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Fashion’s Folly

Posted on April 19th, 2012 by Pastor Craig Houston

The great guide of the world is fashion and its god is respectability-two phantoms at which brave men laugh! How many of you look around on society to know what to do? You watch the general current and then float upon it! You study the popular breeze and shift your sails to suit it. True men do not so! You ask, “Is it fashionable?  If it is fashionable, it must be done.” Fashion is the law of multitudes, but it is nothing more than the common consent of fools.                                          - Charles H. Spurgeon

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Creation to Salvation – God’s Dazzling Display of Sovereignty

Posted on March 13th, 2012 by Pastor Craig Houston

God’s dazzling display of sovereignty in Creation was a primer on His right to rule in matters of salvation. God, who commanded light to appear on day one of Creation, soon would order gospel light to shine in the darkened hearts of spiritually blind sinners. God, who separated the waters on day two, would cause an infinite chasm to separate Himself from sinners. God, who gathered the waters together on day three, would gather sinners to Himself. God, who created the sun, moon, and stars on day four, would omnipotently create saving faith. God, who began to create the animal kingdom on day five, would graciously send His Son to be the Lamb of God to take away sin. God, who created Adam and Eve on day six, would soon re-create sinners into His image. His free grace would perform the second Genesis in the salvation of lost men and women.  - Excerpt from Steven J. Lawson’s book – Foundations of Grace ‘A Long Line of Godly Men’

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Strategic Friendships for Our Children

Posted on January 14th, 2012 by Pastor Craig Houston

Much has been said about the importance of strategic friendships among men and women in the work of the Kingdom of God, to which I would whole heartedly agree.  But what about strategic friendships for our children?  How should this look?  How should this play out?

In this article, I would like to take a different approach and look at the value of strategic friendships in our children’s lives, in a Biblically ordered church setting where peer culture and age segregation are not the norm.

The subject has been on my heart, so last week I sat down with my two oldest daughters, Naomi (17), and Anna (15), on separate occasions for a daddy daughter talk on the subject of friendship. I simply asked… who are your best friends? The answers they gave were both without hesitation, that their mother and one another were their best friends. This was a fact I already knew because it is both verbalized on a regular basis and demonstrated in practice daily.

My desire; however, was to get outside the walls of our home, to the other people that they considered close friends.

What happened next was a deep encouragement to my soul as a father.  Both of my daughters lists of closest friends included 5 ladies ranging from as young as age 13 to two women over 50 and a few in between. I thought to myself, how wonderful that they both had godly young women whom they could treat as sisters and older women whom they could treat as mothers (1 Timothy 5:2) and receive the kind of influence that Titus 2 models for us.

I know that to some, what I have just said is weird and they may immediately think that surely my children need more friends their own age.  On the contrary, I want to say how marvelous it is to be a part of a church family that allows for both young and old to grow in Christ and community together.  A church where it is not abnormal to see a 17 year old praying with or visiting with a 13 year old or a fifty year old. Nor is it freakish to hear a 15 year old list off a woman who has three adult children as one of her dearest friends.

I believe that is the way God intended friendships to be. Older friends that can invest wisdom of years into the life of the younger, who in turn, are often encouraged and invigorated in their own lives because of the friendships that flourish with these younger ladies.

The reality of these kind of strategic friendships is that they are wonderful for both men and women, young and old. These friendships that flourish have also been a blessing to me as a pastor. It has been one of the greatest joys of my life to have other men of God, who are old enough to be my father, befriend me, challenge me, pray for me, and rebuke me on occasion. I also have friends that are young men, new husbands, and new fathers that desire to grow into men of God who lead well.

May God help strategic friendships to flourish in our Biblically ordered homes and churches.

Iron sharpeneth iron; So a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

Proverbs 27:17


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2012 Salt and Peace

Posted on December 31st, 2011 by Pastor Craig Houston

HAVE SALT IN YOURSELVES AND HAVE PEACE ONE WITH ANOTHER!  Mark 9:50b

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Family – A Noble Business

Posted on December 18th, 2011 by Pastor Craig Houston

“…the business done in the home is nothing less than the shaping of the bodies and souls of humanity. The family is the factory that manufactures mankind.”
Brave New Family, by G.K. Chesterton

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