We should never stop learning.  Whatever your calling or vocation, whether that be school or ministry or a career, you should never stop being teachable.  We never know all there is to know.  In this life, we will never know all the wonderful truth of the Bible.  Likewise, you will never know all there is to know about your career area.  That is where humility is needed.  If we come to the point where we arrogantly think we have arrived, we have deceived ourselves.  I have said before; the more I know, the more I know I don’t know. 

I read a story about a young seminarian who was excited about preaching his first sermon in his home church. After three years in seminary, he felt adequately prepared, and when he was introduced to the congregation, he walked boldly to the pulpit, his head high, radiating self-confidence.

But he stumbled reading the Scriptures and then lost his train of thought halfway through the message. He began to panic, so he did the safest thing: He quickly ended the message, prayed, and walked dejectedly from the pulpit, his head down, his self-assurance gone.

Later, one of the godly elders whispered to the embarrassed young man, “If you had gone up to the pulpit the way you came down, you might have come down the way you went up.”
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Oak Crest, all of us would do well to learn the lesson of the young seminarian.  Let’s recommit ourselves to being teachable in the things of God.  But the need for humility does not apply only to knowledge and doctrinal maturity.  There is also a great need in the Body of Christ for humility toward others.  Everyone who is a believer is in a process of sanctification.  There is no shame in being five years old, if indeed you are five years old.  It is immature and childish for a ten year old to think he or she is better than the five year old simply because the five year old is younger.  The same principle applies spiritually.  We must not look down upon anyone for being at a different level in the sanctification process.  Rather, we should encourage them and edify them and help them grow.  In other words, we should be humble.  Philippians 3:8-11, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”
 
In Christ,
Blain Craig

Every father and mother would be very quick to share with their children the wisdom of Proverbs 13: 20, “Whoever walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”  Those are sound and good words to live by.  Likewise, Scripture reinforces that idea through the words of Paul, “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals.’”  Those are all words we want our children to hear and to heed.  The simple fact is that we quickly become like the company we keep.  If we want to get better at basketball, we should play with people better than we are, not worse.  If we want to grow in godliness, we should spend time with growing and maturing believers who will guide us in the ways of Christ.

If that is the case, how do we reconcile the fact that Jesus deliberately spent time with sinners?  Certainly we should follow Christ’s example and befriend lost people with the hope of sharing the gospel with them.  So how do we develop relationships with the very people we are cautioned to avoid in other places in Scripture?  Well, the solution is not as complicated as we might think.  It is possible to befriend someone while not condoning or participating in certain activities that person participates in.  The people in our lives that do not know Christ should at least know, without a shadow of a doubt, that we do know Christ.  There should never be an inkling of doubt in our actions or words that would call into question where we stand in the gospel.
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In 1 Corinthians 9: 22 Paul says, “To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.”  This is an often misunderstood and misapplied verse that is twisted to advocate unbiblical pragmatism in evangelism.  That is not what Paul is saying.  Likewise, the verse in no way means we become worse sinners in order to save those who are still slaves to sin.  This is especially important in the area of “Missionary Dating.”  Missionary Dating is the idea of a Christian man or woman dating a non-Christian member of the opposite sex with the goal of witnessing to them so that they might be saved.  The simple truth is that it rarely works.  We should certainly befriend a person, but we should not get intimately involved with a non-believer.  If you are single, a prerequisite of any potential date should be that they know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  If we will lift high the banner of Christ and make his name known, there will never be any doubt about where we stand.  Our friends who do not know Christ will respect us for it and may come to know Jesus through our testimony.

In Christ, 
Blain Craig

​          Oak Crest, I thank you for your overflowing and gracious generosity.  At the beginning of April last year, I challenged us to pay down our existing debt by July 20, 2018.  About this time last year our payoff was $195,000.  As of now, our remaining balance on the loan is $151,163.91.  In addition to updating you on the status of our loan and challenge, I want to notify you of even more good news.  We were recently notified by the bank that they were lowering our monthly payment significantly, essentially extending the life of the loan.  Certainly this is an attempt by the lien holder to gain much more interest money in the long term, but we will use it to our advantage since we will continue to pay the budgeted higher payment amount.  If you will recall, we were already paying $592.77 extra each month directly to principle because we did not adjust our monthly payment amount several years ago when we refinanced.  Now with this new change, the payment due has been reduced from $3240 a month to $1539 a month. By continuing to pay the higher payment that we have budgeted for, we are now paying another $1700.64 a month directly to principle in addition to the $592.77 we had been paying.  That is a total of $2293.41 a month going directly to the principle payoff of $151,163.91, not to mention the principle payment within the regular monthly loan payment and any designated offering we receive.  Thank you for your faithfulness in our debt retirement efforts.
          I also want to remind you of the ultimate purpose of this challenge.  Our being debt free in one year in not an end unto itself.  Oak Crest being debt free is only a means to a greater end.  It is for the purpose of more God glorifying ministry and mission effort.  It is for the purpose of the Great Commission.  There are many mission and ministry opportunities that we would love to be able to offer even more than prayer support, but currently we cannot because our budget does not allow for it.  Of course, we continue to support efforts to reach the Lasa.  You also probably know of a couple of other noble mission efforts.  Certainly we could never provide financial support to all of these, but consider what we could do with $46,000 a year freed up for nothing other than gospel ministry.  That is how much of our budget goes to debt retirement.
          Our goal is to be debt free with as few fixed expenses as possible to free the most money possible for the most important word of sharing the gospel and discipling our people.  Whether it is local ministry here in Midlothian or reaching Muslims around the world, we want to be stewards to God’s resources that he has called us to be.
 
In Christ,
Blain Craig