“Show me your ways O Lord,
teach me your paths;
guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.(Psalm 25:4-5)

In other words David comes to God with his fear and his loneliness and guilt and confusion and pleads with God to make things right and to lead him in the way of love and faithfulness (v. 10). I suppose most of us take that for granted. Of course, that’s what you do when you are uncertain about God’s will for your future–you pray.
 
But take this issue of guidance for example. How does God answer that? If you face a decision, and there is no biblical command relating directly to that specific choice, should you wait for a dream or a vision or a voice in your head? Will there be some miracle in the circumstances to point the way? God can certainly use any of those means. But I think I can say that these are not His normal means of guidance in such cases. It seems to me that the Bible describes the ordinary guidance of God as the development of spiritual sensitivity and alertness to circumstances.
 
In other words, God guides us by bringing our hearts and minds into harmony with His own heart and mind so that when we study a situation, we discern what path would best concur with the character and purposes of God that we know from Scripture. So what we ought to be asking when we pray, “Lead me in thy truth, and teach me,” is that God would create in us a spiritual sensitivity to Himself and that He would help us see all the relevant factors that relate to the decision we’re about to make. God teaches us his way by alerting us to significant facts of the situation and by awakening us to the implications of his purpose.
 
Here’s three points I see in Psalm 25 to tap into in order to find God’s direction:
 
1) Trust: It is the first thing David says in the psalm in verses 1-2, “To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul. O my God, in You I trust, Do not let me be ashamed; Do not let my enemies exult over me. If you ask me, how can I know the will of God? I would say that we first need to have total trust in God.
 
2)  Humility: “He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.” (Psalm25:9) In other words a person who feels helpless in himself has one of the indispensable spiritual qualifications for discerning what pleases the Lord. The quest for guidance must be the quest for humility. If you ask me, How can I know the will of God?
I will say, “Admit all known sin and humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.” 
 
3)  Covenant Keeping: “All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.” (Psalm 25:10) What does it mean to keep God’s covenant and his testimonies? It means that you hold to His Word faithfully and in obedience.
 
How can you attain God’s guidance? Trust God, be humble, and keep His covenant and testimonies. 

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6) Hello everybody! I hope this finds you walking in the strength of His joy.

It seems like every TV news channel you turn on all we here is FEAR, FEAR to the left of me, FEAR to the right. FEAR, regarding the economy, FEAR regarding jobs, it’s going to get worse they say, much worse. FEAR, FEAR, but we come to expect it from News programs because it sells, but what’s amazing to me are leaders who “profess” to be Christians (this means that you supposedly have trusted in Christ as Savior and Lord and believe Him to be the One who saved you from your sins), yet speak hopelessness and FEAR, but completely leave the sovereign God of the universe out of the equation.

Personally, my Bible tells me to place all my trust in the LORD, giving Him all my heart, not leaning on my human understanding, but acknowledging Him, yes Him, and know then that He and not a man, will make my paths straight. My Bible tells me in Psalm 27:1-3:

The LORD is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the defense of my life;
Whom shall I dread?
2 When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh,
My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell.
3 Though a host encamp against me,
My heart will not fear;
Though war arise against me,
In spite of this I shall be confident. 

I didn’t see anything in those verses telling me to lay all my trust in the decisions of men, but to trust and know that the LORD is my defense and through Him not to FEAR because He is the strength of my life! How powerful would it be if we had leaders in our nation who profess Christianity, to stand up in front of our nation and say, “Things are going in a wrong direction in this nation. We have sinned before our sovereign God and we need to repent for mishandling of finances, abortion, wrongs done to each other, and so on. So today we stand here in complete humility with the understanding that we need the wisdom of Almighty God to help us through this time. We call on our Heavenly Father to forgive us and to help us with our decisions. We don’t trust in our human decisions as we have seen them fail before. We need your help today LORD to heal our land and direct us onto the right path for our nation. Please help us today, help us, lead us and give your guidance with our decisions.”

So for all you true Christians/believers/ followers of Christ/disciples of Christ, don’t fear today, but place your trust in your powerful, all-knowing, all-wise and sovereign God. Trust Him today for your finances and your future. Trust in Him today to give you the wisdom to make the right decisions regarding your family. Trust in Him today to lead you and guide you through this season. And remember the words of Psalm 27, “The LORD is the defense of your life so why should your fear anything?” Let your heart be strengthened today for your adversaries will fall to the left and to the right of you, in this you should be confident!

God Bless you this week and stay strong in the Lord and the power of His might!

Pastor Brad Tuttle

“Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29)
 
Hello everyone! I hope this finds you walking in the strength of His joy.
 
We may have little appreciation for the power of our words. “Who am I?” we ask.  It doesn’t matter what I say. My words don’t affect anybody.” But they do! They affect everyone we speak to-absolutely everyone. They have the power to help and heal, or the power to hurt and destroy. King Solomon wrote in Proverbs 12:18: “There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Some professing Christians swing verbal swords, piercing the souls of other people, inflicting emotional wounds on their spouses, their children, their neighbors, store clerks, telephone operators, or anyone else who gets in their way.
 
The Apostle Paul penned an extended passage on the use of words in Ephesians 4:25-32. And in Ephesians 4:29 he summed up a number of good communication principles. Paul established two categories of communication in that verse: unwholesome words and edifying words. The first, he says, should be eliminated entirely from our verbal repertoire. There is no room for even a trace of it. We are to weed it all out, then replace it with the second. Obeying this command could vastly improve our ability to get along with each other.
 
We need to understand that what comes out of our mouth can truly hurt or edify. Words that are “cutting” or “nagging” or “vengeful” can bring great hurt to others. How many times have you been out in public and heard a husband cut his wife down with his words or vice a versa? It even makes those listening feel uncomfortable. If we call ourselves true Christians then we need to make sure we don’t just say it, but we also live it out with our words towards others.
 
It can be just as easy to replace unwholesome words with words that edify. I am talking about “gentle” or “understanding” or “appreciative” words. You wouldn’t believe how speaking these kinds of words can change a person’s day or week. They build people up and let them begin to see themselves as Christ really sees them.
 
So let’s begin this week to take the Word of God seriously and begin to weigh our words. Let’s weed out those words that damage people and cause relationships to decay. Let’s replace them with words that build up, meet needs, and minister gracious benefit to people’s lives. We will be the beneficiaries in the end as we experience the joy of harmonious relationships. After all, as it says in Colossians chapter 3, “If I have put on the new man, then I should put aside all anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech from my mouth and never lie to anyone and lay aside all the old self with its evil practices.” So let’s covenant in our hearts each day to let our tongue be an instrument of grace and blessing and truth to all who hear us speak.
 
God Bless you this week and may you have a great week of edifying others!
 
Pastor Brad Tuttle

The great central theme of the Bible is salvation through Christ, because evangelism is the very heart of God. Scripture states “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself” in 2 Corinthians 5:19. God invaded human history by becoming a man and redeeming sinful men and women, which was the single greatest act of our holy God. God loved a lost world and sought to win it to Himself for His own glory. Christ came into the world out of love, and sought to win it for the Father’s glory. Believers also are to go to the world in love and to seek to reach it for the glory of God. The true Christian’s mission is the same as God’s–reaching lost men and women.

A true Christian’s consuming desire and goal should be to see the Gospel reach the world by the Great Commission. However, we live in an age that tends to dull our sharpness. Our culture obscures legitimate goals and attempts to rob our faith of its fiery power if given the chance. Some Christians just don’t understand someone with a passionate concern about a spiritual enterprise, because spiritual passion is not the norm. The norm is to not let Christianity disrupt your lifestyle. Every true Christian needs to ask themselves, “Where’s my passion for evangelism?” Or maybe I should be more definitive by asking, “Where’s my passion for people who don’t know Christ and face the terrible possibility of being separated from God forever.

Jesus came to seek and save the lost–He came to make an offer to lost sinners, and to raise up all who are given Him by the Father, and not lose one from that group! His primary task on the earth was His death in substitution for the death of all who would believe in Him, and if His main objective was lost souls shouldn’t that be the main objective for the true Christian as well? The true Christian should have a passion to reach the lost.
 

When was the last time we shed tears for lost souls? It seems that we get so caught up in our own problems and wanting God to do for us that we lose our perspective on the most important aspect of being a true believer–having a heart and passion for those who are without Christ as Savior. Christians want to argue the finer points of theology while people around them die without Christ. We look to building more programs into our church, but neglect building into our church a “spiritual DNA” of passion for lost souls. I don’t know about you but every day I go out of my house I infiltrate a world that is filled with people who desperately need Christ as Savior. Let’s determine to begin to ask the Holy Spirit to help us with this understanding and then we choose to do something about it with our actions, our lifestyle and our words.

Spreading the Gospel message takes dedication, commitment, love and the desire to fulfill the purposes of God.  It takes a true Christian who is where they should be in their walk with the Lord.  It takes a true Christian who is passionate about fulfilling their destiny in Christ! A true Christian should have a passionate desire to keep people from an eternity separated from God. 

Let’s determine to shed tears for lost souls. Jesus did.

God Bless you!
 
Pastor Brad Tuttle

Hello everyone! I hope this finds you walking in the strength of His joy.
 
I was praying this morning with alot on my mind, and as I was giving my cares to the Lord it hit me how much I truly need His help every day of my life. I usually spend that first part of my prayer time thanking Him for who He is to me and all He has done for me and just for being who He is in my life in general. Then I will move into a time of laying my requests before Him, and asking for His wisdom and guidance in my life as a husband, father, leader, pastor, and so on. It was in this part of my prayer time today that it hit me in a strong sense of how incredibly dependant I am on His leading, wisdom and guidance.
 
I am always in the understanding that I need the Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit to aid me each day. But we need to have those times of fresh illumination of mind that really speaks to us how unable we are to do what we are called to do in Him without His divine strength and guidance. Those verses I read from Paul that deal with my weakness and His strength speak so loudly to me at times like this: ”And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9-10).   
 
I still go to the gym 5 days a week and can still lift a good amount of weight, but that type of strength does nothing for me in situations like the above verses spell out, or in my life as I deal with struggles, and cares. That physical strength isn’t the strength that is needed in times like these, it is the strength I find in His power and wisdom.
 
If you haven’t come to the place in your walk with the Lord where you are completely giving over your cares to him (1 Pet. 5:7) then you need to do so starting today. You can’t carry the weight of your cares, troubles, and anxieties, and still walk in the fullness of His joy and peace. Trying to carry all that weight yourself will weigh you down and begin to steal your peace of mind and bring into your life anxiety, and unneeded stress. He doesn’t want you to do that. He tells you through His Word to give it to Him today, right now. I believe somebody who is reading this right now desperately needs to ‘let it go and let God’ as they say. You need to tip your shoulders over to the side and dump all that stuff you are carrying on your shoulders on the ground. He will pick it up for you! You need His help today, I need His help today. We are not burdening Him by doing this. He tells us to do it. But we will never tap into His help with this if we choose to try and do it our way, if we choose to be disobedient and carry it all ourselves.
 
So in closing my friend, admit right now that you need His help. I did this morning, and my weight and cares were lifted. Admit you need for His help right now and then choose to give it all to Him. He is big enough, strong enough, and wise enough to deal with it all!
 
God bless you and have a tremendously peace-filled week!
 
Pastor Brad Tuttle

I guess the first thing that I need to say is that confusion in your life is something that is definitely not a result of following God’s Word and will for your life. Confusion happens when we get ourselves into situations that we try to handle in our own strength and wisdom. Many times in our life as a true Christian we run into those moments of decision that we just don’t have the answer for but we still earnestly try to figure it out on our own. Or we may go ahead and make the decision from our own earthly wisdom and it gets us into a position of confusion; confusion that has to do with how did I get here and how am I going to get myself out of this?
 
I have been there. I have made a decision before that seemed like a good idea at the time and it seemed like a ‘God idea’ too, BUT I got ahead of God, I moved to quick in my decision and it put me into a situation that ended up in a quagmire of confusion. My eventual way out of it was to let God into it, and let Him decide what I should do from then on, and guess what, the place of confusion turned into a situation of peace and true God ordained purpose. Hmm… I guess the Bible is correct when it says,
 
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.”-Proverbs 3:5-6
 
Verse 5 says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart.” This is what I have so deeply learned in my own life as a believer. I have learned to begin, continue, and end every work, purpose, and device, with God. I have learned to earnestly pray for His direction at the beginning, and to look for His continual support along the way, so that everything I do will begin, continue, and finish in His glory! Leaning on our own self-sufficiency and self-dependence has been the ruin of mankind ever since the fall of Adam. Trying to live independently of God will do nothing but bring confusion. Trying to make the important decisions of your life without God can end you up in a place of great confusion.

This is a very important teaching because God is the origin or source of all good. He has made us, His creatures, dependent upon Himself. He requires us to be conscious of that dependence. He has promised to communicate what we need and He commands us to believe His promises, and look for our fulfillment in Him. But, we are to do this without doubt, fear, or distrust and we are to do it “with our whole heart.”
 
As well we can read, “The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, Because he trusts in You.”-Isaiah 26:3
 
God will keep you in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Him, because you obviously trust in Him. He will keep you in perfect peace; what a great promise that is to you today! Perfect peace! God promises that we can have perfect peace, and even be kept in a place of perfect peace. I have learned that in Hebrew, the term perfect peace is actually shalom shalom. In Hebrew this repetition communicates intensity. It isn’t just shalom; it is shalom shalom, perfect peace. There is a perfect peace that the LORD will keep you in.
 
To be kept in this perfect peace is a matter of our mind. You, my friend, are to love the LORD your God with all of your mind as it says in Matthew 22:37, and you are to set your mind on things above as we see in Colossians 3:2. Your Christian life is not an unthinking life of just doing, or experiencing, but it is also about thinking, and where you set your mind is essential in your walk before the LORD. In order to push out confusion and live and walk in perfect peace your mind must be steadfast. If your mind is steadfast, fixed or stayed on yourself, your problems, the problem people in your life, or on anything else, you can’t have this perfect peace. Satan loves to get our minds on anything except the LORD! He loves to get you to a place of confusion. He loves to get you to act on your decisions in your own wisdom and strength. He loves for you to have your mind steadfast on everything other than God and His purposes.
 
There is no reason for you to have confusion in your life today. Give your area of confusion over to God today. Set your mind on Him and begin to trust in him, lean on Him, let His thoughts be your thoughts, let His ways take the place of your ways. If your decisions have brought you to a place of confusion, then ask for forgiveness for trying to do it your way, and then let God help you do it His way. Confusion is not fitting for a believer in Christ who is trusting, leaning and steadfast in their mind towards God.
 
I am excited for you today and the fact that you are going to be relieved of your confusion and set in a place of perfect peace; shalom, shalom! God Bless and have a wonderfully peaceful day and week.
 
Pastor Brad Tuttle

I just wanted to say from myself and Jana, and all of us at THCI, “Merry Christmas!” We hope you have a stress-free, peace-filled Christmas Day. Make sure to ponder the awesomeness of Christ, and tell somebody that God came to be with us so He could set them free from their sins. God Bless you! Pastor Brad

 Dear Jesus,

You are so much more than a friend, you are more than my heart could ever express! You never fail me, you never give up on me, you never look down on me. You love me enough to give your life for me, your mercy and grace are always there to say, “Keep going Brad, I’m right here with you.” I can’t describe how much I love you, and how much more I want to show you than I do. Thank you Jesus for the joy you bring to my heart. Thank you for your gift of everlasting life. Thank you, thank you, thank you, my Savior, my Lord and my God! PB

Here we go! Thanksgiving is over, and the Christmas season begins. We continue to see and hear the phrase “Merry Christmas” turned into “Happy Holidays” or “Seasons Greetings.” The drive to remove Christ out of this season continues. But I don’t know about you, in my home and church, we still call it Christmas! And guess what? We will never back down or give into the popular vote. To us it will always be CHRISTMAS!  

We must always remember the reason for this season, and that is that God came to be with us, “BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,” which translated means, “GOD WITH US.” (Matt. 1:23)

He came to reveal Himself to men and women, and to redeem them from their sins. That’s what we must always remember, and that’s what we celebrate this Christmas season. It’s not all about the gifts we give and get, it’s about THE GIFT He gave to us. There is no love that we could ever comprehend that can match this love gift.

Celebrate Him, His incarnation, His unequaled love this Christmas season. Remember the reason for the season…”God with us!” 

PB