What to post…

Isn’t amazing how the time seems to literally fly by. I have been busy lately…everything seems to happen at once. Today I went to the dentist and I believe dentist are an ‘evil’ necessity, which is a subject we can cover later. While Jessica was cleaning my teeth we started talking about having a ‘calling’. She asked me what I did for a living and I said I Pastor a church. We talked for while and she concluded being a pastor was a special calling. As I was sitting there I thought about what Jessica’s job was and asked her, “didn’t she consider this job a ‘calling’? I mean how many of us would go into someone else’s mouth to clean it! I can tell you in uncertain terms that person would not be me. But she said, “she couldn’t think of doing anything else”.

This makes me think about our own lives, I believe we are all called to do something. We all have gifts and talents that enable us to work and serve. What I think we fall short with, is God calls us to vocations. Did you ever think the job you where working was the place God wanted you to be? I think about how God has shaped me through the years…it was doing different jobs. While I was in the Air Force, I worked a verity of different jobs and all of them in some way helped shape me into the person I am today. Don’t get me wrong there was times I really disliked where I was working or who I was working for…but once I move away…got some distance between me and the unpleasant place…I realized I had grown. Maybe it was a new set of tasks and my confidence in learning new skills was boosted. Or perhaps I learned to get along with someone I thought I could never work with.

So where ever you find your self, remember you’re a child of God and ‘no one has authority over you unless it was given from above’. God places people in authority, it will be one of the great mysteries to why certain people rule…but that will be a different time and place. And for the person who is out there and has made terrible choices and the job they are working is the result of those decisions. Or maybe circumstances have brought you to a horrible place…I’m going to ask you to put your faith in Christ and pray for God to set you free.

I believe God is the only one who can make good of terrible situations. He is the master of it…I can personally attest to that.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,In the light of His glory and grace.

Amen

-ps

Great Article...

Hello again…I know I haven’t posted in over a week. I know I could go through all the excuses, I’ve been busy…my dog ate my homework. But in the end that is what they would be, excuses. I have found myself in a terrible ‘funk’ over the last few weeks. I have found it a struggle to pray, to read my Bible, to be a follower of Jesus. This might sound surprising or even ‘shocking’ to some. But in reality we all experience ups and downs in our walk with Christ, pastors are no different. Tonight I came home from school and I was reading articles on the Christianity Today website and I went to the Leadership Journal and came across this article “Full-Time Pastor but only Part-Time Follower of Jesus”, by Craig Groeschel. The article touched my heart because I have felt this way over the last few weeks and I can’t stand it. I find myself getting better at playing the part of Pastor and not being a full time follower of Christ first.

So I hope you’ll read the article and try and remember to pray for your pastor. Remember pastors across our country and around the world, who week after week look to serve God’s people. I don’t want to be a part time follower of Christ. I want to be a full time follower; this is my prayer for you also.

-ps

Worship Thoughts...

A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling ‘darkness’ on the wall of his cell. –C.S. Lewis

Your inner worship of Jesus will transform your outer life as well. A heart set upon God’s Kingdom will bring your life into stark contrast with false gods worshiped by this world—money and power, sports and entertainment, youth and beauty. –New Rebellion

There is something about vulnerability, risk, and generosity that is intrinsic to the very core of worship. –New Rebellion

Sometimes You’re further than the moon; sometimes You’re closer than my skin; and You surround me like a winter fog…You’ve come and burned me with a kiss. –Martin Smith

The central paradigm…is that our worship of God either affirms or contradicts our message about God. –Sally Morgenthaler

Why, then, do we worry about recession, cartels, changes in the world leadership, and ungodliness? Can they stop God from presenting to this world a Church which is glorious, spotless, and full of the power of God?
-Judson Cornwell

I beg you to offer your lives as a living sacrifice to him. Your offering must be only for God and pleasing to him, which is the spiritual way for you to worship. Don not change yourself to be like the people of this world, but be changed within by a new way of thinking.
-Romans 12:1-2 NCV

The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. –John 4:23-24 NKJV

"Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to
come!" And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and
thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever,
the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. –Revelations 4:8-10 ESV

All nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee,
O Lord; And they shall glorify Thy name. For Thou art great and doest
wondrous deeds; Thou alone art God. Psalm 86:9-10 NAS
The trumpeters and musicians played together, praising and giving
thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other
instruments, they loudly praised the LORD, singing: "Certainly he is
good; certainly his loyal love endures!" Then a cloud filled the LORD's
temple. The priests could not carry out their duties because of the cloud;
the LORD's splendor filled God's temple. -2 Chronicles 5:13-14 NET

-ps

Ten Ways to Rebel against Idols…

10- Give the best part of your day, not your leftover, to being with God.

9- Volunteer one Saturday morning at your local homeless shelter this
Month.

8- Pass up the hundred-dollar tennis shoes for something comfortable
and affordable.

7- Pray specifically for the people in your sphere of influence.

6- Feed your soul with Kingdom-affirming images from T.V., music and
movies.

5- Take a foreign-missions trip this year.

4- Enjoy sports, but don’t overdose.

3- Build a healthy body instead of a glamorous image.

2- Develop your spiritual gifts as intentionally as your career.

1- Make it your lifelong quest to know yourself and to know God!

Taken From “The New Rebellion Handbook”

Catching up…

I spent most of the day catching up on my Bible reading…I have fallen behind and want to get back in step, if you know what I mean.

Reading in the book of Luke, Chapter 12 you come across a Jesus who, is very forward and is speaking with force…

He says some things in this chapter that forced me to sit up and take notice. I could almost hear his voice, warning us, pleading us.

“Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy”

He goes on to say how everything done in secret will be broadcasted in the day light. At one time everything will be exposed!

Now I don’t know about you, that make me just a ‘wee bit’ nervous. In fact in reality it makes me real nervous. What it boils down too is what the text says…stay away from hypocrisy. We cannot tell other not to sin, when we are living in it like pigs in the mud. We have to clean up ourselves, we need to seek holiness ourselves before we point out others peoples faults. I think the biggest item here is our attitude; we have to understand where we stand…a sinner saved by grace…before we point out someone’s sin. Here is where many have a misunderstanding…we are to confront and tell others of their sin. But it should be done from a position of love and humility. It is when we take the position of ‘righteous superiority’ we will fail to help the one we love. Remember confronting sin is an act of love…Confronting destructive behavior is what we are doing. I have people in my life, who job is to let me know when I’m in the wrong…I encourage it.

The other warning was “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions”

To think this was a problem in Jesus’ day…a time before boats, cars and big screen T.V’s. But I suppose they had boats, carts and donkey’s…the thought here is greed…greed can take so many forms. Greed supplants the place of God, you place an object over God. You can also place objects and possessions ahead of family members. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also…What do you treasure in your life…stop and take inventory…because what you see as treasure, is where your hearts desire will be. So do you treasure God? Do you treasure time spent with Him? Do you treasure reading the Bible, fellowship, church? Do you treasure spending time with family…one of the greatest gifts we have is time…and it is where we can be the greediest…

Stop and think about ‘hypocrisy’ and ‘greed’…read chapter 12 of Luke.

-ps

Hard Drives…

Good Morning! I’m back, hopefully for awhile. It’s amazing how life can just kind of take over and new habits can formed in just a short time. That brings me to hard drives…yes, the hard disk in your computer, which holds all your programs and information. If you have owned the laptop or computer for several years, you have years of ‘tweeking’ and working things till they are just the way you want them. You have a collection of files you can go back to, papers you have worked on for school or for work. You also have reference material of collected works from other writers. You also have the history of the places you have visited, web sites you have explored, both good and bad. So a hard drive can be very important piece of equipment. Now imagine turning on the computer and the first time ever a message pops up

“WARNING” Hard drive failure imminent! Back up your files immediately!

Now for the record this message got my attention! I have never had a computer warn me of a disk failure and I thought that is ‘cool’. Because I have been around computers long enough to know you usually don’t get the pleasure of a warning…it just crashes. And you are left trying to bring it back to life long enough to get the files of you need.

So I spent some time backing up my files, my emails…and I ordered a new hard drive. A bigger one and of course and a ‘faster’ one…

So Installed the new hard drive and spent hours updating the files through Microsoft and ‘tweeking’ programs till got things where I wanted them. I put all my files on the new drive…and I thought how cool would it be if we could just erase everything and pick and choose which memories we wanted to keep…to re-program our selves the way we wanted to be…what if we could just start over…

Some of us, I’m sure are happy with their lives and others I’m sure would love to erase and start over. But did you know with God we can get a fresh start…with people you have known you can never get a fresh start…they will always remember what you where and what you did. No matter how many times you say I’m sorry and no matter how many times that person forgives you…the action will never go away…

How many of us feel ashamed for past actions, we linger on them. “only if…” becomes the line replayed over and over in our minds.

Two of my favorite verses are these, listen to the words in your heart…

So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away — look, what is new has come!
--2 Corinthians 5:17

as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our
transgressions from us.
--Psalm 103:12

Both of these verse talk of staring over…when we put our trust in Christ and repent of our sins…we are a new creation! The old has passed away, the new has come. No longer are we held prisoner by our past, it doesn’t matter to God how we use to be…he cares about what we’ll become in Christ.

Look at the psalm one more time…God removes the guilt and sin, as far as the east is from the west. Imagine two lines, one starts going east and the other west…the lines never meet…they go on forever. God is saying I remember no more…You see with God we can always count on a new start, a new beginning. We can be like the hard drive in our computer…we can start new and fresh.

I don’t know where you stand with Christ…but he is waiting and wants to give you a new start…just ask him!

-ps

Sermon: Promises, Promises…

Growing up my father lived in Michigan and I lived in California. Most of the time I knew my father was through a telephone conversation. The one thing I really didn’t like about my dad was he was a promise breaker. He would promise to send something…a card for my birthday, money, Christmas card…whatever you can think of. I would wait everyday by the mail box hoping my father would pull through and deliver on what he said he said he was going to do. Time after time he failed to live up to the promises…after time I would ask him not to make any more promises, because it hurt to much when he would fail. I knew at the time he was making the promise he had ever intention to come through…but for some reason he would fail.

Have you ever known anyone like this…who would promise to come through for you and not show up?

Promises mean something to us…It’s important to keep our promises because it says something about us.

In reading the book of Joshua I came across a verse…tucked away at the end of chapter 21. You would miss if you weren’t careful, verse 45 simply reads…

“Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.”

This really for some reason got my curiosity up, perhaps with my past I naturally don’t, trust promises. The thought of God never failing to deliver on a promise, is amazing to me. And if He never failed on the ‘good’ promises, what of the threats…if you have remembered he has made plenty of them also, blessing and a curse comes to mind. But we know Joshua is in charge and is a man of God. We have seen God give Joshua after victory after victory…to secure the promise land. Now at the end of life he is confident in the Lord. God had kept every promise.

Reading a little further we see Joshua’s farewell to the leaders. He reminds them not to stray 23:6 “Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the left.” And then he continues remind them and then…verse 12 and on….

Joshua 23:12-16

Jos 23:12 “But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them,

13 then you may be sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the LORD your God has given you.

14 “Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.

15 But just as every good promise of the LORD your God has come true, so the LORD will bring on you all the evil he has threatened, until he has destroyed you from this good land he has given you.

16 If you violate the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the LORD'S anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you.”

There are lots of principles we can take from this…but there are two things I want to focus on…God’s promises don’t fail and what does that mean for you and me…

God’s Promises don’t fail…

We have been focusing on evangelism, our revival, VBS…and light of this I think about the promises made by Jesus about salvation, about peace about security…his undying love. Jesus promised us an abundant life. He promised freedom from sin, He promised so many wonderful things…Eternal life…

But about Hell…it is a subject we don’t like to talk about in church any more, but how does the Bible say…

Listen to these six verse…

but the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Mat 8:12

They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Mat 13:42

and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Mat 13:50

Then the king said to his attendants, 'Tie him up hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!'
Mat 22:13

and will cut him in two, and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Mat 24:51

And throw that worthless slave into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
Mat 25:30

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves thrown out.
Luk 13:28

How does these verses change how we view others…I think if God keeps his promises both good and bad…should this effect the way we witness…we should want to reach others.

What this means for you and me…

How does this effect the way I live…I know in life there are many time where I feel maybe God isn’t listening…be honest now…we pray for something and we ‘claim’ God’s promises but there is something missing…we don’t have peace…we still worry…

When we feel this way we need to revaluate our relationship with Christ…Christ never promised there would never be any doubt, he never promised there wouldn’t be any pain…that there wouldn’t be any hard times…He did say seek first the kingdom…He did said my yoke is easy and my burden is light…and if the son sets you free you are free indeed.

We need to understand God will never fail in the promises he did make…

Next we have to understand that there is going to be time when all people will be held accountable. We have to understand the urgency in which Christ says GO…

We have to understand that our lives where bought with a price and the price was paid for in full…because of that we will face God and give account. This should burden us for our family members who do not know Jesus…We should weep over our neighbors…our communities…our co-workers…

In John 11:33-36 Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Right before Jesus did this ‘he was deeply moved’ and he wept watching the people around him morn. Jesus ‘loved’ Lazarus, he love Lazarus family…he rose Lazarus because he love him…he raises us because he loves us. We need to love our neighbors or communities, our family…this is something I thing we have lost…

The Bible says whoever believes in the Son of God…will have eternal life. If we believe this than we have to believe what God says about judgment and hell…and that should change the way we live…

-ps

Behold A Rose...

Today is a beautiful day…I got up this morning and was watering and composed this flower arrangement for my wife. All of it taken from my own yard…all of it lovingly taken care of by two hands…pride is a terrible thing? There is something special to watch something grow and look so beautiful. I think about how God feels about so sometimes…He sees us as a work in progress, but produces flowers when the time is right. Even when it looked as if we wouldn’t survive the winter…behold a rose.

-ps