I was right.

(Recent photo of Savanna and I at left... can you believe my baby starts middle school tomorrow? Sniff...sniff...)

Amazing day today.

First, I enjoyed my class this morning so much. I've been a Sunday School FREAK as long as I can remember....well, this is my 26th year teaching if that gives you any clue. The more time goes on, the more I love teaching. I never, never, never tire of it! I don't teach out of a quarterly, by the way. Curriculum is a great tool but it would drive me crazy. I'm a student of the Word and I write my own messages, my own teachings. I rarely if ever use any other material for anything. Too many creative ideas flowing through this head of mine to copy somebody else's. Right now I'm on a series I'm calling, "Honest to God" which is about integrity/honesty. I think somebody else (maybe Bill Hybels?) wrote a book with the same title, but I am not getting any material from it, just using that title. Man, we're having some good discussions! By the way, a question I tackled this morning was, "is it ever the appropriate time to lie?" Answer: YES.

WHAT?!

Hold on, don't get your panties all in a bunch. It's in the bible. I'm serious! Yes, there is a time to lie. I'll tell you when at the end of this post, if you don't already know. And I'll back it up with scripture.

On to the rest of the day...worship...off the chain except for a few instrumental issues, but wasn't to be deterred from what God wanted to do come what may, and we got what we came for. (His presence!)

We pressed in...pursued...and we came in to His presence. As I said yesterday, I'm at a whole new place in my walk with the Lord...in worship...in my passion to pursue. Tried by fire, I'll come forth as gold, just like Job! Wait and see!!! Larry preached a dynamic Word today. Excellent. Great altar time. All the visitors from Wednesday night were back, plus our visitors from last Sunday. They all loved it! "This is our new church" is what we heard from all of them. (Yea, God!) One new lady who is really into gift making and interior decorating came up and said to me, "Pastor Deanna, I'm making something special for every woman coming to Unstoppable! I'll get it together and have the gifts ready for you this week!" Wow! WHAT A BLESSING.

We had a choir dinner after service today. We are having such a great time doing this. We've decided to do it this way for a while, for a few reasons... first, because it's fun to eat together and share lunch and fellowship, second because it's very convenient to just eat together right after service and then not have to spend gas money going back and forth between Sunday afternoon and Sunday night. Some people in the choir live as far away as Clearwater and believe me, it's not fun to have to drive back and forth especially with the price of gas. We had a fantastic rehearsal. I was so pleased...got a new song for this Sunday AM and a dynamic new soloist who will make their debut Sunday. Can't wait! (the one today wasn't bad either! Seriously, he did an incredible job.) We also passed out the Christmas music and CD's today. Christmas! Did I just say CHRISTMAS!? Yikes, it's only four months away...

Stopped by to see Tom and Cathy's new place again this afternoon. It's reaaaallly nice. I love it!!! So happy for them. They deserve it.

Okay, to end this post, I'll answer the question...is it ever acceptable to lie?

Answer: as a general rule NO. However, there are very, very rare times where God's higher law is involved, such as with the saving of lives that it IS okay to lie.

One story we find about this is in Exodus 1. Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew mid-wives who always helped women deliver their babies to kill the baby boys. We read this in Exodus 1:16-19 "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live."The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive."

Were the mid-wives honest? No… they lied. But it was for a righteous cause. Sort of like Oscar Schindler, portrayed in the movie Schindler's list, who rescued the Jews. These midwives were standing up for God's higher law, to the Hitler of their day...the Sadaam Hussein, the Osama Bin Laden of their time. These people were basically terrorists intent upon murdering all the boy children in Israel. The midwives lied to preserve these precious babies lives.

We see how the Lord looks upon a lie in this situation from reading about His reaction. Exodus 1:20-21 says, “So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous."

The midwives were acting in the fear of the Lord, and God increased them for their righteous actions. When people tell a lie and it is for an unrighteous reason, (which is in the case of 99.9% of lies) it is only to cover themselves - their sin - their mistake. However, if a lie is told to preserve lives or keep God's higher law, it is because you fear THE LORD, not what could happen to you.

Today the title of my post is, "I was right." What was I right about? That we were going to have an EXCELLENT day in the house at Northside.

Tomorrow the title of my post will be, "I was wrong." Come back to see what about. I promise, it will be an interesting read!