“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” (1 John 1:5-10)

 I did not grow up Catholic, but I can only imagine the awkwardness that must surround the whole experience of confession. Revealing your hidden sins to a man you may or may not know very well, and then being instructed on what your penance is, may be a valuable spiritual exercise for some, but probably was not exactly what James had in mind when he wrote “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16). When I read that verse, it seems to me that James was encouraging the Christians reading his letter to make confessing their sins to each other a regular part of their spiritual life, not to save their confession for the spiritual leader in their midst, because the simple acts of confession and prayer were powerfully effective.

I have been struck once again this past week at the power of confession, and particularly at the truth found in 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Read more »

“When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’” (Revelation 6:9-10)

 What I’m going to share below is graphic and beyond words in its horror. I don’t share it to be sensationalistic, but to ask a simple question: What do you do with this? How do you personally handle the knowledge that there is this kind of evil in the world? How does it affect your thinking, your actions, and your faith? Please consider, and share your thoughts below.

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There is a story that has been making the rounds of the news channels and blogosphere this past week concerning a New Jersey pastor who demanded that his 50 married church officials delete their Facebook accounts or resign from their leadership positions.  Why?  The pastor, Cedric Miller, claims that over the past six months, 20 couples in his 1100 member church have run into marital trouble due to one spouse connecting with an ex-flame via Facebook.  Quitting Facebook, he argues, will save marriages.

Reaction to this story has been mostly predictable – the pastor is being overly dramatic.  After all, Facebook is just one of many means of communicating with the world.  Should fear of having an affair cause us to give up all other means of communication as well – our phones, our email, even letters?  Why not just go all the way and disconnect ourselves from the outside world completely?  After all, we may have an affair at work, so why take the risk of getting a job?  Plus, Facebook is like most everything else in life – along with the benefits, there are risks.  Should we just stay away from Facebook out of fear of what might happen?

Well, maybe.

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Embarrassing story time:  I sucked my thumb at night until I was in third grade.  Do you know why I finally stopped?  My parents took video of my brothers and me sleeping at night on Christmas Eve, and when they showed it the next day, there I was:  eight year-old Eric, curled up with my thumb in my mouth.

 Needless to say, I was mortified, and never sucked my thumb again.

 Why do I tell you that depressing memory?  Because I’ve been reflecting lately on discipline, one of those character traits that most of us wish we had more of in our life.  I think of discipline as the ability to consistently do the things we want to do and to avoid those things we don’t want to do.  The disciplined individual is the one who knows what he or she wants and is able to live according to that vision, not being sidetracked by things that do not help him or her achieve that vision.  As badly as my heart yearns to be a man of discipline who lives according to his values, I have found it to be a slippery pursuit.  As Paul classically put it:
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Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. (James 3:1)

This morning, The Hartford Courant had yet another story about the ongoing debacle of priests with a history of pedophilia.  The story was concerning the Diocese of Norwich and its attempts to keep secret hundreds of documents pertaining to Thomas Shea, a retired priest accused of molesting as many as 16 girls at 11 different parishes over his 40 year career.  The potential scandal in this case is that one of the letters was sent to Joseph Ratzinger, the man who is now Pope, when he was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the office that decides whether accused priests should have trials that could lead to them being defrocked.  Regardless of what is in those documents, the fact remains that this whole scandal is a black eye not just on the Catholic Church but on the very name of Jesus.
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“The Mississippi’s mighty but it starts in Minnesota at a place where you could walk across with five steps down.” (Indigo Girls, Ghost)

This past Sunday, I preached on one of the most stunning passages in the whole Bible, the story of how King David, the man after God’s own heart, slept with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his best friends, and then had his friend killed to cover it up.  That passage, in 2 Samuel 11, begins famously with these words:  “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army… But David remained in Jerusalem.”  As the narrator makes clear, if David were only where he should have been, none of this would have happened.  But instead, we find David arising from a late afternoon nap, wandering up to the roof of his palace, and seeing Bathsheba bathing naked nearby.  One thing leads to another, and soon David has broken almost half of the Ten Commandments in an incredibly thoughtless escapade.

As the aforementioned Indigo Girls’ lyrics put it, even a raging river begins as a little stream.
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Today’s Pulse of NewLife is written by guest writer Tammy Choleva.  Tammy and her husband John’s family was one of the original families of our church, and they have recently returned to NewLife with their six kids, Trevor, Jeremy, Aaron, Gabriel, John, and Danielle.  As I preach through Proverbs on the subject of wisdom this summer, my hope is to use the blog to give voice to many of the more experienced members of our congregation, so that they can share what they have learned through their journey with the Lord.

No Longer a Slave to Sin

“…knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” Romans 6:6 (NKJV)

Back some time ago after I was saved by the grace of God, I was given a revelation of truth.  I remember at the time having been disgusted with myself over something I had done.  I don’t remember what I had done, but I know it didn’t honor the Lord.  I remember telling God I was sorry, but I also remember stopping and pondering (for quite some time) how in the world Jesus could have been sinless.  I knew He was sinless because the Bible tells me so; yet, I started to think deeply and wonder how that could have been.
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“When a man is revengeful, it is amazing how cunning he is to find opportunities to strike out.  When enmity thoroughly possesses his soul and pours its venom into his very blood, he will become exceedingly crafty in the means he uses to provoke and injure his adversary” [Charles Spurgeon (19th century British preacher), Spiritual Warfare in a Believer’s Life].

Ahhh, vengeance.  How true are Spurgeon’s words, that we are never more cunning and crafty as when we wish to inflict pain on someone.  We can come up with the most biting lines and the sneakiest ways to damage someone’s reputation.  We can damage them with ice-cold snubs and stares or red-hot words of anger and violence. 

Is it any wonder, in light of this, that Satan is first introduced in the Bible in this way:  Read more »

If you get The Hartford Courant at home, you probably saw the grim-faced couple on the front page, with the headline underneath that read “What Was He Thinking?”  Above the picture, it read “Experts Struggle to Understand Spitzer’s Alleged Romp with Call Girl.”

My initial reaction, to be honest, was to laugh.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I certainly wasn’t laughing at the fact that Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York, got caught soliciting a prostitute, Read more »

I was reading through an e-newsletter from the Christian organization Sojourners last Thursday when a headline caught my eye:  “The fallout from Ted Haggard.”  Oh no, I said – what happened now?  As I read the article, I heard about the breaking story that was only in its infancy but was clearly going to get uglier over the next few days – Pastor Ted Haggard, pastor of the megachurch New Life Church of Colorado Springs and President of the National Association of Evangelicals, had been accused of participating in drug-fueled trysts over the past three years with a gay male escort.  What made the story even more shocking, of course, is that Pastor Haggard has been crusading against gay marriage across the country, getting amendments prohibiting gay marriage on the ballots of many states for today’s election.  And all the while, he had apparently been struggling with the very thing against which he had been crusading.

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