Here and Now

In the eighth chapter of the book of Acts, we read of the persecution of the early church by Saul of Tarsus. After the martyrdom of Stephen we read: And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. (Acts 8:1 ESV) These early followers of Christ suddenly found themselves at great risk; their lives in danger. So they were forced to change their way of life, leaving their homes - everything was suddenly different! It was an inconvenience. No, something more... It was a trial. No, something more than that... It was an opportunity. God's people were forced out of their comfort zone and had to deal with new situations. And the Word of God spread like wildfire. Like He promised it would. It spread from Jerusalem to all Judea, and then to Samaria. And then, it spread to the whole world. Why? Because Christians were forced to change their situati...

We live in a divided country.  We are divided by our politics, by our beliefs, by our race, by our sexuality, by generation, by social class - by just about anything you can name.  And in these times, division means we must hate those who disagree with us, right?  It means we must tear down the character and reputation of whole people groups if they are "on the other side," right?  We should resort to ad hominem  attacks, legal attacks, and if that doesn't do it, physical attacks to defend our views, right? At least we, as Christians, don't do such things...   Right? Christians, where is our faith? The Apostle Peter, after instructing us to suffer for doing good in a world that will confuse good with evil (welcome to the 21st century) points us to our Lord: For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his m...

  A co-worker said something to me this week that really stuck with me.  It seemed so simple and yet so amazingly profound.  We are attempting to make some wholesale changes to the way we do things at my day job in an effort to improve not only efficiency and profit, but to improve the experience of working there for everyone.  And there is a lot of discussion about how to do that.  And it becomes very easy to get distracted from the actual doing when there is so much talk about how it should be done.  So, eager to start moving towards improvement, my friend said: "Nothing will change if you don't actually change something." - Thomas Ney  Brilliant!   You see, when we want change, we tend to want it a lot more in theory than we do in actual practice.  Whether it is at work, at home, in a relationship, or in the church.  And the same holds true for our Spiritual lives.  We all want to change for the better - to...

Howdy, y'all!  I thought I'd share some of the things I read this week that I found particularly interesting.  (And, in the interest of full disclosure: I have a few posts started but not finished, and I was REALLY pressed for time this week).  Enjoy! Check out this post about how to handle the atheist-created "reason vs. faith" myth here Next, check out some teaching from John Wesley on seeking God here Then, check out a GREAT defense of complementarianism (the belief that God made men and women to fill different but complementary roles) here Then check out this post in favor of pastors staying for a long time in their pastorate  here  (which is a good companion to my post from last week that you can find here  ) Finally, read a great post that a great friend sent to me about making friends who are different than me here (thanks, Leyla!!)

I found out this week that the Senior Pastor of the largest church in Nutley has been reassigned to another church.  I am sorry to see him go.  I have always appreciated this particular man's preaching and heart for God.  I am blessed to pastor here in Nutley.  Though there are many churches in town of all different denominations, we do share some unity by all of the pastors working together in a "Clergy Fellowship" to keep a Christian presence in the town through combined services, prayers, and events throughout the year.    So I started thinking about the departure of this man of God, and I realized something: of the ten congregations that have been represented in the fellowship since I have been involved, five of them have had changes of pastor, one more than once, and one of the churches has closed.  I have been in the fellowship for less than four years.  Am I the only one who sees a problem?   Now, I am not sa...

As a follow up to my last post about how we are to love each other as Christians, I would like to take the next step and point out that we are not supposed to stop there.  While loving each other is a great testimony to the world without which we will not see souls saved, we are also to love the unsaved.  And I think that the reason we sometimes (often?) do not, is because we view our battle in this world as us against them.   But we need to remember that our battle in this world is not with those in this world.  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.  (Ephesians 6:12) Satan is shrewd.  And his greatest strategy is to convince people that their war is against someone other than him.  He is currently in control of both sides of countless wars.  He is currently...

I was on an atheist blog the other day, and I can only assume that what was written was meant to encourage those of a like mind and help them grow in their worldview.  It seemed like a harmless enough article: it was well written, it did not insult the intelligence of those who may have a different view, and the author in no way tried to exalt himself or his opinion above the reader.  So what was the issue with it?  The comments. I try to tell myself time and again that I will not read the reader comments below any blogs or articles I read online because I know it is very likely to upset me.  Yet I do it.  I guess I am a glutton for punishment... You should have seen what was being said!  The author was accused of misunderstanding the true atheist worldview, was insulted, and was even called names.  Then, the commenters were arguing among themselves.  This guy said what that said was wrong, and felt obligated to correct him.  The...