This is one of the verses that our pastor had referenced last Sunday during his sermon on disciplined stewardship.  One thing that has really stuck in my head all week was one of the questions that he asked and that was this…

“What if we had to come home every night and give God an account for what we have done everyday?”

Jesus tells us that an account must be given by “all”.  Man and Woman.  Pastor and layman.  Saved and unsaved.  I don’t know about you, but thats a pretty scary thought to me!  I am embarrassed to admit some of the things that go through my head, and even some of the things that come out of my mouth, and in some instances, some things that don’t come out of my mouth.  Most of those things I would not even share with my closest friends.  But, I’m not hiding them from Him.

We are not promised any certain amount of days on earth.  Nobody knows when our time is.  Could be 40 years, could be 20 years, could be tomorrow on my way to work.  And I am positive that many of the things that we do or say here on earth, we would never attempt to do or say in heaven!

For me, thinking about having to give an account to God on an everyday basis gives me a whole new look at the importance of my purpose here on earth.  It helps keep me focused on Him, and certainly makes me think about the things that I am saying.

How about you?  If we had to give an account of the things we did everyday to God, would that make a difference in the way we were living?

Here’s the excerpt…

Though I stress that the church should be a positive agent of change, I know that it’s the Spirit of God in the church who does the changing. I also fully recognize that loving others as Jesus would may mean talking about sin, repentance, and judgment, so I’m not suggesting that we only “love” people. But love involves relationship. Love involves time. Love involves telling people about God’s abundant goodness and his “awesome works”(Ps. 145:6-8), and not just about his wrath and judgment. Love involves holding our tongues and being wise in the way we act toward those outside the church, having our conversations be “full of grace” and “seasoned with salt” (Col. 4:5-6). Love is more than passing out a tract or holding up a sign and feeling that our job is done because we’ve let others know about Jesus.

Now, I know that many churches, including mine has and is out amongst our communities with the Good News of our Saviour. Which is great. My question is… are we doing this because of a feeling of obligation? Or is it because we have a burning desire to let others know of the Grace and Love in which we have been given in Christ by building relationships with them? The non-believer has an impression of what Christians act like and look like. Ever wonder what they think of us?

Do we look like Christ, or do we look like a bunch of people that meet in a building and surround ourselves with other building goers, and one of the things that we do is to try to get other people to see things our way and come to our buildings? Because really, that is not much different than any other organization in our communities. I wonder what my motivation is in sharing my faith. Is it because I am so excited about the things of God that I just can’t contain them to myself? Or is it because I feel like I have to?

Is the church out in the community because we have a burning passion to share the Love of Christ with other people through relationship building? Or, are we just handing them a tract, and telling them to have a good day and Jesus loves you?

He also follows this chapter up with some pretty tough questions.

How is your church known in your community?
How do you think people in your town would describe your church and the people of the church?
Do they even know you exist?
What are you known for?
Would your church be missed in your community if it went away?
How would it be missed?

Makes ya think, huh? I know it does me…

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

---

Declaration text | Rough Draft | Congress’s Draft | Compare | Dunlap Broadsid

At a cost of $420-million, the Phoenix Mars Lander has flown 422-million-miles since leaving Earth last August.

Do you think this is the best use of our tax dollars? I sure am glad I paid my taxes on time so we could pay for that trip…

What are we going to find there? And does anybody really care?

Didn’t John Gray already tell us that ‘men’ are from mars? The women in this world are not going to be happy if we start bringing back a whole bunch more men to this planet…

What do you think? Is it really necessary to be spending all this money exploring other planets for life?

Suddenly your home is lifted off of its foundation and thrown to the ground sending You and the rest of your family plummeting to the ground floor, since you were all on the second floor of the building. It happened in the matter of seconds. You can’t find your children. You yell for them to scream their names, so that to know that they are still alive and not crushed by the debris that has overtaken the immediate area. Thankfully they are all safe other than some basically small injuries.

Now, you have no home and everything that you own has suddenly, in the matter of seconds, been destroyed.

You wonder what happened? Why Me? What am I going to do Now?

This is what has happened to the Pesina family here in our community. As many of you have probably already seen flinging itself around the blog world.

Some of the children in this family have been attending our church recently. They are at the beginning of their understanding of who God is and what God means to their life.

It is nothing less than a miracle that this family did not perish in this horrific weather event.

And I believe this is the time when we as followers of Christ need to be His feet and hands. Allowing not only the Pesina family to see Christ through His Church, but all of Samaria!

Jesus told us that “What we do for the least of these, we have done for Him.” And that is what we are about to do.

Jesus’ church is going to get them a home! This is what we are commanded to do, and we believe that God has placed this family in front of this community so that all people can see His power and His face shown throughout all of St. Joseph.

We need your help…

My wife (who by the way has faith that could move mountains, or build houses in this instance) is extremely passionate about this commitment to see that Gods Will is done here. And that Christ is seen through this opportunity that we have, as His church, to show the world His face.

Many people have stepped up to see that God is glorified through this commitment of faith of helping the Pesina’s move on with their life, and truly see what Christianity is supposed to look like.

My good friend John has put together a website to keep everyone up to date on progress and the needs that will surround this project.



There has also been a letter sent to all area churches with a powerpoint to be presented to the congregations of these churches also.

If you are a believer in Christ, and believe that He is still alive and well, and he still answers prayer, please consider what role He may have in store for you.

May God be Glorified in His Giving Hope to the World!

Maybe I just missed the part in His Word that God says “I love you, and always have. I created you to be who you are for My Glory and I have given my only Son to die a gruesome death on the cross to save you from your sin and eternal damnation. And the great part is that your complete Faith in Me will be accepted someday when you’re old enough to be a part of “My Church.”

I think we need to wake up and realize that these young people are NOT the next generation of the church—They ARE the Church!

These types of Pharisaical statements really bother me.

Have you ever heard these types of comments or comments like them?

Any thoughts?