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  God has been known to do things and say things, (or refrain from doing and saying things)... at the risk of being misunderstood by His creation. But who are we to try and ‘call Him out’ for what can often strike us as ‘PR blunders’ on His part? Are not His ways above our ways, and His thoughts above ours? (Isa. 55:8-9) Should the ‘clay be correcting the potter’? (Rom. 9:19-21). Does God not claim to ‘use the foolish things of this world to confound the wise? (1 Cor. 1:27) I often come across passages and stories in my Bible that leave me scratching my head and mumbling lame statements of admission that I ‘don’t get it’. But that’s just me. So when I read those examples where God seemingly refuses to extend mercy and forgiveness to someone who appears to be ‘repenting’...I have to defer to the One who does not look at people as we do, on their exterior...but looks at their hearts. (1 Sam. 16:7) There’s a reference in Heb. 12:17 about how Esau ‘found no place for repentance t...
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  Have you ever read the parable of the two sons, as told by Jesus in Matt. 21:28-32? Take a moment and do that now, if you would. It tells of a father who had two sons, both of which he asked to go work in his vineyard. The first son refused, but then had a change of heart and did what was asked of him. The second son assured his father that he would indeed go and do what he asked, but then changed his mind and failed to follow through. That’s when Jesus asked: “Which of the two did the will of his father?” (31). You might jot down Matt. 7:21 next to that passage; I bet you have that one memorized by now? So picking up where we left off yesterday in 1 Samuel 15... For whatever his reasons, King Saul did not fully comply with God’s wishes, which we concluded in yesterday’s message. He spared the king of Amelek, from what we read there, along with some choice livestock.(9). Can I just tell you now that God was not pleased?!  (We’ve been studying this past week the differe...
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  Dog ownership comes with responsibilities. Among those are cleaning up after them when they poop, be it after a walk through your neighborhood, a city park, and even in your own backyard. If you’ve lived in the country for any length of time, it takes a bit of getting use to when you move into town and have a dog that needs to ‘empty’ itself on a daily basis, sometimes more than once a day. And if you have a backyard...where small children play in, it becomes a factor. Trust me. If you were to bring your children over to my grandsons’ house to play in their backyard, maybe run around barefoot in a swimsuit around the ‘kiddie’ pool, I might tell you before we sent them out that I needed to go and ‘clean up’ the poop piles the dog had deposited. No doubt you would appreciate my efforts to clean the area up. Perhaps you watch from the window or porch as I take my little paper baggie or scoop shovel and begin cleaning the area up, but you notice there’s a pile I missed, despite gi...
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  When you choose to please God above all others, that does not give you license to go out with a chip on your shoulder and a haughty attitude where you try to irritate and offend people...just to prove a point. We all know the kind of people I’m talking about. We are admonished to ‘speak the truth in love’ (Eph. 4:15), and when correcting others who are in error...do so with a ‘spirit of meekness, considering ourselves lest we are also tempted’ (Gal. 6:1) There will never be a shortage of people, especially ‘religious’ folks...who will take exception to what God has to say and be offended by His word. We see that repeatedly throughout the gospels when Jesus spoke the word, as with His followers in the Book of Acts. Speaking from personal experience, I can assure you this is an area that anyone who shares the gospel of Jesus Christ on a regular basis has to watch their attitude carefully, and examine heart motives. We are not here to ‘win battles and prove points’; on the contra...
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  On the surface, living a life that is centered around pleasing others might sound like the noble and charitable thing to be doing, perhaps even the ‘Christian’ thing to do. But if pleasing God first and foremost is not your chief aim in life, I have a hunch that at the end of this road we call ‘life’, you might find yourself feeling shallow, empty, and used up. In fact, if you are not careful, you could very well hear those dreaded words that all you did was ‘unprofitable’...and then: ‘depart from Me, I never knew you’. (1 Cor. 13:2-3; Matt. 7:22-23). Yeah...take a moment with that one if you will. As I pointed out in yesterday’s message, striving to please people can be a clever masquerade to cover your true heart’s motive that seeks to please one’s self first and foremost; and trust me...it can be a very fine line there that escapes our notice. Were you aware that living a life that focuses on pleasing other people can actually become a bondage? Yet living a life that is cente...
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  So...are you? Many people are quick to confess that they are indeed ...’people pleasers’. And if you are one of those who do readily admit that you find yourself always wanting to ‘please others’, have you ever stopped to ask yourself why that is the case? Also...do you know the difference between ‘pleasing’ someone...and ‘appeasing’ them? That might be a better place to start before we go any further in this study today. Appeasing someone is not about wanting to bring pleasure to a person, but more about ‘pacifying’ them in order to bring some negative behavior to a standstill, as in getting someone off our back, be it even for a brief moment or two. Think in terms of a whiney child or baby and how you might cave and give in to their wants in order to simply quiet them down. Appeasing someone can also be about giving in to their demands so you can avoid conflict or anger. When we hear the loosely used expression about ‘appeasing the gods’, it can be a tongue and cheek phrase we...
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  “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature together with its passions and appetites.” (Gal. 5:24) Should I say it louder for those in the very back? There really are not a whole lot of other ways to express or translate that statement. If there is another scripture found in our beloved Bible that can really ‘throw a wrench’ in our modern day Christian theology, I don’t know what it is... other than maybe John 10:27; and both verses seem to make very clear identifying remarks pertaining to those who belong to Christ. It can be quite easy as you well know, for anyone to ‘profess...they know Christ’ (let alone belong to Him)... but it’s in the actions or ‘fruit’ they produce that they are really known by as to who they belong to, or not. (Titus 1:16; John 12:34-35; Matt. 7:17-20; 1 John 3:10,7) How do we get around those words in Gal. 5:24 to make it say otherwise? If you or I or anyone else truly ‘belong’ to Jesus Christ, what has taken place? And p...
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