A Moratorium On Travel?

 What if our Fellowship declared a moratorium on pastoral travel?  Pastors need to travel to keep the Fellowship on track, right? To keep the main thing the main thing. That may have been true in the early days, but is it still true today?

What if a senior pastor only went out of town maybe 6 times a year? He could travel to conferences. He might even follow Wayman Mitchell's plan of doing healing crusades. Or he could take a vacation for 2 or 3 weeks a year to visit family or to de-stress.  It has to be hard to be the senior pastor when you are absent from your own church so much. Hard to be a shepherd to a flock that you rarely see.

We know what to do said pastor Tom Payne. I agree. God knows what to do too. It is still a work of God isn't it? 

If the senior pastor cannot pull the plug on travel, then maybe he needs to authorize one of his assistants to have not only preaching spots but also to make plans and to spend money and to organize activities.

When I need to talk to a pastor, which is not often, I know who I am going to call. It will not be my senior pastor. It will be one of our assistant pastors. They help me. They are available.

A local church needs a pastor, whether it is a church of 100 people or 1000 people. They all need someone to be there to teach and to preach and to marry and to bury. Someone who takes their calling seriously.

Are We A Purpose Driven Fellowship?

 I have never read the Purpose Driven Life. But I wonder if I have experienced the effect of this style of ministry in my own local church. Pastor Wayman Mitchell did a great job shielding us from the insanity of the religious world. And he taught us sound doctrine. You could not only learn how to be a disciple under his ministry, you could also learn how to be a good husband and father.

I noticed a change happening. We treat church as an outreach instead of a worship service. We did away with hymns and hymnals. We sing goofy secular songs about how I feel about God. We pull harder every service to get people saved than we do to help people respond to the sermon.

This seeker sensitive method puts the emphasis on soul winning rather than serving God through serving others. The seeker sensitive method focuses on one man as the CEO, not the shepherd of God's flock.  

I hope that I am wrong. I hope that Wayman Mitchell has more influence than Rick Warren when it comes to our local church. 

Let God be true, and every man a liar.

Esther, the Godless Queen.

The book of Esther is a strange book of the Bible. In Esther God is not mentioned by name or by attribute at all. The temple is never mentioned. No one prays that it was recorded. Fasting is mentioned but not prayer. The timeline tells us that after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 586 BC it was about 108 years into the Babylonian captivity that Esther became queen of Persia in 478 BC. It was about 20 years later that Ezra led the first group of Jews back to Jerusalem and only a few years after that when Nehemiah led his group back. Esther and Mordecai were a part of the group that chose to remain in Babylon long after the remnant returned.

What does all of this historical fact tell us? The Esther and Mordecai grew up in a world without God. They grew up in pagan Persia. They were Jews in name only, not by any signs of an active spiritual life. God is not mentioned in Esther because God was not a part of Mordecai's life. He wrote the book, not her. It was all political intrigue and political power and human effort to him. We read more into the book of Esther than entered into the mind of the man who wrote her story.

We see the hand of God at work in Esther. We see the enemy at work to kill and destroy. We see things happening that to us prove that God was at work even though to Esther God was not a factor. We think that because it is included in the Bible God must be in it. But 100+ years of no God is hard to overcome on your own in a pagan king's palace.

One other book of the Bible does not mention God at all. Do you know which book that is?

New And Old

The older I get, the better I was. Some people have a hard time growing up and growing older. They look in the mirror and still see themselves as young and virile. They look at life as though the best years were in the past, when everything was fresh and new. But one lesson that life will teach you is that you cannot go forward while looking back over your shoulder.

For some people, retirement is a curse. It is a traumatic event when all meaning is taken out of life. For some people growing older is something to be feared or dreaded. They do not see the elderly as a rich repository of wisdom, but as a burden on society. 

God says that He saves the best until now. He is the eternal I am, not I was or I will be. God is always fresh and current. This is why the Christian life must be lived daily. One day at a time. I do not think that Heaven will be a time to remember what used to be. There will be too much to do to waste time reminiscing about the past.

Another lesson is that life must be lived to the end. Life as it is today, not as it was yesterday. One preacher said that the problem with life is that it is so daily. I do not see that as a problem. I see that as a chance to start every day fresh.

One more thing. If you think that salvation is the greatest miracle of all, then once you have been saved a few years that one big miracle was a long time ago. And if you heal the sick and raise the dead, does it ever get boring? Jesus only did it for three years.

Pray that our pastors can help those who are just starting out and also those who have been faithful for many years.

"Therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a house-holder who brings out of his treasure things new and old." Mat.13:52

It Works!

 "Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."  Luke 6:38

Recently I was preparing for a church service when I felt the Lord tell me to give a certain amount. I knew it was the Lord and so I gave what He told me to give. I always thought that this verse meant that someone would walk up to me and hand me an envelope stuffed with cash. But how it worked for me is that I am receiving dental work costing over $1000 at no charge to me. God is faithful and He keeps His promises. One way or another.

"And God is able to make all grace abound toward you..." 2Cor.9:8

To God be the glory, great things He has done.

Lessons For Today

 "Then He said, take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." Gen.22:2

This story, of Abraham preparing to murder his son to offer him up as a burnt offering, is a troubling story. It has meaning beyond the obvious. But beyond Abraham's obedience, let's think about Isaac's perspective for a minute. Isaac was a young man, but not a child. Abraham told Isaac what was about to happen, but left out one glaring detail. I wonder if it crossed Isaac's mind at all what Abraham and God were planning for him. Isaac is the obedient son, up to the time that Abraham bound his hands and laid him on the alter. It was not until God saw that Abraham was really going to kill his son that God intervened to provide the ram in the bushes. I wonder how this whole scenario affected Isaac's view of his father.

 First, Isaac had to overcome his father's radical obedience. The first generation of revival had to make radical decisions and take radical stands just to survive. Everything to them was black and white, Heaven or Hell. There was no middle ground. It was, of necessity, a life out of balance for God. 

Isaac had to deal with his father's humanity. Every generation has to deal with the humanity of their parents. They see the radical faith and they see the failure of human nature, and they call them hypocrites and phonies. But Abraham was just human. Your parents and your pastor are just human too. Isaac had to come to grips with the fact that we are all just sinners saved by grace.

We all have to grow up and find balance in our faith if we are going to survive to the end. The soup is never eaten as hot as it is cooked. You cannot stay radical and on fire forever. We all have to find what works in life. Most successful people have learned how to compromise and they have learned that you have to get along with people different from us.

Isaac had to find his own relationship with God. You do not find that by turning your back. You find it by digging your own wells. You can learn from your parents mistakes. And you can benefit from your parents faith.

"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord is giving you." Exod. 20:12

From the beginning of human history, each generation has had to find God and serve the Lord for themselves. God has no grandchildren, only children. 

Isaac never followed his father's example by offering his son Jacob. But he did follow his father's faith to the end. Isaac will be in Heaven. Will you?

Contentment

"Now godliness with contentment is great gain." 1Tim.6:6

I do not get a lot of money each month in retirement. But I learned through life to have a budget and to stick to that budget. So when a bill comes due I just pay it. When repairs become necessary I know that I can hire someone to do the job. People have divorced and backslid over things that I have been through. But I did neither. I am still here and my wife is in Heaven with Christ.  

The only way to lose is to quit. I intend to endure to the end. Christ is the rock of my salvation. I shall not be moved.

"But none of these things move me." Acts 20:24

God is good, all of the time.