April, 2017 Vol 5 Issue 14
SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 2017
Posted by: Calvary Baptist Churches of GB | more..
2,820+ views | 250+ clicks
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, the servant of the LORD, who spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: And he said, I will love thee, O...
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8 April, 2017 Vol 5 Issue 13
MONDAY, APRIL 10, 2017
Posted by: Calvary Baptist Churches of GB | more..
3,040+ views | 300+ clicks
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” Psalms 16:11 We hear so much in the world today about what it takes to be happy in life, marriage, business, family and...
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1 April, 2017 Vol 5 Issue 12
SUNDAY, APRIL 2, 2017
Posted by: Calvary Baptist Churches of GB | more..
2,880+ views | 270+ clicks
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break...
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toencourage 25 March, 2017 Vol 5 Issue 11
SUNDAY, MARCH 26, 2017
Posted by: Calvary Baptist Churches of GB | more..
2,860+ views | 250+ clicks
Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;12That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth...
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toencourage 11 March 2017 Vol 5 Issue 10
SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 2017
Posted by: Calvary Baptist Churches of GB | more..
2,820+ views | 210+ clicks
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is...
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toencourage 4 March 2017 Vol 5 Issue 9
SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 2017
Posted by: Calvary Baptist Churches of GB | more..
3,440+ views | 260+ clicks
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of...
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