Relationships Matter

I just turned 33 last month, and now feel strongly that a person’s 30’s should still be considered young. But one of the lessons I’ve learned in my short life is, your relationships matter! Some of the largest mistakes and biggest successes in my life can be chalked up to the relationships around me at the time. Don’t get me wrong; I am not trying to blame other people for my mistakes. My mistakes are mine to own. But I surrounded myself with negative people and then made negative choices.

The same can be true for some of the biggest successes in my life, they have come when I have surrounded myself with quality, upstanding people - namely my wife and some men I have strong bonds with now. See, those people who share my belief in Christ and the moral compass the scripture offers as a guide hold me accountable to live as Christ would like me to live. Those people with whom I made bad decisions did not share the same set of convictions as I, so they flat did not know any better. We cannot expect non-believers to behave as believers if they lack the Holy Spirit. This is why who you take into your closest relationships matters so much. You’ve all heard 2 Corinthians 6:14,which warns us not to “yoke” ourselves with non-believers. A yoke bound two oxen together where one could not move in any direction without the other moving in the same direction. If you yoke in your friendships, romances, and emotional bonds with those who do not share your worldview, that yoke will pull you away from Christ. At the same time, yoking yourself to a strong believer will guide you on the path of righteousness. We must have relationships with those who do not share our values, so that we may be a light to them and evangelize. We cannot, however, confuse association with participation and fall into the dangerous trap of desiring approval from those who do not approve of our Biblical worldview.

Surround yourself, adults and teens, with people who will encourage you to do right, not tempt you to do wrong, and who will hold you accountable before Christ to live as He’d have you live. Do not be offended or defensive if someone calls you on your sin and label them judgmental. If they are doing it in love, they are doing you a favor. Luke 15:7 expresses the joy in heaven over a repentant sinner. Take time to examine your relationships. Who are the parasites to your spiritual health and who are the vitamins strengthening your convictions?

-Pastor Adam

Queasiness and THE Cause

My family has dealt with all sorts of sickness over the past month. The most recent foray into the land of germs was God allowing me to experience the best diet on the planet, the stomach flu. What does this have to do with THE Cause? Many people blame God for many of the evils, pain, and suffering in the world. God does cause some things we perceive as bad to happen, but we need to remind ourselves of the nature of God’s original creation. It was “all very good.” (Gen. 1:31) God’s original creation did not know illness, pain, death, or tossing cookies. It was our fault, not God’s, that these bad things made their way into our world. Don’t just blame Adam and Eve. Yes, they fell, but nobody other than Christ has been perfect since. As a part of God’s earthly punishment for sin he enacted turmoil and strife upon all earthly creation.

So next time someone tells you that there can’t be a loving God because of all of the evil in the world, remind them that God did not create evil. In fact, evil really isn’t a “something.” Evil is the lack of good. All that God created was good. He created mankind with the capacity to express our love for Him through voluntarily obedience. This left the possibility for rebellion. Satan exploited this void and man rebelled and fell short of the potential we had to be obedient to God. God knew this would happen, but valued a relationship with mankind enough to create us anyway. He even knew He’d have to send Jesus to atone for our sins in order to restore all creation to its original state, and yet He created us anyway because He loves us and loves the relationship we can have with Him. That’s the good news. For those that believe, the curse of sin, sickness, conflict, and death will be removed and we will again commune with God as Adam and Eve did before they fell. This is the Good News that we share, God’s love shown through the sacrifice of Christ will undo the curse we brought upon ourselves and we will spend forever living face-to-face with our Savior.