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If you're following my blog online, it has moved to: (http://pbilly289.blogspot.com/).  Everything from this blog has been transferred to the new one.  This blog will no longer be receving updates.

Thanks!

Summer Pics (Portraits)

Why, God? - Pain & Suffering

Can God still be good when people get cancer?  Why do bad things happen to good people?  How can we reconcile all the bad things in the world with a loving God?  Should we even try?

I attempt to discuss the death of my sister at age 22 of angiosarcoma and how that event has completely affected my view of God and His sovereignty.

 

Scripture Used

Rom 8.28 (NLT)
2 Cor 1.9 (NIV)
Psalm 13.1-2a (NLT)
Jeremiah 20.7a (ESV)
Job 40.8 (ESV)
Exod 6.3a (NLT)
Jeremiah 32.2 (NLT)
Jeremiah 10.12 (NLT)
Psalm 119.68 (NLT)
Psalm 103.19 (NLT)
Isaiah 65.17-20 (NLT)

Quotations & References

CS Lewis: A Grief Observed (pp 42-43)

“But oh God, tenderly, tenderly. Already, month by month and week by week you broke her body on the wheel whilst she still wore it. Is it not yet enough?
The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed—might grow tired of his vile sport—might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take you choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t.
Either way, we’re for it.
What do people mean when they say, “I am not afraid of God because I know He is good?” Have they never been to a dentist?”

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will live as one."

In my father's house, there will be social liberals. If it were not so, I would have told you.

"What if when we die, we don't end, but spiritually our life extends on into eternity." -T.Keller

"Why do people say, 'I am not afraid of God b/c I know he is good?' Have they never been to a dentist?" -CS Lewis

You Were Made for This: The Cross

Peter made the same mistake we often do: trying to avoid the cross.  Satan tried to move Jesus away from the cross, and he continues to attempt the same with us.  However, the truth of God's message remains the same: No Cross, No Crown.

Jesus explains it was necessary for Him to go to the cross, and so it is also necessary for us to pick up and carry our own crosses if we're to follow him.

Crosses aren't optional.



Scripture Used

Mark 8.27-35 (NLT)
Mark 4.41 (NLT)
Ephesians 4.11-12 (NLT)


Quotes

No Cross, No Crown.

The idea of “coming to church” instead of “doing church” makes us water down what it means to “be the church."

If you want to keep reading: http://relevantbeliefs.blogspot.com/2010/01/point.html 

DCC--Please pray for Virginia Gutierrez. Her daughter Lydia was murdered in TN today. She just received word; she had 3 sons. -Repost!-

No cross, no crown.

If it's "People vs. Pulpit," tension always shows up: http://ping.fm/na9OA

Summer (pt. 2)

Listen to this week's sermon: Look like Jesus (1 of 2) http://ping.fm/XVHgf

Great article on the limits of radioactive dating and its inability to disprove creationism: http://ping.fm/16hJr

You Were Made for This: Discipleship

Ultimately, we were made to become like God.  God made us in his image in the garden, but through sin and willful disobedience, we tarnished that image and drifted away from him.  Our lives on earth are a journey back to Him.  That beings with faith in Jesus Christ as God, and it continues as we strive to again reflect his image.  That process is called discipleship.

 

Scripture Used

Gen 1.26 (NLT)
Col 1.15 (NLT)
Matt 28.20 (NLT)
Eph 4.24 (NLT)
1 Cor 10.13 (ESV)
Rom 12.2 (NLT)
Prov 23.7 (NASB)
Acts 4.24 (NLT)
1 Tim 4.15 (NLT)

Quotes & Statements

We get consumed by our comfort and forget our character.

Many want to show up, hear a sermon, sing some songs, then go back home.

When you meet God, your behavior and your beliefs change.

Temptations are just as much an opportunity to do right as they are to do wrong.

The battle for sin is fought and won in your mind.

Religion: Doing stuff without the right motivation
Hypocrisy: Saying stuff without the right actions
Christianity: Creeds & Convictions, but also Conduct & Character

Your character is the sum of your habits.

A Bible on the shelf is worthless.

“What has God already told me to do in his Word that I haven’t started doing yet?”

 

References

Warren, Rick: The Purpose-driven Life

Temptation provides just as much an occasion to do the right thing as it does to do the wrong thing. Temptation is simply the choice.

Be Smart

"It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt." M.Twain

Family summer so far

Members of the Body

August 2010 Newsletter

I’d like to take a few minutes to remind each of you how extremely important you are to this church. As you contemplate your membership in Christ’s church (which I would like you to do with me for a moment), please do so from God’s point of view. When God adds members to his church, he does so one person at a time. Each piece of the body is an individual, different, very particular piece.

In other words, there is simply no replacing you in this church. If you’re gone or simply not an active, functioning part of our community, the rest of us miss out. We don’t get the unique “you” God created and gave to his church. As Christians, we belong together. Read what the apostle Paul tells us about the bond we share:

¹⁹ …. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. (Eph 2.19b, NLT)

In his book The Weight of Glory, CS Lewis writes on exactly what Paul meant by membership for the Christian. His words are worth reading here:

The very word membership is of Christian origin, but it has been taken over by the world and emptied of all meaning…almost the reverse of what St. Paul meant by members. By members he meant what we should call organs, things essentially different from, and complementary to, one another… A row of identically dressed soldiers set side by side, or a number of citizens listed as voters in a constituency are not members of anything in the Pauline sense. I am afraid that when we describe a man as “a member of the church” we usually mean nothing Pauline; we mean only that he is a unit — that he is one more specimen of some kind of things as X and Y and Z. How true membership in a body differs from inclusion in a collective may be seen in the structure of a family. The grandfather, the parents, the grown-up son, the child, the dog, and the cat are true members (in the organic sense), precisely because they are not members or units of a homogeneous class. They are not interchangeable. Each person is almost a species in himself… . If you subtract any one member, you have not simply reduced the family in number; you have inflicted an injury on its structure.

My prayer for you is that you take up residence here. Plant your roots deeply in the ground at DCC and love this place like your home—because it is! Whether you’ve been here 10 years or 10 days, look anew at this local brotherhood as your dear family. Get to know someone better. Repair a lost friendship. Serve the body in the unique way only you are able. Because in Paul’s words:

²⁵ This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other.²⁶ If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad. ²⁷ All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it. (1 Cor 12.25-27, NLT)

Your Brother in Christ,

-bill

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