Month: July 2021

If you know me, you know I struggle with headaches that vary in intensity, from distracting irritations to crippling balance killers.  I, along with many of you, have prayed for them to be gone for a long time.  I’m “on stage” every week so I had to come clean with my pain, but I imagine I’m not alone.  Whether it’s migraines, back pain, that knee/hip that just won’t let up, or something internaL, I know some of you reading have chronic pain, too.  Other readers are suffering from “chronic” emotional pain and I won’t even begin to list the possible causes.  The point is that a large percentage of us have things we’ve asked the omnipotent God to remove.  We KNOW He could.  We wonder if we haven’t prayed hard enough or righteously enough?  I wonder if, maybe, we have just forgotten His end goal?  

Consider Lewis’ thoughts; be prepared to read it twice, especially if you don’t often read British writers from two generations past.  It’s WELL worth the effort! 

Yours, for His Glory, Pastor Scott

“We are, not metaphorically but in very truth, a Divine work of art, something that God is making, and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character. Here again we come up against what I have called the “intolerable compliment.” Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble: he may be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life—the work which he loves, though in a different fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother a child—he will take endless trouble—and would doubtless, thereby give endless trouble to the picture if it were sentient. One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and re-commenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumb-nail sketch whose making was over in a minute. In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

This video clip was published in an email newsletter from The Christian Post on July 21, 2021. It is not an endorsement of Pastor Shane Idleman as I don’t know anything more about him than what I see in this video.  This brief video, however, made me think of how often Jesus was humble and kind to the meek and, yet, bold and strong to the proud.  Perhaps we all could stand to more closely model Jesus, in both cases!  Pastor Scott 🙂 ​LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT: You can have your gun protests, lie in the media, teach evolution to our kids, flaunt sexual sin and gay marriage, teach preschool kids about transgenderism, support murdering a child in the womb, but I need to shut my mouth? I don’t think so. Why can everybody voice, everything else, but the pulpit need to be silenced? It makes no sense. Let me tell you why. It’s because they want to silence the voice of truth. We are talking about important moral issues that will have huge ramifications when a nation departs from God. What are you leaving for your grandchildren and your children?  Listen now by clicking this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-wrToS5YpM

I searched for this acronym on the web today. Now I need to give credit where credit is due.  It was posted by Pastor Dave Ferguson of the Verge Church, however, I’m sure I saw it many moons ago….. It’s a great acronym; if you, like me, are a bit stymied trying to figure out how you can BLESS your own neighbors!

• B- Begin with prayer. We want you to ask, ‘God how do you want me to bless the people in the places you’ve sent me to?’
• L- Listen. Don’t talk, but listen to people, their struggles, their pains, in the places God sent you.
• E- Eat. You can’t just check this off. It’s not quick. You have to have a meal with people or a cup of coffee. It builds relationships.
• S- Serve. If you listen with people and you eat with people they will tell you how to love them and you’ll know how to serve them.
• S- Story. When the time is right, now we talk and we share the story of how Jesus changed our life.

Genesis 12:2-3 says, “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Give it some thought or jot it in your journal,

Pastor Scott

by Guest Blogger, Shawn Lazar, via Grace Evangelical Society on May 12, 2021

Most religions are extremely complicated because their works salvation systems depend on you following intricate laws, rituals, and to-do lists in the hopes of climbing the ladder to heaven.

By contrast, Biblical Christianity (and, by implication, Free Grace Theology) is simple.

How so?

I think you can summarize the Christian’s “duty” with these three words:

1. Believe. There is one condition to have everlasting life: believe in Jesus. Most religions teach the need to do works to be saved. Not Jesus. On the contrary, Jesus did all the work on the cross so you can have eternal life as a gift (Eph 2:8-9). Jesus paid the price for salvation so that you can have it for free. How do you receive it? By simply believing Jesus for it: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).
2. Abide. After you believe, the Christian adventure really begins. God wants you to grow in your friendship with Christ (John 15:15). He wants you to not only have life, but to have abundant life (John 10:10). How can you do that? By abiding in Jesus. That means reading God’s Word and letting Jesus’ teachings “sink in.” Listen to Him. Think about what He taught. Meditate on those words, letting them challenge, correct, inspire, and otherwise transform your thinking. If you abide in Him, you will be fruitful: I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples (John 15:5-8).
3. Love. What does God require you to do? Love your neighbors. Think of it this way – God gives the believer salvation for free so you won’t waste your life being religious, trying to save yourself. Instead, you can get on with the business of loving your neighbors, however they need to be loved. If you see a need that you can meet, do something about it. Care for your family, feed the poor, clothe the naked, support widows, be a friend to orphans, write to prisoners, and do whatever other good needs to be done: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another (John 13:34).

Biblical Christianity is simple, but I did not say it is easy.

It is hard to believe that Jesus gives you eternal life as a free gift.

It takes years of abiding in God’s Word for it to impact all your thinking and living.

And as you know, the world is full of endless needs, so loving your neighbors can require enormous self-sacrifice.

No, living the Christian life is not easy.

But it is simple: believe, abide, and love.

Olympians turning on the flag.  Men suing to use ladies restrooms.  Competing riots. Political finger pointing and name calling rather than problem solving. Etc., etc., etc.!  Other than not wanting people to love God, why do you think Satan is working so hard to tear apart the very fabric of our society?  I think it’s because he hates the freedom that we have.  He wants to see us under the control of a tyrant.  And anarchy is the surest way to bring that about! Our God, on the other hand, wants us to be free!  It’s interesting to note how He starts out the Ten Commandments: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”  God sent ten plagues, He killed the firstborn of Egypt, He crushed Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea, all so that His people could be FREE!  Then the first thing He did is give His people a set of moral instructions to live by, because we can’t live freely without morality!  Immorality leads to chaos, chaos leads to mass destruction, mass destruction leads to a willingness to accept tyranny!  It’s the same plan followed by Mao, Stalin, and Hitler, all of whom were led by their father, Satan, and I’m sad to say our country and our world is marching to that same drum beat.  I’m hoping (and the news on the political and science fronts lead me to believe) that Christ’s return is near, but I have to also recognize that other generations have believed the same thing as they’ve watched their nations crumble.  If Christ doesn’t return, we better work and pray for national revival.  We can’t last the way we are going. 

“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!  The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.” 

Revelation 22:20-21