PastorBlastor

 Ramblings from Retirement: The most important time is now. By Lee Hemen (Retired Pastor) November 2, 2020 I went out to lunch the other day because I had been working at church trying to get our live video feed working properly. (It is still a work in progress.) I stopped by and got something and in the fast food place was a young man sitting there reading his Bible. Curious, I asked him which book he was reading from and he related it was Genesis. We had a short discussion about the Scriptures and I got my order and ate. This got me to thinking though about the words of Psalm 119:11 where the Psalmist tells God: “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. (Psalms 119:11 NIV)” These are good thoughts and I remembered how I was encouraged to do just that as a young Christian. In thinking about this however I realized that few looked at the words before this verse or those afterwards as well. So let’s take a quick look at what the Psalmist writes: “How can...

One great man of God! - Matthew 11:1-19 By Pastor Lee Hemen November 24, 2019 Longfellow, the Poet, wrote that “Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.” We who do not consider ourselves neither great nor that inspiring might ask ourselves, “What makes a great man?” Great men do not necessarily need to be remembered by the marketplace but rather can have such an impact on those around them that they are left better in life by knowing them. Greatness should not be measured in risks taken, accumulated wealth, or educational degrees; rather greatness is how a life impacts another to the extent it changes future generations. John the Baptist was such a man. Here in Matthew’s gospel we find John the Baptist, the last great prophet of God, while imprisoned more concerned about the spiritual health of his nation than his own personal comfort. John was chosen by God before he was even born to be the...

Walk in love! – Ephesians 5:1-21 By Pastor Lee Hemen March 12, 2017 In 1993 there was a movie based on the life of the singer Tina Turner that used the title of her hit song “What’s Love Got to do With It”. The song deals with the confusion a person has between physical and emotional love. For her it is only a “second hand emotion” that is “a sweet old fashioned notion”. People have confused emotional love and sexual lust for centuries. Biblical love has been misinterpreted for generations as well. In fact there are those in our day and age who think that while God is love and that he so loved the world then he loves everyone equally the same. I hate to burst your politically correct bubbles but this is simply not true. When John taught that since God loved us then we should live in his love he did not mean some emotional state or an acceptance of ungodly sin. God’s love is sacrificial and we are to walk in that kind of love. READ: Ephesians 5:1-21 God sacrificially loved us s...

Foolish or wise! - Galatians 3:1-5 By Pastor Lee Hemen July 3, 2016 Did you know that at the beginning of the Revolutionary War less than 20% of the population was supportive of our being a free nation no longer ruled by a king? It sounded foolish to many who saw themselves as loyal monarchists and supportive of their king in England who could not have cared less for their security. Yet as those who saw this as a means to throw off the tyranny of a king were able to present their case and as the results of heavy taxation, suppression of free speech, and the confiscation of private property in the name of the king the populace began to see what it meant if they lost their inalienable rights to be free people. Was it foolish or wise? There are those today who would use their political office to suppress the free speech of its citizens; perhaps we need another revolution? Not necessarily a violent one but a political one. There were those who were foolishly returning to the tyranny ...

The Wise Life! -- James 3:13-18 By Pastor Lee Hemen June 22, 2014 Where does wisdom come from? Does it come about because of age? Does it come from the amount of knowledge one knows or has acquired? Mark Twain retorted, “The person who has had a bull by the tail once has learned 60 or 70 times as much as a person who hasn't.” Another quote that is often falsely attributed to Twain is the one that states, “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years!” My father used to remind us that “Just because you think you know something, does not make it true.” We find this pithy bit of wisdom to be quite true in our day and age whereby so many think they know God when in fact they know nothing about him at all. Both the psalmist and the writer of Proverbs agree that, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…. (Psalms 111:10 ...