Pause: with Pastor Aaron

Why did we quit being a people who came up against a problem and pushed it over? Why have we allowed the 'wall', standing in the way of progress, to define or hinder our momentum? Why have we become a people who quit instead of overcoming? The culture of today is to be defined by something. I saw this first hand in my previous youth ministry where so many talked about 'their' anxiety, depression, learning disability or disadvantage. What I loved about these teens is that, at least they were honest with themselves. Many adults either A. Ignore the issues in the lives, B. Play the victim card or C. Let busy-ness keep them occupied, ignoring the wall to forward progress. So we have raised generations who will sit as the base of the wall, and never progress further. They will accept mediocrity in their homes, jobs and lives. They will rationalize it saying that "This is what I deserve" or "This is the best I can get." We as believer in Jesus Christ...

The are inherent qualities that are necessary to leadership. What I love about working for the Lord, is that when He calls us to a higher place of influence, He prepares us for that higher place. In God's economy, we never have to worry that we don't possess the skills to achieve. What we do have to be concerned about is this, "Do we have the obedience to achieve." Will we be apt learners of the lessons God will teach us to prepare us for the task we are called to do? Learn and we will thrive. Ignore the lessons and we are destined to repeat them. Live in rejection of the lessons and we will lead others down failures path into a place of corporate destruction. Leadership is hard. When you stand in the front of the people you become a target. Everyone who thinks they either can do it better or perhaps deserved the position you now find yourself in is now proverbially gunning for you. In our context of leading other believers, you face the additional rea...

Most of us can probably talk about a level of injustice that they have personally witnessed.  You may have seen or been the victim of some type of abuse.  You may have seen people mistreated financially.  You may have known of cases where someone close to you was personally attacked by people whose sole purpose seemed to have been the outright destruction of character. They used every lie, slander and manipulation.  Their efforts may have even worked with others, peeling people away from truth. It's easy in those moments to ask the question, "Where was God in all of this?"  In some ways I think that every believer has a picture in their heads of Jesus riding a white steed into the battle and setting right the enemies of truth.  We want God to raise His mighty 'smiter' and do justice on our enemies in a timely and quick fashion that ends the suffering and sleepless nights that we experience.  We want this, yet it can be argued that this is often not...

How is forgiveness gained?  I remember a conversation with a young man in my church in Monongahela who was convinced that forgiveness was a result of an apology.   It had to be sought, and could not be offered unless it was.  Others have proposed to me that we have a state of forgiveness before the Lord and when we sin we only need reconcile to that state and we are made right again with Him.  In that case no real apology is needed - simply a turning away from the previous deed and an awareness of identity in Christ.  Still yet others look to Scripture and see verses of a God who can withhold forgiveness based upon our withholding forgiveness from others.  Thus a person must be practicing the very thing they are asking God to do for them. This may be one of those places where each position is a little right.  Each position may be a lot of wrong dependent upon what the outcome is that the person who forgives wants.  Some truths we have to fa...

This past weekend I had the privilege to go to the National Prayer Summit which was put on by the Free Methodist Church. For a while now I have felt a new call to pray in my own life, and perhaps remarkably I found I was not the only one and was even perhaps late to the game. God has been birthing a new desire in people all over the world, and in that new desire, God is doing new things all over the world. You can see videos of the summit at  http://fmcusa.org/nationalprayerministry/nps/ The thing that stood out to me was this, while He is doing new things all over the world, His presence is making it's greatest impact in the eastern world, while the western world seems silent. George Otis, the speaker from the Sentinel Group said this of the phenomena, "It is not for God's reluctance to send his Spirit to the western world, it is for our resistance." This left a mark in my spiritual concrete, and I left with a desire to note the places where I am livi...