Everyone experiences evil. It comes in many forms: pain, suffering, disease, disaster, death. Everyone seeks an answer to the questions: Is there any purpose to pain? Why did my loved one die? Why was our town bashed by the hurricane? Why did lightning strike our home? Why did the tornado rage through our neighborhood? Why do so many die of drought and starvation? A person would have to be totally insensitive not to wonder about the problem of evil.  Putting it simply, humanity has always chosen wrongly.  

Three basic answers to the overall problem of evil have been offered. Pantheism affirms God but denies that there is any evil. Everything is good we just have to learn to understand and accept life as it is. 

Atheism affirms evil but denies God. If we can just educate and feed everyone, giving them all that they desire and need, we could put an end to sin.  America has tried hard on this level, and the results are not so encouraging.  In fact, just the opposite has happened.  In denying God we have jumped into evil and sin with both feet & at the same time wonder what is wrong with the world.  You don’t have to look further than your own heart. 

Theism affirms both God and evil. The Bible gives us the best answer to the problem of good versus evil in our world today.

Scientist and head of the human genome project, Francis Collins, puts it this way: “Why would such a universal and uniquely human hunger [for God] exist, if it were not connected to some opportunity for fulfillment? Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food.  A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water.”

(The Language of God, p. 38)

C. S. Lewis said, “[When I was an atheist] my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line” (Mere Christianity, 45).

When God created the world, everything was good and perfect in His sight.

He did not “create” evil.  Evil is not a physical entity.  You cannot bottle it up and can it.  Evil is essentially a perversion of what God created as good.

When God created angels and humanity He wanted to create moral beings.

That is God wanted creatures who had free will to choose the good.   In order for there to be a choice, God had one tree in the garden which was forbidden to Adam and Eve.  By choosing to be good, they would remain in the love and grace of God, leading Holy lives.  Please read Genesis 2:15 ff.

God was very clear.  Just one law had to be kept.  Just one choice was put before Adam.  Notice that the command was given to Adam before Eve was created.  It was his responsibility to impress upon her the need to avoid the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  They could choose to obey, which would have kept evil out of the world. But in Chapter 3 we see how they chose to disobey God.  It was that act of disobedience that brought evil (disobedience to God) into the world.  As a result they were cast out of the Garden of Eden, into a fallen world where evil (sin) spread like a West Texas prairie fire.  And their bodies immediately began to age, grow old and die. 

You might be asking yourselves, “Well what about Satan?  How did he get into this story, and what part did he play in bringing sin (evil) into this world?  Satan was the angel of light, Lucifer.  He was the brightest and most glorious of all the angels. Isaiah 14:12-16 “star of the morning” – translated Lucifer, shows us that his fall was over “pride”.  He was not content with being a follower; he wanted to be like God himself.  The moment he turned against God, evil was the by product.  By rejecting God’s authority the Devil and a host of angels (1/3 of the heavens) went with him, as they tried to overthrow the Kingdom of God.   Jesus cast him out of heaven, Luke 10:18. Also read Revelation 12:9 & 20:2-7 to see the end of the demonic world.   

Once Lucifer (the Devil or Satan) came down into the garden, he became the motivating factor in Eve’s decision to disobey.  He did this with a ½ truth, one of his favorite ploy’s in this world.  He told Eve that she would be like God, knowing good and evil.  And it was true, they knew good and evil from the side of defeat and not victory.  But they didn’t become like God.  Instead they became like the devil and his fallen host, whose tendency is always to disobey and foil the plans of God. 

If Adam & Eve would have obeyed God at that decisive moment, they would have become like God, knowing the difference between good and evil from the side of victory, not defeat. As their descendants we continue to fight the age old problem of evil in our lives and in the world.  There will be no peace, no freedom from sin and evil until our King Jesus returns. 

“Maranatha” (Come quickly Lord!) – Pastor Mike 

If you have heard any of my preaching or teaching you no doubt have come to realize that I am a great fan of CS Lewis.  His writings on the Christian faith, often woven in his works of fantasy fiction, are truly some of the greatest pieces of Christian literature.  A contemporary of his in England was the legendary Gilbert Keith Chesterton, (aka GK Chesterton).  His non-fiction writings are some of the greatest apologetics ever written. (Apologetics is a branch of theology that is concerned with proving the truth of Christianity.) GK Chesterton was probably the best that ever was, and he did it with humor and class, often using popular sayings and proverbs of his day.

I must warn you, if you decide to read him, he is a difficult read.  But for those who persist, there is great treasure to be found in his writings.  He was an orthodox Christian, that is, he adhered to the traditional teachings of Scripture as the true Word of God.  George Bernard Shaw (atheist), one of Chesterton’s “friendly enemies” who always debated him, describes him as “a colossal genius”, which he was & more.

The modern day Christian skeptic is described by Chesterton as a “rebel” who has no standard left because he has rejected everything.  Chesterton claimed that if you lived without God, you were living in self-contradiction.
Read his profound logic:

“We live in a world where objections are made to everything under the sun. Yet, the moment any of us condemns something, we have to assume there is some standard by which to condemn it. The rebel has no standard left because he has rejected everything. Thus, he lives in contradiction.(He) will not entirely trust anything.
The fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything.
For all denunciation applies a moral doctrine of some kind; (To be honest) …the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution, (but of necessity in order to be consistent) he must denounce the doctrine by which he denounces it.
As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, As a philosopher, (he says) that all life is a waste of time.
(He) goes to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts;
Then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts.
In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines.
In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; In his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.”  (G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy; Haddonfield, NJ: Dodd, Mead & Co, 2013), 28-29.)

Jill Carattini shares about a friend of hers in college whose life profoundly illustrated very truth of Chesterton’s apology:
“He was born with Athetoid Cerebral Palsy, and as a result he is unable to speak or walk or feed himself. He communicates through a computerized voice by typing with his toes. Overcoming more in his lifetime than most can imagine, he was in a public speaking class when I first became acquainted with him. Though an unlikely candidate for a career in public speaking, he has become exactly that, and is now a much in-demand speaker. His message is as powerful as his will to proclaim it. “My body,” he says through the voice of a computer, “is a slow moving, twisted shell of uncontrollable muscle, and yet my life is a picture of nothing short of wholeness.
This glorious contradiction I attribute entirely to Jesus Christ.”

Chesterton described a paradox as “truth standing on its head to gain attention,”

Jesus takes the darkness and makes it light.
Jesus takes disease and denounces it’s authority over the body.
Jesus takes our fallen human wisdom & shows us the truth about life.
Jesus takes our blind view of life & helps us to see.
Jesus takes what we have lost & shows it found.
Jesus takes a cross & gives us forgiveness, the gift of God.
Jesus takes death and turns it into everlasting life.
Jesus takes our lives from the trash heap of life & makes us pure.

Jesus compels us to drastically redefine what we mean by life, just as he compelled the disciples on Easter Sunday.
Jesus repeatedly challenges the way we experience reality, the way we experience ourselves as alive. What seems solid reasoning to us, Christ establishes as contradictory. What we might denounce as a total loss, he describes as found. What we would be quick to discard as broken, He shows us what it truly means to be whole.

The next time your “rebel friend” challenges you about your faith with his own set of beliefs, ask where he gets his notions.  If he says that it is just reason, then ask him what his reason is based upon.  Ask him to back up his claims with some standard that he uses.  Pin him to the wall with his own measuring stick.  Show him how his logic undermines the very “mines” he has placed to try and undermine your faith.

Soli Deo Gloria!  Pastor Mike

Read Esther 8 & 9 to get these verses in their full context.  8:11-13 & 9:5-10 takes place at the time of Jewish captivity in Persia.
11    …the king granted the Jews who were in each and every city the right to assemble and to defend their lives, to destroy, to kill and to annihilate the entire army of any people or province which might attack them, including children and women, and to plunder their spoil, 12     on one day in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month (that is, the month Adar).  13     A copy of the edict to be issued as law in each and every province was published to all the peoples, so that the Jews would be ready for this day to avenge themselves on their enemies. 9:5    Thus the Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying; and they did what they pleased to those who hated them. 6       At the citadel in Susa the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men, 10     the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Jews’ enemy; but they did not lay their hands on the plunder.

What are weapons of mass destruction?
As early as 600 B.C., the Athenians poisoned the wells of the Spartans, who later tried lobbing burning sulfur pitch over the walls of Athens, hoping to fill the city with toxic smoke. Genghis Khan used that same trick, catapulting burning sulfur pitch during his siege of fortified cities around A.D. 1200.

Over the centuries, various armies put poisons on arrows and in bullets to make them more lethal.  But it wasn’t until the 19th and 20th centuries that mankind began developing toxins and poison gases of devastating lethality, including mustard gas, chlorine, and the nerve gas sarin. Even before these gases were used in war, they created a special kind of fear and moral revulsion.

Since the goal of warfare is to destroy the greatest number of the enemy as quickly as possible in the most efficient way possible, why is chemical warfare forbidden?

Is it because of the innocent civilians affected?  Then we must ask ourselves about the bombing of Dresden, the attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the use of napalm, and the effects of long range missiles striking military targets hidden near hospitals and civilian housing.
It is called “collateral” damage.  You can see it in our Bible text above.

Perhaps chemical weapons evoke a strong emotional response, because they can be invisible, and victims often suffer slow and agonizing deaths, convulsing and gasping for breath. Such weapons are considered cowardly and ignoble, much like the English complaint against the American’s in our Revolutionary war.  We were hiding in the woods and not standing and facing the enemy in rows as traditional wars were fought.  We were not  “fighting fairly” in the eyes of the English.

During World War I, in 1915, Germany attacked Allied troops outside Ypres, Belgium, with chlorine gas. It was the first time a lethal gas had been used on a large scale in a modern war. “Suddenly we saw… this yellow wall moving quite slowly towards our lines,” recounted Archibald James of the Royal Flying Corps. “We hadn’t any idea what it was.” French soldiers were enveloped by the gas, and began choking. Many made the mistake of diving for cover at the bottom of their trenches, where the gas — heavier than air — collected in a lethal cloud. When it was over, the field was littered with the bodies of a 1000 or more dead soldiers.

The allies then fought fire with fire once they saw how effective the gas could be.  Like firing rockets the aggressors were kept safe from return fire.  The Allies saw how effective gases could be, and started using them.  Both sides went on to use phosgene, a choking agent, and mustard gas, which causes painful burns and blisters and blinding damage.  Because of this the Great War was dubbed by historians “the chemists’ war”. More than 90,000 soldiers had been killed by poison gas, many succumbing only after days or weeks of agony.  A million more were injured — many blinded for life.

After the war at the Geneva convention, a protocol was adopted which banned the use of Chemical weapons, as their use was justly condemned by the civilized world.  Most nations signed on, America did not, not until 1975.  Only after the cold war ended did America and Russia agree to destroy their huge stockpiles of lethal gases.

It is interesting to note that in the next World War, the Nazi’s used gas to kill defenseless starved Jews and other enemies of the Hitler’s regime.  Again, the civilized world was outraged at the use of the gasses even in the prison camps.

Syria began stockpiling chemical weapons in the 1970s and ’80s, after losing three consecutive wars to Israel.  They were not able to construct nuclear weapons, (thanks to Israel’s courageous acts in destroying those plants, something they are sure to do in Iran in the near future).  Therefore, in Syria the gasses became “the poor man’s nuclear weapon” to use in countering Israel’s military superiority and nuclear arsenal. Syria has been steadily manufacturing chemical weapons ever since. Intelligence services have estimated Syria’s stockpile at 1,000 tons of chemical weapons, stashed in 50 facilities.  Syria has become the world power in chemical weapons, and have now demonstrated that they are willing to use them.

In Iraq when Saddam Hussein as at war with Iran in the 1980s —
they were our “buddies”, even after Iraq repeatedly used chemical weapons.  Iraq used mustard gas against the Iranians in 1983, with no objection from the Reagan administration. To America any Iranian victory is unacceptable.   The Iraqi’s used sarin to kill 20,000 Iranians while injuring thousands more.  Where was the outcry?   Later they used the gas to kill an estimated 5,000 Kurds who were rising up to challenge the brutal dictator Saddam.  Still the world was silent, thinking that Saddam was the lesser of two evils.  American policy has not been too consistent here.

Here are some really tough questions.  I would be interested to hear what you think.  You don’t have to answer them all.  You can choose any one that you would  like to sound off on.

What standards should our nation use when evaluating whether the actions of another country rise to a level so heinous as to justify a military response?   (Remember we have not intervened in Africa at the slaughter of innocents, many of them Christians’, where the atrocities are far worse than what we have seen in Syria).

If two nations commit similar acts equally egregious, but we elect to act against only one of the two, what possible reasons might our government have for treating them differently?

How does the concept of “the national interest” bear upon military decisions and actions by the government, and how is this different — or is it? – from personal decisions and actions?

What roles are appropriate for the United States to take in the internal affairs of another nation-state?

What, in your opinion, constitutes a crime against humanity?
What level of proof of crimes against humanity should be required before a nation or nations intervene in another nation’s internal affairs? What legal and moral authority is needed for such an intervention?

If it can be proven that the Syrian government was behind the chemical weapons attack, what is the best way to hold those responsible accountable? Whose task is it to bring leaders or nations to justice?

Soli Deo Gloria!  Pastor Mike

Many Christians are looking at the Mid-East and wondering if this is the end of times that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24.  Still more are wondering if America should get itself involved in the battle, to put ourselves in between, Assad and his brutal dictatorship, and the freedom fighters who have been severely infiltrated by terrorist organizations bent on destroying America.  Would it be a “just” war?  Certainly stopping genocide is a noble cause. Helping people gain their freedom is as American as you can get.

The Nobel Cause: Personally I would feel much better about our government it they would act unilaterally against all genocide.  I can think of numerous places all over the world where the defenseless poor are being eradicated due to their ethnicity or faith (most often Christian faith).  Perhaps saran gas is not used, but the means of death are just as horrible and merciless.  Someone has to police the world.  Unfortunately we tend to intervene only when it is politically expedient.  Politicians say they are acting in the best interest of America.  Today most American’s are war weary and do not want to be the world police.  If that is true, then why are we planning a strike against Assad.   And what will be the repercussions if we do strike?

As America prepares to “fire the shot across the bow” as our President describes it, the Muslim world is already planning for retaliation.  US Embassy’s across the region are on high alert as Iran is encouraging the terrorist to attack the embassies and “other” places of American interest.   We have our aircraft carriers and destroyers deployed in the waters of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Just as plans are being made to intimidate Syria, plans are being put in place to evacuate our people if it comes to that.   Our leaders cannot afford to have another Benghazi on their hands.

The question remains, how far are we willing to go fighting the Muslim terrorists whether they are government led or private Jihad militias?

With every passing day we draw closer to the “Second Coming of Christ” (James 5:8). And the prophecy of Isaiah 17:1 has yet to be fulfilled:
“A prophecy against Damascus: ‘See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins.’” Damascus, the capital of Syria, has a longstanding reputation for being the oldest continuously occupied city in the world. It has never been without citizens or totally destroyed. But Isaiah’s prophecy still stands; there is coming a day when Damascus will be nothing but a “heap of ruins.” The current war in Syria could indeed be one of the events leading up to the capital’s destruction.

However you slice it, it is obvious that the Mideast is entering the time that Jesus called “birth pangs”.  These are the labor pains that will birth the return of Christ and the Kingdom of God.  It is not Armageddon.  That battle will come at the end of the tribulation period.  Continue to read and study Jesus words in Matthew 24.  As things heat up, people will be asking (as a Christian) about these end times.  You need to be able to respond Biblically.

Sola Fide – Pastor Mike

Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins have made millions of dollars on their “Left Behind” series of books.  They took their cue from the 1973’s movie “A Thief in the Night”, a movie seen world wide by over 300 million people.   Today, Nicolas Cage has begun filming a remake of this Christian fictional classic.  The producer who first launched the “End Times” movie genre four decades beforehand has died.  Russell S. Doughten Jr. died last week at age 86 of a Kidney ailment. Just for you movie buffs, he was also the producer of the 1958 movie “The Blob”, Steve McQueen’s first film.

The theology that all of these movies were & are based upon is known as “premillennial dispensationalism”.

Premillennialist believe that Christ will return to earth before God’s 1000 year reign of peace in the world. This period will be inaugurated by Christs’ return to the world, the 2nd coming.

Dispensationalists believe in a concept of Biblical history first thought of in the 19th century by an English theologian by the name of J.N. Darby (1800-82).  It had never existed as an explanation of Biblical history prior to Darby.  In other words it is a post-enlightenment view thought up by an academic theologian who wanted to come up with a new way of looking at the Bible. Nothing would have come of it, had it not been for the 19th century Fundamentalist C.I. Scofield (1843-1921).  He popularized this new look on Biblical history in his Scofield Bible, filled with his study notes and interpretations. In this precursor to all of our modern day study Bibles, the notes were believed and accepted as much as the Biblical text itself.

Most American dispensationalists followed Scofield’s seven-fold scheme for the Dispensations of Scripture:

• Innocency (before the Fall),
• Conscience (Fall to the Flood),
• Human Government, (After the Flood)
• Promise (Abraham to Moses),
• Law (Moses to Christ),
• Grace (the Church age),
• Kingdom (the Millennium – 1000 year reign of Christ).

There was nothing especially radical about dividing history into periods. What separated dispensationalists from everybody else was their novel method of biblical interpretation. Everything in the dispensationalist system seemed to rest on the conviction that God had two completely different plans operating in history: one for an earthly people, Israel, and the other for a heavenly people, the church. The crux of the problem with their interpretations at the fact that historical and literary context are ignored by them.  They quickly remove parts of Daniel and line them up with quotes from Thessalonians or Revelation in order to “prove” – their theory.

Scripture & it’s Historical context, Tradition, and Reason and Experience are the best means of interpreting Scripture.  Without using these guidelines you can end up with some pretty strange theology, some of it quite heretical.  Darby and Scofield’s handling of scripture by “cherry picking” certain verses and aligning them to others has lead them to some troublesome and startling claims.

Chief among these false claims is that Christians will be raptured up into Heaven before the great tribulation.

The “Rapture” is the Biblical time in history when Christ returns to this world (the 2nd Coming).  When He comes,  the first thing that happens is that those whose bodies are decayed in the ground (or wherever) will be resurrected, brought back to life as their souls (spirits which had been with Christ in “Paradise” from the time their bodies gave way to death; Luke 23:39-43) will re-enter their bodies to reign with Christ for the 1000 year period of peace in the world (See Revelation 20). This is known as the Millennial Kingdom of God.  Immediately after that Resurrection, those believers who are still alive in the world will be taken up to meet Christ in the air & as they go their bodies will be transformed into Resurrected bodies. See 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11

Now the question at hand is when does this Resurrection/Rapture occur?  For 1800+ years the church, it’s theologians, and leaders have believed that it would occur after the 7 years of Great Tribulation in which the anti-Christ rules in this world.  The theology of Darby and Scofield disagreed.
They believed that the church would be resurrected prior to that tribulation.
Hence began the “pre-tribulation” rapture theory that the books of Tim LaHay and Jerry Jenkins are based upon (along with the movie, “Thief in the Night).

When this theology took root in America, it fit right in with the American exceptionalism and the dream of wealth health and prosperity. They claim that Christians won’t have to suffer for their faith in the end times as they have down through the centuries. They will be taken out of the world.

This false assurance has helped make lazy Christians of millions of American’s.  They said the prayer of inviting Jesus into their life.  According to Darby and Scofield, once that is done, you are in God’s kingdom regardless of what you do after words with your life. And to top it off, you won’t have to suffer the great tribulation.

Let me encourage you to read Matthew 24, where Jesus explains to the disciples when He will return.  No dates are given but He does tell us the order of events of the last days so that the disciples will not be fooled and fall away from the faith.  The plain and simple understanding of Matthew 24 from the lips of Jesus himself, make it clear what the church has traditionally believed for centuries.  We will go through this time of great tribulation, the worst the world has ever seen.

In order to explain scripturally their “pre-tribulation rapture”, they must do a cut and paste work on scripture.  Take some of the text and intersperse it with Daniel and then Paul, and then John.  It is like coming to beautiful painting, and then cutting it apart as if it were a puzzle and then pasting it back together so that it will look the way you want it to look.

I would like it if their pre-tribulation rapture theory was scriptural and true. I have no desire to go through those dark times.  But the plain and simple reading of scripture (always the best) tells me otherwise.

Who will be left behind to go through this last great tribulation?  All believers will be left behind for this horrific time in world history.  Believers will not have to suffer any of the wrath of God (Remember Moses & Israel in Goshen), but we will be subject to the wrath of those who hate God.  So it has always been in history.  God takes His people through the tribulation. We walk with Him through the valley of the shadow of death.

Better to be warned and be prepared.  The Bible says that many will fall away, and lose their faith during those days.  But God will be faithful to His suffering servants.  Matthew 24:22 shows that God has mercy on His followers.  The time of this great tribulation, will be cut short (only 7 years) for the sake of God’s people.

Semper Fi.  – Pastor Mike

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin or your selfishness. But in that casket safe, dark, motionless, airless it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable… The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers…of love is Hell.”   The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis,

C.S. Lewis was an incredible thinker.  He had a way of taking in the information about life, brewing over it for a period of time, and then writing out his conclusions in the most fascinating of ways.  He was one of the great philosophers of the 20^th century, a tremendous apologist (one who defends a doctrine or philosophy) for the faith in Christ which he had accepted for himself only at the midpoint in his life.  His reasoning skills led him to put his faith in Jesus Christ the living Word.  To him, loving Jesus was the logical conclusion to all of life and its mysteries, especially the mystery of love. 

It is easy to read his quote on love (above) and readily apply it to our relationships here in this world.  “Love is a many splendored thing”,

or so the lyrics of the song made famous by Frank Sinatra tell us. 

Love is a many-splendored thing,
It’s the April rose that only grows in the early spring,
Love is nature’s way of giving a reason to be living,
The golden crown that makes a man a king.
Lost on a high and windy hill,
In the morning mist two lovers kissed and the world stood still,
When our fingers touch my silent heart has taught us how to sing,
Yes, true love’s a many-splendored thing.

Kelly Clarkson starts with that premise in her song “The Trouble With Love Is”  but then she slams the door on it, getting a bit more realistic.  Indeed, the rest of the song is very discouraging as it fleshes out the reality of what love so often does to us in our sin filled lives.   

Love can be a many splendored thing
Can’t deny the joy it brings
A dozen roses, diamond rings
Dreams for sale and fairy tales
It’ll make you hear a symphony
And you just want the world to see
But like a drug that makes you blind,
It’ll fool ya every time

Love has such great possibilities.  Love is a many splendored thing.  Everyone who has experienced “falling in love” will testify to it.  But in our fallen and broken world, love does eventually hurt you.  Ms. Clarkson is right, love will cause you deep pain.  Yet for the most part, people don’t give up on “trying to find love”.  Even though they know that the words of C.S. Lewis are true.   Giving away your love will break your heart.  Yet in the words of Jefferson Airplane,

Don’t you want somebody to love? 

Don’t you need somebody to love? 

Wouldn’t you love somebody to love? 

You better find somebody to love.  

What is the alternative to love?  C.S. Lewis nails it.  Even the greatest of loves died on a cross causing such deep pain and hurt to those who loved Him. Indeed, death has been the crushing blow on many a great love stories.  And yet ‘not to love” will leave us Scrooge like, cold, bitter, and empty. 

We are like God, made in His image.  We keep trying to make love a reality in our lives.  And like a jealous lover, God continues to pursue us, seeking us out, chasing us down, that we might surrender our love to Him.

It makes me ponder why so many of us have such a hard time loving God completely.  Could it be that we are afraid of the cost?  True love is not cheap.  It comes at great cost.  It will hurt you.  Loving God is a dangerous thing.  To give ourselves completely and unreservedly to Him, is downright frightening.  Who knows what God might require?  Who knows what He might ask me to do?  Who knows the cost of such love prior to giving our heart to Him? (Hint: Jesus knows the cost, He paid it in full.)

Only God knows what tomorrow will bring as we give our all to Him.But what a grand adventure loving Him becomes.And the really wonderful thing is that we know how this love story ends.  The Bible concludes with the scene of an incredible wedding feast,the happiest and most joy filled of all times, as we anticipate that very first eternal day with our Beloved.

Revelation 21:4

“And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes;and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying or pain; the first things have passed away.” 

Soli Deo Gloria!  Pastor Mike