Boundary Lines

"Do not move an ancient boundary stone set up by your ancestors."  Proverbs 22:28

Do you know where the boundary lines are on your property?

I'll bet you do! I'll bet that is important for you - and it should be!

It is equally important that your neighbors know where those boundary lines are as well!

You don't want them building something too near your property line!

With that though in mind, imagine what it would be like if your boundary lines were being changed occasionally. One day your boundary line is in its traditional and legal place, but the next day it is two feet inside that place. Then, a week later it is four feet outside of that line. After a month or so you have lost track of where it actually is because it has been changing so often.

That would take the joy out of owning your property and it would strain your friendship with your neighbor.

This simple little illustration emphasizes how important clear and consistent boundary lines are!

A wise man understands that. The foolish person is led to believe that freedom is the result of removing all boundaries.

Have you been tempted to think that way?

If so, think again!

Freedom is only found within the boundaries of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. For within those boundaries is forgiveness, the freedom from guilt! And within those boundaries is cleansing from sin and freedom from shame! Within those boundaries is peace and freedom from condemnation!

Are you longing to be free?

Freedom is found at the boundary line of faith!

July 6, 2017

"But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults.  Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer."  Psalm 19:12-14

When God’s Word gets welcomed and becomes active in your life, it convicts you of sin and leads you into His will. When He uses His Word to work His will in your life, look what thrilling things happen through you.

Verse 12 – "FREEDOM FROM FALSE GUILT" – That’s thrilling! False guilt is from the Enemy of your soul. He is the "accuser". He will dig up things from your past that God has already forgiven and remind you of them to discourage you and defeat you. But through the Word, God's Spirit will remind you that you have been forgiven and He will make you aware of any unconfessed sins so you can find forgiveness for those as well.

Guilt is a good thing that the Holy Spirit uses to point out a sin that you have committed. But false guilt is not good and is used by the devil to defeat you.

Verse 13 – "FREEDOM FROM WILLFUL SIN" – “blameless” – pure in thoughts and motives. Sin is what happens when you exercise your will against God. For instance, you know that something is wrong. The Word of God says it is wrong and the Holy Spirit tells you it is wrong but you willfully decide to do it anyway. That is willful sin and it is dangerous because it is rebellion against God by after you have committed to follow Him.

Followers of Christ will sin occasionally, but they should not willfully sin. They may get caught up in a moment of anger or a moment of thoughtlessness and sin against God - but to deliberately sin against Him is something Christians should not and need not do.

When the Word is active in your life and you are aligned with His will you can be blameless - free from intentional sin!

Verse 14 – "PLEASING TO GOD" – If there is anyone that you would want to please it would be God! And if there is someone you don't want to displease it would also be God! To know that you are obeying God's Word and to know His will is being accomplished in your life and that He is pleased with you - that’s thrilling! When you see God using you to bless someone else or to inspire them and you are aware that it is His power at work in your - that is praiseworthy!

The Psalmist rejoiced in God's work of righteousness being accomplished in him through the Word. As he meditated on the grace of God at work in him it inspired him to offer praises to God.

What praiseworthy thing is God doing in you?

Are you praising Him?

No Morality, No Government

I received this in my email and thought it worth sharing in the wake of our Fourth of July service and celebrations.

From recent reporting by Todd Starnes of FOX News:

Sen. Sanders deemed Vought unsuitable for office because he [Vought] believes that salvation is found alone through Jesus Christ. He [Sanders] said someone with that kind of a religious belief system is 'really not someone who this country is supposed to be about.'

Bernie Sanders doesn't have a clue of what he's talking about. Thankfully, other Senators rebutted their colleague from Vermont:

Sen. James Lankford warned that Sander's comments [come] 'dangerously close to crossing a clear constitutional line for how we evaluate qualifications for public service.'

'The First Amendment is crystal clear that the federal government must protect every American's right to the peaceful and free exercise of religion," the Oklahoma Republican said. 'We cannot say we have the free exercise of religion and also require people to practice their faith only in a way that government officials prefer.'

From 1775 to 1797, George Washington served as the chief military and political leader of the new United States of America. Celebrated as the "Father of his Country," Washington stated in his Farewell Address of September 19, 1796:

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity. Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness-these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens."

Washington cautioned that the "one who labors to subvert a public role for religion and morality cannot call himself a patriot." * Bernie Sanders' recent statements certainly fit Washington's warning.

John Adams, our second President, amplified Washington's tenet: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

The carcinogenic of Secularism - Christianity's chief competitor - thrives in the absence of instruction about America's Godly heritage. Secularism metastasized in America when the U.S. Supreme Court removed prayer and the Bible from public schools in 1962-1963; likely the most spiritually destructive event in the nation's history.**

Leftist Bernie Sanders advanced a European-style socialistic platform in his campaign for president in 2016. Government-run healthcare, higher taxes, ubiquitous government interference and regulation, open borders, and a cradle-to-the-grave Welfare state: That is Sander's vision.

As to America's heritage, he would be well served to peek at the 13 original State Constitutions before he makes a complete idiot of himself. 

EXHIBIT A

Pastors and Christian leaders were instrumental in the founding of America:

• Plymouth, Massachusetts, Pilgrims' Pastor Rev. John Robinson
• Providence, Rhode Island, Rev. Roger Williams
• Barnstable, Massachusetts, Rev. John Lothropp
• Exeter, New Hampshire, Rev. John Wheelwright
• Boston, Massachusetts, Rev. John Cotton
• Hartford, Connecticut, Rev. Thomas Hooker

Add signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States:

• John Witherspoon was a Presbyterian pastor.
• Hugh Williamson had been a pastor earlier in his career, before becoming a doctor.
• Robert Treat Paine served as a military chaplain.
• Lyman Hall was a minister prior to the Revolutionary War.
• Francis Hopkinson was a church music director and edited a famous American hymnbook.
• Roger Sherman, wrote the doctrinal creed for his denomination in Connecticut.
• Benjamin Rush, pioneered Sunday School in the United States and founded the country's first Bible Society.
• James Wilson, trained as a clergyman in Scotland, became an attorney who taught students the Biblical basis of civil law.

Add more pastors to the first Congress:

• Frederick Muhlenberg was a Lutheran pastor elected the first U.S. Speaker of the House. He was the first signer on the Bill of Rights.
• John Peter Muhlenberg was a Lutheran pastor, who became a General, and then U.S. House and Senate member.

EXHIBIT B

In 1784, 1785, and 1787, Congress passed the "Northwest Ordinances" - drafted by Thomas Jefferson. The purpose of the legislation was to arrange a method by which new states would be admitted to the Union. Three to five states could be carved from the "Northwest" territory, which eventually broke into five states: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Part of the legislation read, "No person, demeaning [conducting] himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be molested [harassed] on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments."

Of particular interest is Article Three of the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

A generation later, April 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian and political scientist, set sail with Gustave de Beaumont for the United States, to study America. "From Sing-Sing Prison to the Michigan woods, from New Orleans to the White House, Tocqueville and Beaumont traveled for nine months by steamboat, by stagecoach, on horseback and in canoes." ***

As a result of de Tocqueville's observation, he published his two-volume work, Democracy in America, in 1835 and 1840. What do you suppose immediately caught the attention of the Frenchman?

"Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America, I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country.

"[Religion in America] must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion - for who can search the human heart? - But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions".

Secularists, like Bernie Sanders, don't have a clue as to the Christian history of America. They have usurped the culture and now loom large over Big Business, public education, universities, government, Hollywood, arts and entertainment, and TV executives and media: i.e., the cultural mountains of influence.

There is good news in America. Gideons and Rahabs are beginning to head toward the public square. Hold onto to your seat because it's going to be a bumpy ride, for somebody's values are going to reign supreme.

David Lane

American Renewal Project

* Daniel L. Dreisbach, Reading The Bible with the Founding Fathers

** goo.gl/Wf49bV. Also, consider that the lone dissenter, Justice Potter Stewart, said this in 1963, "It [the Abington School District v. Schempp ruling] led not to true neutrality with respect to religion, but to the establishment of a religion of secularism."

http://www.history.com/topics/alexis-de-tocqueville/print

July 4, 2017

“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” II Chronicles 7:14

You may have wondered recently, “How did things get so bad so quickly in America?”

You may be afraid to ask, “Will they ever get better?”

The answer to the first question may hold the key to the second.

While, in fact, our culture has been declining steadily for decades here’s one more question that could answer the first two, “Did things get so bad because sinners were behaving like sinners or did they get so bad because Christians weren’t behaving like Christ?”

If you read what Solomon has to say in the verse above and it will give you a hint. Several hints, in fact! Let’s see:

1) “if my people….

2) “...who are called by my name…”

3) “…will humble themselves…”

4) “…and pray…”

5) “…and seek my face…”

6) “…and turn from their wicked ways…”

Would sinners be referred to as “my people”?

Are sinners called by His name?

Who would most need to humble themselves?

Who is most likely to be commanded to pray?

Would sinners be seeking God’s face?

Is it becoming clearer?

Things got worse because God’s people weren’t what they were called to be. He promises they will get better when His people get better.

He’s ready!

When will you be ready?

July 3, 2017

"Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to its people." Proverbs 14:34

There is no doubt that our Founders recognized the importance of the Christian faith in the formation of this new Republic. It is also clear they embraced that faith and recommended to all.

Those who say otherwise are simply uninformed or deliberately unwilling to admit it. Consider these several quotes chosen from an impressively large collection of Quotes of the Founding Fathers.

“I rejoice that the religion of Jesus prevails in your parts; I can tell you the same agreeable news from this quarter. Yesterday I returned from Piscataway in East Jersey, where was held a Baptist annual meeting (I think the largest I ever saw) but much more remarkable still for the Divine influences which God was pleased to grant. Fifteen were baptized; a number during the three days professed to experience a change of heart. Christians were remarkably quickened; multitudes appeared.”   James Manning - MEMBER OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS; PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

“[Governments] could not give the rights essential to happiness… We claim them from a higher source: from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth.”- John Dickinson - SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION; GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA; GOVERNOR OF DELAWARE; GENERAL IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

“I have sometimes thought there could not be a stronger testimony in favor of religion or against temporal enjoyments, even the most rational and manly, than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments and [who] are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare their unsatisfactoriness by becoming fervent advocates in the cause of Christ; and I wish you may give in your evidence in this way.” - James Madison -  SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION; AUTHOR OF THE FEDERALIST PAPERS; FRAMER OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS; SECRETARY OF STATE; FOURTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED

“Our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion.” -  Noah Webster -  REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER; JUDGE; LEGISLATOR; EDUCATOR; “SCHOOLMASTER TO AMERICA”

“The Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children under a free government ought to be instructed. No truth is more evident than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.” -  Noah Webster - REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER; JUDGE; LEGISLATOR; EDUCATOR; “SCHOOLMASTER TO AMERICA

“The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man.” – Thomas Jefferson

“As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and His religion as He left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see.” – Benjamin Franklin

I find it an incredible blessing that we had such wise and godly men involved in the establishment of our great nations!

GOD BLESSED AMERICA!

GOD PLEASE CONTINUE TO BLESS AMERICA!

July 2, 2017

"But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." Philippians 3:20-21

The concept of dual nationality means that a person is a citizen of two countries at the same time. Each country has its own citizenship laws based on its own policy. Persons can have dual nationality by automatic operation of different laws rather than by choice. For example, a child born in a foreign country to U. S. citizen parents may be both a U. S. citizen and a citizen of the country of birth.

A U.S. citizen may acquire foreign citizenship by marriage, or a person naturalized as a U.S. citizen may not lose the citizenship of the country of birth.U.S. law does not mention dual nationality or require a person to choose one citizenship or another. Also, a person who is automatically granted another citizenship does not risk losing U.S. citizenship.

"But there’s far more to life for us. We’re citizens of high heaven! We’re waiting the arrival of the Savior, the Master, Jesus Christ, who will transform our earthy bodies into glorious bodies like his own. He’ll make us beautiful and whole with the same powerful skill by which he is putting everything as it should be, under and around him." Philippians 3:20-21

Ironically, our citizenship in Heaven was made possible by One Who, as a citizen of that world, came to take up citizenship in this world to die for our sins.

This Citizen Who made our citizenship possible, came from a righteous place and was born in a righteous way to qualify Him to become a sacrifice for our sins. But between His righteous birth and His sacrificial death was a lifetime of righteous living. He was righteous when He left Heaven, He was righteous when He arrived in the manger in Bethlehem, and He was still righteous as He was being nailed to the cross. But, He became unrighteous as He took our transgressions upon Himself on that cross. Because of His righteous obedience to the will of His Father in making righteousness available to you and me, He regained His righteousness!

Are you thankful to be a citizen of the great USA?

As you celebrate your freedom as an American over this long Fourth of July week-end, will you also celebrate your citizenship in Heaven?

July 1, 2017

“We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, LORD, even as we put our hope in you.”  Psalm 33:20-22

For the Founding Fathers, the doctrine of the providence of God was inextricably linked to the idea that Jesus Christ was the Creator who decrees law and sustains life. It was these men who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, having acknowledged their “firm reliance on divine Providence.” It was these men who repeatedly passed laws calling for days of national thanksgiving, humiliation, and prayer in response to the work of providence which they specifically defined in their official acts in terms of Jesus Christ and the moving of the Holy Spirit. It was these men who officially recognized the Trinitarian view of providence when they signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783 on behalf of the United States, “In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity, It having pleased the divine Providence...”

George Washington describes his capture of Boston, 1776:

"Upon their discovery of the works next morning, great preparations were made for attacking them; but not being ready before afternoon, and the weather getting very tempestuous, much blood was saved, and a very important blow, to one side or the other, was prevented. That this most remarkable interposition of Providence is for some a wise purpose, I have not a doubt."

In his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson had written:

"And for the support of this declaration, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

But Congress amended it to read:

"And for the support of this declaration, [with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence,] we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."  (And they did!)  

The Israelites left Egypt and wandered in the desert in their quest for the Promised Land motivated by their hope and desire to establish a nation blessed of God where they could live in peace and prosperity. Their only hope was in their God and in His divine providence.

Likewise, our Founders were constantly cognizant of God's providence and divine intervention on behalf of the colonists against overwhelming odds in their fight for independence. They trusted in:

God Our Foundation - “We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield…..”

A nation built on the Word of God, by the will of God, for the worship of God and the work of His Kingdom is built on a firm foundation!

God Our Father – “In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name……”

The providence of God is based upon His role as a Father of His people. If we as human fathers are committed to provide for and protect our families, how much more would our Heavenly Father care for us?

God Our Future – “May your unfailing love be with us, LORD, even as we put our hope in you.”

Just as God, our Father has provided and protected and blessed us in days gone by there is every reason to trust that He will continue to do so in the coming days if we choose to obey Him and serve Him as we have in the past.

We see that over 241 years ago when the Founders where fighting for their freedom while framing the documents that would shape the new nation, their hopes were pinned fully upon God's power and His providence.

If our great nation is to survive another 241 years, or even 41 years, our hope must be upon our Heavenly Father!