Pastor's Blog

Ouch, That Hurt

pastor@ffwbwagoner.org — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:01:00 -0400

I recently had an experience that almost equaled what James was talking about in James 3:5 when he spoke what a great matter a little fire kindled. The wife fixed me a great breakfast of bacon and eggs this morning, but she set the bacon plate on the burner on the stove that she had used to fry the eggs, and forgot to turn the burner off. It wasn't long before we had some excitement in the kitchen. It was just a momentary lapse in judgement, but it almost destroyed our home. The same thing happens in the church whenever its members forget the heat that can be generated by the momentary lapse with our tongue. And the amount of damage that can be done today has increased a thousand fold by the use of cyperspace. Now we can talk to thousands at the same time. The fact that we can speak about someone without having to see the ones we are speakig to doesn't change the damage one can do with those words. One thing that we seem to forget so often, is that there are no secrets in cyperspace. Your friends have friends who have friends who have friends and so on into infinity. Also, it isn't necessary to offer rebuttal everytime someone says or posts something that you believe to be in error. We need to be like Ricky Nelson's character in the old John Wayne movie "Rio Bravo", be confident enough in yourself that don't have to prove how smart and knowledgeable you are all the time. There are many in the body of Christ that hold beliefs in error, but I don't feel any need to continually correct every statement. I know what I believe and have solid scripture support of these beliefs. So, I only fight the important battles rather than waste valuable time and energy on the minor things. While sticks and stones can wound, they heal much quicker than the wound inflicted by a sharp, uncaring tongue. Never forget that he that soweth discord among the brethren is hated by God. (Proverbs 6:19)

Admins can blog too

admin@ffwbwagoner.org — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:01:00 -0400

Last night, as I poured over website revisions, I found myself becoming more and more frustrated in trying to master this over-whelming and complicated software that powers this website - Typo3. It's massive, it's powerful, and it's free!

I thought, "What's the use - no one uses the website anyway, so why bother?". But still I pressed on, trying to bring pages under submission, determined to understand why they didn't render as I intended.

As I was working on the Prayer Board page (yes, we have one - check it out, USE IT!) I began to remove sample content and hidden away in a database, far from the view of a website user, was a prayer request posted by the developers of the Prayer Board Module, the Web Empowered Church Team!

"May the Lord bring blessings that overflow upon those who carry the Gospel through this congregation. May your ministries be fruitful and may lives be transformed in Jesus' name. Amen"

A Prayer Request! - for First Free Will Baptist Church of Wagoner - from the WEC Team! Wow!!! Tears filled my eyes and I got "Jesus Bumps"! Yea - I know, it was "standard issue" in the module, but just "sample content"? I think not! I couldn't have discovered it at a better time. But wait, there's more.

This morning, while surfing the net, looking for textbooks that might help, I found a book about Typo3 written by the man who invented it - Kasper Skarhoj. He's Danish, he's a genius, and he's a Christian! In the preface of the book, he shares his testimony of his faith in Jesus Christ and how his faith led him to develop Typo3 and then just give it away - for free! No mass-marketing, no copyrights - just give it away to people who want to further the cause of Christ and His kingdom!

So, I'm committed and determined (thanks to the WEC Team & Kasper) to make our website "fruitful" and maybe even "life-transforming", as stated in the prayer request.

I envision a website where Andrew's Hands is set into action at the press of a button. A website which brings us together as a church family, not just on Sundays, but also during the week via the Forum. A website where we can grow in The Word using the Devotional Journal. A website where we can introduce Jesus to the entire World Wide Web! Afterall, my motto has always been "just introduce 'em to Jesus - He'll take it from there!"

Be blessed!

Mary

War, What is it Good For

pastor@ffwbwagoner.org — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 15:02:00 -0500

Some how we've gotten the idea that as Christians we are to always be non-confrontational. That we are to accept the concept of it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you are true to those beliefs. We have been told by false leaders that the only way to show the love of God is to be willing to just accept people the way they are. We have this idea that Jesus was this weak individual who taught that no matter what we always had to turn the other cheek and take the hit. What utter nonsense! Take another look at the Gospels. Jesus went out of his way to pick a fight with the Pharisees of his day. He began his ministry by cleansing the temple and it wasn't in a non-violent manner. He deliberately traveled through Samaria where no religious leader of Israel was supposed to go. He spends time with a Samariatian women. He touches a leper, forgives a paralyzed man's sin and then heals him. And follows this by calling a publican to be his disciple. Then he starts healing people on the Sabbath and telling them to carry their beds. He was the most confrontational person when it came to those who would destort the Father's message. War does bring good when it comes about for the purpose of standing up for those who stand in need of hearing of the true love of Christ. May God continue to bless Pastor Bill

Last Days

pastor@ffwbwagoner.org — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:42:00 -0400

Hi: One thing about this internet thing is that there is quite a bit to get a fundamental pastor upset. This past week I read an article about how a school in Mississippi was being sued by the ACLU to force the school to hold their prom and allow her girlfriend to be her date and the girlfriend was going to wear a tuxedo. The AClU had a first threatened a suit to force the school to let the girlfriend come in the tuxedo and when the school just cancelled the prom due to it being a distraction to the students, the ACLU sued to force the school to hold the prom according to the rules dictated by one student. Now just when did it become the right of a teenager to dictate to the school what the rules would be. The idea seems to be that the school has caused the student to be unpopular with the other students due to the cancellation of the prom. Their idea is that this couldn't possibly be the student's fault for deciding that the rules wouldn't apply to her. This is the times in which we live. Paul told Timothy that one of the signs of the last days would be for people to be "without natural affections" or to be homosexual. Jesus said that the times would be as the days of Noah and one of the sins of Noah's day was homosexuality. As Bible believers, Christians are often cast as being begots, but I am certain that saying that someone's lifestyle is in viloation of God's word and therefore sin is not bigotry but simple stating the truth. Someone living in the sin of homosexuality is no worse than someone living in an adulterous lifestyle, but all that means is that both choices lead to the same hell. God will not accept any sinful life style. You cannot live in sin and claim Christ and still be true to what the Bible says is Christianity. That's just a fact and all the court cases and all the ACLU lawsuits in the universe will not change that fact. Yes, God is the God of love, but He is also Holy and His holiness will not abide sin. Now having said all of that, I welcome those living a sinful lifestyle to attend the service of the church, for how else can they encounter the love of God. I will strive to demonstate the love that Christ has shown me for I too am a sinner in need of the grace of God. But that will not change my sermons nor by belief in the truthfulness of the world of God. If you have gay friends or love ones, pray for them and show them the love of God without approving of the choices they make in regards to sin. I have members of my own family who choose to live in sin and I pray for them and love them, but I never imply that I agree with their choices or that they can claim the forgiveness and salvation of God while rejecting His commandments. Thans for your time and share any comments or questions you might have. Pastor Bill

Ignorance is a Two Way Street

pastor@ffwbwagoner.org — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:24:00 -0500

Hi: Yesterday, I was reading an article on the internet which was blasting those who publish text books for home schooling children for not teaching evolution as a fact. And the claim was that they were creating a class of young people who would not be able to compete on a college level. Now having taught in a private Christian school, which was outcome based not social based, my experience was that those students were much better prepared than most public school student. Public schools often will pass a student on to the next grade level for social reasons, which means because the student is a year older, they should automactically move on to the next level. Christian based schools require an 80% knowledge level of the subject before the student can advance. This way the student can continue to learn at a more advance level. But when a student is advanced for purely social reasons, they soon lose the ability to learn as they have no foundation upon which to build. The Christian textbooks I have worked with did porvide the students with information concerning the theroy of evolution, but they taught it as just that, a theroy which cannot be proven as a fact. When someone claims that evolution is a proven fact, as did some who made comments on the article, they are in fact proving their own ignorance. The fact that people can be arrogant and rude does not prove that they are correct in their statements, it just means that they are arrogant and rude. Most people do not give much thought to how complicated a living cell actually is. Even if somehow by accident one could have all the right chemicals together, you would still have to get them in the right amounts and order and they would still have to be programed to reproduce, convernt matter into energy and energy into matter. And since the program information would have to be possessed before the action of conversion could take place, that in itself indicates intelligent design. You can have all the parts to a computer and even have them hooked up in the correct order, but without the programing, it will never work. Does anyone really believe that such programing could occur by random chance? And occur not just once but thousands and thousands of times in order to have a comlete living organism? Is it such a terrible strain to give thought to at least the possiblility of intelligent design. It seems to most rational people to be reasonable to believe that if there is a plan then there must be a planner. That is all that the creationist is striving to show. This great issue of Christians being a people who live by faith is such a stupid thing to try and make seem as foolishness. Everyone lives by faith. It doesn't matter if you are a Christian or the biggest heathen to have ever lived. You accept money in the form of the currency of some government and yet that paper is actually worthless in and of itself. It only represents your faith in the ability of that government to give it worth. You drink water that is treated by someone you have never met and with methods of which you are totally ignorant and yet by faith you believe it to be safe. You accept advance from someone you actually know little about and get medicine from someone you don't know at all and the name of which you can't pronounce and yet you take it, believing it will help make you healthy. That's faith! I simply choose to put my faith in the One who has a 10,000 year old record of keeping His promises and proving His love for me. I'm really not sure why the faith of an atheist is suppose to be better than mine. Thanks for your time this week and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them. Pastor Bill

Using Your Mind

pastor@ffwbwagoner.org — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:01:00 -0500

I'm writing this Monday evening, 3/01/10 and first of all I want to thank God for being with us in such a real way this past Sunday morning. We were blessed with His presence while enjoying a gospel concert with 4 4 1. Those guys came in the Spirit of the Lord and shared with us under the anointing of His Spirit. I truly recommend that if you have a chance to be in service with them, don't past it up!!! This evening, I want to comment just a few lines about the fact that so often Christians are accused of not being able to think, so we have to operate by blind faith. First, I have always stressed that God never asked anyone for blind faith, that's the devil's thing. God promises that if you will reason with Him, your sins will all be forgiven because you will come to the realization that He is the ultimate reality. An intelligent faith is what God desires. I can remember when I was in high school and different ideas were offered as proof of the reality of evolution. One of these "proof's" was the experiment of Stanley Miller which took place in 1953. Mr. Miller shot electric sparks through what he claimed to be the same atmosphere of primitive earth and produced a red goo containing amino acids, thus proving that life could originate without intelligent design. I am almost tempted to say that since Mr. Miller was the designer of the experiment, it was proof of unintelligent design, but I won't. Use your mind and reason this out. First of all, the atmosphere used was a "supposed" atmosphere as no one really knows what the atmosphere would have been composed of at that time. Secondly, since this result came about because of the intelligent design of the men involved, it was by definition, intelligent design. Also, it is a long ways from having amino acids to having life. Don't let the fact that someone has some letters after their name prevent you from using the tools God placed between your ears. The nice thing about knowing the truth of creation is that we can answer the question, "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" The chicken by way of creation. I am glad that I am not a Christian because of ignorance but rather I am a Christian because I examined the evidence. Whenever some one tells you that God's Word isn't true, he is depending on one thing only, your ignorance being greater than his. I pray that God is giving you a great week. Pastor Bill

Hi!

pastor@ffwbwagoner.org — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Hi:

This is actually my second attempt at this thing called "blogging" or "bogging" depending on who you are talking too. They tell me that the computer ate the last one or it got sent to the never never land of the internet zone. But I'm gaining on it as you can now email me at pastor@ffwbwagoner.org. For those of us from the 50's, in more ways than one, that's quite an accomplishment. As time goes by and I get more adapte at this, I want to see if we can't answer some of the why questions that churches don't seem to get to very often. As a general rule, Free Will Baptist, of which I have been a part all my life, spend a lot of time on "what" but very little on "why" and without the why, many people see little or no reason for the what. Most people, in or out of God's family, have seen or known someone who professed Christ do something or say something that seemed totally wrong for a child of God. These type things led some to think that there is really nothing real about Chrisitanity. But the simple fact is that perfection is not a requirement of Chrisitanity. Being a Christian does not change the fact that we still have a sinful nature. Salvation or being a Christian is about God's grace being applied to our lives through faith. This salvation come by God's grace plus nothing else. We don't earn it or deserve it. It's God's unreserved love being offered to sinful man. It is apply to us through faith. Now this simple faith isn't easy, and it isn't based on a feeling, but it is based on a decision on the part of each individual to base his life upon the fact that God is a reality and His will is not only surpreme, but the only way to actually have the abundant life each of us seeks. But understand this, without faith, God's grace will not be applied. And if the faith ceases, so does the benifits of faith. God is interested in the sincere desires of your heart, not how successful you are at achieving the godliness you desire. It is the devil's idea that you must somehow be perfect in order to be a true child of God. If you any questions that you'd like me to address or just a topic for discussion, just email me at pastor@ffwbwagoner. Thanks for listening! Pastor Bill