Sunday, February 19, 2012
Special Ash Wednesday services are being held to commemorate the upcoming forty days of Lent.
Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent in Western Christianity, is quickly approaching. For those who might not know, Lent is when observants commit to a form of fasting or choose to temporarily give up other forms of luxury. In particular, Ash Wednesday derives its name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of those who so choose as a sign of mourning and repentance to God. The ashes used are typically gathered after the palms from the previous year's Palm Sunday are burned. Lent is observed by Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans and some Baptists. It is increasingly being observed by other denominations as well. According to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus spent forty days fasting in …
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Those who have been hurt by "religion" have been hurt by people, not God.
As hard as it may be to believe, Jesus was not a Christian. He was God, and people have been doing great things, as well as making terrible mistakes trying to be “Christ-like” ever since. I will be the first to admit, even as a Christian, that religion can be terrible. People do hurtful things to others in the name of religion. Pastors get power hungry and do wrong under the pretense that God has given them that authority. Violence is also committed in the name of God — unspeakable acts that make no sense to the rational mind. There is a difference between God and religion, though. They are simply not the same. Religion is defined as “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as…
Sunday, January 22, 2012
A passage in Proverbs says that God directs our steps but our hearts plan the way.
Imagine this scenario. You’re going on a family vacation. You pack your car full of luggage, food and other things you’ll need for the long trip ahead. You grab your map -- or GPS if you are tech savvy -- and load up the kids in the back, making sure they are strapped in securely by their seat belts. Heading west from Atlanta you start the drive and a smile crosses your face as you think about the good times waiting ahead of you. At some point, in a random spot in Alabama, one of your kids utters the infamous line, “Are we there yet?” And that’s when it hits you. You slam on the breaks and pull over onto the side of I-20 as you realize you don’t know where “there” is. You prepared for the vacation in every way except for the most …
Sunday, January 8, 2012
As Christians, should we show more enthusiasm for God in church than you would see at a typical football game?
There have been many times I can remember jumping off my couch to cheer on my favorite football team while watching a big game. With fists pumping, I would scream out the word “touchdown!” at the top of my lungs. In that moment, I didn’t care who heard me. I was completely into the game and so was everyone else in the room. Something about the intensity of this full-contact sport almost demands that kind of enthusiasm, doesn’t it? With a lot of important games coming up soon, it got me thinking — should Christians have that same kind of enthusiasm for God? Is that even a fair comparison? I’m definitely not the first person to ever pose this question. I must have heard it 100 times from pastors growing up in a pentecostal church. For those …
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Don't overlook the importance of walking in wisdom in our everyday lives.
As Christians, we all know how important love and faith are to the teachings of Jesus and in the Holy Bible as a whole. “Faith” is mentioned 365 times in the King James version (KJV) of the Bible — one for each day of the year — while the word “love” is mentioned 280 times in the KJV. Mentioned only slightly less in the Bible than “love,” however, is “wisdom,” which is used 222 times in the KJV. There is no denying how much emphasis God chose to put on wisdom in His Word. There is also no denying how much this important virtue seems to be lacking in today’s society. Wisdom, it seems, is a lost art. Wisdom is defined as “knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight.” The book …
Sunday, November 27, 2011
We don't have to wait on a new year for a fresh start, God's mercies are fresh every day.
With Smyrna-Vinings Patch recently celebrating its one-year birthday and the fact that 2012 is rapidly approaching, new beginnings have been on my mind a lot this week. We all long for fresh starts from our past and, often times, we look at each birthday or beginning of the New Year on Jan. 1 as the perfect time to turn over a new leaf. But what if we didn’t wait for the calendar to cue us for our new beginnings? What if we truly began looking at each new day as a chance for a fresh start? My birthday is at the end of December and, as I get older, each one comes to represent less of a celebration and more an evaluation — a point when I take stock of the year of life I just finished. What are some things I did wrong and could do better? …
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Realizing that we live in an imperfect world will help us walk closer to God during the times that we feel like everything is perfect.
We live in an imperfect world. So imperfect, in fact, that war, disease and crumbling economies make headlines these days as much as commonplace murders and robberies do. Yet, somewhere in our feeble minds, some of us, including myself, expect everything in our own little worlds to go perfectly. When they don’t, we are left frustrated and confused. The good news is, imperfect times are the best time to draw closer to a perfect God. I am writing this column as much for me as I am anyone else. You see, even though I know we live in an imperfect world, I still long for perfection in my daily life. I desperately hope that things to go smoothly and that I won’t be let down. I always have lofty expectations for myself and at times my …
Sunday, October 23, 2011
God may not speak to you in an audible voice, but He will communicate in other ways.
Stop for a moment and pay attention to all that is happening around you. If you are reading this right now, you are probably sitting at your computer at home with the television on in the background. Maybe you are checking it out on your smartphone while waiting to pick up a to-go order at a local restaurant. There may not seem to be much going on around you at the moment, but what if you knew that God was trying to communicate with you? How much more closely would you pay attention? The truth is, God does want to speak to you and He can do so in a grand fashion or in a quiet moment. The catch is, we have to be paying attention. There was a time when God chose to speak to His people with a voice from Heaven. He would give clear, audible …
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Walking closely with God in the good times can be a key to quickly getting through the bad.
When dark times come into our lives, it can be almost impossible to see through to the other side — to a time when things will inevitably get better. Equating the hardest parts of our lives to darkness seems very appropriate. Being caught in the middle of a seemingly hopeless situation can make anyone feel like giving up because we often can’t see a clear path out of it. When we fully understand what Christ can do in our lives, though, it isn’t hard to understand why He chooses to call himself “the light.” While I would never say my life has been a bed of roses, I have had more than my share of good times. I’ve travelled the country, been in love and loved, enjoyed good health and gotten to do what I want to do for a living. When the dark …
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Connecting with God through nature can be uplifting during long periods of drab routine.
It is easy to feel close to God when finding yourself face to face with some of the most majestic sites in the natural world. Some of the most beautiful and recognizable natural wonders support the idea in many people that see them for the first time, or for the tenth time, that an intelligent creator must be responsible — a thought that resonates both in the mind and spirit. But what happens when all you normally see in your day-to-day life is the grey familiarity of the roads you travel on to work each day? At the risk of sounding like someone who should be wearing bellbottom jeans and a tie dyed shirt, one of the easiest ways to connect with God is through nature, but many people are only outside long enough to walk from their house to …
Alan Sargent
11:03 pm on Sunday, February 12, 2012
Because each Christian has their own idea of what a Christian is, and say that other Christians are not "real Christians". Just like each religious person has their own idea of who and what God exactly is. The key property of Gods are their non-existence, and the key property of Christians is their insistence that they are certain that he does. more ›