Archive for September 2007
Here are all of the articles published in September 2007.
How Far Will You Go?
Posted: September 15, 2007
Category: Pastor Steve's Blog
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College and Professional football are finally under way. This is pretty exciting for those of us who are sports fans. I had thought that the biggest news from last week would have been the story about the Buffalo Bill player who was paralyzed while tackling a Denver Bronco. This was thought to have been a permanent condition and that he would never walk again. Fortunately, the reports are improving on this young man from Texas. But the big story ended up being about an excellent team, the New England Patriots, using cameras to steal signals from a mediocre New York Jets team. One question that comes to mind is, “Why would such an outstanding team bother to steal signals from a mediocre team?” Other questions come to mind… How long have they been doing this? Was this practice helping them to win their three super bowls? How many teams do this? Was the penalties given by the league fair and were they sufficient? How did the Jets coach know to notify the league? Did he know something from when he had been on staff with the Patriots himself? How far will you go to win a football game? So how far will you go?
It’s the same situation in every day life. How far will you go to gain advantage, to avoid pain, or just “to do better?” Sinful human nature has shown the ability to make the wrong choice over and over again. The Old Testament is full of examples of those who would go to far. Abraham, Isaac, and King David are just some of the examples that we see of those who went too far. King David was caught one time in a big failure. He wrote Psalm 51 as a reflection of what happened between him, his familiy, and His God. The Psalm is a great place to read about the journey from failture to forgiveness and faith.The Psalm really tells us about How Far God will go. God will go as far as it takes to reach us, when we’ve gone to far in our lives. Read the Psalm and find out how far your God will go. The youtube tape is someone’s funny take on a serious situation. It’s cute, but we have to remember that failure is never fun or funny.
A win is a win, right?
Posted: September 10, 2007
Category: Pastor Steve's Blog
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Yesterday, both the Denver Bronco’s and Houston Texans won. Good feelings abound for the Texans. Only the second time that they won their season opener. Offense played well, Defense played well. It was a convincing win over a team that is pretty so-so, but a win none the less. Denver wins on an exciting field goal that goes up as time expires. But, I’m left feeling like it was a defeat. Denver’s offense nearly doubled Buffalo’s output. We dominated in almost every category, except the fact that we nearly lost to a team that was inferior to our own. So, I’m questioning our team’s ability to reach the playoffs even more. Isn’t it amazing how our expectations can impact our feelings. We build expectations in every part of life and then develop emotions and reactions related to our expectations, many which are not even realistic. So, how do I deal with expectations of self, family, or even of God? What is it about being a sinful person that influences my expectations? How do I begin to build realistic expectations into my life? I’ll be trying to deal with that as we talk about God’s Sabbath rest in the next few weeks of sermons. A chance to talk about the balance of life between rest and work. Will we be too busy to come and meditate on God’s Word?
So who is Miss South Carolina?
Posted: September 1, 2007
Category: Pastor Steve's Blog
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Our society loves celebrities. We love to see the rich, beautiful, and successful showing off their gifts. We live vicariously through them. But, for some reason we also love to see them fall. This past week a pretty young lady from South Carolina messed up a question at the Miss Teen Beauty pageant. Her mistake landed on YouTube and ended up receiving millions of hits to watch her. She ended up on the Today show to share what happened to her at the key moment. What is it that causes us to be so interested in the rise and fall of these individuals? Does it reflect our own inner challenges? Does it have anything to do with our own struggles with success and failure There is another vicarious substitution that deals with our own inner struggle. Christ on the cross for us was more than a vicarious experience, it was a vicarious substitution for our failures, mistakes and hurts. Christ took it on (vicariously) and became our substitute for our reality and experiences. Holding to the cross is more than YouTube experience.
