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  I’m curious...did your Bible come with this phrase [No Action Required] stamped across it? I see that wording used occasionally, usually when I get an email notifying me that my banking institution (or something similar) detected a ‘log on from a new device’...and if that was me, then ‘no further actions is required’. So the reason I ask is because there seems to be a lot of ‘Christian theology’ that suggests that all one ‘must do to be saved’...is ‘believe’; and no further action is needed. But you’ll usually hear the quick qualifying statement added on suggesting that if one ‘really believes, it will produce positive action’; or something similar to that. It's quite amazing how many verses we read in our beloved Bibles that actually suggest, imply, and even command or call us... to ‘action’; as if it is not even an option. And yet, the minute anyone tries to point such verses out, you’ll most likely hear cries of: ‘that’s legalism’...or... ‘we’re not saved by works!’ When ...
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  They say ‘hindsight is 20/20’. The only catch is that we don’t have that luxury of going back and doing things over again, in most cases. But that doesn’t stop us though from having those moments when we do look back and wonder ‘what if’...we had handled that situation differently, or spent more time exploring those options before we made that less than desirable choice we made. If you are not careful, you can get ensnared with spending too much time looking back, instead of forward. I suppose that is why Paul exhorts us to ‘forget those things that are behind...and press on toward the goal for the price found in Christ Jesus...’ (Phil. 3:13-14) I have wondered on more than one occasion how things might have played out back in the garden, had Adam and Eve handled that situation differently after they ate off the tree and their eyes were ‘opened’; and instead of hiding to cover up their shame and nakedness, what if they had run to God immediately when they heard His voice and co...
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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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