Pastor's P.O.V. - Stone The Preacher

Praying For Johnson City

May 5, 2022Steve SanchezPastor's P.O.V., Prayerjohnson city texas, prayer

If you haven’t noticed, our little “Mayberry” is changing.

For those not old enough to remember, Mayberry was the fictional community in the 60’s “The Andy Griffith Show” which served as a metaphor for the perfect place to live. As far as I’m concerned, Johnson City still is, but the big city is creeping in along with its problems.

Several years ago, an Airstream dealer next to the Pedernales River was busted for “theft by deception” and was wanted in Arizona for the kidnaping and sexual assault of a child. Also, some just-passing-through people from California were busted with 103 pounds of marijuana in their car by the JCPD.

Still, our city is pretty great. According to AreaVibes, a website that helps people find the best places to live in America, the overall crime rate in Johnson City is 62% lower than the Texas average. Our livability score is 76 which ranks 79% higher than other areas.

Yet Austin is getting ever nearer from the East with Alamo City creeping in from the south. With big city growth comes big city problems. I know. I used to live in the land of the knuckleheads. This little utopia may not last forever, but I do know how we can stave off the inevitable, for perhaps a few more years. But we all must do our part and it doesn’t involve building a wall on Highways 290 and 281, nor do we need to load our deer rifles with extra rounds. We certainly don’t have to panic either. The solution?

Why We Fast

May 4, 2022Steve SanchezPastor's P.O.V.fast, fasting

What is a fast? It’s abstaining from food for a limited period of time to seek God. It’s a denial of self for the purposes of intense spiritual activity.

A fast is not eating fast food.

4 Types of Biblical Fasts

The Normal Fast: Fasting from all food like Jesus did for 40 days and forty nights. (Matthew 4:2)

The Partial Fast: This is when you eat or abstain from eating certain things like when Daniel refused to eat the king’s food, but only vegetables. (Daniel 1:12) (Some people may want to fast from going on the computer or anything else that may hinder time with God.)

The Absolute Fast: This is when you eat and drink nothing like Ezra did when he mourned over the unfaithfulness of his people. (Ezra 10:6)

The Supernatural Fast: When Moses went to get the two stone tablets, he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights and ate no bread and drank no water.” (Deuteronomy 9:9)

Biblical fasts could be 1 day, 3 days, 7,14, 21 days, or 40 days. (Judges 20:26; Acts 9:9; 1 Samuel 31:13; Acts 27:33, Daniel 10:3-13, Matthew 4:1-11)

Lord of Earth Day

Apr 22, 2022Steve SanchezPastor's P.O.V.climate change, earth day, environment

I’M NOT AGAINST PRESERVING THE EARTH. I’m against worshiping it.

When Pope Francis and other activists treat the world like a sentient being, then I have a problem. “We see these natural tragedies, which are the Earth’s response to our maltreatment,” said the pope. “We have sinned against the Earth, against our neighbor and, in the end, against the creator.”

Before he was President, Joe Biden, at a fundraiser, declared, “COVID…is a wake up call to action to climate change overall and to climate justice.”

No. The earth has no feelings, we cannot sin against it, it does not think about the things we do, doesn’t mete out retribution nor create wake-up calls.

It’s a planet.

Still, we all have a responsibility to be good stewards of what God has given us.

The Love Heard ‘Round the World

Oct 9, 2021Steve SanchezPastor's P.O.V.forgiveness, grace

In 2019, the younger brother of a man who was shot by a former Dallas Police officer stunned the world when, instead of condemning Botham Jean’s killer for shooting him in his own apartment by mistake, said something so outrageous, so ridiculous, so weird, that he must have been an authentic believer in Jesus Christ.

What did Brandt Jean say to Amber Guyger in the courtroom after she was sentenced to ten years in prison for murder?

“I hope you go to God with all the guilt, all the bad things you may have done in the past…if you truly are sorry…I forgive you, and I know if you go to God and ask him, he will forgive you. I love you just like anyone else. I personally want the best for you. I don’t even want you to go to jail; I want the best for you. And the best would be to give your life to Christ. I think giving your life to Christ would be the best thing that Botham would want you to do. Again, I love you…and I don’t wish anything bad on you.”

What Brandt said was nothing short of supernatural. It makes no human sense at all. Unconditional forgiveness? That’s crazy!

King Louis of France said, “Nothing smells so sweet as the dead body of your enemy.”

Author Heinrich Heine declared, “We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.”

Forgiveness is not natural, yet nothing characterizes the new nature of a born-again believer more than forgiveness, because nothing characterized the nature of our Lord and Savior more than forgiveness.

As Jesus hung on the cross—nailed there, hands and feet—after being scourged, beaten and mocked for crimes he did not commit, his last words to his murderers were, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:24)

“Forgive”: to give up resentment against or the desire to punish; to stop being angry with; to pardon. To give up all claim to punish; to overlook.

That’s what Brandt Jean did.

That’s what an Amish community did in 2006 when a shooter killed ten young girls execution-style in their own one room schoolhouse.

Got Vaxxed 2 Months Ago! Ain’t Dead Yet.

Aug 5, 2021Steve Sanchez2 CommentsPastor's P.O.V., PERSECUTED!Covid, vax. vaccinations

I GOT MY 2ND MODERNA SHOT two months ago and my face hasn’t melted, I haven’t died in my sleep and the start of the zombie apocalypse has been postponed.

I didn’t get vaxxed because I was scared, believed Biden, Fauci or the rest of the mainstream news media.

It wasn’t because I believed it was the greatest health threat of our time.

It wasn’t even because my daughters pressured me to do so. I had a much more important reason for getting “the mark of the beast.”

I always looked askance at the whole contrived media distortion of the virus itself and felt the odds of me dying from it were akin to getting hit by lightning while being eaten by a shark.

I always thought masks were stupid, didn’t work, and felt the whole controversy was a big lie to get the Bad Orange Man out of office.

So why did I get the vaccine since it ain’t really a vaccine anyway? After all, my face might melt, my gonads could explode, and my progeny will end up playing dueling banjoes somewhere in the northwest Georgia wilderness.

Facebook “friends” warned that I would suffer blood clots, heart attack or depletion of my platelets. I’d most likely contract some strange immunological disorder, or have a stroke and die.

Or worse.