Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “True Greatness”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:1 (NIV)

 

Our thought for today: “Great men and woman of God set a good example for others to follow.”

 

This morning I want to share with you a very personal story about “True Greatness” that has had a significant impact in my life. The story is about a man who I have only actually met once – and even then only for a few brief moments. But the example he has set through his life and ministry has had a profound impact on my life and on my ministry.

 

His name is Eugene Peterson. Some of you will recognize him as being the author of the popular paraphrase of the Bible, “The Message”. Eugene is also a prolific author of many Christian books and therefore you may have also read some of his other writing. But in addition to being an accomplished author and a popular conference speaker, Eugene spent his entire career in ministry as the pastor of a small church in Maryland.

 

Many of Eugene’s books were written to, and for, and about, Pastors, and they were all based on what God had first worked out in his own life and ministry. I’ve read most of them and Eugene’s example has had a profound impact on my life and ministry in a number of important ways. This morning I only have time and space to tell you about one of them.

 

Once he became famous for his writings, Eugene received many offers to become the pastor of other, much larger churches. But he always declined those offers and he chose instead to stay at the same little church in Maryland for twenty-nine years.

 

Eugene is a quiet and thoughtful man who considers himself to be what he terms, “A Contemplative Pastor”. He even developed a credo for “The Contemplative Pastor”, which I have since adopted as my own. It goes like this:

 

“*The Contemplative Pastor can be with people without having an agenda for them.

*The Contemplative Pastor is able to accept people just as they are. He guides them gently and patiently into a mature life in Christ.

*The Contemplative Pastor is resolved to lovingly shepherd his flock through all the circumstances of life, the challenges and trials, the joys and triumphs, the good times and the bad.

*The Contemplative Pastor resists the competitive nature of the American church culture and does not get caught up in the latest church growth fads.

*The Contemplative Pastor is in it for the long haul.”

 

The mindset Eugene articulated in that credo changed my thinking about my own ministry as a Pastor and has resulted in a sense of peace and contentment that I have never experienced before in any ministry setting. God put the example of Eugene Peterson in my life at exactly the right time, and it has made all the difference for me.

 

This is the kind of thing the Apostle Paul was writing about in 1 Corinthians 11:1. God had brought Paul through a lot of changes in his own life. As a result, in his later years, Paul was prepared to be an example for others to follow. What God had worked out in Paul’s own life, Paul was now prepared to help others work out in their lives.

 

Great men and women of God set a good example for others to follow. I encourage you to find examples like that for you to follow yourself, and then I encourage you to be that kind of example for others to follow.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “True Greatness”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result – the survival of many people. Therefore don’t be afraid. I will take care of you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.” Genesis 50:19-21 (HCSB)

 

Our thought for today: “A truly great person can rise above feelings of pettiness and grudges.”

 

This morning I want to return to the story of Joseph as related by Moses in Genesis chapters 37-50 because right at the end of it, we find one of the most important character traits demonstrated by those who have developed true greatness. Such people are able to rise above feelings of pettiness and they have learned not to harbor grudges. They’re able to step back from the offense, see the bigger picture, and be gracious and kind towards those who have hurt them.

 

Such was the case with Joseph. The conduct of his brothers towards him had been sinful, cruel, and criminal. It caused Joseph thirteen long years of suffering. Therefore, from the perspective of basic human nature, it probably wouldn’t surprise us if we read of Joseph harboring and nursing a grudge against his brothers and, when the opportunity presented itself, seeking revenge.

 

But Joseph was a bigger man than that. He was able to maintain a proper perspective. He understood that God was sovereign over those circumstances and that He was at work in the middle of them to bring about some good thing. Although Romans 8:28 obviously didn’t exist in Joseph’s day, the great spiritual truth it presents did exist, “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purposes.”

 

So Joseph forgave his brothers and ended up being the source of great blessings to them. They still suffered some consequences from the wrong they committed against Joseph. They lived for thirteen years with the guilt of what they had done. And as we read in chapters 42-45, they did have to go through a period of confession and repentance. But still, the character of Joseph was such that he was able to rise above the offense and be a blessing to those who had hurt him.

 

There’s a profound and important lesson in this for us. I personally believe that how easily we’re offended to begin with is a measure of our spiritual maturity. A spiritually mature person is not easily offended. And likewise, once we have been wronged, the degree to which we harbor a grudge, and our willingness or unwillingness to forgive, is also a measure of spiritual maturity. That doesn’t mean that we allow people to escape responsibility for what they have done. But it does mean that we find ways to work through it with them, and then we let it go and move on.

 

A truly great man or woman of God does not indulge in pettiness and does not harbor grudges.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “True Greatness”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “The Lord was with Joseph and he became a successful man.” Genesis 39:2 (HCSB)

 

Our thought for today: “Greatness is forged in the fires of adversity.”

 

A common characteristic which seems to be shared by all great men and women of God is that they have had to endure and persevere through times of great difficulty and adversity. It was in those times of trial and struggle that God forged the character traits in them that ultimately lead to their greatness.

 

If you’ve ever read the biographies of people like Abraham Lincoln, Lottie Moon, Hudson Taylor, Teddy Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Winston Churchill, or Joni Erickson Tada, then you know what tremendous adversities they dealt with in their personal lives and how those trials created in them the character traits that ultimately made them the great public figures they ended up being. It’s a common story.

 

That’s why I love the story of Joseph, found in Genesis chapters 37-50.  Favored by his father but hated by his brothers; ripped from his home and sold into slavery in Egypt as a teenager; falsely accused of attempted rape and thrown into a miserable prison; thirteen long years of trials and tribulations and mistreatment in a foreign land; but through it all Joseph honored God with his integrity and God in turn “was with Joseph”. It’s a term Moses used several times over the course of telling Joseph’s story and it was always used while describing Joseph’s darkest and most troubling circumstances.

 

As the story unfolds what we discover is that it was in those hard circumstances that God forged steel into Joseph’s character. It was in the midst of those tough times that God molded and shaped Joseph and formed the character that would ultimately become Joseph’s legacy. The reason he became the man he was, was because of the way he conducted himself when times were tough. He was a trustworthy, dependable, and honest man even when it wasn’t easy to be so.

 

Consider the lives of any great man or women of God, famous or not famous, and you will discover the same pattern. They all had to endure tough times – some of them extremely tough – but it was in the furnace of adversity that their characters were formed, the steel was forged, the wisdom was gained, and they ultimately became the man who woman who you now look up to and admire.

 

As you endure your own tough times, stop to consider how God might be using the adversity to mold you and shape you into the man or woman He wants you to be. The tough times will only last for a season, but when it’s over what kind of man or woman will you be? Joseph ended up being a truly great man of God because in the midst of the adversity, he never lost faith and he never stopped honoring God. The same can be true of you.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “True Greatness”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.” Genesis 12:2 (HCSB)

 

Our thought for today: “Abraham was a man of faith and action.”

 

Abraham was not a perfect man, but in the estimation of God he was a great man. Abraham was great by Godly standards for two reasons. One reason was that he was a man of great faith. But the other reason he was great was because he was a man of action. His faith wasn’t something he merely talked about. It wasn’t even something he just quietly practiced in private. Abraham lived his faith. You could see it in the things he did.

 

Great men and women of God are people of action. They do things. First and foremost, they pray. Far too many Christians use the phrase “I’ll pray for you” as a convenient way to end an uncomfortable conversation, but then they often don’t pray for the person. The most important action you can take on someone else’s behalf is to really pray for them. Some of the greatest men and women of God that I have ever known were great because they were mighty prayer warriors.

 

But great men and women of God act on their faith in other ways too. We see it in Abraham’s life when he generously allowed his nephew Lot to have the better parcel of land (Genesis 13:9). We see it again when Lot had been taken captive by an enemy army in Genesis 14:12. Abraham quickly gathered his soldiers and set off to rescue his nephew. No wringing of his hands, no whining about how unfair it was, Abraham simply and quickly acted.

 

We see the action behind Abraham’s faith most notably in Genesis 22:2-14 when he took his only son Isaac and obediently offered him as a sacrifice to the Lord. That was a mighty act of faith demonstrated by real and meaningful action. Abraham knew that whatever God had planned was better than whatever he had planned.

 

How we act, more than just what we say, reveals what we really believe about God. Abraham demonstrated his faith in God by his actions because that’s what great men and women of God do. I encourage you to be a man or woman of action too.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

 

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “True Greatness”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “And what more can I say? Time is too short for me to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthat, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the raging of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, gained strength after being weak, became mighty in battle, and put foreign armies to flight.” Hebrews 11:32-34 (HCSB)

 

Our thought for today: “We are inspired by examples of true greatness.”

 

In Hebrews chapter 11, which is commonly known as “The Faith Hall of Fame”, the writer was attempting to inspire his readers to greater faith of their own, by recalling the examples of heroes of the faith from times past. Some of them were well known, such as David and Samuel, but many of the other examples he cited in that chapter were regular people whose names would not be recognized by most readers but whose examples of faith were heroic and inspiring.

 

One of the reasons I love small-group Bible studies is because those are perfect settings to get people talking and sharing stories from their own lives. With respect to examples of true greatness, most Christians know common everyday people, many from our pasts, who fit that description.

 

I know of one family whose mother was a great woman of God. The family was dirt poor. The father had abandoned the mother and I believe it was seven children. The mother was raising that large family by herself and with no support from the husband. But to hear those adults now talk about their childhood, and the influence of their godly mother, you immediately realize that she was a great woman of God who did an incredible job raising that family under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. An example like that makes the rest of us want to be better people.

 

I know another man who had a similar example set for him by his grandpa. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard this man tell stories about his godly grandpa and the profound impact that man had on this grandson’s life.

 

Those are examples of true greatness. None of the people involved were rich by the world’s standards; they didn’t have advanced educations; they were not politically powerful; nor were they famous. They were just godly. And they were great.

 

This weekend when you gather with your church family there will probably be people in your congregation who meet the criteria of true greatness from a Godly perspective. I encourage you to spend time with them, get to know them, and allow yourself to be influenced by their good example. Who knows, maybe someday people will remember you as having been a truly great man or woman of God whose example had a profound impact on them.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “True Greatness”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.” Joshua 1:8 (NLT)

 

Our thought for today: “True greatness is determined by God, not by the world.”

 

Here in the USA we are now well into the silly season of politics. We will have a Presidential election in 2016 and so the gloves are off and the mud is flying. Politicians are flooding the airwaves with preposterous claims about themselves and slanderous charges against their opponents. And it’s only going to get worse.

 

It has been said that in order to run for President a person has to have a thick hide and a big ego. There is one candidate running this time who certainly meets those criteria. He’s a loud and flamboyant character who seems to be impervious to criticism, and his ego, well, it’s large. In his own estimation he is a truly great man and he will be happy to describe his greatness for you.

 

But fame and fortune are not the true measures of greatness, at least not as far as God is concerned. In the economy of God greatness is measured differently. Joshua, for instance, was a great man. But he was a great man not because he was a great military leader (which he was); and he was also not great because he was politically powerful (he was that too). Joshua was great because he was a godly man who sought to honor the Lord in all that he did.

 

Right at the beginning of his ministry Joshua was instructed by God, in Joshua 1:8, to pay careful attention to the Word of God as given to him by Moses. Joshua was to study it carefully, mediate on it day and night, and allow it to permeate his mind and sink deeply into his heart. Only then would he prosper and succeed in the ways that mattered to God.

 

All this month, as we begin this New Year, we’re going to devotionally consider what true greatness looks like in the eyes of God. We will consider Biblical principles which teach about true greatness, and we will look to the examples of those who have modeled true greatness for us – people on the pages of the Bible but also those throughout history, and even some modern day people.

 

In the world greatness is measured in terms of money, power, fame, and influence. But God sees it differently. I look forward to learning about true greatness with you.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “Friends and Associates”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “The one who walks with the wise will become wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm.” Proverbs 13:20 (HCSB)

 

Our thought for today: “Who you associate with matters.”

 

As we end our devotional study on the theme of “Friends and Associates” I want to conclude where we began, with the understanding that who you associate with matters very much. This is a point that God makes repeatedly all throughout the Bible many times and in many ways.

 

Joshua became the man he was largely because of his close association with Moses. King David was retrieved from the depths of grievous sin as a result of his friendship with the prophet Nathan. The three Hebrew boys in Daniel chapter three strengthened each other as they faced the fiery furnace. In the book of Acts we find the early Christians thriving in the face of terrible persecution only because they had each other to rely on and depend upon. The Apostle Paul needed his friend Barnabas, while Timothy and Silas grew into the men God wanted them to be as a result of their association with Paul. And on it goes.

 

Of course the opposite is true too. I encourage you to do a study of your own sometime to see how many examples in the Bible you can find of situations when a poor choice of friends, associates, and counselors ended in disaster. You might want to look in Exodus chapter sixteen to read about the time that 250 men foolishly sided with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram instead of with Moses and Aaron. It cost them their lives. Or you could go to Acts chapter twenty-seven and read about the centurion and ship captain who relied on their own counsel instead of that from the Apostle Paul. The ship sank.

 

I love the way Eugene Peterson renders Proverbs 13:20 in his paraphrase of the Bible, “The Message”, “Become wise by walking with the wise; hang out with fools and watch your life fall to pieces.”

 

As we turn the corner into 2016 I challenge all of us to consider carefully who our friends and associates have been, and will be. You become like those you associate with. So choose your friends carefully.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

 

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “Friends and Associates”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” Matthew 11:5 (NIV)

 

Our thought for today: “Don’t shun those in need.”

 

As we draw to the end of our month of considering the important issue of who our friends are and who we choose to associate with, I’m remembering a conversation I had with a fellow Pastor more than twenty years ago. The church he was the pastor of consisted mostly of middle-class white families. Those families were financially secure and most had both a mother and a father in the home.

 

However the church also had a van ministry which targeted a low-income housing project on the other side of town. Those people were almost exclusively poor Mexicans, many from single parent homes, and there were a few low-income African-Americans in the neighborhood too. The church van would go to that neighborhood and bring many of the children, and a few of the adults, to church.

 

During our conversation I commended the pastor on his church’s efforts to reach-out to that needy and neglected segment of our town’s population. But I’ll never forget his response. He shrugged off my compliment and replied, “Well, you really can’t build a church with people like that. They don’t have any money.”

 

I nearly swallowed my tongue when he said that. Of course I understand the need for a church to be able to pay its bills but under no circumstances should that be a determining factor regarding who we minister to and who we don’t. I came to realize that his church was involved in that van ministry not because they had a particular love and concern for those people, but because they felt it was their Christian duty to be doing something like that. After all, other churches did things like that and therefore they probably should too. (That ministry didn’t last long by the way. That church soon abandoned it.)

 

If we look to Jesus as our example, we discover that He spent the vast majority of His time, and focused most of His ministry efforts, on people exactly like those low-income Mexicans in that housing project. But more than just running a bus ministry to bring them to church, Jesus went out into the neighborhoods and into their homes to actually be with them. He walked among them, talked with them, ate meals with them, and told them the Good News of the Gospel. Why did He do that? Was it because it was His Christian duty to do so? No. He did it because He genuinely loved them and cared for them.

 

Jesus chose to associate with those who needed Him the most, and we must do the same. Richard Foster, in his book “Freedom of Simplicity”, accurately noted that individual Christians and even entire churches often become involved in ministry to the poor for all the wrong reasons. We do often approach it as a matter of Christian duty or, we do it because it’s the trendy cause of the moment and so we want to be a part of it too. Foster writes:

 

“The Christian must advocate the cause of those who are truly poor and forgotten. So often it seems as if Christians have a particular knack for joining causes that are nearly over and championing issues that have thousands of champions … We must go beyond newspapers accounts to find the truly dispossessed.”

 

Jesus “chose” to associate with and to spend lots of time with the down and out – those in greatest need. He was with them because He genuinely wanted to be with them.  As we consider who we will associate with, perhaps we would be well-served to consider who it was that our Lord associated with the most, and then go and do likewise.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

 

 

 

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “Friends and Associates”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Philippians 2:3-4 (NIV)

 

Our thought for today: “Take care of each other.”

 

If you’ve ever been part of a church family where the members of the church genuinely love each other, and go over and above in their efforts to take care of each other, then you know what a special experience that is. It’s a little piece of heaven on earth. Ideally that is how church life should be.

 

I am personally blessed beyond words to have the privilege to be the Pastor of a church that is exactly like that. Not only are the members my brothers and sisters, but they’re my friends. The love and support they show to me and my family, and to each other, is very special indeed. These folks embrace and practice what Paul wrote about in Philippians 2:3-4.

 

But to fully appreciate what Paul was getting at in those verses, we have to back-up a bit and read the two verses preceding them. Philippians 2:1-2 reads, “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.”

 

What Paul was saying there was essentially, “What Jesus has done for you, you now do for others.” “The encouragement, comfort, love, tenderness, compassion, and fellowship you experience in your relationship with Jesus, should also describe your relationship with fellow Christians. And when it does, when you have a group of people who are intentional about treating each other the way Jesus treats them, you end up with what Paul wrote about in verses 3 and 4 – everyone putting the interests and well being of others over themselves.

 

Christian fellowship, practiced the way it was intended to be, is special. It begins with Jesus caring for us in all the ways that Paul described, and it then continues when we treat others the way that Jesus treats us.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim

Good Morning Everyone,

 

Our theme for this month: “Friends and Associates”

 

Our Bible verse for today: “This is what the Lord of Hosts says: Return to Me – this is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts – and I will return to you.” Zechariah 1:3 (HCSB)

 

Our thought for today: “God wants you to be close to Him.”

 

I’m sure you’ve probably heard the question, “If God seems far away, guess who moved?” It’s a challenging question that communicates the great truth that God wants us to be close to Him and if it seems to us as if we’re not, it’s our own fault. Always it is us who have walked away from Him, not Him from us.

 

As a Pastor I tend to have lots of conversations with people who are struggling with life issues and who are far away from God. The issues they’re struggling with often include things like broken relationships, unemployment, addictions, and even criminal activity. Many of those conversations take place in a jailhouse visitation area.

 

During the course of the conversation I will always talk to them about their relationship with the Lord. More often than not they profess to be a Christian – usually as a result of a childhood conversion. But then they also admit that they’re not active in church, seldom read a Bible, and don’t pray very often either. And usually at some point the person will say something along the lines of, “If God really loved me and cared about me then why isn’t He blessing my life? Why is He allowing all these bad things to happen to me?”

 

The answer to that question is that in the Bible God has given us boundaries within which He expects us to live. The boundaries are actually very wide but they are boundaries and we do have to stay within them. As long as we do live within the boundaries of Biblical conduct, we are living in the realm in which God can and will bless us. But if we choose to wander outside of Biblical boundaries, and stay there, we are in effect choosing to live without God’s blessings. God cannot and will not bless unbiblical conduct.

 

In Zechariah 1:3 God was speaking to the nation of Israel through the prophet. They too had wandered far from Him and were experiencing all the unpleasant consequences of their poor choices. But even then, God had not given-up on them. Even then, He still extended His hand and issued an invitation, “Return to Me and I will return to you.”

 

That promise is for you too. If God seems far away it’s not because He has walked away from you, it’s because you have walked away from Him. Return to Him and He will return to you.

 

God Bless,

Pastor Jim