2 Corinthians 6:1. Companions as we are in this work with you, we beg you, please don’t squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us.
2. God reminds us, I heard your call in the nick of time; The day you needed me, I was there to help.
3. Don’t put it off; don’t frustrate God’s work by showing up late, throwing a question mark over everything we’re doing.
4. Our work as God’s servants gets validated – or not – in the details. People are watching us as we stay at our post, alertly, unswervingly . . . in hard times, tough times, bad times;
5. when we’re beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late, working without eating;
6. with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love;
7. when we’re telling the truth, and when God’s showing his power; when we’re doing our best setting things right;
8. when we’re praised, and when we’re blamed; slandered, and honored; true to our word, though distrusted;
9. ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive, though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die;
10. immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many; having nothing, having it all.
11. Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life.
12. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way.
13. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!
14. Don’t become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not partnership; that’s war. Is light best friends with dark?
15. Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands?
16. Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God’s holy Temple? But that is exactly what we are, each of us a temple in whom God lives. God himself put it this way: “I’ll live in them, move into them; I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people.
17. So leave the corruption and compromise; leave it for good,” says God. “Don’t link up with those who will pollute you. I want you all for myself.
18. I’ll be a Father to you; you’ll be sons and daughters to me.”
I was so busy during the Baby Food Giveaway that I didn’t get pictures with my camera so the pictures shown are of the volunteers posing. We had lots of volunteers and that made the giveaway go smoothly. It really was a privilege to be able to give food away to families who could really use it! I’m sure more pics are to come. We have video as well. Here’s a tiny glimpse at the crew.
Pastor Dave Morse is the most amazing Sunday School teacher on the planet. Last week our Kingdom Kidz began learning about Noah building the ark. This week they were they were learning about being secure in the flood.
Pastor Dave brought them a modern day Noah’s ark. A Land Yacht. They loaded up on the ark to be secure from the flood. Ana Valencia came along during the lesson and began to knock, “Please, please let me in!” “No”, was the answer as she had missed her opportunity. I believe this was a lesson our children will never forget.
The kingdom moves forward when teachers like Pastor Dave take such a love for the children and their spiritual foundation. When I spoke to the children they told stories about how Noah was safe and secure in the ark when the flood came because he listened to God! Praise God for Pastor Dave!
Special thanks to Toscano RV for the use of the Airstream Land Yacht! We appreciate you!
There is an addiction going on in the church. It’s not talked about much because up until now we were trying to keep it on the down low. We didn’t want people to know about this dirty little secret. Yet, Christians are being lured into it at alarming rates. It spreads quickly and before you know it, you’ve caught this insidious addiction. It’s called spiritual pornography or SP.
If you answer yes to two or more of these questions then you may have SP.
I attend church pretty much every Sunday.
The church is well staffed and so I don’t participate in any ministry per se.
I don’t belong to any of the small group studies.
I don’t attend special services.
I don’t know the names of at least 10 people at my church.
I believe volunteers at church are just trying to kiss up to the Pastor.
I don’t have any more time to offer other than attending Sunday service.
I attend to see what everyone is wearing.
The symptoms of SP mimic that of its worldly counterpart, Internet Pornography or more widely known as IP. Like IP just watching other people stimulates those with SP. Like IP people with SP have a problem with intimacy and it’s just easier to watch others participate rather than do the work to develop intimacy. SP makes you become apathetic to the body of Christ and you prefer to sit in the pew. People with SP never speak about their faith and are closet churchgoers. SP causes insomnia as the only place people with SP can sleep is at church while the Pastor is preaching.
Now researchers have developed a cure. It’s called Get Off Derriere. In proven studies GOD has been shown to stop all symptoms of SP making you once again experience the full life you were called to lead. In a recent clinical study, when taken daily, GOD was able to remove all symptoms of SP leaving people in a more peaceful state.
Side effects may vary; check with your Pastor if you should experience any of the following symptoms as a change in dosage may be required:
Butt is permanently glued to the pew
Your apathy causes you to forget to take your daily dose of God daily
Laziness makes movement impossible
Don’t suffer any longer with SP. There is a cure!
GOD
*Brought to you by the Trinity Lab Corporation. TLC – it’s not just for Sunday’s anymore.
On Saturday I attended a birthday party of a great woman in the Lord. While I was there people were mingling about both family and friends. Some were saved and some not. It was a great mix of people. They all made me feel welcome into their family.
After being there about an hour and meeting a really great couple who had just come back from a trip to Vegas to get tattoos, which were fabulously done by the way, by Hart and Huntington (a very cool shop in the tattoo world) another family member came up to the table I was sitting at to say hello to the people she knew there. I was introduced as, “This is my Pastor, Susan Young.” The woman said hello and was talking when all of a sudden in mid-sentence she said,
“Did you say Pastor?” The other woman said, “Yeah.” She exclaimed, “Oh Sh**! and I’m here with a beer.”
She begins to try to hide her beer behind her back as she apologizes to me and I see her discomfort. I smiled and quietly said, “It’s okay and you’re fine. The bible says nothing about drinking a beer; it’s being drunk which is the issue. I am not here to stone you.” She smiled and instantly seemed to relax, she still left quickly, but later came back and sat down to talk. It makes me think though, why the reaction? Pastor Doug says it’s because we have the Holy Spirit and therefore conviction follows. That is a part of it, but also it’s because
we judge.
It makes me very uncomfortable when people feel weird around me. Did they have that reaction with Jesus? When he talked to sinners did they squirm and run and hide, or was he so captivating and loving that they accepted his invitation to talk, and to learn about his beliefs, and why he believed them. I am not talking about the demon possessed either, just normal people. Did the conversation and the man’s presence change them? I believe it did.
This woman’s language didn’t burn my ears. I am a word person, cussing doesn’t offend me when adults say it. The word CONVERSATE offends me more because it’s a non word! Her beer didn’t offend me. Personally, I think beer taste horribly and I don’t know why people drink it, the taste makes me shudder, but simply because it’s not my thing.
How many times have I walked into a room and the room hushed since I’ve been in ministry? It’s been too many times. Why? Because whatever it was they were doing they felt they couldn’t do in front of me. How many times has someone said a cuss word and then looked at me red-faced and said, “Sorry.” In those instances when they KNOW that I am a pastor and they are SAVED it’s a whole different ballgame. Then I believe it’s conviction but when it’s an unsaved person I wonder if they don’t know any better. The only thing they know is that Christians are judgmental. Why is it that people freak out when a person in ministry is near? Should they not be drawn to us by our love?
At the end of this encounter, I pray I showed Jesus to the woman with the beer, and as I left she asked where our church was located. Maybe I’ll see her someday. I pray I do. In the meantime, I was there to celebrate a birthday and be light in the dark, not by my judgment but rather by my love. Not by my tolerance of sin but my acceptance of those who don’t yet know Christ but will by my example.
I left the birthday party and went to the grocery store. As I was wandering the aisles two teens were in front of me. I have to admit, I notice where bodies are in relation to me but I don’t notice who those bodies are. In other words, I know people are in front of me but I don’t look to see who they are. This gets me in trouble a lot of the times. So the only reason why I know it was a boy and a girl was that the girl was cussing stupidly as only teens do. Every other word is a cuss word because they can. I noted that one of them used to come to church. I tried to make eye contact but he was having none of it. When the one who used to come to church finally said, “Hey, don’t cuss, that lady is a pastor”, now the talk got ugly as the words began to spew from this other teen’s mouth. She didn’t give a F*** who I was she was going to F-ing cuss if she wanted to– and well, you get the gist. Okay, in that instance it was a total different response from me. I didn’t even try to speak to them. Instead I began to pray for them. Wow, how incredibly sad that she despised authority and had not ever been taught respect for adults. I felt bad that their parents had been too busy to instill the moral character that it’s going to take to make it in society. They have a big wake up call coming. I did notice however that she wasn’t yet woman enough to face me. She said all of this as she walked away from me making sure she was yelling in the store and making sure all the people in the vicinity knew that she had been raised by wolves!
Two encounters, two different reactions to my presence, and I had two different reactions, all in the course of one day.
Nowhere in Scripture do I see a “balanced life with a little bit of God added in” as an ideal for us to emulate. Yet when I look at our churches, this is exactly what I see: a lot of people who have added Jesus to their lives. People who have, in a sense, asked Him to join them on their life journey, to follow them wherever they feel they should go, rather than following Him as we are commanded. The God of the universe is not something we can just add to our lives and keep on as we did before. The Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is not someone we can just call on when we want a little extra power in our lives. Jesus Christ did not die in order to follow us. He died and rose again so that we could forget everything else and follow Him to the cross, to true Life. –Francis Chan author of Forgotten God Reversing Our Tragic Neglect Of The Holy Spirit.
Psalm 66:1. All together now – applause for God!
2. Sing songs to the tune of his glory, set glory to the rhythms of his praise.
3. Say of God, “We’ve never seen anything like him!” When your enemies see you in action, they slink off like scolded dogs.
4. The whole earth falls to its knees – it worships you, sings to you, can’t stop enjoying your name and fame.
5. Take a good look at God’s wonders – they’ll take your breath away.
6. He converted sea to dry land; travelers crossed the river on foot. Now isn’t that cause for a song?
7. Ever sovereign in his high tower, he keeps his eye on the godless nations. Rebels don’t dare raise a finger against him.
8. Bless our God, O peoples! Give him a thunderous welcome!
9. Didn’t he set us on the road to life? Didn’t he keep us out of the ditch?
10. He trained us first, passed us like silver through refining fires,
11. Brought us into hardscrabble country, pushed us to our very limit,
12. Road-tested us inside and out, took us to hell and back; Finally he brought us to this well-watered place.
13. I’m bringing my prizes and presents to your house. I’m doing what I said I’d do,
14. What I solemnly swore I’d do that day when I was in so much trouble:
15. The choicest cuts of meat for the sacrificial meal; Even the fragrance of roasted lamb is like a meal! Or make it an ox garnished with goat meat!
16. All believers, come here and listen, let me tell you what God did for me.
17. I called out to him with my mouth, my tongue shaped the sounds of music.
18. If I had been cozy with evil, the Lord would never have listened.
19. But he most surely did listen, he came on the double when he heard my prayer.
20. Blessed be God: he didn’t turn a deaf ear, he stayed with me, loyal in his love. -“The Message”
Galatians 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another.
Do you ever feel trapped? Sometimes, I look at our saltwater tank in our family room and I think of the vast ocean where these fish were made to be, deserve to be and there is part of me that feels bad that the fish are trapped in 180 gallons of water. It seems like a lot of water and they seem happy to be fed everyday but I wonder what they would do in the ocean? Would they swim around in 180 gallons of sea or would they venture out past the boundaries and check things out? Just like those fish we find ourselves trapped in a limited space.
Only unlike those fish we can choose to swim beyond what we’ve always known and test the waters of the vast ocean of opportunity set before us. Freedom of a multitude of choices is the benefit of being human. Maybe we just want to explore the possibilities that are set out before us, only what keeps us from moving out into the great unknown? Fear. Fear and freedom are two opposing words.Fear keeps us from exploring what the Lord has for us.
My mom is a play it safe kinda gal. She’s been a great mom, in her, I know there is security and love and warmth and a safe place to fall if I need to. I know she isn’t going skydiving anytime soon and her big adventures consists of an occasional cruise or an occasional nickel or quarter slot machine in Vegas. She sees danger around the corner and as her daughter, she is always saying to me things like, “You are crazy! You need to remember you have kids!” Mostly it’s when I say things like, I went snorkeling in the Carribbean, (she sees sharks), or parasailing, (she sees a me crashing into the ocean), or a preaching trip to Africa, (she sees me being eaten by a lion) and when I told her that there were signs saying “Beware of Baboons” in Africa, she said, “Well, you BETTER be careful!”, in her mom voice which means business! When my daughter Casey went off to Midwest for college, my mom said, “Are you nuts? That’s too far!” And yet, she is proud of her girls on some levels. There is a streak of adventure in her as she sees an airplane up in the sky and says, “I’d sure like to be on that plane going wherever it’s going.” In those moments her sarcastic daughter (me) wants to say, “What if it’s going to AFRICA?!”
I think she found happiness in her life. She has been bold in her career as moved up the corporate ladder. She loved her career in banking and as promotions and new offers came in she never hesitated to take them. She showed me that my potential was only limited by my fear to go for it!
So where are you today? Are you swimming around in that 180 gallon tank of your life looking past the glass wishing, thinking about, but never taking the chance to swim past? Ask yourself, what the worst that could happen could be? You may fail and have to go back to the tank, but you might make it, and swim past things you never even knew existed. Are you living your life to its full potential or are you allowing fear to trap you? Resolve to live your life without regrets of things you should have done.
Take a chance to travel, take a chance to change careers, if your heart really wants to, take a chance in your life! You may find the freedom you were called to. Listen to that still small voice in your heart that leads the way to big adventures. Listen to it carefully as it guides you. No one ever promised you a safe life but you were promised a life worth living to its fullest!
My Pastor preached on this and I want to share it.
1 Corinthians 3: 1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; 3 for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?
Milk Christians are considered babes in Christ. That’s what we’d like to think.
Unfortunately though we’ve seen some milk Christians with full facial hair or breast of their own!
How can you tell if you are a milk Christian?
Milk Christians go to this church one week, this church the next week and midweek they are at a third.
They are always looking for something new; they are easily bored with everything. Their attention span is like that of a toddler, 3-5 minutes tops.
They believe everything and people easily deceive them.
Milk Christians run out of inspiration quickly.
They start lots of new things but never see it through to completion. I’ve had four jobs in 28 years, milk Christians brag about how many jobs they’ve had like it’s a badge.
Milk Christians get negative quickly.
They have very shallow relationships.
Milk Christians are not into long-term relationships.
Covenants to them are boring. That’s why you can have a long term Christian who still cheats on his wife.
They are listening to everyone and no one so they hear confirmations from sources outside of their covering.
There is no balance.
You see, milk has a time and a purpose but nursing when you are supposed to be weaned is retarded development.
Hebrews 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Are you a milk Christian? If so, and you’ve been a Christian longer than 5 years it’s time to grow up!
Women are multipliers. We don’t just add to things we multiply them. The funny part about this is that we are also great finger-pointers so while I don’t consider MYSELF a multiplier I can point to each of my friends and say they are. Okay, I’m kidding, I am a multiplier! I tell this to the women of TLC all the time. They laugh but we know it’s true. And men, they nod their heads slightly because they don’t want to get into trouble in case a woman is watching. But let’s be honest we are multipliers. I think it’s that XX chromosome God gave us. After all, the X is the symbol of multiplication and we have two X’s!! Something about it makes multiplication an innate thing!
We take a man’s seed and multiply it into a baby. We make things bigger and different than their original design. Have you ever seen a bachelor’s home? He has a television, a bed, a fridge, a stereo, a computer and a video game console of some sort. He is happy just to be a minimalist. Then he gets married and his wife, the multiplier, is not ever going to be happy with this setup. So she buys a couch and a love seat and a coffee table, lamps and pictures and bedding, towels that match and pots and pans. She buys a dining room set and not just with two chairs, one for each of them, but she sees a future that includes more people sitting at that table. She multiplies everything and makes their house a home. I multiply because that is what I was designed to do. Have you ever noticed that a man’s wardrobe increases significantly if there is a woman in his life? The only thing that seems to diminish is the amount of friends he is allowed to have over at one time! Interesting…..but I’ll move on.
Naturally most women talk more, they worry more, they spend more and this is the part that is not fair, they tend to put on weight easier too! We also make life miserable when we aren’t happy because we multiply the problem. My husband says all the time, if the queen is happy the land is happy. Why? Because we multiply our mood and set the atmosphere for any situation we are in. How? We over-think it all! Which is multiplication! It’s in our nature to multiply.
God said be fruitful and multiply and in this area of our lives, we are just being obedient! Let’s work at being multipliers in a healthy way. Let’s work together to multiply the good in our lives and leave the stuff that doesn’t do us any good behind us. It’s all about balance! Often we go way overboard on negativity and bitterness and resentfulness. Let’s learn to be fair and multiply those things that life hands us in a positive manner. Multiplication is a powerful tool if we use it correctly. In the next few weeks we’ll be talking more about this and how to influence in the right way.
Pastor Susan 