Battles

  Life Isaiah 49:1 All of you people in faraway places, listen to me. Listen, all you nations far away. Before I was born, the Lord called me to serve him. The Lord named me while I was still in my mother’s womb. A foundational part of my faith is based in the idea that God is the source of life and without God we are just dead people walking. The reason God wants to save us from our sin is because our sin has separated us from God who is the author of life. How can we live if we have cut ourselves off from the God who is life itself? Over and over God calls to us and tells us that following Him brings life and to not follow God is just suffering and death. When I talk with people who reject God they often question me about how can God be the origin of life if He kills people. For me this just proves how serious God is about life because when you study why God does the things He does it is to protect life. A good place to talk about this is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah...

 Spring 1778     British high command has determined that this rebellion is not limited and seems to be growing in scope.  With that in mind British General William Howe is deploying his forces in a wider and more substantial fashion.  With fresh troops arriving from England he has the ability to send units to places he thinks might have an impact.  One of those places is Fort Cumberland.  This fort lies in the western part of Maryland where the city of Cumberland now stands.  During the French & Indian war this fort was a strategic location between the Ohio country and the more settled lands in the east.  Making use of this fort could help stop the movement of troops from the south.    Colonel Paeton Homes has been chosen to command the fort and is traveling from Philadelphia with a force of newly arrived troops and a baggage train of supplies.     As spring brings to an end the harsh winter of 1777/78 the Continental...

  Leader Isaiah 48:17 This is what the Lord, who saves you, the Holy One of Israel, says: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to do what is good, who leads you in the way you should go. Over the forty years of ministry I have found that the biggest issue for people growing in their faith is the Bible itself. When you think about it there is this problem of this big thick book that is not easy to read or often interesting that we need to know it well if our faith is to be what it should be. On top of all those things there is the time it takes to really know what the Bible says so we can understand the God we worship. It is a daunting task to spend the time in the Bible that we need to know. And yet the information that is in that big book is so essential to getting to know our God and understanding who God is because it is the only way to developing the faith we need in God. As I have thought about this question over the years, I have come down to the idea that we are of...

Creator Isaiah 48:13 I made the earth with my own hands. With my right hand I spread out the skies. When I call them, they come together before me.” I like that God gets angry. Because God gets angry, I think I have a better grasp of who God is. Yes, God does not get angry like us most of the time because God’s anger is both righteous and loving but it does give me insight into my faith in God. The anger God feels is righteous anger which is not what we feel most of the time but there is this moment that we get a glimpse of the anger of God. When we get angry because we see other people being treated wrongly that can be an anger that is justified. Part of what anger was meant to do was to motivate us to take action when we see something wrong. Another anger is when we see our kids doing something stupid that we know they will get hurt from. More then once I have yelled at one of my kids because they did something the put them at risk and it made me angry. Of course I am angr...

  FRIENDLY TABLE GAME CLUB! Last night was one of our Tuesday evening sessions. We continued the Battle of Trebia using Age of Hannibal rules and unit cards. I am the Carthaginians, Gier Pyscher is the Romans. The last session ended with the Romans being hard pressed on both flanks by Carthaginian mounted troops. However; the Carthaginian center is buckling under superior Roman heavy infantry. Carthage continued to press the Ronans, seeking to exploit exposed and wavering troops. The Romans opted to consolidate in response. The battle then turned into a bloody scrum! Initially the gods of the dice favored the Carthaginians. The Romans began to lose commands on the Command Clock. Despite the initial success, Gier kept his cool and made smart and determined counters. A few turns saw both sides being warn down and the Command Clocks of both sides fell to fewer and fewer commands for each side. The Romans were the first to come to the brink of collapse, the Clock falling to four and d...

  God Who Is Isaiah 48:9 But for my own sake I will be patient. People will praise me for not becoming angry and destroying you. Humans need God in our lives and working in us. This is not said because we need God to save us from the punishment of our sin which our God does but because we as humans are lost without God. We are told that God breathes His spirit into us and that we are created in His image. How can we even image that we are not deeply connected to the God of creation? When we reject the God who created us we reject the very core of who we are. We need God just to exist with any degree of wisdom and direction for our lives. I don’t want to talk about being lost because we reject the source of life that is God and so end up in sin but I want to speak just about the basic process of living and how we need God in our lives every day if we are to make sense of life and to get through it. The fact is that we as humans were built to be servants of God. From this w...

   God Knows Isaiah 48:4 I knew you were stubborn; your neck was like an iron muscle, and your head was like bronze.     In Isaiah chapter forty five verse twenty-three God tells us that one day everyone will bow before God.  This is then repeated in Paul’s letter to the Romans in chapter fourteen verse eleven.  Often we take the authority of God as no more then mere suggestions and we can if we want take or leave what God has to say as we please.  I understand how this happens because God does not force Himself on us.  Over and over God warns us about sin and offers a different path but God never forces us to obey Him.  We can choose the destruction that sin brings and as much as it breaks God’s heart He will not stop us from making that choice.  But if we are serious about that fact that God is King of Kings then we need to know that bowing before God means we subject ourselves to God’s power and authority and we need to begin to live ...