Chambersburg Bible Church

Pastor Gary Yoder

The Pastor’s Desk is a weekly blog written by Pastor Gary Yoder with the intent of providing a biblical perspective on current events in our society. Pastor may also post thoughts from the Word of God from his daily studies or sermon preparations in addition to writing posts based on your questions or comments submitted via this website. On occasion, Pastor is approached by folks in the church with a question regarding something in our Christian lives or in the Word of God. It has often been Pastor’s desire to share the results of his study or discussion with others for the spiritual enrichment of the saints. These discussions often provide input to the weekly bible study during the Wednesday evening prayer service. If you have a topic or a question you would like to have Pastor address on the “Pastor’s Desk,” feel free to submit it to him directly via the contact page.

Do you love God?  Do you really love God? I am amazed at the number of people who say they love God yet seem to have little or no understanding as to what love for God is.  It is easy to say “I love God,” but love for God is difficult to measure.  Love cannot be measured with a ruler or a yardstick.  You cannot pour love into a measuring cup to find out how much you actually have.  Love in not a commodity that you can carry in a paper sack.  Love for God is an allusive concept! Does that mean that those who say they love God simply must be taken at their word?  Is it possible to determine if a person’s love for God is genuine?  Is there an objective standard by which love is gauged?  Is it possible to be involved in religious activities and not love God? Many people deceive... Read this Article →

Do you pray for yourself?  I’m not talking about asking God for “food and clothing,” though there is nothing wrong with that.  As a matter of fact, God commands and encourages His children to ask Him for their daily bread (Matthew 6:11)!  The kind of prayer that I’m referring to is asking the Lord to bring about real Christian growth in your life.  We have been conditioned to pray for others, but we feel that petitioning God on our own behalf is somehow self-serving and contrary to the Scriptures.  Christians rally to pray for the hungry in Africa and the devastated in Haiti, but are reluctant to bow their knees in prayer for their own spiritual growth.  Why is it that so many of us neglect prayer for our own spiritual development?... Read this Article →

Movie-goers are anxiously awaiting the release of Roland Emmerich’s doomsday flick, 2012.  The theme of 2012 is that planet earth will come to a cataclysmic end through a series of catastrophic events taking place in December of that year. 2012 is just one of many recent productions that deal with the “end of the world” scenario that has captured the thinking of the masses.  The History Channel recently aired a series of programs suggesting that mankind is rapidly approaching the end of civilization as we know it.  What’s even more remarkable is the suggestion that the exact time of earth’s pending doom is prophesied.  These programs claim that evidence for the apocalyptic end of the world in 2012 is revealed in the writings of Nostradamus; the December 21, 2012... Read this Article →

Pastor Ben Fisler Many times Thanksgiving Day is simply a time of eating tons of wonderful food, watching football, and spending time with family. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with any of these pastimes, but we truly need to focus on the reason for this holiday. In 1610 a group of believers in the Jamestown colony were suffering beyond belief due to the hostile weather condition. The group of settlers that had come across the ocean had been narrowed down from 409 to only 60 survivors. The group had prayed earnestly for the Lord to provide necessary provisions for them. In response to their prayers, a boat filled with necessities for daily living arrived. Many look to 1621 as the beginning of our Thanksgiving tradition, but 1610 was truly a time for thanksgiving.  Today we can... Read this Article →

Having recently concluded our Fall Missions Conference here at the Bible Church, I am amazed at what the Lord has done for us. It was a “good” conference and one through which I was personally encouraged and blessed. But “good” hardly seems an appropriate description for the spiritual impact of those special meetings. The full value of the conference cannot be calculated through the addition of its individual parts, even though many of the parts were outstanding in their own right. Yes, the Lord brought together a diverse group of missionaries. The Aaron Shipe family, new appointees under Gospel Furthering Fellowship to the Datooga people of Tanzania, exuded the kind of excitement we have come to expect of those called to missionary service. Veteran missionaries, Charlie and Bonnita... Read this Article →

Trusting the Lord for material needs is, perhaps, one of the most difficult challenges of the Christian life.  Many people find sufficient faith to trust the Lord for spiritual deliverance, but find trusting Him for daily sustenance a struggle.  Relying on the benevolence of the Lord is further complicated when the economy is weak and we find ourselves groping to make ends meet. Our self-sufficiency is exposed as anemic and ineffective in meeting even our most basic needs.  The Bible reveals that the Lord not only anticipated that this would be the case, but He designed it to be so.  The Lord knew man’s tendency toward self-reliance.  He knew man “would go it alone” if he could.    The omnipotent, omniscient, and eternal God ordained that all attempts at independence would result... Read this Article →

I felt like I was standing at the edge of a great precipice!  There was no doubt that God was speaking and that what He was asking me to do was big.  I was not unaccustomed to hearing the voice of God.  I do not mean by that that I heard an audible voice speaking to me, but that God was impressing upon my spirit that He had something for me to do. I have heard the “voice of God” several times since my salvation at the age of ten.  I soon learned that hearing and heeding the voice of the Lord meant a time of spiritual-stretching for me as I submitted to Him in obedience.  At first His voice was heard in the areas of soul-winning, studying the word, and teaching others.  Yielding to the Lord in these areas definitely moved me outside my “comfort zone” and required some rearranging... Read this Article →