Does Church Attendence Make a Difference?

Is there really a connection between church attendance and everyday life?

According to the Pew Research statistics only 37% of Americans they polled out of 8,000 in 2013 said that they attend church weekly, or more. They average that by population, gender, and age, and come up with numbers for the entire nation as they poll different sections of the country. Their error margin had to do with what was actually meant by attending church. Most admitted to attending a religious service of some sort.

Does it really make a difference if you go to church or not? People answer that differently. I often tell the congregation at Draper Valley that I know a lot of people that have nothing against God; they just don’t like “church.” I put the word in parenthesis because they actually mean they don’t like attending a religious fellowship with other people.

But does it really make a difference if you attend church or not? Some Christians say they do not need church. Most unbelievers could care less about it.  I know that you know that my answer is biased; because I get “paid” to go to church. For the record I went for years without getting paid just as many of you do. When I look at my life now and look back before I went to church on a regular basis I can see a big difference. But it was not because I went to church; it was because I came to know Jesus personally. That is what makes my life better today; not church; Jesus. I came to Him in church, but you don’t have to be there to accept Him.

I would have to say that just going to church will not impact your everyday life any more than going to a hospital and sitting in the E.R. waiting room for two hours will prevent you from sickness or accident. When I go visit my kinfolk, I go to spend time with them; not just be in their house. When I go to church, even to preach or teach, I still go to spend time with my Lord, and other people who hopefully are there for the same reason. Regardless of your opinion about the building, the music, the preaching, the programs, or whatever you “look for” in a church, the main emphasis is to come together with others who are there to worship and spend time with the Lord. The assembling ourselves together.  

So if you do not attend church, or are “searching” for a church, let me encourage you to first seek the kingdom of God by way of Jesus Christ. Get connected with Him first; or there is not a church out there that will make any difference in the long run. That’s my two cents.

Stress and Spirituality

Spiritual and biological stress.

Is there really such a thing as stress management? I used to teach classes in my former job on how to manage stress. What I actually taught was how to manage your activities in relation to your time and how to control things you could, and how to deal with things you cannot. The term stress was first coined by an American psychologist to describe external factors that affected homeostasis (internal conditions remaining stable). The actual word was used to describe the forces put upon structures to determine their breaking point. Physics define stress as an internal resistance of an object to an external force that tends to deform it. However we define it, we have still experienced it.

Did you know that Christians are subject to spiritual stress? It can stem from spiritual warfare or it can stem from pride. Pride causes us to set our goals higher than we can reach. When we set our own standards for trying to please God we fail. The more we fail the harder we work to do better. The harder we work, the more we fail and the more discouraged we become. External forces from the enemy attribute to it but internal forces from “self” also contribute.

“Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to those in Rome, Jews and Gentiles, that believed in Jesus. The Holy Spirit used Paul to instruct them, and us, that physical attempts at salvation and pleasing God would not work. Dr. Billy Graham said, “No matter how good we are, we will never be good enough.” When we try to please God on our own we bring about spiritual stress. We are trying to “deform” our fallen human nature by putting “spiritual pressure” on it. There is a cure for spiritual stress; confessing our inability to please God on our own and then fully trusting in Jesus to be our “righteousness.” In his second letter to the church in Corinth Paul penned these words, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Now when you add spiritual stress to your physical stress; you are a mess! So fix the spiritual stress first, and then you will have Divine help in resolving your physical stress.

Words as Weapons

Words can wound.

Job 19:2 Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)

“How long will you hurt me and crush me with your words?”

A wordsmith is someone who is an expert in using words with skill. They can link sentences together to express thoughts or feelings in such a way that phrases just seem to flow off ones lips with such fluidity that they enter the ears smoothly. They can also be people who skillfully use words to pierce not only the ear, but the heart and soul of their listener in such a manner as to degrade or destroy the intended target of their wordy attack.

Words can shoot out of our mouths like a bullet from a loaded gun when the safety is not on. Before we think we can fire off words in a moment of anger that can end relationships or even start wars. I know people today who will not speak to one another because the last words they spoke to each other were so hurtful they chose never to speak words to each other again. Words have more power than we give them credit for. Proverbs 18:21 tells us that life and death are in the tongue. Knowing that we should put a safety on our tongues! To know that we have such power should cause us to take speaking seriously.

St. James wrote in Chapter 3 of his epistle that no man can tame the tongue. That tells me that only God can. That is why it is so important that when we come to Christ we confess with our mouths. When we get Christ in our heart we first have to let Him have our mouths. Jesus used words to heal people and bring them back to life. He used words to dispel demons, comfort mourners, and even still stormy seas. Some of His last words on the Cross were, “Father, forgive them.” I don’t think Jesus ever spoke a single word that He did not mean to say; do you?

Therefore, the next time we feel like using words as weapons let us stop and think before we put into words that thought we are thinking. It may keep us from crushing someone or driving them away.

When Blessings become a curse.

The danger of being blessed!

Deuteronomy 31:20 New Living Translation (NLT)

For I will bring them into the land I swore to give their ancestors—a land flowing with milk and honey. There they will become prosperous, eat all the food they want, and become fat. But they will begin to worship other gods; they will despise me and break my covenant. 

The majority of us cannot imagine what it is not to be blessed. If you are reading this, you are blessed. Not just because you can read but the fact that you can see or not lying flat on your back in a hospital bed. Many cannot read, cannot see, and are lying in hospitals at this very moment. Chances are, you are not hungry (unless you are purposely fasting) and have clothes to wear, somewhere to live, and have people who love and care about you. Blessings: call them what you want but that is what they are; simple, everyday things that the majority of us take for granted as God gives us our daily bread and protection.

Be careful though. It blows my mind that even before the Israelites were brought into the land flowing with milk and honey God knew what they would do. He knows human nature. He knows how that when we are physically satisfied we begin to think we are in His favor and if we are not careful we can therefore “worship our blessings” and forget that every heartbeat belongs to Him.

Listen children, I am not preaching to you; the Holy Spirit is preaching to me and you are just reading my mail! I am putting on this modern day parchment that which He is telling me in my heart. If you learn something from it, that is another blessing!

Healthy and prosperous is not always a sign that we are in Gods favor. If you are both today be careful not to forget that all that is physical is temporary; only our soul will live forever. As Dr. Billy Graham once said, “I never saw a U-Haul being pulled by a hearse to a cemetery.”

I just don't get it.

Am I missing something, or do people just not care about God?

Romans 1:28-32 The Message (MSG)

Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!

Does this sound like our world today to you? It does to me. What I don’t get is how people cannot see where all our problems have stemmed from. The Apostle here was not targeting any specific group of people, but was illustrating that Jews and Gentiles (Pagans) alike were all corrupt! Depravity is part of our human software as inherited from Adam and Eve through their spiritual DNA. The only thing I can think of that maybe cause people not to see this is that they just don’t believe it. To me, that is the only logical explanation for people not seeing where the problem lies – not caring about God.

I had a friend tell me one time that perhaps if all of us Christians could get on an airplane and fly to the promise land we would be happy and the rest of the world would too! He was not a Christian and was being sarcastic as we were discussing the issue of abortion. He changed his opinion on abortion after his daughter was born. I think though that statement sums it up as far as the rest of the world goes.

I don’t know what to do about it, do you? We preach, we teach, we testify, we pray, we go into the communities, we try to get others to believe it, but for some reason they just keep “running loose.” Perhaps one day God in His infinite mercy will do something that will cause them to see it before it’s too late. Before the church “flies away” and leaves them here without hope.

Pinches and Punches

Traditions and Religion.

Matthew 15:2  

“Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition?”  New Living Translation (NLT)

My wife and I had the opportunity to visit England back in 24 B.K. (before kids). That was in 1990 and 1991. While there visiting my brother, one of his friends lightly pinched me on the shoulder and lightly punched me and said, “A pinch, a punch, for the first of the month; white rabbit!” It was the first day of July that year. It is a traditional thing they do, and saying “white rabbit” means that I could not pinch or punch him back.

I saw a tee shirt in a store the other day that had a slogan on it that read; “I know I’m not wearing green; pinch me and I’ll punch you.” It had a gray graphic of a mean looking Leprechaun, gritting his teeth with his little fists balled up on it as well. I could have used that shirt all through my life when encountering the traditional pinchers on St. Patrick’s Day. One day a year we forget to wear something green and the pinchers seek you out. We should combine St. Patrick’s Day with April Fool’s Day then we could say, “look, your shirt is green; not.” Then we could pinch them.

Many of these old traditional things are harmless. I guess people got bored just living life and came up with something to liven it up a bit. Traditions have a way of taking root in cultures just as religion does. There is not a lot of differences between religion and traditions. For instance, Jesus never made a big deal about washing your hands before eating. He never used hand sanitizers or anything. Germs; that is why we wash our hands; germs. An age old tradition that is supposed to protect us from harm. Wash your hands all you want but eat poison and you die. That is sort of what Jesus was saying about the Jewish hand washing tradition. “It is that which is on the inside that will kill you, not what is on the outside.” Religion attempts to wash us from the outside, in; Jesus washes us from the inside, out!  Get your heart cleansed first and then worry about your hands. Germs kill the body; sin destroys the soul.

Is it just me?

A move toward spirituality, but not toward Christ.

I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, And on Your wondrous works. (Psalm 145:5 NKJV)

Is it just me? I sat watching a guy on HLN talk about his new book on meditation. You can Google it, but I am not going to brag on his book. Sit Still he says and get quite for a little while. Of course his advice is to get in touch with your inner-self and calm yourself by being aware of the world around you and sensitive to your surroundings.

I have noticed lots of spiritual stuff lately in the news. When I saw this I thought; Why are they not promoting prayer in schools? This guy wants to promote meditation, quite time, in the schools. Why can’t we just say, “pray quietly?” We both know you cannot really take prayer out of schools; you can pray anywhere you want; just not out loud maybe!

Mediation on God is good; meditation on self is not. Trying to improve ourselves will not work; mankind has tried that for years. Allowing God to improve us works; many of us have found that to be true! The Bible teaches us to meditate on good things, things that are pure and noble, just and lovely. Not to chant some mantra as in order to brainwash ourselves.

Apparently some have never learned that real change comes from a changed heart; a heart that is ruled by Jesus and not by self. That is where we find peace. Be Still, and know that He is God; that works.

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I am taking this stuff to seriously. Maybe I just need to pray for them. Maybe I should not worry that these people are influencing the children.

Or maybe, I should.