The Pastor's Perspective

      It's one thing to get a gift from someone you care about and someone who cares about you. After all who does not like gifts?       However some gifts mean more to us then others do. For instance its one thing to get a Walmart gift card. Yet it means something more when someone intentionally gives you a gift card to one of your favorite shops. Its one thing to get a box of candy, but something else to get a box of your favorite candy. You see it is one thing to get a gift, but it means a whole lot more when you know someone wanted to personalize it. It means more when you know someone did not just get you just any gift, but they thought about what gift you would actually enjoy.       Personalized gifts mean more because you know the individual really thought about you. They mean more because you know that the individual knows you well enough to know what you really like. The person is able to personalize it because they know you personally.      When we think about God we need

  Go down the cereal isle this week and you will find several different boxes of cereal that look similar. The color scheme is similar, the nutritional information is similar, and the overall taste many times is similar.  Sometimes the generic brands are just as good and there is little to no diffrence to the taste. (Except for Oreo's! I don't know what they put in those cookies to make them taste the way they do, but the generic chocolate sandwich cookies just are not the same. But I digress.) You see for the most part there is very little diffrence between the cereals except one might say "Honey Nut Cheerios" and the other might say "Honey Nut Scooters".  That's because one of the cereal's is name brand and the other is generic.      Now the generic brands tend to design their product after the name brand product they are mimicking. They are trying to entice you to try there product that they are claiming is just as good as the other only its not a

    There was this atheist professor who had quite a reputation around campus for challenging new students who seemed to be religious. He often relished the idea of challenging there faith and making them look foolish around their peers.       Well it was the first day of the fall semester and a brand new group of freshmen had arrived. One of these new freshmen just so happened to sit in the very front row of this professors class room and He unashamedly had his bible sitting in front of him on his desk.        As class began the professor gleefully smiled at the young man like a cat ready to pounce on its prey. The professor towered over the student as he asked this young man if he believed in a God.       The boy, a bit taken back, responded with a simple "Yes sir I do". The way the young man spoke the professor could tell he had grown up in a rural area and the professor thought that this would be far easier than he first thought.       The the professor picked up this you

    I believe we all have something that we are proud of.  It might be some accomplishment or some reward we received at one time in our life.   It might be a talent or a skill that we have. It might be the accomplishments of our children, or grandchildren.       No matter what it might be we all have something that we are proud of.  One of the ways you can tell what someone is proud of is by seeing what they love to talk about. People often love to share the things they are most proud of with others. Parents who are beaming with pride with the accomplishments of their children share posts on Facebook. Individuals who are proud of their scholastic accomplishments post the pictures of there degrees and awards. When we have a great recipe for some great dessert we have found we share it with others. We share what we are proud of, and what we are proud of is what we like to share.   Capt. Edward John Smith     The bible often warns against us having pride in our lives. There are great pro