Isn’t it nice to have God nice and neatly placed in a box?

We have all heard the sermon that requires us to pray a particular prayer or to possess a particular faith during bad circumstances and provide solutions that so neatly tied everything together for a happy ending.

Yet, in our own lives, we know differently and know events are going to continue to be harsh, extreme and perhaps provide a bitter ending.  Why then do we see a difference?

We may ask ourselves:  is the preacher lying?  Is the Bible a liar and more importantly or as importantly, is God a liar?

Of course not to all of the questions.  We are not witnessing liars in our predicaments, only the absence of the full answers from God himself.

Therefore, if you are suffering and having a horrible time in life, in all likelihood, in spite of your beliefs, you will more than likely continue to experience the same.  Nothing is really sugar coated in the gospel.  Much is required of us, and as a result, we fail often and fail badly.

In all of our failures, trusting God, trusting our Lord, the Christ can be difficult, if at times, impossible.  Don’t count yourselves alone.

What is important here is to not lose faith in our creator.  The causal result of doubting God is for Him to lose faith in us.  We are to maintain hope regardless of our circumstance.

Resolving hope in spite of defeat is the true mark of persistent faith.  Consequently, we are not to give up on our faith or our determination to serve God.

We must admit our sin and sins.  We must admit our inability to cope, to have the answers.  Our hope is not or at least must not be with us, but with Him, the Christ.  Counter to our own desires, our job is to believe that God has things in control.  We are to trust that we have hope, not so much in this world, but in the next in Heaven.

So then, we ask:  how does this help us now?  It helps us insomuch that we realize the frailty of being human. And in the fragility of being human, we submit ourselves to the Almighty in a hope that goes beyond hope even to the end of our lives.  No, nothing is easy in this world.  I don’t have a formula that will get you out of your situation:  I don’t promise all to go well or to be good.  All I promise is that God loves you and that you can attain personal contentment knowing that Christ is at the head of our conflict and that he promises to be with us and remain with us if we are loyal to him.

Indeed, our moment of conflict may suck.  We may see no humanly way out of our circumstances and in fact, there may be no way out.  Sure, a miracle may come along and solve our plight, but in the most likely advent that it doesn’t, we are to trust in our Lord that He is with us.

Thus, I say that no matter how bad our situation:  no matter how bad we may be:  no matter the odds against us, even unto death, we are to hold out and invite Christ into our lives in order to be closer to him.

This way that is presented is not an easy way:  however, I maintain it is often the only way.  The blessed assurance is that’s God’s Holy Spirit is there in our weakness.  My encouragement is to hang on and know and believe that when all else fails, you belong to God.

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I am no body

November 13, 2015

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T. F. Thompson

Have you ever felt unimportant and believed that God can’t use you?  Does your past haunt you?  Maybe you’re an ex-felon, maybe a prostitute or a drug addict.  Maybe your past is so heinous you want no one to know about it for dread and shame. Then again, it may be that you feel you are uneducated, not popular, don’t possess an important job or home or car or whatever else in American Society that one would feel merits status.

The good news is that unimportant people can be used by God. Unimportant people are often drawn to God as they feel a need to be close to something that is greater than they are.

For whatever it’s worth, I’m to be counted with you for I’m unimportant as well.  And in searching for a measure of self-worth we see prime examples in the Bible of those who were either broken or unimportant.  Critical here is the idea that God used these people in a major way.

We can review the wife of Hosea, a prostitute.  King David, in his youth was a nondescript individual who was overlooked even by his own father.  Gideon was ordinary in every practical term to include Moses who was an abandoned baby cast off in a river to die. Finally, we see Jesus as a newborn.  He entered the world, not as a king, but as a child with a struggling family.  This King was born in a manger.  Essentially this was a lowly barn, not exactly the surroundings of an important person.

The real question becomes:  while we are no one of this world, we should embrace the riches of the Heavenly World.  The heavenly world comes from the Lord, Christ Jesus.  Once accepting our savior we then are adopted into the good graces of God’s kingdom and become an heir as a family member.  No faster way exists for social mobility.

The decision is yours.  Confess your sins, your need for Christ in your life and accept the gift of salvation.

Imagine there is a heaven

November 13, 2015

Imagine there is a heaven

In 1971, the frontrunner of the Beatles, John Lennon released the song, Imagine.  As beautiful, as the song is, it demonstrates the emptiness, the loneliness of those without hope.  Rather than focusing on the promises made by a man who died a criminal’s death, almost an entire generation went by route of drugs, music, existentialism and avarice.  When once combating the notion of A Lonely Crowd, now we see victim after victim hooked on drugs, despair, depression and even suicide. Naturally, what people are really searching for is a true meaning of life.  Many times, though we find ourselves caught in our own trap of selfishness and become addicted to our negative behaviors that prevent us from attaining our true excellence in life.

Jesus promised us: John 14:2King James Version (KJV)

2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

In this statement and many others, we find that a homeless man, Jesus guarantees the existence of heaven.

Jesus was not smoking a joint nor was he riding in a fancy chariot. He was on foot and more than likely had dirty feet.  Yet, this humble man, the Son of God promises us a place in heaven if we had faith and believed in him as our savior.

To ensure that heaven was prepared for us, Jesus, the Christ, was crucified on a wooden cross, died and rose again to do exactly as he promised.

So then, we have many choices in life.  We can groove along people like John Lennon, or envision the promises of our savior.  When in doubt, search the scriptures for answers and enjoy the inheritance of the Kingdom of God.  Work out your salvation with your brothers and join a bible believing church.

Your work has already been cut out for you.  In terms of heaven, the reality is expressed as what is and not what isn’t.  Sorry, but Lennon was wrong.

Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner

November 16, 2015

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T. F. Thompson

Hate the sin, love the Sinner

In his 1929 autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi wrote that we should “Hate the sin, love the sinner.”

Often, Christians repeat this quote attributing it to the Holy Bible. While the concept of “Loving your enemies…” is Biblical, Christians should take note that the secular community, beginning with the behaviorists in the 60s began to use this concept of separating person with behavior to excuse individual behavior.

To the behaviorist, a person’s behavior is separate from their person.  Christ stated that: Matthew 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.

Knowing that we are judged via our hearts, how then is there a separation between our actions and our individual spirits? For example:  If we examine the terrorists who performed the heinous deeds in Paris recently, we certainly perceive the evil within their hearts for destruction.  We don’t separate their actions from their individual persons, as we accept without question that what they did was wrong.  Even the secular world agrees with this as the laws of God in this respect are written within our hearts.  Everyone knows what they did was wrong.

That doesn’t mean that we aren’t to pray for those who inflict harm to us.  Yet, to excuse the behavior because of past experiences is absolutely insane.

We do the same in this country.  No matter what the crime, what the behavior, we have a built-in excuse for the behavior.  If you don’t believe me, go to:  http://www.socialpsychology.org.  In every way, we have provided a built-in excuse for almost any behavior imaginable.  This is wrong and counter to Christian principles.  Christian principles holds individuals accountable for their actions as God’s also does the same.

In the old days, we ascribed horrible actions as sin.  Sin is the attitude, the eventual, causal actions of our attitudes (matters pertaining to the heart) that separates us from God.

In short, sin doesn’t require psychotherapy per se: it requires confession and repentance, going to Christ with our problems and admitting that we cannot walk this earth alone. We are in need of a savior, we need a savior from ourselves as all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

No matter what problem we face, God has promised to help us.  No matter how bad our behavior, if we repent and turn to him, Christ is there to receive us.

Hence, before we make an excuse for ourselves or our loved ones, we should assess our hearts and see if we stand either for God or against him and His Kingdom.  In fact, God will answer us through our hearts as we act on our behaviors.  Our behaviors will either be filled with sin or they will reflect God’s love in this world.  The choice is ours without excuses.

Hard Hitting and in Your Face

As we mature, there is a time to take off the kid gloves.  Everyone knows that life can be hard, that it can be torturous and at times, brutal and totally unfair.  There also comes a time when we must owe up to who we are as a people.

Paul tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The Roman road is a well-known road and most all Americans have heard it.

In whatever road we travel, we know that generally things are not what they should be.  When we have a hard hitting and in our face assessment of ourselves we also know we are not who we should be.

Many of us have tried the hundreds of self-help books on the book store shelves and while we might make some progress, we continue to fall short.

For many of us, life becomes routine.  Life then is empty and without meaning.  We might see our lives as entailing nothing more than paying one bill after another with no end in sight and becoming involved with relationship after relationship and still circling back around to where we were before: finding ourselves alone and without consul. We desire help and come back with empty hands.  Where then are we to turn?

Jesus said:  Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all the rest shall be added unto you.

My guess is that you have tried video games, social media, going to the club and possess wealth and friends.  More than likely you consider yourself a moral person who attempts to do the right thing

Still, we find ourselves empty and without meaning.

Jesus said:  I am the way, the truth and the life.

Okay then, you might even count yourself a Christian.  What else do you try?  My answer is to follow Jesus, to go beyond your belief and obey his words.

In seeking out our Lord, the Christ you must then examine his church.  “Upon this rock I shall build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Faith then is the key word.  We must love our neighbor as our self.  We must serve in order to find out who we are.  The only real way that I know to know, to realize our Lord is to serve.  We must feel the hungry, to visit the jails and to give to those who thirst.

There is all kinds of hungry and thirst and all kinds of prisons. Our own shackles, our personal prison are perhaps the hardest to break out of and to be free.

Jesus said:  that we are to know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

Jesus, the Christ is the truth.  If you know him then you are free.  Too, if you want to really know him then you will meet and greet his brethren, his church. Grew near his church, those in need and indeed, see if you meet Christ, the true spirit of God.

No matter your present circumstance, good or bad, if you confess your sins, then our God who is just will forgive you.  Join together with your brothers and sisters in worship and in service and become part of the family of God.  His kingdom provides mercy, forgiveness and meaning.  In the end, you become a complete person.

This is what is hard hitting and in your face.  Jesus said:  You can do nothing without me.

With him, through his church nothing is impossible with God.  Begin today, now and forever.  Christ is Lord, our friend and our king.

Loyalty

For most people, loyalty is the act and expression of remaining faithful to another or thing. As Christians we are to be loyal to our cause and in particular, our Lord, the Christ.  Self-examination, however, usually reveals we are often less loyal to our faith than what we think.

Upon examination and in comparative terms we must measure what we are loyal to:

Over the years, how many cups of coffee have we missed?

How many cigarettes have we missed by accident?

How many beers have we forgotten to drink?

How many TV shows, or videos have slipped our minds?

How often have we forgotten to have sex?

The list goes on.  We are generally seen as loyal when it comes to going to work.  At the very least, we are at least loyal when it comes to being around when it’s time to be paid.  In my lifetime, I’ve never known anyone who missed a payday. Somehow, someway, our very nature reminds us of those items we desire.  No wakeup call is generally involved as we tend to do these things naturally.

When it comes to giving, to praying to open ourselves outward to others, we generally come to another element of loyalty.  Most of us are NOT faithful when it comes to serving Christ.

Let’s face it.  When it comes to serving others, in being fair, being just, in praying persistently, we are prone to dismiss our actions.  We are prone to forgetting and putting all of our real loyalty on the back burner and pursuing our own desires.

We demand that others do us justly.  We demand our rights, demand even from God that we should have the very best and in turn, fail to obey the smallest task God asks us to do through Christ.

In short, we must count on a list actually to what are we loyal to?  What is counted among our faith daily as we commit ourselves to our creed?

In other words, does our statements from our mouth align itself with what we actually do?  Do we suffer from a cognitive dissonance from reality when we pledge our words to God and to our fellow man.

When we say the words that we love our Lord that we love our fellow man, does our action agree with our statements?

Maybe there are occasions where all of our statements line up with our actions, but for most of the time, we fail and fail miserably at being who we say that we are.

At least part of the answer is not to speak so much, i.e., don’t say things that you don’t mean.  And another part of the answer is to actually perform all of the things we say that we believe in.

Ultimately, we should reflect all of the words that we say that we are.  It should go without saying that this should be a growing process.

As we participate in the continuum of working out our salvation, self-reflection and introspection should be a top priority as we seek to perfect ourselves in Christ’s kingdom.

All in all, at a bare minimum we should become less and less loyal to the ‘things’ of this world, and more loyal to Christ and his people.  Once we have arrived at this plateau, we can then begin to speak of virtue.  Loyalty then becomes the center of our lives as a real and vibrant virtue.  At this point, there is agreement with what we say and what we do.  That is the true aim for perfection.

I’d Walk 1,000 miles for You

November 18, 2015

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T. F. Thompson

I’d Walk 1,000 miles for You

One popular song attests that he’d walk 1,000 miles for a girl.  Another such song states they’d walk 500 miles.  The sad fact is probably neither singer would even walk across the street, much less hundreds of miles.

Imagine for a moment that you were the winner of a cash award of $100,000 and the only catch to the prize was that you had to walk 35 miles to retrieve it.  You only had 24 hours in which to act and thus, if you failed to retrieve the cash, you’d lose the award.

It doesn’t take much of a guess to suggest that most people would take up the offer of this cash award and would indeed walk the 35 miles.

The real question I have for you though is:  Would you walk 35 miles to visit another person?  Do you know anyone, anyone at all that would do that for you?

Isn’t this a shame that for most people, money is far more important than people? Yes, people, most people who certainly walk the 35 miles for the cash; in fact, most would do it for far less than $100,000.

How much more important are people than money?  Better stated is people SHOULD be so much more important than money.

Over 2,000 years ago, a man walked more than 1,000 miles for us.  In fact, Jesus walked thousands of miles to proclaim the gospel of who he was.

King David remarked about the wondrous creation of man that God had presented to us in the form of life.

And when it comes down to it, what could be more important than your own life?

Christ said:  I have come that ye may have life and have it more abundantly.

In this sense, by accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are cashing in an award.  Jesus presents us with something far more precious than mere money.  He awards us as a child into his household and the promise of eternal life.

Popular songs may be fun and expressions of hyperbole might get us through a tough night, but the real staying power of God is through his Son, Jesus, the Christ.

This gives us cause to think:  Just how far would we walk for another person?  How much money would drive us to desperation?  And finally, do we surrender, yield to Him who gave it all that we may live?  Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.  Walk after HIM!

Where are you going?

November 18, 2015

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T. F. Thompson

Where are you going?

How many times have we gotten mad at ourselves for doing something we really hadn’t set out to do?  It may be that we went to say:  Pete’s Bar to shoot a game of pool only for a few minutes, and then 7 hours later  and perhaps several hundred dollars broker, we struggle to get home.

Thinking through the situation we pledge that we’ll never do it again and find ourselves doing exactly the same thing some time later. These incidents or accidents seem to happen over and over again.

Yet, looking on the other side of the coin, when it comes to going to church, we find that people arrive there, not by accident, but by deliberation, by well thought out plans.

You see, we often discover our lives shaped by circumstances.  Too, we many times turn over our personal agenda to eternal forces than seem to rob our time, resources and strength. Most of us continue along these lines until we become weak, broken and lastly, give up.  At that moment, we begin to seek different answers. Far too often, some people never find their way into logic and die either from disease or accidents prior to realizing their mistakes in harmful living.

For those of us who claim to be Christians, we sometimes stand back and permit our brother to go his or her way without intervention.  In this way, we are alike our brother who is going astray.

In the first place, our brother is following a pattern out of ignorance.  If no one intervenes, then more than likely bad results are going to be generated from their behavior.

In the second place, once again, bad results are going to occur because we failed to care enough about our brothers and sisters to intervene.

What could be the worst failure of our lives?  That failure would be to know that a loved one died without us expressing our love and devotion to our Lord, the Christ.  The truth is that it is criminal for us to sit back and fail to give heed to those we love and know about.

To the Christian and non-Christian, we must ask ourselves the question:  just where are we going in life?

Are we going to mope around bumping into events I life by accident or are we going to follow a clear path plan?  This plan has been designed by God and we become enriched as a result

Don’t let your life be nothing more than a series of happenstance and ‘accidents.’  Turn to God for His answers.

Empty Rooms

November 18, 2015

Empty Rooms

An empty house is not blessed and casual observance witnesses a once proud home, falling apart from the inside out.  Rot, decay and ruin almost immediately ensues a residence once the residents move out.

Our own bodies are similar.  When we are filled with life, with joy and with purpose, our ‘house’ of our body teems with good health.  Once we become empty, hollow and without meaning or purpose, our body begins to decay and fall down.

Moreover, not only does our body begin to fall down cripple, but our spirits become dour, filled with gloom.

As people, we become empty when we grow numb to routine.  The repetitive act of getting up and going to work, paying bills, always behind in money drives us into a whirlpool of denial.

Once in a permanent state of denial, we become depressed and often bitter.  In our bitterness, anger settles in.  We become angry with ourselves, with our loved ones, with our boss and neighbor and environment. Blame approaches us and we point our fingers menacing at others for our condition.

In general custom, we begin to focus inwardly where we build a wall and defy anyone to penetrate our private space. We become experts in projecting an illusion of our self for at this point, we are shallow and afraid of who we have become.  A better word to describe us at this junction is that we are in fact, lost.

Where at one time in our lives we felt we knew all the answers, we are burrowed with doubt, self-pity and a general malaise of hopelessness.  Where to turn?

Any number of events can twist our lives into a painful journey of a personal torture zone. We can feel trapped and forgotten as we soon even forget our old self.

We may dream painful dreams that recount a former time when we were happy and regret all those things of which we no longer are.

The truth is that we can never settle on the past. Neither can we permit events or loss of fortune to define who we are.  Finally, we must come to grips with HOPE.

Hope means that we must see a future.  And I that future we must also see things as getting better.  In these terms then, we must also believe we are going to actualize a better tomorrow.

By this point in your life, you should have already learned that money will not solve your problems.  Also, at this point, it should be recognized that by your own power or will you will only achieve identical results.  Try as you might, your personal house remain empty.

This essay will not leave you hanging in empty space for indeed there is a way out.

Jesus will waiting and willing to accept you and to provide you with a meaningful life.  He is willing to fill your house with treasures that neither rust nor rot. Seek out the Lord for Salvation and also seek out his church.  Cast aside the feeling of emptiness and going about this world alone. Go to the Cross where Jesus died for you and me and become accepted into God’s kingdom.  Entering into God’s kingdom begins NOW.  Accept the blessing as a child of God and begin your journey today, now and at this moment.  Discover the house that is overflowing and will never empty again.  Believe on our Lord Jesus, the son of the living God.

God is dead Nietzsch

November 19, 2015

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T. F. Thompson

The German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche first said that “God was dead” in 1882.  Of course, Nietzsche wasn’t really saying literally that God was dead, only that the inhumanity of society had killed his influence.  How much more is it said today that God should step aside when God has been pulled from our public school systems and the ongoing fight between church and state in contemporary times?

Consider your own life.  Is God dead to you in your day-to-day living?  Is God dead because you killed him, prevented Him from entering your personality?

Perhaps a more careful examination would reveal that in fact, God is not dead at all.  A more introspective analysis would clearly state that rather than God being dead, it is we who are dead to God.

More than likely we are the ones who have become beaten down by society, the pressures of being an adult, by our egos leading us astray.  Some of us have even become bullet proof when it comes to emotions.

We deny our wrongs, deny our emotions and go after the pleasure zones within our minds as a safety net.  In short, we attempt to buy time.

In buying time we point our fingers at others and all their wickedness.  Over and over again, we wail at injustice, envy, greed and deceitfulness while all the while, denying our own.

Those few moments when we do approach God, what is it we ask?  Do we ask for justice, demand justice or do we beg for mercy?  When the injustice involves others, is that when we demand justice and only ask for mercy when our name is on the line?

The logical approach is to fully surrender to God.  Instead, we continue to kill God over again many times until we don’t even recognize the honorable trait of goodness at all.

We have cloaked and disguised our voices, our personalities, and motives. While walking with others, we put on the appearance of being good and in the same breath curse those who are immediately at hand, claiming how much smarter we are then they are.

Isn’t it great to seem so noble to ourselves and to others?  Isn’t it grand that we live a lie and deny our very creator and the laws He taught us.

If God is to remain alive in this world it will be because of the reflection people see in us.  If God, through his son, the Christ is to prevail it is because of just Christians who go out on a limb to proclaim it and also to actually live it.

How else is God to be alive to this world?  How else are those who disbelieve to believe that which is real and that which is not?

If God is real as we proclaim it through the teachings and belief in his son, Jesus, then it is only by the living example he has in us.  I am afraid to this effect, most of us, to include myself, have failed.

There is a time to either put up or shut up.  That time is always.  It is never too soon to act on our beliefs.  The net conclusion should be is that God is alive, vibrant and promising to all who reach out to him through us, his church.  Amen