I had the blessing and honor to be back on the Prepper Recon show with my friend Mark Goodwin. This is Part One of our conversation focused on getting spiritually in shape for 2016. Spiritual fitness will be your most important prep if you intend to face the dark days ahead. To learn more about being spiritually prepared, listen to Dr. Mike’s archived messages from Calvary Chapel Lima.
Click here to listen.
This is part two of this sermon. Click here for part one.
Four high schools boys were late to their morning classes one day. They entered the classroom and told their teacher that they were detained due to a flat tire and not to any type of joy-riding or other activities associated with trying to get to school.
The teacher of these 4 fine students smiled knowingly and said, “You know you missed a test this morning but I’m willing to let you make it up if you can answer one question.” “Sure”, the students replied.
This weekend the weather forecast is for sunshine and temperatures in the 60’s – very nice for Ohio. I hope your weather is as nice. If so, take time to get outside and enjoy it. Don’t forget to feed your spirit and mind this weekend as well.
Some articles I recently read include:
Jared Moore encourages pastors and church leaders to stay the course through self-reflection in When They Won’t Follow Your Leadership
Thom Rainer hits the nail on the head with One Sentence That Pastors and Church Staff Hate to Hear
Praying for other pastors and churches has become such a foreign idea in so many churches that when we do pray for one another as we are commanded to do, people assume something is wrong in that other church. Eric Bancroft candidly leads us to a better understanding of our Kingdom responsibilities toward others in 5 Reasons to Pray for Other Churches
Parents – do you have any idea what the text message you found on your child’s phone means? Here’s a list of texting abbreviations that will help you decipher the code. Essential texting acronyms every parent must know
Finally, over at The Federalist Sean Davis hits a home run with his piece entitled, Men Without Chests; How C.S. Lewis Predicted Charlie Hebdo Censorship.
Enjoy your weekend friends.
“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” James 1:5 NASB
*As always, references in my blog do not constitute full and unqualified endorsement of everything you might find on another blog site. Be Bereans folks. Acts 17:11
This is a prayer of thanksgiving penned by Charles H. Spurgeon. In it he demonstrates a wonder and awe of God who stoops down to save mankind. This provides a good reminder of the depth and the riches of the love of God for us.
Great God, there was a time when we dreaded the thought of coming near to You, for we were guilty and You were angry with us, but now we will praise You because Your anger is turned away and You comfort us. Yes, and the very throne which once was a place of dread has now become the place of shelter. I flee to You to hide me.
We long now to get away from the world, even from the remembrance of it and have fellowship with the world to come by speaking with Him that was, and is, and is to come, the Almighty. Lord we have been worried and wearied oftentimes with care, but with You care comes to an end, all things are with You, and when we live in You, we live in wealth, in sure repose, in constant joy.
We have to battle with the sons of men against a thousand errors and unrighteousnesses, but when we flee to You, there is all truth and purity and holiness, and our heart finds peace. Above all, we have to battle with ourselves, and we are very much ashamed of ourselves. After many years of great mercy, after tasting of the powers of the world to come, we still are so weak, so foolish; but oh! when we get away from self to God, there all is truth and purity and holiness, and our heart finds peace, wisdom, completeness, delight, joy, victory.
Oh! bring us, then, we pray You, now near to Yourself. Let us bathe ourselves in communion with our God. Blessed be the love which chose us before the world began. We can never sufficiently adore You for Your sovereignty, the sovereignty of love which saw us in the ruins of the Fall, yet loved us anyway.
We praise the God of the Eternal Council Chamber and of the Everlasting Covenant, but where shall we find sufficiently fit words with which to praise Him who gave us grace in Christ His Son, before He spread the starry sky.
We also bless You, O God, as the God of our redemption, for You have so loved us as to give even Your dear Son for us. He gave Himself, His very life for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and separate us unto Himself to be His peculiar people, zealous for good works.
Never can we sufficiently adore free grace and undying love. The wonders of Calvary never cease to be wonders, they are growing more marvelous in our esteem as we think of Him who washed us from our sins in His own blood. Nor can we cease to praise the God of our regeneration who found us dead and made us live, found us at enmity and reconciled us, found us loving the things of this world and lifted us out of the muck and mire of selfishness and worldliness in the love of divine everlasting things.
O Spirit of God, we love You this day, especially for dwelling in us. How can You abide in so rude a habitation, How can You make these bodies to be Your temples, and yet You do so, for which let Your name be held in reverence so long as we live.
O Lord, we would delight ourselves in You this day. Give us faith and love and hope that with these three graces we may draw very near to the Triune God. You will keep us, You will preserve us, You will feed us, You will lead us, and You will bring us to the mind of God, and there will You show us Your love, and in the glory everlasting and boundless, there will You make us know and taste and feel the joys that cannot be expressed.
But a little longer waiting and we shall come to the golden shore; but a little longer fighting and we shall receive the crown of life that does not fade away.
Lord, get us up above the world. Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, and mount and bear us on Your wings, far from these inferior sorrows and inferior joys, up where eternal ages roll. May we ascend in joyful contemplation, and may our spirit come back again, strong for all its service, armed for all its battles, armored for all its dangers, and made ready to live heaven on earth until soon we shall live heaven in heaven. Great Father, be with Your waiting people, any in great trouble please greatly help; any that are despondent sweetly comfort and cheer; any that have erred and are smarting under their own sin, bring them back and heal their wounds; any that are panting after holiness give them the desire of their hearts; any that are longing for usefulness lead them in ways of usefulness.
Lord, we want to live while we live. We do pray that we may not merely groan out an existence here below, nor live as earthworms crawling back in our holes and dragging now and then a withered leaf with us; but Oh! give us to live as we ought to live, with a new life that You have put in us, with the divine quickening which has lifted us as much above common men as men are lifted above the beasts that perish.
Do not let us always be hampered like poor half-hatched birds within the egg; may we chip the shell today and get out in the glorious liberty of the children of God. Grant us this, we pray You.
Lord, visit our church. We have heard Your message to the churches at Ephesus; it is a message to us also. Oh! do not let any of us lose our first love. Let not our church grow cold and dead. We are not, we fear, what once we were. Lord revive us!
All our help must come from You. Give back to the church its love, its confidence, its holy daring, its consecration, its generousness, its holiness. Give back all it ever had and give it much more. Take every member and wash his feet, sweet Lord, most tenderly, and set us with clean feet in a clean road, with a clean heart to guide them, and bless us as You will in a divine fashion.
Bless us, our Father, and let all the churches of Jesus Christ partake of care and tenderness. Walking among the golden candlesticks trim every lamp and make every light, even though it burns feebly now, to shine out gloriously through Your care.
Now bless the sinners. Lord convert them. O God, save men, save this great city, this wicked city, this slumbering dead city. Lord, arouse it, arouse it by any means, that it may turn to its God. Lord save sinners all the world over, and let Your precious Word be fulfilled. “Behold He comes with clouds.” Why do You delay? Delay no longer, O, our Lord. And now to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost be glory forever and ever.
Amen.
Available at http://www.believersweb.org/view.cfm?ID=460
Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Ephesians 5:22, 25
“Love makes the world go round” is a cute adage that is simple in its message but deficient in explaining exactly how that works. Love is as the poet says a “mysterious thing” and something that is both fleeting and enduring. Love has the capacity to satisfy the soul like a gourmet meal or it can starve the one who receives only crumbs.
Let me cut to the chase here folks. How would you describe your relationship with your spouse? Would you give it a thumb up or a thumb down? I don’t mean is everything going great right now because truth is, almost every marriage has a few pot holes every now and then. What I am asking is this – is your marriage on solid footing? Is the foundation of your spousal relationship solid?
If you cannot say “yes it is,” then let me encourage you today to begin the process of evaluating why. The decision to begin to build a solid foundation for your marriage may be an individual one, but to make it happen takes team work.
Taking the necessary steps to construct, restore, or repair a damaged marriage must begin with determining to love your spouse even though they may be behaving in an unloving way. Let me issue a caveat here – I am not suggesting that you should accept abusive behavior in the name of love, and that includes physical, verbal, or emotional abuse. But I am suggesting that you live the truth that love is not primarily an emotion. It is a decision in the biblical sense. So determine to honor your covenant vows to love your spouse through the thick and thin of life.
Next, determine to be honest and transparent with your spouse. This will require a generous amount of trust. Some information will be hard to share and the fear of being judged can be a tremendous weight. Press on anyway. If not initially, your spouse will in time see that your love for him/her outweighs the hurt, because the goal in being honest with one another is to begin to build accountability, which ultimately leads to trust.
When trust is an integral part of the marriage relationship then you are able to overcome those things that previously were stumbling blocks. In effect you are being equipped to demonstrate love in the biblical sense. Friends, your spouse deserves the best you can give not the left over crumbs.
That is a transforming truth.