Our Gospel Journey and thoughts on the problem of evil!

So over the past two months our youth ministry has been going through the Dare 2 Share curriculum "The Gospel Journey Maui." Yesterday, we dealt with the problem of evil. So I thought I would share my thoughts and give a little insight into what the Bible teaches us.

First, we have to distinguish two types of evil Moral and Natural evil. Moral evil results from the actions of free people. An example is murder, rape, drunk driving, robbing a bank. Natural evil results from nature as it runs its course and things that are examples of this are hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, Tsunamis, tornadoes, you get the point.

Everyone has their opinion about the problem of evil. As we look to Scripture, I believe that it has a number of answers that highlight the issue or problem of evil.

First, according to II Cor 4:4, Satan is the god of this age or world depending on your translation. Now, this is not without God allowing him to do this. God has allowed Satan this opportunity ever since the fall. God doesn't force his ways on people, but calls them to repentance and acknowledgement of Him. Remember Psalm 14:1 says, "The fool says in his heart there is no God." So God has allowed satan the opportunity to do what he wants in this world, but God also shows himself to be patient, not wanting any to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (II Peter 3:9. That is way he is patient in coming back. He desires for all people to know who He is and what He has done.

Second, since satan is the god of the age he has a method, purpose and plan and that is seen in John 10:10. Satan has no other purpose than to steal, kill and destroy. He doesn't care about you or anyone else. He has one thing he wants to make sure and that is to steal your joy, your meaning in life, to make you think that life is stupid or useless. He desires to kill you any way he can. This may come through various violent acts, (murder, rape, drunk driving, etc.) or it may also come through trying to kill you spiritually. Trying to blind your mind so you don't respond to the Holy Spirit. If he doesn't kill you physically, yet can keep you from your relationship with the creator God then he has accomplished his purpose.

Third, many of us tend to think that because we are doing great things for God, or we have a really strong relationship with Him that bad things won't happen to us. There is nothing in scripture that promises that. God always promises to be with us, but never promises everything to work out the way we want it. Read Job. Job was blameless and upright. In other words Job was a righteous man. He was everything God expected in a Christian. He put God first and other second. He lived out God's commands and loved God with all his heart. Yet Job still loses everything. Why? I think Job shows what it means to follow, obey and honor Christ no matter the cost. He could have easily turned his back on God, questioned God's existence or even renounced him, but he remained faithful. The lesson to be learned is that

Righteousness is not a hedge of protection against bad things.

Bad things happen to the righteous and unrighteous alike. The difference is that the righteous have God to rely on and to gain strength from in times of need (Phil 4:13).

I hope and pray that this helps you the next time you face trials, trouble, evil or difficulties. Remember that the Lord is faithful and desires to help us through every situation we face. He promises never to leave us nor forsake us. You are loved and cared for. YOu have a purpose in life and God is going to accomplish things in and through you, things you may never have imagined.

Denver 2009

It loaded. You can check out the video here as well as stay in touch with our Youtube page. It is TheMergeSpringhill if you go to youtube.


I also thought you might like to see last years video again, so here it is.

Random musings and thoughts

So, we are back into the swing of things after spending a week in Denver serving the Green Valley Ranch Community. It was a great week and everyone did a fantastic job working hard and coming together. I was thinking this morning about how easy it is to get back into a routine and how difficult it can be to maintain an effective time with God because of all the distractions we face. I hope and pray that each of you spend time with Jesus daily. The more you do this, the more you feed the Spirit and do what God wants you to do not what oter people want you to do.

This morning I went to the doctor cause I have been having problems swallowing and breathing at times. I have been having problems with my tonsils for about a month now. While we were in Denver at Water World, I got hit in the throat by one of the mats on he turbo racer. Awesome Ride. Anyways I have been having problems since then and today the doctor told me it looked like I needed to have my tonsils removed. Great! Of all the times to have something like this happen it has to be now. We are getting ready for Ethyl, and then I will be preaching for two weeks after Ethyl and then we are going on vacation. One thing I have learned is that God's timing is perfect and I know everything will be ok. I will keep everyone informed when I finally know what is going on.

Tonight we are going to Lighthouse lanes. Bring $8 and come prepared to have fun and bowl alot. I have uploaded the 2008 Denver Vidoe and the 2009 Denver video to Youtube. Do a search for TheMergeSpringhill and you can find our videos there.

Great Pics

Since we are going to Water World today I thought I would post some pictures from throughout the week. Hope you enjoy them.

What a Rush!

This week has flown by. I can hardly believe we have been here almost a week. Every one of the students has done a phenomenal job this week. they have worked hard, and worked with great servant hearts and awesome attitudes. It has helped make this week one of the best trips to Denver we have ever had.

Today we worked around High Point Academy, pulling weeds, cleaning windows, cleaning walls, mowing and cleaning up the mulch and replacing some of it. We also cleaned out Hope Valley's storage unit moved over to the Buchanek's house. This will help the church save money on the storage since Korey and heather have afairly large garage they can use.

Tonight the kids enjoyed a night off at the 16th Street mall in Downtown Denver. It is a great place to hang out and have fun. It also opens our eyes to the many different types lifestyles of people lead and how they are still in need of Christ. It has been an awesome week, and we look forward to sharing so much more when we get home.

The Glory of it all...

This week has really gone fast. This morning we woke up at 5:25 in the morning to hand out 1,000 free breakfast on the go's to the people in the community. It went really well and no one got hurt. Giving out the breakfasts is always one of the most exciting things, but also can be one of the most nerve racking becasue of the traffic. They all did a great job and have done good all week. I continue to be amazed at how great our kids our serving and have been extremely proud of everything they have done. They have bonded well together and continue to grow closer. I truly believe if we can build upon this they can do some great things for Christ in their schools this year.

We got to take a break this afternoon and took advantage of the opportunity. We loaded up our vans and took off to the west and went to St. Mary's Glacier. It was a great time with some of us hiking to the highest point we could get to. This took us about 2 1/2 hours and gave us some great pictures and helped us realize the greatness of God and his awesome creation.

Sorry we haven't posted every day. The wireless connection we have been trying to use has been having problems. We take advantage of using it when it is up. Thank you for your prayers and we look forward to filling you in on more tomorrow.

Great trip

Hey everyone! Hope things are going well back at home. We have had a great trip so far, full of excitement laughter and hard work. It started on sunday with everyone breaking into groups and canvasing the local homes with some great questions to find out some good information, as well as have personal contact and inform them of a church in this area. You have to understand that the builder of this community has made it a goal of his to "develop a community where people can escape the church." With that in mind here were the questions we asked each house that answered the door.

1) If you could name 2 of David Letterman's top ten reasons people don't attend church, what would they be?

2) Do you know any churches in the Green Valley Ranch area? If so, what are their names?

3) If you were to attend a church what would you look for?

You would be surprised at some of the answers and look for ward to sharing more with you as we come back.

Today we spent all day landscaping at a couples home here in the neighborhood. This couple runs an adoption agency and have adopted 6 chiuldren and have 3 adopted grandchildren. Our team did a great job and had a great spirit and attitude as they worked hard together. I am extremely proud of all of them. We also had a group go to a lady's house to do a garage reorganization and had a great time serving her and building a relationship with her. Please pray for Lana and that she would be open to the relationships with others fomr Hope Valley. God is obviously at work, and we are just beginning to see what all he has in store for us this week. Please keep praying and we look forward to hearing from you.

Safe & Sound

Well we made it here safe and sound and are looking forward to a great day tomorrow. We have church services here at 10, then we will be going out to survey the neighborhoods around here. This is a great way to get to hear the thoughts and opinions of the people around here and their views and opinions on church. Please be praying for this great non threatening opportunity to listen to others. It may also be a great opportunity for us to share the Gospel to those in need of salvation, please pray!

Right up to the last second...

So, I got a call today from the company we were supposed to be renting our vans from and they informed me that they wouldn't be able to meet our request for the vans. Immediately I thought, "Nothing like waiting till the last possible second." I had called on monday to verify and make sure everything was ready to go and they assured me everything was taken care of. Thankfully we were able to find another company that had a van and minivan, optherwise we would have had major problems.

It always seems like things go wrong when it is the most inconvienient time. I have been thinking about this and realized I was pretty upset. I relaized I need to relax and watch how God can take care of everything. He provided us with exactly what we needed, and in just enough time. I hope and pray this is just the beginning of watching God do some amazing things while we are in Denver. Please be praying for all of our team. It is going to be a great week.