Pause: with Pastor Aaron

Blind Spots (Part 1): By Aaron Peternel Some of my recent reading has forced my thinking into a time of personal reflection. Seasons of looking inside are good things. They are part of what God uses to make us holy; to look more like Jesus. Why do we do the things that we do; specifically why do we continue in unhealthy patterns of behavior? These are patterns that we are taught are wrong, and know are wrong. Many times we fight to control the urges or tendencies and fare well for a while, yet when we are tired, hungry, lonely or or emotionally exhausted, we can often fall. Then the guilt-confession cycle begins and we hate the fact that we failed and have not yet grown beyond it. A simple reason we fall into these patterns is that we choose to say yes to self and no to God. The Scriptures make it clear that we do not have to fall to sin, "13 No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God ...

          As you begin to read this, you need to know that this is not an a+b=c plan.  While sometimes I wish that God would move that way, I feel like it would take away the mystery and turn God into our vending machine.  That is not what we should want, nor is it what He wants.  God is in this for a long term relationship.  The question my friend is, "What are you in for?"      If you are in for relationship, understand that it is God who reached out first to you.  We call this reaching out 'prevenient grace'.  He does this because we can not grasp Him without it because we are totally depraved, unable to connect with God.      So God reaches out, and as He does He supplies all that is needed for us to reach back.  We call that moment conversion.  It is when we come to the conclusion, "I am a sinner and I need a savior.  Jesus is the savior that I need."   This i...

I hate when I mess up.  In my desire to do the right thing, I hate when I give up the fight and simply resort selfishness.  I know better, and I should do better.  It separates me from fellowship with God.  I'm left to do life on my own.  I can live in this state, disappointed in myself and embarrassed to see God, or I can not... Today I choose to not.   Today I choose to not let the enemy have one more moment interfering with my fellowship with God.   Today I choose to say yes to God and no to sin and its influence and its authority in my life.  Today I embrace a God who promises He will never leave us, and He will never let us go (Heb 13:5b).  Today I embrace forgiveness. Forgiveness is not an every depleting vault.  Forgiveness is a state of being.  Forgiveness is a statue or a tower standing tall against the skyline.   Forgiveness is about reconciliation.  Forgiveness occurs when I turn from my own direction to...

The Easter story goes back now well over 2000 years.   It has been talked about, written about, sung about and expressed in just about every medium possible.  The sad thing of so much exposure is that it can often turn the most beautiful thing into the mundane, turning glory into white noise. One way we can see the power brought back for the hearer is to turn the story to its relevance in the speakers life.  Go beyond the facts of history.  Go beyond the theology of faith.  Talk about what the Easter story means to you, for as believers you are its' most powerful testimony. I grew up in a pastors home, so from a tender age I learned the facts about Jesus.  I was one who had many experiences at the proverbial altar; many times confessing my sins and many times receiving Jesus into my heart.   Some might ask me which one 'stuck' but I would point them to each one being a part of my journey.  Each time I resolved to know Jesus more I grew in Hi...

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...

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...

Between 1646 and 1647 a group of Anglicans came together in part to resolve an important question, "What is the reason man exists?"  The resulting document is known as the Shorter Westminster Catechism.  It simply says "The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever."  It's important that we keep this in its sequential order.   We exists (first) to glorify God with our lives. We exists (second) to enjoy Him forever.   The second is predicated on the first. Why this becomes important is that there are many times in life that we are called to glorify God in a manner that we do not enjoy.  Some times we are given seasons where we neither enjoy life not particularly enjoy God.  Every day seems a fight.  Every day brings us new difficulty, crisis and struggle.  If our mandate to glorify God is based upon how we feel in the moment, we would separate ourselves from Him.  We can not lose focus though on the fact that He is s...

I have been told that wisdom is the proper application of knowledge. As we seek to apply knowledge, we often will battle with the realities of God's timing. I will never forget when a wise brother asked me, "What is the better solution, to be right or be Spirit led?" That question exposed to me a reality that was brought by a mentor pastor of mine who presented, "A right thing, done in a wrong way is still wrong." Having knowledge (truth) is good, but knowing how to present that knowledge is often the key to receptivity. Maybe its sad that it is the state of the world, but it is what it is. So we must check our approach and ultimately our motives. We must be a people who are as hard and fast on how we apply knowledge as we are in gaining it to begin with. The following Scripture gave me pause on this topic: 17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, imparti...

26  For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead" James 2:26 A common thought that has been shared with me is the insecurity some perceive in their Christian life.  Satan has a terrible ability to steer us away from the grace we have been freely given to the failures of our lives.  We often have hurt our relationship with Christ through those actions. So thankful for the grace of God.  It does not overlook sin, but it shows up when sin is present, with full hope of restoration through repentance.   Grace is not a license to sin, instead a tool used to redirect us back into fellowship and right standing.  Grace allows 2 major things to occur.  In the first sense it allows for the wrath of God to fall on the work of Jesus and not on us.  We call that propitiation.  The second thing that grace accomplished is the release of the Sprit to "guide us to all truth."  It is He who bring convic...

This morning is the conclusion of a 4 part devotional series based upon the position that sin should have no place in the life of a believer. Sin compromises the spiritual walk thus sin must be put to death. These statements take a hard line, yet they are truth. The benefit of eradicating sin from your life is intimacy with God and power. The consequences of compromise with sin are impotence and complacency. It comes down to what kind of a Christian do you want to be. Do you want a faith that can move the mountains, or do you want a religious experience? The choice is yours. Let me encourage you to return to the previous 3 blogs on the topic. God is dealing with this man on the subject. May you benefit from my journey. Today we deal with the life of sin. What this means is that you did not practice abstinence with lust and you did not abort the fetus of sin as it developed (see part 2). What has been born now is controlling your life, demanding satisfaction every day. Just l...