Pause: with Pastor Aaron

We don't like the word suffering. Perhaps it's because of the picture of it that we see through our mind's eyes. Could it be a picture which turns us into a victim of circumstance? In that view we suffer because someone else has oppressed us. In that view we suffer because we are victims. In that view we suffer because God has forsaken us. After all, when we come to Christ, we are not supposed to suffer anymore... right ? The picture of suffering that you receive from your mind's eyes can often be framed through a bad understanding of what it is to follow Jesus Christ; such as from the end of the last paragraph. There is no easy road promised for the saint. I've heard it said that while God promises that He will take care of our needs (Phil 4:19), He never promised us that He will give us everything we want. In fact the opposite is often the truth. Many times we don't get our 'wants' because to have them would be a distraction from our call and pur

Solomon wrote "There is a season for everything." The Byrds took that knowledge and sang "Turn Turn Turn."  Both understood that existence has moments, times and seasons that separate themselves from the normal hum-drum of life.  These ticks of the clock can be incredibly rich, such as times of great joy seen in new marriage, the birth of a new baby, or moving and starting fresh, but they can also be very hurtful and joyless.   Life brings us seasons where we don't understand why things are going on the way the are.  These can be seasons of wrought with darkness, anger, pain and suffering. Does it mean that God is with us in the one and absent from the other? Often the moment makes us feel that this is true. That's often the problems with feelings.  They are naturally subjective.  By subjective they are 'true' in the moment, but not 'true' after the fact.  This is one of the primary reasons that we can not trust them and should not l

There are days that I feel like the American dream has emasculated the American church. The idea that we must have "more" to have done right, to have been successful, flies into direct conflict with the teachings of the Bible. "My kids deserve a better lifestyle than I was raised with", can take a man or woman and put them into direct conflict with God because they might pursue an end opposite of God's desire for them.   The Bible tells us,   "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things"  Col 3:1-2. The end for one who makes their lives about the 'American dream" seems to be paralleled in John's writings to one of the seven churches of the Revelation.   John wrote,  “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:  These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the r

When I was a boy I was introduced to a little chorus that went something like this, "Practice makes perfect, practice makes perfect. I guess if I practice the better I'll be." In this age of video, they communicate it a lot better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm-RztsGDEw This truth is not Christian per say, but a hard reality.  For anything that we do in life, which we want to do with excellence, we must practice. In practicing we are training. Thus to be excellent, we must commit to training. I hated that season as an athlete. I loved the game. I loved to run and move for the prize of winning the game, but I hated the practice because I could not see the goal. My coaches could. My body did. I could not and did not because I wanted quick satisfaction. I fear I never became the athlete I could have been for my lack of drive to practice. I fear that I developed bad habits that God, failures and life have had to break. The truth here is simple, if we want to

When I was a teenager I watched Wayne's World. I'll quickly admit it wasn't the best use of my time, yet here I am almost 25+ years later remembering a line they would use as they encountered a 'rock god' or something that inspired them. They would fall to their knees and shout out, "We're Not Worthy! We're Not Worthy!  I laughed a bit because of how it was done.  It was funny, but it was also in some ways strangely tragic.  I wonder what Wayne or Garth will do before the God of Heaven. 11 For the Scriptures say, “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord ‘every knee will bend to me and every tongue will declare allegiance to God.’ 12 Yes, each of us will give a personal account to God." Romans 14:11-12 (NLT) In the presence of eternal God we are not worthy ourselves, yet the blood of Christ makes us worthy because it has paid for Creator's purpose to be restored.  The blood of Christ restored fellowship to God, took away the curse of sin and dea

When I was a boy I went to Sunday School where I learned the chorus, "He's got the whole world in His hands." Somewhere along the way, as a young man, I learned about a sermon preached by Johnathan Edwards called "Sinners In the Hands of an Angry God." I took both ideas an adopted a mindset that God is waiting in heaven to unleash His wrath upon me for every sin and failure I commit.   I lived in fear of failing God.   I lived in fear of punishment.   I lived with a perception of He was just waiting to show me what a worthless excuse for a Christian I actually was. This is the wrong way to embrace the Christian life.   Make no mistake about it, God hates sin, however let me talk a moment about propitiation.   Gotquestions.org defines this as " The word  propitiation  carries the basic idea of appeasement or satisfaction, specifically toward God. Propitiation is a two-part act that involves appeasing the wrath of an offended person and being reconc

Perhaps the hardest time to trust God is when we are being attacked by those who we think do not have the truth on their side.   Our human instinct is to rise up in defense of ourselves, to try to 'set straight' the people who argue as if they are right and you are wrong.   There are many tactics that we often employ in defensiveness, but what if they are all wrong save one.   What if defensiveness was as great of a sin as the wrong being committed against the person at that time? Consider todays verse that gave me pause:   Mark 15:32, "Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.   Those crucified with Him also heaped insults on Him." The context of the verse is Jesus at Golgotha.   He has been already been falsely charged, assaulted, sleep deprived, man handled, taken to illegitimate courts, handed over to Rome as a common criminal, rejected by those who a week ago 'loved' him, scourged, humiliated a

As the pastor in several churches in my career, and a pastor's son in many others,  I have spent a lifetime learning the culture of church.   My conclusion is that you can have a variety of denominations, but in most cases human nature is human nature.  We may believe differently, but in many ways we act the same regardless of what church we worship in. An example is in our giving.  What my experience has been is that we often neglect the simple truths of giving, out and out reject them, or we complicate them with rules and extra Biblical thinking.  We neglect to remember that we are stewards of His greater resources.  We are managers of His money, His time and His giftedness within us.  He asks so little of His own resources, yet we rationalize from a mixed bag of priorities what we think we need to do, spend money on and invest in. Make no mistake, God will judge us on this.  It's that big of a deal. My quest lately has been to read the gospels and note the heart of Jesus

Pause: With Pastor  Aaron So the question is asked, "What is the greatest thing you can ever do for God?" There are a multitude of common replies. Feed the hungry. House the homeless. Watch out for the orphan. Support the widow. Give to the church of your time, talent and treasure.  All these replies are excellent, yet could all of these replies also be wrong? Could these responses be done and yet we still miss the greatest thing we can ever do for God. Today's text that gave me pause... Mark 12:28-31 ”28 One of the teachers of the law ... asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” 29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Note Jesus response to the