Life Goes On

I read a statement the other day that if people learned to deal with guilt and un-forgiveness, our hospitals would be relatively empty. It reminded me of the book by Dr. Carl Meninger entitled "What Ever Happened to Sin?" This morning I had a woman in my office dealing with what she perceived to be guilt over the death of her 27 year old daughter. The daughter died of a brain aneurysm. I explained to her that there was no way she could have prevented such an unfortunate death even if she had been sitting in the room with her daughter at the time. As we continued to talk about the myriad problems the woman had, I suggested that perhaps her guilt was connected to something else, but had just manifested at the death of her daughter. Immediately she said, "That's it!" I explained that when there is un-confessed sin in our lives that we have neglected or refused to acknowledge that "guilt" is really conviction, and sometimes manifests attached to som...

You've heard the old sayings "What goes around comes around." and "There's nothing new under the sun." It occurred to me this week that modern society gives credence to these adages. The original sin was launched by the question, "Did God really say 'You can't eat from any tree in the garden?'" That seemingly innocuous question put a doubt in Eve's mind that led to her succumbing to the temptation to check to see if God was really serious about His admonition. Unfortunately for her, and for all mankind, He was very serious. All the enemy had to do was raise a doubt. We still face the same question over and over today in many ways. Some examples are: The speed limit; conventional wisdom says that the posted sign of 70 mph allows you to go at least 75 without fear of being caught. Lying: we have created incremental lying; white lies, fibs, lies, and big honking lies. Theft: It is OK to take someone's work by plagiarizing...

I love that phrase! It causes me to bring everything down to the simplest common denominator. I've just finished outlining a sermon from Matthew 5:31-48. This passage deals with some of the more difficult teachings of Jesus. He was answering His critics who were accusing Him of changing or dismissing the laws of Moses. Here He deals with divorce, using oaths, retaliation, and treatment of enemies. The last line of the passage is the "cut to the chase" statement. "Be perfect therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." Wow!!! Two by four to the face! When you stop to think about it, how could a perfect God set any standard for His followers that is less than perfect? The moment He does so, He becomes less than perfect. The beauty of this command is that Jesus has met the standard on our behalf. Just as He paid the sin-debt owed by all mankind, He has met the impossible standard of Godly perfection and applied it to our account. Can I be perfect? ...

I've learned a lot lately from King David. I just today completed reading through 2 Samuel. The final chapter presented a strange scenario. In the 1st verse we're told that, "The anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them..." What David did was order a census, or numbering of the people. This served a no practical purpose if David was trusting God for protection and deliverance in battle as he had done in the past. This act meant that David had moved from trusting the Lord to trusting the number of fighting men he had in his standing army. By verse 10 David figured out that he had sinned by ceasing to trust God. However, the damage had been done. Although he confessed and repented, there was a price to pay for his unbelief, and God gave him a choice of punishments. David chose the one which put the people of Israel in the hands of God for discipline. The end result was that 70,000 people died in a plague. The lesson I...