Sunday, March 29, 2015

EASTER '15 : The why of it and the Forgiveness, Hope, joy, peace it can bring






    This is my yearly Easter-Resurrection day post. I’ve done one for-I think-three years now. A couple of you may have read the earlier ones, if so you may see something similar in this one.  I do them for two reasons. To get the word out what Easter is really all about-That Jesus really rose from the dead, God’s Mercy and Love-and at the same time to give people hope and to let them know their past can be forgiven; no matter what they have done, not done, or what was done to them or even if they are near perfect. And that Joy, Peace and Love comes along with Salvation.

      Easter, or as some like to call it Resurrection Day, is the time we set aside to celebrate the physical Resurrection of Jesus Christ after a very painful death in our place. That death which we talk about on Good Friday took hours to accomplish. He not only was whipped close to death but he had to hang from a boards that His hands were nailed to. As I understand it after a while his lungs would stop working in that position so he basically suffocated. More happened to Jesus during His death but He went through all of it for you. The Bible and life is clear that no one is perfect-we all have blown it one way or another. Some a whole lot more than others. This imperfection or sin causes many hurts build up in our lives. Some don’t seem all that bad while others are devastating to us personally and to others. Some hurts are caused by the sin of others but they all can be healed. His Resurrection showed his victory over the devil, death the grave and that His sacrifice was accepted. So now “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved”.
     Not only is God—thanks to Jesus’ death and Resurrection—willing and able to forgive us completely of Every wrong we have done, but He is more than willing to heal those hurts. He can, He created us. That is the double Hope of Easter.  Being right with God-having a relationship with Jesus our new best friend as my pastor likes to say and that we can be healed. He doesn’t leave us as He finds us. Some of that takes time as He deals with us but it is accomplished no matter what. 

     There is more that could be said. Jesus offers us a Peace that goes beyond understanding, a Joy unspeakable and a Love that goes beyond anything else. He showed His Great love in that we were yet sinners—even if we flipped Him off by our actions—He sent Jesus to die for us.  As a verse a good portion of you may know says.  or “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”   For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. He didn’t have to send Jesus for that and Jesus didn’t have to go through with it all. Hebrews 12:2 (KJV)
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.  We are that Joy. No matter what we have done not done or has been done to us, or if we think we are near perfect. 
     

That is why we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ every year but it shows God’s great Mercy and Love and because of it we can be right with the Creator and have all of our sine forgiven and receive His gifts of Hope, joy, peace at the same time. 


If you would like to know more leave a note, send an E-mail or contact my church-Valley Christian Center- Here

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Developing a Winning World View parts Five and Six-a audio series by my Pastor Bill Chaney







A while back I posted a link to a podcast on iTunes for worldview message by my pastor Bill Chaney. The correct title is “Developing a Winning Worldview”. I also posted a second message in that series directly on Google+. I decided to finish off the series back here on my blog.  Here is a link that Post 

For those on Google+ here is the link to my post there  

Here are links to Parts Five and six of "Developing a Winning Worldview"




If you are interested in the whole six part series these links take you to where you can download the one message but if you click on the Valley Christian Center above the line it will take you to the whole podcast page. On it you will be able to find all parts, one through six, and any previous messages you may want to listen to. Depending on how long into the future you read this you of course have to scroll down, but you should be able to find the “Developing A Winning Worldview” series. 

If you click on the light blue note that says,  “Sermon Outline Download (.pdf)”  you can download a PDF file of the sermon outline. The church hands these out each week, so anyone who wants to can fill in the blanks and add any additional notes they want to.

The sub title to number five is “What Will Make Our World Better” and has a lot of info on that subject. Bill deals with various approaches to World problems with a short description of how each method works.
The second section of Number five deals with “The Hope of The World is to Recognize The Significance of Jesus’ Sacrifice”. It contains a lot of good stuff that I would like more people to hear: “He Took My Punishment”, “He Bought My Freedom”, “He Restored My Relationship”, “He Gave Me a New Identity”, finally “He Defeated Death And the Devil”.

These two messages have important info on how Jesus works, how to live a good life. They are well done with humor and clear ideas. 

In closing I would like to say that Jesus is Lord and He Loves us each one of us individually as much as He can. He promised us not only a forgiveness of sin and a right-good-relationship with God the Creator, but He also promised us Peace that goes beyond understanding, a Joy so good that you can’t explain it  and Love so great that it is beyond even human love as good as that can be. 

If you want to talk to someone here is a link to the contact page of Valley’s web site. Right Here



And if you like facebook here’s their facebook page