PJ's Journal

Today is election day here in the United States.  As I waited in line to vote, I was filled with gratitude that I live in a country where I can exercise my voice and express my desires for our country's future by casting a vote.  Though the lines were well out the door, the people waiting in line to vote were very pleasant.  That is how elections ought to be.  Exercise your right to vote and be nice about it.   However, this election has been weighing on my mind for several months.  The outcome certainly weighs a bit on my mind, but the outcome does not change my faith one bit.  The weight is what happens after the election.  How are people going to react?  To be honest, I do not remember an election that had this much tension.  It's like the garage door spring I replaced several years ago.  As I was winding the spring, the tension was so great that just one slip and I was going to be in a world of hurt.  There seems to be so much tension surrounding this election that I have h

 One of my favorite passages in the New Testament is Philippians 2:1-8 which says: 1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Paul is calling the people toward unity and love for one another in a very difficult time to be a church.  It was t

How Should We View COVID-19 through the Lens of Scripture? The whole world has felt the impact that a tiny microscopic virus can have on people’s health and wealth.  No doubt it is leaving a path of destruction both in the lives it is taking and the economic impact it is having.  Over the past few weeks as all of this has settled in, I have read many articles and social media posts about what to make of what is going on from the spiritual side of things.  Perhaps the one that is most concerning to me is a jump to the conclusion that God is punishing people because of the immorality of our time.  Is this true?  I want to answer this by stating what I know to be true and offer a word of caution from presuming too much.  Is this virus judgment from God?  In a general sense, I can say with confidence, YES.  I come to this conclusion based on my understanding of sin and putting COVID-19, like any disease, into the context of the Fall.  In Genesis 3, God curses the earth because of

I have made the assertion that the subject of this letter to the believers in Rome is the Gospel.  Paul desires that there would be an obedience that comes from their faith.  He is aiming to help them understand the Gospel so that their practice would reflect that Gospel and ultimately bring glory to Christ.  The Gospel means good news.  Paul explains that this Gospel reveals a righteousness from God that has the power to completely save a person from the penalty of their sin, the power of sin, and ultimately the presence of sin.  That is really good news, but then Paul immediately shifts to the subject of God's wrath.  How is that good news? Romans 1:18 "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." In our culture, we have a tendency to downplay the wrath of God because of our fear that others would see God as angry and abusive.  We like to talk about salvation

Message from March 03, 2020 A Gospel Worth Preaching! (Romans 1:8-15)

Message from Feb. 23, 2020 First message in the series.

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith." Paul declares that he is not ashamed of the Gospel, in fact, he is eager to preach to them the Gospel.  He gives a few reasons why that is.   First, it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.   I will argue in my message on Sunday that salvation is more than just a one-time declaration that God has indeed forgiven the person who through faith turned to Christ for salvation.  While this is indeed true of a follower of Jesus, the righteousness of God that is revealed in the Gospel is at work in the life of a believer to transform him or her into the image of Christ.  This is why the Paul uses present tense language in other letters to describe God present work in saving the believe