Category: Uncategorized

Be ready in season and out of season —2 Timothy 4:2   It’s Kairos Season again. Three times a year a retreat is held at one of the camps at Angola. Preparations begin weeks in advance with weekly training meetings. The first such meeting was Saturday. I’m not a big fan of meetings, but I enjoyed the fellowship and the beginning excitement as we look forward to another retreat when God always shows up. I left Baton Rouge excited and ready for more. Within a few hours of my return to Lafayette I was burned out and exhausted. I know that the work God has for me here is at least as important as that at Angola. Why is the daily work of baby sitting and such not so exciting and terribly exhausting? ““Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season.” In other words, we should “be ready” whether we feel like it or not. If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would never do anything. There are some people who are totally unemployable in the spiritual realm. They are spiritually feeble and weak, and they refuse to do anything […]

When we are not admiring our church buildings or puffing up over our “body of work” in the kingdom, we are counting souls. How many were at service? How many came forward? How full are the parking lots and the pews. There are a multitude of  problems with this. First, we don’t add a single soul to the kingdom, that’s the work of the Holy Spirit. Second, our job is not salvation and sanctification, those are the work of God’s grace.    Our job is not to save souls, but to disciple them. It’s a lot tougher to measure success in the disciplining business and that’s a good thing. A disciple is a “follower.” You can’t make someone a “follower” by teaching them or preaching to them or conveying information to them. You can only make followers by example. It takes a follower to make a follower. Here are some good tips. As we follow Him, we give example and become carriers of His light. That provokes others to follow and we are discipline. We can’t measure success or count noses. We just have a joyful sense that we’ve moved closer to Him. One becomes a convert in an […]

One day this week I watched “Angels and Demons.” In the movie the Tom Hanks character rushes from magnificent church to magnificent church in Rome trying to prevent murders. His problem is figuring out in which magnificent church the next murder will occur. I eventually (being so quick-witted and all) decided that maybe there are too many magnificent churches, at least in Rome. I once was a member of a church fellowship that had no building at all. We referred to it as the “Church without Walls.” It was a great church. After a few years, we lost our first pastor and gained a building. The “church” was never the same. I have friends who belong to a fellowship that worships in a magnificent building. I like to kid them about it, asking how many bibles could be  bought or missionaries could be supported on what it took to build and keep up the magnificent structure. Okay, so sometimes I’m a bit of a jerk. Of course it’s not just physical “works” that can be a problem. “Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers […]

We all, with unveiled face, beholding . . . the glory of the Lord . . . —2 Corinthians 3:18 Yesterday we discussed seeing Jesus in our kinsmen. We must remember the benefit comes from the glimpse at Christ and not from viewing the vessel from which He shines at any time.  Further, the vessels can fail. “[D]isappointments will come— people who used to be lights will flicker out, and those who used to stand with us will turn away. We have to get so used to it that we will not even realize we are standing alone. Paul said, “. . . no one stood with me, but all forsook me . . . . But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me . . .” (2 Timothy 4:16-17). We must build our faith not on fading lights but on the Light that never fails.  We spread the light of Christ by absorbing that light in His presence and taking it to the world. We “eat” of Christ and “work” at our duties in the world. Having absorbed Him we can not help but carry His  light that can no.  As we work, we should carry out […]

“We look for God to exhibit Himself to His children, but God only exhibits Himself in His children. And while others see the evidence, the child of God does not.” I have long believed that church sanctuaries need to be re-arranged. We sit folks in straight rows. We don’t look at or consider the child of God sitting next to us. Sure we look at the worship team and the preacher, but if God exhibits Himself in His children aren’t we missing something. Not only do we not look at the other children of God with whom we gather, we don’t hear from them or communicate with them. Oh, we have fellowship times and those are great. But during those times we share very superficially. We don’t learn what God is really doing in the lives of his children. We don’t know each other’s struggles, problems or fears. I can’t help but think Satan likes it that way. Compare with this description of the early Church from the Second Chapter of Acts:  42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders […]

All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen . . . —2 Corinthians 1:20 Last Sunday night we finished the series of Extraordinary. It’s all about living all that we are meant to as children of God. It’s good to know the limits of our natural abilities. It is also good to maximize those abilities, by following the tenants of good health, by exercising our abilities to keep them sharp, by discovering and developing them. There is considerable focus on such maximization in our world. If we are not living up to our potential in the physical, intellectual or emotional, it’s usually our lazyness. God has gifted us differently, but we are responsible for putting the gifts He has given to maximum use. Unlike our natural abilities, the promises of God are back by all the goodness and power of the universe. “If we have received the Holy Spirit, God expects the work of the Holy Spirit to be exhibited in us.” “Never forget that our capacity and capability in spiritual matters is measured by, and based on, the promises of God. Is God able to fulfill His promises? Our answer depends on whether […]

The Bible characters stumbled over their strong points, never their weak ones. Every good thing we have comes from God. He gives us some “natural” talents and they become a source of pride for  us. We begin to believe that accomplishments using those talents are ours. That’s pride and a fall can not be far away.  God is most glorified when he uses us in a area in which we have no “natural” talent. We hear of his servants who are afraid to speak in public. He calls them to preach and many are brought to Christ. It is not necessary that our “natural” talents be unusable by God. If we will keep our perspective and recognize we do no good think on our own, he can use us though the gifts He gave us at birth and the gifts He bestows on us as needed. If we keep faith, we can and will be used. We have to get up when we fall. We will see miracles. That’s what Faith can do. Lord, keep us humble. It’s the only way we can be useful to you and we want to be used. We want to bless as you […]

God called to him . . . . And he said, ’Here I am’ —Exodus 3:4 When God called to Moses from the burning bush, Moses was ready, “Here I am.”  Am I ready.? Moses was ready because God had put him through some preparation. He had moved Him from wearing fancy clothes in the house of Pharaoh to the simple fashion of the wilderness, a leader of Egypt to a tender of sheep. He had moved him for thinking he was a child of Egypt to the knowledge that he was a slave, a child of the people of God. He had moved him from thinking he could do something about the suffering of his people on his own, to knowing that alone he could do nothing. Am I ready? Do I know who I am? A Child of God. Do I know I can do nothing on my own? Can I recognize His voice coming from the bush, because I’ve heard it and responded to it before. Is my time in the wilderness at an end and is it time to go into Egypt and bring the redemptive word of God? “When God speaks, many of us […]