Pause: with Pastor Aaron

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...

The church is meant to be a hospital for the healing. When we forget this, we often become consumer minded and lose the heart of God for why He created this second institution. Remember that the first institution He created was the family. The family was His first pathway for good to be carried out upon the earth. The family provided the living illustration of His love for humanity. It modeled intimacy which brings forth new life. It showed us perfection in the roles each sex was to thrive in. It provided a road to maturity and prosperity, as the parents were to pass on their values to their children. God also created the family that a love and knowledge of Him would be passed on to each generation. He was to be God to the family. The church was the second institution He created.  Just like the family, it was created with a purpose and a design. My former youth pastor spoke its purpose into my life when he once said, "The lost need to be saved and the saved need to be heale...

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 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 r...

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...