A Lesson from the Locusts -Joel

A plague of locusts hits Judah with the fury of an invading army, destroying vegetation and turning the usually verdant countryside into a lifeless desert. Fields of grain disappear, grapevines are stripped bare, fruit trees and gardens are wiped clean. The prophet Joel seizes the occasion to preach God's message to Judah: The present calamity is only a warning. An even greater devastation awaits those who continue to live in sin and rebellion. The day of judgement is coming, and only those who sincerely repent and return to God will be sheltered from the terrible force of His righteous wrath.
Question: What do these three activities have in common: Skydiving without a parachute, walking blindfolded across the freeway, and disregarding God's Laws?
Answer They are all activities that, while perhaps momentarily exhilarating, lead to inescapable and deadly consequences.
Though he knew nothing about skydiving or freeways, Joel knew well the danger of disregarding God's commandments. The terrible scourge of locusts became the perfect illustration of wrathful judgement to come- and the perfect occasion for Joel to warn his countrymen. Although it was too late to escape the bite of the locusts, there was still time to escape the "bite" of God's chastening hand.
Learn a lesson from the locusts! Do your days pass without prayerful contact with God? Have your "little sins" ceased to bother you? Have you slipped away from teh daily study and regular weekly worship? (Can you hear the buzzing sound of the locusts?) The danger is real, but the shelter is as near as your Father's "everlasting arms"  (Deut. 33:27). Wouldn't that be a good place to rest... right now?

Sour Milk and Sticky Fingers

Deuteronomy 5-7
The description of the Promise Land as "the land that floweth with milk and honey" pictures it as a land of prosperity and abundance. Milk was part of the Hebrews' staple diet and honey was considered a delicacy.
The Israelites were hoping to have "instant" results when they were told about the Promised land. Instead God wanted them to savor the moments that He had with them.
Where are you hoping for instant results in your Christian life; victory over a habit... knowledge of God's word... spiritual maturity? God's way is not rush, rush , rush but little by little. Look for a small but significant step of growth you can take today: a verse to memorize, a command to obey, a promise to treasure.

Hebrews

I have always been fascinated by the book of Hebrews. When I was in college, I wrote a paper trying to defend the authorship and ascribed it to Apollos. Some believe that the book was written by Paul and others attribute it to be from one of Paul's students which is very likely. Whoever wrote this letter wanted to appeal to the new Jewish believers who were tempted to renounce their new-found faith and return to Judaism to escape persecution. The writer pleas with his brothers to pursue maturity based on Christ's superiority to their religious system. In the pastor's sermon Sunday night, John the Baptist was pointed out that he was a counter culturist. He did not stand for what man was trying to tell him what to do but rather what God told him. He recognized that the religious system that developed forsook the ways of the one true God and actually put man in God's place. 
Much of today's news is soaked with threats to our Christian faith. It is even surfaced that Evangelicals are hard-nosed and insensitive when it comes to matters of the people. We are expected to accept the lifestyles of gays and lesbians. We are expected to be sensitive to the woman that is making the choice of abortion. We are expected to be tolerant when others express statements that contradict the Word of God. When we do bring up that the Word of God says something different than what the people believe we are viewed as disinters, counter-culturists, weirdos, and narrow-minded fools much like how John was viewed. We know what God has revealed to us the truth. We should take a stand against the system that jeopardizes our religious right! We are under a type of persecution similar to that during the time of the writing of Hebrews. We should be motivated be this weeks memory verse;


     "And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgement." Hebrews 9:27


The fear of death should not scare us but rather bring us to brokenness to those who do not know Christ. The writer of Hebrews wanted his Jewish brothers to take a stand and realize that Christ is better than Moses, because Moses was created by Him; He is better than Aaron, because his sacrifice never needs to be repeated; He is better than the Law, because He mediates a better covenant. More is to be gained by suffering for Christ than by reverting to a system He came to fulfill.

Gospel ADD

I remember watching cartoons on Saturday morning while eating my cereal and seeing one of the characters that was just put in a dilemma. You've seen them where the character has to make a choice and then *POOF* there are two figures one on each shoulder and one in a red devil outfit and the other wearing a white gown with a halo. They were trying to convince the character to either do the right thing or the wrong thing. Did you ever wonder where they cartoonist got the idea for that? Well in the book of James of course.

What is the source of the wars and the fights among you? Don't they come from the cravings that are at war within you?
James 4:1 (HCSB)

How many times per day are you bombarded by thoughts that conflict with each other? I mean that while we know that we are to be honoring God all the time and we are to put Him first in all things BUT we also have our own desires that are "at war" with holy thoughts.  All the time right!?!

I am not saying that we have bad thoughts all the time. I am saying that sometimes we have a disordered mind in that we tend to the selfishness side (or we listen to the character in the red suit on our shoulder).

Do a self test. List the top 5 things that you want to do today. Things you want to get accomplished. Things you want to acquire. Now look at your list and ask yourself where did God fall into the mix?

According to James, the war that rages in our minds as Christians is due to our desires that battle against each other. The disordered mind, or what I what dubbed it the "Gospel ADD", has both good and bad desires jumbled together with little order. This will is not in control of thinking. Therefore little tought is given to what we think about. Then our thoughts often lead to actions. Godly thoughts lead to Godly actions. Wrong thoughts lead to wrong actions.

The minds of Christ was not disordered but ordered. He controlled His thinking in such a way that only godly actions came through His life. This is one reason you and I need the mind of Christ.

You mean there's more?

Yes, there is more. Check out the other pages that we have. Feel free to comment. I'm still working on a few other things such as the "About" page for our class.
I would like to start a discussion via email on what do yall think our class is about. Mission minded? Evangelistic? Encouragers? etc...

Christ's unfathomable decision

I love the Lord's Supper. I treasure the reminder that it brings of Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross. As I was driving to work this morning, I began thinking about how undeserving we all are of God's grace and about how undeserving Christ's punishment was.

But while we talk much about Christ's ultimate act on the cross, we tend to consider less his earthly acts before that event. We should be constantly perplexed by the fact that Jesus, lord over all features of the universe in a broad sense and over each detail of our lives in a narrow sense, left His high and exalted position to seek and save a human race that, multiple times each second, rebels against His authority. The pain and heartache we experience on earth has general or specific causation to sin. Jesus came, however, with full knowledge that his pain and heartache would be due to His untainted righteousness.

As the old hymn puts it:

Man of Sorrows, what a name
For the Son of God, Who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim.
Hallelujah! What a Savior.

Guilty, vile, and helpless we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
Full atonement can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior.

Or as a more contemporary song poses, how many kings could ever do what Jesus did?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noz8hc8u7Xc.

Just take a moment over the next few days to thank Jesus for his amazing acts that made available our redemption.

We'll be in the third and fourth chapters of Ecclesiastes this week. Hope to see you on Sunday morning!

The Pursuit of Happiness

Wow! What a week this has been. Rangers are going to the World Series, Crisps had another child, and

I was reading in Psalms this week and of course it spoke to my heart. In the first chapter it give the key for happiness. "How happy is the man who does not follow the advice of the wicked... His delight is in the Lord's instruction." (vs 1-2)
I am so glad that our church is involved with Boldcourse. It is a great plan for letting God take control and "instruct" us. He will always be faithful and meet with us to give us His perfect instructions. You see the person who hears the word of the Lord and does not follow is like the wicked. They will be like the chaff and will be blown away with the wind. However, to be HAPPY, is to delight in the Lord's instruction AND meditate on it day and night.
As we close out this week and look back... were we happy? Were we following God's instruction? It is easy to  get caught up in life's ebb and flow. But do we truly find the happiness that God has for us? It tends to be a facade and only lasts for a while. This week end and next week look back at the difference that being in God's word has made. List all of the things that made you happy before and then make a list f things that made you happy after being in God's Word.