Each and every year, my family gets more and more turned off by Halloween.  Seems each year the TV commercials get scarier, bloodier, more gruesome, more dark.  Seems every year we become more and more determined as a culture to celebrate all things creepy, crawly, dead, rotting, or zombie.  And, as the Twilight Saga has shown us, we can even make these things "sexy."

One hardly needs to produce a wealth of research to support such a claim.  Just check out the box office big hitters each year and the conclusion becomes obvious - WE ARE ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED IN OUR CULTURE WITH VAMPIRES, GHOSTS, GOBLINS, ZOMBIES, WITCHCRAFT, WARLOCKS, BLOOD & GORE, AND ALL THINGS "DEATH."  Why, we even make the best-selling children's books and movies about these very things!

The trend is disturbing enough among the culture at large.  But, it plunges me into deeper concern when I see Christians diving right into this cess pool of all things "death."  Some believers in Christ find these things somewhat innocent.  I remain unconvinced that gawking Christians and their children and teens will arrive on the other side of this Vampire-Hooligan-Zombie parade unscathed.

My conviction on these things is biblically-derived.  When the Lord of all Creation was preparing His people to enter the land He had promised them, He gave them these instructions:

When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.  There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.  And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.  You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners.  But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this (Deut 18:9-14).

Wow!  That list of abominable practices sounds like a "Who's Who" of Hollywood Blockbusters and Best-Selling Children's Books!  Just want to draw out a few obvious principles here from God's Word:

1. All these practices are seen by God as "pagan."  They are not for God's people.
2. These practices, such as witchcraft, sorcery, necromancy (fascination with the dead), mediums, and so on are clearly linked together by God with idolatry (offering your children as a burnt sacrifice to a false, dead god).
3. These practices are listed as the reason (at least one of the reasons) why God is going to allow Israel to defeat, kill and drive these people out of the land!

The reason these things are forbidden by God is given in the following verses of Deuteronomy 18 (vv. 15-22).  It goes something like this: I, God, have determined to speak directly to My people through the mouths and pens of My prophets.  Since I, God, am revealing Myself directly to you, you do not need to look elsewhere for any answers or any philosophies of how to live.  Hear My voice through My prophets.  And, O, by the way, I am sending you a prophet one day who will be My final word on all of life and godliness.  To reject that prophet is to reject Me. 

Of course, that Prophet came and His Name was and is Jesus (Heb 1).  Now, friends, I do not mean to tell you that if you take your kids trick-or-treating you are evil and dark.  But, I do mean to challenge this notion that you can continue to feast on zombie-type entertainment, and allow your children to feast on Harry Potter foolishness, and not eventually get burned.  Read Deuteronomy 18 a few times.  God sounds very, very serious to me. 

Maybe this Halloween we could all use a dose of the little Children's Song: "O Be Careful Little Eyes What You See."

Our Sister Lori Beard is currently traveling.  Received this "blog entry" from her which she obviously did on a phone and probably after only mildly recovering from this incident she describes.  Enjoy!

Okay. Here's the thing...i left Louisville airport today with great excitement traveling to NC. Of course i was routed through Detroit MI. Because that makes so much sense. Well i am sitting on my plane in Louisville and we begin to taxi...picking up speed... when i feel the plane begin to turn. No cause for alarm till the pilot announces we have a small plane problem..we r going back...uh...back where.

Seems every presidential or national-level election for the last 20 years has been touted as "The most important election in our history."  How can this be?

Now, don't get me wrong, national-level elections are important, and recent ones have seemed to have enormous ramifications for our nation.  And, one suspects that if voters 50-75 years ago had treated presidential and congressional elections with the seriousness that many conservative evangelicals now do, maybe we would not be so anxious about every single election today.  [You do know that the slow churning of socialism and statism began several generations ago, don't you?  Some historians have traced it easily back to President Woodrow Wilson, while others take it all the way back to President Lincoln.]  We are suffering the consequences of multiple past elections, and both sides of the aisle have done their fair share to take America away from her Constitution and Representative Democracy and Capitalistic Economy.

Recently, I received a letter from the "Reverend" (using it loosely) Barry Lynn.  The letter was basically a threat and warning that if pastors do thus and so during an election year his organization will take you to court in an attempt to ensure your church loses its tax exempt status.  I was not and am not scared of Mr. Lynn.  "We ought to obey God rather than man."

This does not mean, however, that I feel any need to make specific candidate endorsements.  Week after week my passion is to preach the Bible with clarity and conviction, staying true to its original meaning and intent.  I want to be Christ-exalting and gospel-centered in my exposition of the Scriptures.  And, I trust if I and other Elders in our church are doing this well, along with the time we spend personally discipling members, believers in our church will indeed "vote their convictions."  And those convictions will derive from the absolutely authoritative Word of God.

Personally, I have been a "one issue voter" for my entire adult voting life.  I cannot and will not vote for any pro-abortion candidate.  Period.  But recently, I have added a second issue to my voting "plank."  I cannot and will not vote for any candidate who supports or promotes the agenda of sexual sin and perversion, be it adultery, homosexuality, redefining marriage, applauding promiscuity or fornication, etc.  These two issues are really the determining factors in how I cast my vote (and I do vote and you should to, even if you disagree with my views.  Our freedoms we take for granted may not be here tomorrow, so vote today while you can).

But what about the economy?  I happen to believe it's going to continue to tank so long as our leaders and people endorse and promote sin.  But what about foreign policy?  Yes, it too is important, but we are going to keep getting weaker in the world so long as we publicly and proudly endorse and export sin.

This election season has reminded me so much of God's commissioning of the Prophet Isaiah.  In the Book bearing his name, chapter 6, we read of God coming to him and anointing him as His spokesperson to Israel.  After being purged by God, Isaiah eagerly accepts God's call and says, "Here am I, send me."  That exciting response is immediately followed by sobering comments by God.  The Lord in essence tells Isaiah that the people simply will not listen to him.  They will continue in their spiritual blindness and deafness.  They will harden their hearts and reject God's Word.

This prompts the Prophet to cry out, "How long, O Lord?"  God's response is eerie when I contemplate the state of our own nation:

Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and house without people, and the land is desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

I am not an alarmist, dear friends.  But God judges sin.

At the end of this apocalyptic passage, however, we find these words from God, "The holy seed is its stump."  In other words, a stump who is holy will remain and be the very start of new life for the people.

America must return to the holy seed, her stump.  Do you know Him?

One of the Elders, Eric Hall, that I am privileged to serve with at Corydon Baptist Church wrote this today.  With his permission, it is published here.

Last night at sunset Yom Kippur began.  Yom Kippur… the Day of Atonement.  In case you don’t know the Day of Atonement is one of the high holy days for the Jews.  It was the one and only time each year that the one and only high priest could enter into the holy of holies, into God’s very presence, and beg Him to accept the life of the lamb instead of taking the lives of the Israelites for all their sins that year.  Sacrifices were made daily in the temple but only one time a year did someone dare to approach the very presence of God.  You may also know that the high priest had a rope tied around his waist lest he sin while in God’s presence and be killed. No one else could go retrieve his body so the rope would be used to drag him out of there.

Their prince shall be one of themselves; their ruler shall come out from their midst; I will make him draw near, and he shall approach me, for who would dare of himself to approach me? declares the LORD. – Jeremiah 30:21

Would you dare to approach God, this God?  We forget what the presence of God is like.  The Israelites knew that I AM had revealed Himself as powerful and fearful and not to be trifled with!  They had seen with their eyes blood fill the rivers, frogs fill the land, locusts and hail fill the sky.  This God of theirs had plagued the strongest nation in the world, had wiped out the strongest army in the world, had parted the impassible sea, and made the mountain quake so violently that they wanted to hide.  The one thing they didn’t want was to get too close to this God.

We have the opposite sentiment it seems.  God is so familiar and tame that we don’t recognize the jealous God, the powerful God, the fearful God of the Jews.

Their prince shall be one of themselves; their ruler shall come out from their midst; I will make him draw near, and he shall approach me, for who would dare of himself to approach me? declares the LORD. – Jeremiah 30:21

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. – Hebrews 4:16

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.  – Psalm 2:12

So should we draw near or be fearful to draw near?  The Bible’s answer I believe is: Yes we should be fearful to draw near ourselves.  It would be devastating for any sinner to get close to this Holy, Holy, Holy God. But the Bible wouldn’t stop there.  For a Prince and a Priest has drawn near for us.  You see, there has been an atonement.  His blood was accepted instead of mine.  And His grace and atonement will make you love the presence of God instead of run from it.

So what does the Day of Atonement mean for me and for you?  It at least means that God is serious about sin.  It means that if I knew God, really knew God I would be serious about offending Him… so serious that I would tie a rope around my waist as it were… so serious that I beg that He accept the blood of the Lamb though mine is deserved… so serious that I cherish and tremble and relish the incredible privilege of being in the presence of God.

I pray that this indeed would be a Day of Atonement for you, that you would hate your sins and fear for your life.  That you would accept, trust, and wildly love Jesus’ blood and atonement for you.  Remember what you’d be without Him?

Their prince shall be one of themselves; their ruler shall come out from their midst; I will make him draw near, and he shall approach me, for who would dare of himself to approach me? declares the LORD. – Jeremiah 30:21

For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.  He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.  – Hebrews 7:26-27

-atoned for

Last week, two momentous occasions passed.

First, it was the horrible anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on our nation.  Like all Americans, I remember exactly where I was on that day, and distinctly remember watching that second plane dive into the second tower.  I was fresh out of the Marine Corps and still had 3 years to serve on my contract as Individual Ready Reserve (IRR).  This meant I could be called back into active duty, and my wife and I fully expected I would be after 9/11.  But, in the providence of God, the Corps did not come calling.  But, I actually did wrestle with the idea of just going back to active duty voluntarily (an idea that sounds crazy to those who have never served).  I had skills the nation could use, and I knew my brothers in arms would be in one huge mess very, very soon.  I really was torn between my loyalty to my now growing family at home, and my loyalty to the Corps and Country.

I was, and am, a patriot.  I am thankful to be an American.  God has been so immeasurably good to us in the USA.  When I think of how our nation continues to dishonor God in so many ways, it is astounding to me that we are still here and still so very free.  And, for all our weaknesses, we still send more Christian missionaries around the world than any other nation.  [Ironically, a study done by the North American Mission Board of the SBC also finds that more missionaries are now being sent into North America than any other country, too!]

Like most Americans, I did hit pause last week to remember our loss, and pray for healing, and beg God for continued mercy on our people and our land.  I was very disappointed at the lack of coverage the major news networks gave the the 9/11 remembrance cermonies.  It's almost as if they want us to forget?  Well, I have not forgotten.  And, I try and lead my family to not take for granted the goodness of our God towards this nation.  We are undeserving wretches, yet He showers grace on us day after day.  I still thank God for America, and still sing "God shed His grace on thee."

The second momentous event last week was the National Quartet Convention in Louisville.  This annual monster of an event brings out all the best in Quartet Singing and Southern Gospel.  My wife and I got to attend Thursday night.  We grew up on this style of music.  We still enjoy it, though we are more fond now of contemporary Christian music that is solidly gospel-centered and Christ-exalting, such as the music being produced by Sovereign Grace Music.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed hearing Greater Vision, the Isaacs, and the McKamy's.  We worshipped.

Our favorite group of the night, however, was new to us.  The Collingsworth Family blessed our socks off!  What an amazingly gifted family (Dad, Mom and several teen children).  Momma Collingsworth played an instrumental rendition on the piano of "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" (a song I actually do not like at all for both theological and practical reasons) that brought the house down.  The poor song selection notwithstanding, I have truly never witnessed a "piano event" quite like what I saw that night.  It was stirring and Mrs. Collingsworth nearly had to be carried off the stage by her husband after the performance.  She was obviously exhausted from it and I was exhausted watching her!  The crowd gave a standing ovation.And, earlier, when the Collingsworth Family sang "God Bless America" they also stood and removed hats and crossed hearts.  I appreciated the patriotism of these older Americans, many of whom have lived through truly sacrificial times, such as WWII

But later, when a Trio of Sisters called - you guessed it - "The Sisters" sang "It Is Well With My Soul" this same patriotic crowd was so noisy, distracted, moving about, going to get popcorn, visiting with neighbors, that I could hardly hear it.  I sat in my chair with my arms raised to heaven and my eyes closed, trying with all my might to focus on singing to my Precious Savior -

My sin, O the bliss, of this Glorious Thought

My sin, not in part, but the whole

Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more

Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord, O My Soul!      

I wondered, where was the patriotism now?  Why would we stand and shout and cheer wildly for a song written glorifying  our Nation's Civil War, while milling about distractedly and sitting on our hands when the Gospel-Centered lyrics of this amazing old hymn were being sung?  Friends, I am afraid for some Christians, patriotism has become idolatry. 

American does not have to continue, and by all indications, she will not continue.  But the gospel is forever!  The atonement of Jesus on the cross for those who believe is forever!  The Word of God shall not pass away!  May God make us a people who get far more excited about the gospel than we ever do about politics or our nation or our military.

"Some trust in horses and some in chariots,  but we will trust in the Name of the Lord our God" (Ps 20:7).

Pastor Keith has been teaching on small groups, currently known as care groups at CBC, for the past several Sundays. I am so excited because if he is teaching correctly and according to the Bible, and he is....then I have been a part of a Biblical small group for over two years. Bonnie, Ellen, and I have been meeting on Wednesdays to discuss our sin, confess our sin, read the Bible to confront sin and pray for freedom and grace for one another . We have much to learn still...that is becoming clear on Sunday nights but praise God for his beginning. I am so sinful and lost and such a good deceiver. I deceive myself and others about my sin...we all do....our enemy is the greatest deceiver of all. Pride and fear kept me enslaved to quietness over my sin for so long. And in that quietness, I struggled alone and broken. This group of three women, women who are broken vessels....women who deceive and sin...women who struggle daily...this group has changed my life. It has set me free to fight the battle against sin openly with assurrance that I'm not alone. It has given me courage to speak up...courage to live openly without my covering of fig leaves. It has brought hope to my marriage....hope to my children who are transparent now and will not live in isolation for years....hope to my relationships with other women...a living, breathing hope that cannot be taken from me. Sin has no dominion over me....when I speak it out loud, chains are broken. How could we not yearn for that. Our facebooks...our twitters...our speech are full of our right to be free...and yet when God clearly sets before us an avenue of freedom we do not pursue it....we do not run after it demanding to be a part of this blessed freedom. Small groups matter...small groups in a Biblical way are life changing....freedom giving...hope filling instruments of sanctification. Praise God for my two precious sisters...they have heard me and seen me at my worst and loved me without condition. I am thankful beyond words for God's great grace to me.

Col. 3;16; Hebrew 4:12; Hebrew 12:1; 1Peter 1:22; Gal. 6; Eph 4:15; Prov 25:11-12; Prov 15:4; 1 Peter 3:15-16

"A student is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher" (Jesus, as recorded in Luke 6:40).

Across the land, children young and old are climbing on buses and going back to schools, most of them public or state-run.  For those who know us, it is no secret we homeschool our daughters.  While we do not condemn Christian parents who choose to send their children to public schools, or other private settings, we also do not shy away from pointing out reasons why we insist on teaching our own children.  So, recently I snagged up a copy of a biology textbook from one of our public high school students at church.  The book is Biology: Life on Earth (7th Edition) by Teresa & Gerald Audesirk (Prentice Hall, 2005).  It did not take me long to be disappointed in what I read.

Beginning on page 8, the Science of Biology is defined, and placed within its larger context of the sciences.  Some principles that undergird science are given, the first of which is that the phenomenon or effects around us can all be traced to natural causes.  This is called the Principle of Natural Causality.

Seems harmless?  Not exactly.  This principle, you see, rules out God or miracles.  Period.  There is nothing outside the material world.  Period.  No power outside this universe can act upon it.  Everything is due to natural causes.  So, that cousin you know that had a cancerous tumor one day that was gone a few days later, defying doctors and all medical science - yep, that was not a miracle but just some unknown natural cause.  This principle is the way evolutionary scientists keep the door closed on even the idea that there might be a god of any kind anywhere.

The second principle listed on page 9 is that of Uniformity in Time.  This principle claims that the natural processes we see today have always acted exactly as they do today and will always act this way forever.  So, if carbon decays at a certain rate today, scientists assume (in other words they believe or have faith) that carbon also decayed at that exact same rate 4 billion years ago, or 6,000 years ago.  Yet, we all know that catastrophes (volcanos, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes) change these processes significantly.  Local natural disasters wreak havoc on natural processes like erosion, carbon decay, rock layering, and so on.  We can see this with our own eyes today, yet Darwinian scientists insist on clinging to this faulty principle of Uniformity.  (2 Peter 3 also refutes this principle, by the way).

Why?  Why do they defy what we actually see happening?  Because it's the only way they can keep their precious timeline of billions of years intact.  And they must have billions of years in order to make their theory of evolution work.  So, they deny the Bible's account of a global flood and catastrophe.  In so doing, they also deny the vast majority of the cultures of the world since they, too, have passed down global flood accounts from generation to generation.  The whole world, and the Bible, is wrong.  The lab-coated scientists at Harvard will tell us all what happened in the past, even billions of years ago.  I mean, after all, they were there, right?!?

On page 9, the students who attends our church pointed this statement out to me:  "Some people believe that each of the different types of organisms was individually created at one time in the past by the direct intervention of God, a philosophy called creationism.  Scientists freely admit that this idea cannot be disproved, but creationsim is contrary to both natural causality and uniformity in time."

First, let's note that this is a misrepresentation of creationsim.  We do not believe "each of the different types of organisms was individually created at one time."  We believe what the Bible says, that God created the various "kinds" of creatures and built within them all the DNA code to reproduce an amazing array of offspring within their kind.

Also, notice the authors categorize belief in creation as just that - a "belief" or "philosophy."  It is not science.  Scientists reject creationism.  Really?  Every single scientist rejects creationsim?  There is no scientific evidence for creation?  This is what is clearly implied in this textbook!  It is a LIE.  Nearly all of the very first scientists were creationists!

And the reason they claim scientists reject creationism?  Why the Principles of Natural Causality and Uniformity, which they of course assume (believe) are absolutely true for everyone everywhere at all times.

But the next sentence in the text really takes the cake: "The overwhelming success of science in explaining natural events through natural causes has led scientists to reject creationism."

So, there you have it.  Science has triumphed and proven the Bible untrue!  All science's explanations are trustworthy (nevermind they change constantly).  All their guesses trump any religious explanation (nevermind a growing number of scientists are creationists or are at least beginning to question the evolutionary assumptions).  More and more evidence is mounting against these two precious tenets (Natural Causality and Uniformity) of the Scientific Faith.

I wonder if children in public schools will be exposed to any of the top-notch scientific research being done by men and women with degrees from top universities who believe in Intelligent Design or (gulp!) biblical creation?  Will evidences for creation or a Designer be presented by our state-run schools?  Or, will children be led down the road of believing that no true science can ever acknowledge God for any reason, period.

Will your child be the one to rise up in class this year and ask that Biology teacher how life comes from non-life?  How genetic mutations actually add genetic material which is required for evolution to be true, even though that phenomenon has NEVER been observed anywhere by anyone?  How the salt and silt content in the oceans is what it is if uniformity has been at work for billions of years?  (The oceans would be nothing but salt and silt if these processes had been at work for millions of years).

Your children are being asked to accept and believe the RELIGION of SCIENCE.  It is blind faith they are being expected to have.  What will you do, Christian parent, to turn the course of education in America?  Will you continue to allow lies to be taught as if they are absolute truth?  Will you risk being ostracized and hated for the sake of Jesus and His truth?  This tide will never turn until Christian parents begin to take public stands armed with the truth of the both the Bible and good, solid science.

Parents beware!  Jesus said our children will become like their teachers. 

I am the pastor of a Southern Baptist Church.  Baptists throughout their history have distinctly held to a belief in church autonomy. 

That is, Baptists reject the idea that a hierarchy should be able to dictate to local churches what they can and cannot teach or do.  This belief stems from the notion that Jesus is the only Head of the Church, and every believer in Him has access to the very presence of Almighty God (Matt 16:18; Col 1:18; Heb 10:19-22; 1 Peter 2:9).

I believe in local church autonomy, but from time to time something happens that forces me to think deeply on just how far we should go to defend this doctrine.

Today I read an article in the August 7, 2012 issue of the "Western Recorder," the newspaper of the Kentucky Baptist Convention.  In the article, we are told that a Southern Baptist church in Crystal Springs, Mississippi refsued to allow a black couple to wed in their facility - and only informed them the day prior to the cermony!

Apparently, the pastor of said church performed the ceremony at a nearby African-American church when he heard that a few members of the white church he pastored objected to having the wedding in their facility which they claimed had never in their history allowed a black couple to web in their church building.  The pastor felt his job was on the line, so the wedding was moved one day before the wedding date. 

So many things about this story trouble me deeply that I scarcely know where to begin this critique!

First, there is the issue of racism clearly and openly existing in the membership of this church that no doubt claims to believe the Bible, which says God "made from one man [blood] every nation of mankind" (Acts 17:26).  That dark-skinned couple differed from them in only one primary respect - the amount of melanin in their skin!  My Bible says that open sin in the `rank`s of a church must be addressed through the vehicle called "church discipline" (Matt 18:15-20; 1 Cor 5).

Second, there is the issue of a few "loud" and no doubt well-established (aka "power-brokers") clearly running this church.  Where is the Elder leadership?  Where are the rest of the members who should have stepped up and defended their pastor and lovingly but firmly rebuked this vocal few?  This incident shows so much of what has been wrong in far too many of our Southern Baptist churches for several generations now.  How is it that a pastor felt seriously threatened in his job security by what was called in the article a "handful of church members"?  This is a local church in disarray.  God help them.

Third, there is the issue of a pastor not taking a strong stand for biblical truth.  I do not ever like having to accuse a fellow-pastor.  The situation he was put in was no doubt extremely difficult.  But, that does not change the fact that His calling from God is lead that church to "obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).  Oh how our churches need pastors who will stand in the gap even at the risk of their jobs, yeah even their lives! 

This whole thing has made me sad this morning.  I grieve over the condition of so many of our Baptist churches.  Generations of doctrinal liberalism and matriarchal leadership and power-broking and unbiblical ecclesiology (not to mention man-centered sotierology) have left their marks.  Is it any wonder so many of the young men I knew in seminary wanted to go into church planting rather than face the prospects of being hired by a church like this one in MS?!?

And, I must ask myself, where does a local church's autonomy end?  Biblically, I think the answer is clear: No church claiming the Name of Jesus ever has the right to defy His Lordship and Headship by rejecting His teachings.  A church's autonomy ends as soon as it violates the clear teachings of Scripture!

Church Autonomy is precious to me in many ways, as a Baptist and a Christian and an American who appreciates our God-granted freedoms.  But, we must all remember autonomy can be dangerous, too.  Don't believe me?  Just ask the pastor of this church in MS.

Or, ask Adam and Eve.   

Sunday morning Pastor Keith preached a message that cut my heart in so many ways.  He preached about
obstacles to contentment or peaceful satisfaction in Christ.  One of those obstacles was a love of money
which is many times lived out in the form of workaholic lives.

What a sad story to hear children talk about their daddy's work schedules because that is the best or only thing they know about daddy.  I understood Pastor's drive and passion for men to hear the heart of God in this area but my mind was also
screaming. .  .don't leave us ladies out!  We need to be checked too!  I was referring to wives.

Wives, are your husbands workaholics because of his discontent or because of yours?  A wife can be the determining factor many times in her husband's work schedule.  Are you satisfied with an income that allows your husband to work 40 hours as opposed to 60?  It has become so easy to yell “there is not enough to go around,” but by whose standards?  A nagging wife who not only expects a certain income but demands it can be the very reason that God's plan for family is not
happening.

We must start to be honest about our own desires versus our needs.  Do our husbands have the freedom pastor spoke
of on Sunday to say to their boss that God and family must come first?  Does that belief power their home or are our
husbands terrified to turn down overtime for fear of the reaction at home?  I believe as women we must ask God to search
our hearts (Psalm 139) and see if there be any love of money there, as well as praying that for our husbands.

Questions to consider. . .

1. Do we feel that the presence of our husband is necessary to the life of our home?

2.  Do we feel angry when he refuses overtime because he wants to be home?

3. Is there always a financial reason why your husband has to or wants to exceed normal working hours?

Search our hearts God and make them wholly thine.

In Christ....Lori Beard