Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
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This last week, I was studying my way through Romans 7 when I came to a very intriguing passage. The passage was Romans 7:14-21. The main theme in this passage is the struggle between the Apostle Paul’s two natures. A part of him is utterly fallen and sinful, and another part of him desires to please God. I found this to be very thought provoking. Most Christians would acknowledge Paul as being a stellar believer. The Apostle Paul writes about living in faith, loving God, and loving people with such passion that it is hard for people today t...
Who am I? The world, culture and politicians will give me plenty of answers. They’ll tell me who gets to identify me, how they can identify me, and which identities are acceptable and which ones are not. While the world has many answers for identity, to get the true answers we must turn to God and His Word. We are created by God. We are created in God’s image. In every one of us, there is a bit of the divine. This, however, isn’t always obvious because it’s usually buried beneath our sin and the effects of our sin. Part of being human is bein...
Who am I? In a world that puts stock in how we identify, we must ignore the temptation to allow us to identify ourselves, and turn to the Bible. The answer to the question “who am I?” isn’t on social media, and the politicians certainly don’t have it; it is only found in our creator and in our creator’s words. Over the past two weeks, we’ve seen the first two ways to identify ourselves. First, we are created by God. We’re not accidents, experiments, or the result of random chance. We are intelligently designed. Second, we’re designed in God’s i...
For the month of September, we’re looking at our identity. While the world seeks to tell us who we are and how we identify ourselves, we’re going to look to the Bible. What does God have to say about who we are? Last week, we began at the beginning. Above all else, we are created. We didn’t happen by chance, but by careful intentionality. That being said, there is another fundamental aspect to God creating us that must be addressed. When God stated His intention to create us, He gave it a specific description: “in our image.” Presumabl...
Identity Politics. It’s a major “conversation” in our culture right now. The youngest generations have spurned labels, and yet continue to create new labels. Whether it’s in regard to their political affiliation, religion, gender or even race, who we identify ourselves as continues to grow as an issue. This conversation has the potential to be encouraging and enlightening, except for the fact that politicians (who, ironically, tend to be of the older generations), continue to use these labels and identities for their own gain. Thus, weaponi...
Sin is a concept I don’t enjoy. I know, that’s not very surprising— a pastor who doesn’t enjoy sin. However, my struggle with the concept isn’t what you might assume it is. Obviously, I struggle with it because part of me enjoys sin, and part of me hates it; but that struggle is simple and easy to understand. No, what frequently bothers me about sin is how confused we often are about what actually is sin. The word is thrown around frequently, both in and out of church circles, but I don’t think we usually use it properly. See, “sin” isn’t...
I’m sure many of us know John 3:16. As the most famous verse in the Bible, almost everyone who’s been in a church has it memorized, and many outside the church as well. However, the entire section is excellent. Including this little gem in John 3:19. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. John 3:19 This is a statement that I understood, but gained a deeper understanding of lately. Sin loves the dark. The dark conceals things, it removes cla...
“The Centurion’s Faith” Over the course of his three years of ministry, Jesus interacts with many different people. Obviously, religious leaders, fishermen and his disciples; but also prostitutes, tax collectors and many other people. Some of them had faith in Jesus, some did not. But across the board, only once does he seem surprised by a person’s faith. That person was not a religious leader, or a faithful blue-color fisherman, or even a Jew, but a Roman soldier. A man whose name is not recorded, but rank of centurion is. The story goes th...
Christians like to talk a good game. We love to brag about how this is a Christian nation. We champion conservative causes. We claim victories when abortion laws get passed. We’re proud of how in North Dakota, Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings are still kept mostly clear for church activities. Let’s be honest, we consider New Rockford to be a by-and-large Christian community, don’t we? I suppose I can’t speak for the world, but I can say from my life experiences, Midwestern Christians have a lot of pride. And the root of that confide...
These last couple of weeks have been tough for a lot of us. While few (if any) of us have actually been touched by COVID-19, we’ve seen our schedules go up in flames. High school events, church services, community events, family gatherings, all sorts of things have been sacrificed on the altar of social distancing. The upheaval has been wide spread and dramatic. In this time of clear schedules and ‘shelter in place,’ I want to point to Jesus’ words as recorded by Matthew. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust des...
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. Hebrews 10:24-25 For years, it has been easy to do as the author says and continue to gather together and encourage one another. Our culture almost shuts down on Sundays, and there are many churches to choose from. Most of the churches utilize the efforts of paid professionals, comfortable church buildings, and plenty of chairs to sit in....
I saw a bear once. It was the summer I worked at Boy Scout camp and I was ambling half-awake down the trail to breakfast and there, running down and then across my trail was a black bear. I was so startled, I didn’t react; I just stood there stupidly processing what I had just seen. After being surprised by a bear, that was one morning that I was FULLY awake before breakfast. I think I was shaking as I continued down the path. I remembered my boy scout training that told me that black bears aren’t very dangerous unless it is a mama bear wit...
God weighs the spirit “I’m a good person.” “I do good things.” These are phrases I hear tossed around quite a bit. Especially at funerals, I frequently hear people justify why they should be able to get into heaven by stating that they ‘are good people’ or that the deceased was ‘a good person.’ It seems that it is natural that when we are faced with whether or not we are ‘good’ people, we can’t help but judge by what we think. The measuring stick, by which we determine whether or not we’re going to make it into heaven, is apparently in...
"Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” Proverbs 13:20 The book of Proverbs is a book of advice from Solomon, to his son. The son is not named, but presumably Solomon desires for his all of his sons, including Rehoboam who will be king once he is gone, to have the wisdom to lead well. Amongst the many nuggets of wisdom, is this little jewel. Solomon encourages his son to pay attention to who he surrounds himself with. He points to the truth that our personal wisdom is revealed by who we cho...
“He who restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is considered prudent.” Proverbs 17:27-28 This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible; and I’m being completely serious. Quite often in my life, I have assumed the opposite of this proverb. Being a wise person has always been a goal of mine and as I’ve gotten older, I have sought to speak and to be heard as wise. I have noticed that people who are wise say wis...
So, I was watching baseball the other day and I noticed something. Some guys get good pitches to hit, and some never seem to. An exceptional pitcher will never leave a pitch up where a good hitter can hit it hard. However, even the best pitchers make mistakes and average pitchers often ‘leave pitches up,’ where the observant and patient batter can crush into the stands. What this means, is that no batter can predict when or if he’ll get a single good pitch to hit; and yet, his team is depending upon him to do the best he can. If he gets a goo...
My wife has been reading through the Old Testament lately and she recently got to the various stories concerning David. She’s read the stories many times, but this time something new struck her. What struck her this time were the other people. The Bible, by necessity, stays very focused upon David and the main characters; but on this read through Erin started to wonder about the rest of the characters. Take David and Bathsheba for example. David summons Bathsheba to sleep with her after seeing her bathe on her rooftop. Bathsheba complies, l...
