Make Peace, Not War

We are going to Gettysburg to make peace - not war. Crystal and I have been asked to do three workshops at Growing Together Hand in Hand, a conference put on by Wanted Marriage Ministries. This conference was organized in response to LifeWay's Festival of Marriage pulling out of Ocean City, Maryland. The keynote speakers for this event are Harold and Bette Gillogly, and Calling Levi will be leading the worship. Whenever we teach at an event, we always ask friends and readers to pray for us. In an event this big, there are bound to be husbands and wives who see this conference as their last ditch effort to stay together. We know that we're headed into spiritual warfare because the devil would love nothing more than to destroy these couples and devastate their children. If your church does not currently have a marriage ministry, you might want to pray for God's guidance (and your pastor's blessing) in starting one. Your pastor may already have too much on his plate to lead this kind of ministry, but a successful marriage ministry might lighten his counseling load and strengthen the church overall.

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Born to Be Wild

I pulled into the church parking lot like I do most days, went into the building and started towards the stairs to put my lunch in the refrigerator, when there was a knock at the door. I opened the door and was confronted by a rugged middle-aged man named Kevin who had obviously led a rough life. He wore a t-shirt with a flaming skeleton riding a motorcycle, a hat that said "Rebel" and sported tatoos on his arms. At first I was apprehensive, but that all changed when, a few moments later, Kevin broke down crying right in front of me. He told me that his brother recently died of heart failure, and that he was looking for some kind of closure for his brother's death. I began to talk to him about Jesus Christ, but he said, "I don't believe my brother was saved, but I don't believe in hell." I said, "We don't get to decide what we want to believe about God, and what God has placed in His Bible. The same Bible that tells us that there is a heaven also tells us that there is a hell - we cannot pick one and leave out the other." I asked him if he was with his brother when he died, and Kevin said no. "Then how do you know that he didn't call on the name of the Lord before he died?" Kevin did not know. In fact, he told me that his brother was afraid to die. I did not want to offer false hope, but sometimes we assume that a person died lost, when they could have called on Jesus before they died. The thief on the cross had nothing to offer God, but in the last moments of his earthly life, he called out to Christ and God saved him. I was able to share Jesus Christ with Kevin and challenge him to get into a good Bible-believing church when he gets home to Jacksonville, Florida. He told me that he was just sitting over at the bus station across the street, waiting for his ride, when he saw me pull up to the church. Kevin said, "Something told me, go across the street and talk to that man, and I sure am glad I did." I was glad too. We can plan our days and fill in our calendars, but God doesn't wait for appointments. Before Kevin left, we had prayer together. He gripped my hand tightly and I asked the Lord to give him the closure needed in his life. With tears in his eyes, this rugged traveler gave me a big hug and joined his ride leaving Fredericksburg. Afterwards, I thanked God for reminding me that He still speaks to the hearts of people. Out of the blue, God can send someone our way who desperately needs a representative for Jesus Christ. And when He does, we must be ready.

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A Proud Papa

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter came onto the platform at the end of the service and (in front of the whole congregation) whispered in my ear, "Daddy, I'm ready to be baptized." It caught me completely by surprise and made me very proud. On Sunday Lauren followed through with her commitment and I had the privilege of baptizing my own daughter. How many people get to do that? It was really cool. Another thing that was cool was how a video clip we showed in the service a few weeks ago influenced another little boy in our church to get baptized. After watching the video, he told his mother, "I want to be baptized." We are living in a visual generation, so why not use what will reach them, and challenge them to live for God? When I think about this world, it has nothing good to offer our children. We have to teach our kids to be in the world, but not of the world. We have to lead today's youth to follow Christ because serving Him is the only thing that will bring lasting satisfaction, both here and in eternity. I don't know the future, but my daughter just took a step in the right direction - and for that, I'm a proud papa.

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Where Is the God of Elijah?

I promised to blog about the end of our Elijah series since we were running short on time two weeks ago. I mentioned that God wants us to have hearts like Elisha in that he would not leave Elijah's side no matter what. We need to have some holy ambition and hold on tight to God, even when it might seem like God is the one pushing us away (Matthew 15:21-28 and Luke 11:5-10). But beyond seeing ourselves in Elisha, I believe we see Jesus in Elijah. There are many similarities with both of these powerful prophets. Elijah and Jesus performed many miracles, stood for righteousness, walked closely with God (though Jesus is God), finished their earthly ministry, were taken alive into heaven (of course Jesus was resurrected), had witnesses that watched their ascension, and both will return in the last days (John 14:1-3 and Malachi 4:5). The real question is, do you believe we are living in the last days? Do you agree with Peter's words in Acts 2 when he said, "Save yourselves from this perverse generation?" If we are living in the last days (and I believe we are) then it should cause us to have a sense of urgency when it comes to sharing our faith with others. All around us are lost people who will spend eternity somewhere, and we have the message they need to hear to be saved - saved from a perverse generation. We might live to, one day see Christ's return for His church. And on that day, all believers will be like Elijah and Jesus, called up to be with God for all eternity. What a day that will be.

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Elijah picture from Crossroads Fellowship in Raleigh, NC

An Offering God Can Respect

I'm currently reading through the Bible and came across something interesting in Genesis 4:3-5. The Bible says, "And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the LORD respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering." Notice how God joins each person to their offering - Abel and his offering . . . Cain and his offering. I've often heard the teaching that the reason God rejected Cain's offering was because it was not an animal sacrifice. I'm not sure this is right. Pastor Robert Morris in The Blessed Life points out that Abel brought of the first of his flock, but Cain brought his offering in the process of time. God received other offerings in the Bible that were not animal (blood) sacrifices, so what's the problem? The problem was Cain's heart, not his offering. And because Cain's heart was not right, he did not revere God highly enough to put him first the way Abel did. This is evident later when Cain kills Abel and has the audacity to say to God, "Am I my brother's keeper?" So God sees our offerings as linked to the condition of our hearts. And we are not just talking about financial offerings, but even our offering of praise that we bring every Sunday. If our hearts are right with God (notice I did not say perfect), then God receives our offerings as worship to Him. If our hearts are not right, then God does not care to receive our offerings because they don't mean anything. I've heard some pastors say, "God wants you to be a cheerful giver - but He'll take it from any old grump." But I say, if it makes you grumpy to give to God (time, talent, treasure) then don't - because from what I can see, He won't accept it anyway. So the next time you offer something to God, you might want to pause and ask yourself, "Is my heart right with God?" Because if it's not, sin might be crouching at the door.

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This Is Good

The story is told of a king in Africa who had a close friend with whom he grew up. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) and saying, "This is good!" One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. The friend had apparently done something wrong in preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his friend, the king fired it and his thumb was blown off. Examining the situation, the friend remarked as usual, "This is good!" To which the king replied, "No, this is not good!" and proceeded to send his friend to jail. About a year later, the king was hunting in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took him to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some wood, set up a stake and bound him to the stake. As they came near to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate anyone who was less than whole. So untying the king, they sent him on his way. As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend. He went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend. "You were right," he said, "it was good that my thumb was blown off." And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. "And so, I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long. It was bad for me to do this." "No," his friend replied, "This is good!" "What do you mean, 'This is good'? How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year?" "If I had not been in jail, I would have been with you."

Last week the A/C went out in our house. The heat was stifling, but thankfully my sister had a window unit we could borrow to cool the downstairs for a few days. Today I got to see an old friend who I worked for nearly twenty years ago. He fixed my A/C and only charged me $270 vs. the over $600 that a local company wanted to charge. Just being around him took me back to a time when I was younger, stronger, and had few responsibilities. Today things are different. I am older, hopefully a little wiser - and my life abounds with responsibilities. Now I wouldn't trade my life for anything, but it felt nice to talk about simpler times. So it was good that the air conditioning went out in our house. Sure the last few days were inconvenient, but our mini-crisis created a circumstance that allowed me to reconnect with an old friend. Whenever things seem to go bad, just remember, God might be getting ready to do something good in your life.

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Illustration provided from Sermon Central

Convinced and Confident Because of God's Love

Guest Blogger - Rev. Rippert Roberts, Jr.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:37-39

You can have amazing confidence when facing life's challenges once you are convinced of God's love for you.
No matter what you may lose in this life you will never lose God’s love. No matter what you may gain in this life you will have nothing of greater value than God’s love.
You can’t run far enough or fast enough to escape God’s love for you. You will never fall so low that God’s love won’t reach you. God has passionately pursued you for the sake of His love. In fact He loved you into existence and then gave you the gift of His love-child Jesus to remove anything that could ever possibly separate you from His love. Times may be hard right now. The outcome of situations or circumstances may be uncertain. You may even be in a place where you are wondering why God has allowed certain events to come into your life. God knows and He understands. He saw this day of your life before it ever arrived. He made certain that you would not face today with out His love being available to you.
Today there is nothing that you will encounter, experience or endure that God’s love wont be present and turned toward you.
Look for it. You will find it.
God will show His love for you in a number of ways.
Some of them will be fairly easy to spot. Take those opportunities to be grateful.
Some may come in unexpected ways. Take those opportunities to be amazed!
God’s love may come in the form of discipline. That’s your opportunity to change.
God’s love will give you an overwhelming victory in any and every difficulty.
You can choose to enter this day knowing that nothing can ever separate you from God’s love.
Death can’t do it. He showed you that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ when even death and the grave came up empty in the face of His love for you. (Oh and make no mistake that was about you!)
Life can’t do it. He showed you that when Jesus died for you. (Yep, that was for you too!)
The angels can’t. (Yea, they’re real)
The demons can’t. (They’re real too)
Not even the powers of hell can separate you from the love that God has for you.
Your fears for today and worries about tomorrow may cause you to be anxious but they can’t keep God’s love away from you.
You may take some convincing.
That’s okay. God understands.
He will be patient with you until you are won over.
Then you will know the confidence that comes with being convinced of God's love for you.