Thought For the Week

Dear Friends, Today’s “thought” comes from a friend who attended my church and Bible studies in Honduras. Her name is Heather Clark. She is both a medical doctor and a Christian Life and Mindset Coach who transparently confesses, “As a Christian physician who has survived 3 episodes of major depression, I know how bleak the world can look when consumed by "not good enough," negative and anxious thoughts.” Her ministry goal is to help women find more joy in their faith and life. If you would like to check out her ministry, I include a link to her website at Christian Coaching Center, LLC Today’s selection is for anyone (male or female!) who struggles from having accepted as biblical a common saying that’s not! It’s one of a series of posts that debunks phrases commonly thought to be biblical because people in churches repeat them so often. Enjoy. That’s not in the Bible…. “Today’s statement: ‘God won’t give you more than you can handle.’ Let’s go to 2 Corinthians 1:8-9. ‘W

Dear Friends, As a pastor one of the things I‘ve discovered is that people often pull away from the church when they go through difficult times, which seems very counter-intuitive to me. Our times of difficulty are the times when we need the support of our brothers and sisters most. Why, then, would we pull away from our source of help when we need it most? I’ve found the same to be true with God. Many people pull away from the Lord when they need him most. Not all people, of course, since some are driven to God by hard times. Yet, there are a good number of others who feel detached from God and pull away in those hard times when they need him most. The following story is simply one example of a leader in ministry who initially did that, before learning through his struggle that it was not a good policy. This selection comes from a book entitled, “How to Succeed the Biblical Way” by Ron Jenson, former president of the International Sch

Dear Friends, I am often asked, “How can we know God exists?” The other question I have been asked in conjunction with that is, “If God exists, has he always existed? And if so, where did He come from?” Likewise, “If He always existed, what did He do for all that time before He created anything? After all, even if one did happen to believe the universe is millions or billions of years old, God would still have existed for infinite ages before that! And no, I am not so presumptuous that I think I can offer a viable answer to all those questions in a short 5-6 paragraphs of text! I know better. But I will give you (those who care enough to think about it) some short answers I have given to people who have asked me, simply to get them to ponder the reality and existence of the God we Christian’s call “I AM” – a name which is nothing more than the Hebrew verb “to be." God’s self-given name is, “I AM,” because He is the uncreated God who is, and always has been, and ever will be. A