A Bachelor Till The Rapture!

 The Bible says that it is not good for a man to be alone. And yet, now that my wife of 40 years is dead and gone, I find that living alone is not so bad. I do not have to ask permission or beg forgiveness from anyone. I do not have to get another's approval for what I do. I do not have to fear facing someone to answer for where I have been.

I have worked hard to succeed at living alone. I know how to do everything to keep a house in order. I get by with help from my family and friends. Besides, I could not support two people on my retirement income.

I think that maybe 40 year of married life was enough for me. Now I consider myself a bachelor till the rapture!

Random Musings

 I know that not many people read what I write here. But for the sake of the few who do read my blog, I continue to share what inspires me.

I am not a pastor. I tried to be one but failed. So for years now I am just a guy who is saved and who is doing what I can to serve the Lord.

A guy who was in one of my churches calls me from time to time. He is so different from me and he sees the world different from me. But he is a fellow widower and is still serving the Lord Jesus.

We are an aging Fellowship. We continue to be a youth oriented Fellowship. Somewhere there is a balance between the new and the old. We need the youth to go. We need the elders to send.

Even though my time in discipleship and church planting is over I still believe in the vision and I support it as I am able.

Peter denied three times that he knew Jesus. Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved Jesus. This is significant.

The first and the last thing Jesus ever spoke to Peter was "follow me". It is all any of us can do.

Pastoral Ministry

 Our pastors are a great blessing to us. They minister to us on so many levels. They may not be experts in every field, but they always can be counted on for spiritual advice. Sometimes I go to a pastor, not just for practical guidance, but for insight relating my circumstances to the will of God and the kingdom of God.

I have learned that sometimes, while I need advice or guidance, it helps our pastors to know what we are thinking about and to know what we are dealing with in life. I have received help from pastor Mitchell because he had already dealt with someone else in similar circumstances.

So pastor, do not be troubled or intimidated by us. We all need help from time to time. And if nothing else, you just might learn something about us that you would never guess just preaching to us.

In marriage, a husband must learn about his wife to stay married to her. In ministry, a pastor must learn about people to be able to minister to real people struggling through life.

Thoughts On Love

 Love is both easy and hard. To love someone will take great effort. Falling in love is a baby step in understanding how to love someone. My question today is do we love God the same as we love people? 

What is love? Is love an emotion or a feeling? Is love a mystery that just happens and we don't know why or how it happens? Is love something that you will know it when you experience it? Is love missed when it is absent?

The Greek word used by the New Testament writers is the word agapao. Agapao is a verb, which means that at it's core love is an action word, not a state of being word. Agapao means love in action or an active experience. Vine says that "love can be known only from the action it prompts". Bible love is not a feeling that you feel, it is an action that you take.

One interesting revelation concerning agapao is this; the same word is used whether it is God's love for people, or people's love for God. God loves us and we are to love Him back. God made a deliberate choice to love us and showed us His love in Christ. We must find a way to show our love for God. How do we love God?

The Bible gives us clear understanding on how we are to love God. We love God by obeying His commands. Obedience is love in action. We love God in worship. Worship is referential love expressed by our words and the attitude of our heart towards God. We love God by loving His people; by having a practical love for others.

God does not want chocolate and flowers. In the old testament He wanted offerings made by fire. For us today He wants us to do what His word says to do. This kind of love is easy at first and grows more challenging the longer we serve Him.

Do you love your enemies? Or do you hate them? Just asking for a Friend.

Dying or Retiring?

 Pope Francis finally died. He has been out of touch for a long time. He has not been in the public eye for a long time. Those closest to him no doubt were just biding their time waiting for him to die. No one expected anything useful from the old pope. He became pathetic in power.

Because God calls men to serve for life, we are forced to watch and listen to them long after they are capable and have anything to do or say worth watching of listening to.

Retirement allows leaders to bow out and to save face and to be remembered as a strong man, not a frail weak shadow of themselves.

It is sad when your only contribution to your ministry is dying so that we can move on from you.

The Cross or the Empty Tomb?

 "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in Heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." 1Peter 1:3-5

It felt strange to me to be in church today on Easter Sunday and to hear two sermons and one special music song about the cross. While the cross is critical to God's plan of redemption, the cross was three days and three nights before and today the focus is the empty tomb. 

The cross is about what Jesus did. The empty tomb is about the future. The cross is old news. The resurrection speaks of something alive and new and forward looking. The text calls it a living hope. There can be no resurrection without the cross. The hope is about what is next.

Jesus rose from the dead after three days and three nights. He will never go back on the cross ever again. We seem intent to keep Christ on the cross instead of declaring Him to be alive and active today. This is more catholic than Christian.

We are kept by God's power for a salvation yet to be attained according to verse 5. It is reserved in Heaven for us who are saved now.

"receiving the end of your faith-the salvation of your souls." 1Peter 1:9

There is more to come in Christ!

Peter and the apostles were witnesses of the resurrection, not of the crucifixion. They were the ones who saw Jesus and fellowshipped with him after he rose from the dead.

One more thought. It is because Jesus rose that the Holy Spirit has been poured out to this day. This is why it is called a living hope. Not a crucified hope.

I wonder if it is people who do not have a current and fresh experience with Christ by the Holy Spirit who focus more on the cross than the empty tomb and the upper room.

Pentecost 1.0

 "And being assembled together with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father." Acts 1:4

"Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Acts 1:6

"...It is not for you to know times or seasons..."Acts 1:7

"But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; ..." Acts 1:8

"And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." Acts 2:4

As a Pentecostal church it amazes me how many saints do not speak in tongues for worship or in prayer. Consequentially, they seem to have a hard time worshipping out loud or praying out loud.

Jesus said they needed the Holy Spirit to do His will. They wanted to talk politics.

Jesus told them there are things that are none of their business.

Jesus told them that the power they need to follow Him is in the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Whey they were filled with the Spirit they spoke in other tongues. The tongues of men and angels. A language that God understand even though we do not.

Some churches are so well run that the Holy Spirit could be absent and they would not know it.

Organizations usually are born in revival but are developed by the children of revival. There is more to real revival than numbers. 

To have what we have you have to know what we know and experience what we have experienced. Otherwise you are just a shadow of what we are.

I wonder if we sacrifice truth and experience for growth? Preaching truth is hard on church growth. Speaking in tongues out loud in worship is hard on church growth.

Speaking in tongues is Pentecost 1.0. Until you speak in tongues you are just saved.

You do not speak in tongues to get saved. You can have the Holy Spirit once you are saved.

Jesus is Alive!

 Easter Sunday is a big deal to the Christian world. I think that we Pentecostals have a great advantage over the rest of the Christian world. We believe that, if Jesus rose from the dead, that he is alive forever since that day. We do not wait until Easter to celebrate Christ's resurrection, we celebrate it every day.

Do you heal the sick, cast out devils, set captives free from addiction, or speak in tongues? We do every service, every day. Do you pray? We do, every day individually and often corporately. We believe!

One other things that we do. We do not spend a lot of effort to get Jesus killed on Friday and raised on Sunday to fit our calendars. It takes a lot of theological gymnastics to make that short time into three days and three nights. 

So while we will have church on Sunday, it will be business as usual for us. Another opportunity to see God at work in Christ today!

"Nevertheless, when the son of man comes, will he really find faith on the earth?" Luke 18:8

My Shepherd

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." is the first line of a well known Psalm. I woke up with this verse running through my soul recently. I was reminded of the reality that the Lord Jesus promised to never leave us and to go with us to the end of the age. We are not in this on our own. We do not have to do this in our own strength and ability.

"You are with me" is what the Psalmist says in verse 4. To help us and to protect us and to defend us from all evil. Jesus is and always will be the great shepherd who cares for the sheep. Thank God for that!

The Longsuffering Listener

 I am a good listener. It has served me well in business while I was working. It still serves me well in dealing with people. Some people are good talkers while I am a good listener. But even I have my limits on how much I want to silently listen to someone. Some people ask me how I am doing, then they begin to tell me how they are doing and they seem to not care at all about me.

I am polite and I would never tell a friend to just shut up. But one thing that I can do is stop calling them or seeking them out to converse with. Being long suffering is not the same as being forever suffering.

I wonder if God ever gets tired of us like that? Does He ever hear us pray and say, oh, it's them again. Same old thing again and again. I don't think so. 

I will continue to listen and I will speak up if given a chance. And if you only care about yourself, then I will leave you to your own company.

Made In God's Image

 "Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to  our likeness;....So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them." Gen.1:26,27

Artificial intelligence can do a lot. But it has great trouble creating an image of people. It makes them look  plastic. It makes their eyes look dead and vacant. It can make them look too perfect, while not making them close to perfect at all. It takes male and female, the way we were created, and makes them look like Barbie and Ken dolls.

AI will always be artificial. Machine learning is severely limited. The best we can create pales in comparison the the basic elements of God's creation. We can make an image and likeness that can speak and demand worship, but we cannot create a being that can hope or dream or love or reproduce. Machines may build other machines, but it takes male and female to create a baby.

You want to know what God is like? Look around. He is portrayed in every human around you. Sickness or deformity or birth defect may mar that image. We can pierce and tattoo our bodies to mar the image. But no matter what happens or what we do, we are still human, created in God's image. We are human down to the DNA level. We are male and female at the cellular level.

God created us and He gave us a perfect place to live. Sin is what's wrong with us. God gave us Christ to take care of even that. The least you could be is grateful.

Darwin was not just wrong. He was a rebel and an unbeliever and a liar. He has given an unbelieving world a reason to blaspheme God.

It Is Well With My Soul

Is The Prize Worth The Price?

 Many years ago pastor Mitchell told me that, while he was grateful for all that the Lord had done in Prescott, he was not content to see growth stop. The Prescott church was then about 500 people. Pastor said he wanted 1000 people. But the real nugget of truth came when he told me that truth is hard on church growth.

Are there any conservative, tongue talking Pentecostal mega-churches in America today? Most mega churches have done away with open worship and replaced it with entertainment. No speaking in tongues or prophecy or other gifts of the Spirit. God could be absent from their service and they would not know it.

I wonder if, in order to attract a large audience to your church, you have to find the least common denominator to agree to. Which, for most mega churches, is salvation in Jesus Christ. If you have Jesus, you have enough. Even if having Jesus does not change how you live or dress or talk. We, in order to grow, have become entertainers and marketers, and we have stopped being evangelists.

The Prescott church has grown since then. But not with the dramatic growth of it's early days. They have attracted some elderly retirees and retirement transplants. But our preaching and our lack of programs is a turn-off to people from other churches.

It seems to me that if we are to be true to our founding and true to our Fellowship, we might disqualify ourselves from being mega churches. Can we be content to just preach the Gospel, win souls, make disciples, and plant churches? Or is our ego hurt by not being big and influential?

This is an issue, not for a small church or a church that is experiencing dramatic early growth. This is an issue for a larger, more mature church who has a lot but wants more. Is the prize worth the price?

A Pentecostal Church

 Sunday night service pastor Greg prayed for the sick. He called for different conditions to come up. One of those conditions was heart issues. So I joined with others with heart conditions up on stage. Pastor Greg prayed for us all. There is no pain or discomfort so there was no feeling of instant relief. But he prayed, and I believed.

Since then, two brothers who I told about this went to great lengths to advise me not to get my hopes up. They had no problem believing that I had heart failure. They had a big problem believing that the Lord had healed me completely. 

There are people in our churches who are saved but who do not speak in tongues and who do not believe that the Lord can heal today. They are those who do not believe in the spiritual or the supernatural. Spirits, angels, demons, etc. are not real to them. They say that the Bible is God's word, but they do not believe it is true except in salvation. They are more Baptist than Pentecostal.

We are a Pentecostal church in a Pentecostal Fellowship. We speak in tongues. We believe in Divine healing. We believe in deliverance from demons. We believe that if Christ is risen, then He is alive today and He is able and willing to do today what He did in Bible days.

Our brethren do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. Amen.

A Difference

 There is a difference between the people in the seats and the men on stage. It is not just a difference in status or responsibility. It is not a better or worse idea. It is just different.

First, pastors do not clap their hands all the way through a fast song, but people do.

Second, pastors do not lift their hands and close their eyes all the way through the worship slow songs, but people in the seats do.

And something that I noticed last night. Before pastor Rubi got to the pulpit to receive a love offering for pastor Greg, pastor Greg was already out the back door and on his way to the airport for his trip back home to Prescott. So no hanging around after service like many of the people do.

I do not say this to be critical. It is just a difference that to me is obvious. Pastors are responsible for every person in attendance. I am responsible for me. I do not have the care for the whole church on my shoulders like our pastors do. A pastor can tell things about the health of his church during the song service. He has to keep an eye on things that happen while we worship. So excuse him if he is not as exuberant in his worship as you are. He has a lot more to think about than you do.

Enough is Enough!

 I have 4 doctor appointments this month. By the end of April I will find out what the Lord did for me with pastor Greg praying for the sick Sunday night. I have no symptoms and I have no pain. All I have is the cardiologist tests telling me that I have a weak heart. I take pills. I eat a strange diet. I say enough is enough!

My Prayer

 I have reached a point in life where I am not asking the Lord for miracle healing, but rather that He would give me strength to endure what lies ahead for me. I believe that as our days, so shall our strength be. I believe that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Amen.

I have years yet to live ahead of me. I delight to do God's will and to follow Jesus to the end.

How about you?