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Archive for the ‘Faith in practice’ Category

Fifth Sunday of Lent-Mar 26

21 Mar

Go the Second Mile-Jesus said, “And whosoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him two.” The Romans had a law that a soldier could compel a bystander to carry a burden for him, but he was limited because he could only compel you to go a mile. Anyone would have go the mile or risk being arrested, so it is nothing beyond what is expected, but to go the second mile would be an act of kindness. By doing an act of kindness (going the second mile) you are showing God’s love for them and when they ask why you do it, you have the opportunity to tell them about how God loves them and died for them. In our increasingly secular society, it is becoming a matter of every man for himself. Those who look out for others with no thought of return are rare.

 

 
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Posted in Faith in practice, Lent

 

Fourth Sunday of Lent-Mar 19

16 Mar

Matt. 6: 19-21- True Treasure- The Scriptures say, “Don’t lay up treasures for yourself on earth where moth and rust consume and thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves can not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will be your heart also. Why lay up treasures that won’t last (material goods), when you can stockpile treasures that will last forever (souls saved). Our society measures people by the size of their bank account, which may disappear in an instant but God measures us by our devotion to serving Him. Many Christians will find themselves paupers in heaven because they did not lay up treasures for eternity. You can not take what you gather on earth with you when you go, but you can send treasure ahead for when you get there.

 

 
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Posted in Faith in practice, holidays, Lent

 

Third Sunday of Lent- March 12

08 Mar

 What will you give-Matt 13:44-46-When the merchant found the pearl, he sold all that he had and purchased it. Christ, through His death and resurrection has given us eternal life but He has also given us far more, He has come to give us life and that more abundantly. He knows how we need to live to get the most out of life. If we walk with Him in this life, we can enjoy life far better than anything we can find on our own. Is that life worth giving up all our earthly pleasures to obtain? Our earthly pleasures will give us pleasure for a short while, but they soon fade, but life with Christ will never fade. In addition, it promises eternal life with Christ. During Lent, we think of giving up momentary pleasures, but Christ asks us to turn away from all temporary pleasures to gain that which will last a lifetime and beyond.

 
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Posted in Faith in practice, Lent

 

Second Sunday of Lent-Mar-5

03 Mar

You Can’t Serve Two Masters. Jesus said, you can’t serve two masters. You must love one and hate the other. (Matt. 6:24) That is especially true of God and Satan. They are exact opposites. You must choose between them or be torn apart. Lent is a time to focus on who we are serving and make sure we are following God and not Satan. Liberal philosophy is so deceiving because they use words, we understand but with a different meaning. No Christian would be against two people loving each other but love to them means sex solely for selfish pleasure, not true love and concern for each other. True love can be really satisfying for two people, but the love the world promotes is very destructive. We have to know what they mean by what they say or we will end up supporting things which go against God. Satan goes around like a roaring lion seeking who he can devour. He seeks to deceive even the people of God. Therefore it important to study the Word of God so you will not be deceived. Choose one of the four Gospels and read a chapter a day between now and Easter and see what Jesus says about living a life pleasing to God.  If we truly love God, we will want to obey Him. We can please Him by doing what He wants us to do (obeying His Commandments). God set down His commandments as guidelines to show us how to live a life that is pleasing to Him and that would bring us peace and fulfillment. He knows what is best for us and did not give us the Commandments to spoil our fun but to help us avoid that which creates strife and dissension among us. When we ignore His commandments, we throw away that peace and fulfillment and stray into things that create strife and dissension.

 

 
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Posted in Faith in practice, Lent

 

Spiritual Aspects-G

03 Mar

The church often grown cold and merely gone through the motions, but God will not let the church die. He has continued to raise up a remnant to restore the church. We are seeing a fresh moving of the Spirit arising out of Asbury College in Kentucky and spreading to churches in the surrounding area and to other college  campuses. God is calling to all of His people to return to Him and commit their lives to following Him in the  way that leads to life. He is calling His people to study His Word and learn from it, not just give it lip services and ignore it. There are many who are comfortable in their pew and walking in the way of the world who will oppose the moving of the Spirit and even attack those who decide to follow Christ, just as the Jewish leaders attacked Christ and those who followed Him. There will be those in the world who will also feel threatened by those who commit their lives to Christ because they are profiting from the world. They will also attack those who decide to follow Christ. But Christ has promised that those who persevere to the end will be saved and inherit eternal life.

 

 
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Posted in Faith in practice, Spiritual aspects

 

Spiritual Aspects-F

27 Feb

Christ came to show us a better way to live. He calls us to put away the old life and accept new life in Him. However, the church has often lost its commitment to God and fallen back into the old temple worship where members go to church, pay their tithes, and are blessed by the priest (or minister). Members in many churches are no longer asked to commit their lives to Christ and no longer taught to walk with Christ.  Their members continue to walk in the ways of the world that lead to death. As a result, the world has taken over many churches. While a church serving Christ changes the world around it, many churches today are no different than the world. They think they are following Christ, but are following the ways of the  world. Christ says when He comes back to receive His own, they will be left behind because they proclaimed Him with their mouth, but did not accept Him in their heart and follow Him.

Yet, God will not let the church die. He has continued to raise up a remnant to restore the church. We are seeing a fresh moving of the Spirit arising out of Asbury College in Kentucky and spreading to churches in the surrounding area and to other college  campuses. God is calling to all of His people to return to Him and commit their lives to following Him in the  way that leads to life. He is calling His people to study His Word and learn from it, not just give it lip services and ignore it. There are many who are comfortable in their pew and walking in the way of the world who will oppose the moving of the Spirit and even attack those who decide to follow Christ, just as the Jewish leaders attacked Christ and those who followed Him. There will be those in the world who will also feel threatened by those who commit their lives to Christ because they are profiting from the world. They will also attack those who decide to follow Christ. But Christ has promised that those who persevere to the end will be saved and inherit eternal life.

 

 
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Posted in Faith in practice, Spiritual aspects

 

Third Sunday of Advent-Dec 11

08 Dec

Hope for Our Family-Because Christ lives there is hope for our families. Liberal policies discourage long term commitments, especially marriage. As a result, many people never marry and many marriages end in divorce. Those who are divorced or don’t marry will often float from one relationship to another. As a result, many children grow up with unstable parenting. They may have a series of fathers, a series of mothers, or a series of both. As a result, they are subjected to a variety of values and training leaving them confused about what is right and wrong. It also leaves them subject to neglect and abuse by adult figures who don’t care about the children because they don’t plan on staying very long. In addition, with no incentive to work out problems, the adults quarrel frequently and the children are often used as pawns in their quarrels which is very destructive. On the other hand, two parents, transformed by the love of God will be committed to the marriage for the long run providing consistent training guided by Biblical principles and will be determined to raise their children to care about each other and to respect each other.

 
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Posted in Advent, Christmas Season, Faith in practice, Marriage

 

Eleventh Sunday of Kingdomtide-Nov 20

17 Nov

Freedom and Domination-The prophets were very clear about responsibility. The saying had been, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge”, implying that the children suffered due to the sins of their parents. While all mankind suffers because of the sins of Adam and Eve, it is because we choose to follow their example and choose our way over God’s way. God gave the law to direct our behavior towards what God had intended but our desire is to obey the letter of the law while getting around it to get our way if possible. Since our heart seeks to disobey, even when we outwardly obey, our heart isn’t in it and we are rebelling against God’s law, and the penalty for sin is death. The people later demanded a king like the other nations but God warned them that the king would tax them and conscript their sons and daughters for his benefit and would lead them away from God. In fact, that is what the kings did. The prophets reminded the people that “the soul that sins will die”. Each man is responsible for his own behavior. Men want to have someone else in charge to make decisions and take the heat for bad decisions. When we appoint leaders over us, we are authorizing them to make decisions on our behalf. We then become responsible for their decisions. If they don’t do what we want, we should remove them if we can. If we can remove them and do not, we are consenting to their decisions. When leaders take power by force and try to force us to do something that violates God’s will, we must decide whether we will obey them or obey God. We cannot claim we violated God’s law because man told us to, because no man has the authority to override God’s commands. Ultimately, God will hold us accountable for our behavior and will hold them accountable for theirs.

 
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Posted in Church & Society, Faith in practice, Freedom of Religion, Kingdomtide

 

Tenth Sunday of Kingdomtide-Nov 13-B

13 Nov

Church and State-B Jesus illustrated the real separation of church and State when asked about the taxes. He stated that we should render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God, that which is God’s. Since God created everything, everything is under His domain, including the government. However, God has established governments to keep the peace and maintain order and taxes and laws are necessary to carry out their responsibility. Since God created life for a purpose, only He has the right to determine when it ends and since God laid down the ground rules in the Ten Commandments, man does not have the right to change them or set them aside. The government is established to enforce them, but does not have the right to abolish them or change them. The Constitution recognizes that we have certain God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and established procedures to protect them through the safeguards it established. The liberal politicians do not recognize God, so they do not recognize anything as being under God’s domain. They believe that their right to pursue happiness takes precedence over other people’s right to life and liberty, and feel they can change the law or set it aside when they wish, in order to pursue their right to happiness. Clearly there is a conflict of world views. Everyone must choose who he will follow, God or man. God has set before us life and death. Following God will result in life and following man will result in death, because disobeying God is sin and the wages of sin is death. Eve chose the fruit of disobedience over the fruit of following God and many people today still choose the way of death. Many today do not know they have a choice and choose death by default. The church needs to teach them the way of life.

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Posted in Church & Society, Faith in practice, Kingdomtide, Politics

 

Fourth Sunday of Kingdomtide-Sept 25

22 Sep

God’s Values vs Man’s values

Man looks at things from his own perspective, while God sees the whole picture. Man’s values are those that appear to benefit him and fail to realize the fact that what benefits others will ultimately benefit him. Without God, we are centered on getting things for us. If there are four people and one pie, man sees the benefit of getting the whole pie, but everyone can’t have the whole pie. There will be a struggle and only the strongest will get the pie. They all will only benefit if they divide the pie. God laid down His values in the Ten Commandments and throughout the Bible, to provide for the benefit of everyone, but they seem foolish to man. Why should we give in order to receive when all we have to do is take it. If we give, the other person may not give back, but if we take it, someone else will want to take it from us. We will only find peace and happiness as we understand the love of God and see things from His perspective. In the weeks ahead, I will be examining the various values and how God and man see them differently.

 
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Posted in Church & Society, Faith in practice, Kingdomtide

 
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