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Articles written by jim neal


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  • Pastor's Corner - April 11, 2019

    Pastor Jim Neal, First Southern Baptist Church|Updated Apr 12, 2019

    PASTOR JIM NEAL You like I have read and heard the admonition that “it takes three times the muscle work to frown than to smile, so quit working yourself to death and smile.” I’m no muscle expert and do not know how to validate that piece of information but I do know it is much more fun to smile and laugh than to cry and frown. The challenge we have with happiness, laughter and cheerfulness is that we make it our goal and not a byproduct of our life’s work. Often, we hear pe...

  • Pastor's Corner

    Jim Neal, First Southern Baptist Church, Shafter|Updated Apr 6, 2019

    “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” --Apostle Paul, Philippians 3:12-14 If you are a college basketball fan, then you see the admonition played out game by game dur...

  • Pastor's Corner - Feb. 28, 2019

    Jim Neal, First Southern Baptist Church|Updated Mar 8, 2019

    JIM NEAL “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” --Abraham Lincoln Doesn’t it seem as you look around, read the newspaper or listen to or watch the daily news that one of the key concepts missing in all of humanness is the quality of wisdom? A very old dictionary that I have in my position, actually the 1953 College Edition of Webster’s New World, defines wisdom in this way: “the quality of being wise; the power of judging rightly and following the soundest course of action, based on...

  • Pastor's Corner

    Jim Neal, First Southern Baptist Church|Updated Jan 10, 2019

    “Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.” --Henry David Thoreau Ever seen the candy bar commercial on TV where the “biker dude” is getting a new tattoo, which is supposed to read NO REGRETS? Instead because the tattoo artist is a little famished and in need of a sugar fix, she tattoos his arm with the words NO REGERTS. How about that for a permanent NO REGRET? Regrets -- have any? Of course...