Nothing We Can Do.

Some people may not like what I am about to say: Nothing that you can do can get you into heaven. Living a good life, helping out the poor, going to church--none of it will ensure that you will spend life after death with God. You may feel like that is quite a hopeless statement (especially coming from a pastor); however, let me explain how we can get to heaven. God is perfect and holy and we are not. No matter how hard we try, we will never be “good enough” to be with him, yet he loved us so much he provided us a way: through His Son, Jesus Christ. See, in Matthew 19:25 the disciples asked Jesus, “Who then can be saved?” to which Jesus responded, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Believe it or not, you or I living with God in heaven is the most impossible thing imaginable! Our hope comes in John 3:16-18:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Nothing that you can do can get you into heaven.

If you believe in Jesus, the Son of God and in his death and resurrection to save us from our misdeeds and ill-thoughts; and if you desire to spend eternity with him, you’re saved! What is impossible for us to do through good-works and being a good-person is possible in the most beautiful way: through belief in God’s saving grace!

I hope you will join us at church on Sunday,

--Pastor Stephen Valcourt

This article wasoriginally printed in the Pincher Creek Echo

Teaching Our Children About Our Faith

It seems there is a push in the western world to let our kids find their own way. The general consensus in culture today says it's bad enough that you are religious, but don't you dare burden your kids with that nonsense! What is truly disturbing is that many Christians have bought into all of this!

While you may think that you are doing your children a service by "allowing" them to find their own way, I do not think you understand the consequences of such actions. To put it simply, leaving Christ out of your children's upbringing leaves them with an empty space inside. This is the space that God designed to be filled by Him--He gave us an unquenchable desire to fill this vacuum. However, if we do not teach our children that God's Holy Spirit is what truly fills this space, our children will be very quick to try filling it with things from the world around them. Without Christ this space cannot ever be truly filled, but without Christ they will continually seek to fill it.

The Bible has a lot to say about teaching our children about God and His ways (Proverbs 22:6, Ephesians 6:4, Psalm 78:3-8, Deuteronomy 6:7). However, today I would like to highlight the story of a woman named Hannah in 1 Samuel 1.

If we do not teach our children that God's Holy Spirit is what truly fills this space they will be very quick to try filling it with things from the world around them.

Hannah was barren (meaning she was unable to have children), but she desired a child with all her heart. She sought and sought after God in prayer until one day she made a promise saying, "O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head" (1 Samuel 1:10-11 ESV). Right here this woman determined that she would determine the direction of her son's life with God, and God honoured it! Hannah became pregnant with a boy named Samuel, and after he was weaned she took him to the Temple and said to Eli, the Priest: "Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the Lord. For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord" (1 Samuel 1:26-28).

Does this sound like leaving your child to find religion on his or her own? No! And that is not God's plan. If we truly want what is best for our children we will seek to teach them who God is. When we, as believers in Christ Jesus, have a child we stand before one another and dedicate her to God--to some extent following Hannah's example.

Do you think that we still won't have much of an effect on our children's faith, even if we do give them to God 100%? Look at the end of verse 28: "And he worshipped the LORD there." Samuel not only followed God, but became one of the most well-known prophets of God. Teach your children who God is and help them form a true relationship with Him. You'll be saving them heartache, and giving them the gift of eternity in heaven with God.

--Pastor Stephen Valcourt

Asking God's Opinion

Have you ever rushed into a decision, just to realize that it wasn't the right one? Or even worse--that you had been deceived? Have you ever thought afterward, "I guess I should have asked God about that one before I rushed into it"? In Joshua 9 we read the story of the Gibeonites. Israel had been busy defeating all their enemies in the promised land, as God had commanded them. God had told the Israelites to completely wipe out the nations near them, because these were perverse nations (think "infant sacrifice" and child prostitutes) and God did not want Israel to chase after these peoples' gods or practices. The Gibeonites were freaked out by everything going on, but they weren't stupid. They sent an envoy to Israel with "worn-out sacks for their donkeys, and wine-skins, worn-out and torn and mended, with worn-out, patched sandals on their feet, and worn-out clothes. And all their provisions were dry and crumbly" (Joshua 9:4-5).

Why would they do this? When they got into Israel's camp they told them that they had heard about what Israel had been up to and that they were from a distant land seeking peace with Israel. They tricked Joshua into making peace with them and into making a covenant with them to let them live.

Later on, the Israelites found out what happened--that the Gibeonites were actually from right next door--and debated what to do, but because of their covenant with them they chose to let them live.

Do you know what was missing in this narrative? Israel, God's chosen people with whom he had given commands and blessings, never once asked God's opinion on the matter. They ended up having to make concessions due to their wrong decision.

Now, I'm not trying to say that we need to pray about every decision we make in life. That would be insane! Asking God what you should have for dinner or if you should watch television or a movie is overkill. But when we look at making a life-altering decision, or one that could have consequences or anything substantial; as Christ-followers, shouldn't we give him the opportunity to show us how to proceed? Isn't that the definition of "following"?

So next time you have a decision to make, let me encourage you to take some time and pray about it. You never know what might happen when you ask God's opinion.

How has asking God's opinion worked in your life? Leave your comments below or on Facebook!

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--Pastor Stephen Valcourt

Reconciling the God of the Old Testament with the God of the New

Have you ever heard someone say that they feel like the Bible talks about two different Gods? One that is angry and vengeful, which we see in the Old Testament, and one that is merciful and loving, which we see in the New? I have heard some people try to explain this seeming difficulty by trying to say that God changes, but we can't say that because God never changes (see Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8, and James 1:17)! I know that each of us only has so much time in our day, so this post will not go too deep. I'm going to try to keep it short and simple, just giving you an understanding of how we reconcile the picture of God we see in the Old and New Testaments. Firstly, there is only one God who exists as three persons in the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit). God is the same yesterday, today and forever. What has changed is our route to God. One of the reasons it is so important for Christians to read books of the Bible like Leviticus is to give us a reminder of how holy God is. He is so perfect he cannot allow sin to even approach him. He made us perfect, but left us a choice so we could have the freedom to choose to love and obey him or turn away. We chose poorly.

Fortunately, God had a plan in motion from the moment that he created us--because he knows everything (see Isaiah 55:9, Job 28:24, 1 John 3:19-20). I don't know why he chose the plan that he did, but I do know that, coming from God, His plan is a perfect plan. After the Fall (see Genesis 3) the world quickly spun out of control; so God, seeing one righteous man (Noah) cleared the earth of the horrid things that were happening with a worldwide flood (which he promised to never do again). Then God picked a righteous man named Abram (later named Abraham) and made a covenant with him, to make him into a nation that God would personally bless. The intention was that this nation would show God's love and power to the world. Unfortunately, it became an exclusive club.

When we read of God laying out the rules to approach him we get the sense that nothing really makes us quite good enough. In fact, the whole sacrificial system (killing animals as atonement for our sins) was based around the fact that all who sin are deserving of death in God's eyes. Therefore, we see a God who, when the people he revealed himself to turn away, was (justly) a God of wrath and would often wipe out large numbers of people. At the same time, he was a God who loved his people and would listen to the prayers of these peoples' godly leaders.

Come the New Testament, where--it now being the fullness of time--"God so loved the world that he sent his only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). Jesus' whole mission is to die on a cross. Why? Because up until that point in time a sacrifice only atoned for past sin, which didn't work so well as people were always sinning. When Jesus (who was perfect) went to the cross God put the burden for all mankind's sin upon Jesus, making Jesus the perfect and final sacrifice for humanity's sins.

All we have to do is believe that Jesus Christ, God's Son (but also the One God), came to earth as fully man and fully God, bore our sins on the cross (because God loves us and wants us to be saved), died, descended to hell and took the keys of life and death from Satan's grasp, rose again three days later, and now lives in heaven again. If you believe that and in the fact that belief in Jesus is the only way to spend eternity with God in heaven, you're saved!

Now, back to our reconciliation of just and wrathful God vs merciful and loving God. They are one in the same and have never changed. God is still just. People that do or think bad things (in other words, sin)--as we all do--justly deserve death for working against their perfect Creator: God. God is justly wrathful at what they have done. God has also always been merciful (saving Lot from Sodom is an Old Testament example) and loving (he desires to be with his children). But now, because of Jesus, those of us who are Christians are now covered over by Christ's blood and our sins are no more. God looks at us and sees his son's perfection. He could justly send us to live an eternity in hell, but his Son paid that price for us. So now, even though we mess up, we're forgiven because we are standing in the identity of Christ.

However, we still live in a fallen world--that doesn't get fixed until all the events in the book of Revelation have taken place. Therefore, the question of "why does a loving God allow..." can be summed up with God being just and the fact that God created a perfect world and handed us its future--which we decided would include imperfection when we sinned in the Garden of Eden. So now we (justly) have what we have until God institutes the New Heaven and New Earth. And I'm looking forward to that day.

In conclusion, we can see that there is no reconciliation of the God we see in the Old and New Testaments. He has never changed, but Jesus' sacrifice for us has changed our approach to him.

We would love to hear from you. Leave your comments below or on our Facebook page!

--Pastor Stephen Valcourt