Give God Another Chance --- Why Don't You Give God Another Chance?

 

Welcome To

BARAH MINISTRIES

a Christian Church

www.barahministries.com

Rory Clark, Pastor-Teacher

 

Hi there!

 

My name is Rory Clark and I am the Pastor of Barah Ministries…a worldwide Christian Church based in Mesa, AZ

 

Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 1 says…

 

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

 

The bible starts off with a bold and true assertion that penetrates to the depth of the human soul.  No theory of evolution.  Sorry Charles Darwin.  No Big Bang theory.  Sorry Stephen Hawking.  The bible says without a bit of confusion and with bold affirmation that there is a God, and that He created the heavens and the earth.  Believe it or not?  It’s your choice.  I believe it.  Design demands a designer.  Something as intricate as the heavens and the earth and human life are created and sustained by a Being that is far greater than us…the bible says His name is the Lord Jesus Christ.  I say so, too.

 

I have a question for you…

 

Why Don’t You Give God Another Chance?

 

Are you completely turned off to God?  Have bad experiences left a bitter taste in your mouth about God?  Well I’ll bet it’s not God you’re mad at.  I’ll bet it is people you are mad at.  People…who are hypocritical and negative…people who ostracize and exclude other people…people who are homophobic…religious…self-righteous…judgmental and boring…people who have taken your money and given you nothing in return.  Maybe you just don’t have time for God…at least maybe you think that is true even though you have 168 hours a week like everyone else.  Maybe you’re mad at “church.”  Maybe you were forced to go to church as a child, and that left a bad taste in your mouth.  Now you can get back at your parents by not attending church.  I get it…but I’m asking you…

 

Why Don’t You Give God Another Chance?

 

In this series of lessons, I’d like to help you get to know God again.  God is not people.  God is not church.  God is bigger than your bad experiences.  It’s easy to forget that God has an enemy…and God’s enemy does everything he can to make you either indifferent or antagonistic to God.  When you let Him succeed at making you turn your back on God, it’s a prescription for a very stressful life.

 

My passion is teaching…a teacher is who I am, it’s not just what I do…it’s a gift to me from God…and my favorite subject is the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word, which is outlined in the bible.

 

I am a Christian.  That means I have chosen to have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, the One and Only Sovereign God…not because my opinion matters that much…but because the bible says He is God…and I have chosen to believe the bible to be true.

 

I have been a Christian for over fifty years.  In that time I have made the tour of all three of the lifestyles that are offered by God’s enemy, Satan…the religious lifestyle…the self-righteous lifestyle…the lascivious lifestyle.  I was religious…I was a Roman Catholic for twenty-one years on the track to be a Jesuit priest…then I got involved in a self-righteous form of legalism called Systematic Theology for another 29 years…of course, like all people I did my stretch of time in the lascivious life…the life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  That lifestyle helped me realize I’m not as good a person as I think I am, and that I can be amazingly stupid and totally self-destructive. What my tour of the enemy lifestyles means for you is that you are going to be learning from someone who isn’t “holier than thou” … you’re going to be learning from a broken hypocrite.  Yet through all of those lifestyle tribulations, I never took my eyes off of God.

 

This series of weekly ten-minute lessons is designed for our internet ministry, specifically for the Facebook and You Tube community.  A new lesson will post every Monday to get your week off to a great start.  We hope you will find these lessons so interesting that you will want to listen to our longer weekly lessons on line at www.barahministries.com.

 

What makes me different as a Pastor…is that I am not interested in interpreting the bible.  Why?  Because the bible is so clear, it doesn’t need my “spin” to make it as “alive and powerful” as says it is.  Here’s an analogy.

 

There is a statue of Jesus Christ in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.  It’s called Christ the Redeemer.  It’s absolutely beautiful.  If you stand on the outside of the statue and look up at it, you’ll see it from your own perspective. For most of us, that is our impression of God.  We look for Him in the heavens, or we conjure up pictures of Him in our minds, and we carry a perspective of Him from our viewpoint.  Perhaps, like most people, you think of Him as a judgmental God who is tallying up all your mistakes, and waiting for just the right moment to come down on you.  Then he’ll “damn you to hell” for all eternity if you don’t do everything right all the time.  That’s the way I thought of him for a really, really long time.  I was wrong.

 

But what if you could crawl up inside the Christ the Redeemer statue and look out from the statue’s eyes?  If you could, you’d see things from the Lord Jesus Christ’s viewpoint.  What does He see when He looks at you?  How does He look at you?  He looks at you with unconditional love, a love with NO conditions.  So when He looks at you, He looks at you like a loving mother looks at her newborn baby.  Have you ever seen a mother looking at her newborn baby?  Whether you are talking about humans or animals, mothers have a ferocity about their newborn babies.  That’s the same ferocity that the Lord Jesus Christ feels for each one of His creatures.

 

My job as a Pastor is to teach you the bible from God’s eyes…not from your eyes…not from my eyes…from His eyes.  I really think the reason people don’t have much time for God is because they have been looking at Him through the eyes of people rather than seeing Him as He really is.  I am committed to changing that perspective for all those who learn from me.

 

I am inviting you to learn from me.

 

If you need a perfect Pastor…go somewhere else.  If you want a lying Pastor…go somewhere else.  If you’re looking for a Pastor to tell you what you want to hear…go somewhere else.  I’m going to tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.

 

What you need to hear is this…

 

Why Don’t You Give God Another Chance?

 

Or…maybe you’re giving God a first chance.  If you are, welcome!

 

What you need to hear is that there is a God.  His name is the Lord Jesus Christ.  He communicates with human beings through the bible, which is known as the Word of God.  God has an enemy who wants you to be indifferent or antagonistic toward God so it can ruin your life.

 

Why Don’t You Give God Another Chance?

 

I’m looking forward to having you visit us weekly to learn the next thing God has to say to you.  Are you curious?

 

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for listening!

 

www.barahministries.com