faith | Heartstone Journey

What Team Shirts Can Teach Us About Our Faith In God!

You’ve seen this scene before.

People gather together every week for one cause — clapping, singing, worshiping. They donate their hard-earned money and their time, knowing they wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Heaven, they believe, surely will be something like this. Were you picturing a church? It’s actually a sports event happening in cities across America.

We have this love-affair with sports and we will pay hundreds of dollars for game tickets and sports gear with our team’s logo on it…won’t we? Without hesitation we join in an addictive rant while at games, watching games and checking on games via social media with our praise or curses concerning our teams’ play.

Now picture this. You’re a Red Sox fan and you’re visiting friends in New York and they invite you to a Yankees game (I know it’s tough, but stay with me). You’re a Patriots fan and you’re invited to an Indianapolis Colts game (even tougher to watch) with work colleagues. You so want to wear your team’s game shirt, but you’re outnumbered and want to fit in. So what do you do?

Battle With Worship

Is life punching you in the face today? Are you in need of provision in some area of your life? Are you dealing with serious hardships? Have you lost your job or dealing with others struggles?

Watching the news and reading the headlines there seems to be so many things out there that threaten us. But our biggest enemy — fear — is not “out there.” The fear is in our own hearts and minds. When we let this fear tighten its grip on us, we struggle that much harder to break free.

When the heaviness of life begins to crack the support beams we’ve put in place to shelter us, sometimes the only thing left is to posture ourselves before our awesome God and worship Him!

Worship is an act of war against the enemy of our hearts!

—Holley Gerth

Psalm 73 (My Version)

God is so good, but I allowed the culture and the lies of the world to dull my senses and blind me over time so I almost missed seeing His goodness. I foolishly took my eyes off Him and became intoxicated by people in high places, envying the success of those who have made it to the top and desperately seeking this to define my own identity. I believed that these people worried about nothing, and their status and wealth provided them with the comfort of not having a care in the world.

What I couldn’t see beneath the veil was their conceit and arrogance, how selfish they were at the core, their uncaring hearts, their aggressively doing whatever it took for them to get what they wanted with no regard for others, their evil conceit that knew no limits, their being friendly to your face and mocking you to others behind your back. In their arrogance, they would threaten oppression and destroy the peace. People actually listened to them — I actually listened to them — can you believe it?

What’s going on? God, where are You? Can’t You see what’s going on down here? God, why do I suffer though I live for You? Why do those who deny You have it better than I do? Everywhere I looked I felt the sorrow and the pain of empty living. This is giving me a headache…

Why Waldo And Bigfoot Are Better At Hide-N-Seek Than God

Ever notice this pattern? People do bad stuff to us -> we retreat from life -> God where are you? -> we project our pain onto God!

Life sucks. I’m being bullied. I lost my job, my house, my car, fill in the blank______. He/she divorced me. I was abused physically and sexually. I could go on-and-on listing life’s hurts and pain.

When we feel the pain of life and the hurts of others, we blame God. God how could you let this happen? God, why did you do do this to me? God, where the @#!$$!! are you?

People continue to hurt us, the blame-God-game continues, we retreat and build walls of hate around us thinking that somehow they will protect us. How do we get to the place where we have so much hatred for God?

Are You A Cultural Christian Or A Biblical Christian?

At our church we are walking through Jesus’s messages to the seven churches in the book of Revelation. Had to hit the pause button on the church of Pergamum — the compromising church.

This message really hit home, because today the church is losing its biblical fidelity. A quick click of the remote or browse of the Internet, the headlines are revealing a disturbing trend of the church bending towards cultural norms rather than standing in the truth of the Word of God. More and more people, who call themselves “Christians”, are compromising core biblical values to avoid being stigmatized or persecuted.

With the attacks on religious liberty increasing we are seeing a large percentage of pastors, churches and “so-called” Christians bowing to pressure and allowing the norms of today’s culture to become the new “truth” for Christianity.

Ok, so whats the big deal?

What Team Shirts Can Teach Us About Our Faith In God!

Battle With Worship

Psalm 73 (My Version)

Why Waldo And Bigfoot Are Better At Hide-N-Seek Than God

Are You A Cultural Christian Or A Biblical Christian?

Favorite Quotes

Cool Scripture

Never Out Of The Fight!

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