Early Morning

I went to bed about 9:00 last night and got up about 2:30 this morning. I could not sleep so thought I would get up and read a while. I read 23 chapters in the Bible and then worked on my doctoral thesis. I am now at almost 3000 words which is 60% done. I believe that God may drive sleep from your eyes sometimes so that you can do His work. I almost regret being on vacation. I want to get back to my office and get some work done. It is hard to enjoy vacation when your heart is not in it. I felt Sunday that it would be good to get away on vacation and took that to mean that God was in it. I am not so sure this morning.

The picture is of a wedding I officiated a while back at our church. The couple are members of our church. I have not a wedding yet this year. I also have not baptized anyone in a very long time. I am in prayer that this will be a busy year for baptisms and weddings but not funerals. God bless you.

Arrived

We arrived at Carlsbad about 8:15 this evening. Had a good drive most of the way. Stopped at a Wal-Mart to pick up a few things and top off the tank. Janie worked most of the way while I was driving today. Even worked while I shopped in Wal-mart. Saw a beautiful sunset. Going to catch up on my Bible readings and head for bed.

"...Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." I can't seem to get this verse out of my mind so will write it here and perhaps like a song stuck in ones mind taught to another it will depart. God bless you.

The Holy Spirit

I got up early this morning and went into the living room as is my custom. I could not rid myself of the feeling that the sermon I had prepared earlier in the week was not the one I needed to preach. So I turned to the scripture that I could not get off of my mind and prepared to preach the message God was laying on my heart. The services went very well though our attendance was very low. I have committed to being more attentive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. I prayed more this day than any day in the past year. I have been reading the Bible more this year and am on target to complete my reading through the Bible for the first time by the end of April.

Well we are on vacation this week and though we will not be working we will not take a vacation from Bible reading, blogging, and prayer. I will post pictures of our adventures so stay tuned. The picture is of our children (with the hats on) at Disney Land in California in 1985. God bless you.

No Place Like Home

There is no place like Home. We have arrived back home in Hillsboro after traveling several hundred miles. The ordination service went well and it turned out that I was not only suppose to question the candidate but was also to preach the sermon. I thoroughly enjoyed preaching the sermon. I had not been at that pulpit for over 6 years. Gum Spring Missionary Baptist Church now has 2 very fine deacons.

After the service we went over to my mother's house for a short visit (I took this picture with my cell phone today). My 2 brothers are making good progress on the house. They have gotten a lot done. My mother has been working constantly on the yard. Her father was always a hard worker and loved to clear land and clean fence rows. My mother reminds me of him and she certainly has his gift for it. She has worked slowly but surely and the yard is really looking good. I frankly am amazed at what she has done.

I have prayed more this day than usual. I like it and plan to keep it up. Prayer is power thing. Those of you who read my blog on regular basis are in my prayers. I prayed today for the welfare of my Uncle and Aunts in New England. I have prayed that the Lord will allow me to make a trip up there to see them again. I have such fond memories of each of them and their children. I really would like to see them again. I am planning a trip to New England in June of 2010.

The sermon for Sunday includes John 20:23. Here is a preview of what I will be preaching Sunday.

(23) Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; [and] whose soever [sins] ye retain, they are retained.
This verse might be easily misunderstood. What does Jesus mean by these words and how do they relate to what Jesus is going to send out His disciples to do. First consider what this verse does not mean. Only God can forgive sin. All sin is against God. Only God can forgive the sins of men. In the model prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Men have the power to forgive those that trespass against them. Jesus said if your enemy hunger feed him. Forgiveness is treating someone as though they had not done you wrong. We can treat people that do us wrong with kindness and that is forgiveness. To forgive is not to forget. Jesus commands that we forgive one another and He only commands those things which we can do. It is not possible to erase ones memory. It is possible to treat someone with kindness who has done us wrong. Jesus is not giving the power to remit sins to His disciples. It should not be thought that the church has the power to say who can go to heaven and who can not. The church has no power to save nor does it have the power to take away the salvation of ones soul.
Jesus sends His Church into the world to make disciples. The process of making disciples involves baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It involves teaching them to observe all things commanded by Jesus. Discipleship requires discipline. The disciple must do the biding of his master. If the disciple will not be obedient to his master then he is disciplined. A master might cause the disciple to be expelled until he repents and comes back seeking forgiveness and expressing a commitment to be obedient to the masters commands.
The disciples will preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost. Those that are saved will form groups that agree to work together as an assembly or church of the Lord Jesus Christ. They will, with Christ as their head, be obedient to Him as their Lord and master. Those of their group which are rebellious against the Lord's commands will be disciplined by the group. If the rebellious disciple refuses to repent then his sin is retained by the church and they treat that one as though they were not saved, as though they were not a brother or sister in Christ. They do not company with them nor eat with them. In the sight of Heaven their sin is retained and not remitted or forgiven. This does not mean that they loose their salvation. The soul of the saved is righteous and made clean by the blood of Christ. The soul of the saved cannot sin and thus can never be lost. The body or flesh of a saved person does sin and it will one day die because of sin. The person who yields to the desires of the flesh will be chastened by the Lord. When the wayward one repents and comes seeking forgiveness and reconciliation then the church forgives and restores that one to fellowship again. When they remit that ones' sins then the Lord in Heaven also remits or forgives their sins.
Jesus has given his disciples the power to do His work. They will preach by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. They will discipline by the authority of Jesus Christ. Many lost souls have been and will be saved as a result of the work of the church established by Jesus Christ during His personal ministry here on earth.

On the Road again

This is the view I had for two hours Thursday. I like to get 2 seconds behind a big truck and benefit from his draft. We ended up with 56 miles to the gallon on our 3 1/2 hour drive to Mt. Pleasant. I took a picture of the dash board that shows us averaging 52.6 miles to the gallon. Notice also that we are doing 60 mph in a 70 mph zone and that the temperature was 70 degrees. I love winter weather in Texas.

We had a good mission conference. The speaker preached on effective prayer and it was excellent. Prayer is the weakest part of my christian walk. I am so glad I was able to attend this conference. I have made a commitment to God that I will pray as I should and when I should. I frequently ignore the leadership of the Holy Spirit of God and go my own way. I am determined to stop this practice and start following His lead. Pray for me that God will help me to keep this commitment.

We are in Henderson tonight and I plan to head for bed right after I am through with this blog post. I plan to take a long walk in the morning and then work on my doctoral prospectus. We will head back to Hillsboro right after the ordination service tomorrow. I am fired up for this Sunday's sermon and can't wait to share God's Word with God's people. I love preaching more now than I ever have. God bless you.

42

42 is the name of a game that is played with dominoes. I learned this game when I moved to Texas back in 1973. It is a fun game and though I have not played it in a very long time I do enjoy playing. We had 42 children at church tonight. They were well behaved in class and on the bus. Three of the older ones were sent to my class because they had got off to a bad start in their class. They were very attentive to my teaching and seemed to enjoy it. We need about 4 more workers on Wednesday night and I will make a plea this Sunday.

We plan to remove three bus seats in the morning and take them down to Waco. We need to be back by noon to head for Mt. Pleasant and the missions conference there. The two seats we installed this morning went in real smoothly about as good as any of the have been. We will spend all day Friday at the conference and then all day Saturday in Henderson. Looking forward to the ordaination service Saturday. The sermon for Sunday will be a real eye opener for some as I deal with John 20:23.

We plan to leave on vacation Monday morning. We will be seeing the Alamo and Carlsbad Caverns. I will post pictures on this blog and give you a daily update on our trip. The picture is of our kids on vacation in California the summer of 1985. We went out to visit my brother and this was in the motel we stayed at there. We went to Disney Land and the Grand Canyon. God bless you.

Knickknacks

My wife placed these knickknacks, seen in this photo taken with my cell phone, in our guest bathroom. I go through life often not taking notice of such small things. You could ask me to describe what pictures are hanging on the walls of our guest rooms and I could not do it. I wonder how much beauty there is in this world that I never notice. When I hike I try to take in all the wonders of nature. There are so many small things that add up to make one beautiful world. When I read through the Bible I often come across small things that I had never noticed before.

I have made significant progress on the jigsaw puzzle as you can tell from the pictures I have posted. I bought my wife a pair of pants from LL Bean and they came in today. They are the female version of the pants I wear when I hike. They are very light weight and cool plus they protect you from the sun. We plan to do some day hiking together.

Tomorrow we will be busy getting ready for our mid-week Bible school and getting ready for the missions conference we will attend on Thursday and Friday. We have 2 seats to install on the bus and I hope they go back in better than the one we worked on today came out. I have the Sunday school lesson ready to go and all I lack now is the sermon for Sunday night and a few finishing touches on the sermon for Sunday morning. I walked 4 miles today and am caught up on my Bible readings. God bless you.

Monday Monday

There was a singing group back in the 60's called "The Mamas and The Papas." They had a hit song named "Monday Monday." The song is a lament of the fact that Monday morning can not give you any guarantee of what will happen Monday evening. My Monday has not turned out as planned. I did get a lot of things done today. I fixed a computer problem, read my daily Bible readings, walked 6 miles, got off to a good start on the sermon for Sunday, got 2 "from the Pastor"'s done, went to the bank, went to the post office, and blogged all today. I hope to finish the day with a few more pieces of the puzzle in place. I talked to both of my brothers today one by email and the other by phone and they are both doing well. My oldest brother is getting ready to paint and install tiles on the floor of the bathroom. Sounds like he is making good progress.

The picture is of my two sisters and my mother taken two years ago. My oldest sister and I were discussing health issues. We both have high blood pressure and are striving to improve our health and get off the pills. It brought this verse to my mind.
(Exodus 15:26) And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I [am] the LORD that healeth thee.
Your Doctor will tell you that you need to eat right and exercise in order to maintain a healthy life and avoid diseases. It is good to follow such advice. Moses recorded God’s advice for a healthy disease free life. Here in this verse God gives to us four things which we should do to have a life without disease.
1. Diligently hearken to God’s voice. God’s voice today is the Bible. Diligently means that you must deliberately and faithfully listen to what the Bible teaches. Read it every day.
2. Do that which is right in His sight. We must act upon what we read in the Bible. When it commands, we obey.
3. Give ear to His commandments. We are to put ourselves into a position where we can hear the commandments of God. Tune your ear to His words. Don’t let God’s words be drowned out by the words of this world. Focus on what God has to say.
4. Keep all His statutes. Not some but all. Don’t pick and choose what part of God’s Law you will keep. Keep the whole law. Keep all His statutes.
When we follow God’s admonition found in this verse He will put none of these diseases upon us. God alone is the one who heals us.
Examples: King Asa was diseased in his feet because he did not obey God. Hezekiah was dieing from a boil because he did not obey God. Herod disobeyed God and was smitten of worms. David suffered great illness after committing adultery and murder. The Philistines were smitten with boils and sores because they disobeyed God. Thousands of Israelites were kill by plague because they did not obey God. Search the scriptures and you shall find many cases were people suffered with disease as a result of not diligently hearkening unto God. God bless you.

Supper Bowl Sunday

We had a really good, might even say a super tasting, bowl of salad for supper tonight. Services went very well and we had a special service tonight. We have a busy week ahead. Monday we will take out another bus seat and make another exchange of seats. We will run the bus Wednesday and then on Thursday we head for Mt. Pleasant, Texas for a missions conference. We will be setting up an information booth (pictured) there for our France mission work. We will be there through Friday and then head for Henderson. I will be helping in a deacon ordination service Saturday afternoon. We will return to Hillsboro Saturday night. All of this will mean I must get three sermons, From the Pastor for the bulletin, and a Sunday School lesson ready by Thursday morning. A tough schedule but I can do it with the Lord's help. I will get started tonight right after I get through with my Bible readings for the day. Saturday I installed a pollen filter in our Jetta. It was very easy to do except that you and to just about stand on your head to under the dash. 2 screws and drop the insulation down then slide the cover off and pull the old filter out. It was a breeze. My son just emailed me a website where I could have gotten those wiper blades for half the price I paid at the dealer. I will definitely shop online next time. God bless you.