Our en
emy has decided to try and destroy the very framework of what God has established. We find parents and children at odds with each other. You now have the same sex marriages, and then you have the people who don’t even get married figuring it is less to have to deal with if things go bad. God created marriage to be between one man and one woman for life. People now days get to the point sometimes that they don’t even want to fight for once they believed they couldn’t live without. I am not saying that our children are not important. But your spouse has to be the second thing in your life. After all who is going to be around when the kids grown up. I can only imagine how hard it is to live in a blended family. You have people pushing and pulling from all sides. Please understand me when I say that if our enemy can destroy the marriage the home will also fall. You see kids tend to fall into the same cycle that their parents went through. Not all kids follow those steps but it does happen. People please hear my plea when I say that your marriage is worth fighting for. I have been down the road when I or my wife were prepared to walk and God put people around us that wouldn’t let that happen. If our marriages fail our houses will fall and then our society will crumble after that. It is time that we the people of God stand up and fight for our marriages and partner to fight for others.
Tag: Bad
Sin sent the Shooter
The world co
ntinues to have tragic things take place. I often hear why would your loving God allow things like this to happen. I would like to take a minute to talk about that in two different ways. First, God allows things to happen, He doesn’t cause them. Second, you and I are both free to make good choices just as we can make bad choices. Let’s tackle the first why would God allow tragic events to take place. This is going to be hard for all of us to stomach, but the Bible says that there is good to come out of everything Romans 8:28. You see God is sovereign and everything that takes place He knows about and will use to benefit those who love Him or draw people to his Son. I know that you are probably struggling with this right now. We have so called churches such as Westboro baptist saying that God sent the shooters to that nightclub in Orlando to kill those people. That is the furthest thing from the truth. You see why would a loving God want people to die in their sin and die and go to hell. Yes I said that. I can’t condemn people nor can I say what was in their heart toward Jesus. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 1 John 3:9 God sent His only Son that no one would perish and go to hell. If God wanted something done He could do it much like Sodom. You see so to say that God would send shooters to kill people in the craziest thing that I have heard. Maybe those of you saying that should sue your brain for non support. So let’s talk about the free will that you and I posses. You see it is due to the first that you have free will. Because God is sovereign that you are not some mindless robot. You get to decide good or bad. Yes each choice carries with it consequences and rewards. What I want you to realize is that if you were a mindless robot God would have never sent Jesus to show His love for you and I. Don’t get caught up with the small picture. People are prone to evil. We are born with that tendency. It is easier to do that then the right thing. It doesn’t help when we are filled with other people feelings or attitudes. To briefly talk about the shooter and who sent him. This man was filled with hate from a religion that is all about hatred. He was taught and entrenched with false doctrines and false beliefs. He was sincere in his thoughts no doubt that he was doing god a favor and the public too. After all one of his cults main leaders said that you are doing them a favor by killing them. Now we have a so called baptist church spreading the same hate doctrine. I am not saying that God is ok with this lifestyle, what I am saying is that God would have wasted His time in sending Jesus if He was just going to send shooters to kill people who are lost in their sins. Sin sent the shooter.
What have you sown?
Have you ever heard, what you sow you will reap? Do we really understand what that means? I mean we understand that it has a physical meaning right. After all if you spend your life drinking and drugging, we all know how that ends up. Or say we over eat, and then we know what happens after that. Well you know this has a spiritual meaning to it also. God says to us what we sow we will reap because He is not mocked. What does all that really mean? Well let’s start at the end. God is not mocked. You can’t expect to live a life wide open doing what you want and never have to answer for it to God. He sees all and knows all, so it isn’t like you are doing anything in the dark. Did you realize that even though you go into your house and close the door, God could still see you? So you will have to pay the piper so to speak at some point. So let’s look at the first part, what you sow you will reap. I always think of this as a big savings account. If I sow or do good things I will have good things come my way down the road. If I sow or do bad things, I can expect to have bad things come my way down the road. This doesn’t have anything to do with going to Heaven, as Heaven is the gift of God and we do nothing to earn it. When we do things not expecting to gain anything here on earth, we will reap the benefits later in heaven. That is a lot of what making the decision to trust Jesus is. We chose to sow that decision into our life and then we reap the benefits of it. Have you sown Jesus into your life?
Why Me???????
Ever ask your self the question Why Me? Your life takes some unexpected turns and you don’t understand what is happening or even why. Don’t we all get that self-pity mentality? We never really understand any of it until after it is all said and done. You know as we read the Bible we will finds lots of stories about people who no doubt asked the same questions that we asked. The first one that comes to mind is a young man named Joseph. His dad and mom raised him with a host of other brothers. Joseph’s parents favored him over the other children, there by creating some tension. Well we all know the story of what happened. His brothers sold him into slavery; he was cast into jail because of lies. Then God uses him to save all of his family down the road from starving to death. We can fast forward in time and look at everything that David went through, as he had to duck and dodge for his life from Saul. God worked that situation out also. Well we can move further into the Bible and see everything that happens to the disciples. These guys and gals were serving Jesus with everything they had and yet still had to experience some bad stuff and even death for most. So we ask the question Why Me? Why not? We think in the modern day state of the church that we are better than these men and women of the Bible. If God allowed things to happen in their lives, why won’t He allow it in yours? Yes God does love us. He loves us so much that He allows things to come in and out of lives. So Why? Well Paul writes in Romans that everything that happens is for the good of those who Love God and called according to His purpose. So you see when stuff happens in our lives, we get beat down because we can’t see how it will impact us in the long run. So the next time something shows up and you don’t understand it, instead of saying Why Me? Ask God what are you teaching me through this? It won’t make things better right away, but it will remind us that God loves us and has everything under control. Remember, God doesn’t get caught by surprise, He doesn’t have to switch to plan b, because plan a always works.
Thoughts from Pastor Toney 