Desensitized To Sin

Two of my favourite TV programs are Law and Order SVU and Law and Order Criminal Intent. If they're on, I'll watch them. Last night I was watching SVU and got into it about half way through. The program was about how a female astronaut was murdered. Anyway, near the end of the television program, there was a double homicide in the police department and Staveler's teenaged boy witnessed it. The kid wasn't the least bit freaked out. Now, I know that he's only an actor and he's doing what the screen writers are telling him to do, but my concern is that the boy was not freaked out about the double homicide since it must have been a very traumatic moment.

I was in eighth grade, at a hockey practice on a Thursday night in Onoway, AB. My coach was having trouble breathing on the ice that night, and after we got back into the dressing room, he had a heart attack and died right before our eyes. He was 38 years old; he just dropped and all I could hear was the gurgling of blood going into his lungs. He had a massive heart attack and the whole team just watched him die, his son included. I had a very hard time for the next few years trying to get that image out of my head.

Now television is showing that watching a double homicide happen right before our eyes should really be no big deal. As we watch these things on television, are we desensitizing ourselves to sin? Our we showing our children that it is OK to watch someone being killed, but not OK to kill someone? What kind of message is that sending to our children? Probably the same kind where we say it's OK to watch pornography online, as long as we don't act it out.

Honestly, what's the difference? God is very clear that He abhors those who delight in violence, and yet we let our kids play some very violent games. Why don't we just go ahead and let them watch porn while they're at it?

It is obvious that we have different levels of sin, and that watching and doing somehow are different. We are approving violence as we watch our television shows that promote violence, just like people promote illicit sex as they watch pornography. So, I was convicted last night about my sin desensitization, where are you? As much as I love Jack Bauer, I think it's time that he gets turned off in my house, and yes, I will also have to say good-bye to my beloved SVU and Criminal Intent. 1 Chronicles 16:29 tells us to worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. Another way we can translate that is to worship God in the beauty of holiness. Can I call myself holy if I am visually indulging in the same violence that caused God to destroy the earth? God is a God who demand holiness from his people, and can't stand those who come to Him in pretense. (Jeremiah 3). He actually says in that same chapter the unbelievers are more righteous than those who call themselves Believers and just offer lip service to God, rather than holy lives.

Are you desensitized to sin? Are you playing around with God's holiness? What does God have to say about that? What are you going to do with it?

Second Sunday

We had a great day today. Today was Pathway's second Sunday service, and we had 4 more people than last week.! Things are really starting to grow, and so is our excitement. We are still going through New Beginnings, and today's sermon was titled, "I Get What!!??!!"

We saw that the moment we make Jesus our Lord (that means to make Him our owner, our master, our boss) the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside of us.

The first thing He does when he comes to live in me is He becomes my Guarantee. (Ephesians 1) He becomes my guarantee for eternal life
The second thing is He becomes my Helper (John 16). He helps me look like Jesus
The third thing is He becomes my Teacher (John 14) He teaches me to live like Jesus.
The fourth thing is He becomes my Gift Giver (1 Corinthians 12, Exodus 31) He prepares me to serve with Jesus.

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong before the service started. The sound system wasn't working, we forgot the coffee, we forgot an extension cord, and my projector wasn't working properly. I called a time out, and we took time to pray before the service, and God showed up! God answered a prayer today that we prayed with our mission team from Sulphur, LA. There was a a girl at the Canada Day celebrations this past summer, that was very angry, and used a lot of profanity. One of our ladies on the mission team said that we need to pray for her, and we prayed that she would come to church. She was at Pathway today! Praise God for what He is doing!

On top of that, we had a non Christian family come to church today. We have been ministering to them for the past 6 months, and they came to church, then they volunteered to bring the snacks for church next week! God totally ROCKS!

I love seeing God work like this.

My Apologies

I want to personally apologize to all of you who are reading my blog. I had a post on here titled "I'll Let the Spider Pay My Debt." I had a hyperlink to another blog post where they decided to change the gif picture of a spider to repulsive picture that I won't talk about. A good friend of mine told me about the change in pictures, so needless to say, that blog post is now gone. I apologize if any of you have seen that picture on my blog. This blog is all about glorifying God, and not promoting smut. I thank you for your understanding.

Jason

A Dream Became Reality

Today, an eleven year old dream of mine became a reality. Today is the day that I pastored the very first church service for our very first church plant. Things went great, we had a lady show up who has never been to our small group, she came from reading our website.

We had 26 people at our first church service, and things went very well. Our singer came down with tonsillitis this week, but she still sang. Talk about a trooper! My sermon title was "Where Are We Going?" and it was based out of Acts Chapter 1:1-11. We saw that God has a purpose for the church and that is
1. To experience a changed life (Acts 1:3)
2. To experience God (Acts 1:4-5)
3 To experience Kingdom Growth (Acts 1:8)

Today I basically shared the vision for the church. It was so cool to see everybody taking notes.

One thing that I really loved about church service today was what happened AFTER the sermon. People didn't want to leave! Everybody stayed and talked with everybody else. Nobody wanted to leave at all. That is a great sign, where people want to stay and socialize and feel like they belong.

So one of my dreams came to fruition today, and oh, was the dream a good one!