Scripture

The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery. “Ha! Look at you now!” they yelled at him. “You said you were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days.”

~Mark 15:29, NLT

Quote

Some things are not sinful in and of themselves; the sin comes when we abuse them.

~Billy Graham

Speech itself is not a sin but verbal abuse is very wrong. Sex is a glorious thing in its rightful context but when it is abused, it is highly destructive. Drugs are wonderful: they keep June and I alive. I take three blood pressure pills a day. I am sure losing weight would help, but I don’t have the heart to lose weight, and I don’t want to have a stroke, so I take the pills. However, when drugs are abused, they become very harmful and even deadly. Authority is not a bad thing but when power is abused, it becomes a very bad thing. Washington D.C. is full of abusers. No question; Jesus suffered from abuse, verbal and physical. We have to avoid extremes. Recreation is good but we must avoid extremes. Some don’t take enough vacation and others stay on vacation all the time. It is like the man sitting on a bench in front of the store. Someone asks him what he did and he said, “I do nothing six days a week and then I rest on Sunday.” You have to get tired to have quality rest. Food is not evil but gluttony is excess and it is sinful.

Iniquity is taking the good things that God created and twisting them, perverting them and abusing them. We take perfectly good things and make them evil by abusing them. We have done this with food, pleasure, sex, art, work and music. Don’t abuse God’s gifts and don’t abuse people. Child abuse should not exist. I hope you have not been abused and I also hope that you do not abuse others. If you have been abused, especially when you were a child, it will leave a scar but you do not have live as a victim. Jesus cares; talk to Him. Talk to a good Christian counselor. Do not pretend that it didn’t happen. Do not let it make you insecure and distrustful. It has happened to a lot of people; far more than you know. If you are not comfortable sharing it with humans, I understand but you need to tell Jesus everything. He is the Great Physician and He keeps everything in confidence.

Extra

Beautiful weather! I broke the garden yesterday. I didn’t think it would dry up enough but it did and I may be able to till today. Still a little early to plant anything but we are getting it ready. I know more cold weather is coming but I love these warm days and cool nights. We have to get busy on our Sunday message today and headed to Geraldine tonight for a soccer game. We have two granddaughters on the soccer team which is pretty good in its class.

We had a great birthday party last night at the Point. I don’t know who all helped Leann but whoever it was, they did great. I really enjoyed it!

I hope you have a great Thursday and thanks for reading the blog.