UBC Wed For Life

It’s been said several times on this blog that being a Christian can be hard. In most cases that comment was made with regard to the need to uphold God’s laws or live up to the principles laid out by Jesus. However, those are not the only aspects of being a Christian that can be difficult for believers. Faith is one of the most important concepts in Christianity. Belief in God is part of having faith, but we can't just say we believe. We have to show it, and that means trusting him with our everyday lives. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; - Proverbs 3:5 Putting trust in God for everything we encounter is an active demonstration of faith, and it is important. In fact, Jesus made it clear that we are not to fret over even the basic needs of our daily lives. We should understand that God knows what we need and will provide. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you ...

The UBC Sunday Encounters continue to explore the concept of belonging. The previous entry focused on trust and the part it plays in making people feel like they belong within groups, most notably church families. The previously referenced sermons focused on how we can build trust with the people around us. However, trust is a two-way street. It is one thing for us to be trusted by others, but for people to feel like they belong, they often have to feel like they are also trusted. Pastor Pope addressed this in a sermon that posed the question “Who Is Going With You?” He used a story from chapter 15 of the Book of Acts that involved two great figures in early Christianity, Paul and Barnabus. The two had somewhat of a dispute over Mark. On a past occasion, Mark had proven himself to be less than reliable. As a result, as Paul pushed forward on his mission to spread the Gospel, he did not want to take Mark with him. Barnabus, on the other hand, insisted that Mark be brought along...

As stated in the previous entry, a sense of belonging is important to most people in today’s world, and it is particularly important that the church be able to instill a sense of belonging in the people that visit it. For this reason, Pastor Pope and the other ministers at United have continued delivering sermons that tackle the issue of belonging. A few of the Sermons use acronyms and acrostics to illustrate concepts that feed into the concept of belonging. For example, Pastor Pope introduced BRAVING, which breaks down into B oundaries R eliability A ccountability V ault I ntegrity N on-judging G race Each of these concepts feeds into belonging in that all address things that must be in place or must be demonstrated by the members of a group for each of the members to feel like they can trust each other. Pastor Pope defined trust as being the willingness to take something that is sacred or important to oneself and make it vulnerable to the actions of someone else. Trust is vital f...

  Humans are relational beings. That is how God made us. He always intended for us to interact and commune with other people. Given that fact, there should be no surprise that the desire to belong is a driving force in the lives of most people. Most of us are born into a biological family, which serves as the first group to which we can belong. From there we seek out our cliques of friends, which serve as the first groups to which we can choose to belong. Many of us take it even further and join a variety of other groups like social clubs, fraternities/sororities, and, unfortunately in some cases, gangs, all to feel like we belong to something. Every believer is automatically a part of a big group, the Body of Christ. However, we also are a part of smaller units within that bigger body in the form of our church families. A couple of important questions should be asked. Do the members of those church families truly feel like they belong? Do people who are not members of th...

Judas Iscariot: Here was a man who drew as close to the Savior as it is humanly possible to be. He enjoyed every privilege Christ affords. He spent three years with Jesus Christ, and he was intimately familiar with everything Jesus taught. Yet, he remained in unbelief and went into a hopeless eternity. The Prophecies   Judas’ role of betrayal of Christ was ordained before the foundation of the world and even prophesied in the Old Testament. "And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15) . God ordained the events by which Christ would die, and yet Judas carried out his evil deed by his own choice. Psalm 41:9   9 Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted,  Who ate my bread,  Has lifted up  his  heel against me. The Lord Jesus quoted verse 9 in connection with Judas. One of the disciples who had lived with the Lord Jesus, travele...

It is well known that most of the Bible’s more prominent characters are men, but that does not mean that women did not play important roles in the Bible nor that they did not attain statuses of great power and influence. Esther is an example of one such Biblical woman. Along with Ruth, she is distinguished as being a woman and having a book of the Bible named after her. Esther lived during a time where the Persian Empire was still in control of much of the region in which the Bible’s stories take place. Just as during Nehemiah’s time, the Jews found themselves under the control of the Persians. However, at the time, the Jews did not have a person like Nehemiah who was close to the king and able to advocate for the Jews. At the beginning of Esther’s story, King Xerxes was in control of the Persian Empire (yes, this is the same Xerxes from the movie 300) and was betrayed by his queen, Vashti. What is the great wrong that Queen Vashti committed? On the seventh day, when King Xerxes w...

                        The previous blog entry touched on how reading through the Bible can help answer some of the common questions about God and the Faith. One question that sometimes comes up in discussions about the Bible relates to God’s treatment of people who weren’t Hebrew. Several of the books in the New Testament are dedicated to the efforts of Paul and others to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles. Most Christians would be considered Gentiles, and that is one of the reasons why the New Testament is particularly important for us. However, many of the stories in the Old Testament involve pretty harsh treatment of the Gentiles by God or under His direction. For that reason, some might ask why God would treat Gentiles so badly even though we are all his creation. That question certainly seems valid when reading all the stories of the Israelites going to war with other peoples and killing everyone (man, woman, and ch...