A Simple Faith

Love. It’s that simple. We are commanded to love each other: 

Romans 12:10 -

"Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor." 

and John 13:34-35 -

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

and finally, Matthew 36-40 -

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

If you do not love the people that surround you in your life, then you are not a disciple of Christ.

Christianity is not about going to church, or how many minutes a day you read the Bible, or how righteous you think you are (think again). 

Christianity is about the act of showing love for the people God has placed in your life.

God created each of us.  God doesn’t make mistakes.  None of us are mistakes. We are all his children who he loves dearly.  He has us exactly where he wants us right now, in this very moment.  So set your bias, your judgment, your fears and insecurities aside and remember:

1 John 4:7-12 -

"Beloved let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."

Jesus loves us enough to bear our sins.  Now, we are free to love each other through him.

Kevin Bibo

Pain In The Neck

I have struggled with neck issues for past 15+ years. It all stemmed from a car accident way back in the late 1990s when I was part of a four car rear-end accident. It wasn’t until two weeks after the accident that I started to have pain and discomfort. 

Today, if I stretch wrong, sneeze hard or tense up it causes my neck to flare up. I have had this pain for the past few days this week and it really limits what I am able to do and interferes with everyday life. That got me thinking about how choices, both past and present, have an effect on our lives.

We make choices every day. Whether it is a choice about where to have lunch or which route to take to work. We all make these seemingly automatic decisions without issue. The choices I am referring to today are the ones that can have a negative effect on our lives either now or in the future.

Some people think that when they become a Christian they are saved from the consequences of their past actions and choices. The truth is we are saved from the penalty of that sin but we still may have to suffer the physical consequences of our choices. Parts of our bodies are ruined from years of alcohol or drug abuse.

You may turn your life around and quit drinking but you could still suffer from the effects of a damaged liver. Being sexually active outside of marriage may cause diseases that take years to rear their ugly head. Being a compulsive liar causes someone to tell lie after lie just to keep a story straight. It is possible to run into a person your lie has damaged many years later.

So, much like whiplash the effects of these choices can linger. The difference as a Christian is we are forgiven. And if we have to experience pain because of our past choices we can learn through those instances. We grow, we are refined and we can help others through those times. Regardless of the discomfort, our God is good!

Pastor Jason Pugh

Adversaries Remain

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.

When we are going through adversity, we have a lot of questions: “Why are difficult people allowed to cause so much disturbance in my life?”  “Lord, why don’t you remove these impossible circumstances?”  “Why are my prayers taking so long to answer?”  And the big one: “Lord, why is the devil allowed to run rampant?”

Life’s issues are complex.  There is no simple answer to these questions.  But there is one answer we rarely consider:  God has let adversity remain in our lives in order to teach us to wage holy battles.  For some reason, now obscured by the mysteries of the eternal plan, we need to learn to fight.

And not only do we need to learn to fight, we need to do so in the power of God’s own strength and according to his character.  We need to understand his weapons, his ways, his goals, and his strategies.  We can never learn such things in a peaceful existence.  There has to be war.

We don’t like that.  We don’t understand it, either.  God has promised us his peace – his “shalom” – and we fully expect to realize it one day.  So, why do we need to learn warfare, we ask?  Why do our hands need to be trained for battle?

We don’t know.  Perhaps there are future battles to be fought before shalom comes – battles that only the hands and hearts of experience can wage.  Perhaps we are to be critical instruments in God’s violent opposition to evil.  Regardless, for whatever reason, God wants us to have experience.

Be encouraged!  Your adversity is not meant to destroy you, or even get you down – not by God, anyway.  No, he has greater plans for it.  He is teaching you to be a useful instrument in an other-worldly conflict.  The opposition of this world is your means to learn.

Do you have difficulties?  Conflict?  Enemies?  Pain?  You are being trained.  Learn your lessons well; fight the fight.  God has left adversaries in your life for a reason.

He did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience.  –Judges 3:2

Sincerely yours,

A long time Oasis member

Timing

On every level of life...hurry and impatience are sure marks of an amateur.

Why does the Bible so insist on our waiting?  We are given instruction after instruction to “wait on God.”  There is story after story about someone who wanted to rush Him – Abraham, Saul, Peter, and many, many more. 

Why are we always being told – not so subtly, either – to slow down?  Because our timing is almost invariably faster than God’s.

His agenda for a situation includes deep workings and intricate details.  We just aim for superficial symptoms.  He intends to grind His grain very, very fine – an excruciating work on our character that will not let coarseness remain.

Or, to use another metaphor, He heats His ore long and hot, removing not just the impurities that can be seen with the naked eye, but also all that exist.  We usually don’t care about such thoroughness.  We want to get out of our difficult situation quickly or to achieve our successes suddenly.  For us, time is of the essence.  For God, time is essential.

A direct correlation to the wisdom we learn from God is the patience our hearts can tolerate.  Foolishness is impatient.  Wisdom knows the God who redeems us and can look patiently with hope toward His deliverance and His victory.  We don’t have to know how things will turn out; we know the God who is sovereign over the things.

This means that answers to prayers often seem delayed in our own minds but are decisive in God’s.  It means that deliverance often seems slow to us, but to God it is already accomplished.  It means that when we act on our impulses, we are violating His patient plans.  It means that when our blood pressure is rising and our palms are sweating, God’s voice is always saying, “Be still.  Settle down.  I am on My throne.” 

Can you hear Him?  If you are in a rush, probably not.  But how many times was Jesus in a rush?  How often does the Word describe God as panicked?  How many people invested their lives in Him have been let down in the end? 

Relax.  Wait.  Be strong and take heart.

Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.  – Psalm 27:14

Sincerely yours,

A long time Oasis member

Constant Change

Constant Change

The human experience is filled with anticipation of the good things and dread of the bad.  We have dreams, goals, hidden desires, and needful impulses.  When we most expect fruit and fulfillment, we find none.  Often when we expect barrenness, God gives fruit.  The seasons of life frustrate us.

The writer of Ecclesiastes - Solomon, most likely - is aged and philosophical, and while he does not embody the hope that Christians have been given, he knows a thing or two about finite life in this physical world.

He as seen emptiness and futility.  And, apart from God, he has seen meaninglessness.

If there is no God, if no afterlife, if no hidden hope that we cannot see, then there's no point to any of this life that we're living.  And still, blind to a discernible purpose, Solomon is able to say: "There is a time for everything."

Solomon has seen seasons come and go.  He know the cyclical pattern of living is not just a matter for meteorologists, it's also a matter for relationships, labor, and the myriad emotions we have.

In our lives, there will be unfruitful seasons.  There will be times of discouragement and even despair.  There will be pointless tasks and intractable conflict.  Interspersed with all the joys of the human experience, there will be latent seasons, periods of fallow ground and backward regress.  It won't be all good, all the time.

We will drive ourselves crazy if we don't understand that there are seasons in our lives. If you are particularly fruitless now - or even fruitful - know that it's only for a time.  If a relationship is difficult - or even perfect - it, too, is only for a time.  We have to get used to constant change.

Many Christians kick themselves or question God when life isn't running smoothly.  Don't.  It is only for a season.  

Do not expect your entire year to be warm and sunny.  Part of it will be cold and rainy.  And if you're in winter now, know that spring is on the way.

Its time always comes.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1

Sincerely yours,

A long time Oasis Member