McLeansville Baptist Church

Special closing message by Missionary Charlie Russell from the Way of Holiness Conference.

Everything in the Bible is pointing us to Jesus Christ who is our Lord and Savior, the Shepherd, and Bishop of our Souls. And that is certainly true in this great chapter of Isaiah 35. The rejoicing of the desert, the strengthening of the weak, the healing of the broken, and the very way of holiness itself, all come by Christ. There is no other way.  But, if we are honest, never in the history of...

Hosea is a study in the danger of not having true knowledge. When God shakes things up it tends to upset our belief system, our theology, and this happens because we believe what we believe and we have set our hope in what we believe, so we can get really upset when God does something that does not fit our belief system. So we assume others are wrong and often point fingers and blame rather than s...

If we are serious about knowing God and making Him known, there is only one course of action for our life, "Dwell in God," which is to dwell in Love!. And we are coming to understand that love is neither emotion nor action, but it is the essential life of God abiding in us. To Love is to Abide in God and to Abide in God is to Love. 

In the midst of this on-going "Culture War," followers of Jesus must not neglect the single most important thing we can do in all of this madness, We Must Remember God!

Alexander Pope is quoted as saying, "To err is human, to forgive divine." Forgiveness is an act which only God can fulfill, and it generates from His great love for mankind. So what are the people of God, who should be filled with the love of God, called to do? Forgive - and forgive freely!

Jesus is calling all who will follow him to become something more than surface level religionists. His intention is to make us the kind of people who do what is right without having to think about it; to become Kingdom Saints. The point of this whole Sermon on the Mount is found in verse 20, a surpassing righteousness that leads us into the life of the kingdom!

What is the essence of a Berean Believer? It is to have an active, hungry, daily, diligent engagement with the scriptures. This quest for really knowing the truth became a daily for them, it was to be a way of life, not a nominal thing, not a now and then thing, but a “If this is the truth then I am in all the way, every day” thing!

Jesus tells us to "lay up our treasure in heaven." Why? Because wherever our treasure is, that is where our heart will be, and ultimately, that is his greatest interest, our heart! The greatest treasure our heart can hold is the loving, valuing, and desiring of Christ above everything else. But how can we do that? What does it look like to treasure Christ above all else?

To “abide,” is to remain, to stay with, or even more simply and powerfully said, it is to be; to be there, to be with, to be constant. This is how Jesus describes the relationship he intends for us to have with him. To simply dwell in and with the presence of Jesus, to hear him, love him, and learn from him, is the most necessary thing for your soul; but it is also the most opposed. 

Why do we sing in our worship services? As in all things, motive is key. Is there a biblical principle for choirs and congregational singing? If so, what should our focus be?

Sometimes we may get the impression that God’s blessings just roll out freely upon us, as if purely by grace. Is that right? Of course, it is, on one hand! But there is also, on the other hand, a level of the blessed life that only comes to those who pursue it, and the Personal Responsibility (PR) expected of those who would live in that level of blessing is laid out in these first Psalms. 

As I read the gospels, and into Acts for that matter, I have been struck with the impression that in the days of the early church, the people were simply taken with the heart of this man Jesus! There are numerous passages which show that those who had genuine encounters with Jesus were deeply stirred for him, and toward him. Yet, just to pause and reflect on where the church seems to be today, I a...

There is, in the whole life of Jesus, a Solemn Hopefulness on display.  Moreover, to join him in this week of his passion is to journey along in the richest human experience possible. It is to experience the Messiah we must have, and we must come to know. It is to experience the ecstasy and the agony of this week with him. It is to know both his joy and his suffering at every level of his humanity...

There is a lot of noise, energy, and celebration surrounding the Easter season. However, much of it is vain emotionally rather than sincere worship of Jesus. How do we avoid being caught up in the swell? What should we be intentional about in order to ensure we engage in real, meaningful worship?

Our goal is transformation into Christlikeness. Where our effort and God's grace intersect creates points where transformation happens. Our inward man, the "hidden man of the heart" (1 Peter 3:4) is the target area, it is where renovation begins!

The Christians Peter is addressing were living in the outlying regions of Roman rule, during the time of Nero’s reign, and the persecutions were real. In the city of Rome Christians were being put to death, but all over the Empire Christians were being ostracized, they were being (just as Jesus had said) put out of society. They were losing positions, property, and rights as citizens because they...

A question to consider and ask constantly, is “What is Spiritual Life?” and while the words or phrase, “Spiritual Life” is not found in our text, what we have is a very detailed, very helpful explanation of a spiritual life. A simple but solid definition would be that spiritual life is life lived in and with God. It begins with being “born again,” as Jesus described (John 3). Which means that...

Sexual sins, fornication, are a major issue addressed in the scriptures, and we need to take this very serious. Holiness is the call on our lives, it is what God wants for us. But holiness means not only responding the right way to temptation, but it also requires us doing the preemptive work. It means that we must begin to think about what needs to be cleared out.

Before we can know and live in the will of God in any other way, we must first know that it is God’s will that we believe on Jesus and be saved in him! There is an obvious question which must be asked and each one of us must search our heart and know the answer, that is, Do You Believe On Jesus, Are You Truly Saved in the Will of God? For this is the will of God, that everyone who sees and believe...

Have you ever been around those people who seem to have a life just filled with “God things?” Every time you talk with them, they have a story about an encounter with God, a lesson God taught them, an experience of God manifesting himself in their life, and the question is, why does that happen so much for certain people? Jesus said, "if any man will do his will," meaning, Willing is the Key to Kn...

If the glory of God is our highest purpose, then the will of God must be our chiefest pursuit. Our lives are wasted whenever we do anything for any other reason than for the glory of God! We were created for God’s glory and it is only by our living in and doing the will of God that we bring the fullest measure of glory to God. To get it right I want to live in the will of God every day,...

This is, indisputably, a passage that blows the mind of anyone who seriously wants to be true to God and follow Jesus well! “How? Tell me how Jesus did this! How did he ‘do always those things that please’ the Father?” For this is what the devout and holy life looks like, and it is not easily attained or maintained. It is not a life lived with a casual approach to faith or a minimal effort and int...

Has there been controversy over communion? From Roman Catholicism to the Protestant Reformation, to the Evangelical movement of our time, this thing of eating the Lord’s body and drinking his blood has been very much debated over. Yet, the greatest controversy over communion in our churches today is the ignorance and indifference towards the Lord’s Table, grown through the generations of the churc...

To teach on the will of God feels like such a monumental task. To simply think about the will of God can, after a short while, start to feel overwhelming. How much trouble do we have in discerning our own heart? How difficult can it be to understand the heart, the will, of your spouse, or your parents, or your children? Now, we can understand Paul’s question, " For who hath known the mind of the L...