A Pastor's Thoughts

We are processing in fighting Alameda County, who wants to shut down our church.  In order to inform churches and pastors about this fight, this email was sent to over 2,000 churches via email: To all pastors, church leaders and Christians, There is an assault on our church in Alameda County.  For the last 8 years the county has been coming against us with ambitious tax charges, health code violations and sanitary sewer inspections. We have chosen to expose their attacks and we are asking for your prayers as we proceed.  You need to know this:  if the county successfully shuts down our church, your church could be next.  No church is safe. We will supply further information as things progress.  God bless you and your church as you serve your king. Please continue to pray for our church

God speaks.  Not often, in an audible voice from the sky, but he does speak.  In the Bible he spoke with a voice, he showed pictures and visions and dreams to people.  Today people speak of impressions in their spirit or mind, which was not talked about in the Bible. Today, I believe that people claim God speaks much more than he does.  The primary reason I say this is that God does not need to speak at all.  God has said all that is needed in his Word, the Bible.  We have everything that is required for life and godliness in the pages of our Bibles.  Bibles are not hard to get, except in anti-God countries, yet we still manage to smuggle them into every country and people group.   For those that claim God is a veritable chatterbox I have to wonder what value that brings to their life.  People who claim to hear God’s voice all the time do not seem to have greater biblical understanding.  In fact, people who hear God’s voice all ...

Recently my wife and I went to Lake Tahoe to get away, deal with my stress and relax.  Over the years, South Lake Tahoe, near Stateline has morphed into a timeshare and resort mecca with Marriott buying many acres on one side of the street and a company called Zalanta buying the other.  Since there is no gambling allowed in California, yet, restaurants, resorts and movie theaters keep families entertained on the California side, just a couple blocks from Nevada. When we come up to Tahoe, we usually stop at a local grocery store and get provisions and ammenitites.  Today, we were walked by a man in the grocery store selling vacation ownership, or timeshares.  He offered us $150 at a local ChartHouse resterount and a 2 day, 3 night stay at his resort.  All of this for a 90 minute presentation.  Many people I know and know of would jump at the chance of a $150 steak and lobster dinner and a free stay at a luxery hotel.  As we walked around the groce...

Psalm 18 is a rather long psalm with 50 verses.  In this Psalm, David remembers and recounts the various victories he has had.  For David these would be military victories.  Specifically, David fought against Saul, or usually ran from him, he fought the various armies that were occupying the promised land and he fought against his son Absolom when Absolom wanted to take the throne by force.  David, near the end of his life, takes the time to understand that God’s hand was the victory in each battle David fought. In the first part of the Psalm, David lists 7 metaphors to describe God.  These metaphors denote strength and safety.  The most repeated name for God in this psalm is “rock.”  The Lord is David’s rock.  A rock can be a place of safety and a place of refuge. For us today, I think we can get so busy in doing the right thing, or doing things just to survive, that we forget how much God has done for us.  Few of us today will be leadin...

Many years ago, I was caught in a highway patrol sting.  They had parked a school bus on the sidewalk in the industrial section of town.  There was clearly no one in the bus and the school bus was from a town many miles away.  I drove past it and as I got even with it, all the lights on the bus began to flash and the little stop sign popped out.  Then a highway patrol office ran into the road, on foot and stood in front of my car.  He wrote me a ticket for passing a school bus that had flashing lights.  The ticket turned out to be $695.00. I fought the ticket and even went to traffic court.  The officer who wrote the ticket did not show up so I won.  Eight months after the event, after I paid the ticket, I received the $695 back from the court. This event has stayed with me and brought to my thinking a distrust for police officers and highway patrol.  What was done was illegal.  My behavior has also changed.  Whenever I see a pa...