I Will Not Be Shaken

Psalm 16:8 I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Summertime brings us many beautiful days of sunshine, fair winds and great times on the water. Summertime also brings us a more than a few days of thunderstorms and high winds.  How we handle the good weather, and the bad weather is important to our relationship with God.

If life were to be composed of beautiful days of sunshine, we would be tempted to forget how important it is to stay connected in prayer to the Lord. Think about it, when things are going just peachy for days on end, we can become distracted and forgetful of just how important God is in our lives. We can even begin the slippery slide into remembering the importance of our salvation in Jesus Christ because things are just going along so well.

For many of us, it takes a good storm to blow into our lives to help us refocus our lives, and our prayers on what is of utmost importance. Keeping our eyes on Jesus is where we need to be. Keeping our focus on the Lord, and filtering out the distractions is what we should be about. The boating, camping, fishing, etc are to be enjoyed for sure. But remembering that as the author of Psalm 16:8 reminds us in the first part of verse 8, I keep my eyes always on the Lord.  We need to keep that focus in our lives lest we miss the opportunities the Lord sets before us.  And when the storms roll in, as they will, we remember the second part of verse 8. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.  We know the Lord is always with us. We have His love in our lives. And we can find comfort and shelter in the storms that we will not be shaken with the Lord at our side.  He has our backs.

Enjoy the golden days of summer and remember to keep in prayer.

PRAYER: Father, we thank You for the beautiful days of summer we are blessed to enjoy. The times we spend with family and friends enjoying your creation are precious to each of us. Thank You for those gifts. And Father, we are blessed to have you by our sides with the storms roll in. Help us with Your Holy Spirit to keep strong in our faith to stay on course in those storms. Help us to not be shaken by the turmoil that can enter our lives. This we ask in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Never Pass Away

Matthew 24: 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Erosion is a fact of life in our world. Hillsides, mountains, stream & river banks all show signs of erosion. My favorite lake and sea shores also show how time moves sand away for the shore and redeposits it in another location. Many places try to restore the shoreline in a process called beach nourishment. This is always met with limited success. Some will try to use just any old type of sand. Yet studies show if the granular structure is not the same as the exiting sea shore sand, it will wash out even more rapidly. Substitution is a compromise in beach nourishment and in what we use to anchor our own lives.

Erosion of our faith is also a constant battle. We Christians are exposed to a constant onslaught by the world to step away from our faith and adopt the standards the world we live in would have us follow. The shifting sands of the morality of our world and the acceptable behavior or beliefs are nothing short of quicksand. Many have been pulled under by the lies of our world. This is not a new phenomena either. It has happened since time began. It first began in the Garden of Eden (try the apple). And continues today. What the Word of God calls sin is not accepted as sin by our world. The life we are told is acceptable to lead is scorned by those who have the Bully Pulpit of the media. Some would even have us believe that what is written in the Bible is not really what God was meaning to say.

As we look out into the morass of our world and the ethics of that same world, we need a standard of measure to for comparison. We need a constant to see how our world has changed over time against what is acceptable in God's eyes. After all, it is our role in life to be God-pleasing, not world-pleasing. The Matthew 24:35 verse is a great reminder of the temporal nature of our world versus the infinite nature of God's Word.  Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. When we look for something to grasp onto for stability, we need to turn to His Word, and not the word of the flavor of the month celebrity. We need that constant in our lives, lest we be blown about like grass in the wind. Never still, aways in motion and turmoil.

PRAYER: Our Father In Heaven Your Word is a constant for our lives. Your Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our paths. Help us to stay in Your Word and out of the words of those who would lead us astray. Give us Your Holy Spirit to fill us with the faith we need to stay strong. This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

The Greatest Commandment

Mark 12:28-30 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"

 "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

Happy Fourth of July! We commemorate the day when our founding fathers issued the Declaration of Independence. The document formally severing out ties, as tenuous as they were at that time, with King George and England. It was a bold move to stand up and proclaim for all the world to hear that enough was enough. No more would this collection of peoples live under the rule of King George. Tyranny and despotism were called out and rejected. The peoples to be known as Americans were moving on in search of freedom and a better life. This is what was done for us by those braves souls many years ago. And when it came time to decide what the basic rights of the citizens of this new country would enjoy a Bill of Rights was put into place. The first and foremost in that same Bill of Rights is the freedom of religion. Our first amendment rights, are held sacrosanct. 'No state mandated religion shall be established or empowered.' We worship our Lord freely and without fear of reprisal. Mark 12: 28-30 gives us the reason, the greatest commandment, is why we worship our Lord. We in our houses of worship and in our homes can declare boldly that Jesus Christ is Lord. We can speak our mind about our faith. And when young men and women enlist in our armed services they swear to "defend the constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign, and domestic. " These principles are important to our freedom of worship. Someone is willing to stand up and fight for those rights. Someone is willing to draw a line in the sand and back up than line with their life and their blood.  We hold dear and sacred the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. He drew a line in the sand and said enough is enough. Mankind needs to be set free from the death in sin. And He backed up that premise with His life and His blood. He set the prisoners free.

As we take time to celebrate our independence, please remember to reason for our freedom. Men and women have given that last full measure of dedication to our country and all the fine things she stands for. And let us also remember that we are truly freed from death in sin by the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The remainder of the conversation between Jesus and one of the teachers of the law is well worth reading as it fills in the how and why and extent of our love for our Lord. Mark 12: 32-34 "Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him.  To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

PRAYER: Almighty God You alone are worthy of our praise. We lift You up today and every day Father. We give You thanks for the freedoms we enjoy. We give you praise for the lives and sacrifice of those brave men and women who have and will continue to defend the freedoms we hold dear. We honor You O God for the Son who became man and suffered the cross so that we may truly be freed from death. And we thank you for all the saints who have gone on before us in defending the faith that matters. All praise honor and glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

It's Not Business, It's Personal

John 3:1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

I was pondering my faith last night before going to bed, and again this morning. This happens once in a while. A healthy dose of introspection is good for the soul. I was asking myself some questions about what I believed, why I believed and how firm I was in my convictions. This all started after being reminded of how important having faith in Jesus was at a concert. My wife Pam, my granddaughter Alisha and I went to a concert at our church. Adams Road (www.adamsroadband.com)was the group we listened to. And the concert was so very different than any I have ever attended. The music was inspiring, And each member of the group shared their personal journey to faith. Each member had started out with a very different faith than what they have today. They shared the joys, the struggles and the personal changes in their lives and the lives of their families. I encourage you to go to their website, spend some time and get to know these fine young men. Really, just click on the link above.

The trigger for the introspective journey was a point made by a couple of the young men as they shared their faith story. 'Don't you think, that when Jesus was on that cross paying for all your sins that he was looking straight into your eyes?' That was the trigger that set me to thinking. And along that road I found something worth sharing. We are called children of God because that is what we are. You and I in our lives can have relationships with people we know from our business dealings. We may come to know them from the frequency of our shopping adventures, or through the conversations we have while in their stores. That relationship is not the same as the relationship we have with those who are fellow believers, followers of Jesus Christ. In a word, Christians. Jesus suffered the humiliation of the cross because we, the people lost in sin, needed a savior. We were paid for by His blood, by His sacrifice. Our slavery to sin and death in sin ended on that cross. This is not the kind of relationship one would have in a business transaction. I do not reach into my pocket and pull out a pint of blood to pay for my groceries each week. For Jesus, this was personal, not business. His love for us was and remains today so profound that we are saved by His blood. He looks into our eyes even today. He wants us to know that we are free. Our salvation has been won. There is no more debt to be paid. Ephesians 2:8 lays it out for all the world to read and grasp onto.  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. Today, and every day of your life remember that you are saved by this gift from God. For Jesus, it really is personal, not business.

PRAYER: Lord we sometimes forget who deeply personal Your love for each of us is. It is not a matter of loving all mankind as a group. We sometimes forget that Your love is focused on each of us. So strong is Your love that You forgive our sins and welcome us into Your house when our time here on earth has ended. Help to keep that memory close to our hearts. This we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.