"It's Time to Go Home"

After a long day at work, a trip away from home or a deployment in a distant land, the sweetest words a person can hear are, “It’s time to go home!” Home, where everything is familiar. Home, that place where we are accepted for who we are, even with our idiosyncrasies and faults. Home, where we feel secure and safe.

One of life’s most heartbreaking experiences is to witness an elderly person having to leave the home they have treasured for many years. The anguish they feel is almost unbearable for all that is dear and familiar is being ripped from them. But it is the way of human life. Our bodies break down and we get to the point where we can no longer take care of the home we love. In fact, we need help even caring for our own personal needs. And so, when we are least prepared, we are forced to adapt to something new, an unknown place, an unfamiliar routine.

There is a passage in the Bible that helps us deal with the constant and often unpleasant change of mortal life. It says, “Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord, Christ Jesus.” Heaven, that is our home which no one nor anything will ever be able to take from us. Heaven, that place Jesus said he is preparing for us. Heaven, that place where we’ll never again cry, scream in pain or face the ugly jaws of death. Heaven, that is home.

When Jesus ascended into heaven his disciples were speechless. What were they to do without him? Suddenly a couple of angels shook them back to their senses with the words, “What are you doing standing there looking up into the sky with your mouths hanging open? Jesus went up to heaven and he is coming back. So get out there and tell people about their real home – home with Jesus in heaven.”

Are you battling the nagging feelings of depression because you just don’t feel “at home” where you are? Are you worried about where you will live in the coming years? Do you wonder if you will ever again find that place you can, in your heart, call “home”? Then join us this Saturday evening or Sunday morning. Hear the soul steadying message that Jesus has got exactly the home you need – for all of eternity. What a way to live! No matter what happens today, we’re on our way home!

Saturday night service: 6:00 pm
Sunday morning service: 10:00 am

When Being Happy Isn’t Most Important

Christians are being backed up to the wall these days by those who support gay, bi-sexual and transgender lifestyles. The question we are repeatedly asked is,

“Why do you think you have the right to deny happiness to people who choose a different sexual lifestyle?”

It is a piercing question, but it is also a question which ignores the basis of how anyone answers any question about moral behavior. Christians believe that all living beings, including humans, have our origin in a personal God who not only created us but is personally involved in our lives. The answer to any question about how we are to live has to be based on what he has revealed to us.

If God does not exist and human beings are not held accountable for their actions after death, then no one does have the right to say one type of behavior is better or worse than the other. Of course, such a view of life can’t work in the real world, but those are the implications of taking God out of human life.

But if Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, then everything changes concerning morality, good and evil, right and wrong. The resurrection of Christ means he is God and what he says about gender and sexuality is not only valid, it is the basis of our understanding of gender and sexuality.

So the question for Christians isn’t, “What makes us happy?” No, the question is, “What does Jesus Christ tell us is best for us?” And when it comes to the issues of gender and sexuality, he is very clear. But rather than restrict or repress us, Jesus said that everything he has done for us or taught us is meant to set us free, to give us the abundant life. Don’t you think his rising from the dead gives him some credibility on the subject?

This Sunday we are going to be celebrating Mother’s Day. Join us as we not only affirm all the blessings God has given us through our mothers, but also through women in general. God made humans to work best as male and female, men and women, complementing each other. Christian women need all the encouragement they can get to live out their essential role in today’s challenging world. Help us to give them that encouragement.

Saturday night service: 6:00 pm
Sunday morning service: 10:00 am