Celebration Week 25

This week, we will celebrate with two Christmas songs from Chris Tomlin. The first is called Unspeakable Joy.

The second is called Glory in the Highest.

Enjoy!

Submit

We’ve talked about submission a couple of times here on this blog, but as it relates to the wise men of the Christmas account, we see a submission to the authority of God by a group of men who may or may not have been God-fearing people. They knew that something special had taken place when they first saw the star, but what would be the result of that knowledge?

The result was a search that lead them to Jerusalem, and then to Bethlehem where they found a young boy named Jesus and His parents living in a home there. They knew that this boy was someone special, although how special we may not really know. But one thing we do know is that when they were warned in a dream about not going back to Jerusalem, they submitted to that higher authority and went home another way. Was it a more convenient way? We don’t know. We don’t know for sure where they came from, except that it was somewhere east of Israel. We also know that they were learned men who knew what the star meant and then followed it to see what they might find. And what they found changed them.

Their submission is a call for us to submit to the authority that God has on our lives. We have been called to obey God in such a way as to follow His instructions no matter how crazy they may seem to us.

Joshua was the brand new leader of the nation of Israel, and God tells him that in order to defeat the city of Jericho, he must have all of the people march around the walls of the city once a day for six days. Then on the seventh day, they were to march around the city seven times, then shout and the walls would collapse. If I had been Joshua, my response might have been, “Wait, what?” But Joshua had seen Moses’ faith in God and he trusted that God knew what was best. And what happened as a result of his obedience? Exactly what God told him would happen. They took the city of Jericho without lifting a finger. They walked right in, and won the victory.

Sometimes it’s hard to submit, but when we do, victory is just around the corner. So make the decision now that you will obey God no matter what He should ask you to do. It might seem crazy, but submission in those cases will always lead to our ultimate victory!

Keep on obeying and we’ll see you on Sunday!

Study

Yesterday, we talked about some of the qualities that we find in the wise men (or “Magi” as they are called in the Scriptures). We saw that one of the things that defined the wise men were that they were academic, or students of the prophets. One of the things that we weren’t able to get into is that their study went even beyond their own religion to that of others as well. They would not have known the significance of the star or the coming King of the Jews had they not been seeking through the Old Testament prophets, too.

So the question for us today is how is our study of the Scriptures? Are we devoting the time necessary to truly understand what the Bible is saying? Are we students of the Scriptures? We talked about some tools that we need to study the Bible the way we ought. We talked about a concordance, a reference Bible and a good commentary. I'd like to give you my thoughts on each of these today.

First, I would recommend you buying a concordance that corresponds with the version of Scripture you generally read. One of the best I've found is called The Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible and can be found here on Christian Book Distributors website. This will help you find words used in many of the best translations used today.

Secondly, I would encourage you to buy a reference Bible if you don't already have one. The one most people find useful is The Thompson Chain Reference Bible. The references in this Bible are extensive, but like any tool, the more you use it, the easier it will be to find what you are looking for.

Finally, we encouraged you to get yourself a good commentary. There are two commentaries that I continually reference, simply because I trust the sources. One is The Bible Knowledge Commentary by Walvoord and Zuck. This is a very good commentary that comes in two volumes, one covers the Old Testament, the other the New Testament (you can find these both at CBD, here). The other one is The Moody Bible Commentary. This one is a single volume commentary and you can also find it here at Christian Book Distributors. There are other commentaries that are multi-volume (meaning one volume per book of the Bible), but these tend to get expensive if you’re only using them once in a while.

I hope that you will take the time to consider adding these tools to your Bible study tool box, and use them often. They will help you be able to not only study the Scriptures for yourself, but also help you to know the truth, and be able to spot error when you hear it or see it.

God bless you all this week, and I hope you have great Monday. And we’ll see you on Sunday!

Ascent Week 25

PSALM 129

From my earliest youth my enemies have persecuted me.
    Let all Israel repeat this:
From my earliest youth my enemies have persecuted me,
    but they have never defeated me.
My back is covered with cuts,
    as if a farmer had plowed long furrows.
But the Lord is good;
    he has cut me free from the ropes of the ungodly.

May all who hate Jerusalem
    be turned back in shameful defeat.
May they be as useless as grass on a rooftop,
    turning yellow when only half grown,
ignored by the harvester,
    despised by the binder.
And may those who pass by
    refuse to give them this blessing:
“The Lord bless you;
    we bless you in the Lord’s name.”

What I Am Thankful For--Part 4

On Monday, I started talking about the top four things I am thankful for. Number four was the great country in which I live. Number three was the friends that God has put in my life throughout my 46 years on this earth. Number two was my family, both church and my wife and kids. Today, I want to share my number one thing that I am thankful for.

#1—Jesus Christ and the Salvation I have through Him

Back in 1984, on January 4th, I gave my life to Christ. Oh, I had prayed a prayer when I was three, but it was just that...a prayer. I had not truly surrendered my life to Jesus. So on that day in 1984, at the W.L.D. Ranch in Fairview, Pennsylvania, I prayed to receive Jesus as my savior, and allowed Him to have control over my life.

A lot of things happened after that. I began to be more serious about time with God. I spent more time in reading my Bible and more time in prayer. I looked forward to church days and youth group where I would learn more about following Jesus. I spent time talking about Jesus with my friends and encouraging them to be more about following Him, too.

But I think the biggest change of all in my life was in the way I lived. I didn't really live for myself anymore, but for the people around me. I began to see them as vital to my life and to the life of church. I began to put their needs ahead of my own and treat them the way I would want to be treated. And all of this was because of that day in January, 1984. 

I'm thankful that Jesus took my life and changed it for the better. I hop that He has done the same with your life. If He hasn't, today could be your January 4th. All you have to do is admit your sin, tell Him that you believe that He is the Son of God and that His death on the cross and the shedding of His blood was enough to pay for your sins, and then receive God's great gift of Salvation! It's up to you, but I know for experience that there isn't a great feeling than knowing that your sins are forgiven, and that your life now has true meaning.

If you want to make that decision today, please let me know by either commenting below, or by commenting on the link you were directed here from (Either Facebook or Google+). It would really be a blessing to me.

Thanks for reading the blog, and we'll see you on Sunday!

What I Am Thankful For—Part 3

Two days ago, I started talking about the top four things I am thankful for. Number four was the great country in which I live. And number three was the friends that God has put in my life throughout my 46 years on this earth. Today, I want to share my number two thing that I am thankful for.

#2—Family

I have been blessed by having such a great family. And I want to share with you some awesome things about that family. The family that God has given me is diverse. They are men and women from every corner of the globe. They are people who love Jesus with all of their heart, mind, soul and strength. They are brothers and sisters who I will one day spend the rest of eternity with, and it doesn’t matter what label they put on themselves, they are those who I love and love me.

I am, of course, speaking of my heavenly family, that is called “The Church”. I am so thankful for all of them, because of they have encouraged me, strengthened me, appreciated me, and shown me and my earthly family such kindness. So, for all of you who are my family in Christ, thank you for who you are and for all you do!

But I would be incredibly remiss if I do not also say, “Thank you, Lord” for my earthly family. I am so thankful to the Lord for the parents He gave me. Wayne and Mary have been a solid rock in my life and they taught me what it is to love God and follow after Him. That is a heritage that I can never say “Thank You!” enough for.

I also thank God for my brother, Tim. He’s one of my closest friends and he is always there for me when I need him. His words are sometimes hard for me to hear, but he never stops loving me. And for that, I thank God.

I also thank God for my other parents who He gave me when I married their daughter. Jack and Kay have been cheerleaders, advisors, sounding-boards, and all-around great people. I am SO thankful because I know that some others I know have not had as good of fortune as I have when it comes to In-Laws. Thanks God!

And I thank God for my kids, Anna, Andrew, Abigail, Alexander, Allison, and Azariah. They fill my life with such joy and happiness. They are always making me laugh, sometimes making me cry, but always making me love them more each day.

And now, I save the best for last. I thank God, every day of my life, for the love that He has shown to me through my loving, beautiful and talented wife, Cindy. She is truly my best friend in the world. Sometimes I do not demonstrate to her through my life just how much I love and appreciate her. But she means more to me than anything else in this world. She is my companion, my love and my accountability partner. She holds my feet to the fire when I am wrong, and she cheers me on when I’m right. I love her more now than the day I married her, and I less than I will tomorrow.

Thank you, Lord for my family! You have used them to make me who I am today!

We’ll see you on Sunday!

What I Am Thankful For—Part 2

Yesterday, I talked to you about how thankful I was to live in a great country like the USA. That was #4 on my list of things I am truly thankful for. Today, I would like to talk to you about…

#3—Friends

I have been truly blessed with the friends that I have. Some of them I am related to, others I am not. I don’t have many friends (or what I would call “close friends”), so I tend to be thankful for the ones that I have. And I’m not talking about Facebook “friends” who may or may not care what is going on in my life.

I’m talking about real, honest-to-goodness friends. I think it’s true that friendship is sometimes a fleeting thing. You have friends who you are close to for a while, but then as you go through life you grow apart, either by distance or circumstances. I believe that Godo brings friends into your life at certain times of your life to teach you things that you need in your life.

I think of my two best friends in Jr. High School, Kevin and Jeff who I did most everything with. We hung out, went to movies, talked, played games, went to school and just about everything else together. They were in my wedding and I was in theirs. But as they lived in Pennsylvania and I lived in Michigan, we didn’t see each other much after High School. So we grew apart, and while I still consider them my friends, and would be there for them if they needed me, I don’t feel we are as close as we were.

Then there are the friends I made in College, like Dave, Keith, Matt Scott and Shannon. These friends (roommates, teammates and classmates) were close when I was at Moody, but many of them I haven’t talked to in a long, long time.

There are friends that I had in Michigan, like Dave, Chris, Don, Chris and Kelly. They were there for me in ministry and helped me through many dark valleys in my life. They helped me get over some hurtful things that I experienced and they encouraged me to keep the faith and keep loving even when I wasn’t loved in return. Now they’re gone from my proximity, but never from my memory, and I thank God for them.

But I am most thankful for the friendships that have endured. The friendships that have lasted have been the ones that we’ve worked at…both them and me. People like Cindy (who I married, by the way), Bob, Tim, and Mike. We’ve reached out regularly, spoken on the phone, been completely honest with each other and even challenged each other. These friends have been critical of me, and I got mad at them for it, but later, knew they were right. These are friends who have always been there and will never leave. They are the epitome of Proverbs 17:17a, “A friend loves at all times…”.

Honestly, there aren’t too many of that kind of friend in my life, and that’s okay. I’m not sure I could handle too many people in my life who knew me that well. But I’m glad they’re there. And I am glad that they always will be.

So this Thanksgiving, thank God for your friends. And we’ll see you on Sunday!

What I Am Thankful For--Part 1

This week, in honor of Thanksgiving, I thought that I would write about the 4 things that I am most thankful for. We will move our celebration day to Thursday (for obvious reasons) and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday would be the days that I will tell you what I’m thankful for, and talk about them a bit.

#4—The United States of America

Our country has seen some pretty rough times of late. We’ve seen a very contentious presidential election, riots in the streets because we are unhappy that our candidate lost, racial discriminations seem to be on the rise, winking and nodding at sin like it really isn’t sin, and many other things seem to be causing people to look at America as a laughing stock.

But the truth of the matter is that this is still the greatest country in the world. We are free here to worship, to pray, to speak our minds, and to assemble without the fear of our government coming in and carting us all off to jail. In many countries, these things are not true. Any gathering of Christians can be broken up and the leaders can be taken to jail simply because they are meeting in the Name of Jesus.

But here in the USA, we have the right to assemble and to pray and to worship our God. In fact, that is why the Pilgrims first came to this new land. They were not okay with being forced into a certain way of believing simply because their government told them that was how they should believe. So they came here to live in peace and worship as they thought best.

The founder of our government, while not all Christians, believed that God had brought them there for a purpose and they were not going to shrink from that purpose. They set up a government that was not free from religion, but a government that was supposed to uphold and honor the rights of every citizen to worship how they saw fit. It was (and in many cases still is) a melting pot of people with many different lifestyles, tastes, languages, customs and religions. Some of what has been “thrown in” has stuck; other things have not; but in all cases, we are all a part of the same group of people who came here to start over, and find new freedoms in a new land.

So I am thankful that in this country we are still free to pray, to worship, to meet together and to speak our minds without the fear of harassment or punishment. I am thankful for the United States of America!

Thanks for reading this today, and have a great Thanksgiving week. We’ll see you on Sunday!

Ascent-Week 24

Psalm 128

How happy are those who fear the LORD—

   all who follow his ways!

You will enjoy the fruit of your labor.

   How happy you will be! How rich your life!

Your wife will be like a fruitful fine,

   flourishing within your home.

And look at all those children!

   There they sit around your table as vigorous and healthy as young olive trees.

That is the LORD’s reward

   for those who fear him.

                            

May the LORD continually bless you from Zion.

   May you see Jerusalem prosper as long as you live.

May you live to enjoy your grandchildren.

   And may Israel have quietness and peace.

How Do I Abide?

The next question that we must answer, then is this: “If the key to ‘Self-Control’ is actually abiding in Christ, how do I do that?”

That’s a great question, and the answer has to do with something that the following video will (hopefully) help you understand:

My friends, if we want to learn the art of Spirit-control, we must rest in the strength of our God who has sealed us with Christ and who has put His Spirit within us. He is the only way to find the way to live the right way.

Amen? We’ll see you on Sunday!

The Myth of Self-Control

In the world we live in, we often find ourselves doing our best to be the kind of people that we know we should be. What we fail to realize most of the time is that our efforts to become what we think we ought to be fall far short of what we truly ought to be. Why is this? I believe it is because our aim is off. We are shooting at the wrong target.

Let me try and explain. In Galatians 5, we find the list of character qualities that Paul refers to as “The Fruit of the Spirit.” The last of these character qualities is self-control. Now, understanding that English is a far cry from Greek (the original language in which the New Testament was written), there is not a way to really define what the original intent of Paul was to say here. Many of us when we hear the term, “Self-Control” immediately think of a person who is able to control themselves in their own power. I hope that by even reading that statement you got a question in your head that when something like this: “What did he just say?” We tend to think of John Wayne, a no-nonsense kind of thinking that says, “I’ll get done because of who I am.”

I don’t think I need to tell you that this isn’t at all what the Bible considers holy in the life of the Christ Follower. In fact, what God wants us to be is dependent on Him. This means it’s not about us, but about Him. In the King James Version, the word is translated, “temperance”, and it has the idea of being strong while at the same time being at rest. Here’s the idea I think Paul is trying to get at…

As His followers, we are called to abide (that is, live) in Him. It is in Him that our lives have the ability to do what He has called us to do. “Without me you can do nothing,” Jesus said. We must remember that in Him, and only in Him can we do anything. So when the Bible calls us to be “self-controlled”, I believe that God is actually calling us to be Spirit controlled. He holds the remote control of our life, and if we live in Him, He will guide us to where we need to be. We have the power of God at our disposal as we rest in Him. That’s what the word means, and that is what we are called to be.

We will talk more about this tomorrow, but in the meantime, stay connected to Christ, and we’ll see you on Sunday!

Celebration Week 24

Today we celebrate the faithfulness of our God with two great Christian songs!

Great Is Thy Faithfulness:

And I Will Not Forget You:

Enjoy! And we'll see you on Sunday!

Remember Who You Are!

How many of you remember this scene from The Lion King?

Now, I know it’s a bit hokey, and it certainly doesn’t jibe theologically, but follow me on this one:

I think that so many of us as Christ Followers find ourselves inept and defeated because we have allowed ourselves to live in situations that we were never intended to be in. We live in fear, doubt, unforgiveness, coarseness, and so on, when we were meant to live in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We’ve given up our inheritance for the comfortable life of irresponsibility. We find ourselves bombarded with messages that tell us to live for ourselves when God wants us to live for Him.

So what are we to do? We need to remember who we are. We need to remember that we are heirs of the promise, we are heirs of the riches of God and co-heirs with Christ. We are overcomers who have been granted the armor of God to combat the evil that is in our world. We have been called to be all of this, and if we step out in faith, claiming these promises, there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.

So remember who you are, and don’t forsake reminding each other of who you are. As the old G.I. Joe slogan said, “Knowing is half the battle!”

Have a great day, and we’ll see you on Sunday!

Keeping the PACT

Yesterday, I challenged all of you to with the acronym PACT, and asked you to keep it. For those of you who missed it, it simple represents the following:

Praying for our new president-elect, Donald Trump, and those who will be serving this great country with him. We need to be praying for our leaders as we go about our day to day, and asking God to bring real change to our nation. But we must also remember that the best change in this nation will come when followers of Christ begin to act like they are followers of Christ (more on this tomorrow).

Adopt an attitude of kindness, love, peace, and patience with those who disagree with you, or who have apprehensions about the next four years. Remember the golden rule, folks, because we would want to be treated kindly if the shoe were on the other foot.

Continue to share the Gospel with those you come into contact with. Do not hesitate! There is only so much time any of us has on this earth, so use it wisely. Speak the truth to people. Many will hate you for it, but if it saves even one person, it is so worth it!

Teach your children, grandchildren, nieces & nephews, cousins, and whoever else you have influence over to react to things in the way that Jesus would. Show them Christ, and they will learn Christ.

So as you look at that (Pray, Adopt, Continue and Teach), is that a PACT you can be a part of? It is my hope that we all will continue to live in such a way that we would bring a smile to the face of our Heavenly Father.

God bless you all today, and we’ll see you on Sunday!

Ascent-Week 24

Psalm 127

Unless the LORD builds a house,
   the work of the builders is useless.
Unless the LORD protects a city,
   guarding it with sentries will do no good.
It is useless for you to work so hard
   from early morning until late at night,
anxiously working for food to eat;
   for God gives rest to his loved ones.

Children are a gift from the LORD;
   they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man
   are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hands.
How happy is the man whose quiver is full of them!
   He will not be put to shame when he confronts
      his accusers at the city gates.

Are YOU Good-Part 2

Yesterday we talked about goodness. We talked about where the focus of our goodness needs to be, and that’s Jesus. One day when Jesus was teaching His disciples, a man came up to Jesus and called Him, “Good Teacher.” Jesus’ reply to the man was this: “Why do you call me ‘good’? There is no one who is good except God alone.”

What was Jesus saying to this man? Was he agreeing with him that He was good? Or was something else going on?

I believe that Jesus’ response here was a slight wink and nod to the fact that He was God. He was telling this man (who, by the way, was trying to trick Him into saying something that would be grounds for the religious leaders to kill him) that in calling Jesus good, he was actually calling Jesus God…and that is exactly what they were trying to get Jesus to say.

So here’s the point I want to make to you today. As you go about doing good, remember that your good deeds need to be a reflection of who you are. The point of the fruit of the Spirit is that these are things that we are supposed to do naturally, as the Spirit is working in and through us. So we are to be good, patient, kind, etc.; and not just do kind things, or good things.

So think about that this week, and thanks for reading the blog today. We’ll see you on Sunday!

Are YOU Good-Part 1

What does it mean for a person to be called “good”? What is a good person? What does it take to be a good person? The world would have you believe that people, in their heart of hearts, are basically good. But is that true?

If you take a young child and place him in front of a plate of cookies and tell him/her that he/she cannot take a cookie until you get back, will they? Most would. While this isn’t quite the same thing, check out this video and ask yourself what YOU would do…

It’s interesting that goodness, in our culture is pretty much a relative thing. People would say, “Well, I’m not as good as I probably should be, but I’m not as bad as this person or that person. I’m pretty good.” But that is the problem, though, isn’t it? The person whom we compare ourselves is always going to be worse than us. We would never try and compare our goodness to someone who is better.

And therein lies the rub. The only person who matters in this equation is the person to whom we compare ourselves. But who is that person supposed to be? The truth of the matter is that the only person to whom we should be comparing ourselves is the Lord, Jesus Christ! Compared to HIM, we all fall short…even if we are able to resist the marshmallow.

Think about that! Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you on Sunday!

Sorry for the absence...

Dear faithful blog readers,

I want to let you know that the absence that you've noticed over the past three days is due the fact that the blogs that were scheduled to post somehow disappeared. I don't know if I hit a button I wasn't supposed to, or just failed to save them, but they never loaded, and as a result, there was no blog posts for Monday through Wednesday. I apologize for this, and will try to rectify this situation so that it doesn't happen again.

In the meantime, we will be going with a new format of text font and size that I hope will be easier for you to read as you come to the blog. God bless and we'll see you on Sunday!

Ascent Week 23

Psalm 126

When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion,
   we were like men who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
   our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
   "The LORD has done great things for them."
The LORD has done great things for us,
   and we are filled with joy.

Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
   like the streams in the Negev.
Those who sow in tears
   will reap with songs of joy.
He who goes out weeping,
   carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
   carrying sheaves with him.

Another Look at Patience

I wanted to revisit a clip that I shared about two weeks ago from a movie called "Evan Almighty." Now what you feel about the movie and those who made it is irrelevant to our discussion today, because what the characters say here is an interesting way to look at the idea of how God answers prayers when we ask Him to do things in our lives. He doesn't just give us what we ask. Instead, He puts us in situations where we can become the kind of people we are asking Him to make us into.

Go ahead and watch the clip here:

Opportunities that come to us are given by God to help us become the people that He wants us to be. If there is anything that you get from this blog post today, I hope that it is that God is so radically in your corner that He is putting you through the ringer to train you to become that man, woman, young person that He wants you to be! So don't miss the opportunity, and become all that you were meant to be!

Thanks for reading, and we'll see you on Sunday!

What Not To Pray For

What happens when we pray for things? Especially when we pray for things that tend to cause us to grow spiritually, the answers to those prayers come in the form of opportunity…that is, opportunities to practice those things. So because of this, there are a couple of things that you should never pray for.

Humility is one of the things that comes to mind right away, because what seems to happen is that we find ourselves in humiliating situations in which we need to humble ourselves and become all that God desires us to be in the area of humility.

Another is love for enemies. This request is almost always followed by a new enemy popping up, or an old enemy renewing your acquaintance. Nothing seems to cause us more consternation than a visit with someone we genuinely don’t like, but are commanded to love anyway.

But today, I want us to think about another of these things we don’t like praying for, and that is patience. Patience always brings with it opportunities to practice patience, or waiting, or peace in the midst of a trying situation. We are stuck in traffic when we’re late to be somewhere. We’re not getting a response from someone we need information from to complete a task. We are not seeing the speed from our computer to get the job done. Our kids are dragging their feet to get to the car to go to church. Any number of things that cause us to practice being patient.

But patience is much more than just waiting. It is waiting with the proper attitude. “Oh, no, you didn’t, pastor. You didn’t just go and start talking about our attitudes, now did you?” Yes I did.

The fact is that simple waiting is not the same as being patient. Patience demands that we wait with the proper attitude. And what is that proper attitude? It is focusing on the fact that God is in control. It’s looking at our delays not so much as an inconvenience, as a shield that God is using to protect us from something. As we wait, we need to focus on God and rejoice that He is in control…of the traffic, of our coworkers, of the internet, of the kids, and anything else causing us to wait.

So this week, focus on waiting on God, and practice your patience. And when your attitude is right, you might even want to start praying for it.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you on Sunday!