The Genius of the Bible

 When you have read and studied the Bible for as as long as I have you begin to wonder as much about what is not there as you do about what is there. I call this the missing information. Details about Bible characters that are not recorded for us; what did they think or feel or do? Time goes by in some place so that years pass in a single verse. I have read and conversed about these issues over the years with like minded brothers.

Today, as I was reading about song writing, I began to understand the wisdom of God in not answering every question. Pop songs contain enough truth about life or people to make them believable. A songwriter can write about things that he has never experienced and we fill in the missing information as the listener as it suits us at the time.

God gave us the Word in truth and it is God's self revelation to mankind in the Bible. The Bible is a book about Christ, who he is and where he came from and why he came at all. The Bible stories are real stories about real people who lived in history and their encounters with the God of the ages. The Bible is true, but it is not a history book. By not answering every question God is not holding back what we need; He is making His word so that all people in all places and at all times could read and understand and benefit from what is there. This is genius on God's part.

I am grateful for pastors who rightly divide the word of truth and who take the eternal word and make it apply to my circumstances today. Just explaining Bible stories is not enough. You must give us a word for today that applies to today's situations. God is faithful to speak to anyone with ears to hear. 

To God Be The Glory

 The older I get and the more I ponder what has happened I stand amazed at the wisdom and power of God. God, who knows the end from the beginning. God, who sees and knows and who is able to bring His will to pass in human history. God, who created us and who by the Holy Spirt sustains us. God who in Christ has perfected that which concerns us.

Wise men and women have discovered truths in math and science and the humanities and they think they are pretty smart. Smarter than me, but God created and orchestrated the things which wise people only later discover. Their failure is in not giving God the glory for what He has done.

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

Conference is Coming

Our conference is just around the corner. Since this will be our first conference in our new building I am expecting larger than normal crowds to be here. Plus, our missionaries who have been prevented from coming in years past will be here. All in all we are expecting this to be a great conference.

We are blessed to have pastor Warner and pastor Greg speaking at our conference this year. Most of the men who are preaching are unknown to me. Part of my learning curve is learning who these men are and where they come from.

What makes a successful conference? First, having workers sent out on Friday night is the evidence we long for. Also, were the messages timely and helpful to those in attendance? Did the SA saints do their jobs well? Did the money come in to cover both the cost of the conference and the launching of missionaries? These are easy metrics to measure.

Pray for us. We want the Lord to be honored by all that is said and done at conference. We want everyone to be in good health and to be at peace with one another. Pray for our pastors for strength and wisdom.

Leaders Lead

 The Marines have an interesting precept that they follow. Basically it is officers eat last. This is played out in actual expression during meals where it is customary for the senior officers present to serve the lowest boots first and then they eat after everyone else is served. This is an attitude that puts people first before everything else.

In business it has been modified to leaders eat last. I cannot explain it all right here right now. But it is an attitude of serving that values people and allows people to grow and excel even involving failure.

Pastor Mitchell was a master at this.

There are no good leaders or bad leaders or great leaders. There are leaders and there are followers. You are either a leader by your actions or you are not. We have a lot of managers who the Lord called hirelings. We have few true leaders.

This is a deep topic. I do not know all that there is to know. But it is worth looking into.

The Next 20 Years

 A dear saint in the Prescott church recently died. Toni Pena was sister Mona Warner's mother. She had been in the Prescott church a long time. She was 92 years old when she died.

Sister Toni's death was a sobering thing for me. If I live as long as her that gives me about 25 more years. What am I to do with the next 20 years? Is my life destined to be 20 years of what I am doing now? I do not have all of the skills that I would need to work again. I don't need the money from working. What is a man in my situation to do?

Any ideas?

True Genius

 I was thinking about pastor Mitchell today. About how a simple man of average intelligence could become such a towering person in our growing Fellowship. I was thinking about the genius of discipleship and church planting. And it is amazing how we take for granted the wonder of this whole thing.

Pastor Mitchell was a man of God. He was not the biggest or the brightest man in the world. But he was uniquely called and gifted by God for what God had chosen him to to. To his credit pastor Mitchell was not disobedient to his Heavenly vision. He applied himself to his calling and he worked at his ability to minister to people. We have seen it first hand. We have been blessed by his ministry to us. 

The mystery of gifting and calling is simply that a man can pray and fast and study and preach and do everything that pastor Mitchell did and still not be pastor Mitchell. There is a unique almost innate quality that separates men into different levels of success. There are 5 talent, 2 talent, and 1 talent people. There is a mystery to all of this. The thing we need to do is to do our best and not compare ourselves to others. 

Our Fellowship is based on the dignity of the local church. Self governing, self propagating, and self supporting. We are not an organization looking to universities to fill pastoral slots. We work with young men who feel called and we take the time and give them the tools to succeed in the ministry. Conference is a time for challenging men and for directing men and for moving the Fellowship further down the line. The wisdom of this whole process is amazing to see.

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

What is Heaven Like?

 People say that Heaven is enough just to be with Jesus. Doing what? Just sitting around looking at him? We have the Bible so what can he teach us, now that we are there with him?

Marriage is not just being with someone. Marriage works while living life and raising children and growing old together. Marriage works while surviving the ups and downs of living. The relationship is a blessing not by hanging out all day every day but by the security of knowing that the person you married will be there and glad to see you most of the time.

Heaven may not be our permanent home in eternity. The Bible talks about a new heaven and a new earth and new Jerusalem and something to do in eternity.

I find that the Bible says very little about living in Heaven. It is where God lives. It is where Christ is. It is a real place. Who we are and what we do is not very clear. So I guess we don't need to know.

Things New and Old

 Here is something that has occurred to me. As long as pastor Mitchell was alive there were pastors in our Fellowship who felt like young men. They felt like they were still on track and that they could still do what pastor Mitchel had done. Now that pastor Mitchell is dead I wonder if they are beginning to feel old. I wonder if they are thinking about a vacation or a sabbatical?

Churches that have had the same pastor for a long time on one hand are fortunate. On the other hand, they too live in a world of make believe, thinking that things are great and that God is moving and that as long as pastor is there we are alright. I wonder what will happen to those aging churches once their pastor dies or ceases to be able to function?

When Moses died there was no guarantee that things would continue. As long a Moses was there they felt secure. Once Moses died and Joshua assumed leadership things changed. Fortunately, all of the older men were dead. So the next generation, with Joshua as their leader, went in and took possession of the Promised Land. 

We tend to look at life like it will never change. We adopt reference points and landmarks to assure ourselves that we are on track and that everything is as it ought to be. But life is not static and life moves on with or without our cooperation. No all events are life changing. But life by it's very nature implies change over time. How we adapt or adjust to a changing landscape will determine whether we remain or whether we spin off into the nether land of memories and reminiscing.

I have noticed how, since I moved here, some people seemed hungry to know about Prescott and pastor Mitchell and the early days. They are both interested in history and also worried about how things will change with him not there. For me, pastor Mitchell is a part of my past, but my life if forward facing. I am not as concerned about the past as I am anxious to know what next. Will I recognize it as genuine? Will I be able to be a part of what happens next?

History tells us how we got here. Prophecy tells us where we are going.

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

Paradise Lost

 Adam and Eve lived in paradise. The Garden of Eden was paradise to them. It was nature in perfection. Temperate, bountiful, peaceful. Sin drove man out of paradise. Because of sin paradise was lost.

For us who are saved paradise is a city, New Jerusalem. A city said to be 1500 miles cubed. This is a massive city where things that we count as valuable now are building materials there. It is stately and well lit and well watered. Someone said it was about 600,000 stories high. All of the saved will be living there.

It looks like paradise was lost forever. We will never live in a garden like the first people. We will be busy doing kingdom business. Will we live in separate cubicles or will we live in bunkhouses with men on one floor and women on another floor? Heaven is the place we want to go and it is the place promised to us who endure to the end. But Heaven is hard to describe in a way that we can understand.

One final thought. Who are the nations that we will rule over in eternity? Where do they live and what do they do? Are they saved? Are they wicked? I do not know.

A Critical Need Today

 We have taken one verse and made it the primary doctrine of our Fellowship. Mark 16:15. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Okay, that has been our marching orders and we are doing what we were commanded to do.

There is another doctrine that is also based on a particular verse found in Genesis chapter 2. It is not good for the man to be alone. And verse 24 says therefore a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Marriage is still the first and the primary human relationship and we are in trouble if we ignore this. The devil attacks marriage as hard as he attacks morals and entices to sin. We are in the midst of a generation of people who reject the Bible and reject marriage and look at the mess we are in today. 

We tell girls that they are smart and strong and that they can succeed in a man's world. And those girls believe that until they wake up and find out that it was all a lie. But by then it's too late.

Pastor Mitchell helped a generation of hippies get saved and get married and start families. It was not just church planting in the early days. Today we have kids at church who find being single unfulfilling but can't seem to find a way to change their status. Maybe they need our help. Or are we willing to let the Catholics and the Mormons be the champions of marriage and family while we go into all the world focused like a laser beam on only one thing.

I hope that our focus on winning the world hasn't blinded us to the desperate need for a revival of marriage in our Fellowship.

Conference Thoughts

 Our conference is just around the corner. The push is on to get ready for the crowds that will gather. Pastor Mitchell used to say that the Prescott conference is a people's conference. I never understood that. Conference is a time to focus on the vision of our Fellowship: evangelism, discipleship, church planting, and missionaries. It is not a time to feed the flock of God. It is a time for the local church to do the work that enables pastors and missionaries to have a place where they can be ministered to.

Not only is it a time of ministry, it is a time for people to remember where they come from. It is a place where we know you by your first name, not your title. It is a place where men of God can answer the alter call. It is a time for reminding big men that they are still just men. Success in ministry can be a heady thing. Conference brings everything back into proper perspective.

This conference will be the first time in years that some of our foreign field workers will be able to attend since covid. I hope they do not bring and microbial guests with them. I got corona virus in January 2020 thanks to the Chinese delegates that attended the Prescott conference. I am not paranoid. I am not foolish either.

Work like it depends on you, pray like it depends on God, is very evident right now. I am asking God to visit this conference and to do what we still cannot do. Amen!

Is Growth The Answer?

 Nothing grows forever. People are born, they grow at first, then they level off at a certain size and ability. Beyond that they spend the rest of their lives maintaining and perfecting what God gave them but never getting any bigger. This is true in all of life. Things begin and they grow to a certain size and then growth stops and they level off before they decline with age. Trees do not grow forever, neither do churches.

Some of our frustration and wasted effort in life revolves around our failure to come to grips with who we are and what we do. We tend to think that growth is the answer to every problem. That we can grow ourselves out of any situation or trouble. We spend billions of dollars every year trying to change ourselves and make ourselves bigger and better and faster and stronger. 

In the book of Acts we see a pattern for the church. But we read that story and we mistakenly infer that the early church grew exponentially for decades until the death of the first apostles. That is being ignorant of history. Most of the events in Acts happened in a period of under 5 years from Pentecost.

The Prescott church grew fast at first. But hasn't grown much since. So has our church. But we think that the answer is more outreach and bigger buildings and we think that what worked in the explosive growth era is the answer for every phase of a churches life.

What if we spent a little more effort maintaining what God has given us? What if we, while leaving the 99 to look for the one, cared for the 99 also? 

They tell us that the universe is expanding. Not growing, just spreading out. God is no bigger today than He has ever been. But we believe that if God is involved then growth is inevitable. I say that maybe we are missing something. Maybe we are pursuing something that has never worked and has never been true. 

Serving Our Generation

 "For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, was buried with his fathers, and saw corruption." Acts 13:36

I have heard pastor Mitchel preach from this verse before. Pastor Rubi preached on it tonight. He used the passing of Queen Elizabeth as his launching point. He talked about the kingdom of God. 

Pastor Mitchell served his generation by the will of God. Pastor Cluck the same. So did John Metzler. These were all men of God who ministered to us. They are all gone from the scene.

The question for us is are we willing to serve our generation by the will of God? If we are still alive we have time. Once you are dead your chance to obey is over.

Do What You Can

 Last night, since the ladies had a get together, my friend invited the men in our home Bible study to come to his house for fellowship. I thought that this was a good idea. So I went. Only one other man came.

This is why I do not have things at my house or invite people to come fellowship at my house. I hate getting excited only to have no one show up. Some people can generate a crowd and provide a place where people want to hang out. Others, like me, do not have that gift.

Instead of doing things that don't work and expecting the Lord to do the work, why not stick to what works for us and be content with that? We all have our part to play. It is in our best interest to do what we can and let others do what they can.

I may never have anyone visit me. But I am grateful for everyone who has included me on their list to visit them. I am good at being a guest.

Ten Reasons To Serve The Lord

 We all know the 10 commandments. Some of us could recite them from memory. I revisited them this morning. Here is what I was thinking. Of the 10, 8 are things not to do. Only 2 are things we are encouraged to do. Honor the Lord's day. Honor your parents. 

Evidently people have more trouble staying out of trouble than for doing right.

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy." Exodus 20:8

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

Dynamite and Dynamos

 On the day of Pentecost the church received power in the Holy Spirit. It was that power, not their dedication or commitment or faith that drove them. The initial wave of what we call revival lasted a little over 3 years. The influence and the effect of that initial wave brought the Gospel to the whole world.

The word power is the Greek word dunamis. It is a word from which we also get dynamite. But there is another nuance of meaning to suggest that it applies to the word dynamo. Dynamite is power in a destructive sense. They use dynamite to blow things up and to break down barriers. It is used in armaments and in construction and in mining. Dynamo is a power generator that provides electricity to our farms and factories and office buildings and our homes. It is a stream of power that is useful for improving and sustaining life and society.

Both of these two applications are seen in genuine revival. Revival often begins with large numbers of people getting saved. Miraculous growth. Our church and our Fellowship were born in genuine revival. But history tells us that nothing grows exponentially forever. And in our experience growth tapers off but the influence doesn't wane. We still outreach. We still disciple men. We still plant churches and support missionaries. We still have conferences. Look at what has happened in our Fellowship since those humble beginnings in Prescott in 1970. Look what has happened in our church in it's short history.

When revival begins it's come on, let's go! When the dust clears and we wonder what to do we just do what we know to do and continue following the old familiar paths.

A Question

 When we come together in a church service who are we there for? Is our focus on Christ and on God and worshipping Him? Or is our focus on the lost and on visitors to impress them? Is Sunday morning a worship service or an evangelistic service? We have been taught to give an invitation in every service. Should we dispense with worship and just preach the Gospel? Or should we offer up praise and thanks to the one who saved us and to the Father who loves us? This is two very different approaches.

My Social Media Fast

 I am not a heavy social media user. I use about 3 services. But one is enough to be a huge time waster more than anything. So I decided to take a break from social media. For the month of September my social media accounts are suspended. At the end of the month I will reevaluate my position to see if I need them anymore.

Family was the driving force behind social media. My children lived far away and so this was one way to keep up with them. That is not the case anymore. Also, I had to admit that social media is not targeting people like me. I am not the demographic that advertisers are aiming for.  And the tipping point came when I got bored with it. Look at one thing and you get overwhelmed with the same thing. 

I am feeling the withdrawal symptoms a little. I find myself wanting to post my thoughts or to post my ideas and I have to wait to write on my blogs to do that now. It is funny how shallow everything becomes when you post without thinking it through.

So my phone has no social media on it now. My laptop and my tablet have no social media apps running.

I am not a luddite. I find some modern technology useful. I also find some tech a solution looking for a problem or creating a need that wasn't there before.

Labor Day Plans

 Tomorrow is Labor Day. Not a big holiday but it is a holiday. My daughter has a cold and so I wondered if she had any plans for supper including me. So far no. I reached out to another friend and tonight he told me yes. So by virtue of friends and family my holiday get together is taken care of.

If I were in my old house I would be spending Labor Day alone. That is one reason why I am glad that I live here. This church among many positive attributes is very friendly and welcoming to me.

My Thoughts on Bridget's Funeral.

 Tonight we had a memorial service for Bridget Harris. This was my first funeral for someone that I knew since my wife died. I managed to get through it no problem. That was a breakthrough for me.

Tonight, as people talked about Bridget and her illness, they all talked like they were sure that she would recover and be as good as new. I feel like I may have been the only one who got it right about Bridget and her leukemia. She is in Heaven now. She did not recover.

This was my first funeral in this church. It was so different than any funeral that I have ever been to. Two and a half hours long! And then refreshments afterwards. They do things different here than I am used to. It is good for me to be stretched in my experience.

The only funeral service that I have seen that was bigger than this one was pastor Mitchell's. We had a huge crowd tonight. Bridget touched a lot of people.

My daughter summed it up. Bridget loved God and she loved people.

Bridget was not the one for me. But I am grateful that I got to know her the way that I did.

PS: I take no joy in being right about the outcome of Bridget's leukemia. Nursing my wife through sickness and then death made me aware of things that others do not see or sense. I knew she was dying. I prayed for her to have peace and strength through the treatments. And I prayed for her family to be strong and to not give up once she was gone. God heard my prayers.

Prayer Request

 Please pray for Joe Rubi. He is getting older. He is not doing well. He is reaching a point where he will no longer be able to drive. he has physical problems that make attending church risky. And he is inclined to move back to Arizona in the spring. 

It is hard growing old, especially when you are alone. Join with me in praying that the Lord will strengthen and sustain him and that he will have peace and wisdom to know what to do as life runs out for him.

The Blessing of our Pastor

 It was good to have pastor Rubi back home last night. He is a busy man and he is in demand around the Fellowship. Our assistant pastors are good men and they do a good job to fill in when pastor is gone. But, just like in Prescott, there is something about your pastor being there makes everything seem like it is alright.

"For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers;..." 1Cor.4:15

Pastor Rubi reminded us of David's words in Psalm 27:13 last night. And he encouraged us not to give up but rather to trust God that He will help us and that it isn't over yet. I am grateful for the Word and for my pastor and for this amazing church.

"I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." Psalm 27:13