Pastor's Point

Plato said, “The greater part of instruction is being reminded of things you already know.”

I need to be constantly reminded of true leadership.

Here is an paragraph from John Maxwell’s book, “Leadership Gold.”
Leadership requires diligence, time and effort. Leadership is a willingness to put oneself at risk. The passion to make a difference with others, being dissatisfied with the current reality, taking responsibility while others are making excuses, seeing the possibilities in a situation while others are seeing the limitations, readiness to stand out in a crowd, having an open mind and an open heart, the ability to submerge your ego for the sake of what is best, invoking in others the capacity to dream, it’s inspiring others with a vision of what they can contribute, the power of one harnessing the power of many, heart speaking to the hearts of others, integration of heart head and soul, capacity to care, and in caring to liberate the ideas energy and capacity of others, the dream made reality, leadership is above all courageous.

When God led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, He told them to prepare for a quick departure by making bread without yeast. He gave instructions to remember their departure through the celebration of Passover – also called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. During this celebration there was a seven day period when yeast was not even allowed in the home: “For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel” (Exodus 12:19).

When God established the various offerings through Moses, yeast became associated with an unworthy sacrifice; “Every grain offering you bring to the Lord must be made without yeast” (Leviticus 2:11).

About 1500 years later, Jesus used the symbolism of yeast to give His disciples an important warning.

Luke 12:1 “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”

With this choice of words, Jesus warned that hypocrisy has the ability to contaminate our lives, and therefore the offering we present to God. The Pharisees had an outward appearance of godliness, but their hearts had compromised true worship and become contaminated; “On the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness” (Matthew 23:28). When we examine our own heart, does it match how we appear on the outside? Or have we too become full of hypocrisy?

The symbolism of yeast gives another clear warning; “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough” (Galatians 5:9). Every day we are tempted to make compromises with the world; compromises which cause us to behave contrary to our professed beliefs. This is hypocrisy and must be avoided at all cost! Each incident seems so small – like only “a little yeast” – but soon the compromises work through all areas of our life.

The only worthy endeavor during our allotted time on earth is to present ourselves, with complete abandonment, as a living sacrifice to God; “this is your spiritual (or reasonable) act of worship” (Romans 12:1). Our Heavenly Father is worthy of our very best…a pure and holy offering.

Let’s celebrate our release from the slavery of sin by cleaning our home and removing all spiritual compromise. Let’s give our whole heart to God in loving worship and guard against ANYTHING which pulls us away. Let’s fight the hypocrisy in our lives and diligently guard against the yeast.

God’s accuracy may be observed in the hatching of eggs.

For example:
-the eggs of the potato bug hatch in 7 days;
-those of the canary in 14 days;
-those of the barnyard hen in 21 days;
-The eggs of ducks and geese hatch in 28 days;
-those of the mallard in 35 days;
-The eggs of the parrot and the ostrich hatch in 42 days.
(Notice, they are all divisible by seven, the number of days in a week!)

The lives of each of you may be ordered by the Lord in a beautiful way for His glory, if you will only entrust Him with your life. If you try to regulate your own life, it will only be a mess and a failure. Only the One Who made the brain and the heart can successfully guide them to a profitable end.

God’s wisdom is seen in the making of an elephant.. The four legs of this great beast all bend forward in the same direction. No other quadruped is so made. God planned that this animal would have a huge body, too large to live on two legs. For this reason He gave it four fulcrums so that it can rise from the ground easily.

The horse rises from the ground on its two front legs first. A cow rises from the ground with its two hind legs first. How wise the Lord is in all His works of creation!

God’s wisdom is revealed in His arrangement of sections and segments, as well as in the number of grains.

-Each watermelon has an even number of stripes on the rind.
-Each orange has an even number of segments.
-Each ear of corn has an even number of rows.
-Each stalk of wheat has an even number of grains.
-Every bunch of bananas has on its lowest row an even number of bananas, and each row decreases by one, so that one row has an even number and the next row an odd number.

-The waves of the sea roll in on shore twenty-six to the minute in all kinds of weather.

All grains are found in even numbers on the stalks, and the Lord specified thirty fold, sixty fold, and a hundredfold – all even numbers.

God has caused the flowers to blossom at certain specified times during the day, so that Linnaeus, the great botanist, once said that if he had a conservatory containing the right kind of soil, moisture and temperature, he could tell the time of day or night by the flowers that were open and those that were closed!

Thus the Lord in His wonderful grace can arrange the life that is entrusted to His care in such a way that it will carry out His purposes and plans, and will be fragrant with His presence.

Only the God-planned safe life is successful. Only the life given over to the care of the Lord is fulfilled.

I HOPE YOU FIND THIS AS FASCINATING AS I DID…..WOW!!!!

May God Bless You In Ways You Never Even Dreamed Today!

Jesus has finally arrived, but it was too late; Lazarus was dead! If only He had arrived earlier. Jesus made His way to the tomb with the grieving crowd following. He stood in front of Lazarus’ tomb weeping, revealing His heart to the crowd (John 11).

Then suddenly He instructed the people to remove the stone from grave’s entrance. They couldn’t believe their ears. Martha blurted out in her surprise, “But Lord, by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been dead four days.”

The people obeyed. Jesus calls out to Lazarus and behold the creator of life (John 1:1-3) gave new life to Lazarus. Lazarus waddled out of the tomb still wrapped in His grave clothes alive! Jesus directed the people to remove the grave clothes.

This miracle catches us by surprise in several ways. We dare not miss the sign – the miracle of raising a person from the dead is primary. Yet we are surprised by other elements as well. Why did Jesus have the people remove the stone? Was He challenging their faith? Why did He have the people remove the grave clothes? This request seems more obvious.

Lazarus couldn’t do it for himself. Whatever the reasons one thing is abundantly clear – Jesus chose to involve the people in His work. Amazingly, astoundingly He involved His people in His work.

There are many obstacles that hinder people from coming out of their sin – their graves. There is the sin itself biding them. We cannot remove the sin. Only Jesus can do that. But we can work to remove stones. They cannot even hear the voice of God calling because these “stones” are so thick that they muffle His voice.

Though it is impossible for the church, for you and me, to remove all these stones, Jesus is instructing us, His people, to “remove the stone.” Stones of ignorance; stones of apathy; stones of physical need; stones of misunderstanding; these are just a few if the stones we can address and help remove.

And the grave clothes; when people find new life in Christ Jesus they bring with them habits, experiences, hurts – grave clothes. They need to be discipled – to have their grave-clothes removed. It is our responsibility in partnership with the Holy Spirit to help them remove the excess baggage that they carried with them from their life in sin. This takes time, effort, patience, persistence, diligence and an extra amount of God’s love, which He provides. But Jesus is looking at us and telling us – “remove the grave clothes.”

Let’s not neglect our responsibilities. Let’s draw upon God’s limitless resources and accept the gracious privilege of being involved in His work. He calls us and people’s eternal lives depend on it!

The young man had lost his job and didn’t know which way to turn.  So he went to see the old preacher.

Pacing about the preacher’s study, the young man ranted about his problem. Finally he clenched his fist and shouted, “I’ve begged God to say something to help me. Tell me, Preacher, why doesn’t God answer?”

The old preacher, who sat across the room, spoke something in reply — something so hushed it was indistinguishable. The young man stepped across the room. “What did you say?” he asked.

The preacher repeated himself, but again in a tone as soft as a whisper. So the young man moved closer until he was leaning on the preacher’s chair. “Sorry,” he said. “I still didn’t hear you.”

With their heads bent together, the old preacher spoke once more. “God sometimes whispers,” he said, “so we will move closer to hear Him.”

This time the young man heard and he understood. We all want God’s voice to thunder through the air with the answer to our problem.  But God’s is the still, small voice… the gentle whisper.

Perhaps there’s a reason. Nothing draws human focus quite like a whisper. God’s whisper means I must stop my ranting and move close to Him, until my head is bent together with His. And then, as I listen, I will find my answer. Better still, I find myself closer to God.

There was an incredibly large group of people assembled. On one side of the group stood a man, Jesus. On the other side of the group stood another man, Satan. Separating them, running through the group was a fence.

The scene set, both Jesus and Satan began calling to the people in the group and, one by one, each having made up his or her mind, each went to either Jesus or Satan.

This kept going, and eventually Jesus had gathered around him a group of people from the larger crowds, as did Satan. But one man joined neither group. He climbed the fence that was there and just sat down on it. Then Jesus and his people left and disappeared. So too did Satan and his people.

And the man on the fence sat alone.

As this man sat there, Satan came back, and appeared to be looking for something that he’d lost. The man said, “Have you lost something?” Satan looked straight at him and replied, “No, there you are. Come with me.”

“But,” said the man, “I sat on the fence. I chose neither you nor Him.

“That’s okay,” said Satan. “I own the fence.”

“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. (Matt 6:24)

But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Josh 24:15)

“For this reason, I kneel before the Father”  (Ephesians 3:14)

Have you ever watched a bird sleeping on its perch and never falling off?  How does it manage to do this?

The secret is the tendons of the bird’s legs. They are so constructed that when the leg is bent at the knee, the claws contract and grip like a steel trap. The claws refuse to let go until the knees are unbent again. The bended knee gives the bird the ability to hold on to his perch so tightly.

From sleeping birds we can learn the secret of holding things which are most precious to us — honesty, purity, thoughtfulness, honor, character.  That secret is the knee bent in prayer, seeking to get a firmer grip on those values which make life worth living. When we hold firmly to God in prayer, we can be assured he will hold tightly to us.

“My ship, the West Virginia, docked at Pearl Harbor on the evening of Dec. 6, 1941. A couple of the fellows and I left the ship that night and attended a Bible study. About fifteen sailors sat in a circle on the floor. The leader asked each of us to recite our favorite Scripture verse. In turn, each sailor shared a verse and briefly commented on it.”

“I sat there in terror. I couldn’t recall a single verse. Finally, I remembered one verse: John 3:16. I silently rehearsed it in my mind.”

“The spotlight of attention grew closer as each sailor took his turn. It was up to the fellow next to me. He recited John 3:16. He took my verse! As he commented on it, I sat there in stunned humiliation. In a few moments, everyone would know that I couldn’t recall from memory even a single verse.”

“Later that night, I went to bed thinking, ‘Robertson, you’re a fake!’”

“At 7:55 the next morning, I was awakened by the ship alarm, ordering us to battle stations. 360 planes of the Japanese Imperial Fleet were attacking our ship and the other military installations. My men and I raced to our machine-gun emplacement, but all we had was practice ammunition.”

“So for the first 15 minutes of the two hour battle, we only fired blanks, hoping to scare the Japanese airplanes.”

“As I stood there firing false ammunition, I thought, ‘Robertson, this is how your whole life has been—firing blanks for Christ.’”

“I made up my mind as Japanese bullets slammed into our ship, ‘If I escape with my life, I will get serious about following Jesus.’”
(Signed) “Roy Robertson”

Underneath this article in the church bulletin where I first saw this story 20 years ago, were these words:  “Roy went on to help Dawson Trotman found the Navigators. He led the follow-up ministry for the 1990 Billy Graham Crusade in Hong Kong. That crusade saw more people hearing the gospel at one time than ay other meeting in history.”

Roy Robertson spent all his adult life after the war heading up the Navigators ministry throughout Asia. I’d call that “getting serious” about Jesus.

The story is a powerful illustration of lives that are “blanks” or “fakes.” As with Roy’s “false ammunition,” they do no harm to the enemy and no good to their side.

In the last days, Paul said to Timothy, so many of the Lord’s people will have a form of godliness but will deny its power. (II Timothy 3:5)  We’ll leave the reader to apply this to your own life and situation as the Holy Spirit leads you, but we would all do well to consider the following questions:
1) Do you see signs of powerlessness in your own life today? In the church where you belong? In the Christian movement as you are acquainted with it?
2) What is it that makes us powerless? Not, “what are the symptoms” but “what is the root cause?”
3) What gives a believer’s life real power, making it a threat to the enemy and a real asset to the Kingdom?
4) Can you think of stories and teaching in Scripture that clearly illustrate both the power of the faithful and the powerlessness of the unfaithful? (My mind keeps coming back to the sons of Sceva in Acts 19 who were unable to cast a demon out of a poor fellow. The demon said to the seven sons, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?” Powerlessness makes us a laughingstock even to the demons!)

Are you truly living for Jesus, or are you just faking it?

Joe McKeever

As a New York skyscraper went up, hundreds paused daily to glance up at it.  One day they watched a ponderous metal beam go up to take its place in the steel skeleton. As the girder came near, a workman leaned out from the sixteenth floor to seize it. The spectators gasped as he lost his balance and fell.  Desperately, he clutched the girder’s end with arms and legs.

The ground crew stopped the hoisting engine, but the man’s weight at one end began to tilt the beam to a vertical position, which would eventually cause him to lose his grasp and fall to his death.

With swift decision, another worker on the same floor, seeing his friend’s predicament, leaped through space and landed on the other end, where his weight leveled the beam. Amid the applause of the crowd, both men were safely lowered to the street.

Every day people around us lose their balance on moral questions – they consider having an affair with a co-worker, taking company funds, lying to close a deal, toying with drugs and alcohol.

Wrong decisions will hurt them and their families for years and cost their souls in Eternity. They need friends who are interested in helping them keep their balance, by leading exemplary lives, by sacrificial living, by speaking a word for Christ.  Here on this earth, no one will applaud, but it will be worth it all when we receive the approval of the Master. (1 Cor 4:5)

Live your life in the manner which Christ lived and others are sure to take notice!

Brother Hammer served as the chairman. The other members of the tool belt informed him that he must leave, because he was too noisy. But brother Hammer said, “If I have to leave this carpenter’s shop, then brother Gimlet must go too. He’s insignificant and makes a very small impression.”   (A gimlet is a small tool with a screw point, grooved shank, and a cross handle for boring holes).

Little brother Gimlet arose and said, “All right, but brother Screwdriver must go also. You have to turn him around and around to get anywhere with him.”

Brother Screwdriver turned to the other tools in the belt and said, “If you wish, I will go, but brother Plane must leave, too. All of his work is on the surface; there’s no depth to what he does.”

To this brother Plane leveled his terse reply, “Well, then, brother Saw will have to depart too. The changes he proposes always cut too deep.”

Brother Saw complained, saying, “Brother Ruler will have to withdraw if I leave, for he’s always measuring other folks as though he were the only one who is right.”

Brother Ruler then surveyed the group and said, “Brother Sandpaper doesn’t belong here either. He’s rougher than he ought to be, and is always rubbing people the wrong way.”

In the midst of the discussion, the Carpenter of Nazareth walked in. He had come to perform his day’s work. He put on His tool belt and went to the workbench to make a pulpit. He employed the ruler, the saw, the plane, the hammer, the gimlet, the screwdriver, the sandpaper, and all the other tools. When the day’s work was over, the pulpit was finished, and the carpenter went home. All the accusations against each of these tools were absolutely true, yet the carpenter used every one of them. No matter which tool He used, no other tool could have done the work better.

We are all “tools” in Jesus’ tool box. Each of us has a purpose, ability, and a task to perform.

“For we are God’s fellow workers…” (1 Corinthians 3:9)

Author Unknown