As I go through life and I spend more and more time in the ministry I begin to realize just how alive and current the Bible actually is. To see the pages unfold before your very eyes is an awesome thing. I love to hear from God and to be cradled in His arms during times in which I feel the circumstances are unbearable or so tough that I want to quit.  It is so sad that the majority of Christians don’t spend time in their Bible everyday and don’t know how truly relevant those sacred pages are.

 There have been times recently that I have cried out to Him and He then answered and just that fact that He was listening was encouraging and powerful.  Not to mention that He was working and there was a result to my cries.  To be part of something where God moving is great, but to be a witness to God working in your own life is a simple reminder that He is real!

 As I was reading in the Gospel of John today I was struck with the fact that over the past 2000 years there has been some huge leaps in the corporate body of Christ but then again we are also the same as those listed in the pages of scripture.  I was reading about the religious and how they are focused on so much of what the law states and living according to a list of rules and making sure that the outside appears a certain way that they can totally miss Jesus.

In the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John it tells us of the account of a woman that has been caught in adultery.  Now I will stop right there and make my first point.  What does it take to have an adulterous relationship?  Two People!  Notice that in this section of scripture the religious people of the day only brought the woman…

 ³The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst ⁴they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.

Now this leads us to several speculations…
     1.  The religious leaders knew the man involved in the affair and did not want it to become public knowledge basically protecting him.
     2.  One of the religious leaders was actually the man involved in the affair.  I have read some scholars that believe that a number of the leaders were probably involved with her.  And wanting to protect themselves from shame didn’t bring up who the male was.
     3.  That because of society and its rules at the time the male was just seen as “being a male” and not actually committing any sort of crime against the law of God or man.

 It makes sense to me that it was probably 1 or 2 but none the less scripture does not say for sure these are only speculations based upon what Jesus is about to do.  But first let’s continue on to talk about their purpose for bringing this woman in front of Jesus.  See the religious want to focus on the sins of others and focus on the areas of others that failure can be exploited so that the light is not on them and their sin and their failures.  As we look at these religious leaders they are trying to trap Jesus into a situation that they can manipulate and basically take power back from Him. 

 Jesus was becoming very popular because He was a Spirit-filled teacher, a healer, and one who was giving a new type of life that was freeing people not confining them a set of rules and regulations.   See the religious want something that man can measure through awards or accolades or even through other men’s opinions.  I was given a great analogy by a friend this past week.  And it goes something like this…sometimes you will see someone build a house and from a distance the house looks big and fancy and it gives people the impression that the family has money and gives them a certain amount of prestige.  But in all actuality if you actually drive up to the house you will see that it is a mess and the luster has worn off.  And then when you dig a little deeper the family is actually a mess with a marriage that is fractured and children that are unruly and always a menace.   And that is exactly what Jesus warns us about in Matthew chapter 23.

 ²⁵“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. 

 We see how the Pharisees we more concerned with trapping Jesus and proving themselves to be “Right” rather than actually listening to what Jesus was saying.  They wanted to be superior by proving that they were better than her. 

 We unfortunately are in the same place in the American corporate body of Christ (in my Opinion.)  We are so quick to judge people based upon our standards, or we begin to believe that it is our place to judge and take action when indeed it is God’s.  We have people in leadership today who talk and live two different things.  They will criticize people for doing this or that and chances are it is in their own life. 

 What I love about this section of scripture is Jesus’ response; we see that without saying a word He (Jesus) began to write in the dirt.  He then told them to let the one without sin throw the first stone and then He continued to write in the dirt.  Now we don’t know what He wrote but the next thing that we see is that the Pharisees started to leave one by one.  I would love to think that He was writing their sin in the dirt for everyone to see, but that is a fleshly human response.   See, what Jesus is doing here is that He is reminding them that He is the one that make someone righteous, not the fact that they keep some sort of code or rules. 

He is also reminding them that they too have sin in their life, and this is the key point and final thought for this blog at least.  We as Christians are so quick to judge others by their sin without really examining ours.  We are like the man in the temple that prayed “Thank you God that I am not like that sinner over there”; instead of being like the man over there which was really repenting of his sin and dealing with the issues in his life. 

 So, I encourage you to remember that church is about Love, Grace, Mercy, Correction, Restoration, and Forgiveness.  Because that is what Jesus modeled for us!  He showed us those very things by going to the cross for sins that He did not commit.  So before you judge, slander, ridicule, or look down upon or take the adulterer before Christ arrogantly looking for judgment to be brought upon her; remember that He can make some great “Dirt Art” with your skeletons as well!

God Bless ~ Pastor Tyler

OK, so last night I had an epiphany.  And here is what I want to do but this is going to need your help.  I want to begin to write about the hard questions of Christianity, not whether or not this or that in Revelations is subjective or actual but “This is a situation that I face at work/home…what do I do?” type stuff. 

But to do this I am going to need you to write comments on this blog and shoot the questions over;   you can also use the contact us page to send them over.  This has the opportunity to be huge so I will write on them in the order that I receive them so be patient with me, ha ha ha.  I am not claiming to have the perfect answer but I know that God does so I will include a lot of scripture and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth. 

And for you pastors out there send me topics that you have dealt with in your church or in counseling (of course not specifics) that you think readers can benefit from.

I am excited to see where this goes, so keep up with us and send in those questions/thoughts!!

God Bless ~ Pastor Tyler

So I know that this is probably not proper in writing but I am going to start out by asking you a question.  Do the people around you and the people that know you well want to go to church because of you? Does your attitude, actions, re-actions, and habits draw people to church?  Or do they leave them with the thought “if that is where he/she goes to church I am not going there!”

Take a second and think back to high school or college during science class when the teacher or professor began to explain the litmus test. If you remember the litmus test is used by scientists to indicate whether a chemical is an acid or a base. So it is the means in which we can determine based upon criteria the makeup or the designation of a substance.

In society we have used this expression of the “litmus test” to explain many things that test circumstances or situations in our lives.  And in the same way we have a litmus test for our walk with Christ.  We have the Bible and the examples that are laid out for us to understand through its teachings.

And so we should look at the examples and then compare them to our own lives and grow and adjust according to the reflection.  For example, let us look at the first people to actually be called Christians.  They were gentiles (anyone who is not of Jewish decent) who were told about Christ and what He did and believed that He was the Messiah.

Now unfortunately over time, the word “Christian” has lost a great deal of its significance and is often used of someone who is religious or has high moral values but who may or may not be a true follower of Jesus Christ.  Many people who do not believe and trust in Jesus Christ consider themselves Christians simply because they go to church or they live in a “Christian” nation.  But going to church, serving those less fortunate than you, or being a good person does not make you a Christian. Going to church does not make you a Christian anymore than going to a garage makes you an automobile. Being a member of a church, attending services regularly, and giving to the work of the church does not make you a Christian.

The Bible teaches that the good works we do cannot make us acceptable to God. Titus 3:5 says, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” So, a Christian is someone who has been born again by God (John 3:3; John 3:7; 1 Peter 1:23) and has put faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:8 tells us that it is “by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

A true Christian is a person who has put faith and trust in the person and work of Jesus Christ, including His death on the cross as payment for sins and His resurrection on the third day. John 1:12 tells us, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” The mark of a true Christian is love for others and obedience to God’s Word (1 John 2:4, 10). A true Christian is indeed a child of God, a part of God’s true family, and one who has been given new life in Jesus Christ.

And it is in this new life that we as humans begin to mess it up.  We begin to make Christianity about us and not about Christ.  We make it about our religious acts and about the people who are behind the pulpit instead of about the God that humbly gave himself as a sacrifice for us.  And to make it worse we don’t do as the people from Antioch did and example our faith, we walk around with bad attitudes and we judge other people’s sin without being concerned about our own.   We assume that God got a good deal when He got us in His church instead of understanding that we are the ones that messed up the church.

So, let us go back to the idea of the litmus test.  As we take the scriptures and we apply them to our lives we must examine whether or not our actions, behaviors, and our speech reflects the fact that we do have a new life in Christ.  Would the people around you use your life as a litmus test for being a true follower of Christ?  When they see you at the grocery store shopping do they see Christ?  When they see you at the basketball game cheering do they see Christ?  When they see you at church is it different than when they see you out on Broadway?  I encourage you to seek Christ and His litmus test for your life.

 ⁷ Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
   at the presence of the God of Jacob,
⁸who turns the rock into a pool of water,
   the flint into a spring of water.            Psalm 114:7-8 ESV

There are several reasons that one might tremble.  First and foremost on that list of reasons would probably be fear.  That is probably the most typical response as to the question ”Why would you tremble?”.  And there is nothing wrong with the response as it is a very accurate statement.  And if we examine scriptures there are several places where it is discussed that someone or something trembled at the sight of or presence of God.  And that is without a doubt an appropriate response to those times.  To physically see God or to experience His power in a dramatic forum is an event that is life altering.   But I want to suggest that we should have a different response as believers that might warrant the number one response to be changed. 

As we have made the transition into Nebraska and into the town of Imperial we have been able to do some things that normally we would not of had the exposure to do.  One that is pertinent to this discussion would be the amount of time that we have spent in a combine picking corn.  Now to some of the readers this might seem somewhat boring or even drudging.  But to my four year old this is basically one of the pinnacles of his young life.  When I tell him that we are going out to ride the combine with Mr. Max or Mr. Kurt he literally begins to shake with excitement.  He cannot stand still and he definetly cannot stand in a stoic fashion as if he were a statue.  So here is my question and my point. 

As we read the verse above and review that we as believers serve a God who can turn flint (which is hard form of quartz rock…just in case you were wondering) into a spring of water shouldn’t we be trembling with excitement to go and spend time with Him?  Shouldn’t we be like my four year old who can’t even stand still when he finds out that we are going to the field?  Shouldn’t we be filled with such excitement at the fact that we are going to worship and hear from God that we cannot even stand still?  There are so many churches across America that will be filled each Sunday with individuals that act like they are at a funeral.  So, I pose this question to you for you to ponder and consider for your own life.  Do you tremble with the expectant excitement that you are going to be in the presence of the Almighty God each Sunday morning before church?  Secondly, do you feel the exact same way Monday thru Saturday?  Now I am not suggesting that you have to be running around like you hair is on fire every moment of everyday, but I am asking do you tremble in your spirit, in your heart, in your soul, as you reflect, consider, act upon the fact that God can take a hardened rock and turn it into water.  Because if He can do that then surely He can rescue us from the trials of life, He can fix any issue, and resolve any conflict.   He can restore any marriage, repair any heart, provide for any need, and love any unlovable. 

He is the Great  Mighty Living God that is concerned with your every breath. 
Now that is something to tremble about! 

God Bless ~ Pastor Tyler