“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” – Psalm 46:1 [NIV]

Sometimes I think I read the Bible entirely too quickly.  I let the obvious meaning of a verse, or at least my top of the head interpretation, encourage me to move right along.  Take Psalm 46:1 for example.  At first glance it tells me that God will provide me with protection when I need it.  Got it, now on to verse 2… but not tonight.  Tonight I have agreed to write about this verse, and surely there is more to be learned here.

I get that I can find shelter with God and that He protects me from danger, but how does this work?  I think too often the way I put this into practice is by running to Him when I’m scared, hurt, or in trouble.  As a parent I know that I seek shelter with God whenever my children are hurt or when I’m worried about them for some reason.  I also look for protection when I am personally in trouble or have made some sort of mistake.  In retrospect, however, I don’t think that’s entirely how this is supposed to work.

The Message translation goes on to say in verses 2 and 3 that “We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in seastorm and earthquake, before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains.  Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.”  David doesn’t say that he suddenly found himself dangling at the edge of a cliff, clinging for dear life, tearfully muttering a prayer to God for help.  No!  The Psalm says that he stood there fearlessly knowing full well that he was at the cliff of doom.  He stood there courageously as storms raged and the earth quaked.  Why?  Because he was already safe in the shelter of God.

So when do I ever stand at the edge of a cliff or face a violent storm or earthquake?  Well, it depends on how you look at things, but after thinking about it for a bit I think the answer is every day.  Every day that God grants me life I face the snares of Satan.  When I am surrounded by those who love not the Lord I am in grave danger.  When I am faced with temptations of the flesh, which are an all too common plague in our society, I face peril.  Each opportunity to think or act selfishly, each opportunity to give into my carnal nature, each time Satan presents me with the one thing he knows will turn my heart is a moment when I need my God.

So how do I enter into the shelter of God ahead of time so that I can stand fearless as David did?  Solomon tells me in Proverbs 7 that God’s wisdom should be guarded as the apple of my eye.  It should be so dear to me that I bind it on my fingers and write it on my heart.  Becoming this familiar with the word of God will give me refuge.  Refuge from the world and from my corruptible self.  Becoming this familiar with the word of God also suggests that I should slow down and not read the Bible so quickly.

In being Christians, we survive, we fight through the daily barrage of sudden mood changes and unpredictable human emotions that try so valiantly to tear away our belief for good, but our strong will to continue through the haze of doubt and inconvenience to our naturally selfish desires, and God’s immeasurable love and care for our spiritual well-being keep us right on the road to Heaven, no matter how many bumps, ruts or breakdowns.

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to go to Honduras on a 2 week long mission trip and help the people who live there. A group of 33 of us, which included 8 adults, stayed in a beautiful house in La Paz owned by a lady named Ina. Ina was so nice in letting us stay in her house for a full 2 weeks. She and her family of 4 moved out of the house for 2 weeks so their house could accommodate our entire group. When I arrived and saw the house I knew we were lucky and very privileged to be able to stay in such a nice home when neighbors were sleeping on dirt floors and only had tin sheeting as a roof to their houses made of only scrap woods and metals.

In the first week, we held medical clinics in surrounding areas around La Paz. We pulled teeth, gave medicine for protection against parasites, and gave medicine as simple as Tylenol. I had the opportunity on the first day to work in the pharmacy. With the help of a translator, I explained to the patient what medicine to take for what problem, and how often to take their medicine. After telling them these things I often was given a hug or a firm handshake from the person thanking me for just a little medicine. Even after seeing them thank me for these simple things, I wasn’t affected. Their thankfulness was beyond anything I have seen in the United States. The next day I had an even more exciting opportunity to work with the dentist who came along on our trip with us. Before the patients came to the dentist, the pre-clinic area would ask the patients what hurt. If anyone pointed to a tooth, they were immediately sent to us. 100% of patients who saw the dentist had teeth pulled. Some of these patients were having up to 7 teeth pulled at a time. Although the blood may have bothered me a bit, the part that astonished me the most was after we removed their teeth. We had just yanked teeth out of people’s jaws and put them through pain, yet every person stood up, thanked us, and hugged us one by one. It was unbelievable. They were so thankful that we had come from the US to help them. But even then I wasn’t moved by their thankfulness. I went through the clinics all week being thanked over and over and over again and wasn’t affected emotionally at all by these people.

On Sunday we went to church. I was told before hand that services would be 4 hours long and the only thing I thought was, “Ugh! 4 hours! That’s crazy.” When service started I was blown away. Every hand in the building was in the air praising God! Every person was singing as loud as he or she could. Every person had the most obvious, passionate love for Jesus. Even though I couldn’t pick up every word of those Spanish worship songs, I knew that everyone of them was praising God with the utmost passion and was thanking Him for everything He had done in their lives. These people had nothing. They had no physical belongings to put their trust in. These people only had God to place their faith in. As a result, every one of those Honduran people in the Iglesia Evangelical de Santidad had placed all their faith in Him. The worship was Amazing! No one looked at you funny because you were American. They have more passion than any other church I have ever been in.

Yes, it was a great trip. Yes, I do plan on going back next year. But one thing bothered me when I came back. When I came back to my church’s worship that following Sunday, I was sad because all that zeal and passion had disappeared when I reentered the U.S.  Matthew 22:37 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” The bible tells us to worship in spirit and in truth. In John 4:23-24 it states, “That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.” It doesn’t matter how we worship God. Everyone worships in church in different ways. But the essence is the same in our worship; we must love him, thank Him, and adore our one true God. All we have to do is place our trust in Him and have a strong passion while worshipping him. The more passion we have, the better relationship we have with Him.

The Old Testament was written for our learning (Romans 15:4). We can learn many wonderful and unusual lessons from the Old Testament. I heard a sermon recently about the Valley of Dry Bones. It is from Ezekiel 37:1-14. It is an unusual story that we can learn from. Ezekiel sees a valley full of bones, which were from the whole house of Israel. God’s people, the Israelites, had turned their backs on God. God asked Ezekiel if the bones could live again and Ezekiel answered that only God would know. God told Ezekiel to preach to the bones and when Ezekiel obeyed God, the bones put on ligaments, muscle, and flesh. Ezekiel was told by God to preach some more and that the bones would live and they would know that “I am the Lord.” Ezekiel did exactly what God told him to do and the bones became alive.

We can learn a lot from Ezekiel 37. We need to obey God even if His commands do not make sense to us. God commanded Ezekiel to preach to dead bones and Ezekiel obeyed without hesitation. We need to follow God’s commands exactly as God has given them to us. We cannot change them just because they do not make sense to us. Ezekiel preached exactly what he was told to say and we must say and do exactly the same.  Another lesson we can learn is that God always knows the answers. We must have faith that when things seem hopeless, He will lead us in the right direction if we listen to His Word. The third lesson we can learn is that we also can turn our backs on God and be as dead as the bones in the valley. However, just like God could restore the Israelites if they turned back to him, God will do the same for us. With God in charge, all things are possible.

The use of instruments in worship is ever increasing today. It has always been a subject of controversy and division. Many use the argument that it makes the worship more powerful and enjoyable. Worship of our Lord and God is meant to hallow and glorify Him, not entertain us (Leviticus 10.3). If we are to hallow, or honor, Him through our worship we need to know how to accomplish that. We know that we are to worship Him in His name or by His authority (Colossians 3.17). So let’s see what God has revealed to us through His word about how we are to properly praise Him in song, as compared to what people in today’s religious culture have concluded.

Christ gave us an example when He was with His apostles on the night he was betrayed (Matthew 26.30 ; Mark 14.26). It was a stressful time, Christ knowing that He was about to be betrayed and the apostles who knew Jesus was about to leave them. They wanted to encourage each other and thank the Lord for all that He had done for them. The passage doesn’t say that the apostles picked up instruments and praised God, but rather they just used their voices to sing a song of praise to lift their spirits.

In Colossians 3.16, we find, “…teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs…” Through our worship in song, we should be conveying spiritual thoughts and encouraging each other, similar to what we just read about the apostles with Christ singing a song to lift each others spirits. If that is a personal responsibility we each have, what would I do if I were playing an instrument? How could I properly help to teach and admonish my brothers and sisters in Christ if I am focusing on playing an instrument?

Ephesians 5.19 mentions some similar commands as found in Colossians, but also includes another verb that we are to do. The verse reads, “…addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.” Here we find the command to sing as we did in Colossians. The command that follows tells us to “make melody.” Many of the religious world today make the argument that this gives us the authority to use instruments, citing the verb in the original Greek language. That verb as spelled in the English is psallo. This verb literally means to play, pluck or strike. They say that the command is to play, and I completely agree with them. The thing they miss is that to which the verb is applied. The verse says we are to psallo, or play, our heart. It doesn’t mention that we are to play any instrument, but rather sing and use our heart, which we know refers to our mind, to praise the Lord. We are to sing, not aimlessly and without thought, but rather with a purpose to teach and admonish one another. In no way does this verse give us the authority to use instruments.

Without any reference to New Testament worship with instruments, it is obviously something that God has not authorized. The command is to sing, not play. Ephesians 5.19 does use the verb that can be translated play, but that is in reference to using our mind as we sing. The other command is to teach and encourage through song, which is difficult to accomplish when focusing on the playing of an instrument. Christ with his apostles praised by just singing, and that is all we are commanded to do as well. We are to do all that he has commanded (Matthew 28.20). And when it comes to those commands we are to ONLY do that which He has said, nothing more and nothing less (Revelation 22.18-19).

During camp this past week, we were talking about how we could “go the extra mile” as Christians. This topic really caught my attention. I thought, “Wow! I didn’t really realize how having enthusiasm could affect the way we praise God.” My Bible class teacher that morning started off the class with reading Luke 7:36-39. As he read the passage, he told us to close our eyes and picture what we thought it looked like being there, so we all proceeded to do so. When he was finished, we talked about how the sinner came to the Pharisee’s house and sat at Jesus’ feet and wept and washed His feet with her tears. I sat there and thought about how many tears it would take to wash someone’s feet. You would have to be crying so hard for so long to do so. After she had washed His feet, she kissed them and anointed them with oil. You can tell in the passage how she had been passionate about what she did. She never complained about having to kiss His feet or wash them, she knew she had sinned and was willing to go the extra mile to do what she needed to get His forgiveness.

Next, we read Colossians 3:23, “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.” I realized in this verse we should not discriminate by thinking you can be enthusiastic about one thing but not about another. We should be enthusiastic in everything we do. By being enthusiastic in the things you do, you do them to their fullest potential. Take for example a teacher or coach asks you to do something and you do it with enthusiasm, it shows them you are excited to please them. God wants us to be excited to please Him as well.

The first part of Galatians 4:18 reads, “But it is good to be zealous in a good thing always…” The definition of zealous is important to someone, devoted, passionate, enthusiastic. The word enthusiasm comes from the two Greek words meaning “In…God.” So ask yourself, are you into God? Is He into you? If so, then you have enthusiasm about serving Him.

I recently read this article about heaven and what it may and may not look like, and it got me thinking, we have no idea what heaven really looks like.  We’ve been given images and suggestions in the Bible that describe it, but the thing is, we cannot truly comprehend it because it’s nothing like we’ve ever seen before.  God trying to explain heaven to us is like a parent trying to explain to a young child what God and Jesus are.

God isn’t hiding anything about heaven from us, He just can’t explain it in any other way than with the things we are familiar with, like beautiful things, and “walkways of gold.”  We should just imagine it, and know that no matter what we imagine, heaven will be greater than all of it.  Another thing is that we will hopefully see all our family members, friends, and people we care about that have followed God’s word by being baptized but have already passed on.

All we know for sure about heaven is that we will be with God, and that’s all that should really matter, because that’s all heaven is about.  Revelation 4:1-10 state that “…a throne sat in heaven, and One (God) sat on the throne…”  Heaven will be a marvelous place, and God will be waiting there to welcome us, but only if we do what we are told by HIm.  And if we do so, we can witness all the greatness of Him and of heaven. Heaven is something greater than we could ever imagine because it is God’s house.

Hello to my fellow Soldiers from southern Spain. I can’t help but reflect on the fact that while I am in a country that has seen the influence of both Romans and Muslims, simple New Testament Christianity is all but absent. Perhaps technology can have an impact that has been lost. Carry on with the battle!

The beginning of numerous events tends to be significant, doesn’t it? We all have significant events in our lives – when we begin to walk, when we begin to talk, begin school, begin dating, begin to drive, begin our life with the one we marry, begin a new job, and so on. No beginning is more significant than the beginning of time and God’s message to mankind – the book of Genesis.

The word “genesis” is Greek for “birth” or “origin” and the comparable Hebrew word is bereshith, literally “in the beginning”, which is fitting for the first book of the Bible that tells us about the origin of the earth, heavens, plants, animals, man, and woman. We know that many do not accept this book as true, believing that it is only a story. But is it any more difficult to believe in a supreme being that created everything or the concept that everything happened by chance and appeared from nothing?

I like a story I recently heard. Two people were discussing the theory of evolution and the beginning of time as we know it. The evolutionist explained how the various elements necessary for the beginning of life were combined at the right place and right time and “Zap!” the start of life took place. The creationist simple asked the question, “So from where did those materials come?” Simple but sound logic. We all understand you cannot make something out of nothing.

Genesis is the account of the beginning of everything that we know (and things we probably don’t know). Its significance cannot be understated. Beyond the beginning of time and our universe as we know it, think about what God shares with us through Moses’ recording.

1. Genesis is the beginning of our understanding of the nature of the Godhead and introduces us to the concept of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Gen.1:26 says, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…….” God, as we so often think of God, is not just one entity.
2. It tells us about the beginning of what we know to be marriage (Gen.2:18, 23-25). God saw it was not good for man to be alone so He created woman (not another man!) to be his companion.
3. Sadly, Genesis tells us about the beginning of sin which separated man from God (Gen. 3:1-7). Without God there was a downward spiral and mankind lived so sinfully that God destroyed the world with a great flood (Gen. 7).
4. The beginning of punishment for disobeying God is described in Genesis 3:14-24. As bad as being put out of the Garden of Eden was, the worst part was the separation from God.
5. The beginning of a plan was three promises that God made to Abraham: a land, a nation, and the blessing of Abraham’s seed through which the Savior would come (Gen. 12:1-3). In reality, the rest of the Bible is about the implementation of God’s plan to make a way for all of us to be reconciled or reunited with Him.

So we can see that while we usually think of Genesis (“In the beginning…”) as only the beginning of time and our world, it truly is the beginning of not only that, but God’s grand scheme for mankind.

Towards the end of our discussion Wednesday night, the question was asked, “at what point are we held accountable for own actions?” As I pondered this thought, many more questions popped into my mind, are we held accountable when we are baptized, or when we reach a certain spiritual maturity in our lives? The more questions that came to my mind, the more answers I wanted. So, my object is to, hopefully, answer the question of accountability.

In order to answer this question, I first characterized an accountable person. I believe that a person is held accountable when they are able to think about God’s judgment of their actions, has a conscience that hurts them when they do wrong, and is old enough to investigate truth and see how it applies to his or her life. Once we are able to recognize all these things, I believe we are now held accountable for our sins. However, keep in mind that ignoring accountability does not exempt us from being held accountable.

The first characteristic of an accountable person is the ability to think about God’s judgment of their actions. Clearly, a four-year old cannot be held accountable for this. Small children do not have a clear understanding of God, let alone judgment day. Their main concern is pleasing themselves or their parents. A person old enough to be accountable is capable of realizing that God will judge them based on their sins, even if he or she deliberately chooses to ignore the fact of the coming judgment. The accountable person understands that all people will stand in judgment before the Lord (2 Cor. 5:10). Therefore, serving God is of utmost priority because God will judge us. Also, accountable people can think about their conduct and what God will say about their actions.

In addition to the knowledge of God’s judgments and judgment day itself, an accountable person has a guilty conscience. Small children can do wrong without guilt. Why don’t they have any sense of guilt? They do not feel guilt because they do not understand what they did, or why it was wrong to do it. Small children, in their innocence, cannot conceive guilt. They can only associate punishment with wrongdoing. However, accountable people are different. They do feel a sense of guilt when they sin- whether they choose to follow through with their guilt is between that person and God. This feeling of guilt is produced by the conscience. The conscience is a God-given gift that corrects us when we sin by making us feel miserable. God’s gift of conscience is described in 2 Corinthians 7:9, “Now I rejoice that you were made sorry but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing.” The conscience is not foolproof. If we ignore the feelings of guilt long enough, they will go away (1 Timothy 4:2). With that being said, this does not mean that we are given a ”get out of jail” card for God’s judgment of our sins – which we are still held accountable for.

Finally, an accountable person is old enough to investigate truth and see how it applies to his or her life. All accountability focuses on the idea of knowing and obeying the truth. Thus, to be accountable, we must have the ability to find the truth, understand the truth, and obey the truth. We must realize what the truth means personally, in our own life. Would we expect a five-year-old to understand the significance of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection? Of course not. Even if that five-year-old can recite Bible stories about Jesus, he or she does not understand what it means in his or her life. The five-year-old is not able to grasp the significance, nor the meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. The accountable person knows Jesus died on the cross and knows why Jesus died and what that personally entails.

Moreover, God in His great love has put together a plan to rescue sinful people from their own sins. However, in order to apply this plan to our own lives, we must recognize and hold ourselves accountable for our own accountability. Accountable people who have sinned are lost (Isaiah 59:1-2).