Jeremiah

3 Things to Remember During VBS This Year

Life Point will break tradition this year when we hold VBS for six consecutive Wednesday nights, as opposed to holding it every night for one week. The plan is to foster Spiritual growth as a family by giving parents and children a week to consider the lessons learned and by providing resources to help.

This year’s theme verse is Jeremiah 29:13, which says “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

That verse falls right behind the often quoted Jeremiah 29:11, which says “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

These two verses coupled together remind us that God is continually working in our lives to bring us into His presence. Everything that happens in our lives happens for that purpose.

With that in mind, let’s remember the following:

1. God is real. It might seem overly basic to make such a declaration on a church’s blog, but the simple truth is that God exists beyond our understanding and imaginations. Our belief does not define Him, rather He defines our belief. True science, research and archaeology proves His existence and truth. Scripture reveals it.

2. God loves. Not only does God exist, but He gave His only Begotten Son to redeem us from sin and death. Not only did God give His Son for our Salvation, but He made sure we knew about it by revealing it in the Bible. Not only did He reveal it in the Bible, but He uses the events of our lives to reveal His presence and draw us into His truth.

3. The Bible builds faith. The search for truth, and the desire for understanding doesn’t end when you come to know the Lord as your Savior. There are still tough questions to be answered.

Questions such as why God permitted the existence of evil, why a certain tragedy happened in our life, what our purpose is. While a pastor or mentor may be able to give you an academic answer to these questions, the truth is that you will not find peace until you understand how it all fits into God’s nature.

That’s where routine Bible study really helps. As Job said, “I have heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.” Job didn’t say he saw God because God showed up and spoke to him. He said he saw God because of the experience he had with God. Our experience with God comes through reading the Bible.

We are going to have fun this summer, and we are going to grow in our faith. Come see us. VBS, Wednesday nights at 6 p.m. at Life Point Baptist Church.

If You Can See It, You Can Do It

Many motivational speakers encourage their listeners to envision success. The popular motto is, “If you can envision it, you can do it!” At this point, conference attendees will then begin daydreaming about unparalleled success, fame and fortune. While most people set unreasonable goals and expectations, this approach has led to some setting realistic goals, then achieving success.

The tragic part of this is that the vision-to-action progression is not limited to good things like pursuing your dreams. It can also apply to sin and evil. Over the past few months, America has seen horrific acts of crime and immorality carried out in public view. In each of these crimes, there is documented proof that the offender had a preconceived notion of what he wanted to do. Whether you look at the Charleston shooter, Josh Duggar, or Vester Lee Flanagan, the former TV news reporter who shot and killed two former colleagues after being fired from the station, each offender had envisioned his sin, planned it, then carried it out.

It began with evil thoughts, grew into evil intentions, which then led to evil actions. The Charleston shooter, Dylan Roof, cultivated a hatred of African Americans, before planning and carrying out an attack on a Charleston church. Josh Duggar nurtured sexual fantasies through the use of pornography before using Ashley Madison to set up extra-marital affairs. Vester Lee Flanagan cultivated a hatred of Caucasian Americans before planning and carrying out the murder of two of his former colleagues on live TV. Like a seed that germinates, evil thoughts grow into evil intentions, which then bloom into evil acts.

And the thing that should scare you is that we all have these seeds planted within us. Jeremiah 17:9 says “The heart is deceitful, above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?” Notice, the heart is deceitful. Deceit is the fine art of misleading and lying to people. One of the heart’s greatest deceits is the lie that it perpetuates upon the individual to whom it belongs. The heart deceives us into thinking that we’re good, okay, average, and salt of the earth Americans. Meanwhile, it harbors desperate wickedness.

Jesus addressed this issue in Matthew 15:18-19, “Those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:”

These sins begin as small thoughts, or small feelings of anger, desire, or rebellion. As they grow, they develop into the actions described in Matthew 15:18-19, and the actions we have seen on the national news recently. The scary part is, each one of us is capable of these things if we let this go unchecked.

The remedy is not to try to stuff these things deep within your own subconscious. You can’t hide them away, or wish them away. The way to handle these temptations, which are brought on by the sin nature, is to give them up to the Lord. As King David prayed in Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”

Pray to the Lord to cleanse your heart from these sins and sinful desires, and then refuse to cultivate their growth. The way you avoid growing these sins in your heart is by turning away from sin, and not being entertained by it. Or, as Psalms 101:3 says, “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.” Do not entertain yourself with movies and TV shows that glorify immorality and violence. Do not entertain sexual fantasies. Do not envision or plot revenge. Don’t indulge in get rich quick schemes.

Understandably, this post will not be the most popular thing posted on “The Point.” In fact, it may very well become the most controversial, due to the fact that it involves recent news stories and the idea that each of us has sin in our hearts. Still, I felt the need to post it, because each of us needs to be aware of his potential for sin, failure, and even evil. Each of us needs to turn to God for forgiveness and cleansing, and each of us needs to live a life on guard, that we do not give in to our sinful desires. May God bless you as you travel your path.