Anniversary
Posted Tuesday April 20, 2010 by Pastor Doug Smith

This past Sunday we celebrated our fifth year annivesary. It was a Sunday for me that brought back a lot of memories and made me pause and thank God for His amazing faithfulness to our little flock. It is hard for me to consider all that God has done in me and for our church during these past five years. The list of miracles seems endless and I wonder why I feel a little surprised. Why did I not expect God to build His church? Why did I not expect things to go well? I am troubled by my own lack of faith and belief in an almighty God. But in the midst of this I find myself being very happy about what I have experienced during these last five years. God is good and I pray that the next five years do not find me surprised by God's good gifts. Thank you to everyone who has played a part, your sacrifices and faithfulness did not go unnoticed or unappreciated.

Forgiveness Part 2
Posted Tuesday March 9, 2010 by Pastor Doug Smith

Forgiveness between people is like pencils that are broken in two pieces; they are never the same after that moment, but they don't need to be like that. Forgiveness is not a nature aspect of our natures, when we are hurt we want revenge not forgiveness. So forgiveness and restoration come from God. They are supernatural events and if we are willing to submit our problems to God and allow Him to heal us then relationships that were once broken can be restored completely. This supernatural act can solve any hurt and we must recognize that God is able. The next time you are hurt by someone, seek God and His healing rather than your pound of flesh.

Forgiveness Part 3
Posted Tuesday March 9, 2010 by Pastor Doug Smith

Receiving the forgiveness of God is easy. Learning to forgive someone who has hurt you may at times be difficult, but it is not impossible. I think the hardest aspect of forgiveness is when you have to forgive yourself. The problem is our culture reminds us all the time of our shortcomings. At church it seems the worst. You are the "divorce" women. You are the "different" man. We label you and that becomes your identity and so you can never move beyond your pain. How do we forgive ourselves when we have inflicted serious pain on someone else? Jesus tells us to come to Him and lay your burdens down. I think it is important to understand that Jesus is the solution to our pain. He has died for our sin and offered us forgiveness. When we don't forgive our selves we cheapen the cross of Christ. If Christ can die for us, even though we have done so much to violate Him; then holding on to our sin and not forgiving ourselves is telling Jesus that His death was not enough. Don't cheapen the cross of Christ, take your burdens to the cross and leave them there. You are not identified by what you have done, you are identified by who you belong too.

Forgiveness Part 1
Posted Tuesday February 23, 2010 by Pastor Doug Smith

I think most people think of forgiveness like a chalk board; when you erase what is on there you still have some residue left over. When we forgive we always remember the hurt, especially if it was painful, and although we move on, that relationship is damaged in some way. We equate that kind of forgiveness to the way God forgives us. He may have forgiven us, but He remembers and our relationship is somehow damaged by our sin. But Scripture does not teach forgiveness this way. Psalm 103:12 tells us that God forgives and separates our sin as far as the east is from the west, which is an infinite line. He buries them in the deepest sea and remembers them no longer. We may fail to forgive in a divine fashion, but we have to remember that God is capable of forgetting when we repent. This kind of forgiveness is freeing and we should live with the joy of knowing that God has forgiven and forgotten. Live knowing that God has restored our relationship fully and enjoy His presence completely. When God forgives the board is erased completely and there is nothing left over.

Seeking Seekers
Posted Tuesday February 9, 2010 by Pastor Doug Smith

Is evangelism your passion? If you saw people lost or in peril and you had the means to help them, would you not help them. Most people care deeply about others who are in difficult circumstances. We all would willing help those in Haiti if we had the means to help them. Yet when it comes to offering someone the truth of the gospel we stop short. As Christians we have the greatest gift in the world, the means by which people can have eternal life, yet we don't share it. Are we afraid? Ashamed? Untrained? We need not be any of those things. God has given us His grace and as a result we are redeemed. We should want to pass that information to those we love. Our church should have as one of its objectives to lead people to Christ. Join with us as we pray for opportunity and then boldness to share the truth of the gospel with those we come in contact with. There is room in Heaven for more, we should do our part to populate it with our loved ones.

Are we ashamed?
Posted Tuesday January 26, 2010 by Pastor Doug Smith

We probably all have things in our lives that we hide from others because of the way they make us look. We are ashamed of some habit, feature or decision that was made and now we may go to great links to keep that from others. Shame is a powerful motivator, but it can also be a powerful destructive force. When we consider our relationship with Jesus Christ are we ashamed of it. Do we shrink back from talking about Him when we are surrounded by those who have rejected Him? Do we keep our decision to follow Jesus a secret? Jesus told us that if we are ashamed of Him then He will be ashamed of us before His Father. When we consider what Jesus has done for us, how can we truly act as though we don't really know Him. I want to adopt Paul's attitude to all of this as he wrote in Romans, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ and the reason he was not ashamed was he understood what it was: the power of God unto salvation. We know the truth and the truth has the power to transport people from Hell to Heaven how can we possibly be ashamed of such great power. Stand up, stand up for Jesus; this should be our passion and determination.

Who is really going to Heaven
Posted Tuesday January 19, 2010 by Pastor Doug Smith

It is amazing to study what other religions teach and believe about eternity. All religions except for Christianity have one thing in common and that is how you get to Heaven/Nirvanna or whatever they call the "after life"; and that is good deeds that out weigh bad deeds. "Works" based salvation is man centered while in Christianity, salvation is God centered. God is the One who has accomplished the necessary work to pay the debt of our sin rather than man doing something to overcome our sin. When we take our eyes off of God as the source of salvation and put them on man we elevate man to a place that is impossible for him to maintain. No matter how many good things we do in our lives we will always be short of the glory and holiness of God. If you take a cup of sugar and put it in a glass of water you can taste the sugar and no matter how much water you have the sugar will always remain. You can never add so much water that the sugar ceases to exist. So it is with sin, no matter how many good deeds we do there will always be sin that remains and sin will always cause us to fall short of the holiness of God. It is only through the acceptance of the gift of God through His Son Jesus that we can be made holy and thereby gain entrance into Heaven. Do not count on your good deeds to get you to Heaven, count on the grace and forgiveness of God.

Impeachment
Posted Wednesday January 13, 2010 by Pastor Doug Smith

This past Sunday, January 10, 2010 I preached a sermon with the title: Should we impeach our President. I knew it would cause a bit of an uproar and that was in part the reason for the message. A local TV station called me asking about the story behind the message and after I told them they decided that it was not "news worthy" enough to come out and do a story. If I was advocating the overthrow of our government that would be have been "news worthy" enough they said. All of this goes to the point of my message. Our country is deeply divided over ideology and we have resorted to name calling, harsh criticism and lies. Both sides of the political aisle are at fault and as a Christian and a pastor I needed to remind myself and my congregation of the truth of the Word of God. Proverbs 21:1, "The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord." The power of God is not lost because we don't have the "right" President in office. Romans 13:1 "Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God." God is still sovereign. There are no accidents. This does not mean that I cannot make my voice heard or that I cannot speak my mind, but the problem that I sense in the Christian community is we are spending all of our time on "tea parties" and not near enough time obeying I Timothy 2:1-2, "First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity." Are we spending more time praying for our President than we are criticizing him? Christians are called to a higher standard of living, speak out, make your voice heard, vote, but above all, pray. Pray for your Senators, Governor, Representatives, Judges and our President and Vice-President. God still has power and He is still sovereign and He has called us to pray.

Giving
Posted Wednesday September 30, 2009 by Pastor Doug Smith

October 11th we are taking a special offering to lower or eliminate our debt. I have spent a lot of time lately thinking and praying about this event. I approach it with some mixed emotions. I have heard and read stories about churches who have done this kind of thing and seen amazing results. I wonder what makes this happen in some churches while in others, that we don't hear about, nothing or very little happens? Does God respond to some while not responding or responding in a smaller way to others. Does it depend on the time of year you catch God? When His check book is in good shape or does He have a lot of past due bills. I don't think that some churches pray harder than others; nor do some have pastors or lay people who are more holy; so what exactly makes the difference. I think sometimes God pours out His blessing on churches in the form of financial gifts, other times He pours out His blessing in the form of people who faithfully give week after week, month after month. I am learning that God meets the needs of His children in a variety of ways and I should be content with that reality and I am trying hard to mature in that area of my life. I think I am making progress. I want God to show us His power so all of us at our church will be overwhelmed with Him. I just think we all need to be prepared for what His power will look like. I pray for all of our debt to be eliminated in one fell swoop, but if God shows His power by sending faithful givers to our place then I should be equally overwhelmed by this great act. Pray for God to show up and release His power, look for God to show up and praise Him for however He chooses to answer our prayers.

Truth
Posted Wednesday September 16, 2009 by Pastor Doug Smith

I love it when all the pieces of my world come together. In this case the pieces were books I am reading, sermons that I am preaching and conversations that I am having. In each of these cases, truth, has been the common denominator. Pilate asked Jesus: "what is truth". Unfortuantly I think a lot of people in the world today are asking the same question. We live in a world that questions everything and I understand why. Corruption has never been so prevalent as it is today, whether you look at church, politics, sports or education. It all looks wrong. As a result we have determined that truth is impossible to either find or define. The problem arises when you eliminate truth, then you also eliminate a foundation and without a foundation nothing is stable or sustainable. We live in a world that allows each person to determine truth, if that is the case then we have no moral compass, no ability to determine right and wrong and it will not be long before all that we now consider immoral will be acceptable or at the very least we will be in a no position to prosecute "wrong doers", because who is going to be so bold as to say they know truth. The Word of God is the Word of God, it is not a collection of people's thoughts or their record of historical events. The Word of God is God speaking to us and since God is truth and no lie can exist in Him, then the Bible becomes the foundation upon which truth and the living of truth must begin. I may not like what the Bible tells me to do, but that does not mean I get the right to reinterpret it to satisfy my desires. I don't get to remake God because I don't like the One that someone else made up. God is eternal and if I don't like what God has said, then I need to change, not Him. Truth can be determined, it has been determined, not by me or any other human, but by an eternal and righteous God. We need to reinvest our time into learning and implimenting the Word of God; the source of all truth.