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“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” —Genesis 1:27 If we’re going to deal straight up with bold, biblical answers to life’s most serious questions, we must deal with this question: Are same sex relationships the same? Are they equal? How are we to be tolerant or intolerant? We are compelled as the church to rise to the challenge of our own culture and of our own times. Homosexual marriage and gay rights are taking center stage in all art forms such as television, radio, movies, music… you name it! This subject has moved from the margins of our culture to the mainstream of our culture. We can either fold our tents as God’s church, go home and say nothing, and wait to go to heaven, or for the sake of our families, our children, and our nation, we can rise as a church and respond biblically with a worldview that honors God and supports the message of Christ. Before there was any kind of an institution on earth, political or otherwise, even the church, there was one primary structure of all created order and that is the family! God created us to live in relationships divinely designed together as man and woman. So let the church be the church! Let us stand firmly upon God’s Word and God’s truth, and act aggressively, not apathetically with our witness of the Gospel. The change in our culture will be because of God’s people, God’s church making a difference in your own community for Christ.   IT IS IMPORTANT TO TAKE WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS AND NOT WHAT WE WANT THE BIBLE TO SAY!

Thursday, November 8, 2018

What Builds Pride

by Dr. Paul Chappell

“And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.”

Luke 17:15–18

In Gulliver’s Travels, the brilliant satirist Jonathan Swift told of a fanciful trip taken by Lemuel Gulliver, a medical doctor who had become a ship’s captain. After a shipwreck, Gulliver washes ashore on the island of Lilliput, where the residents are only six inches tall. The Lilliputians had very strict rules which Gulliver recounts. Swift wrote, “Ingratitude is reckoned among them a capital crime; for they reason thus, that whoever makes ill return to his benefactors must needs be a common enemy to the rest of mankind, from whom he hath received no obligation. And, therefore, such a man is not fit to live.”

Lack of gratitude is frequently condemned in Scripture—often enough to point out the major implications of this sin. At the beginning of Paul’s description of the path of a people going away from God, we find ingratitude as one of the signs of decline. “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened” (Romans 1:21).

Being grateful produces wonderful results in our hearts and lives because it helps keep us from being filled with pride. When we are thankful to God we acknowledge that He is the source of our blessings and successes, and He deserves the credit for them. It is simply impossible to be proud and thankful at the same time. Yet so often people boast of their accomplishments, not giving thanks to the God who provides so graciously for all that we need.

Today’s Growth Principle: 

Ingratitude builds pride and destroys humility, and must be replaced with grateful praise for God’s goodness.