Showing results by author "James Thomas" in All Categories

Many people may find this text offensive. But my desire for many years has been to understand why so many people who regularly attend church do not get more involved in the church's ministries. While not everyone will agree with my general conclusion, it is that most of those individuals are probably not really saved. I do not want to be a judge or sound judgmental. But the simple fact is that the Bible teaches throughout that the Christian is a life of ministry and service for the Lord by the true followers of Christ. So as will be discussed in the following pages, one of my conclusions is...

Bedtime Chapel helps families draw nearer to Jesus by gathering for nightly prayer and deepening their understanding of the Gospel. We release a nightly 5-min prayer service and a weekly companion episode that discusses the gospel readings for the upcoming week of nighttime prayer.

In the following pages of this text, many ideas will be presented that can help a person better know what the Lord wants him or her to do. Most of those ideas for effectively serving Him will be based upon verses like Jeremiah 29:12-13, John 3:16, II Peter 3:9, Luke 19:10, and Romans 5:6-8. So when a person can build his or her understanding around those kinds of teachings, then he or she will be well on the way to knowing what the Lord wants him or her to do. In chapter one of this text, it will be expressed that true biblical salvation should be better based on words like seek, commit, ...

The fourth edition of this book has been written to clean up some of the poorly worded text in the first three editions and to show important Bible verses rather than just refer to them. An effort has also been made to convert previously used first person speech with more formal third person speech. In looking at the second chapter of the epistle of James, this standalone book considers authorship, the date that the whole epistle was written, and the basis for its acceptance into the biblical canon. With a strong focus on the Greek language, the goal has also been to perform good exegesis ...

This detailed outline for the end-time prophecies has been divided into thirteen chapters. It should probably be suitable for a diligent student of the Bible who wants to look through the prophecies in an outline format. It will also be good for anyone who wants an easier way to study the prophecies. Each chapter will begin with a focus for the entire chapter. Then a list of usually five questions will follow which are intended to guide the reader through the most important parts of the chapter. The structure of each chapter is in a somewhat loose outline format. That should make it easier ...

When this book was begun in late November 2013, the intent was to write a commentary on chapter five of Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus. But about fifty pages into that endeavor, it became clear that the book was not going in that direction. For one thing, his letter to that church had not even been mentioned in those pages. For another, the focus up to that point had been on Paul's missionary journeys. The reason for those problems was that the original intent had been to put his letter to the church into the context of his journeys. But there was so much to say about the journeys ...

This book contains a series of short essays that discuss twenty-five of the important promises from the Lord that have been stated in the scriptures. Each of the essays is basically independent of the others. But at the same time, they have also been ordered somewhat loosely from most important to least important based upon logical order. The Lord promises to love every person. He promises to be found but not indefinitely. He promises grace for salvation and living. He promises goodness and mercy. He promises salvation that cannot be lost. He promises to not be bought. He promises to resist...

This text was written in response to a question that I was asked at a Wednesday night Bible study at Wallers Baptist Church in Partlow, Virginia. The question, which was asked by the church's pastor, was in regard to the obvious enthusiasm that some of the saints of God seem to have for the Lord's work. The study that evening was in Acts 13:13, which talks about the Apostle Paul's first Bible-recorded missionary journey. It says, "Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem." So when the company ...

Incredibly this is the fourth book that I have written about how a person should live his or her life. None of the books are exactly alike even though all of them are similar. Also it was never planned to write four different books that are basically talking about similar things. But that is just how things have happened. The first book was written to tell people how they can live a blessed life. The inspiration for that topic comes from John 10:10, which says "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have ...

When most people think about a true love story, they naturally envision a couple jumping into a bed and making mad passionate love to each other. If the scene is from a movie or from a television show, then they would probably see the two going into a bedroom together and then waking up the next day lying next to each other. However, while that in many cases might be an example of true love, it pales in comparison to the true love that God the Father had showed to human beings when He had offered His only begotten Son on the cross of Calvary. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world, ...

In this second part of this study of the Minor Prophets, the writings of Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, and Habakkuk are examined. With Obadiah, one can see the land of Edom and why the Edomites had thought that they were safe from outside attackers. Their land was very mountainous and easy to defend. Nevertheless, in about 583 BC, they did fall to the Babylonians. With Jonah, one can see the viciousness of the Assyrians in the Eighth Century BC. Everyone was afraid of them because of their brutality against their enemies. Nevertheless, at the preaching of Jonah, they had repented, and the ...

In December 1967, my life was in more trouble than I could realistically handle. While in the midst of those struggles, I asked the Lord to forgive me for all the wrong that I had done and to put my life on a path that would lead me out of my difficulties. More than fifty years later, I can now say that He was faithful to do exactly that. He changed me from the inside out. Then He changed the dreadful circumstances of my entire life. Since that night in 1967, I have experienced the joy of knowing the God of the universe and the one and only Creator of everything. Through the years, I have ...

Hello everyone, Welcome to The Vineyard Of Wellness, the journey of being mentally, spiritually, emotionally healthy, and well. The Vineyard Of Wellness will dive deep into the areas we fail to confront in ourselves and we can and will best navigate those waters for a mentally, spiritually, and emotionally healthier "US". Feel free to leave comments with your thoughts and ideas on how our community can grow in these areas. I am happy you are here and I look forward to our time together. Connect with me IRT below: https://www.instagram.com/lady.renaethomasjames

Four Seas One Family focuses exclusively on adjustments to life overseas as an expat, immigrant or migrant. Learn from the insights our host and guests bring that will assist in constructing a clear understanding of how being a global citizen can help people from different backgrounds learn more about themselves and appreciate that we all have something to learn from each other.

This text was written in response to a question that I was asked at a Wednesday night Bible study at Wallers Baptist Church in Partlow, Virginia. The question, which was asked by the church's pastor, was in regard to the obvious enthusiasm that some of the saints of God seem to have for the Lord's work. The study that evening was in Acts 13:13, which talks about the Apostle Paul's first Bible-recorded missionary journey. It says, "Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem." So when the company ...

In December 1967, my life was in more trouble than I could realistically handle. While in the midst of those struggles, I asked the Lord to forgive me for all the wrong that I had done and to put my life on a path that would lead me out of my difficulties. More than fifty years later, I can now say that He was faithful to do exactly that. He changed me from the inside out. Then He changed the dreadful circumstances of my entire life. Since that night in 1967, I have experienced the joy of knowing the God of the universe and the one and only Creator of everything. Through the years, I have ...

First Thessalonians is the first letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to any of the local churches. In the opening chapter of this book, one will see how and when he had gotten to the place where he wrote this letter. It is interesting to see and retrace his travels throughout the region along with the travels of Silas and Timothy. Bible scholars have done an excellent job of examining the scriptures and the movements of key people to put everything into the right context and the right timeframe. That having been said, Paul was in his second Bible-recorded missionary journey. This letter to ...

The Bible teaches that there are seven separate judgments. This book was written about the first one, which was the judgment of Satan and sin by the cross of Jesus. It starts with Satan sinning in heaven and being cast to the earth. It carefully analyzes the Garden of Eden environment and the whole theology around what happened when Adam ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It considers several logistical questions concerning his sin, the consequences of his sin, and the resulting physical and spiritual separations from God. Once those topics have been addressed, some ...

The seven churches to whom the seven letters of Revelation chapters two and three were written are shown in the below diagram. They are from top to bottom Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Smyrna, Philadelphia, Ephesus, and Laodicea. The Apostle John was exiled to the isle of Patmos because of his stand for Christ. So on the Lord's Day, Jesus came to him and told him to write the words that appear in the book of Revelation. Revelation 1:10-11 says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice…Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest...

The five individual chapter commentaries on the Epistle of James that I have written have been incorporated into one text of the entire epistle. The first two chapter commentaries were written in 1998 and have been greatly modified for this text. An effort has also been made to convert previously used first person language with more formal third person language. That having been said and in looking at the first chapter of the Epistle of James, it considers authorship, the date that the epistle was written, and the basis for its acceptance into the biblical canon. With a strong focus on the ...