"Spiritual Acid Reflux"

What a hassle!! I have acid reflux. My doctors diagnosed me with it about two years ago, but probably I had what was later known as acid reflux even in my youth. It is not acting up all the time, but when it does, I feel horrible. Anyone reading this who has it or has had a case of minor heartburn can relate to the pain that acid reflux brings. The burning that comes up through your chest and into your throat, is just at times unbearable. My case is coupled with what feels like "heart attack like" symptoms; pain in the left arm, pain in my jaw. And when it is really bad it is unimaginable pain across my chest. By know, most of you are probably thinking that I need to go to the emergency room. But, I assure you, that is not necessary.

However, there is a spiritual acid reflux. One that can bring just as much pain, but only worse. I call it bitterness or unforgiveness. When Peter asked Jesus how often He should forgive, "seven times", I guess Peter was thinking that was the number of perfection so that should be the limit of his forgiveness. Well, you all know the response of Christ, "seventy times seven". That was, of course, Christ's way of sayng that there is no limit to how much you forgive.

Matthew 5:44 are some pointed words. "Love" is the Greek word "agape" and is the same word used for how we should love our neighbors and our brothers and sisters in Christ. The true love that Christ calls for is a love that does not include resentment, bitterness, and unforgiveness.

The thing about bitterness is that it grows. It never just stays the same. It always gets worse and it is a sin. To harbor unforgiveness for anyone (whether they have asked for it or not), is sinful and you completely lack the power to discern the will of God.

Some say, "Well, you dont know what they did to me" or "you dont understand". Any many times, I dont understand. Praise God I dont understand and by God's grace I will not have to understand by experience. But I do not need to experience it to know that bitterness and unforgiveness are sins against God. Why do we not forgive? Because we feel justified to think and act the way we do. Listen, no one has ever done anything worse to any of us, then we have not already done to Christ, and He forgave us all. So we need to ask the Lord to give us the grace to forgive.

Unforgiveness and bitterenss take on many forms. Most of the time when we are harboring bitterness in our hearts towards someone else, or many person's, we usually blame someone who had nothing to do with it. We have all experienced this. I have been the victim of that. But it was not me, it was the bitterness that person had toward someone else. Then I pray that they get whatever is going on with them right with God.

That is the way that it goes. People leave places, not because of the will of God, but because they harbor some ill-feelings against someone. But what happens is that the ill-feelings are not without effect. They just find a new outlet to blame at the new place and that drags down the innocent. Unforgivessness is a sad thing. Are you harboring bitterenss in your heart toward someone? Then you need to go to that person, by the grace of God, and forgive them. You say, "I cannot do that." You are right, you cannot, but the grace of our God can do it for you. Because in forgivess that is the only way that you will truly be right with God again. Jesus said, "Forgive, as you have been forgiven."

"What has God called us to"?

There is a continuing wave in the Church today that is extremely dangerous. This wave is giving up the best thing for something that is good. When a "good" opportunity comes by we convince ourselves that this would be a good thing to partake of, even if it means that we are not faithful to the Lord.

I can remember very clearly, as a young person growing up in a Christian home, that nothing came before our attendance in Church, NOTHING!! This is a heritage for which I am very thankful. One such incident that I remember was during basketball season. It was tournament time and the tournament began on Friday night and went all day Saturday into Saturday night. Well, I went to a Christian School so no problem with Church, usually, with the sports program. However, on this particular tournament we were having revival at my home Church (which was not the Church where I attended school). The coach called me into his office and informed me that he was going to call my dad and speak with him about letting me miss the revival in order to go to the basketball game because, "I know that you need to be dedicated to your Church, but you also need to be dedicated to your team." He called my dad and told him the same thing that he told me. To which my dad replied, "How can I let my son miss Church to let him play a sport and then try and tell him later that faithfulness to Church is vital? I would be speaking out of both sides of my mouth." The coach did not appreciate his zeal for faithfulness, but I know the Lord did. Needless to say, I was not on the bus that Friday night, I was in Church and Church was certainly the best thing for me. Some would say, "What was the big deal in you missing one service?" Well, when God calls us to faithfulness it is not only for those times when nothing else is going on, it is all the time. Besides, we are creatures of habit, one time leads to two, which leads to three, etc. you get the picture.

The mystery is, why do parents allow their children to do the exact same thing that my dad would not let me do and then wonder why their children are not interested in Church. It is because they have told their children, through their actions, that Church is second-class to everything else, or at least everything that we want to do. Hebrews 10:25 is clear that this should not be the attitude of our actions.

If we make it a habit of letting the best thing go for the thing that we think is good, then when that "good" thing is over, there will be anothing "good" thing for us to do instead of being faithful to God.

It all comes down to this: God has not called us to be great ball players (the chances of our children becoming professional atheletes is rare, but we need to train them to be great Christians for the Lord), God has not called us to be counselors for the weary at the cost of our faithfulness, he has not called us to be life-savers; but He has called us to be faithful and to make sure that our children are faithful. He has called us to raise them in the instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4).

Don't trade what we think is a "good" thing for the best thing of the faithfulness that God has called us to.

"Inspiration"- The Effectual Call

We believe in the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures, that is, that the Holy Scriptures are without error. That the words of the Scripture are wholely perfect and not only are without error, but are incapable of containing error. When you consider the Doctrine of Inspiration, what some believers miss is the fact of the moulded will. What exactly do I mean by that? It means that we believe that God can work in such a way that the human will wills to do what God wills that will to do. We do not believe that God had to force the Apostle Paul to write the letter to the Romans or to the Ephesians. We believe that every word of the Holy Scriptures convey God's perfect message because God formed Paul's will to do what the Father's will, willed to do.

That is the idea of 2 Peter 1:21, where the Apostle Peter says that the Scripture did not come by the will of man, by Holy men were "moved" by the Holy Spirit. "Moved" is a Greek term that literally means "to be moved along". The Holy Spirit, as it were, took the writters of the Scripture and moved them into what to say, yet using their personal characteristic style. They were not robots penning the Holy Scripture, their own style was used (which is how we can identify writters of books that are not plainly stated, based on style), and the Holy Spirit formed their wills to write what the Father willed to be written. In other points of theology, as in inspiration, the Father can and does change the will in order for the Father's will to be done. Inspiration is just one example of this.

The Heart of the True Gospel

Sotomayor bobs and weaves

Supreme Court aspirant Sonya Sotomayor said today when asked about abortion rights that it was "settled law" and there is a constitutional right to privacy. The federal court of appeals judge was asked at her confirmation hearing how she felt about the landmark Roe V. Wade decision of 1973.

"There is a right to privacy", Sotomayor told the Senate Judiciary Commitee. "The court has found it in various places in the Constitution". The right is stated in the fourth Amendment and it protected by the 14th Amendment, she said.

The 4th Amendment is thus stated: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized".

The 4th Amendment is clearly stating the fact that someone cannot come into my home, or my person or any of my possessions and search or seize them without a warranty given by a court of law and only with probable cause. Judge Sotomayor is proven in this statement that, if confirmed as a justice, will not interpret the law but will judiciate from the bench.

I am having great difficulty figuring out how she can justify the muderous ruling of the supreme court in 1973 by stating the 4th amendment. She never would say what she actually thought about the ruling.

She is doing the typical liberal bob and weave and really giving no answers. The fact of the matter is that life is protected by the same bill of rights she is using to justify abortion. Every life is a creation of God and to take that life, whether in the womb or out, is murder and a violation of the law of God.

Our Judeo-Christian Nation

"The Tale of Two Sons"

Every Christian should read this book.