How do you handle sin

So Israel wants a king right. Way back in the Old Testament in 1Samuel we here about how God anoints Saul as the first king of Israel. See the people of Israel wanted a physical king so they could show off their king to the other nations. I mean after all you couldn't see God. Well Saul does good for awhile then he gets full of himself and builds a monument to honor himself and that's when God starts getting upset. God gives Saul a definitive plan to carry out and Saul doesn't do it. Sure he did most of it but he didn't do it God's way. When Saul was confronted he began to make excuses, and even when he finally almost admitted to his wrong doing he still wanted Samuel to not tell anyone so Saul could still be "the man" to his people. See we get that way in our own lives sometime. Things are going good for us and we begin to call less on God. We tend to pray less, we tend to go to church events less, and the next thing we know we have distanced ourself from God. Then when we are held accountable for our actions we begin to make excuses. See Saul never did give a true from the heart confession to God. Eventually Saul paid for that with his own life. If you are lacking in sincerety with your confession to Christ and making excuses for your actions, you too will pay for your life. Your life with Christ will be cut of and sent into eternal darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, HELL. Jesus said in Luke 11:23 that anyone who is not with Him, is against Him. If you are not obedient to Christ then you are not working with him as the NLT states. Give God a true heart felt confessing of your sin. Spend your life with Him in paradise and don't be a Saul and let your own greed send you to hell. If you want to read the story of Saul it's in 1 Samuel chapter 15.

How do you handle sin??

Wayne

I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!

Hey sorry I have been absent for so long. Busy with classes and really self-pity. Which reminds me of a story. One time when my family and I was in Virginia, we stayed at this hotel that was located on the outskirts of Richmond. To get to it we took this loop around Richmond kinda like the loop at Indianapolis...ya know 465 so you don't have to go through town so much.... anyway we are trying to go to a family members house from the hotel and I get on and I am sure I am going the right way...I am going towars Richmond and I am good. So I though... my wife begins to inform me that I am going the wrong direction on the loop and that we should have been to our destination by now. Of course I said no I am going the right direction, see the sign says Richmond...well soon the sign said Arlington/Washington DC. My wife finally says LOOK, we are going the wrong way and you better turn it around or we will be in Washington DC soon. Wahington DC is like 2 hours from Richmond. I turned around reluctantly and sure enough I actually was going the wrong way....who would have thought:) See my wife had picked up on the fact that my direction was not quite right even though it wasn't all wrong either. We were 40 minutes to far east of our destination and it all worked out after I finally went along with her plan. Sometimes in our spiritual life we fall into the same situation. We don't want to admit that we are wrong ansd we keep hoping that the situation will right itself to our liking soon. We even give God the credit for being "in contol." Problem is, like myself who didn't want to give in to the fact that my wife was right, we too are sometimes reluctant to accept the control God has of the situation. We know what God really expects but we still hold out hoping that soon God's control will become more favorable to us. This just leads to more grief and turmoil in our own spiritual lives. When we finally accept God's plan and His way of control over a situation, believe it or not He then will give you the strength and guidance to work through the situation as He would have you do. The promise God gives us in 1 Corinthians 10:13 is only good if we are willing to accept the way out He has given us. If we reject it then the anguish we bring on ourselves, for God's word is true and just.
In His Control
Wayne

Hard Times...

Difficult situation today for our youth group. I, as the youth leader, had taken a back seat to an event that others were planning. My thought process was, great, they are taking the initiative to plan something on their own. Bad Idea! By taking the back seat, I let my group down, as I couldn't answer questions about the event which soon came back to causing the event to be cancelled. Not that we can't do it some other time, but they had presumably worked hard on the event and were excited to have it. Then my how the tides turned. The very blog that I talked about earlier written by one of our youth members about GOD IS IN CONTROL, came into play. In the blog it was mentioned that people were angry because things weren't going their way and that if they were truly in God's realm they would realize that God is in control and shouldn't be aggravated. This very statement now has to be realized by the very author of it. See it's easy to give Scriptural advise as the Scriptures can pretty much be used to support most any point of view. That's why it is imperative that we don't just look through Scripture in an effort to search and find, but rather reflect on the Scripture in the way God has spoken to us through it. Otherwise the very counsel we are trying to provide is just that, counsel and speaks little of our true relationship with God. In this difficult time for our youth group it was VERY OBVIOUS that there were individuals extremely mad about the situation. So obvious that one individual of the church noted that "several in there are just plain fuming." I love my youth group and I apologized to them for letting them down. I also mentioned the above blog as well in hopes that it would bring a realization to them. The Bible tells us in 1Corinthians 13, that love is patient, love is kind, and LOVE IS NOT EASILY ANGERED. We need to take a self exam of our definition of love and if we are carrying it out as the Word of God says. I am at peace with this because I openly took the blame for my ingnorance as well as apologized for it. That's all I can do, I am human! And really THERE ARE PEOPLE DYING IN LOUISIANA right now, so this little bump in the road is just that LITTLE.

God Bless, and if any of my youth group reads this........ I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!!

Wayne