Archive for the ‘Pastor’s Blog’ Category

So today we are going to review the first part of the definition of a relationship and that is a “Connection.”

This is where I will ask you to take a second and think back to when you first saw or spoke to your spouse or the first time that you laid eyes on your newborn infant. How you felt in the depth of your being a love that could not be questioned. That is a connection between you and that person. Do you remember that moment when you made that connection with Jesus?

Do you remember when you meet that girl or guy that made your heart skip a beat? That one that made you forget what you were doing because you couldn’t stop thinking about them? That’s a connection.

When is the last time that you felt that connection to Jesus? When did you lose track of time thinking, praying, or praising Him.

Please look at what David wrote in Psalm 150:

Praise the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and flute,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.

So, take a second search your heart and make a connection with Him. Take a walk and lose an hour or so of your day just thinking, praying, and worshiping HIM!

God Bless ~ Pastor Tyler

This seems like a truly simple word; doesn’t it? But as we all know it is anything but simple. To begin to truly understand anything you have to begin by defining it. I already did this for you:

Relationship:
a connection, association, or involvement

As I was pastoring in Nebraska I would routinely say to the congregation that Christianity was a relationship not a religion. I said it so much in fact that I have a t-shirt that says it (at least I know that some of them were paying attention.) But what my t-shirt and the statement neglect to do is explain it in a way that makes sense and that is applicable to ones life.

I would like to start by looking at it backwards. So much of our lives here in America do not cultivate healthy relationships. We as a society have adopted such a consumerism type mentality that we are constantly focused on more, more, more. And we have adopted this to the detriment of our relationships. Let me provide an example for you from my own life: I have a cell phone that calls, rings, texts, messengers, Send pictures, receives pictures, tweets, updates, surfs and at one time in my life when I would go on a date with my beautiful wife we could barely exchange a sentence without a buzz, chime, chirp, or ring interrupting. Now, I am an unimportant individual in the grand scheme of things, true I serve a Glorious God and that gives me value. But I am not a heart surgeon or a Governor of State so why do I need to know instantly that my friend 5 states away just got a hot dog at His favorite hot dog stand. However, I am in no way knocking technology…matter of fact for those of you that follow my twitter I am tweeting that I am blogging right now (see what I mean! Look how far it has gone.) But what it did do is put a little bit of seperation between my lovely wife and I as she was telling me about her day and I was telling my friend to make sure that he put relish on it?!? Really…?

So, we a few years back put into place a little agreement that on our dates phones stay put away and only checked to make sure the kids are OK.

At this point then we have to go back to the definition of relationship…a connection…an association…and an involvement. In the next couple of posts we are going to look at what it means to have a “relationship” with Christ. What it means to have a connection with Him, to have an association, and an involvement. And what does the Bible say about each of these and do we as people truly understand what that means?

God Bless
~ Pastor Tyler

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