Our Footsteps: Life is a Vapor

Monday, December 14, 2009

Goodbye Larry

Yesterday, my family attended a memorial service for a man we knew who went to heaven a week earlier. It was an awesome event. It sounds weird to say that a memorial service could be awesome. But I will share with you some of the reasons why I thought that. This friend of ours was a regular guy - a simple man - who loved Jesus Christ. Many people stood up to give testimony that there was no doubt that this man loved the Lord. It wasn't a fake service where everyone built him up to be some perfect individual who never wronged anybody. No, people talked about his rough edges, his flaws, his funny side, his compassion, his hurts, his health problems. See, he was a normal, average guy... in one sense. But in another sense this man left us all wanting to be like him. He had gained the respect of every life he touched. And in that regard, he is a hero in my mind. He loved his family. He loved his Bible. He loved his God. And now he is in the presence of his Savior. And that is what we celebrated yesterday. Awesome.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Goodbye Charlotte

Though I had not seen you for years, I still remember those days as a kid when we would come to visit. And I remember your visits to our house too. Those were days and years gone by too fast.

We prayed for you as you traveled down the painful road of cancer. You didn't die on Sunday. You are more alive now than ever, because you are now face to face with the Savior and your pain and toil are over.

You are free now... enjoying the benefits of eternity... something that the rest of us long for. Goodbye Charlotte, I'll see you on the other side.

I Believe...

1). I believe that there is one God. I believe God consists of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
2). I believe that God is holy, righteous, loving, and just.
3). I believe that mankind is separated from God by sin; that sin entered the world through Adam and death through sin.
4). I believe that, because of sin, man is condemned. Because of God’s utter hatred for sin, there is an eternal conscious punishment in hell for all those who do not come to God on His terms, dealing with their sin.
5). I believe that confessing our sins and confessing Jesus Christ as Lord is the only way to properly deal with the sin that has infected everyone. Jesus Christ paid our sin debt on the cross; reconciliation by substitution. There is nothing we can do to add to the finished work of Christ.
6). I believe in the security of the believer, that once he is truly born-again, there is nothing that would cause him to lose his salvation.
7). I believe that upon the death of a true believer in Christ, that he is ushered immediately into the presence of the Lord, where he will live in everlasting joy in Heaven, experiencing eternal fellowship with God.
8). I believe in believer’s baptism by immersion. I don’t believe baptism is necessary for salvation, but it is a beautiful outward profession of an inward possession.
9). I believe in a literal 6-day creation where God created the heavens and the earth and then rested on the seventh day.
10). I believe that the words written in the Bible are truth. I believe that the Bible is inerrant in its parts and in its whole. I believe that the 66 books that make up the canon of scripture make the Bible complete and that God inspired the words written therein. The things that were written down in the Bible are sufficient for every need we have. Not only is God’s Word sufficient, but it is far superior to any other method of handling the problems that man faces, since He has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness.