Tag / tulsa

by In Light Of The Cross

Trust no one!

Elaiza

I am writing from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

You may listen to the podcast version here. 

Were you ever told that we only use 10% of our brain? I remember being told growing up that we only use 10% of our brain, but Einstein used 33% of his brain. I am not sure if this information was passed on to us as a way to encourage us to think harder in school, or as an insinuation that our minds had mysterious capabilities such as ESP, if only we could tap into the 90% of our brain we are not using. I have no doubt that the people who told me that really believed it. After all I am sure they heard it from a trusted friend who heard it from a trusted friend who heard it from a trusted friend. I know I shared that information with some of my students because I was sure my sources were reliable. Well they may have been mostly reliable, but not 100% reliable. You see, we do use our entire brain. Brain scans and other tests reveal that we use our entire brain. The idea that we don’t use our entire brain came from a study where mice could still do certain functions after having small amounts of brain matter removed. You can read about it here. It turns out that the idea that we only use 10% of our brains is a total myth.Now that I think about it, I would I have figured out as a kid that we use our entire brain if I had been using my brain. Pun intended. They myth that we only use 10% of our brains has endured for ages because we are prone to believe what we are told by trusted people instead of using our own minds to figure things out.

I am reminded of a time many years ago when I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I had a friend, Anne, who was a flight instructor at the Spartan Flight School in Tulsa. One Saturday night, she and I decided to rent a small Cessna 152 and take an aerial tour of the city. While they were fueling the plane, Anne was checking all the gauges to make sure all systems were good to go. When she got to the fuel gauge she said, “Fuel gauge reads full.”

I joked that since we just watched them fueling the plane, there was no need to check the fuel gauge. Her reply has always stuck with me. “Trust no one,” she said. She was right. As the pilot of our little aircraft, it was her personal responsibility to check all the gauges, including the fuel gauge. It was not disrespectful for her to check to make sure the “pit crew” had done their job. It was her responsibility to check things out for herself.

We all have that responsibility as Christians. Paul was not offended at all that the Bereans checked out his preaching to see if it went along with the Scriptures. “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:11 NIV Everyone knew Paul was sincere, but we are all human, right? We can make sincere mistakes.

As Seventh-day Adventists, we tell our Protestant and Catholic friends that they need to read the Bible for themselves, and not take their preacher’s word for it. But how many of us turn around and think, My pastor is an Adventist so I know he is preaching truth?

Friends, if the people searched the Scriptures to see if what Paul said was so, how much more should we be searching the Scriptures to see if what our pastor says is so. We are all human. We make mistakes. Making a sincere mistake does not make you a heretic. It does not mean you are a part of a global sinister conspiracy plot. It just means we are all human. We can’t rely on man alone. Like my friend Anne, who checked out things for herself, we must, along with the Bereans, search the Scriptures for ourselves, so that we can each know individually what is true.

You may study this week’s Sabbath School lesson here. 
by In Light Of The Cross

What Happens When You Change Seats on a Plane

TIA 017

I am writing today from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

When my flight from Tulsa to Tampa stopped briefly in Houston last night, I decided to stay on the plane to save my window seat. The plane would be taking off again quickly anyway. Since the turbulence did not allow for any kind of service to Houston, I asked the stewardess for a drink.

As people started boarding, a small family was trying to get seated near me. The father was telling his kids where to sit as there was no room for them all to sit together. I was the only one in my row, so after spotting another available window seat, I offered the father my seat so he could sit with his kids. He graciously accepted the offer. As I got up to move, my earphones I was holding along with my drink got caught on the seat belt causing me to jerk and spill my drink across the seats. The stewardess quickly came to dry off the seats, while a passenger across the isle held my cup so I could free myself from my tangled web.

I was apologizing for making a mess but everyone was so friendly, and thanked me for changing seats. I thought to myself how cool that instead of berating me for being a klutz everyone just expressed their gratitude for me making what they thought was a nice gesture. They only saw the good in me instead of the klutz in me. I told myself I need to be that way with others. I need to see only good in others instead of their mistakes.

I made my way over to the window seat on the other side. A gentleman was sitting in the isle seat, and he quickly let me in. Turns out he was on his way home to the Plant City area. I told him I work with a church in Plant City. He asked me which one and I told him the Plant City Seventh-day Adventist Church and where it was located. He then began asking me about the Bible and how to know the truth. We had a very interesting talk for the remainder of the flight. He told me he did not agree with me about everything but my Adventist perspective was much more logical than what he had been hearing elsewhere. I told him that was fine, the Holy Spirit would lead him. I did point out through the course of conversation that 2 Peter 1:21 tells us that the Holy Spirit moved the men of God to write, and the Holy Spirit would not contradict what He moved them to write.  I told him I did not think it was just coincidence that I changed seats and ended up next to him and he enthusiastically agreed.

Though there was still much we disagreed on, when we landed and parted ways we both agreed that we really enjoyed our visit and were glad to meet each other. Without being too pushy I made sure he knew where my church was and where he could find me again.

I firmly believe and so does he, that the Holy Spirit caused me to change seats. The Holy Spirit probably did not cause me to spill my drink everywhere in the process, but even tough I made a total mess of things the Holy Spirit turned into something meaningful. As I exited the plane everyone was all smiles and saw me as a nice guy who helped out a family instead of a klutz that made a mess. In 2020 instead of seeing the mess in people I want to see the good in them too.

by In Light Of The Cross

Trusting God Instead of Knucklehead Ideas

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I am writing tonight from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

The question is asked on Tuesday’s section of this week’s lesson, “In what ways have you discovered for yourself the true spiritual blessings that come from paying tithe? How has paying tithe helped increase your faith?”

After returning home to Tulsa from Southern Adventist University, I got a job at Taco Bell, and at 19 years old moved into my own apartment. It was a nice junior one bedroom. My rent was only $200.00 a month. What I would give to take my current salary and go back to those days! My parents both served as treasurers for the Tulsa First SDA Church for decades. They had instilled in me the importance of tithe. My dad always says, “Church’s don’t have financial problems. They have spiritual problems.” If everyone sacrificed and gave systematically as the Bible says, the church will always have enough.  While paying an honest tithe, even while barely making above minimum wage I had no problems paying my bills. I remember getting bills in the mail and going inside and writing a check to pay them right away. I did not need to wait until the due date. God was blessing.

Funny thing is, as I started making more money I started running into financial issues. I had a budget, but did not carefully watch myself during the month, thinking I had plenty of money. Still in my early twenties, I got a job working in the warehouse of a business forms company, making almost twice as much as I was at Taco Bell. Not keeping close track of what I was spending, I ran into financial problems, and for the first time started falling behind on my bills. I had recently transferred to a smaller church outside Tulsa, where I was serving as an elder.

I was the youngest elder in the Oklahoma conference and the most immature too, as I came up with a knucklehead idea for my new financial problems. Had I still been in the church where my parents were treasures I probably never would have done this. I had recently been promised a reasonable raise at work, but every week it failed to show on my pay check. So I decided to use all my money to pay my bills, and stop returning tithe until I got my raise. Each week I recorded what my tithe was so I could pay it once my raise came, but week after week there was no raise on my check. I recorded what I owed in tithe to pay once my raise came. The tithe was adding up. Finally one night after a group Bible study I told an older lady in my church that I felt bad not being able to tithe, but that I would tithe once my raise showed up on my check. She said firmly, “William you are not going to get your raise until you return your tithe.” Now I knew good and well that people get raises all the time who never tithe. However I knew too, that God is a personal God, and He was speaking to me through my older friend.

We received our paychecks every Friday, but the following Friday I did not go into work as I had too much overtime. Yes, God was blessing me with overtime while I was waiting on my raise and even withholding my tithe. Even though I did not get my paycheck on Friday, I returned my full tithe that Sabbath. I did not know what I was going to do, but I knew I had to do what was right.

Monday morning I went into work and picked up the paycheck that had been lying in my box since Friday. I opened it up and there was my raise! Was the raise a blessing? Yes! But the greatest blessing was knowing a God of love was watching over me, and even speaking to me through my older friend in my Bible study group. He loves me and takes care of me. All I have to do is trust in Him instead of my knucklehead ideas!

by In Light Of The Cross

How Homosexuality Attempts to Defy Creation

Tulsa SDA

I am writing today from beautiful Tulsa Oklahoma.

So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27 NLT

Many, even Christians do not fully grasp the importance of understanding Satan’s goal in promoting same sex marriages. Marriage, like the Sabbath goes back to creation. While we have the sun to mark a year, the moon to track a month, the earth’s rotation to mark a day, the one and only source of our 7 day week is the creation story, ending with the Sabbath. You simply cannot explain where we got a 7 day week, or where the idea of the Sabbath came from (regardless if you want to keep it or not) without going to the Biblical account of creation. Satan’s goal of making man forget the Sabbath goes a lot farther than just forgetting there is a law. Satan’s goal is for us to forget that there is a God who loves us!

The same with marriage. First of all if you want to believe in evolution, you have to believe that something was here in the first place to evolve. Where did that “something” come from? I heard an atheist, on national TV telling everyone there was no reason to believe in God after we discovered the atom. Really? May I ask who created the atom? If we all just came from a big bang, what exactly went bang, and where did it come from? The creation story tells us. God spoke and bang there it was! So, don’t you believe it is pretty spectacular that we have human life? Some take this as a coincidence from some sort of big bang. Well what is remarkable is not only was there a big bang, but after the big bang we have life. Wait a minute, not only do we have have life, we have humans who just happen to have counterpart reproductive organs where they can create even more life! What a coincidence! Not! Yet that is what those who are promoting gay marriage are claiming, that there we no design or reason for us to be created male and female. It was all a big fluke and you can choose whatever gender you want and marry whatever gender you choose to marry. Homosexual marriage, (well lets stop right here. There is no such thing as homosexual marriage. It simply does not exist. Man cannot make laws creating gay marriage anymore than man can make laws changing the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.) attempts to defy more than just God’s law. It tries to defy more than just the Bible. Homosexual marriage defies that we have a creator who created us male and female. Homosexual marriage attempts to defy that we have a loving Creator.

The fact that we have so called homosexual churches should not surprise us. If there are churches openly defying the 4th commandment, why be surprised there are churches defying any other Bible teaching? Again marriage and the Sabbath all go back to creation. Marriage and the Sabbath tells us there is a God. This is a truth many people find too inconvenient. As the Bible Sabbath is being attacked, we should not be surprised that Bible marriage is as well. After all it is God Himself Who is being attacked.

I once heard someone say, that they did not think it was fair for God to let someone be born homosexual. Now many argue over whether nor not someone is actually born homosexual. It doesn’t matter. We are all born sinners. We are all born selfish. We are all born with the lust of the flesh, which is why Jesus tells everyone, hetero-sexual and homo-sexual, we all must be born AGAIN! Someone saying they were born homosexual is no more an excuse to stay homosexual, than being born selfish is an excuse to stay selfish. We all must be born again.

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT

Jesus wants to restore all things. He does not want to destroy the sexually immoral. He wants to save them.

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:17 NKJV

There is an old song by Bill Gaither that goes like this,

Something beautiful, something good All my confusion He understood All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife But he made something beautiful of my life.

This world is filled with people who are not only confused about which day is the 7th day, but also confused about their sexuality. Jesus understands! Give your broken sexuality to Him. He can restore your broken and torn spirit. Give Jesus your confused and tarnished sexuality, and let Him make you sexually whole again. God created sex at creation. Let Him recreate and restore your sex as you give your life to Him right now.

You may study this week’s Sabbath School lesson on restoration here. 

by In Light Of The Cross

Are you a Prisoner of Circumstances or a Prisoner of the Lord?

I am writing today from the beautiful, yet slightly overcast, Tulsa Oklahoma area.

I am writing today from the beautiful, yet slightly overcast, Tulsa Oklahoma area.

Have you ever felt like you were a victim of circumstances? Due to lack of education or money you have missed opportunities? Maybe if you had not married right out of high school you could have explored the world instead of getting tied down. Now you are sacrificing your own dreams in order to create a better life for your family. Meanwhile someone else wishes they had married so they could be experiencing a family. Now those are examples of being a victim of your own choices and not necessarily circumstances beyond your own control. Other people feel like they were born victims.

Some blame the location of where they were born on how their lives turned out. Several years ago a friend came to visit me from South America. We were stopped at an intersection where a man was begging. My friend was amazed that their were poor people in the United States. She thought all Americans were wealthy. No matter where we come from or what our lot is in life, it is sometimes easy to see ourselves as victims of circumstances.

While I enjoy my freedom of being single, there are times I miss having a family. By the way, just because I am happy being single does not mean I have chosen to remain single. I am just happy being single until God brings me the right woman. I am not desperate. I am happily content. Anyway, I was talking to a friend the other day about one of the things I miss about not having my own family.  I miss having someone to share my story with. I don’t have a wife to share my school yearbook with and tell her my high school and college stories. I don’t have any children to tell my, “when I was a kid” stories to. Then again, I know married people who sadly, don’t have anyone in their family who wants to hear their story either.

My friend then made an amazing comparison. She told me while I have no family to share my stories with that I share them with my church family and extended family on my blog. She told me Paul was the same way. Maybe that is why he wrote so much and loved his church so much, because, having no immediate family, the church was his love and passion and he wrote sharing his story and testimony with them. Maybe that is why he wrote so much! Now I have no doubt Paul wrote because God told him to, and I write too (While I do not share Paul’s inspiration or authority) because God places things on my heart. But it got me to thinking about Paul’s circumstances and one thing I have always noticed.

While being persecuted and in prison Paul never thought of himself as a victim of circumstances. He never even though of himself as a victim of the Jews or Romans while in prison. Paul writes,

 For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles..Ephesians 3:1

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you… Ephesians 4:1

Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner:2 Timothy 1:8

Paul never refers to being a prisoner of the Romans or Jews. He does not talk about being a prisoner of circumstances. Even while in prison Paul saw himself as a prisoner of the Lord! He knew he was right exactly where God wanted him to be. Paul did most of his writing from prison. If he had been free to travel and talk to people in person, he would not have written so much, and we would not have had all of his writings preserved in the New Testament that we have today. Paul was well aware of how an angel freed Peter from prison. Paul was well aware of how Philip just disappeared from one place and appeared in another. Paul knew that the iron bars and soldiers were not really holding him there. He knew he was right where God needed him to be, so he calls himself a prisoner of the Lord instead of a prisoner of man or circumstances.

I have a friend who recently took a job that she was well over qualified for. Based on her education and degree she should be somewhere else making much more money. She may have even faced ridicule from her friends and family for “lowering” herself to take this job, but where she is living, and based on other “circumstances” this was the best she could do for now. However she never complains. Instead she tells me of the people she meets there who need Jesus, that she never would have been able to reach out to if she was not working with them. They never would have come to her church. She never would have met them working anyplace else. She is glad she is where she is because she is being used by God to reach people who need Him! And really isn’t that where we all should be?

No matter where we are born and raised and work, our real home is in heaven and we are just missionaries to this world, sent from God to share the good news with others. Some of us may be missionaries in places of poverty. Some of us may be missionaries in our families, or if we have no immediate family then in our church family and communities. Some of us may be missionaries in difficult work places, and some of us may be missionaries in literal prisons. Either way we are not prisoners of circumstances. If we love God and have chosen to serve Him, we are only prisoners of the Lord.

You can study this week’s SS lesson here. 

by In Light Of The Cross

The Tulsa Roughnecks Never Left Me Hanging!

Skelly Stadium, home of the Tulsa Roughnecks from 1977-84

Everyone has watched the video, by now, of the boy left hanging, trying to encourage his favorite team, the Miami heat for a good, but failing effort.  This is not the first time a loyal fan has been snubbed by the team he supports. Makes you wonder what sports stars are thinking today? Are they under some delusion that we pay to worship them, instead of to see a game? But let me take you back to a simpler time and place where things were different between a major league sports team and the city that loved and supported it.

In the late 70s and early 80s there was a major league soccer team, the Tulsa Roughnecks, that played and practiced in Skelly Stadium, on the Tulsa University campus, just a few blocks from my house.  Many summer mornings would find my neighbor friends and I walking down to the stadium, into the field, and kick the ball around with each other and even a major league soccer player or two, before their workout-practice began at 10:30am. Once practiced started, we would sit on the field and watch. Once over, we would visit with the players who were always glad to talk to us. They knew us by name. On Mondays the whole team would meet at a Tulsa restaurant, where everyone was welcome to have lunch with them.

The Tulsa Roughnecks were Tulsa. The city loved them. Once they lost a playoff series out of town, and were surprised to find hundreds of fans at the airport to greet and congratulate them for their effort, when they returned on a red-eye flight. I remember one player on the news, almost teary eyed, exclaiming with amazement that he had never seen such support after a loss! In 1983 the Roughnecks won the championship. The league was struggling and the team almost financially collapsed, but KRMG radio station held a telethon, and in one day the money  poured in to keep the team going. The people of Tulsa loved its team, and the team loved Tulsa.

Scenes like this were common after a game. Even after a loss the players did not just run off the field after a game. They showed appreciation. (Thank you Tulsaroughnecks.com for this image.)

Later I moved to Dallas-Fort Worth, and went to get tickets to a Rangers baseball game. At the stadium ticket booth, in the morning, long before game time,  I asked to use the pay phone about a yard behind the ticket booth. I was told I could not do that because it was across a yellow line. Really? In Tulsa I could walk onto the field and talk with the players, but in Texas I could not step across a line to use a phone? Made me think how special my years in Tulsa, as a Roughnecks fan was. Then I realized, no, it was not special. Yes I took it for granted, how friendly, personable and humble the players were, but you know what? It should be taken for granted! That’s right! I don’t care if you are the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys or Miami Heat, every player, every team should be friendly, personable and humble. Yes, if a city is going to stand behind its team and support it, it should be taken for granted that the team owes something more to the community than to just let the  city pay to worship them.

The Tulsa Roughnecks were not the only major league soccer team to show some class. I remember being at a game where Tulsa was playing Giorgio Chinaglia and the New York Cosmos. Chinaglia was the Babe Ruth of Major league American Soccer and the Cosmos were the Yankees of soccer. In the middle of the game, Tommy Ord, of the Roughnecks got a painful leg cramp and was lying on the ground. With no time outs in soccer play continued, and the Cosmos took the ball and attacked the Tulsa goal. Instead of charging down the field with his team, Chinaglia went over to Tommy Ord, lying on the ground in pain, and helped Ord exercise his leg to relieve the cramp! When was the last time you saw something like that in sports?

You can easily find pictures on the Internet and videos of Babe Ruth with children, especially in hospitals. Ruth was not perfect, but he understood he was part of a community, and not an idol for people to worship.  We ask what has happened to players today to give them the big head, and think they owe nothing to the community except to let people worship them. Wrong question. Where did the community go wrong to give the sports stars the idea that we wanted to worship them instead of see a game?

I still have in my possession, a copy of an article, I wrote to the Fort Worth Star Telegram shortly after the 1994-95 Major league baseball strike. Shortly after the strike I called the Texas Rangers ticket office. I was greeted by a recording saying, “baseball is back.” I wrote to the Star-Telegram asking where did baseball go? I knew the Texas Rangers were on strike, but was still quite certain I had still seen baseball on college fields, little league fields and even sand lots. Was major league baseball so arrogant as to believe they were baseball? And that if they were on strike that baseball ceased to exist?

Things like that take me back to a time, when I was young and naïve, and took it for granted that all sports heroes were friendly, personable and humble, just like my Tulsa Roughnecks.

A couple of years ago, I ran across an article about Alex Skotarek, a long time Roughneck player, coach and GM. I found his number and called him up to see if he remembered me, and my friends watching him practice. He remembered us and our names. We reminisced for a few minutes about those special days in Tulsa with the Roughnecks. After a few minutes, I politely told him I would let him go.  He thanked me for calling and told me to call back anytime.

I wish the young fan at the Miami Heat game could have had the same experience growing up with major league sports that I had.

Go Roughnecks!  (Thank you Tulsaroughnecks.com for this image.)

by In Light Of The Cross

Glimpes of Our God; The Promise of His Return

I am writing tonight from beautiful Lake Placid Florida, which is famous for its murals on many of the town buildings, each one telling a story about the city.

As Seventh-day Adventists recently celebrated the 150th anniversary of our name, one important question comes to mind concerning our name. The “Advent” part pertaining to the second coming. Is the second coming still on? Are we still planning on it? Is it still a part of who we are?

 

Growing up a Seventh-day Adventist I remember hearing people talking about how Jesus was surely coming in the next five years. We thought for sure the oil crisis in the 70’s was the end of the world. I still remember looking at the form the Tulsa Roughnecks Soccer team sent me when I was a teen, asking me to renew my season tickets for the 1980 season. You are going to laugh at me, but I stared at that form in disbelief that I actually saw the year 1980 in print. There is no way the world will last that long I thought. Well that was 30 years ago and we are in a totally new century. So what happened to the second coming? Is it still on?

 

In the mid ‘80s I joined a new Adventist church in the suburbs of Tulsa. I had just started dating a girl who went to that church so I  switched from the central Adventist church in Tulsa to her church. We just started dating when she dumped me. Oh well, I still stayed at this new church for the simple reason that I did not want people to think I changed churches just for her. Besides, this church seemed to really be on fire. The weekly prayer meetings were very spiritual, and everyone was praying for the power of the Holy Spirit to prepare them for the second coming. We had about as many people attending prayer meeting that attended our Sabbath Worship services. We were sure Jesus was coming soon and we were getting ready. Then something sad happened. People stopped coming to prayer meeting. Some decided “Growing Pains” was just too funny of a show to miss for prayer meeting. People stopped coming to church all together. This was not suppose to happen! Discouraged, I asked God why He did not come back when our church was at its spiritual peak, when we had it all together. He waited too long and now look what happened. I believe the Holy Spirit revealed to me why Jesus did not return when the church was on top of its game. Our church was on a spiritual roller coaster. Jesus is not coming back for a church on a spiritual roller coaster. He is not coming back for a people who walk with him off and on. A groom does not want to marry a bride who’s love and devotion goes in cycles. Neither does Jesus. Enoch walked with God many years before being translated. God will come back for a church who will consistently walk with Him year after year after year, and not on some roller coaster. The church is a woman. For centuries God’s church has loved to flirt with Him, but it also loves to flirt with the world. God’s church likes to date Jesus, but it also likes to date other things too. Jesus is not returning for a date, He is returning for a wedding. When God’s church decides to stop dating and flirting with Jesus and decides to get married He will return.

 

During this same time period our church in suburban Tulsa was also asking the Holy Spirit to get sin out of our lives so we could be ready for Jesus to come. We did not, or at least at the time I did not realize how legalistic that was. Jesus is not coming back for a legalistic group who get their act together so they can have some great reward like heaven. Jesus is coming back for a people who love Him because He first loved them. Today I ask the Holy Spirit to remove sin from my life, not because Jesus is coming back but because my sin breaks God’s heart. I do not want to break His heart anymore, regardless if He is coming back tomorrow or a hundred years from now.

 

Now that I am older I don’t hear people talking about Jesus coming back in the next five years. So is the whole thing off? One of Satan’s best weapons are over zealous religious fanatics. They tell people Jesus is coming back during a certain time table, and then when their “prophecy” fails, people then doubt that Jesus is coming back at all. However this is all Satan’s plan. To get us to give up right before it happens. Concentration camp survivors say they survived because they never set a date for their rescue. Some wanted to be rescued by Christmas, and then when that came and went, they wanted rescued by Easter, and then when Easter came when went they gave up hope. Others just knew that they would be rescued some day and they survived. As Seventh-day Adventists we must believe Jesus is returning, without setting dates. Some have gone to the other extreme now and don’t even preach the second coming at all. They preach social sermons which they find more practical in everyday living. While we must be practical we must also realize God formed our church 150 years ago for a specific reason. If we are just going to preach social sermons like the ones you can hear in any church or denomination, you must ask yourself why we even bother existing if we have no message to offer other than what the other denominations are preaching. Are we embarrassed by our message? I am sure the disciples were embambarrassed when Jesus was crucified, but there was no reason for them to be. Are we afraid people will not believe our message, so instead we just preach things we know the world will accept? If so, shame on us! We are doing our Savior and neighbor no justice by hiding our special message.

 

 There is no reason to water down our message. Several years ago I was leading out in a youth small group study with another family in my neighborhood. One Sabbath afternoon when it was time for our study, we received an invitation to a youth meeting at our church. There was to be a lot of contemporary music for the kids. I thought, why not? Lets skip our Bible study this week and go to this contemporary concert and show the kids that we have fun too. After the concert I asked one of the kids how they liked the concert, hoping they thought it was a lot of fun and that our church was really with it. This young person, about 13 years old at the time, looked at me with disappointment in their eyes and said, “I wish we would have had the Bible study instead.” People, there are kids out there starving for our gospel message! Why disappoint them by feeding them what the world is feeding them? Furthermore what is the point of a church that is just like the world? I am not saying all contemporary music is wrong and we should never offer that. I am saying let’s offer more than just that. And if the church only feeds people what is in the world then why does the church even bother existing? Have we given up on the second coming and decided to just join the world and be a social club with good morals? How legalistic is that!

 

The Seventh-day Adventist church has a message that will more than prepare people to live nice little lives in this world. We have a gospel that will prepare people for the world to come! We must let everyone know the second coming is still on! There are twice as many prophecies about the second coming than there were about Jesus’ first advent. He came the first time, so we know beyond a shadow of a doubt He is coming the second time. Jesus warns against setting times for His return when He tells us, “ in the hour you think not, the Son of man cometh.” Satan has been using religious fanatics for years to get us all excited and then disappointed that He has not returned. Satan wants us to give up and think Jesus is not returning at all. There is great danger in what I was always hearing growing up, about Jesus coming in the next five years, because it does two things, it makes you give up hope when He does not return in those five years and it also makes you think you have five years to prepare. One day we won’t have five years to prepare. We won’t have one year to prepare. In the hour we think not, He will come! Don’t get ready, be ready! Be ready not because He is coming back but because we love Him because He first loved us! The Adventist church, the church that believes the Bible prophecies about the second coming has a reason to exist! If we just preach social day by day sermons that you can hear anywhere else then we are not fulfilling our purpose for coming into existence 150 years ago.  A true Adventist more than believes Jesus is coming. We love His appearing! We have a message to give to world and believe it or not the world is hungry for our message so why not give it? Jesus loves them and wants to be with them forever!

You may study this week’s SS lesson here.  Download the SS app to your phone here.

 

For more studies on the second coming and our special message click here.

For my friend’s site on our special message click here.

by In Light Of The Cross

Garments of Grace; The Prodigal’s New Clothes

I am writing today from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

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Many look at the story of the prodigal son, in this week’s SS lesson as a story about one man in the church and one who was out. However, it is interesting in the end, the one who is out comes in and the one who is in goes out. The prodigal son asks for his inheritance before he leaves. What the son is saying to the father is, “I want all your blessings but I don’t want to live under you roof and abide by your rules.” I don’t think the prodigal son is alone in his way of thinking. Remember earlier in these lessons we spoke of Joseph’s brothers being jealous of the special coat that their father had made him. His brothers wanted all the blessings Joseph had, but did not want the intimate relationship with their father that Joseph had. Do we do the same today? Do we ask God to bless us while we are willfully ignoring His commandments? If so, we are just like the prodigal son who said, give me my inheritance and I am going to go live somewhere else where you can’t tell me what to do. Unfortunately the inheritance only lasted as long as the relationship. Lesson learned: The relationship is the inheritance!

 

When the son realizes this, he heads for home. Now feeling unworthy of the relationship or inheritance, he seeks to become a hired hand. His Father would have none of that. While the son is a great ways off, the father runs to him and hugs and kisses him. I am reminded of a story in the Great Controversy, of a religious leader during the dark ages, making a ruler stand out in the snow before he would forgive him. What a gross misrepresentation of my heavenly Father! My Father does not make people stand out in the snow before He forgives them. He runs to where they are and hugs and kisses them, and welcomes them home.

Meanwhile the other brother who stayed at home is not the least bit happy to see his brother return. It makes him so angry he leaves the house! When you read his argument you see he thought all these years he was working for all he had. Come to find out it was all a gift given to him and not of works.  The son who stayed home benefited from grace as much as the one who ran away.

On my trip home from Tulsa I ran into weather problems in Dallas-Fort Worth, where I was to make my connection flight. My flight was cancelled and I ended up spending the night on the chapel floor at the airport. I was frustrated because I lived in the Dallas area for ten years and still have many friends there, but I could not ask them to come get me in the storm which included tornados.  So I laid down on the airport floor with my laptop case for a pillow. I had just begun to feel sorry for myself, when I realized, that many people more noble than I sleep on hard floors every night. People more noble than I had just lost their homes and even lives in the Joplin tornado. People more noble than I sleep on the hard ground under bridges every night! I realized my nice comfortable apartment back home in Tampa is not something I have earned or deserve. It is a gift from God! I then realized that the nice little chapel floor in the airport was not a curse, but rather a gift of grace from God. A gift that I had not earned or deserved.

Since I could not sleep well, I prayed for the prayer requests coming in from my Facebook. Surprisingly they came in all night long. That morning I woke up feeling the presence of God in that chapel more vividly than when I am even at home. I realized my gift from God’s grace is a relationship with Him and not a comfortable place to sleep. I realized I was just as much my heavenly Father’s son while sleeping on the airport floor, as when I will be resting in my heavenly mansion.  Interesting…..Jesus was just as much His Father’s Son while laying in a manger as He is now sitting on the throne in heaven.

by In Light Of The Cross

So, Um, Is The Second Coming Still On?

I am writing today from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

As Seventh-day Adventists celebrate the 150th anniversary of our name, one important question comes to mind concerning our name. The Advent part pertaining to the second coming. Is the second coming still on? Are we still planning on it? Is it still a part of who we are?

 

Growing up a Seventh-day Adventist I remember hearing people talking about how Jesus was surely coming in the next five years. We thought for sure the oil crisis in the 70’s was the end of the world. I still remember looking at the form the Tulsa Roughnecks Soccer team sent me when I was a teen, asking me to renew my season tickets for the 1980 season. You are going to laugh at me, but I stared at that form in disbelief that I actually saw the year 1980 in print. There is no way the world will last that long I thought. Well that was 30 years ago and we are in a totally new century. So what happened to the second coming? Is it still on?

 

In the mid ‘80s I joined a new Adventist church in the suburbs of Tulsa. I had just started dating a girl who went to that church so I  switched from the central Adventist church in Tulsa to her church. We just started dating when she dumped me. Oh well, I still stayed at this new church for the simple reason that I did not want people to think I changed churches just for her. Besides, this church seemed to really be on fire. The weekly prayer meetings were very spiritual, and everyone was praying for the power of the Holy Spirit to prepare them for the second coming. We had about as many people attending prayer meeting that attended our Sabbath Worship services. We were sure Jesus was coming soon and we were getting ready. Then something sad happened. People stopped coming to prayer meeting. Some decided “Growing Pains” was just too funny of a show to miss for prayer meeting. People stopped coming to church all together. This was not suppose to happen! Discouraged, I asked God why He did not come back when our church was at its spiritual peak, when we had it all together. He waited too long and now look what happened. I believe the Holy Spirit revealed to me why Jesus did not return when the church was on top of its game. Our church was on a spiritual roller coaster. Jesus is not coming back for a church on a spiritual roller coaster. He is not coming back for a people who walk with him off and on. A groom does not want to marry a bride who’s love and devotion goes in cycles. Neither does Jesus. Enoch walked with God many years before being translated. God will come back for a church who will consistently walk with Him year after year after year, and not on some roller coaster. The church is a woman. For centuries God’s church has loved to flirt with Him, but it also loves to flirt with the world. God’s church likes to date Jesus, but it also likes to date other things too. Jesus is not returning for a date, He is returning for a wedding. When God’s church decides to stop dating and flirting with Jesus and decides to get married He will return.

 

During this same time period our church in suburban Tulsa was also asking the Holy Spirit to get sin out of our lives so we could be ready for Jesus to come. We did not, or at least at the time I did not realize how legalistic that was. Jesus is not coming back for a legalistic group who get their act together so they can have some great reward like heaven. Jesus is coming back for a people who love Him because He first loved them. Today I ask the Holy Spirit to remove sin from my life, not because Jesus is coming back but because my sin breaks God’s heart. I do not want to break His heart anymore, regardless if He is coming back tomorrow or a hundred years from now.

 

Now that I am older I don’t hear people talking about Jesus coming back in the next five years. So is the whole thing off? One of Satan’s best weapons are over zealous religious fanatics. They tell people Jesus is coming back during a certain time table, and then when their “prophecy” fails, people then doubt that Jesus is coming back at all. However this is all Satan’s plan. To get us to give up right before it happens. Concentration camp survivors say they survived because they never set a date for their rescue. Some wanted to be rescued by Christmas, and then when that came and went, they wanted rescued by Easter, and then when Easter came when went they gave up hope. Others just knew that they would be rescued some day and they survived. As Seventh-day Adventists we must believe Jesus is returning, without setting dates. Some have gone to the other extreme now and don’t even preach the second coming at all. They preach social sermons which they find more practical in everyday living. While we must be practical we must also realize God formed our church 150 years ago for a specific reason. If we are just going to preach social sermons like the ones you can hear in any church or denomination, you must ask yourself why we even bother existing if we have no message to offer other than what the other denominations are preaching. Are we embarrassed by our message? I am sure the disciples were embambarrassed when Jesus was crucified, but there was no reason for them to be. Are we afraid people will not believe our message, so instead we just preach things we know the world will accept? If so, shame on us! We are doing our Savior and neighbor no justice by hiding our special message.

 

 There is no reason to water down our message. Several years ago I was leading out in a youth small group study with another family in my neighborhood. One Sabbath afternoon when it was time for our study, we received an invitation to a youth meeting at our church. There was to be a lot of contemporary music for the kids. I thought, why not? Lets skip our Bible study this week and go to this contemporary concert and show the kids that we have fun too. After the concert I asked one of the kids how they liked the concert, hoping they thought it was a lot of fun and that our church was really with it. This young person, about 13 years old at the time, looked at me with disappointment in their eyes and said, “I wish we would have had the Bible study instead.” People, there are kids out there starving for our gospel message! Why disappoint them by feeding them what the world is feeding them? Furthermore what is the point of a church that is just like the world? I am not saying all contemporary music is wrong and we should never offer that. I am saying let’s offer more than just that. And if the church only feeds people what is in the world then why does the church even bother existing? Have we given up on the second coming and decided to just join the world and be a social club with good morals? How legalistic is that!

 

The Seventh-day Adventist church has a message that will more than prepare people to live nice little lives in this world. We have a gospel that will prepare people for the world to come! We must let everyone know the second coming is still on! There are twice as many prophecies about the second coming than there were about Jesus’ first advent. He came the first time, so we know beyond a shadow of a doubt He is coming the second time. Jesus warns against setting times for His return when He tells us, “ in the hour you think not, the Son of man cometh.” Satan has been using religious fanatics for years to get us all excited and then disappointed that He has not returned. Satan wants us to give up and think Jesus is not returning at all. There is great danger in what I was always hearing growing up, about Jesus coming in the next five years, because it does two things, it makes you give up hope when He does not return in those five years and it also makes you think you have five years to prepare. One day we won’t have five years to prepare. We won’t have one year to prepare. In the hour we think not, He will come! Don’t get ready, be ready! Be ready not because He is coming back but because we love Him because He first loved us! The Adventist church, the church that believes the Bible prophecies about the second coming has a reason to exist! If we just preach social day by day sermons that you can hear anywhere else then we are not fulfilling our purpose for coming into existence 150 years ago.  A true Adventist more than believes Jesus is coming. We love His appearing! We have a message to give to world and believe it or not the world is hungry for our message so why not give it? Jesus loves them and wants to be with them forever!

 

For more studies on the second coming and our special message click here.

For my friend’s site on our special message click here.