GOD’S ACTS

Some people may think, “If God isn’t sending all these sicknesses, diseases, and disasters, why doesn’t He stop them. Isn’t He a loving God? Wouldn’t a loving God do something about this?”

The simple answer to that question is that He HAS done something about it, He IS doing something about it, and He WILL do something about it. He HAS sent His Son and the Word of God to allow people individually to turn from sin so they will not have to reap the repricussions of sin. He IS sending Christians with the Message of Salvation through Jesus from the evil of the world. He WILL someday judge the sin in the world for those that did not repent.

After someone’s spouse dies or child dies or their home is destroyed by fire or after whatever tragedy occurs in someone’s life, many think, “Well, God is in control. Why didn’t He stop it from happening?” That’s the first wrong thought. Upon which people then build even more wrong thoughts which I’ve already covered like, “It must have been because of my sin so God was punishing me.” Or, “God was trying to teach me a lesson.” Or, “God must not really be a good and loving God; He must be mean.” All of these I have already proven are not true in the previous lessons in this series so I’m not going to cover them again. If you did not hear those, go listen to them for free online at CATCAhoskie.com.

But all of these wrong conclusions are usually based upon a wrong premise: That God can just do whatever He wants in the earth. NO, He can’t do whatever He wants in the earth. That’s why we are told to pray to the Father, “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” If God could just do whatever He wanted whenever He wanted, then Jesus would not have told us to pray that prayer. If God could just do whatever He wanted whenever He wanted, then the earth would be exactly like Heaven: no sickness, disease, poverty, destruction, or death. If God could just do whatever He wanted whenever He wanted, then no one would sin, die, or go to hell.

If God was in complete control over every single thing that happened in the earth, then men would never sin. But God is not in control of men. God gave men a free will and with our free wills we have sinned. With sin comes death in the form or sickness, disease, poverty, and destruction. Because men have the power to do what they want with their own lives, we see the world in the state that it is in. This world is a result of what happens when wicked men are in control.

Gen 1:26-28 ESV Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (28) And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

God created man in His own image and immediately gave man dominion over the works of His hands. God gave man dominion over himself for we are made in the image of God. Like God, we can choose to do as we will; no one makes us do what we do – not even God. For God to make us automatons that do only what He wants by force violates the very nature of love. We have a free will. He gave man dominion over the animals. He gave man dominion over all the earth. He told us to subdue it.

Subdue means: to subject, force, keep under, bring into bondage; make subservient; violate; dominate, tread down

Man was to take control of the earth as an agent of God. Man was not to do as He willed but man was to subject himself willingly to the authority of God and do with this world as God directed.

What did God direct? Do not eat of that tree. So what did man do? He ate of the tree. He committed high treason and partook of sin. Sin opened the door to Satan. Adam’s sin gave Satan authority or dominion in this earth that he did not previously have. Adam’s sin handed over the authority that God intended for only Adam to have and he gave it to Satan – God’s greatest enemy. What an act of treason!

Rom 5:12 ESV 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–

Notice all sinned. We cannot just point the finger at Adam but we point the finger at ourselves as well. We have all sinned. We have all committed high treason allowing Satan to have the dominion that God intended for us to have. Spiritual death comes upon all of us because of our sin.

Did God take back the authority that was granted to Adam since he misused it? No. He gave it to Adam permanently and Adam could do whatever he wanted to do with it – even if he wanted to give it to God’s greatest enemy. But God had a plan. He would bring to the earth a second Adam and this Adam would never give Satan authority through sin. Jesus was the second Adam that never sinned. Jesus was the Word of God made flesh. Some say, “God hasn’t done anything to stop the suffering.” But no, He did the greatest thing – He sent His Word and healed us.

GOD IS A HEALER

There are several names for God in the Bible like the Lord your Provider, the Lord your Righteousness, the Lord your Peace. One of the names of God in the Bible is “The Lord your Healer”. It was one of His many names because it was a distinguishing characteristic of His loving nature to want to heal.

In the Old Testament, there were types and shadows showing God the Healer. In Numbers 21 a bronze serpent was erected by Moses. Anyone who looked on the serpent would be healed of the snake bites.

Num 21:9 ESV So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

Snakes represent demonic oppression. Sickness is one type of demonic oppression. That Serpent represented Jesus on the cross who became the sins of the world. Any who look to Jesus can be healed.

1Pe 2:24 ESV He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

We know that Jesus taught about healing. Healing was one of the things God had anointed Him as the Christ to do. Christ means the Anointed One.

Luk 4:18 ESV “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

He then turns around and commissions us to go heal.

Mar 16:18 ESV they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

It is evident that God is very interested in healing. He is a Healer. He wants you healed completely. He doesn’t want His children under the oppression of His enemy. He wants us walking in the freedom He purchased for us at the cross.

It is God’s will to heal all. Whether you’re a sinner or a saint, He wants to heal you from every sickness and disease. None of the people Jesus healed in His earthly ministry were Christians. They were all sinners. This shows He is willing to heal all but we know as Christians that healing was purchased for everyone of us at the cross as we have already read in 1 Pet 2:24. Healing is part of our redemption just like being saved from sin is.

Jesus is the Healer:

Mat 4:23-24 ESV And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. (24) So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them.

Hilarious

GOD IS LOVE, Part 4

Did God forgive us or not? Some say or at least imply that God didn’t really forgive you. Sure they know the Bible says something about God’s forgiveness but they don’t really believe It. They’ll sing songs of God’s forgiveness and pray, “Thank you God for your mercy in forgiving us believers.” But then they turn around and tell another believer, “God’s must have had a purpose behind that tragedy you just experienced. God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.” You know that is not actually in the Bible! Other phrases that are not in the Bible but people quote them like they are:

“God helps those that help themselves.”

“Every tub must stand on its own bottom.”

“You just never know what God might do.”

It amazes me how ignorant Christians can be of the Bible. They repeat and even live by these ungodly phrases and wonder why things are not going right in their life. We’ve got to get into the Word for ourselves. We cannot take someone’s word for what the Bible says, we need to go see it for ourselves.

When someone says something like that to me, I can just chalk it up that they don’t know the Bible so I don’t get too upset at whatever they may say. I can pretty much conclude that they are religious: meaning they follow the precepts of men rather than the precepts of God. The traditions of men have made the Word of God in their lives powerless.

Mat 15:6 ESV…’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.

Christians one moment say our sins are forgiven then they claim that God sent sickness, disease, death, and tragedy to you because of your sin. That doesn’t make any sense at all. Are all of your sins paid for on the cross or are they not? The question is do you really believe your sins have been forgiven by God?

Many Christians go around saying, “I’m just an ole sinner, saved by grace.” You are NOT an “ole sinner” if you are a Christian. Your spirit, which is the real you, has been completely cleansed.

Eph 4:24 ESV and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

If you go around saying and believing you’re an ole sinner, guess what you will experience? Exactly what you say and believe. You’ll live life with a sin consciousness. The Bible teaches you’ll have what you say and believe so your whole life would be dominated by sin. But if I go around confessing that I’m created in righteousness and holiness, I’m lining up with the Truth of God’s Word. This is what I confess:

I confess I’m a new creation; the old has passed away and the new has come.

2Co 5:17 ESV Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

I confess I’m the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

2Co 5:21 ESV For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

I confess that I am dead to sin.

Rom 6:11 ESV So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

I confess that I’m crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Gal 2:20 ESV I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Now, when you were born again your flesh did not change. You still have the same flesh you had after you were born-again as you did before. Therefore, your flesh still has a sin nature or I could say it has an inclination to sin but that is not the real you. You have the power to control your flesh. It is your spirit that is the real you that has been cleansed and justified before God. Your spirit can dominate your flesh if you so choose.

This is where many people get mixed up; they think, “I’ve been born again but I still want to do bad things. I still think bad thoughts.” Well, your flesh will always want to do bad things but your flesh is not the real you; it is not born-again like your spirit is. And when it comes to ungodly thoughts, we have the power to change our thought life by renewing it with God’s Word. Our mind is in the process of renewal but our flesh cannot be renewed. It is, as the Word says, at enmity with God; i.e. it has made itself an enemy of God and we must keep our bodies under until we receive our new bodies.

Has God forgiven you of all your sins?

For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
(Psa 86:5 ESV)

Webster’s 1828 Dictionary:

Forgive: 1. To pardon; to remit, as an offense or debt; to overlook an offense, and treat the offender as not guilty. The original and proper phrase is to forgive the offense, to send it away, to reject it, that is, not to impute it, [put it to] the offender. But by an easy transition, we also use the phrase, to forgive the person offending…Forgive us our debts.

One of President Abraham Lincoln’s associates scolded him rather severely for being soft on his enemies. “Why do you insist on trying to make friends of them?” he chided. “You should be trying to destroy them.” To which Lincoln replied gently, “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make them my friends?”

We were sinners, God’s enemies. But instead of God destroying us, He decided to make us His friends. He not only made us friends but we were adopted into God’s family and we are called by the Bible kings and priests…all through the power of forgiveness!

I just like this photo...makes me laugh.

GOD IS LOVE Part 3

Love (AGAPE) is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant (1Co 13:4 ESV)

For these verses, since God is love, we could exchange the word “love” for “God” and gain more insight into the nature of God.

Amplified says it this way: Love (or God) endures long and is patient and kind; love (or God) never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself (or Himself) haughtily. (1Co 13:4 AMP)

So God endures long and is patient and kind. He can put up with a lot of wrongdoing. His mercy endures forever. The “patient” there could also be translated forbearance. It is longsuffering meaning God has the patient restraint of anger.

That means, as a sinner, God doesn’t give up on you easily. He will wait a loooooooooooooong time for you to turn to Him and repent. He keeps prodding and prodding you, passionately pursuing you with His love, waiting patiently for the day you see and recognize His love for you through Jesus and become born-again. When everyone else would have given up on you, He doesn’t. He holds fast until the end hoping that you will turn to Him and respond.

God is kind. That means, one commentator said, “to be adaptable or compliant to the needs of others.” It speaks of changing your ways and adapting to accommodate others. It speaks of not putting yourself first. Kindness focuses completely on the needs of others and not on self.

God does not envy. Envy in the Greek means “A person who is radically consumed with his own desires and plans.” This is a self-centered person that is so ambitious to have his way that he will step on anyone to get ahead. Our God is the opposite of this. He has consumed Himself with the creation He has made called man instead of Himself. He has stepped down from His exalted throne to become like a man. Philippians says:

Php 2:7-8 AMP But stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity], so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being. (8) And after He had appeared in human form, He abased and humbled Himself [still further] and carried His obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of the cross!

His passion is not Himself; His passion is man and the restoring of that relationship between Himself and man through Jesus Christ. OH, He is a good God!

Next, it says God, or Agape Love, does not boast. In the Greek it means, “a lot of self-talk.” It means someone that is endlessly promoting themselves and exaggerates their own virtues. You ever run into people that are always talking about themselves? You’ve got to watch out for those types.

One Greek scholar said of this word it is the picture of a person who is full of hot air or a windbag. Agape love is secure in itself. It doesn’t need to put up a front to seem more important like so many people do today. God doesn’t boast but rather His focus is on lifting up others, not self. He is devoted to promoting the welfare of man and giving His all in everything He does to love and give to His beloved man.

God is not arrogant. That word means “swollen, puffed up, proud, or inflated.” Again, it seems to be speaking of a windbag.

Do you want to look like this?

Photo: Bill Eichenlaub / National Park Service

This is how some people are. I don’t ever want to be like this, do you?

If you ever get a cat scared He can look much bigger and more menacing.

But if you ever get him wet you’ll see there isn’t much there. Some people put up a big front but when you really get to know them, you’ll find out that there’s not much substance there.

I lived next to peacocks. They’re really beautiful when they have the full plumage but…

When they don’t have their feathers, they look pitiful. All their large feathers fall out every year and they go hide until next spring. They put on a big show like so many people do but in the end they’re just insecure peacocks hiding until they can make another show. For some reason Hollywood comes to mind.

Arrogant also has the meaning of a snooty or snobbish person when dealing with others. They focus on how superior they think they are compared to others. God is not arrogant; He really is far superior to others but He does not boast of His superiority and act snobbish like He doesn’t want to associate with us. No, He came from Heaven to earth and called us friends, brothers, and sisters. Oh, that we could see the goodness of God and that He is love!

More on “God is Love” to come next time.

God is Love Part 2

We’ve spoken about the highest type of love which is Agape and we spoke about personal affection type of love which is Phileo. But another Greek word for love is “Eros”. It means sexual love. It is where we get the word erotic. In Greek culture this love had to do with sensual pleasure and the fulfilling of carnal impulses. It is a self-satisfying gratification of the flesh. It is never a giving type of love; it is a demanding type of love. It may only give if it can get something in return.

Eros is never once used in the Bible. It is the opposite of Agape love. This type of love should not even be within the sexual relationship of marriages. We are to use the agape type love even in the marriage bed – the unselfish giving because you love them rather than giving to get something back in return. Never allow eros in the marriage bed; it will stifle your sexual relationship.

Eros is always self-seeking, self-gratifying, self-centered, and selfish. It is the devil’s counterfeit for Agape. The world has accepted this as their version of love. When a marriage is based on this type love, disaster is sure to follow. Marriages cannot live on Eros and lust. A marriage must be a well-thought out decision to love someone regardless of there faults and regardless of how they treat you.

The world is using a counterfeit therefore it is no wonder so many in the world treat marriage like old clothes. When you get tired of them throw them out and go get yourself some new clothes. Marriage is a lasting covenant that should not be discarded when someone is not as attractive as when you first met them – either due to the way they look or the way they act.

A marriage based on eros will never last. It must be elevated to a higher type of love. Phileo is the personal affection and attachment love that most marriages are based on. However, the highest type of love is Agape. This is the love that never fails.

A marriage based on Agape has never and will never be found in divorce court. It is impossible for a marriage to fail when both people are walking in agape. However, some point out that Christians divorce just as much as the world. I seriously doubt those statistics. I believe those claiming to be Christians may divorce as much as the world because there are many people that go to church every Sunday but are not born-again. They think they are Christians but they are not. They have not been recreated anew on the inside with that agape love of God in them.

But it is certainly possible for one who is walking in agape love to get divorced as well. Why? Because the other party may not walk in agape. God has done nothing but agape love the world but they have divorced themselves from Him. He walks in the purest agape love there is but people have the freedom to walk away from God’s blessings if they choose.

You can agape love your spouse but if they want to walk away, they still can. “Well, if agape never fails, why do marriages end in divorce when one partner is walking in agape love?” Agape love is freedom; agape always grants the right of the other party to walk away because agape’s love is unselfish. Agape love’s goal is not to make them stay but to love them regardless of whether they stay or go. To love them unconditionally and unselfishly. The goal of agape is not to make the other party do anything – not to stay, go, love back in return, or do anything for itself. Agape’s goal is simply to love because it is their nature, their desire, their passion to love regardless of the consequences.

This is the way agape never fails. There is no goal of trying to make somebody do something for them – the person of Agape just simply loves regardless. If you walk in agape, you always win no matter the response of the other person because you’re being like your Father God who is love.

Real agape is so attractive that when people see it they will run to it and cleave. This is how Jesus was able to have thousands follow Him around; they saw the love of God in action. They wanted to be around Him and to receive some of God’s love in manifestation. God’s love is so attractive because it is not about someone that goes around saying the words, “I love you” but they are doing the works of Jesus: opening the blind eyes, opening the deaf ears, helping the lame to walk, and preaching the Good News of the Gospel.

God is Love

The very first lie to Eve in the garden was a deception causing her to question God’s goodness.

Gen 3:1-5 ESV
(1) Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
(2) And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
(3) but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
(4) But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
(5) For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Satan implied God wasn’t really good and that He didn’t really give all they needed. He implied God was holding out on them. The first thing Satan does to combat the work of God is to get people to question God’s goodness by inserting doubt toward God’s Word.

Instead of Eve holding fast to what God had said, she began to think that “God may not be good.” And, “ God may not love us like we thought.”

She should have quoted the Word of God back to the serpent and then told that thing to get out because she had authority to make him leave. Don’t put up with thoughts that would make you question God’s goodness. Cast them down in Jesus’ name. (2 Cor 10:4,5)

Today we’re going to be talking about another aspect of God which is God is love. To hear some Christians talk you would think God is anything but love.

He is portrayed by so many in the Church as mean, vicious, tyrannical, mad all the time, cruel, sadistic, fierce, brutal, and violent. They won’t say that directly but when they talk about things God does they imply such attributes to Him.

When something bad happens in the world, automatically they assume God was behind it, with ZERO Scriptural support, and that He did it to “teach us worthless sinners a lesson.” They have yet to discern one, that God is good, and two God is not the source of evil…that would be the devil.

Someone says, “God made my wife leave me.” No, she left on her own free will – God had nothing to do with it. “Well, why doesn’t God make my wife come back to me?” Again, she has a free will and God will never violate her free will.

If He could or would violate man’s free will He would have never let any man sin and thus no man would ever suffer death or the pains of this world. But God does not interfere with man’s freedom of choice.

Some say, “God sent us this recession because of the wickness of this nation. He’s teaching America a lesson.” God is certainly available to teach us through any situation that arises but to say that God sent it is wrong.

America has much wickness in it; of that there is no question. And because of America’s sin, particularly in the areas of greed and covetousness when it came to doing unethical mortgage practices, we entered the recession. But God didn’t plan it.

Our sin opened the door for the enemy to try to take this nation out through economic meltdown and he almost did it but now things are turning around. The devil tried to bring us into another depression but God intervened, I believe, due to the prayers of the saints.

It is funny that our sins open the door for the enemy, and of course God warned us not to sin or these consequences would follow, and yet we think it is all God’s fault. No, we are doing these things to ourselves and God is up there warning us and trying to rescue us all along. Just like you would warn a child not to touch a hot stove; if they burn themselves, it is not your fault – it was their choice.

God is love. When bad things happen it is not God’s fault; it is man’s fault when they choose to sin. God IS love, it is not just something He does. And that love is inside of us.

Someone says, “I don’t love my wife anymore.” Well, it your choice to love her. “I used to lover her but I don’t now.” You made that choice to love her before and you can choose to love her again.

The Bible says to love your wife like Christ loved the Church. That means even if she is unlovable you are to love her. You make the choice to love her even when she is unlovable, even when she doesn’t love you back, even when you don’t feel like it, and you are walking in the Agape love of God.

That is the kind of love God had for you when you were yet a sinner. He sent Jesus to die for the unlovely – for those that hated Him. Does that mean she will love you back? No. God loved everyone but they don’t all love Him back do they? But the Agape love is the nature of God inside of you and you can choose to walk in it and possibly restore your marriage or you can choose not walk in it and guarantee failure in your marriage.

God is Good Part 2

Some say, “God may not have sent the sickness but He allowed it so He must have wanted it to happen. I’m not going to resist God’s will.” First, sickness is demonic oppression. So when the devil comes around should we just lay die like passive dogs and just let the devil do whatever he wants because God is allowing it? NO!

Jas 4:7 ESV
(7) Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Eph 4:27 ESV
(27) and give no opportunity to the devil.

Eph 6:11 ESV
(11) Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

We are to be resisting the devil and his sickness and disease. People say, “Well if God wants me well He’ll heal me and if He doesn’t He won’t.” Well, you’ll never be healed nor would anyone else if that were true. Just go ahead and die. No, healing is something you have to go get by faith. That is the same as saying, “Well if God wants to save me He will and if He doesn’t, He won’t.” No one would ever get saved if that were true.

People are just spiritually lazy. They want God to do it and they don’t want to have to believe for anything. Faith is too hard for some because it requires effort; it requires a fight. God said in 1 Tim 6:12 to fight the good fight of faith. There is effort you are going to have to make to fight. Many have lost the fight because they did not want to fight and some have even lost because they tried to fight but did know how to fight. But understand God did tell us to fight. He did tell us to resist the devil. He did say to stand against his schemes. He did say not to give the devil an opportunity. Sickness is from the enemy and we need to fight it with our faith.

Do you think God left us on the earth without any weapons? Imagine what would happen if we sent our troops to Iraq and Afghanistan with nothing but the clothes on their backs. No weapons, no tanks, no ships or missiles. We would be slaughtered. God sent us as an occupying army to occupy this land that the enemy has entrenched until He comes back.

We are armed with the shield of faith and the Word of God which is MORE than enough to win every single battle we will ever face. So we need to use our faith to resist the enemy in the area of sickness and disease. God is a good God that has equipped us with everything we need to win.

God is Good Part 1

So many in our world today do not know God. They think of Him as a mean tyrant ready to zap someone that gets out of line. Even Christians think of Him as someone that’ll get you if you don’t do everything just right. Well, if that is the case He’s going to get us all because none of us do everything just right. Is that really the kind of God we serve? A God that is impossible to please? Do we really need to walk on eggshells around God?

One moment He’s happy and the next He’s destroying your house in a tornado, giving your children cancer, and making you poor to teach you a lesson. Is that really the God of the Bible? No, emphatically not!

Many sermons are preached Sunday after Sunday telling the people to “turn or burn”. The preachers with fiery condemnation pronounces judgment on the whole world and especially their congregants if they don’t do everything just right. They feel it is their duty to make everyone feel bad so that they’ll repent and that is the only way a Christian will make it is by staying in a constant state of guilt over their sins.

People think, “Hey I’m a sinner so the bad things that happen I probably deserve. God gave me this stroke because of all my sins. God killed my dog because I was such a bad person. God had them take away my car because I have not been a nice person.” Is God a cruel task-master? No.No. No.

I knew a man that hated God all his life because his father committed suicide as a boy and he walked in the room and found his father. He blamed God.

I’d like to know how everyone concludes that it is God’s fault for all the evil that takes place in the world?

I know places that teach that…it’s the churches. Churches often teach God does all these things and has some mysterious reason why. They quote things like, “God works in mysterious ways” as if that is a Scripture. It’s NOT!

We need to find out what the Bible really says about God. Instead of concluding God does evil things to teach us a lesson, let’s see what the Bible teaches as God’s nature. I believe if we understand the Word concerning this subject, we’ll be able to discern that which is of the enemy and that which is from God and give credit to whom it is due.

Psa 34:8 ESV Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

Many are declaring what they think they know about God but they’ve never tasted. They’ve made conclusions based on what others have said but they’ve never tasted for themselves for if they would taste they would see that God is good!

You know, we had those tornados go through Suffolk last year and I helped with the clean up. It just broke my heart to hear people attributing the tornados that took away people’s homes to God. Like there is some deep spiritual lesson to be learned by your house being destroyed.

People say, “Yeah, God is good” one moment, then they say “God destroyed your house for a reason.” If they actually think through what they are saying, they are saying, “God destroyed your house…isn’t He good!” How much more contradictory can you get? Only religion would say it is perfectly logical.

Do we commend an arsonist who burns down people’s houses and say he’s good? No, we put in him jail and throw away the key.

People say God teaches you a lesson through diseases like how to be “humble.” Do we commend people that knowingly pass around sexually transmitted diseases? No, we despise such wickedness. It is evil not good.

This is why so many people in the world hate God. They have attributed things to God that He did not do. They do not know Him. They’ve given God a bad rap based on religious folks that do not know the Bible or God at all who have taught things based on their own conclusions and not the Word of Truth. We need to show the world that our God is a good God!

more God is good on the way….

Pastor Thomas Taylor’s Blog begins

Tuesday July 28th, 2009 the blog begins. Welcome and enjoy! I’ll be blogging about the work of the Lord in my life and other wonderful things God is saying and doing in the earth. Thanks for being apart of this fantastic blog!

We had a fantastic first Sunday on the 26th. Lot’s of people came out for the morning service where we talked about the Church vision and the Crossroad’s vision. We found out our purpose is to Evangelize, to Disciple, to Worship, to Minister to People’s needs, and to Fellowship. We’ll be going into more detail on the Sunday evening services about this mission and the Crossroads vision. Sunday morning we’re going to be doing the “Getting to Know God” series. Check out our mp3 on the church web site http://www.CATCAhoskie.com.

Also, check out the article by clicking the paper below announcing my becoming the Pastor at Crossroads. God is so awesome! We’re really excited at what God is going to do because He called us here and we know God has been working in us our entire lives to bring us to this place. Glory to God for the great things He is going to do!