Tag: belief

Too Good To Be True…

Don’t we all long for the assurance that something we believe in is true?   Don’t we wish we could look at something, read something, or hear something and believe it?  Why are we such skeptics?  Why do we question?

For instance, if we see a picture and it is too hard to believe, what do we say about it?  We say it has been photo shopped. If we see a video and it is too hard to believe, what do we say about it?  We say it has been digitally altered and edited.

We truly are at a point that we can’t believe our eyes. We are conditioned to believe something isn’t 100 percent real.  It looks real.  It feels real.  It may even smell real.  But we know it isn’t real.  We are conditioned to doubt.  We are conditioned to question.

Look at magic shows.  We know someone really doesn’t saw a person in half.  We know a magician doesn’t really make a tiger disappear.  We know there is a trick; we know there is a gimmick.  We just are seeing the whole picture.  So we question, we wonder, we doubt.

Look at movies.  We go to them to be entertained.  To be drawn into a world that isn’t real.  Take for instance the movie inception.  That itself is a movie based on a premise that we don’t know the difference between what is real and what is just a dream being played out totally in our minds.  The hero can tell….he just has to spin a top and if it falls….its real.

How about the movie Soul Surfer?  The real Bethany Hamilton lost her arm in a shark attack.  The actress in that movie (AnnaSophia Robb) had hers digitally removed in postproduction.  Sure looks like she lost it.  Sure looks like it has been removed.  Even Lt. Dan lost both of his legs in Forest Gump but the last time I say a picture of Gary Sinise he had both of his.

Do you see what I am getting at?  We are being conditioned to doubt, to question, to know that something isn’t real.  We are training ourselves to know that there is some sort of gimmick.  Don’t get me wrong…. it is good to question…. it is good to learn…. but it is sad when we doubt everything.  It is sad when we truly believe in nothing.  It is sad when we have no assurance.

So this brings me right back to my question. Don’t you really wish and long for something that seems to good to be true to actually be true?

The cross of Jesus Christ represents just that.  It represents something that seems too good to be true, but isn’t!  It represents grace – that free gift of something we don’t deserve.  Grace that was given out of love, pure unconditional no strings attached love.  Does that sound too good to be true?  It isn’t because the cross is about love and we can believe it.  It says, “Greater Love hath no man than the one who would lay is life down for another,” John 15:13.

Jesus says in John 8:30-32, “Then many who heard him say these things believed in him, ‘you are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teaching.  And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.’“

If you believe the truth you will have two things….you will be free and you will be my disciples.  To be free is to be released, liberated, or delivered from something.  To be a disciple is to embrace and assist in spreading the teachings of another.

As we look at what the cross of Jesus Christ know that we can have assurance.  We can have 100% trust that what we are hearing and reading from the Bible is NOT too good to be true.

The Cross says “Believe in ME!”

Until next time….

Pastor Barry

Do You Believe…

So I have a confession to make – I pray.  Yep, it’s probably not everyday that you hear a pastor confess that he prays, but this one does.  I pray for everything and anything!  The problem is, I haven’t always believed when praying…that is until very recently.

Let me tell you a story…

A few weeks ago my wife and i decided to go and visit my grandma.  She is very ill and we thought it was important for our daughters to visit their great-grandmother at least one more time.  So we drove 8 hours south and visited.  It was a great time and we snapped even better pictures.  We visited, hugged, laughed, and prayed!  It was a good visit!

On the way back home we stopped at Knott’s Berry Farm to have some fun.  This is where my story really takes it’s turn.  We were, inside the park, having a great time.  We had just finished some rides and I was buying the family lunch while my wife was sitting at a table waiting for a show to start.  Our baby’s stroller?  It was right behind us. Nothing unusual or out of the ordinary.   We have always done this.  In fact everyone who has a stroller in these amusement parks has to park them somewhere at sometime. The next time you are in Disneyland I dare you to count the number of strollers parked outside of the Peter Pan ride!

So there we sat, eating and watching the show, having a great time.  The show ended, we got up, cleaned up, and loaded up.  Then my wife went to look for her phone (her Droid Samsung Charge to be specific) and couldn’t find it.  We searched and searched and searched.  Someone had stolen it from the stroller!  The rest of the time in the park….MISERABLE.  I immediately called Verizon and suspended our account and then quickly tried to remember all the “apps” that had been loaded.  “Apps” that signed my wife into things like Netflix, Facebook, and GMail.  It was horrible.  We felt so violated.

Gone were the pictures of my girls, gone were some of the video my wife had taken of the girls,  gone were all her emails and text messages and ….  GONE!

So as a pastor I prayed.  I prayed that God would let us find her phone.  But you know what?  The whole time I was praying I was saying to myself, “Why are you praying?  Seriously?  The devil has control of someone who took that phone and it is long gone and probably sold on Craig’s List already.  Why are you praying.”

We left LA without her phone and came home. Three or four days later I was working around the church with my associate pastor when my phone rang.  Here is the conversation…

“Hello.”

“Mr. Kennard?”

“Yes.”

“Hi, this is (so and so) and I was wondering if you lost a phone.”

“No – but we had one stolen from Knott’s Berry Farm.”

“Oh.  Well I believe I have your phone.  My daughter says she found it on a bus…but I wondered.”

“Really?”

“Yes, is it a Samsung Charge?”

“Yes.”

“Well I have it and I was wondering if you could come pick it up.”

“Not really, that is 6 hours away.”

“OK I will ship it to you.  I’m a Christian and I want to the right thing.”

The conversation continued.  I gave my address.  Told her I was a pastor, prayed for her, hung up the phone and WEPT.

God had just slapped me upside the head and reminded me of something.  He told me that He was God and that He was in control and that He could do anything He wanted.  He then reminded me of my prayer and said, “You prayed but you didn’t believe.  But I have chosen to answer your prayer anyway.”  I cried more and then confessed my unbelief!

So I checked the mailbox daily.  No phone.  No phone. No phone.  Two weeks and no phone.  The devil started to play with my mind.  I had said now I believe you God, but did I really?  The phone was not showing up.  I had bought a replacement.  It was sitting at home.  I had 14 days to return it and I was waiting to open the phone.  I would return it when the other showed up.  But it wasn’t showing up.

In Genesis God tells Abraham that He is going to be the father or many nations.   He even says that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness.  He believed but believed even more AFTER he saw the fire consume the covenant offering.  Years later he was asked to give back his son.  Abraham believed and moved out.  He acted without questioning.

I had questioned.  I prayed and didn’t believe.  I got an answer to prayer and then began to doubt.  I was holding onto the new phone until the old phone actually arrived.  I felt God telling me…you still don’t believe…

So last Friday, I sent the phone back.  Still no stolen phone…

On Monday – guess what was in the mailbox…my wife’s phone.  I fell before the Lord and confessed my unbelief once again.  I believe…I really do.  God did a work in this pastor and I am here to tell you.  Believe because prayer works!

Until next time,

Pastor Barry