 | Reverend Dennis Paschke is the senior pastor at Evangel Holton United Methodist Church, in Holton Kansas. Evangel church is a vital and growing congregation full of life that is changing lives and our community one person at a time. Dennis’ family emigrated from North Dakota to Alberta, Canada to homestead when his father was just a young boy. Rev. Paschke returned to the United States and has lived in many parts of the country. His life has afforded him many blessings before answering God’s call to full-time ministry, including being a vice president of a Fortune 100 company, serving as a chairman of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games and holding a U.S. patent. His greatest blessing in life is his walk with Christ! He believes strong faith always engages the heart and mind. EDUCATION: BSEE from the University of Calgary, Canada, and a Master’s of Divinity from Saint Paul School of Theology. FAMILY: He is married to wife Dawn and they have three sons Corey, Kyle and Marc. The family also includes one “wonder-dog” named Tucker! You can reach Reverend Paschke via email dpasch01@gmail.com. |
Religion
2012-06-01 09:35:57
Sins: big and little
A: The Scriptures are very clear about sin. In the Creation story of Scripture we see how God sees our unsaved human condition. In that story our loving God created humankind and gives us our life and places us in a place called the Garden of Eden or Paradise. God defines this place as the place where we live our lives out in intimacy with God. In Paradise when God speaks we hear his voice directly for our lives, and when we speak God responds directly. God has given us complete freedom or free will, to do whatever we want with our lives and to be who we want to be. There is only one thing God asks us to do – one thing! That one thing is to trust God’s Will for our lives and obey what He asks for our lives. As long as we choose to live by that one thing God promises to look out for us and provide for all our needs!
Unfortunately our human condition is in a fallen state so that even though God has given us complete freedom by only asking us to obey that one thing, we often choose to go against following God’s Will. This is Sin. Sin is really anything that goes against God’s Will for our lives. When we go against God’s Will God sees our Sin as a turning of our backs on Him. Sin is Sin – either you respect and honor God’s Will for your life or you don’t. If you don’t respect God’s Will for your life you are turning your back on Him. If we choose to follow God’s Will we will live out the abundance of our God – if we choose not to follow God’s Will we will live trying to control our own destiny! Our response to God has consequences.
After all, if someone snubbed their nose and turned their back on you every day of their life and then all of a sudden when they wanted something they came back to you with a desire for a relationship based only upon what they could get out of you, it would not be a very rewarding one for either party! Sin robs us of the blessing of living in intimacy with the Living God! The Good News is God is ever ready to have you back in a relationship if you are willing to stop turning your back on Him.
As far as one sin being major or grievous and another minor it’s simple to acknowledge that turning your back is turning your back. Whether you do this in a major or a minor way you are still sinning and turning your back on God.
