Ironworks

          Experiences and knowledge are the things that shape your outlook on life. It’s one thing to know something, but it is another thing to experience it. Take parenting for example. Have you ever met the single person who knows how to rear children better than someone who actually has children? Sure you have. There is a difference between theoretically knowing something and actually doing it. Going through experiences helps our knowledge of various circumstances, which is really called wisdom.           Continuing with the thought from previous weeks, after our wreck our perspectives changed. Most of our knowledge had not changed, but we had a new way to look at things. Let me share with you  a few lessons we have learned. Hold Tight to the Ones You Love           You never know when the last moment will be that you get to spend time with the ones you love. We are not promised a tomorrow (Prov. 27:1), therefore we must take advantage of the days while we have them. It would hurt

            “I will not be a part of the church any longer because it is full of hypocrites.”  Have you ever heard such a statement? It is a deeply distressing thing to hear when all you want is for a dear brother or sister to make it to heaven. To be a hypocrite is to be walking contrary to God’s will, and contrary to what is best for you and your fellow man. In this article, I want to explore hypocrisy, what it is, and how to prevent this sin.  What is Hypocrisy?           Hypocrisy is the act of pretending to be something that you are not. Judas is a classic example of a hypocrite. He chose evil and had betrayed the son of man, and he kissed him appearing to be righteous (cf. Matt. 26:49). Peter also was hypocritical in that he denied the Lord to make it appear he was not with Him (cf. Matt. 26:69-75).  The Pharisees and scribes were known for their hypocrisy, inasmuch that Jesus repeatedly called them such.            Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like

  Have you ever been in a discussion with someone and no matter how much proof you offer to validate your Biblical claims they still reject them? When a religious person is confronted with Scripture that contradicts their traditions, they may call a New Testament Christian a Pharisee. No one wants to be called that, but how do you respond to such an accusation? Moreover, has it ever made you think, “What if I am being a Pharisee?” It is certainly Scriptural for each of us to test our actions against the Word of God (John 12:48; 2 Cor 13:5; James 1:25). So how can we know if we are speaking where God speaks or if we are speaking in the spirit of the sectarian Pharisees? In order to make a fair assessment, we can consider New Testament examples of the spirit of the Pharisees.  The Pharisees Were Self-Righteous The Pharisees were very self-righteous. Consider the prayer of one Pharisee in Luke 18:11-12,  “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am no

“I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”  (Psalm 37:25)           God’s blessings are bountiful, but when tragedy strikes the blessings are even sweeter. When you do not know where to go, or what to do, we need to let the Lord handle it. God will take care of us just as the Psalmist has said.            1 Peter 5:7 says, “1 Peter 5:7 casting all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for you.” At first glance we see that God cares for us and that’s why we can cast our anxieties upon Him. That is a great thought, and it does make you feel good that this is done fro you by the Lord, but there is more to it than that. When we look at the original text (Greek) we find that it really reads more like, “casting all of your cares upon Him, for He does the caring for you.” We give our anxieties to the Father, and the Father will worry about it.           I know what you are thinking. The Father doesn’t have to worry about a

  In the last couple of weeks, I became aware of a young woman who made a video on a social media platform venting about a potential employee mocking her for asking for accommodations for her “time blindness.” Time blindness is defined by the Cleveland Clinic as, the inability to recognize when time has passed or to estimate how long something will take. In plain language, a person who is perpetually late to events with scheduled times (i.e. work). As you can imagine, many in the safe confines of the comments section had a field day with this preposterous notion. I realize this might be offensive to those who contend that being late is a medical issue. However, it is noted in the very same article, “Everybody has time blindness at times,” Dr. Manos says. “We all can get caught up in something and get ‘in the zone.’  There are many in this world that suffer from a condition I will call Bible blindness. On occasion, I engage religious people of the “faith-only” system. These individu

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Ephesians 1:3              Will you imagine with me for a moment that one of the wealthiest people in the world, say Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, in an attempt to help the disadvantaged children of a particular region, started a school? As you can imagine, there would be many who would want to receive the benefit of attending such a school supported by such a benefactor. To have such a school, some guidelines would have to be established. There would have to be age, economic, and other considerations taken into account for one to be admitted and to receive the benefits of being enrolled in the school. We all accept that to receive the benefits of such a school one must be admitted into the school.  Compare Spiritual Blessings vs Physical Blessing             The LORD has provided us a home for those who will obey the Gospel. He wants to bless each wi

           I shudder to think what life would be like without God. After our wreck we saw a glimpse of how good the Lord can be. We were, and are truly blessed to be Christians and to have so many loving a caring brethren.           Romans 8:28 (KJV) says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” This doesn’t mean that everything that happens to you is going to be good, but that the end result is going to be good. There are blessings that we don’t even know exist until the time comes. When considering the wreck; how could that be good? It wasn’t hard to see when the blessings started coming. I want to share some of those blessings with you right now.           The wreck itself had blessings. We are so thankful that nobody had any life-threatening injuries, but furthermore when we landed, we landed right-side up. We could have been upside down. We could have been laying on our side, but we landed in