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Archives For July 2011

Three Things to Share

admin —  July 27, 2011 — Leave a comment

There are a couple of things I want to share with you this week that I am really excited about.

Vacation Bible School

What a great week this is. The church building is packed each night with kids and their families attending our Hometown Nazareth VBS. Please keep the rest of this week in your prayers. On Sunday, we will have the opportunity to celebrate God’s blessings from the past week. In my Sunday morning message I plan to share what I learned during my time at VBS.

One Worship

Once again we will have ONE worship on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, September 4. We will split the time difference between the 8:30am and 10am worship services and worship at 9:15am. This is an exciting worship when we will worship as ONE church on a Sunday morning. It has been a highlight for me every year we have done this. Please note there will be no Sunday School on that morning.

Also, this year we are adding something additional. After worship is over we will have a church wide picnic. It is a great opportunity to come together. There will be food and games. It is a time to relax, to be together, and to celebrate being the family of God.

Fall Message Series

I want to thank everyone for their input and feedback for the upcoming Fall message series. I received a good number of submissions and have prayerfully considered what I heard from you and what I have been hearing from the Lord.

I am excited to share with you today that our Fall message series (starting with the ONE worship service on September 4) will be focused on the life of King David. David is the second most written about person in the Bible behind Jesus. When Jesus walked on this earth the Messianic expectation was that the kingdom of David would be restored. David is described in two separate places in the Bible as “a man after God’s own heart.” David was a shepherd, warrior, king, musician, husband, father, and more. I believe we have much we can learn from David.

David was a great man of God, but he was not without his shortcomings. We can learn from his successes and from his failures. It is my prayer that this will be a learning experience and faith growing experience for our church that will extend well beyond Sunday morning.

One of the things I want to do is to encourage you to read along as we go through the story of David. At the beginning of the message series there will be a reading schedule posted online and in the Sunday bulletin for you to follow along. It would be my desire to see the Scripture come alive for you during this time.

Have a great week!

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Talledega Night Prayer

admin —  July 26, 2011 — Leave a comment

I don’t really ever watch NASCAR, but I have seen the movie Talledega Nights. So I understand completely where this prayer is coming from. I doubt this pastor expected to end up on Sports Center. He certainly made a name for himself. So what do you think about this prayer? Do you think this is a great prayer contextualized for the setting? Or do you think it is irreverant and not appropriate? I imagine for most Christians it is a little strange, but for the setting it might just have fit the bill.

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Cultivating for a Harvest

admin —  July 25, 2011 — Leave a comment

Cultivating for a Harvest

This week we bring to the end the 2nd part of our Summer Message Series on Celebrate, Cultivate, and Care. This week I spoke on the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:16-26. God desires we bear fruit in our lives. He has given us so much to bear that fruit. But what happens when the fruit of the Spirit is not evident in our life? We don’t produce it by trying harder. The fruit of the Spirit comes when we let God do the work.

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What Makes you a Christian?

admin —  July 24, 2011 — Leave a comment

I have to say I am mad. I have been reading a bit of the news about the suspect in the bombing and the shooting in Norway. From the reports he is being described as a conservative and fundamentalist Christian. But the more and more I read there is nothing about this guy that screams out Christian. Calling himself a Christian makes him no more a Christian than me calling myself Santa Claus makes me Santa Claus. I am insulted to be associated with this lunatic in any way.

He was a Mason who played violent video games and hated Muslims. There is nothing I have read about this guy I would associate with being a conservative or fundamentalist Christian as he claimed to be. I wonder if he ever set foot in the door of a church or opened his Bible. None of the fruit of the Spirit was evident in his life. What is it that makes him to be a Christian?

In all this I am reminded of Jesus’ words in Matthew 7. Jesus says, “not everyone who says Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21-23). It is about more than who we claim to be. It is who we show ourselves to be. They will know we are Christians by our love and not by what we say.

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The Bible Changes Attitudes

admin —  July 23, 2011 — Leave a comment

I often encourage people to read and study the Bible. The reason I do this is because I believe it is God’s Word and I believe there is power in this Word to change and transform lives. There is no doubt in my mind that frequent exposure to this life giving Word can only do you good.

A recent study done by Baylor University, reported in the Huffington Post, sheds some interesting light upon this. Here are some of the conclusions from this study:

  • The likelihood of Christians saying it is important to actively seek social and economic justice to be a good person increased 39 percent with each jump up the ladder of the frequency of reading Scripture, from reading the Bible less than once a year to no more than once a month to about weekly to several times a week or more.

  • Christian respondents overall were 27 percent more likely to say it is important to consume or use fewer goods to be a good person as they became more frequent Bible readers.

  • Reading the Bible more often also was linked to improved attitudes toward science. Respondents were 22 percent less likely to view religion and science as incompatible at each step toward more frequent Bible reading.

  • The issues seemed to matter more than conservative-liberal tags. In the case of another major public policy debate, same-sex unions, nearly half of respondents who read the Bible less than once a year said homosexuals should be allowed to marry, while only 6 percent of people who read the Bible several times a week or more approved of such marriages.

One interesting tidbit I found in this article was that less than 1/4 of respondents said they read the Bible weekly or more. It would seem the problem is not that Christians never read their Bibles. It’s that they are not reading it enough. Imagine eating only once a week. You would not be a very healthy person.

So why do we have such difficulty opening up the Word? I fear many Christians fail to open God’s Word because they are convinced they already know what it says. It is a matter of pride. The Bible becomes a tool to prove a person’s assumptions rather than provide fresh revelation. If you read the Bible to prove your assumptions there will be less motivation to open it up than if you read it to hear God speak. We are much better at speaking than we are at listening.

The thing I find is the more I open up the Bible and read the more and more I realize there is so much more I don’t know. As much as the Bible provides answers it also raises questions. I find that when I truly read the Scriptures it often confirms what I already know, but more often challenges me in things I don’t know. Reading the Bible is a lesson in humility. I learn I don’t have all the answers and I need to seek the One who does.

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Time and Motivation for Good Intentions

admin —  July 21, 2011 — Leave a comment

I have a lot of good intentions. But many of my good intentions never come to fruition. Maybe the reason my good intentions never come to fruition is because I never tell anyone about my good intentions. Therefore, I have no one holding me accountable.

If you have something on your mind worth doing make sure to tell someone else. Telling someone else is where good intentions cross the line from being good intentions to becoming goals.

I know I have a reluctance to share my good intentions because I know if I share my good intentions the secret will be out. If I share my good intentions I will need to follow through with more than just good thoughts. I will need to follow though with the right actions. It is sort of a scary thing because that means I might need to stop doing some of the things I am currently doing in order to do the thing you I just told someone else I was going to do going to do. That is a frightening prospect.

The truth is however, you are already doing too much. Most people could quit doing about half the things they are currently doing and no one would notice. What a freeing thought! You have more time to accomplish what is important to you than you realize.

God gave us 24 hours in a day. That is more than enough time to accomplish everything he gave you to do. If 24 hours is not enough time then it is highly likely you are doing more than God intended for you to do. If 24 hours is not enough time then you are working outside the will of God. If 24 hours is not enough time to do everything you need to do it is sort of saying God did not know what he was doing when he made the day to be a 24 hour period of time.

I was once told the most spiritual thing you can do is to take a nap. There is some truth in that. In the Bible the beginning of the day started at the end of the day. What I mean is that the day started at sunset. At sunset you would quit work, go home, relax, and then go to bed. These were the first things you did. When we start our day, we get up out of bed and get to work and then relax after a hard day of work. But when we begin the day at the end of the day we start by resting. It just changes the perspective. It is a way of putting faith in God. We know there is much to accomplish, but instead of jumping into our labors we rest in the arms of God, knowing he will help us accomplish everything he has set for us to do. It is a way of saying I will not accomplish my plans by working harder or longer, but by trusting in God and living in obedience to his will.

So back to my original thought. Don’t be afraid and tell someone else what you believe God has called you to do. Be bold. Be courageous. And then relax. Trust God. Know that he has given you everything you need to accomplish his will, including hours in a day.

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