Thoughts on Christ and His Word

Recently I read a post in Pastor John Hopler's Morale Booster to GCC leaders.  He wrote: Pastors are always helping people work through relational conflicts. When doing mediation, consider 1 Peter 3:8: "Let all be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind hearted, humble in spirit." According to this verse, there is a close relationship between sympathy and harmony. Sympathy means "feeling what the other person is feeling." Time and time again, I have found that if both parties in a conflict can genuinely feel what the other person is feeling, harmony will occur. I think his thought is good for all Christians who are trying to help others resolve conflicts.  Let's help those we are helping to put themselves in the other person's shoes in order to evoke some sympathy for one another.

Have you ever wondered how or why Christians can walk away from Christianity and then you hear that they became Muslim or joined a religion that rejects the fundamentals of the Christian faith?   They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. 1 John 2:19 Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.   2 John 9 In these passages the Apostle John reveals a stunning truth: not everyone who is among us and looks like a Christian is really a born again believer. The fact that they would leave us, meaning Christians or Christianity, and reject the teachings of Christ - his deity, humanity, redemptive work on the cross, and his resurrection, reveal that they do not have God nor ever belonged to Christ. It's not that they lost the

I was watching CNN yesterday and I saw a report of how the terrorist group ISIS was coming after some people on top of Mount Sinjar in Iraq. And Iraqi helicopter touch downed and rescued about 15 people, among them young children. Horror was on their faces. This made me angry at this terrorist group.  They have slaughtered thousands of people simply because they don't believe in their version of Islam. Sin should make us mad. The Bible says Lot was a oppressed by the evil around him. He saw murders, homosexuality, rape, and all kinds of sexual and violent sin. He was vexed in his soul. Are we vexed by what we see around us. Or have we grown so accustomed to the sin that surrounds us that is no longer makes us sad or even mad. Or even worse, do we sit and enjoy the sin of others instead of being the light God intended for us to be.