Having gone through the death of our child several years ago, my wife offers some very practical, helpful biblical advice.
http://www.refreshher.blogspot.com/2014/09/comforting-grieving-parents.html
Month: September 2014
Celebrating National Coffee Day
Yesterday was a special day—National Coffee Day!! Now’s that a sure celebration waiting to happen!! So as I poured my first cup, I celebrated as I added my always present favorite cream peppermint mocha and took a sip! Then I poured another cup into my UK Wildcats mug just as I had done before and celebrated once again! This same event happened a third and fourth time as the morning moved along.
To add happiness upon happiness, I received an email from my favorite coffee source, Dunkin Donuts, inviting me to stop by their store and enjoy a free cup of the new brew of dark roast! So, as I drove from one hospital visit to the next, a stop at DD caused another celebratory moment! Since I love coffee so much and drink it from morning until night, I celebrate all day!!
As I prepared one of my cups yesterday morning and took a picture of it for Facebook and Instagram, the thought occurred to me, “This thing of celebrating should be an every day event for the followers of Christ!” Yes, I really do love my coffee, and I love to celebrate, but genuine rejoicing and celebration is the grace gift of every believer in Christ! We should celebrate all day, every day, throughout the day, . . . just like drinking coffee!!
Why should we celebrate?
- We have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:3).
- We have an inheritance reserved in heaven for us that is incorruptible, undefiled and will not fade away (1 Peter 1:4).
- Our salvation is secured by the power of God forever (1 Peter 1:5).
- We can rejoice in the midst of suffering (1 Peter 1:6-9).
- We can rejoice that trials have a “shelf-life” (1 Peter 1:6).
- The character of our faith in trials will one day testify of Christ (1 Peter 1:7).
- The more we know of Christ and abide in Him, the more we have to celebrate and be joyful (1 Peter 1:8).
- We can enjoy our salvation today (1 Peter 1:9).
- God’s Word is eternal (1 Peter 1:25)
I have just mentioned a very few reasons to celebrate! So, if you are a born again believer, a true follower of Jesus Christ, today is a day of celebration of all we have in Christ for time and eternity! So, take a drink of coffee and celebrate!
Friday’s Findings
As we close out this week, I’m sharing some links/blogs that have impacted me this week. I believe they will be of encouragement to you.
Christ’s Body: The Mission of the Church —Watch as Jason Ormiston delivers a message that all believers need to hear. (Bob Jones University Chapel, September 24, 2014)
- You would also be greatly edified by listening to Dr. Steve Pettit’s messages on Walking in the Spirit.
How I Learned to Win Souls — You will find this practical post by a dear man of God, Dr. Don Sisk, to be a rich blessing in obedience to the Great Commission. One other feather in his cap is the fact that he is a UK Wildcat fan! 😉
Parenting – Have We Lost Our Way?— How grateful that we have the blessed opportunity to support this family on the mission field. Here are some very timely questions that need to be answered in regards to modern-day parenting. If you are a parent, please read and answer with genuine honesty and transparency. Here is hope for you.
Are You Leeching the Local Church? — Enough said.
Eliminating and Concentrating — Help for busy ladies!
You Are the Best!
In keeping with my theme of gratitude for this week, I must tell you about one particular person that tops them all.
- She prays constantly with great passion and assurance.
- She studies the Word because she has a personal relationship with its Author.
- She knows me better than anyone, and yet she loves me unconditionally.
- She is my number one cheerleader.
- She is a lady of character.
- She loves the ministry, especially with children and women.
- She has always been by my side.
- She truly fears the Lord.
- She knows how to make a house a home.
- She thirsts for discipleship.
- She memorizes the Word.
- She lives what she believes and knows about her God.
- She is unselfish.
- She loves to laugh and once-in-awhile be ornery.
- She is willing to try something new and out of her comfort zone.
- She takes the hits sometimes that are unwarranted, unkind, and directed at me.
- She has given her life to the best mom possible.
- She continues to do the best thing for her husband, daughters and son-in-laws, pray.
- She weeps with those who weep and rejoices with those who rejoice.
- She speaks with wisdom.
- She works hard.
- She rises early.
- She is hospitable.
- She has overcome my unreal expectations and become a humble, faithful servant.
- She is an excellent teacher and a good learner.
- She has endured trials that have broken her heart.
- She sings with a melodic, soothing voice that comes from her heart.
- She makes me proud to call her mine.
She is my precious wife that God gave me over 33 years ago. She is the mother of our three precious daughters. She is the “Tonto” that keeps me from being the “Lone Ranger.” Outside of my personal salvation, she is the greatest grace gift God has bestowed on me. Thank you, Sweetheart, for who you are and what you do. You are the best!!
Thank You For Serving!
It happens almost every Sunday night. After a very full day of ministry, at some point between leaving church or an after-church fellowship and getting into bed for a good night of rest, I find myself looking back over the day with a sense of amazement and awe. So very much happened!! I can still hear the voices of people sharing their burdens, singing their hearts out, asking life questions, telling me of answers to prayer, sharing a testimony; the chatter, the children, the laughter, the tears, the “Pastor, what about . . .?”, etc. Then I go back over Sunday School class, the AM Service and the PM Service as well as replay my preaching over and over wishing I had said that or left out that.
Somewhere in those thoughts comes to mind ALL the people involved in ministry throughout the day at BCBC that serve upfront and behind the scenes. They are those who set up the gym for SS and then put away the tables and chairs, those who come to early prayer meeting, sound room workers doing a multitude of things for sight and sound, greeters ready to welcome and be hospitable, one who gets an umbrella and walks people from their car to the carport in the pouring rain or parks the cars for some of our ladies, nursery workers dealing with precious and sometimes not so precious babies, janitors, deacons who are all over the place doing seven things at once, coffee makers providing that ever-needed java jolt, secretary work that didn’t end on Friday, teachers leading their classes, musicians playing and singing, people being intentional to reach other people with a hand-shake and a smile or the gospel, and on and on it goes throughout a typical Sunday. The purpose of this blog today is to say to all who serve at BCBC on Sundays as well as Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, THANK YOU!
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58).
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:3-6).
So Thankful!!
As I read the following blog post, Undercover At Oprah Conference, my heart responded with gratitude as well! I am so thankful the Lord has led Boones Creek Bible Church to use the Answers In Genesis Sunday School material to instruct the whole congregation in a harmonious study of God’s Word. I am so thankful that God’s people are learning to give a biblical response for what they believe (1 Peter 3:15). I am so thankful that more and more people are getting on board and growing together in community through Sunday School. I am so thankful that we are learning the Truth, personally applying the Truth, proclaiming the Truth, and watching the Truth change lives. I am so thankful we will one day stand face-to-face with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6), and live with Him forever!
Really?
Teacher: “So why didn’t you get your homework completed and handed in on time?
Student: “Well, I left it on the table and my dog ate it!”
Teacher: “Why were you absent from school yesterday?”
Student: “I didn’t come to school yesterday because I was feeling like I was going to be sick, but thankfully I wasn’t!”
Pastor: “We missed you last Sunday?”
Church Member: “I worked late all week and was too tired to get up.” “My son had a ballgame.” “We needed to spend time with the family.”
Pastor: “Why haven’t you been attending church?”
Church Member: “I like a smaller church.” “There’s too many hypocrites down there.” “The church isn’t friendly anymore.” “The church doesn’t meet my needs.”
People are experts at making excuses. We use excuses to make an allowance for a failure, to make us look good, to shy away from having to fulfill an obligation, and to soothe our conscious, just to name a few.
In Luke 9, we find Jesus responding to three excuse-makers who really did not want to follow Christ. As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus[g] said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:57-62). These three excuses were wrapped up in “creature comforts, family ties, and divided loyalties,” and they all sounded legitimate.
Are you into making excuses for not being a sold-out follower of Christ? May I kindly say that many of the excuses used are a manifestation of elementary Christian living equal to the boy’s excuse of the dog eating his homework. The bottom line is, we can do anything we ought to do, and we do what we want to do.
Question: How will your excuses work for you when you stand before Christ at the Bema? “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” (2 Corinthians 5:10)
A Better Life Now
Better to be lowly and have a servant, than to play the great man and lack bread (Proverbs 12:9)
Better is little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble with it (Proverbs 15:16).
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it (Proverbs 15:17).
Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice (Proverbs 16:8).
Better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver (Proverbs 16:16).
Better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud (Proverbs 16:19).
Better is dry morsel with quiet than a house full feasting with strife (Proverbs 17:1).
Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool (Proverbs 19:1)
Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways (Proverbs 28:6).
Are you living the better life now as you await the best life in Glory or does selfishness, strife, sin, and spoiled kids and adults reign in your home and world?
A Broken Down Shuttered House
Recently while visiting with a dear saint of God, I listened as she reminisced about her old home place and said, “The last time I was there, the house was run down and the grass had grown up around it. Why, it didn’t even look like it used to. Even the church I attended is not as pretty as it used to be, and they only have one or two services a month.” As I sat there looking at what age and the curse of sin had done to this dear lady, pinching its wrinkles in her face, causing her to use a walker for stability, and making her wish for times of fellowship at church and in town with her friends, this passage of Scripture came to my mind.
For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, 3 if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. 4 For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. 6 So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:1-8)
While listening, I could not help but notice the twinkle in her eye accompanied by the precious smile etched on her face as she recounted days gone by. Within moments, she said, “So many people are unhappy these days. Me? I’m happy. I’m content. I’m ready to go Home whenever the Lord is ready to call me.” It did my heart good to listen to the lilt in her voice and to see her God-prepared confidence that someday soon she would exchange the old broken down shuttered house for a glorified habitation not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
The Life and Death of a Vapor
While eating dinner yesterday in celebration of a dear lady’s 89th birthday, the server came to clear off our table. The “birthday girl” was still working on her plate, and she said to the server, “I’ll be finished in a moment.” With that I said, “Take your time. You’ve waited 89 years for this!” That sounds like a long time.
Yesterday evening, my wife and I attended a memorial service for a man found dead in his apartment at the age of 38. The words spoken by his father during the service were, “My son lived 78 years in those 38 because he got all he could out of life!”
Interesting, that in the same day, my wife and I would celebrate a birth and then later on sit through a memorial service; life and death.
The truth is, no matter if you truly live to be 89 or try to squeeze 78 years into 38, time is fleeting and life is but a vapor. James 4:14 reminds us, For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
A gentleman who spoke at the memorial service is a well-known artist in Kentucky and pastor. In his message, he said, “I used to make good money painting, but that is not my goal anymore. It is telling others about the brevity of life and the gospel.”
So the question comes, what will you do with your “vapor”? What are you doing right now with your “vapor”? James goes on to give us the answer to those questions, Instead you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil (4:15-16). The Lord wills that you be born again, The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). God wills that you have a true view of Him and His Son, for only when you do are you really ready to live! God is in total control of your vapor. He started it, and He knows when it will end. Life is a vapor, but only God can give substance to what is so fleeting (John 10:10, 28-30).
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