Pause: with Pastor Aaron

In the last four years I have seen a lot relationships in my life change.  There were people who I was very close to who went a different direction, just because of life.   There was the reality of leaving Pittsburgh; moving far away.   That would naturally change some relationships.   There was also those relationships I thought were solid and would stand the test of time.   Many of those have drastically changed.  Of all of these, these hurt the worst.   These were the ones I poured the most into.  These were the ones I thought I could take the most from. I try to find the lesson from these relationships that ended in a form of betrayal.  You may think that to be a strong word, but how else should I  interpret it?  The church leader who promised ABC and then reneged.   The church leader who joined me in guise of love and then in my moment of greatest need sought only their best perceived inte...

          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...

I have noticed something about the church.  There are times when we ask people to speak about what God is doing in their lives yet much of the time what we get in return is either a blank stare or a historical record.  Each of these actions concern me.  It concerns me that some believers either don't know what God is doing in their lives or do not know enough to give him the credit for what has been done. The contrast is the believer who wants to tell the story of a historical event, something God certainly did, but something buried in the past. God is working still today! We need to praise God for His intervention into our daily lives.  Remember this is the 'eternal life' we experience until we go to heaven. God gets involved! He is helping us daily live and thrive in a world that is decaying and lost. How should we speak of it?  I believe we can be guided by a phrase that appears only about 3x in the Bible.   Isaiah 12:2 states, "...the Lord is my...

Temperament can be described as the way you have been wired by God.  In some people God has wired them to be doers, others thinking, others feelers and yet others lovers.  There is not a bad temperament.  There is not a temperament that is greater than another.   There is only how God has wired you (the strengths and the weaknesses) and what will you do with it, for good and for bad. As a combination doer and thinker,  I often fight the battle of engaging before I know the strength of my enemy.   After failing in this area so many times in my life, I came to a conclusion that I will no longer attempt to fight a spiritual problem with a physical solution.   There would no longer be moves to flank my foe with better logic and tactics until I had taken the problem to the Lord and sought His solution.  See when I fought the battle without the Lord, I didn't use the weapons of OUR warfare (2 Cor 10:3-5).  I fought using the same tactics of my en...

This week I went through a new experience.  On August 1, a college roommate and a dear friend died.  August 1 I began my own journey in grief.  As I am sure you understand I have buried dozens of people as a pastor.  When it's someone who has predated your ministry, who loved you and you returned that love for as young men, its just different.  It effects you a whole different way. Had the opportunity to connect with several others who fall into this category of friendship.  In my own moments of processing, I realized something.  I was given true gifts, in the friendships I made with these men.  I have never had the like again in 20 years.  Sure I have loved and been loved since then, but it was different. These guys loved a man without a title. These men loved a guy who's faults were large. These men loved a guy they could have easily walked away from. These men stuck through it - any and all of the events that forced others awa...

God doesn't love American's greater than people from other lands, but I think it safe to say that America holds a special place in God's heart.  Where we have traveled and what we have overcome in these last 230 years is nothing short of remarkable.  I believe we must acknowledge God's hand in our success as a nation. Yet there are those who are doing all they can to remove God from not just the present discussion but also the pages of history.  They want to talk about a county founded by deists and forget that a number of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence were men of the pulpit, perhaps the best know being the Rev. John Hancock. Why I bring that up is because we can not divorce ourselves from our heritage as a client nation of the Lord, created to do His will.   While I will readily acknowledge that not all will be Christian who govern, we should not diminish, condemn or push out those who are.  We should not flee the influence of our ...