God’s Care: Ask (#934)
Welcome to our first fellowship of 2018. We are off and running and we are going to get into a new series of teachings about God’s care for us. And we’ll cover a few of the topics we’ve covered before, but from the point of view of God caring for us and then we’ll cover some new topics. It will be a fun time. And as always, if there is a particular topic you are interested in or would like us to look at, just let me know and I’ll see if we can plan it into our schedule. But we’re going to start today with Psalm 105…
As taught by Bruce Mahone 20180114.  All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
Psalms 105:40            The people asked, and he brought quails, and satisfied them with the bread of heaven
Matthew 6:1-8            Your father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him (vs. 8)
Matthew 7:7-11          Ask and it shall be given unto you (Luke 11:9-13 – holy spirit)
Matthew 21:22           And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive
John 14:13, 14             Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do
John 15:7,16                Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name
John 16:16-21             With spirit, we can ask ourselves, in his name!
Ephesians 3:20           He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think
James 1:1-8                 If any of you lack wisdom, ask God. Temptations: trials. Patience: endurance.
Upbraideth not: does not reproach, ungrudgingly
James 4:1-3                 Asking amiss does not profit
I John 3:20-24             Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him
I John 5:14-15             Whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions
(Judges 2-3                  They cried unto the Lord and he answered)
Teaching
God’s Care: Ask (#934)

Joy In Everything (#933)
Good morning. Here we are on Christmas eve 2017, and as we usually do around the time of Christmas one of the thing we like to look at is the great joy that comes from the birth of our savior, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So we’re going to talk about joy and we’ll start here in Proverbs 17…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20171224.  All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
Prov 17:22       A merry heart doeth good like a medicine
Luke 2:8-11      Good tidings of great joy – a Savior is born
John 3:16          God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, Our Savior
John 10             Our Savior came to give a life which is more than abundant
Acts 8:5-8          Christ preached, great joy
Rom. 12:12       Rejoicing in hope, persevering in prayer
Rom. 15:13       Joy & peace in believing
Gal. 5:22           Fruit of totality of new nature
Phil. 3:1-3         Rejoice in Lord, no confidence in flesh
Col. 1:9-11        Patience with joyfulness
Heb. 2:8-18      Our Savior came to deliver God’s people
Heb. 4:14-16    Our Savior can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities, come BOLDLY to the throne of his GRACE
I John 1:3-4       Fullness of joy – fellowship
Teaching
Joy in Everything (#933)

Salvation in Christ (#932)
Welcome, here we are just a few weeks before Christmas and as sort of a run up to that, we’re going to talk about the salvation we have in Christ. So much in the Bible about Jesus Christ; there are even people who have gone so far as to say that Jesus Christ is the subject of the entire Bible. That is a bit of an extreme comment because there are a lot of things in the Bible, but Jesus Christ is certainly very, very, very prominent in all the scriptures. So, we are going to start by talking about the salvation we have in Chirst. We’ll go to John chapter 4 to begin please…
As taught by Bruce Mahone 20171210, All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
John  4:4-14      Living water (vs. 10)
John  6:28-35    I am the bread of life (vs. 35)
John  14:6          The way, truth, and the life (the true and living way)
Acts   4:10-12    Neither is there salvation in any other (vs. 12)
Rom. 10:9-10    Salvation is by confessing the savior, not confessing sin
Eph.   2:8-10      By grace ye are saved, not of works
Heb.  10:4          It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins
Heb.  10:11-14  One sacrifice for sins for ever (vs. 12)
Teaching
Salvation in Christ (#932)

Very Thankful (#931)
Since this is Thanksgiving weekend, surprise surprise, we are going to talk about the importance of being thankful. And we’ll not only talk about being thankful, we’ll talk about being very thankful. The big difference between people you meet as you go about your daily life are people who are thankful for what they have and people who aren’t. And so much of that is a matter of perspective and some of it is simple optimism: the old whether you look at life as a glass half-full or a glass half-empty, but some of it is just mindfully being ignorant of where they are. Somebody made the point in something I was listening to a few weeks ago that the average American today lives better than the King of England lived three or five hundred years ago. We have running water, we have central heat and air conditioning, we have automobiles, we have refrigerators, we have wonderful medical care available, we have healthy foods, we have clean water to drink, you could just go on and on about things we have. And that is just the obvious stuff. That’s let alone God’s grace, God’s mercy, and His care for us. So, being thankful for what we have sort of sets the stage, so to speak, for God to do more for you. Because we all know that receiving answers to prayer involves believing that God will take care of us and the more we think about every problem we have, which we all have problems; and every difficulty we have, which we all have difficulties, the more we focus on them, we’ll focus on what’s gone wrong. And we’ll have a harder time that God will take care of us. But the more we push are minds to be thankful for what God has given us the more confidence we’ll have that God will take care of the next thing. Because if I can sit and be thankful for a dozen things that God has done for me, and just remember that, I’ll have a much easier time believing and being confident that He’ll do the next dozen things I need. So, thankfulness is not just sort of a Pollyanna, ignore reality attitude, its enjoy reality, because of in spite of whatever challenges and problems any of us have, we have to be honest, that the vast majority of what each of us needs God has provided abundantly. We just have a bad habit of letting the one or two things that aren’t going right come to the forefront and make us forget to be thankful for the hundreds of things God has done for us. So it is very, very important to be thankful. And let’s read about it in the Word now, let’s Psalm 107…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20171126 All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
Psalm 107:1      O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his mercy (steadfast love) endures forever
Daniel 6:10       When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he gave thanks three times a day
I Cor. 14:15-17  Speaking in Tongues (SIT) gives thanks well
I Cor. 15:51-57 Victory over death
II Cor. 2:14        Thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ
Eph. 5:18-20     Giving thanks always for all things
Phil. 1:3-6          Be thankful when we pray for one another
Phil. 4:6-9          Let your own requests be made known to God with thanksgiving
Don’t worry over anything whatever; tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer, and the peace of God, which transcends human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus – JB Phillips
Col. 1:3-4, 12-13 Giving thanks unto the father…partakers of the inheritance of the saints
Col. 2:6,7             Abounding with thanksgiving (overflowing with gratitude)
Col. 3:15-17        Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, and be ye thankful
Col. 4:2-4            Pray with thanksgiving for a door of utterance to open
I Thes. 1:2-3       We give thanks, making mention of you in our prayers
I Thes. 5:16-18   In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God
I Tim. 1:12-15     Paul called to ministry
I Tim. 2:1-4         Giving of thanks be made for all men
Phm 2-4              Give thanks…acknowledging every good thing which is in you
Heb. 13:14,15    No continuing city/continually giving thanks
Teaching
Very Thankful (#931)

God’s Abundance: Delight (#930)
We’ll continue our series on God’s abundance today, looking at the great delight we have. Again, as with so many things in life, everybody is delighted about something. But some people have a very limited number of things they are delighted about and limited periods of time in which they are
delighted. And they spend the rest of the time being worried or upset about something. But God is very delighted in us; He has an abundance of delight in us and we can have an abundance of delight in God. And, as you’ll see as we go through this — and we’ve looked at some of these scriptures in the past, but we’re looking at it today from the point of view of abundance; that our lives can be filled with an abundance of being delighted about life. Just every day, every minute, there is something to be delighted about if we chose to. There is also plenty to get us upset. But there is plenty to be delighted about and a great thing we’ll see as we get into God’s word is that as we’re delighted in the things of God, God blesses us. So it doesn’t matter what anybody else says or does. And if you really want to read a great historical record of somebody who was a master of this, there is a book called
“Delighted in God” by Roger Spear about a fella, a minister of the Gospel, that lived around 1900’ish, in England named George Mueller. And, it might have been earlier, it might have been the 1880s, but it was around 1900 sometime. And it was a very tough time in England; the industrial revolution
was well under way, people were moving out of the villages and into the cities, parents were dying in factory accidents there were literally orphans on the street, just wandering. We’re use to some homeless people in our cities, but they are generally adults. Can you imagine being in a city where
on every corner there were 20, five year old kids, with nowhere to live and no food? That is way it was in parts of England. So he just felt that God put it on his heart to help the orphans, so he prayed and he had a rule that he never asked anybody for anything; he told God what he needed. And he prayed
and God just did unbelievable things. He went from nothing from having this huge; I’ve seen pictures of it, it looks like a huge college campus with a bunch of large brick dormitories. Very large. And he got staff, and he got the orphans fed and educated, and got jobs, and the thing that was great was
that he always looked to God. There are great records which we may have talked about before, or you may have read about where they assembled all the kids in dining room, hundreds of kinds for breakfast, and there was no food.  But they would bring them in, at seven-o-clock we have breakfast, sit down and God is going to provide. And as they were sitting down a truck would roll up with fresh bread. And the baker would say, I tried to sleep last night, but God woke me up and told me to make a truck full of bread and take to the orphanage. And there was food. And there are just page after page of things like that happening. And now, not that we should all go start orphanages, but what you learn is if you simply look to God and trust God, God will do great things. Our problem is there are always circumstances in the world that want to hold us back, there are people, there are circumstances, we have shortcomings, we have areas where we are not as strong, there are areas where we don’t accomplish what we want to, other people do things to make life difficult for us, but the great thing you learn in looking at the scriptures and by reading a book like “Delighted in God” is that God is bigger than all those circumstances. Don’t deny that those circumstances exist, but God is bigger. And God can do more, we just have to look to Him and get delighted in God. So, it will be a fun time today, I’m very excited about reading these scriptures. And they’ll apply, and the other thing you’ve got to realize is they’ll apply to each of us a little differently. George Mueller, his, the thing God put on his heart was to start orphanages. You know, you might want to survive tomorrow without smacking anybody, because people are being so meanto you, you really want to smack them, but you can’t. It might be coming up on the first of the month and you might be concerned with coming up with enough money to pay the rent. That may be your issue. We’ll God will come through for you. We all have issues, we all have challenges, and whatever it is you need to do, where ever it is you need help from God, get delighted about God, get delighted about His ability to help you, and focus on Him. You can’t really ignore the situations around you, but you don’t have to focus on tit, you don’t have to dwell on it, you don’t have to fixate on it. You know like when I’m driving and there is a lot of traffic, a lot of potholes; I can’t ignore it, its there, but I don’t have to site there and get all bummed
out and be miserable because there is traffic. You just see the light at the end of the tunnel, I’ll get through the traffic, when I pull through it, and it has happened every time so far.. It is like when I’m at a swimming pool and there is a bunch of people and the lifeguard looks really nervous, I walk by
and say: don’t worry, I’ve never drowned in a swimming pool. Sometimes they smile, usually they don’t. But the thing is, and the same with traffic, I’ve been in traffic a gazillion times, like you have, but I’ve always gotten though it, I’m still here, it hasn’t killed me yet and I don’t expect it to. At any
rate, on we go: God’s Abundance: Delight, let’s start in Psalm 1…
As taught by Bruce Mahone 20171029.  All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
Psalms 1:1-3              His delight is in the law of the Lord
Psalms 37:3-5            Delight thyself also in the Lord
Psalms 37:11             Delight themselves in abundance of peace
Psalms 37:23             The Lord delighteth in the way of a good man
Psalms 40:1-8            I delight to do thy will, O my God
Psalms 43:4               God my exceeding joy (NLT: the source of all my joy; NIV: my joy and my delight; lit: gladness of my joy)
Psalms 94:17-19, 22  Thy comforts delight my soul
Psalms 112:1-8           Blessed is the man that delighteth greatly in his commandments
Psalms 119:16            I will delight myself in thy statutes
Psalms 119:24            Thy testimonies are my delight
Psalms 119:33-35       I delight in thy commandments
Psalms 119:46-47       I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved
Psalms 119:69-70       I delight in thy law
Psalms 119:77             Thy law is my delight
Psalms 119:92,93        Unless thy law had been my delights, I should have perished in my affliction
Psalms 119:143           Thy commandments are my delight
Psalms 119:174           Thy law is my delight
Proverbs 15:8               The prayer of the upright is his delight
Jeremiah 9:23-24          In these things I delight, saith the Lord
Teaching
God’s Abundance: Delight (#930)

God’s Abundance: Vision (#929)
We’ll continue our series today on God’s Abundance. We’ve seen so many things that God offers us, not just in small amounts, but in great abundance.  And today we’re going to talk about vision. Vision: vision being a positive outlook for your life. You have to have a vision, you have to have a goal, you have to have sort of that direction you’re going.  Otherwise there is that story about somebody at the airport; and if you are at the airport and you don’t care what your destination is you can take any flight. It doesn’t matter. Well, we have clear vision from God; God has clear ideas about how are lives can work and how we can move forward in everything in life, and we’ll be looking into that today. So, here we are; let’s go to II Kings 6…
As taught by Bruce Mahone 20171015, All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
II Kings 6:8-23          Chariots of fire — Raise your vision for your life
Psalm 60:11-12       Through God we shall do valiantly: for he shall tread down our enemies
Psalm 91                  1000, 10,000 shall fall, but it shall not come nigh thee (vs. 7)
Proverbs 16:3          Commit(roll) your works unto the Lord, and your thoughts shall be established
Proverbs 28:1          The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion
Proverbs 29:18        Where there is no vision (divine communication), the people perish (wander): but he that keepeth the law, happy is he
Eccl. 9:4                     For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope [986 — bittachown — trust, confidence, hope]
Jer. 17:7                     Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope [4009 — mibtach — trust, confidence, refuge] the LORD is
Daniel 6:1-23            Daniel prayed, survived the lion’s den
Daniel 11:32             The people that do know their God shall be strong (stand firm) and do exploits (take action)
Romans 8:31-39       Nothing shall separate us from the love of God!
II Cor. 4:(1-)18           Look not at those things which are seen
Phil. 3:3                     Worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, have no confidence in the flesh
Col. 3:1-3                   Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth (vs. 1)
II Tim. 4:16-18          At my first answer [defense] no man stood with me.
The Lord stood with me…shall deliver me from every evil work.
Teaching
God’s Abundance: Vision (#929)

God’s Abundance: Persistence (#926)
Good morning, we’ll continue today with our series on God’s Abundance. We’ve seen that God has abundance available for us in many, many ways. And today we’re going to talk about persistence. God is abundantly persistent to be there to supply our needs, to direct our paths, to give us the desires of our hearts, to protect us in every way. And, as the result, we need to be abundantly persistent in our prayers, and our looking to God. We hear stories all the time about people that are persistent. Think of some of the stories we’ve heard: what, did Abraham Lincoln lose the first five elections he was in? And I think the first one he won, was to be President. Something like that. And there are other people that you read about, like great football coaches: that guy that was the famous coach of the Greenbay Packers forever, I can’t remember his name. But he just failed and failed and failed, and then all of the sudden he was coaching a team that went on to beat everybody in the country for years. And not that we’re all looking for failure, but we all have challenges, we all have some successes and failures. And the people that tend to succeed are people that just persist. If they have successes, they keep at it and get more successes. No matter how many failures they may have, they don’t care, they look beyond it, and they move ahead. And so we know this even in the business world, we know it in the sports world, we know it in the political world, and how much greater when we have God promises. That was just people with their own determination, and you can do an awesome lot with your own determination. But imagine when you add the blessing of God and the power of God in there. Then you can go way, way beyond what somebody with their own persistence can do. Some we’ll be reading about how God wants us to be abundantly persistent when we go there. Because He is abundantly persistent to take care of us, so He wants us to be abundantly persistent as well. So, let’s start in Luke chapter 18…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20170820.  All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
Luke 18:1-8          Men ought always to pray, and not to faint
Gen. 18:20-33      Abraham reasoned with God about Sodom’s destruction
II Kings 4:18-37   He walked in the house to and fro…child sneezed seven times
I Kings 18:41-45  Elijah prayed, and it rained – James 5:17-18
Mark 8:22-25       Men as trees walking
Rom. 1:8-13          I purposed (determined) to come unto you, but was let (forbidden)
Col. 4:1-4               Praying…that God would open unto us a door of utterance (vs. 3)
Rom. 12:10-14      Patient in mental pressure, continuing instant [steadfastly, faithful, persevering, be constant] in prayer (vs. 12)
Teaching
God’s Abundance: Persistence (#926)

God’s Abundance: Patience (#925)
Today we’ll continue our series on God’s Abundance, with looking at the the concept of Patience.  God has great patience with us, and as a result we need to have great patience, being imitators of God: we need to patient with ourselves, with other people, and mostly on waiting on the Lord and expecting Him to take care of us, and in not getting impatient about that.  Patience is a great topic, I had a friend the other day that said: “One doctor said another one, thank you for your patience” … I wasn’t there so I’m not sure the guy laughed of not.  But in any rate, lets start in Psalms 37…
Verse Listing and Notes
Psalms. 37:7       Rest in the Lord [be still, silent before the Lord]; Wait patiently for him
Psalms. 40:1       I waited (with expectation) [patiently and expectantly] and he heard
Eccl. 7:8-10         Better is the patient than the proud in spirit (disposition). [patience is better than pride]
Luke 8:15            Fruit with patience (steadfast perseverance) [by persevering]
(Luke 21:5-19     In your patience possess ye your souls)
Rom. 5:2-5          Patience leads to [brings about, produces] hope, which maketh not ashamed
Rom. 12:10-14    Patient in mental pressure [continuing steadfast, faithful, persevering in prayer]
Rom. 15:1-6        Patience and comfort of the scriptures [through patient endurance and the encouragement drawn from the scriptures]; the God of patience.
2 Cor. 6:1-10       In MUCH patience
2 Cor, 12:11-13   In ALL patience
Eph. 4:1-6             Walk worthy of the calling wherewith you were called.
Vs. 2: With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing (holding up) one another in love (NRSV+)
Col. 1:9-11            Strengthened unto all patience with joyfulness
1 Thes. 1:3            Patience of (proceeding from) hope
1 Thes. 5:14-15    Be patient toward all
2 Thes. 1:3-4         We glory for your patience and believing
2 Thes. 3:1-5         The Lord direct into patient waiting for [patience of] Christ
Heb. 12:1               Let us run with patience [patient endurance] the race before us
As taught by Bruce Mahone 20170806.  All rights reserved.
Teaching
God Abundance: Patience (#925)