A Few Thoughts

First Post on this new Site:
     Some of you will notice but most will not that this is a new blog site for me. I retired the old one because it was attached to the church that I pastored when I was in Florida. So I wanted to keep my blog site for myself and not have my thoughts or actions or posts adversely effect the ClayHouse Church in any way. So I begin this new site with a few thoughts about what has happened on this day, and some things that I have been thinking about lately... I hope you like it.

Fred Phelps Dies
     I know what you're thinking, you're thinking... thank God he is dead. I will admit when I heard the news I was a little glad. You see he is the image of everything that everyone hates about Christianity. I can not count how many times I have had to "defend" Christianity in the face of this man's actions. I have even had to defend my tradition of Christianity (being a Baptist).
     I would like to take a different spin on how we ought to think about Fred and the Westboro Baptist Church and the people that still adhere to this band of heresy. I personally never revel in the death of another human being. Scripture says that we are "... fearfully and wonderfully made" that means all of us the ones we love and the ones we don't love. So what should we think? We should think and hope and pray that through all of this that God will receive the Honor and Glory from Fred's life and death. You see his death is only powerful to us in our lives because his life was so disgusting to us. So my prayer is that many people will see the Love of God in the reaction by God's people to the death of one man.

The Doctrine of Total Depravity
     I have a friend that posted on her Facebook page: "I'm a good person who sometimes makes poor choices. Thanks for understanding.". Now I know what she is saying and I think that we would all agree with that statement. We are generally "good" people that occasionally make the wrong choices that harm ourselves or others either spiritually, emotionally, or physically. But you guys know me and you know that I have to be that guy that takes the statement and dissects it and looks for the theological truth that we all must deal with.
     So here is a couple of Biblical facts that we have to deal with and when we come to grips with these facts then we can begin to understand the purpose of Jesus coming to earth and the sacrifice that He made for us. By the way if the these couple of truths are not truths then Jesus sacrifice was for no reason whatsoever and He wasted His time and His life.
     Truth #1   For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God Romans 3:23 So what does that mean? What that means in a nut shell is that we are all messed up. It means we are at heart selfish, loathsome creatures. If people could read our minds they would think we are the most horrible people in the world. And I don't mean that we walk around thinking evil, murderous thoughts all the time (although some probably do) I mean we are so self centered that even when we are being altruistic we are doing it for selfish reasons. It also means that no one I mean no one is immune to this statement. We are all sinners!
   Truth #2  Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned Romans 5:12 This is a little trickier to understand but I know you guys are smart so you'll be able to handle this. The "one man" that the verse is talking about is Adam, you know the first man... well he blew it back in the garden and that's why we were separated from God. You remember that whole forbidden fruit deal. So because he sinned then we are all born with the propensity to sin. But I know how your baby boomer minds think. You think that means that it's not your fault you were born that way. Not so fast my little blame shifting friend the verse also says, "because all sinned", yep you're culpable. You can't blame this on anyone but yourself.
     So what do these two truths mean? First it means that we are not good people that occasionally do bad things, it means we are bad people that occasionally do good things. Second it means that the propensity to sin (we call that a sin nature in theological circles) is what keeps you from having a fulfilling and eternal relationship with God. So in His infinite wisdom He became a man (that's Jesus) and died and paid the penalty for all our sins. So all we have to do is repent of our sins (that means say your sorry and turn away from that lifestyle of sin) and accept the sacrifice that Jesus made as payment for your sins. That's what we call being saved.
     If you want more detailed information on being saved (becoming a Christian) please contact me. I would love to speak at length with you about my favorite subject... Jesus.
 - The Pastor