Asiel's Musings

Thanksgiving was only eight days away. Michelle, who teaches the Bible in our mid-week children's program, decided to ask her preschoolers about the upcoming holiday. She thought it would be effective to have the class playfully correct some wrong ideas about Thanksgiving. "Now let me see. Thanksgiving. That's the day when we think about all the stuff we have. And how we want more things than anybody else has. And how we don't care about anybody but ourselves. And —" "No!" the kids started to yell. "No-o-o!" Then one little guy called out, "That's not Thanksgiving, Miss Michelle, that's Christmas!" Luk 2:13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. In 1847, Adolph Adam sought to echo the angels and wrote about the soul finding it’s worth, once hopeless beings experience the thrill of hope a...

John 7: 18 - 28 SOLID IN HIS CONVICTIONS There was John’s manner. He had relatively few tools in his toolbox. When he saw that the truth of God had to be upheld and the sin of the powerful rebuked, he reached into his toolbox and came up with its one and only tool: confrontation. It wasn’t long before he confronted Herodias, wife of Herod the ruler. John looked her in the eye and said, “First you married Phillip, your uncle Phillip, no less. Then you ‘fooled around’ with the man who is currently your husband. Then you allowed your daughter, Salome, to dance like a stripper in order to inflame a crowd of half-drunk military officers. You, Mrs. Herod, are incestuous, adulterous, and a pimp all at once. It’s an abomination to God; you yourself are a disgrace; and the stench of it all looms larger than a mushroom cloud.” - NOT MEN PLEASERS - BRAVE - UNCOMPROMISING WITH THE WORD SECURE IN HIS PURPOSE – Put the Kingdom 1st: Think of John’s appearance. He wore a camel-hide wrap-around, and i...

The Call to be H.I.S. People - with Humility, Integrity and Simplicity ~ About 4,000 years ago, God launched his global mission, with the first Great Commission, the one he gave to Abraham, telling him to "Go ... be a blessing ...and through you all nations on the earth will be blessed". That is God's great mission. That, says Paul, is the gospel that the Scriptures announced in advance to Abraham - God will bless the nations! But there were many obstacles - in Bible times and ever since; many things that keep frustrating and hindering that great loving, saving, mission of God. What do you think is the greatest of those obstacles to God's desire for the evangelization of the world? Not other religions, persecution, or resistant cultures. Those are all serious challenges - of course, But....the overwhelming witness of the Bible is that the greatest problem for God in his redemptive mission for the world is ... his own people. What hurts God most, it seems, i...