Ephesians 5:18



I have been preaching through the book of Ephesians since last November here at El Bethel Baptist Church. I am currently working on the 37th message through the book and I must say it is a life changing experience to study this Epistle verse by verse. There is no other verse of scripture that has ever impacted my life as Ephesians 5:18 has.

"And be not drunk with wine,wherein is excess;but be filled with the Spirit"

First of all let me speak to the point of drinking here. This verse does not in any way give us permission to drink as long as we do not get drunk. The word "excess" in the Greek is the word "sozo" which means saved. However if you add this little word "is" too it and look at the Greek meaning of the Phrase "is excess" it defines itself as "unsaved". Now let us look at the word "drunk" the word drunk here in its verb tense in the Greek is speaking about the process of getting drunk and not the act of being drunk. Now if anyone here has ever had a problem with alcohol you will understand that the process of getting drunk begins with the first drink. Therefore put the original meaning in the Greek and here is how Ephesians 5:18a reads "Do not begin the process of getting drunk (do not even take a drink) because this gives the appearance that you are unsaved (lost). I believe strongly that a Christian is supposed to be completely abstinent from all alcohol.

However that is not what impacted my life, what impacted my life what the rest of the verse. "but be ye filled with the Spirit" This is a command and not something that happens only during big conventions or when a famous evangelist come too town. This also is not what happens when ten people surround you at the alter and pray over you until you speak in some language that no one can understand (BTW another subject for another day). Being filled with the Spirit is a command for every Christian every day! Therefore that leaves us the question "how do I become full of the Spirit?" When you are saved you are immediately filled however I am speaking to those that have been saved and now want to be once again re-filled. Here is what impacted my life. The way to be filled with the Spirit is to simply ask God to fill you and by faith believe that He will and guess what happens? Your filled with the Spirit. I am begging you try it. Watch your prayer life go to new levels. Watch sin in your life become mountains that you have to forsake. Watch your worship become like it has never been before. The only way I can see that this will not work is if there is some immoral sin in your life that you must repent of and ask forgiveness and then be filled with the Spirit. I am telling you this is not a request of God this is a command!!!!!


Weight loss update I am down 23 pounds and feeling better. I am walking about 3 miles a day and have not anything deep-fried in 4 weeks (this is tough living in the south we deep fry everything).

Also we lost our first regular season flag football game to Forrest last Saturday 24-14. Will had a good game as he scored both our touchdowns but we waited too late to gave him the ball. He had only one carry in the first half. This is my fault since I am head coach I do not want my son to get all the carries so that it does not look like I am only playing him. However I think he has proved himself and I have no other choice but too give him the ball. We play at 2 p.m. Saturday at home against MTCS.

God Bless
Dan Reed

Losing weight and Church Hopping!!!!


I want to first begin with an announcement that I have started a new lifestyle (not a diet since it has long been proven that diets do not work) and this lifestyle includes No soft drinks, no sweet tea, nothing deep fried (I'm crying right now) and no hamburgers. What it does include is a lot of water, salads, baked chicken, sub-way sandwiches and walking about 3 miles a day. I began this lifestyle on Monday August 4 this was the first Monday after our family vacation to Atlanta. I am happy to say that since this day according to my Wii fit I have lost 19.9 pounds. This is losing weight entirely too fast and I know that but here is the truth. I do not go hungry, when I am hungry I eat however instead of little Debbie's I know eat grapes, prunes, banana's, apples or my favorite a bowl of raisin bran. I eat two meals a day because I am not nor have I ever been a breakfast eater so I eat two big meals and alot of fruit between meals. I also want too say that I feel better than I have in a long time. This also may sound crazy but this new lifestyle has done wonders for my prayer life. Everyday after lunch I walk 30 minutes around the gym in the life center where my office is located. During this 30 minutes I spend praying for every member and visitor of our church. I pray for a different page on our list and by the time Friday is over I have prayed for everyone on the church active roll and other request that were given to me. I can not begin to tell you all that I have seen the Lord do in this short time. One thing is for sure everyone that draws breath underestimates the power of prayer including myself.

few announcements

Mike my oldest brother is 40!!!! I still can not believe I have a brother who is 1. A Democrat and 2 is 40 years old. Unbelievable.

Scott my next oldest brother is 37!!! He is not a democrat but he is bald and so is Mike.

I'm 31 and still have a lot of hair (although thinning at a rapid pace) but I out weigh both of them by several pounds.

side note: My dads wife Judy once told dad that he thinks his boys (Mike, Scott and Dan) were perfect and he needed to realize that they have their faults as well. Dad responded and asked her what are his boys faults. She responded without a moments hesitation that......

Mike is too smart
Scott is Bald
Dan is too fat

I say Amen!!!!!

My son Will will play his first regular season flag football game Saturday at Chapel Hill. We have played one scrimmage and we beat Cascade 26-0. I am the head coach of the team and I must confess I never in my life played one organized game of football. Therefore the first flag football game I ever watched I was the head coach of the winning team. BTW Will had one carry in this game for 70 yards and a TD.



Second Subject today is Church Hopping:

I will speak short and plain on this subject. It is Okay and by all means not a problem if you want to go to another church from time to time to visit family or go to a homecoming, see someone in your family baptized and other things of this nature. However it is wrong to constantly be going from one church to another. Once you have visited churches and found the one the you desire to be your church home then you commit yourself to that church and remain faithful. The main reason for those who are constantly visiting other churhces is they do not want to be accountable and they like to be the "visitor" whom everyone is supposed to speak too when they visit. There is my rant for the day................................. Many more to come I am sure.


God Bless
Dan Reed

KIND OF A WIERD FEELING!!!!


I have not been doing much updating lately and boy has a lot went on. Since my loast post I have been to what seems like a 1,ooo ball games between my sons and mine and we had a wonderful time at church camp.

I am posting today about my Granddad and his possibilty of soon being able to actually hear. My wife who has been taking care of Granddaddy for a while (not that he needs daily care but she goes once a week and does some housework for him) took him to the hearing doctor as Granddad calls it and they have introduced him to hearing implants and they beleive this could make him one day hear again. I went to see him yesterday and he is excited about the possability.

I am exited for him but if this works out for him it will take some getting used to. Granddad and I have always been close and the family has always said I was the favorite and I always agreed with them and I even named my son William after him. However when all your life you knew a person and that person could not hear or not hear very well it will be alot different if in a few months when he can.

I know this did not make a lot of sense but it has been something to ponder on.

here are some thoughts................

How will he accept being able to hear nosies that he has not heard in 50 years?

How will his body react when loud noises hit those implants?

Dont get me wrong I hope that it does work out for him but even the doctors say that the forst months and maybe even years will be frustrating and will take a lot of getting used too.


anyway just a few thoughts..................

WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I consider myself to be a young man on the 13th of this month I will be 31 years old. I am fascinated in the change of culture just in the few years since I was in my teenage years. The cool thing in my day was big trucks with roll bars and loud exhaust. It was also very cool in my day if you had a stereo system in your car that thumped loud enough to set off house alarms. These were just a few........................

However today I see more cars today that have the measurement of thier wheels on thier front license plate or on stickers above thier wheel well. For example it is considered cool if you have a $500 car with 22" wheels with a sign or sticker with 22" on it somewhere you have what is considered "the bomb". Henceforth you have songs such as "Cadillac on 22's or I'm rolling them 22's.

That leads me to today's post. I have an idea that would make a great t-shirt and would probably make someone a millionaire. However it would probably only work well in the south. The shirt would have a picture of a old horse and buggy with an old man in overalls sitting in the buggy (of course this wold have to be a side view shot to get both the wheels in the picture) The caption would say "My Grandpa rolled 45"s" . Just a thought.

BTW. My brother Mike made a statement that I am not sure if he really meant it or not. He said that he would love for the presidential race to be a McCain and Huckaby ticket. I assume that he feels that if this is so the liberals would be a shoe-in. However I think he is sadly mistaken. Here is the reason............................. (I am not a racist and by no means am I advocating racism I am just stating the facts)

McCain already has the racist vote. There are millions of Americans who would normally vote Democrat who will not vote for a African American President so therefore I call them the racist vote. Now if Huckaby is on the ticket you also get the religious vote. So the ticket of McCain/Huckaby get the racist and the religious vote and I see doom for the liberals.

I myself will vote for McCain no matter who his running mate is (unless its Oprah) because i am not in the racist camp or the religious camp i just oppose the liberals on several of thier views.

Please do not make me explain the difference between me and religious, just trust me there is a lot of difference.

do you feel the compassion?

I'm Back.......................................

I do not know if anyone will ever come and see that I am back but the fact remains that I am. The reason for coming back is....................................... well I'm not sure but I am back...........

Today is my sons 5th birthday. His name is Will (William named after my Granddaddy) and he is one of my pride and joys. He played his first year of sports this year and entered a coach pitch Lg there in my hometown and he had an awesome year and was the only 4 year old picked to play on the all star team and you be assure of one thing I am one proud dad.

I seem to have remembered why I'm back. I need you all the follow this link to the local paper here in Shelbyville and you will be on the blogger section. This guy's name is Michael Bell and from all I know of him he is a good guy. However his tactics need some polishing. He has been scanning his diploma's and showing people that he is a pastor (although I am afraid where he got these diplomas were off the net) The commenter are killing him.

Now for the reason I came back I realized that this used to be me. When I first began blogging I would write on the subjects of Christianity versus Homosexuality, Democrats, Harry Potter, Drugs, Alcohol and other subjects and then I would set back and wait on the comments and at first it was fun and then I realized the only reason people came by to read was so they could blast me and my views. The deal is I do have a lot to say about these subjects and most likely I will but i not going to do it in the same manner. I do not want 101 comments saying that I am crazy I would like 101 comments with civilized discussion.

anyhoooooooooooo................ I'm back and I am going to be much more compassionate (anyone who knows me and just read that chuckled I'm sure)


BTW ....................... Mike you are crazy you cant really believe that Obama is going to be the next president........... Surely you know that America is not going to elect Obama..............



You see the difference normally I would have given you my reasons why America will not elect him such as he being the Anti-Christ but I did not I just said that I do not beleive America will elect him..................


Friends the compassion is pouring out and I want you all to stay tuned..............................

I went to the annual Baptist Association Christmas Pastor and staff dinner on Monday night. It was what it always is. I was one of the youngest there and we ate and listened to some Southern Gospel and chatted. Just as the evening was about to be over the President of the pastors conference announced he was resigning and wanted to open the floor up for nominations for next years president. To make a long story short I am the new President of the New Duck River Baptist Pastors conference. What excactly this position means I am not sure but I do know that I have a meeting coming up with the Director of missions. I guess I should be honored but for now I just want to know what I have to do.

I went today to the nursing home to see my childhood babysitter. She is in her last days and I recieved a call a few days back from a childhood friend who also stayed with her and this person told me that she was dying. I have been several times before to see her and each time I had to reintroduce myself to her but each time she seemed to enjoy the visit. When I went in today I got to see some folks I had not seen in some 20 years. I got to see my babysitters son who lives many states away and go to chat with him a few minutes. It was a nice visit and there was a lot of ministry opportunity there as well.

Well I guess that is all for now....

Dan Reed

Well the Lord just continues to bless our church. Yesterday we had 2 more to come and be saved. One of which was a women who is 9 months pregnant (so can we count two baptism's j/k) We once again had over 100 in Sunday School and our offering was outstanding. We also are just about ready to start building our new "life Center" which will give us some much needed space.

This coming Sunday Night we will have our childrens Christmas play which is called "manger Mania" and my wife has spent countless hours working on the produciton and we are excited to see this happen.

What about those Titans. Do not get me wrong I am a Miami Dolphin but I do like to watch the Titans (because where I live you do not have a choice). What a game and what a kick. The best thing is that the Titans are now going to extend Jeff Fishers contract and I think that would be a wise move for the men in blue.

I also would like to weigh in on the BCS National Championship Game selcetions. I myself thought that Michigan desreved it more that Florida but I am happy about the decision because as we all know the Vols hate the Gators and anyone the Vols hate I like.


Dan

I have been gone awhile but I do want to catch up on a few things. First of all I want to give a shout out to my man Corker on pulling out a big win in the Senate race.

I would also like to give all three of my readers a update on our church. On November 5-8 we held revival here at El Bethel Baptist. What a great meeting we had. There were 19 decisions followed by 16 baptisms. Since then revival has continued as we have seen 5 more professions and baptisms. The church has now had 21 baptisms since the first Sunday in September. I tell you friends God is good.

We also have just about reached our construction goal for our new "life center" the goal of 75k should be met by the end of December and construction to begin on January 2. The Lord continues to send us growth as we have be consistently over 100 in Sunday School for the past 3 months.

In other news I would like to address the firing of Mike Shula as head coach at my beloved University of Alabama. I can not say whether I agree or disagree with the decision because I myself am not sure. I do feel they probably should have given him another year because the Tide should be loaded next season. However since the firing has already taken place I want to give you my prediction on the whom the next coach will be. I think in reality it will be the head coach from Wake Forrest (I can not recall his name) However I think the Tide may shock the world and hire South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier. This would be great for the program and he is a definite proven ole' ball coach.

I just recently got a new computer for my church office and this should mean that I will be able to keep in touch a little better and make a few more post's.

That is all for now.

Dan Reed

I had a wonderful weekend. Both of my daughters won their soccer games and both of them played well. Sunday we had two wonderful services at Shelbyville Mills and El Bethel had two great services as well. The trip to the pumpkin patch went without a hitch and the basketball games went OK.

To say the least it was a full weekend but I would not have it any other way.

The Alabama game did not go as well as I anticipated and we lost. However I could not believe how well I took it. Ten years ago if Alabama would have lost I would have thrown Bear Bryant pictures in the yard and cussed and screamed at anyone who tried to talk to me. But now I just blow real hard and get over it. However let me say this we might loose 3 or 4 games this year but next year we are in the hunt for the National title. Roll Tide!!!!!!!!




Have a great week and Go Corker!!!!!!!!!

It is Friday night and my family and I are getting ready for the always big weekend. On Saturday both my girls have soccer games (complete with pictures this week) Haley plays at 9:00 and Lacey has her game at 1:00. We usually would have two basketball games as well tomorrow but both of their games are scheduled for Sunday afternoon this week. That creates all kinds of problems since our church is taking all the children to the "punkin patch" right after church. I am not sure but I think both my girls are going to pick punkins (BTW i know that it is pumpkins) over b-ball and that is fine by me. Another problem is that this Sunday I will not be preaching at El Bethel but I am going to be preaching at my home church at Shelbyville Mills Baptist Church and my fellow Southern Baptist Kevin Twisdale is coming in to speak at El Bethel for me so I will need to be around to entertain him while he is in. My wife will have to make the journey with the children and I will have to coach a basketball game and entertain a visiting preacher. That leads me to this point. No one will ever know how rough it is to be a pastors wife until you have walked in their shoes and especially if you are a full-time pastor. My wife has to hear all about it every day and then usually watch children 24 hours a day while I am gone visiting or filling appointments. For these very reasons I am so thankful that my wife is able to stay home. I could not imagine her having to do all she does and have a full-time job as well.

With my plate as full as it can get with a 5 day revival the first of October and a Youth Revival the second week of October I just want to thank the Lord for my wife and all she does. People often ask me why my wife does not travel with me when I go to visit or preach revivals and I always answer this way. Would you drag three kids in here to listen to their daddy who they hear all week?

.......
Alabama takes on Arkansas tommorow in Fayetville at 2:30 on CBS. I think this is a game we should win but will we overlook them because next week we go to Florida? I do not think so I say Tide 20 Arkansas 14.
......
Well that is all I got for know but I hope you a good weekend and ROLL TIDE!!!!!!

I have been gone a while and the first thing I want to do is tell you how God is blessing our church. The church has now doubled in attendance in the last year! We have been over 100 in Sunday School for the last three weeks! We had two to get saved this week and one baptized the week before! We have had to use the overflow rooms in our sanctuary for the last two Sundays with an average worship attendance of about 145! The Lord is blessing El Bethel Baptist Church.

In other news......

I am coaching three teams at the present time and attending Alabama's home games as well. I coach a 1st and 2nd grade basketball team. A third and fourth grade basketball team and a 10 and under soccer team. Plus pastoring a church. We have been so busy that wife has now decided to stay at home full time and keep our 3 year old son.

.....

I have not decided or not weather I am going to keep cool and nice on this blog this time or just let it go. If I were you I would bet on the second option.

.....

I just hope www.nashvilleistalking.com does not find me again.

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Mike Reed is still a liberal and I do not know how he sleeps at night.

......

Scott does not sleep at night. (could you please tell us again how many hours you worked) (that is for calling me adopted!)

.......

Go Corker!!!!!!!!!!

Dan Reed

By Popular demand I have made a return. It is going to take me a while to get the page looking swell again but I will. However I just want to go ahead and get the pot stirred quickly.

I voted for Corker!!!!!!!!!!!!!