LOOKING FORWARD

Each year about this time, between Christmas and New Years, people are gearing up for how they are going to navigate the coming year. They make resolutions or maybe they check out the local gym and make statements about how they are going to “do it different” in the coming year.

Goals for a new year are wonderful and should always be considered, but it seems that around February 12th of the new year, the wheels come off the bus and we are not going to the gym anymore that we are paying for, we started back to eating things we should not and the resolutions turn into faded memories of the past year.  It is a fact that human nature wants the least amount of effort to yield the maximum result. The problem with that logic is that most things that take little effort don’t produce sufficient results.

In Proverbs 3:5-6 is says,   "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;   in all your ways submit to him,   and he will make your paths straight."
As followers of Christ we are told that we need to simply “trust God for our future and let Him direct us in everything.” This can seem like a simple directive but there is even effort in this simple request. I understand that statement may sound anti-Biblical but just hear me out.    If we want to know God and be able to trust Him, we need to spend time with him. This is not just giving him the “leftover” time of the week but making him a priority. Ask anyone who takes their walk with Jesus seriously. Even Jesus said he only did what his Father told him to do meaning that he had to spend time with his Father to know His heart/mind to execute the master plan. So that takes effort.

We also need to be actively looking for ways to let Holy Spirit work through us. Each day we wake up, do we ask God to give us an opportunity to be Jesus with skin on to the world around us? Do we reflect Christ in the things we say to each other and pre-saved people? Does our driving habits around town reflect the patience of Christ? (This is one I am always working on :) So that takes effort.

These are only two examples of walking out our relationship with Jesus so that we can be in a place of trusting Christ enough to execute Proverbs 3:5-6.    

So, this coming year, go ahead and make plans to be different/better than last year. Just realize that you need to change the status quo to get a different result and any result you want or expect that has value is going to take work. If Jesus was a hard worker (as we see  in the Bible), we shouldn’t expect anything less of us before he comes again. Also understand that he will give you the strength to accomplish all the things you set your hand to when you put HIM first IN that effort.

Happy New Year,
​
Brian Morris
General Manager- Rocky Mountain CTN
Enjoy Life.    Consider Eternity.

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There is always something to be thankful for - even in the worst moments, days, weeks, and years. This is not to minimize your hardship, as we have an empathetic and faithful High Priest, Jesus, who understands our grief, suffering, pain, and loss and who tenderly comforts us in all that we go through. But there is a hidden key and a true benefit in thankfulness that is tucked away in the Bible - it shifts our perspective and aligns our heart with our Savior’s joy and peace. A Pastor friend recently said to me, I don’t think you can be angry and truly thankful at the same time. Try to find everything you can be thankful for and see if anger, complaining, frustration minimizes, and your joy and peace increase. Philippians 4:6-7 says   6" Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
 
Here's my gratitude list –
* A Savior that saved me from life-altering effects of sin.
* My Lord who reigns over my life and brings order out of chaos and a whole and healed heart out of brokenness.
*   The Holy One who sanctifies me through His grace and truth and allows me to share in the divine nature of His Son. I get to become just like Jesus, what!?!?  That blows my mind every day!
*   For jobs that I enjoy
* Favor
*   An incredible church family
*   A fun car
*   The ability to learn and assimilate knowledge
*   Freedom to worship
* Extra money to give to others
* Legs that work, eyes that see, imperfections that keep me humble and keep me dependent on Him
*   Trials and tribulations that make me more mature,
* The gift of forgiveness and reconciliation, wisdom, the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit
*  The ability to hike in a beautiful state
WHEW, that was a LOT! I could go on and on… My brain wasn’t in this positive of a place when I started but now, the benefits that I have in life are refreshed in my mind. Do I have lack, weaknesses, and things I want to change and increase in life? ABSOLUTELY, but why not be thankful and content in what I have now?
 
The other thing I encourage you to do, is to shift your focus to others around you this Thanksgiving season. Jesus the King of the Universe, stripped Himself of His divinity and stooped down as a servant to love, have compassion on, speak truth, heal, set free, raise the dead and feed the hungry. There is a verse that Jesus impressed on my heart years ago, I would encourage you to read the entire passage of Isaiah 58. But I will highlight two verses – Isaiah 58:10-11 “And if you offer yourself to [assist] the hungry and satisfy the [a]need of the afflicted, Then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday. 11 “And the Lord will continually guide you, and satisfy your soul in scorched and dry places, and give strength to your bones; And you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.”
 
Will you take out a piece of paper and write what you’re thankful for? Will you take time to be a true blessing to someone else during this Thanksgiving season?

Cassia Hendrickson
 Production Manager
Rocky Mountain CTN

There are  a lot of things happening in the front range for Christmas.  Check out our Community Calendar page to find out more. 
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Love is always right.
Hate is always wrong.
 
Could any moral truth be more self-evident?  Especially for us as followers of Jesus Christ, who commands us to “love one another, even as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) We know from scripture that “God is love.” (1 John 4:16) Conversely, we also know from God’s Word that “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar.” (1 John 4:20) The truly loving nature of God towards mankind is perhaps the most central message of the Gospel that we aim to communicate to the world.  Particularly in today’s culture which aims to characterize Christianity as hateful, bigoted, and self-righteous, it seems as though the stakes have never been higher to consistently display the love of God to the world in our attitudes and actions.
 
So, if our calling is to walk in love, is hate ever justified?
 
The way that the world (and much of the church) thinks about hate, you would certainly think not.  We have all seen signs, bumper stickers, and PSA’s displaying messages like “stop the hate,” or “hate has no place here,” or “spread love, not hate.”  These relentless campaigns against “hate” have been so effective that even raising the suggestion that hate could ever be justified for a Christian provokes a very natural response of indignation.
 
Consider, however, the words of our Lord Jesus who said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26) Is Jesus truly commanding us to hate our families… and even our own lives?
 
Before examining this challenging message from Jesus, it’s important for us to recognize an important truth about hate:  hate is a necessary component of love.  In order for you to love something, it requires that you naturally hate that which harms it.  If you truly love people, for example, you will naturally hate murder.  If you love children, you will hate pedophilia.  In fact, if you found out that someone did not hate pedophilia, you would rightly reject any claim they made about loving children.  How could you possibly love one without hating the other?  If you love the truth (as God does), you will hate lies.  Likewise, if you love God Himself, you will hate the things that He hates.
 
God… hates?  How could this be, given that according to 1 John 4:16, God Himself is love?  When we have a proper understanding of love and hate, that they are not opposites, per se, but components one of another, we can easily make sense of the scriptures which tell us things like “there are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him…” (Proverbs 6:16-19)
 
God’s love for mankind is not incongruent with His hatred for these things we do.  It is precisely because of His love for us that He hates these things that harm us.  God hates sin.  The Apostle Paul admonishes us by the Holy Spirit, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” (Romans 12:9) In context, Paul is instructing the church on how to act out love towards people.  It’s very interesting that he begins his entire instruction by pointing out that in order for our love to be sincere, we must hate what is evil.
 
There’s a saying within Christianity that “God loves the sinner, but hates the sin.”  When it comes to our unsaved friends and family, though, we often feel as though we can’t consistently do the same.  We feel that if we hate what they are doing, we are hating them.  This is an improper understanding of love.  Loving someone does not necessitate celebration and affirmation of their choices.  If we accept love on these terms, then we cannot believe that “God is love” if He also “cannot tolerate wrongdoing.” (Habakkuk 1:13)
 
In Jude 22-23, the Bible says, “Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear--hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.”  We absolutely need to be merciful and loving to God’s fearfully and wonderfully-made people… and in doing so, have a righteous and holy hatred for the sin that is dragging them to Hell.  We need to hate the sin in our own lives with just as much fervor.  We must not accept an indifferent attitude towards the things that God hates.  The first and greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.  A necessary component of acting out that commandment is to hate sin in the same manner.
 
This brings us back to Jesus’s challenging word about needing to hate in order to be His disciple.  Is Jesus commanding us to literally hate our families and selves?  Certainly not.  This would contradict many of His other teachings about love.  The point is that Jesus expects us as His disciples to have absolute contempt for anything that would stand between us and Him, no matter how precious it is to us, “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.” (2 Corinthians 10:5)
 
So, is love always right?  Not if you love sin.  Love is only as good as the object of your love.
Therefore, is hate always wrong?  Not if you hate evil.  Hate is only as wrong as the object of your hate.

Jeremy Randazzo
Master Control Operator
Rocky Mountain CTN

Thank you to all of  those that have served our great country and for the families that  have supported them in their  sacrifice!