The Pastor's Thoughts

It has been said that "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." There are over 7 billion people on this planet today and a great majority of them have no idea what their purpose is. And many, if they ask the question at all, don't go out of their way to find out.  They just go home to work, work to home, home to work, over and over again. They do this five to 7 days a week for 40 to 80 hours or more. And they are bored out of their minds, waiting for the weekends or the 2 to 4 week vacation they get each year.

 To be fair, many of the 7 billion plus persons on this planet don't even have the basic necessities of life. They aren't able to think about purpose or legacy because they are having a hard enough time staying alive. However, most of the people in America and the other industrialized countries have the rare priviledge afforded to them of asking the questions: "Why am I here?" or "What kind of contribution was I placed on this earth to make?" 

I. Created for God's Glory

It is the book of Genesis that...

 The Pain of Being Forsaken and Alone

 One of the worst punishments a person can ever experience is solitary confinement. We are social beings and taking away every vestige of human contact can literally cause a person to go insane, or even commit suicide. It is for this reason that we get uneasy when we hear the word forsaken. To forsake a person means to abandon them, reject them, or to withdrawl entirely. 

 Have you ever felt rejected and alone?  Have you had the feeling that no one cares? Most of us have gone through times when we think that the ones closest to us don't understand. And all of us, unless we die first ourselves, either have or will cry over the death of a loved one who is the closet person to us on this planet.  And we will grieve that life suddenly got a bit more empty, knowing we'll never see them again this side of Heaven.

There are times in this life when a Christian might hear the words "terminal cancer" and have the proverbial rug pulled out from under their neat little world they'd set up for themselves. Or perhaps they may lose all...

Tags: forsaken, my god my god, why have you forsaken me

 The longer I live, the more that I realize the brokenness of this world caused by sin. Child abuse, starvation, murder, rape and theft are among the many harsh realities of life on this planet.  And yet most of us still cling to our lives, hoping for another day, another hour, or even another minute more. There are some who will even go to great lengths, through cryogenic freezing of the body after death, in hopes that one day they can be cured of the illness that killed them, be revived so they can live beyond the grave.

  Without God's revelation there is some sense in a person wanting to live on because, with all of its imperfections, this world is all that we know. And we have never met personally nor touched one who has come back from death to tell us what it's like. Not only that, but there is the the fact that this earth still holds some of the beauty and majesty of its former glorious state before man's fall cursed it.

After all, we can still experience a warm Spring day with flowers popping up from the soil to decorate the Creator's world. We...

Tags: death, eternal life, life after death, the best is yet to come

  If you knew that you had only one more week to live, would you change what you'd be doing? Most of us probably would.  However, we go on like we have all the time in the world to get done the important things in life. We waste so many minutes and hours on frivolous things that, in the end, mean absolutely nothing.

  Time is one of the most valuable assets that God has given to us. We are all given 86,400 seconds every day. And when one of them is gone, we will never get it back.  We worry so much about money and value it, as we should. But money can be replaced. Time cannot. And the most successful person you know, as well as the most unsuccessful both have 24 hours a day to accomplish all that they put their minds to do. The difference is how each has used his or her time. 

I. Lessons from the Dying

  Author Bonnie Ware, who for many years cared for those near death, compiled a list of five regrets of the dying. Starting with number five, they include the following:

 5. "I wish I had let myself...

Our Obsession With Acceptance

  Most human beings in this world spend their entire lives worrying about what others think of them. It even affects how we spend our money. Dave Ramsey once said: "We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like."

  This problem begins at an early age. Kids have to have the latest clothing fashions, or the hairstyle that is currently acceptable. They have to tattoo their bodies because everyone else at school is doing it.  And they are desperate to fit in. Of course it would just be horrible if others didn't think that they were "cool." 

You'd think that we adults would grow out of all of this. But if truth be told, the majority never do.

I. Keeping Up With the Joneses

  The popular expression "keeping up with the Joneses" has come into our culture because of the way some people compare themselves to their neighbors and use them as a benchmark for social class and the accumulation of material goods. It is a feeling that one must have the things that others have in order not to feel inferior, or lower in social...

Tags: acceptance, audience of one, keeping up with the joneses

An Abdication of Responsibility

Before becoming a movie starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, the phrase: "A Few Good Men" was used by the United States Marine Corps to recruit prospective volunteers into the service. And just like the Marines, what America and the Church needs today, more than many other things,  are a few good men! Unfortunately, it would seem that in crucial areas men have abdicated their responsibility. And now we are paying a dear price for this sad state of affairs.

 I. The Fatherless Generation

Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in our homes.  Sometimes the children living in our society today are referred to as the "Fatherless Generation." According to the United States Department of Census a full 43% of children are living in a home absent their father. And these kids are suffering for it.

 Did you know that 90% of homeless and runaway youths are from fatherless homes?  Also 80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger, 71% of pregnant teenagers, 63% of youth suicides, 85% of children who exhibit behavioral disorders, and 85% of youths in prisons came from families minus the dad. 

 Fatherless boys and girls are twice as likely to...

Tags: a few good men, godly men, mans role as head, the fatherless generation

 On this Christmas season, many will stop and take a few moments to remember a baby born over two thousand years ago in a small villiage called Bethlehem. But He was not just any baby. This is the one who had been predicted by three hundred Old Testament prophecies. And though he seemed like any other child born into this world, this one was different. He was Emanuel-God with us. 

Though this world has become increasingly more complicated with its gadgets and toys, as well as its weapons of mass destruction, it has not produced a gadget or weapon that has any greater power than that single babe. And there is no person who has ever lived who is any more significant than that one seemingly ordinary child.

Is there anything more helpless than a human baby on this earth? A baby cannot feed or clothe himself. He cannot walk on his own nor do anthing to protect himself from the elements. The only way he can make his needs known to anyone is by crying. And without the aid of an adult, the child would die soon after his birth.

And yet Jesus Christ chose to be born into...

Tags: baby, baby in a manger, christmas, jesus birth, the christ, the christmas story

 Have you ever found yourself saying things like: "Someday I'll do all the things I've ever wanted to do"? When we are young we tend to think that we have all the time in the world. We make so many plans for our lives. Then as we get older, many of those plans seem to keep getting pushed farther and farther into the future. We often are moved, not by the important things in life, but by the urgent. The bills that need to be paid, the things around the house that have to be repaired,  the meetings that we promised to attend, as well as the obligations at school, at work, and at home often get in the way of what is truly important.  

Time spent with God, for instance, may be pushed out of the way because we wake up too late for work. And then we get so busy that, by the end of the day, we are totally worn out and can't stay awake long enough to spend time in prayer and Bible study.  Or we might have wanted to give more time to our children, but we just had to see the latest episode of our...

Tags: life is short, make the most of every opportunity, someday, time management

 I was browsing the internet this fine Thanksgiving weekend and saw a video of a Black Friday fight at a store. A number of consumers were trying to get a certain item that seemed to be in short supply. These people literally were grabbing at the item in question and were yelling and screaming at one another to let go as they pulled it out of each others hands. In the meantime the display that was so neatly stacked in the store was strewn across the aisle floor.  One consumer even had the audacity to pull a toy out of the hands of a child! 

  Is that what our country has come to! Have we stooped so low that the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays have just become a time of gorging ourselves on turkey and stuffing, followed by a month of overspending and getting the latest gadgets or toys for ourselves and our children; no matter who we have to walk over to get them? Well my brothers and sisters, these things ought not to be!

   It is interesting that Paul the Apostle said in Romans chapter 1 regarding the pagan world that the reason the wrath of...

Tags: body of christ, commercialism, holiday, romans 1