Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

I want you to know how much I enjoy going to church.  Really, I don’t go to church.  I am a part of the church.  The church is that group of people who follow Jesus.  I learned that and like it.

I wanted to say thank you for letting me go.  I will probably go a few more years before I stop.  It’s not a thing that older people do.  It can’t be for real or you would go too, but it’s fun for now.

I believe in God and in Jesus and that he died to take away my sins, but that can’t mean too much or you would lead me to worship him.  It can’t be that important.

We make it to most of the ball games and town events and never miss a day of hunting season.  We go to the lake and never miss a game on the big screen.  If this worshiping God was important, we would do that too.  I trust you that it can’t be that important.  I trust you!

I know that your life is tough, and you are tired most of the time.  I guess that is what I will be soon, once I stop this Jesus stuff.  Really, what’s the point.  You have your reasons not to go.  I will just use your reasons in a few years.  I will be just like you.

I really enjoy the Christmas presents and other cool stuff that you get me, but all of that stuff just wears out over time.  They tell me that Jesus wants us to live forever with him.  I wish that were true, but I’m sticking with you and not buying this God loves me stuff.

I will keep going to worship and classes for now so you can have a break, but don’t worry.  One day I will be just like you and skip all of this God is love nonsense.  I know it can’t be true.  You tell me that you love me and these church folks tell me that God loves me.  I want to believe but I won’t betray you.  I will be just like you and start making my list of reasons not to give up my Sunday mornings to worship God.

If you don’t mind, I would like to keep going for a little while longer.  These people who are the church are always kind and loving to me.  The smile when they see me.  Most give me a hug.  They know what God says about just about everything.  They actually believe what God says.  It’s really cool stuff, but don’t worry, I won’t let you down.  I will stay away and be content in my reasons for not going soon enough.

I want to be just like you.

Love…

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

I want you to know how much I enjoy going to church.  Really, I don’t go to church.  I am a part of the church.  The church is that group of people who follow Jesus.  I learned that and like it.

I wanted to say thank you for letting me go.  I will probably go a few more years before I stop.  It’s not a thing that older people do.  It can’t be for real or you would go too, but it’s fun for now.

I believe in God and in Jesus and that he died to take away my sins, but that can’t mean too much or you would lead me to worship him.  It can’t be that important.

We make it to most of the ball games and town events and some of the school stuff.  We go to the store and never miss a birthday party.  If this worshiping God was important, we would do that too.  I trust you that it can’t be that important.  I trust you!

I know that your life is tough, and you are tired most of the time.  I guess that is what I will be soon, once I stop this Jesus stuff.  Really, what’s the point.  You have your reasons not to go.  I will just use your reasons in a few years.  I will be just like you.

I really enjoy the Christmas presents and other cool stuff that you get me, but all of that stuff just wears out over time.  They tell me that Jesus wants us to live forever with him.  I wish that were true, but I’m sticking with you and not buying this God loves me stuff.

I will keep going to worship and classes for now so you can have a break, but don’t worry.  One day I will be just like you and skip all of this God is love nonsense.  I know it can’t be true.  You tell me that you love me and these church folks tell me that God loves me.  I want to believe but I won’t betray you.  I will be just like you and start making my list of reasons not to give up my Sunday mornings to worship God.

If you don’t mind, I would like to keep going for a little while longer.  These people who are the church are always kind and loving to me.  The smile when they see me.  Most give me a hug.  They know what God says about just about everything.  They actually believe what God says.  It’s really cool stuff, but don’t worry, I won’t let you down.  I will stay away and be content in my reasons for not going soon enough.

I want to be just like you.

Love…

Are we ready to turn back to God?

God Bless America

JESUSAVES

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14

Who is ready for this?

Are we ready to turn back to God?

JESUSAVES

God Bless America

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14

Who is ready for this?

Through the storms

The day has come despite the storms of the night.

People so scared and in hiding just hoping for light.

But then the storm passes and you are alive.

Is it wrong to feel thankful when others did not survive?

How often we forget that today is a gift.

Tomorrow’s not promised—just this day to live.

But too often we forget the blessings of this day.

Until tragedy strikes and takes lives away.

It is a hard question to answer, but we still ask ‘why.’

Why must bad things happen, why must innocents die?

But until the story is finished and God says it’s complete,

We will still have sorrows and tears and things seem incomplete.

But there will come a day with a trump and a sigh,

Following silence in heaven as a short times passes by.

Then Jesus will come and claim all of his own.

And wipe tears from our eyes for every sadness we’ve known.

But until that day we must walk by faith and not sight.

We must shine in the darkness and bring forth his light.

Through storms and quakes and when disasters abound,

We must be still and know that God’s always around.

For those who have lost loved ones, property, and more

Don’t be discouraged for he knocks at the door.

And says come to him when you are burdened and he will give you rest.

For he desires that your heart not be troubled, but that it be blessed.

Amen.

An Homiletic journey through the Cumberland Presbyterian Confession of Faith

The Cumberland Presbyterian Confession of Faith (COF) begins with the gospel in miniature, that is, with John 3:16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

The Confession of Faith is a statement of what Cumberland Presbyterians believe.  Most people that attend Cumberland Presbyterian worship have probably not read the Confession of Faith—at least not start to finish.  Classes on the COF seldom draw a crowd.

What to do?

How about a homiletic rendering of the Confession of Faith? 

Without a line for line review of the COF, this sermon series hits the essence of each topical section of the basic theology of Cumberland Presbyterians.    Each article offers a chance for comments and discussion.

FIRST THINGS FIRST!  The first thing that you will want to do is bookmark this page so you may come back to whenever you want to.

1.00 GOD SPEAKS TO THE HUMAN FAMILY

The Living God and the Holy Scriptures

God’s will

More on God’s will

Creation

Providence

The Law of God and the Fabric of the Universe

2.00 THE HUMAN FAMILY BREAKS RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

Breaking up is hard to do

3.00  GOD ACTS THROUGH JESUS CHRIST TO RECONCILE THE WORLD

He took away our sin.  We are sinners no more

Christ the Savior

4.00  GOD ACTS THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Call and Work of the Holy Spirit

Repentance and Confession

Saving Faith

Our Tug of War with believing that God made us righteous

Understanding what it is to be a new creation

Sanctification and Growth in Grace

Preservation of believers and Christian Assurance

5.00  GOD CREATES THE CHURCH FOR MISSION

God creates the church for mission

Christian Communion

Christian Worship

Sacraments

Baptism

The Lord’s Supper

The Church in Mission

Church Government and Judicatories

6.00 CHRISTIANS LIVE AND WITNESS IN THE WORLD

Christian Freedom

Good Works

Christian Stewardship (Time)

Christian Stewardship (Talent)

Christian Stewardship (Treasure)

Marriage and Family

The Lord’s Day

Lawful Oaths and Vows

Civil Government

7.00  GOD CONSUMMATES ALL LIFE AND HISTORY

Death and Resurrection

Judgment and Consummation

A stop along the way

For further consideration:  Res Judicata

Read the entire Confession of Faith.

COF FAQs

What is the purpose of the Confession of Faith?

It has a stated two-fold purpose.  First, it is to provide a means whereby those who have been saved, redeemed, and reconciled by God through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit understand and affirm their faith.

Next, it is to bear witness to God’s saving activity in such a way that those who have not been saved, redeemed, and reconciled might believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and experience salvation.

That’s mighty fancy language.  Can you put it another way?

The Confession of Faith is an affirmation of ancient truth in contemporary language.

Does the COF have an organizing principle?

Yes.  It is to testify to what God has done and is doing in the world to accomplish the redemption of his children by telling the story that the Bible tells the way the Bible tells it.

Does the COF have any impact on God’s people or the church?

There is a direct relationship between the church’s confession of faith and her life and witness as a people in covenant with God and each other.  The faith of the church orders and shapes the life of the people of God—their mission, their government, their worship, and the orderly conduct of the church’s affairs.

Do Cumberland Presbyterians worship the COF?

No.  We worship God.

Does the COF replace the Bible?

No.  The COF should clarify many biblical accounts and make the reader hungry to read and understand more of God’s word.

Do all denominations have a Confession of Faith?

No.  Different denominations observe different traditions in professing what they believe.

0 = 2: Go figure???

The mathematical formula is correct.  How can it get this result?

X = 0	Given (your starting point)
X-1 = -1	Subtract 1 from both sides of the equation
(X-1)2 = (-1)2	Square both side
X2 - 2X + 2 = 2	Results of squaring both sides
X2 - 2X = 0	Subtract 2 from both sides
X2 = 2X	Add 2X to both sides
X = 2	Divide by X

Therefore:  0 = 2

Double and triple check this all you want.  Every calculation is correct with the alphanumeric elements provided.  What is not correct is the premise that you can multiply 0 by anything and return a value of anything other than zero.  The third step does this.  Once the false premise is accepted, anything after that may be proved true.

Be careful to examine the premise before you invest too much time in your calculations.

It should not come as a surprise that most Christians construct their theology and doctrine this way.  We cherry pick our verses and construct God and Jesus, Heaven and Hell, life and death, and so many other things without understanding the most basic premise.

We must trust God in everything we do.

He will make our paths straight.

Do you trust God or your doctrine?

Who will love these children?

Children walk to church

In the cold

In the rain

Often with parents unaware

Of where they are

Or why they are there

Cars park far away from the church building

Kids get out

And run for where they will find love

The car speeds away

Lest someone speak with them

Or invite them to stay

Kids come having no boundaries on their lives

Parents often don’t care

Some just don’t know what to do

But the parents will not accompany their children

For fear of hearing the truth

Their kids are just not worth it

The firm direction of a pastor or an elder

May be the only taste of discipline they know

May be the only real love they have tasted

The command to love one another

Is a foreign language to a child brought up in a sea of selfishness

Is a huge step to think of others first

Hope and despair walk side-by-side through the church doors on Wednesday evening

The anticipation of real love in one set of eyes

A spirit of rebellion in another

Who will answer the call to be love as God is love

The harvest is plentiful

The workers are few

Yet the remnant that persists thrives on hope

Lives with courage

Encourages others

Those whom God has called and do not come

Live with busyness

But not fulfillment

It hurts so much to see children growing up without love

Throw away kids

Kids left to fend for themselves

It hurts more to see those whom God has called

Stay on the sidelines

Surrender their lives to busyness

For all who come will be filled

With God’s love

With a renewed spirit

All who come and are completely spent when they arrive

Will leave full of energy

Will find that God will refill and renew whatever is used up

We who should lead will never find abundance in timidity

Only in giving do we gain

Only in serving do we grow

We who should say follow me to the One I serve

Can find no peace in excuses

Wonder why love does not abound in their lives

How will those who do not know love come to know love

When God’s people sit this one out

When the followers of Jesus are on an extended break

How will we answer the question, “What did you do with what I gave you?’

By hanging our heads

Or in expectation of sharing our Master’s happiness

We were not made to feel guilty

But to be God’s love

But to fully live

We are made to put God first in everything

In our life

In the lives of others

We see the children of our community living in households of rebellion

And say, “How pitiful.”

And think, “Something should be done.”

But we are the ones to lead the lost to the light of love

By going into the community with the good news

By being present when the children come seeking love.

So let us be love

As God is love

As we are commanded to be love

So let us be love

Without excuse

Without fail

Amen

God Loves You

It is a simple message but one that we all need to hear daily.

It is a simple message but one that our children really need to hear time and time again.

It is a simple message for a complicated world.

What’s the message?

God loves you.

So I wrote a simple book.

It’s designed to be read to your children until they can read it on their own.

It’s about God’s love.

Even if you don’t buy, borrow, or steal the book, tell your kids that you love them and that God loves them.

Tell them often.

Put a note in your son’s backpack.

Send your daughter a letter.

Write it on a cupcake.

God Loves You!

That’s forever.

Read God Loves You on Kindle.

How many first century Christians are in hell?

How many first century Christians are in hell?

Modern day Christians most often look to John for the plan of salvation.  What about those first century believers that that heard the good news from those who repeated what we now have in Matthew, Mark, or Luke?

What about those who attended the church in Jerusalem?  With James as the head of this church, how much did he preach about Jesus?  James speaks to those who are servants and believers in Jesus Christ in his letter to the Diaspora.   Surely John didn’t get to all of those places first?

None of the synoptic gospels have the equivalent of what we find in John 3:16  or Romans 10:9-10.  We just don’t see the command to confess Jesus as Lord before a person can receive salvation.  What happened to those people who heard the good news as it was captured in Matthew, Mark, and Luke?  Were they condemned because they only had part of the story?

Did Matthew shortchange those who heard him speak because he spent too much time on beatitudes and teachings and not enough on being born again?

Mark is probably the recording of Peter’s gospel.  Peter—the rock—Dude, how could you miss this?

How could Luke repeat stories about Jesus that said a man could have eternal life if he loved the Lord with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind and love his neighbor as himself?  It’s right there at the beginning of the parable  of the Good Samaritan. 

Luke was likely a very educated man who ministered with Peter and with Paul.  How could he not have included such life saving language?

Some might say that when Jesus said love the Lord he meant love Jesus and that’s close enough to professing Jesus is Lord.  Was Jesus then master of the parable but inept and finding the right word for himself?  Surely not!  He used the Son of Man, Son of God, and the One sent by God very fluidly in the context of his teaching and discussions.

Were only those who heard the good news from John or Paul truly saved?

Or have we taken the good news of Jesus Christ and doctrinalized it to the point where only one formula works?

Have we become modern day Pharisees?

Will one who truly loves God not come to know Christ?  Would God invalidate the relationship on a technicality?  Would God call us to recannonize the Bible today and discard all but John’s gospel?

Were all of the disciples not commissioned to take the good news to the world?

We are blessed to have 66 books of the Holy Bible.  God set these apart for us as scripture.  He used a bunch of flawed men to canonize them, but he has a habit of doing that.  Abram was something of a liar, Moses a murderer, David an adulterer, and the list goes on.

Today we are blessed to have the Bible that we have, but it has not always been so ubiquitous.  Did God not find a way for flawed people to spread good news before we published all 66 in a collection?

Do we discount John’s gospel as too restrictive?

By no means!  It is the shortest distance between two points.  It is the most direct route to salvation.  It is the first book I tell new believers to read.  But I do tell them to read the rest of the gospels later on.  These other gospels cannot be relegated to just books on how to live or an account of the life of Jesus.  These words brought good news and salvation to many as well.

Is the question academic to the current generation as we have been privileged to easy access to the complete Bible all of our lives?

Perhaps.

But to give John’s gospel such preeminence is to discount the search for salvation and good news in the other gospels.

Does this in any way lessen the passion and urgency with which we take messages that we have learned from John’s gospel and Paul’s letters to the world in which we live?

Not at all!

But it does open our eyes to the truth.  Sometimes we have excluded much of God’s word from the truth because we as modern day Pharisees must fit all of God’s word into our comfort zone.

I remember a Marine Corps fashion statement from over 30 years ago when I was a second lieutenant at the Basic School in Quantico, Virginia.  Marines teach fashion?  Absolutely!  Nobody does camouflage like we do.

The advice I received from one of the captains assigned to teach us was to dress comfortably cool.  You always needed a reason to generate a little body heat.  Some comfort was good.  Too much put you to sleep.  You needed to be able to get up and move out without getting overheated.

We too should have comfort and assurance in our salvation.  God really does love us.  He really has preserved us.  He is surely not finished with that for which we have been predestined.

But we should not shrink back into our comfort zone.  God has much to teach us about his Love.

Paul had great anguish that Israel appeared to be lost.  They had rejected Christ.  But they had surely not been hung out to dry.

Let us read every gospel with the expectation of finding the good news that Jesus commissioned those first disciples to proclaim.

I don’t think that anyone who heard the good news from any of the commissioned was deprived of life saving information. 

OK, so how many first century Christians are in hell?

What an absurd provocation.  Why would anyone even ask this?

Because today we are quick to assign God’s judgment and threaten a person with hell when we are commission to spread good news.  We are commissioned to tell of life in Christ and salvation through faith in him.  We are commission to make disciples, baptize, and teach.

Somewhere along the way we decided that no one would respond to the grace of God unless we scared the hell out of them.

Is love not stronger than fear?

Can you really confess Jesus is Lord out of fear?

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge, but does the fear of hell make for a true confession?

Read the gospel that John wrote.  Preach salvation through Christ alone.  Then read the rest of the Bible not trying to make it fit into your comfort zone.

It will be a challenge.

More than that, it will be a blessing.

Is Heaven Real?

Here is something to think about!

What do you think?

Here is a link to another video concerning this boy and the sister he met in heaven.