It was about 2 years ago when I first came to FBC Macon looking for a place to heal.  My wife and I had been through a terrible battle within the church and to be honest I did not know what was going to happen next in our lives.  The only thing I knew is that I wanted to find a place where we would be loved and where I could sit under sound teaching.  These two fundamentals were vital for me.  After serving as a pastor for 15 years I wanted to just blend in for once.  For once I did not want to be known as a pastor and I did not want the junk that I had thought went along with it.  To say we were beat up I think would really be an understatement.  However this post is not to focus on what has happened elsewhere but I write to focus on what God has done since that time in our lives.

You see when we first came to Macon I did not want anyone to know that I used to be a youth pastor.  In fact I sat in my Sunday school class for months without telling them my background or what I had done for a living for the previous years.  Yet week after week we felt loved and wanted and accepted.  Not because I was a pastor but for who we were.  Week in and week out I had a tremendous opportunity to sit under solid Bible teaching that challenged me often.  After a few months I decided it was  time to be involved in the church.  However, I firmly believe you become a member and then you get involved.  So we became member.

I cant even begin to tell you the tremendous amount of love we have felt from our church family.  I cant even tell you about all of the times people have come and encouraged me or told me they were praying for me.  I have been moved in ways that has just been overwhelming.  The other night as I stood in the pulpit to preach my sermon it almost did not feel real.  As I took time to thank the church for all they have done it also hit me like a ton of bricks that one day I would move on.

I have made so many friends in this church.  I have great relationships with the pastors of this church and even as I write this I am sad.  I love it here.  I love the people and to be honest I never want to leave.  However God has placed a call on my life and to be disobedient is not an option.

Thank you so much Macon FBC for all you have done.  I do not know how much longer I have hear sometimes I wish it was alot longer.  But this church will never know how much it has touched me.  It will never know the healing it has brought to my family.  The people of this church have displayed the Love of Christ to me in ways I have never seen before.  In addition to that I have had the awesome privilege to be on staff here.  First as the intern youth pastor and currently as the interim children’s pastor.  Thank you for loving my family, and giving me an opportunity to serve.  Whatever happens in the future I love this church and they will always have a special place in my heart.

Lastnight my wife and I were talking and enjoying some good conversation.  In that conversation I began to talk about how our perspective changes how we look at troubles, and trials in life.  Often times  I think we become so self focused that we somehow think that our problem are beyond God’s control.  Let me just put your mind at ease there is no problem that you will ever face and there is no trial that you will ever go through that somehow is beyond God’s control.  You see perspective makes a big difference.

I have been baffled lately by Christians who easily get angry and even outraged over things that really do not matter.  This hit home with me when I thought about my daughter.  I was very upset as my daughter has appeared to either not be challenged in school or in some ways just does not care.  So when I saw a D- on her report card I could have blown up about it, lost my cool, and even been outraged at the teacher over it.  However I began to think from a different perspective.  Does a D- in the fourth grade really matter in the grand scheme of things.  I mean really is she going to try to get into college and they are going to look and tell her “well I don’t know you did have a D- in one class in the fourth grade” despite the fact that she has tested above average in every category and here reading and comprehension is out of this world.  So rather then fly off the handle I chose to speak softly to her and talk through what is going on and encourage her to do the right thing for the Glory of Christ. It is perspective.

I have been a Student Pastor for awhile and now am an interim children’s pastor and I must say that I have often been taken back by they way I have seen Christians act and treat one another.  I have seen arguments over things that really do not matter but somehow we have made them matter because our perspective was wrong.  I have seen marriages crumble all because the perspective was wrong.  I have heard other Christians gossip, backbite, slander, be critical, and just downright nasty to others all because the perspective was wrong.  So why not just change our perspective.

Here is the deal I believe God is sovereign over all things.  I believe their is absolutely nothing on this earth that is out of His control.   I am not going to catch God by surprise and neither will anything else.  If we really believed God was in control I believe it would change our perspective.  An understanding of God’s sovereignty somehow takes away  my worries it causes me to trust in Him all the more.

I guess what I am saying is this.  If you are bitter, angry, a gossiper, a backbiter, a slanderer, a critical spirit, or one who causes ill repute of others then change your perspective.  If you really go around calling yourself a Christian but somehow it is just too hard to live it then change your perspective maybe the real answer is trust in God’s Sovereignty and quit trusting in yourself.

It has been awhile since I have put up a post on this site.  Has life been busy?  Absolutely with taking on a new roll as the interim Children’s Pastor and at the same time trying to find a full time pastorate it had been some busy times.  One of the reason why I wanted to take a few minutes and right this post stems from a book I recently read.  The title of the book is “Just Do Something” by Kevin DeYoung.

The premise of the book is how we overspiritualize alot of decisions that come into our lives wondering whether or not it is truly God will or not.  The book is a great fast read and for me really changed the way I look at many decisions not only in the church but in my life as well.  We tend to get so caught up in this idea of whether or not it is God’s will for us to be in a particular ministry instead of just realizing it is God’s will for us to serve.  God wants us involved in the church.

Often times we use God’s will as an excuse to simply sit on the sideline and to never enter the game.  In essence we are abusing our relationship with Christ and twisting God’s word around to suit our needs.  How is it right for us to blame God for not entering a ministry.  Many times we say “well it was not God’s will”  when in reality we just did not want to do it.  I often wish we would just get in the game.

I know over these past few months in my life I could no longer be content to just sit God wanted me to get off the bench and get busy.  You know it does not even matter what it is God wants me involved in the livelihood of his church.  God want me to be busy about His kingdom and when I refuse to do so I am selfish and filled with pride because in the reality of it all I am merely looking out only for my interest.  So if you are reading this Get of the bench and Get in the game.

Last night our youth pastor spoke using Matthew 5:21-26 as his text.  I wanted to write about this because not only have their been timed that I have not forgiven others but there have been times when others have not forgiven me.  This will be along post but I hope you can benefit from it if you read it through.  I have given several messages over this text to my memory although I believe the last time I preached on this text was way back in 2006 when I lived in PA.  Anyway this passage just got me to thinking about how we often act and react as Christians.  I wish I could say I have always acted and reacted perfectly but the truth is I have not.  I have also witnessed others not acting or reacting appropriately to problems and situation.  Some of these have been just regular church attenders all the way up to pastors in the church.

In Matthew 5:21-26 Jesus starts out by telling us that murder is against the law.  This seems weird because it is kind of like duh.  In addition we know that murder is wrong and against the law and in reality none of us are thinking about going out and murdering someone.

But the next thing you know Jesus starts talking about being angry.  What we are reading when Christ starts talking about anger is that we have indeed misinterpreted the law.  Which is really no surprise because we do this quite often when we don’t want to obey scripture we just misinterpret it so it does not apply to us.  What we have done is taken the law and applied it to only murder to say well murder is really the sin but that is not what Christ teaches us.

You see murder runs so much deeper than the actual act of murder.  Murder is often hidden within us and anger is murder.  Have you ever thought that anger is a sin.  I remember thinking I had righteous anger once and a young lady checked me on it.  I of course at that time defended myself but later came to realize she was right how could I say I had a right to be angry.  Anger and its components is sin bitterness, indignation, striking out against someone, slandering someone, saying things that hurt others, saying things that will cause someone to think negative of someone else, rage, desiring hurt for someone else, killing another person’s happiness these are all sin.  and it does not matter how much we try to justify it they are all sin.

In addition we see the progression of anger in these verses.  When we do not deal with anger or the components as mentioned above it just sits in us and festers up.  Soon we cant forget what someone has done to us and soon all we want is revenge.  We want that person to pay.

Secondly the next thing we know is our has caused us to despise others.  Now we begin to make fund of and belittle other people every chance we get.  We are so filled with pride that we think we can get away with our sinful behavior.  Now we are waling all over and trampling others and we literally begin to tell ourselves that the person we are angry with deserves any bad thing that may happen to them.

Finally when not dealt with he move to the point that our anger causes us to try to destroy another person and their reputation.  We want to destroy them morally, intellectually, and spiritually.

All too often we try to justify our anger.  We think somehow we have the right to be angry with someone because after all they hurt us or they did something to us.  Yet how often Christ forgives us when we have continually turned our back on Him.  Too often Christians have hurt feelings between each other or neighbors, or spouses, or friends and they refuse to deal with their feelings.  Instead they have anger and in reality murder in their heart.

Here is the deal.  God’s word makes it clear that our anger will be judged and yet we refuse to do anything about it.  He even makes it clear that our anger is judged by danger of hell fire.  Yet we justify our anger and excuse.  We justify our unforgiveness  and think it is ok.  Now before you think I have done nothing wrong you need to bear with me.

Here is the deal if we have anger or unforgiveness then we need to be reconciled.  In fact reconciliation must always precede worship.  In fact even if we are waling into church to worship and realize there is a problem with a brother or sister we need to turn around from worship and be reconciled.  Christ is saying that reconciliation is more important than worship.  How often do we his our unforgiviness in worship.  We go to church and we sing nice little worship songs that make us feel all nice and warm inside, we may even raise our hands and its all fake because deep down inside we have unfrogiveness in our heart and therefore our worship is in vain.

God does not accept the worship of a person that has anger or unforgiveness in their heart towards him or towards any of His people.  If we have broken fellowship with others we have broken fellowship with God.  If we are not right with another person then we are not right with God.  If we have bad feelings towards another person that we have bad feelings towards God.  This is strong.  We cant just hope to be right with God when we are no right with others.  If we want to be reconciled with God we must be reconciled with God.

Instead of thinking about the damage that we feel has been done to use we must be reconciled to others.  If not we are merely wasting our time.  I cant help but think how often I have come into worship God in vain all because of unfrogiveness.  What is wrong with picking up a phone, or writing an email, or writing a letter.

I know what it is like to feel wronged and still ask forgiveness, and not have it recriprocated but that is what I love about about verse 23 is it does not tell us if we remember that we have a problem with out brother but it says we remember our brother has a problem with us.  Man that blows me away.  If we remember that our brother has a problem with us then we are supposed seek reconciliation.

I just want to challenge you if you have unforgiveness in your heart or you know someone is upset with you why not get make it right?  Just some thoughts from a former Youth Pastor and a future Pastor.

I was meaning to take some time to write about my Missions Trip to El Salvador and that is still in my plans and I will blog about this later.  However I wanted to take some time to just speak to God’s blessings in my life.  Some people might thing well how can you possibly be blessed?  After all I have not been in full time ministry for over a year (which has not been from lack of offers), and there are various other things that have happened in my life that would cause anyone from a worldly focus to think “that guys life is messed up.”

The other night I spoke to the teens about the cross.  In my preparation for that message I saw more and more of my Savior’s love for me.  I began to see my problems for exactly what they are, which is very minuscule in light of eternity and in light of what Christ has done for me.  I think about the fact that I have a wonderful family, a wonderful church, and some wonderful new friends and old ones.

Over these last several months there have been times when I have wondered if I was going to have enough finances to get through.  There were times we have been literally down to our last few dollars and every time I have seen an unexpected blessing.  One time I was asked to speak at a revival and really was just hoping to get my gas money back but I was blessed in an unbelievable way that really helped us out and helped us get some things for my family.  I signed up to go to El Salvador and once again the money came in for me to go on this trip and it was completely paid for.  Then just recently we were running out of money and I get a phone call and some one had given a gift for my family.  My God is amazing and he has bless me greatly.  I have felt so much love in the last year and half that it has been absolutely amazing.  All of this to simply say I am so blessed.  Even when times are bad and hard and difficult I am so blessed.