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We are people who worry. We worry about our health, about the kids, about our job, about our relationships, the economy, the country, the world. I, for one, am an expert worrier. I can find something to worry about in just about any situation, no matter how good it might be.

Judgment is an appropriate theme for the end of one year and beginning of the next, because we often put ourselves on scales (both physical and metaphorical!) at this time and figure out how we are measuring up. How is my marriage? How am I doing at my job? Where is my relationship with my children? The year end is often a time of measuring ourselves. But we also should ask ourselves, how do I measure up by God’s standard? Am I ready for Christ’s last day judgment?

We believe in the catholic church. This is what we confess on a regular basis in our worship services when we read together the historic creeds, such as the Nicene and Apostolic. Perhaps you’ve never thought that much about those words; or, maybe, you’ve recited the words but with a bewilderment or confusion, “…but aren’t we presbyterian? Shouldn’t it be, ‘I believe in the one, true orthodox presbyterian church?’”

How can I find comfort in the doctrine of predestination? By predestination we mean the teaching which says that before time began God chose some to be saved and he passed over others unto eternal condemnation. But here’s what we need to understand. The Bible tells us that we are sinners by birth and by choice. What all of us deserve as willful rebels against God is eternal condemnation... If we expect that God must save all, then salvation is not the outpouring of God’s mercy and grace, but the duty God was compelled to render. In other words, if we object to God predestining some but not all, we are ultimately resisting God’s merciful character. We can delight in predestination as it helps us to see salvation as being drenched in God’s mercy.