10
Nov '18
Enough!
10
Nov '18
Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food here into my bedroom so I may eat from your hand.” And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom. But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, “Come to bed with me, my sister.”
“No, my brother!” she said to him. “Don’t force me! Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing. What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you.” But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.
Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, “Get up and get out!” “No!” she said to him. “Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me.”
But he refused to listen to her. He called his personal servant and said, “Get this woman out of my sight and bolt the door after her.” 2 Samuel 13:10-17
“What’s wrong with you,” said my mother with clear disdain in her voice. “What’s wrong, mom,” I replied. She says, “Didn’t I teach you better than that? Don’t you ever go through a door without opening it for the woman,” she said. “Yes, mom,” I replied without hesitation. As I grew older, there would be one day where a woman would look at me and become upset for my opening the door for them. “Don’t you think I can open the door on my own,” she would ask. “Yes, but I was just being polite as I would to anyone else,” I replied. If you live in the Midwest, opening doors for each other is almost like standard operating procedure. But you see, that never would have started if it were not for the first lady in my life: my mother. You see, I open doors for men because it’s the courteous thing to do, and I open them for women because it’s the right thing to do. You see, my mother taught me to have a higher bar of respect for the opposite sex.
My heart is deeply troubled by the state of our nation in lieu of the treatment of women as of late, and to be honest, I have had enough of it. In today’s world, we fight over who to believe when there is any act of misconduct. Women who have been abused speak up, and we want to fall into the ‘he said/ she said’ line. We somehow decided to blur the line as to who to believe strictly because it is expedient to ‘what we want to believe.’ The mistake I work hard to avoid is not to jump to a political, gender specific, or even personal view. Instead, I focus on a Godly one. Why do we need to tear her story down so much? Do we believe the other side is up to some ulterior motive? Is our team’s record at stake? Do we not realize just how wrong that thinking is? What does it say to the women in our lives? Here’s the thing. To those who wish to make this a political issue, I will just say this. It comes back to one simple thing. All women are to be respected whether we believe them or not. If I am ever accused of wrongdoing, my confidence has always been that my actions reflect what my mother taught me, and that and God would handle the rest.
God expects better than us. Somewhere along the line, decency got lost. I do not look to a side to blame because it is all of us. We have somehow substituted doing the right thing for ‘they did it, and so I can do it’ mentality. Well another thing my mother used to say is if everyone jumped off a cliff, you should too? God does not want to hear your excuse. He wants you to submit to His way of doing things. In a discussion with a friend, we centered on the word ‘integrity.’ Our actions must be above reproach. We have no control over what the world does to us. We do have control of how we show love and reverence to God. I was not comfortable writing this. Not one bit. But God made me uncomfortable to the point I had to because I am tired of women living in fear and us as men (and in many cases women) ignoring it like we had no stake in the game. I love the women in my life far too much to let this lie any further. If a woman comes forward regardless of your belief, stop tearing her down! Period! This must end immediately!
Women must always be respected and heard regardless of their motive. I look at my wife, and I think of Ephesians where it says:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. (Ephesians 5:25-28)
While this only applies to my wife, it is the standard that I pray we uphold of all women. I want to be clear. There are zero acceptable excuses for disrespecting a woman making an accusation of abuse. If you sense yourself looking for one, focus on Jesus saying, “But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other cheek also.” (Matthew 5:39) How will you respond the next time a woman claims abuse? How can you be more respectful of women as a whole? My prayer is that God has prompted your heart to simply and unequivocally say, “Enough!” Amen.
Kent
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03
Nov '18
Winds of Change
03
Nov '18
I’ve experienced it many times. Change. This change usually occurs when God wants to close a door – so what does He do? He closes the door. Have you been in this situation before? Where God just closes a door (and most likely it was a door you thought you wanted to walk through)? We all know how it feels to continue going through life comfortable. Or even if we’re not entirely “comfortable”, we will stay somewhere just because we’re not fond of change. We’ll settle for mediocrity, when God didn’t intend for us to “settle” for that. So, when that door closes, and a “shake-up” happens, we don’t know what to do. We sometimes become scared and upset and wonder why this is happening to us. Or – we thought we were relying on God during seasons of our lives, but looking back – we see that we just wanted to be in “control”. I fully believe that God intended hardships in my life to bring me closer to Him. I’m thankful that God may actually use my hardships Read more…
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03
Nov '18
My Dr. Phil Gift
03
Nov '18
God has given each of you a gift from His great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to Him forever and ever! Amen. 1 Peter 4:10-11
Lately, my life has been inundated with a wave of sadness, tragedy, and heartbreak. The thing is none of it is directly relating to me. It is as if somehow God has given me this ‘Dr. Phil’ gift. Some of you know exactly what that means. People seemingly come to you because in their Read more…
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03
Nov '18
God Will Never Give You More than You can Handle (??)
03
Nov '18
Written by: Mark Culp
1 Corinthians 1:8-9 “We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.”
I have heard people voice various platitudes concerning various topics most of my life. Some are used to cover a variety of situations and others are more specific. One of the more popular slogans states that “God will never give you more than you can handle.” How could anyone doubt the “truth ” of this time honored saying? You may Read more…
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03
Nov '18
Under Pressure
03
Nov '18
Satan is on the move every day. He tries to weave circumstances into our daily routine to trap us, to throw us into the chaos of feeling annoyed, stressed, and under pressure. Satan likes to destroy our peace and make us feel unworthy of God’s forgiveness. He sets doubt in our minds and and tries to slowly destroy our confidence.
God is so much more powerful than satan. When we stand with God, satan crumbles. We live in a fallen world because of sin. Satan likes to believe he has the upper hand, but he’s no Read more…
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27
Oct '18
God Provides what We Need
27
Oct '18
Written by: Mark Culp
Exodus 16:4 recounts the story of when God introduced manna to the Israelites. It was during the time when He was leading them through the desert after He had miraculously delivered them from the bondage of Pharaoh. They were in the wilderness where God was leading them and forging a people for His own.
His seemingly simple instructions to His people were to gather only what they needed for the day with the exception of the sixth day of every week, where they would gather twice as much. These instructions were simple enough, at least on the surface, but to many, the instructions just did not make any sense. They were in a desert wilderness after all, and many decided to gather Read more…
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27
Oct '18
Security
27
Oct '18
Being secure in who I am has been a journey. Walking with Christ is amazing. He’s opened my eyes and given me strength I never knew I had. Naturally, I still have pitfalls and bad days. I know when I’ve messed up because I have the Holy Spirit who convicts me and sets my mind on the right path.
As long as I can remember, I have always trusted and believed in God. Even when I walked right into reckless situations, God always knew me better than I knew myself. He knew when I Read more…
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27
Oct '18
Filling the Gap
27
Oct '18
Be good to your servant,
that I may live and obey Your word.
Open my eyes to see
the wonderful truths in Your instructions.
I am only a foreigner in the land.
Don’t hide Your commands from me!
I am always overwhelmed
with a desire for Your regulations. Psalms 119: 17-20
that I may live and obey Your word.
Open my eyes to see
the wonderful truths in Your instructions.
I am only a foreigner in the land.
Don’t hide Your commands from me!
I am always overwhelmed
with a desire for Your regulations. Psalms 119: 17-20
One of the first things I tried to do when I became born again was give up something for lent. The funny thing was I was never successful. I would slip up somewhere along the line, and eat the chocolate cake, or I would have that night out where the cheesecake looked too good. Eventually, I would give in. Then one year, I put it all together and found success! There was so much joy in my heart that I enjoyed cheesecake that year much more! In retrospect, each passing year where I failed, I also learned something from my failures. I realized to avoid certain places, or had greater will power to never ‘give up.’ I was Read more…
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27
Oct '18
Shift Your Focus
27
Oct '18
A friend recently shared a post on social media that said “Worship gets you through the hardest times in your life because it shifts your focus from the problem to the Problem Solver”. This post showed up right after a different friend was inquiring about what I’ve been doing since some struggles in my life. I proceeded to tell him that after these struggles came along, I got myself very busy with Godly people doing Godly things. He then said he felt he may have isolated himself in the same situation. I’ll admit, I may have wanted to isolate myself, but God surely didn’t give me that option. God began moving in my life immediately and didn’t give me much of a chance at all to sulk or have pity party with myself (i.e. “poor me!”).
Nope, God grabbed me by the shoulders, shook me a few times, told me to take a few days to get things out of my system, and then we’re going to be on to the next thing. God knew exactly what needed to happen with me, so I didn’t question Him. I got involved more in church, started hitting the gym more, and started surrounding myself more with Godly people.
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20
Oct '18
Just Walk
20
Oct '18
Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw Him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.
But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to You on the water.” “Come,” He said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, Read more…
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