To attempt to build a church in Dallas that is not based upon narcissistic self-focus doctrine.

I have been told you can’t do it - i don’t believe it.

The people in our church, the people that I meet in Texas and all over the USA are hungry and desperate for the authentic and the real. They want a church were  the preaching is relevant and the doctrine is sound and worship is alive.

Church without the boring bits.

Our new building is brilliant - you have to hear the story behind that one day…. what a miracle, you should come to the opening, it will be a blast - all to the glory of God!

God’s way’s are, not our ways. God’s ways are beyond our finding out. God’s ways are higher than our ways. All of these scriptures we give mental assent to, but when it comes to practical application we we choke on them. You see all of these scriptures are not related to your life and circumstances but to the nature and character of God.

Friend peace beyond our own understanding is the first fruit of a man or a woman of faith because it is impossible to please God if you are moved by your external circumstances and not by your inner conviction, as to His nature and character and His commitment, not to our comfort but to His Word.

I often hear Christians say that their non-Christian friends are “seeking God” or “searching for God.” I have always wondered as to this statement when it is clear from scripture  that no unregenerate person seeks after God (Ps 14:1-3, Ecc 7:20, Rm 3:11).  Maybe they are people looking for happiness, peace, relief from guilt, personal fulfillment, and other such benefits.

Now as believers we understand that these benefits can be found only in God. We we jump to the conclusion that because people are seeking what God alone can supply, they must be seeking God himself. This is our error.

In our fallen condition we desire the benefits that only God can give us but we do not want him. We want the gifts without the Giver, the benefits without the Benefactor.

I don’t believe that we find God by our searching for him. We are found by him. The search for God does not end in conversion; it begins at conversion. It is the converted, the born again believer who genuinely and sincerely seeks after God.

The difference between them is not primarily one of emphasis, but of content. One proclaims a God who saves; the other speaks of a God who enables man to save himself. One view presents the three great acts of the Holy Trinity for the recovering of lost mankind - election by the Father, redemption by the Son, calling by the Spirit - as directed towards the same persons, and as securing their salvation infallibly.

The other view gives each act a different reference (the objects of redemption being all mankind, of calling, those who hear the gospel, and of election, those hearers who respond), and denies that any man’s salvation is secured by any of them.

The two theologies thus conceive the plan of salvation in quite different terms. One makes salvation depend on the work of God, the other on a work of man.

According to Paul we have a ministry of reconciliation.

Now some have made this out to be that we should, man to man, be reconciled with each other, that everyone in the church should get on with everybody else but that is not what the scripture says:

2 Cor 5:18-19

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Also it is not what our experience shows us. There are just some people that you can not get on with or you just don’t want to get on with. People who live contrary to your values and belief systems, these might be people you have to cohabit the planet with, but not necessarily people you want to go on a two week cruise with to Alaska.

Paul did say however :

Rom 12:18

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

This scriptures says three things to me:

1) I am to live peaceably with all - Christian and non Christian.

2) if possible…. there are going to be times where it is not possible.

3) depends upon me…. and the times when it is not possible will not depend upon me.

Some people you just don’t get on with. They manipulate, they lie, they misrepresent themselves and your to others.

With people like that, particluarly people who call themselves Christian,  I get to a point and say to myself - you know what… the wherever possible bit means I am going to have to remove myself from this relationship and all contact with this person because I will not, (because of their actions, words and deeds) be able to keep peace with them if I am in contact with them.

Now with people who do not know Christ, I believe that is a different standard. To me, we don’t grow weary of doing good. We go back time and time again doing all, laying all down, sacrificing all for the cause of Christ and the reconciliation of man to his God.

To those that should know better - let them work out their salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12).

I have wasted to much of my life trying to be liked by everyone and trying to get on with everyone. It is just never going to happen. I will try. I will do my best, I will commit myself to it, but in the odd case that it just isn’t going to work, I will quietly remove myself from the relationship. Casting no aspersions and making no accusations. I would rather that I look foolish and stupid than the name of Christ be called into disrepute.

By Eric Young

Christian Post Reporter

Fri, May. 04 2007 02:30 PM ET

The House voted Thursday to expand federal hate crime categories to include violent attacks against gays and people targeted because of gender, acting just hours after the White House threatened to veto the bill – H.R. 1592.

Randy Thomas, Executive Vice President for Exodus International, said it was “a sad day for those who esteem equality in America.”

“This legislation assigns special protections to certain groups and less to others,” noted the ministry leader, in a statement released by the group. “As former homosexuals, we are now considered less deserving of legal protection than when we were living as homosexuals. The proposed law stands in direct opposition to the truth that every citizen is of equal value and should be afforded the same protections under law.”

While supporters of the bill say it is necessary for added protections against hate crimes and claim that it does not impinge on public speech or writing in anyway, social conservatives say the bill threatens the right to express moral opposition to homosexuality and singles out groups of citizens for special protection.

“This legislation strikes at the heart of free speech and freedom of religious expression,” said Traditional Values Coalition Executive Director Andrea Lafferty, in a released statement. “Why? Because statements critical of sexual orientation or gender identity can be prosecuted – if those statements were part of the motivation of a person committing a crime against a homosexual or cross-dresser.

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The wrath of God simply put is God’s divine judgment and justly deserved punishment against sin and all who practice it.

Oftentimes we misunderstand the term ‘wrath of God’, because we tend to think of it in terms of the wrath in human beings.

Now this maybe very natural, but it is also very wrong.

Whenever you think of the wrath of God you probably think of some kind of rage, you think in terms of a lack of control.

Such a thing in the character of God is unthinkable.
God does not fly off the handle.
God does not lose His temper.

In fact history, the scripture and our personal experience tells us exactly the opposite, that God is patient, sometimes, we think to be patient before He brings judgment and intervention.

The wrath of God mentioned here in our opening passage of scripture means God’s hatred of sin.

If you do not see the wrath of God when you look at the cross of Calvary’s Hill, it is very certain that you do not see the love of God either.

It is there, on the cross, that you see the wrath of God is revealed.

God’s attitude to sin demanded the death of His only begotten Son.

God’s hatred of sin, His abhorrence of sin, His determination to punish sin, His righteous demand upon sin was such that Christ had to come to this world, not to tell us that ‘God is love’ - God had said that repeatedly through the prophets of the Old Testament: that was already known - but to show us that God loved us by bearing the wrath of God against sin.

God must punish sin. The cross proves that, the cross would never have happened but for that.

It is almost a greater injustice to Christ and the cross to sentimeritalize it than to deny it.

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Q. 2. What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?
A. The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.

Q. 3. What do the Scriptures principally teach?
A. The Scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.

Q. 4. What is God?
A. God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

Q. 5. Are there more gods than one?
A. There is but one only, the living and true God.

Q. 6. How many persons are there in the Godhead?
A. There are three persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.

Q. 7. What are the decrees of God?
A. The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.

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