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Bible Blogging Christian Church God Ministry Scripture

Sunday Scripture

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday April 28TH 2024, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord + Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

I’m in Homestead Florida this morning – my home for 36+ years from 1987 to 2023. I’m just here to visit for a few days and take care of some errands and tasks. I’ll celebrate my Lord + Savior Jesus Christ with my longtime church family, and we’ll enjoy fellowship together at a nice restaurant after service.

For the next several months – I’m presenting the full transcription of my recent Jude message series consisting of two sermons – “Jude & Judgment” (Verses 1-11), and “Jude & Jury” (Verses 12-25). I preached them to my Homestead Florida church family on November 26TH 2023 and December 03RD 2023 respectively. Here’s Part 4:

[CONTINUE SERMON]

And don’t forget Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns – which were filled with immorality and every kind of sexual perversion. Those cities were destroyed by fire and serve as a warning of the eternal fire of God’s (what ?) judgment. (Jude 7)

Wow. There’s a lot there to unpack. Let me see if I can explain this, so that I understand this. Jude is reminding the Christians who are reading his letter (just as we are now) that God’s judgment awaits each and every one of us. His judgment is in our future. I believe that, and I believe that when my time is up here on this temporary land – I am going to Heaven to be reunited with my Creator – if – I continue to believe and follow Him – and move closer to Him with each new day. I pray that this entire church family – and each of your respective families – graduates to Heaven. I pray that my entire family in North Texas graduates to Heaven. In order for that to happen – I have a lot of work to do with them. I want to see my little brother, and his wife, and their two daughters – my nieces – I want to see them in Heaven. I want to see my Mom in Heaven. I believe that my Dad is already there. He acknowledged His Lord + Savior Jesus Christ just hours before he passed on in his hospital bed.

You know. I never really considered myself as a “fire and brimstone preacher”, but the Bible says to Preach the Word. Be prepared in-season and out-of-season. Correct, rebuke, (I say rebuke), and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead – to suit their own desires – they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. (2 Timothy 4:2-3 NIV)

Well that sounds like the world that we live in today. There are a lot of “teachers” out there that don’t work in schools. They teach their own agenda. They teach what they believe. They teach what they want you to believe. They teach what they heard from someone else. They teach it and proclaim it. They preach it.

One of my very first supervisors in the Air Force – some 37 years ago – she had a whole bunch of catch phrases. One of them was – “Your mouth opens and shuts like a prayer book, and it ain’t the Bible !”. I didn’t understand that as a 20-year-old. Now I do.

[TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK]

My testimony is featured each week here on #SundayScripture – whether it’s part of a sermon, or just me writing about the events of the past week. Hopefully it encourages you and inspires you to seek the Lord, and get closer to Him with each new day.

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2024 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Blogging Christian God Ministry Music Radio

My Top 10 Hits – Week 375

Every Monday I post my all-new Top 10 Christian hit music chart based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from the previous week. It’s the continuation of a weekly hobby that goes back over 45 years. Here’s this week’s chart – for the week ending Sunday April 21ST 2024 – the 375TH week of this current era that began on Presidents’ Day Weekend of 2017:

TW LW WKS SONG TITLE ARTIST / SITE
1 1 9 He Does
[3RD week @ # 1]
Brandon Heath
2 2 20 Lead On Good Shepherd Patrick Mayberry
3 3 9 You’ve Already Won Shane & Shane
4 5 5 Counting My Blessings Seph Schlueter
5 9 3 The Prodigal Josiah Queen
6 6 7 All Because Of Mercy Casting Crowns
7 4 17 Hallelujah Anyway Rend Collective
8 8 4 Rescue Jordan St. Cyr
9 10 5 God Be The Glory We Are Messengers
10 1 That’s My King CeCe Winans

# 1 This Week In:
2023 – “The Lord’s Prayer (It’s Yours)” – Matt Maher
2022 – “See Me Through It” – Brandon Heath
2021 – “Good God Almighty” – Crowder
2020 – “Almost Home” – MercyMe
2019 – “Greatness Of Our God” – Newsboys
2018 – “Freedom Hymn” – Austin French
2017 – “Even If” – MercyMe

MANDISA – This past Friday morning we found out that we lost Mandisa to Heaven after 47 years here on Earth. She’s with her Lord + Savior Jesus Christ now, and she’s singing her songs up there for the King. What a wonderful talent she was – with a heart for Christ. She blessed us with lots of great music over the past 18 years – ever since her season of “American Idol”. I got to see her LIVE in concert 3 times in 2014, 2017, and 2019. She always had the crowd singing and dancing. She hit my chart 6 times – including her collaborations with TobyMac, Crowder, Jon Reddick, and Jordan Feliz. Her debut hit on my chart was “Unfinished” in 2017, but here’s her huge platinum smash from the Summer Of 2013 – the Grammy-Award-Winning “Overcomer”:

SPOTIFY – You can hear “My Top 10 Hits” anytime simply by heading over to my CountUp playlist on Spotify. All 10 hits are there from top to bottom. You can hear them in order from # 1 to # 10, or you can shuffle them. My playlist will be updated every weekend (usually before the actual chart is presented here on Mondays). You can link to it here.

Your likes, follows, and comments are always appreciated. Thank You for being part of my online ministry to share God’s Good News and win souls for Christ through His music. God used loud music on the radio to reach me in August of 2006. I’ve been testifying about Him ever since.

Be blessed my friends !  May our God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

All rights reserved (c) 2024 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Bible Blogging Christian Church God Ministry Scripture

Sunday Scripture

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday April 21ST 2024, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord + Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

I’ve finally returned home from my recent retirement road-trip. You can read all about that on #TravelThursday. It was good to reconnect with a small group of my Highlands Community Church family this past Friday night at Bible Study. This morning I get to corporately worship with my full church family for the first time since Easter Sunday.

For the next several months – I’m presenting the full transcription of my recent Jude message series consisting of two sermons – “Jude & Judgment” (Verses 1-11), and “Jude & Jury” (Verses 12-25). I preached them to my Homestead Florida church family on November 26TH 2023 and December 03RD 2023 respectively. Here’s Part 3:

[CONTINUE SERMON]

I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches – saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord – Jesus Christ. (Jude 4)

So you say that you can do whatever you feel like doing because your God has already forgiven you for it. No ! That’s not the way it works. Sadly – a lot of Christians live that way. You’ve seen it. I’ve seen it over the course of my nearly 17 years as part of a church family. They come to church, but they live immoral lives. They hide much of it from their church family, but they can’t hide all of it. And they can’t hide any of it from our God.

You see – God’s grace is power – power that He has given to each of us believers as a gift, and that power – that power allows us to overcome every sin. It allows us to overcome every sin – should we choose to accept His gift. He (or she) who intentionally sins is not living in God’s grace. Now – none of us is perfect. None of us is close to perfect. We are all sinners. We are all probably going to sin somehow someway today. We’ll probably do so unintentionally. (That’s the enemy at work.)

And if we have God’s grace – which we do – we should instantly realize that we’ve sinned, and regret it, and repent it. We can tell God that – “I know what I did right there during that weak moment was wrong. That was a barrier that was placed between You and I. Thank You Lord for forgiving me for what I’ve done. I ask that You give me the strength and the wisdom and the guidance and the direction – so that I don’t do it again. Thank You God for Your grace and mercy. In Your powerful name I pray to You. Amen.

Sin must not have dominion over us. We can’t use God’s grace to justify our sin.

So I want to remind you – though you already know these things – that Jesus first rescued the nation of Israel from Egypt, but later He destroyed those who did not remain faithful. And I remind you of the angels who did not stay within the limits of authority God gave them but left the place where they belonged. God has kept them securely chained in prisons of darkness – waiting for the great day of (what’s that word ?) judgment. (Jude 5-6)

[TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK]

My testimony is featured each week here on #SundayScripture – whether it’s part of a sermon, or just me writing about the events of the past week. Hopefully it encourages you and inspires you to seek the Lord, and get closer to Him with each new day.

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2024 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Blogging Christian God Ministry Music Radio

My Top 10 Hits – Week 374

Every Monday I post my all-new Top 10 Christian hit music chart based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from the previous week. It’s the continuation of a weekly hobby that goes back over 45 years. Here’s this week’s chart – for the week ending Sunday April 14TH 2024 – the 374TH week of this current era that began on Presidents’ Day Weekend of 2017:

TW LW WKS SONG TITLE ARTIST / SITE
1 1 8 He Does
[2ND week @ # 1]
Brandon Heath
2 2 19 Lead On Good Shepherd Patrick Mayberry
3 3 8 You’ve Already Won Shane & Shane
4 4 16 Hallelujah Anyway Rend Collective
5 7 4 Counting My Blessings Seph Schlueter
6 6 6 All Because Of Mercy Casting Crowns
7 5 4 Walk With Jesus Consumed By Fire
8 9 3 Rescue Jordan St. Cyr
9 10 2 The Prodigal Josiah Queen
10 8 4 God Be The Glory We Are Messengers

# 1 This Week In:
2023 – “The Lord’s Prayer (It’s Yours)” – Matt Maher
2022 – “See Me Through It” – Brandon Heath
2021 – “Good God Almighty” – Crowder
2020 – “Almost Home” – MercyMe
2019 – “Confidence” – Sanctus Real
2018 – “Freedom Hymn” – Austin French
2017 – “I Have This Hope” – Tenth Avenue North

CHARTBUSTER – Sitting just outside my Top 10 this week awaiting its turn starting perhaps next week is the new song from Caleb & John. It’s their follow-up to their # 1 debut smash “Hallelujah Feeling” – which is the biggest song overall of this 7-year era of my chart. This time they bring along the Cain siblings to assist, and it makes for a fine-sounding collaboration in “Somebody Like Me”.

SPOTIFY – You can hear “My Top 10 Hits” anytime simply by heading over to my CountUp playlist on Spotify. All 10 hits are there from top to bottom. You can hear them in order from # 1 to # 10, or you can shuffle them. My playlist will be updated every weekend (usually before the actual chart is presented here on Mondays). You can link to it here.

Your likes, follows, and comments are always appreciated. Thank You for being part of my online ministry to share God’s Good News and win souls for Christ through His music. God used loud music on the radio to reach me in August of 2006. I’ve been testifying about Him ever since.

Be blessed my friends !  May our God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

All rights reserved (c) 2024 Christopher M. Day, CountUp