Building on the Foundation

Just around the corner Always lurking behind Dripping with inky blackness Hungry lust forever in his mind His eyes glowing out of the darkness Bony fingers aching to embrace my soul He lies in wait for when I am weakest Oh, what a cowardly ghoul When I least expect him, on me he leaps He slashes and bites deep before I can rise With a desperate cry, I draw my sword The Word flashes forth  Once more, darkening his eyes I lay there bloody and torn as he dies My wounds are as deep as the night I pray for healing and forgiveness once again My Father hears my cry and pools me in His light “How long will I battle this Old Man?” I cry out When will victory come? “My beloved son,” I hear my Father say “Don’t you know? In the fight, victory is already won” I will praise the Lord who delivers my soul He has saved me out of the thick darkness My God who loves me has forgiven me again Once more He has liberated me from that Old Ghoul He is my rock and my shield I need fear no man or spirit The spi

Marriage is boot camp for becoming sons and daughters of God. As with any good boot camp, the purpose of this one is to whip us into exceptional spiritual warrior shape in the space of a single lifetime. I think that we would agree that this is a pretty tall order for most of us.  It’s easy to say that marriage is a boot camp, but what does that actually mean, especially for those of us who are still single? Well, why did God create marriage? Did God create marriage to bring ultimate happiness to our lives?  As singles, a lot of us have idolized marriage as the one thing that will bring us true happiness. I know I’ve done that, and I’m sure many of you have too. We think that perhaps God created marriage to give us fulfillment, or maybe it was for the purpose of pure romantic love. I know! I bet God gave us another person to live with to complete us! That’s got to be it!  Or maybe not so much.  There’s nothing wrong with happiness or fulfillment, but is that why God gave us marriage? 

  Today, I could tell you an inspirational story, but we’ve all heard those stories. There are thousands of inspirational stories. Stories of skydivers and mountain climbers who broke nearly every bone in their bodies and who crawled or dragged themselves for miles until being rescued. Stories of outdoorsmen, hunters, and hikers who survived horrific falls and maulings by wild animals. Stories of POWs who endured years of torture, beatings, and starvation. You’ve all heard them, or stories like them. You’ve all heard stories of people who refused to give up in the face of impossible odds. But today, it’s not time for another story. It’s time to stop and evaluate where we are in life, where we want to be, and how badly we want to get there. We live in a society of quitters. People quit whenever life gets hard, and not only when it gets hard, but even when it gets slightly inconvenient. People quit on their jobs, on their marriages, and on God. People discover that obeying God isn’t easy

  Building a Relationship with God. This is something I think I can safely say we all desire, but a question remains—how do we go about it? How do we make sure we are on the right track to have a successful outcome? There is an unspoken rule that works wonders, in every area of our lives to which we apply it, including this one: “To be effective at whatever it is we are trying to do, we must first educate ourselves on the “why” (the purpose), and the “how” (the process), and then based on that knowledge, develop a course of action to accomplish our goal.” This, regarding building a relationship with God, is what I would like to focus on today. The “Why” God did not create mankind to always be alone. Instead, He instilled in them a desire to have relationships with others—to be a part of something bigger than themselves. This desire when utilized properly, is a powerful motivator and wonderful blessing that has all kinds of benefits. As Eccl. 4:9-12 says, “Two are better than o

  Today, much of the world marks February 14th as St. Valentine’s Day, the “Hallmark holiday” of love, roses, chocolates, and poems. Oh, and don’t forget Cupid, the winged baby who shoots arrows into the hearts of men and women, causing them to fall in love. But where did this holiday come from? The name comes from three fellows the Catholic Church dubbed “St. Valentine,” all of whom are thought to have been beheaded. Legends and folktales notwithstanding, The Catholic Encyclopedia confesses that virtually nothing is known about any of them. Clearly, the name has nothing to do with the day. It’s a disguise for something else. As for the February date, the ancient Romans celebrated a fertility festival called Lupercalia about the same time, on February 15th, at which they honored their deities Juno and Faunus. Cupid, one of the chief symbols of Valentine’s Day, was the Roman god of erotic love and sexual attraction, a counterpart of the Greek Eros (from which comes the word “erotic”).

There have been many conversations and interactions in recent days that have challenged the very foundations of my faith. Surprisingly, they did not come from atheists or blatant pagans; no, they came instead from those who also profess to be Christians. Attacks and deceptions from someone wearing the enemy's uniform are pretty easy to see coming, and they are expected. What isn’t so easy to see coming or to have defenses in place against are attacks from those you would consider to be allies. I’m going to talk about two of these attacks today because they are the most recent and share a concerning similarity. Interestingly, both of these attacks had to do with the Sabbath, and they came from two different and unconnected sources, but Satan’s signature was quite visible on the calling card from both. I’m not saying that these people were agents of Satan, however. Far from it. Satan merely took advantage of opportunities that presented themselves and used them as weapons. In the fir