Making Godly Decisions for a Godly Life--by Linden Malki

Life is full of choices—sometimes we don't notice them and just follow the path of least

resistance, and sometimes we agonize over things that aren't worth much. We live in a time and place where we have more options that many people in many times and places have had.
Thinking about Biblical guidelines for decisions we face, small, middle-sized and large, I found some principles that will keep us out of trouble. We think of the big things that can go bad and mess up our lives, but some of what look like small things can turn out to bite more painfully than we expect. These are based on an important Scripture, can you recognize it?
Is there anything that would be put above God? We may not realize that one of the most dangerous things that we can think is that we ourselves don't need God because we are sitting on that throne. History is full of people who thought they were God, or at least a small-g god; and caused a great deal of suffering and then died. The problem here is that we are all mortal, and we're not that smart. Or it might be an ambition, or a job, or a something we love to the point of taking over too much of our life.
Is there any way God would be misrepresented? Do we throw around God's name to support our own opinions, or think we can manipulate Him? Do we realize that any image we try to make of Him falls short of the reality?
How does this affect the your use of your time? Do we do our own thing 24/7 and don't take the time to connect with Him?
Have you asked (and listened to) the advice of your family and other appropriate advisors? Do we recognize good advice from bad, ungodly from Godly?
Would anyone be hurt in any significant way? Do we disrespect others, take out our shortcomings and problems on other people, and leave a trail of broken people and relationships? Are we careless of other people's stuff, time, lives?
Is it real, honest, trustworthy, and of good quality? Can others depend on our word and our work? The “Golden Rule” probably fits in here, with the realization that not everyone wants what we do, and that we don't appreciate people ignoring that.
Have you searched your heart and mind for greed, envy, selfishness? Remember that everything we have in this world was created by God, and everything tangible depends on someone's effort for us to have it. Even the fruit on the tree has to be picked by somebody, and a lottery win is money other people lost. I told my kids when they were small: If it's not yours, and you don't have permission, don't touch it! Yes, there is a place for giving things to people, but even a gift costs something somewhere upstream. And the most valuable gift of all—our saving relationship with God, came with the ultimate Cost. This enabled the gifts that enable us to live spiritually healthy lives: the gifts of forgiveness, wisdom, strength, and the Holy Spirit. 

BEING GOD'S COMMUNITY by Linden Malki

When the Communist regime in Romania fell in 1989,  it was found that there were many orphanges with children whose parents had relinquished them because of poverty. These children had lived restricted and without the attention that children need, and they were found to be not only physically in poor condition, but mentally and emotionally as well.  Studies have been done of children's brains, and they have found that brains of children who do not get attention as infants do not develop properly, and are physically smaller.  This is another thing we can learn from, not only in the interest in children's health, but it gives us another look into the creative mind of God. God started the human race by saying that "it is not good for man to be alone." This is still true, has always been true.Each one of our lives was produced by a relationship between two people. That relationship can fail, but it is not God's intention.

Beyond good parents, a strong society depends upon healthy families, good communities, and people working together for the common good. Looking at history and Scripture, we find people living in families, clans, tribes, cities--in community. The original Law is written for people living in interdependent groups, who come together to worship. We look around and see people living alone, looking for relationships, often superficial.  Some of the trouble we see in our world comes from people who do not have good relationships and don't care about anytone else; some comes from people looking for community in the wrong places, and without knowing how to judge the messages constantly bombarding us.

We are commanded to love God, and love each other. This does not mean dominating others, doing things for others that satisfy our  desires but not necessarily that of the others, or being doormats in the hope of getting attention. We need to come together in the name and love of God, to pray together, study together, play together, be good company for each other, watch for ways we can bring glory to God through our relationships with others. We need above all to listen--to God, to each other, to Scripture, to good mentors and teachers, to strengthen the good in our world and discourage the evil.  Jesus brought people together in many contexts; his followers met together in His name and changed the world.  Can we work together in His Name and change San Bernardino, and the world?

Our Twisted Planet--by Linden Malki

Hurricanes, fires, shootings,  bitter accusations; much of the news has been bad. The physical world

hits us from one side, and we hit each other from the other.  We try to grow wheat, and find the fields infested with weeds. Those of us who are followers of Jesus can't help wondering why, and those who are not are screaming that God is dead, missing, or a delusion.

Christians are not immune to suffering and even martydom.  In my own family, my uncle was held prisoner in China for almost 5 years, my great-grandfather and his family were forced to leave Sweden, and my father-in-law's father and brother were massacred by Kurds in Turkey--all because they were known to be Christian leaders.  The results of these people's lives were the reaching of many  people with the Gospel; in all three cases some of their descendants also became preachers and missionaries, who led even more people to Jesus. Of the twelve disciples of Jesus, one fell away and suicided, one was sent to a prison colony on an isolated island, and the other ten were martyred. And yet they set the stage for the Gospel to reach much of the world and survive for two thousand years.

In the current spate of pain and evil, we see brave people risk their lives rescuing the those in the paths of the hurricanes; fighting the brush fires and looking for those endangered, helping the victims survive their losses. I have not seen reports of arson behind any of the current wave of fires, but we here know arson's results personally, both in our city and in the destruction of our own worship center--and our experience may be the catalyst for an expansion of ministry in our community that we never would have believed. I recall thinking that our hanging in here and surviving would be a witness, but never guessed how it would play out.

The most depressing evils are those that people do to each other. Millions of words have been written speculating what mental, social and emotional twists cause people to become horribly destructive. I have been reading a number of commentaries on these twisted people, but noticed that in all these words, there are three that only appeared once each: "God", "church", "prayer."  These are not only missing from the explanations of what's wrong with the people in our country and the world, but missing from too many of our communities as well. But these are the way out of evil in our society. People can't get along on their own--it takes the love of God to give us the strength to love one another.

92 AND FORWARD! by Linden Malki

Happy Birthday, Calvary/NorthPoint! Next Monday, October 9, is the anniversary of the founding of The Calvary Baptist Church of San Bernardino in 1925: 92 years ago.  San Bernardino was a very different place back in those days. The earliest inhabitants were the Serrano indians. In 1810, a Spanish  priest from the Mission San Gabriel  arrived on the feast day of  St Bernardine of Sienna, an Italian priest and Franciscan missionary who was a popular preacher in the early 1400's. The mission station known as the San Bernardino Asistencia was built in 1829.  In 1842, the Mexican governor granted a large part of the San Bernardino valley to the family of Antonio Maria Lugo, a former mayor of Los Angeles, who also had several other major rancho grants in the area.  The grants were honored in the  Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,  which ended the Mexican-American war with the cession of California to the United States.  In 1851, the Lugo family sold the Rancho to a large group of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), who  laid out a 1-square mile city  system with 8-acre blocks, which became the basis for the existing city street grid. The city was incorporated in 1854 with 1200 citizens, most of them Mormons. The Mormons were recalled to Utah in 1857, and the city was disincorporated. The valley continued to grow commercially.  There had been a trading route through Cajon Pass, the Old Spanish Trail, was  established 1829-30. The first orange trees were planted in 1857, and gold was discovered in the Big Bear area in 1860.  The California Southern Railroad, part of the Atchicson, Topeka and Santa Fe system, was built through San Bernardino in 1873. The orange groves became a major industry by the 1880's, and the city was reincorporated in 1886. The first Orange Show was held in 1911, and Valley College was built in

1926. The 1930 census showed a population of 37,481.
The 1920s were an interesting time in the churches; there was a lot of theological and sociologial ferment in the news reports of the period.  In San Bernardino, one of the oldest churches in town was the First Baptist Church founded in 1866. There were reports of discusssions going on within this congregation in 1925, and when the dust settled, FBC was not affiliated with any of the Baptist conventions, and a group of about 70+ good folks had established Calvary Baptist Church and affiliated with the Northern (later American) Baptist Convention.  Calvary/NorthPoint has had changes, good and bad, over the years; as has the ABC. 
Again, there is a lot we can learn about God from observing His Creation. One of them is the constant nature of change, within the stability of the larger system. The weather changes; all living creatures change as individuals but they stay pretty much the same within their basic design. Societies change, but consistent patterns come and go and come around again with different actors on the stage. Looking back at the last 20 years at Calvary/NorthPoint, we have had a lot of changes and challenges, and it's not over yet. We are seeing God doing amazing and unexpected things in our lives and in the life of our church but He is always the same God, loving and challenging His people, showing us new things and new looks at old things. The city has changed and we pray for changes for the better; the churches have changed and we pray for the wisdom and strength to meet the challenges. The one thing we know is that God doesn't change; how we see Him may change, but in the long run--the very long run--we will see what was really going on and how He was really working in our lives, our church, our city.