I have had the privilege of doing several weddings in my short pastoral ministry and everytime I do one, there is the moment when I'm standing at the front with the groom and his attendants and the time comes for the bride to enter the building. When the bride appears to begin her walk down the aisle I always have a catch in my throat and a quickening of my heartbeat.
I had such a moment a week ago this Saturday at the wedding of my niece in Texas. That's what made me think about this again. As I thought about what makes this a heartstopping moment for me I realized it reminds me that there is coming a day and a time when Jesus is going to come down from heaven to this earth for His bride, the church. I can only imagine being able to visibly see Jesus for the first time and what an awesome sight that will be.
"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud comand, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so will we be with the Lord forever." I Thes. 4:16,17
My hope for you is you're ready to see Jesus if today was the day He made His appearing to take his bride home to live with Him forever.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Powerless
Dianne and I just completed 62 hours at our home without power. I learned some very important lessons during that time. The most important lesson I learned from her perspective is she can't do without something called a "chee." I don't have a clue what a chee is, except it's some device that helps her fix her hair. When she had to go to school 3 mornings without the use of this chee she was not happy!
A lesson I learned about myself is I CAN do without TV for 62 hours. If you had told me this fact before doing it, I would have doubted you. No ESPN, no local news in the morning, no Dog the Bounty Hunter, no Monk; what would I do with all that time? Mostly go to bed at 8:30, sleep 'til 5:30 A.M.(which I never do when there's any kind of outside light) and just generally change my internal clock.
Thursday evening we were scheduled to have our usual couples group meeting at the house but around 2 P.M. with no electricity on, I made a call to the other four couples in the group to say let's meet at a local BBQ place, which we did, and we ate, laughed a lot at each others true to life crazy stories, and just had a wonder ful time. In fact, I think that meeting did so much to bond our still young 4 month old group in ways we wouldn't have if we had our normal meeting. There is something about eating and laughter and fellowship that gets us close to one another in ways I can't describe.
As we turned on to our street that evening at 8:45 the first thing I saw was the yard lights on at our house. What a relief! We had power! No more getting ready by candlelight and bumping into things in the pitch black darkness of country living.
Another important lesson I thing I learned was that there were others who had it much worse than we did. Like Stephanie, my server at breakfast that morning whose home was flooded and she and her family escaped with just a few garbage bags of their belongings and wouldn't be able to be back in their home until next week, if then. As we drove to supper we saw 20-30 trees down along the way, thankfully none on houses but still something else to have to deal with as things began to dry out. At our place we only had a few limbs down, not whole trees. I also learned to be thankful for the people who supply our power and fix it when it goes out. I saw crews from Oklahoma and Ohio out in my area fixing power lines. What a wonderful fraternity of helping other people than those you are paid to take care of. I think there's something we could all learn from the utility companies.
Lastly, I thought about how horrible it would be to be without God's power in my life. I am reminded of the psalmist David's cry in Psalm 51:11, "don't take your Holy Spirit from me." It is one thing to be without electrical power but the truth is we can make it without it, but for a believer who knows what the POWER of God does in our life we never want to be without that! The truth is His Power never goes off or is interrupted by storms. His power is ever constant and all we have to do to keep it going strong in our life is keep our hearts tuned in to Him.
A lesson I learned about myself is I CAN do without TV for 62 hours. If you had told me this fact before doing it, I would have doubted you. No ESPN, no local news in the morning, no Dog the Bounty Hunter, no Monk; what would I do with all that time? Mostly go to bed at 8:30, sleep 'til 5:30 A.M.(which I never do when there's any kind of outside light) and just generally change my internal clock.
Thursday evening we were scheduled to have our usual couples group meeting at the house but around 2 P.M. with no electricity on, I made a call to the other four couples in the group to say let's meet at a local BBQ place, which we did, and we ate, laughed a lot at each others true to life crazy stories, and just had a wonder ful time. In fact, I think that meeting did so much to bond our still young 4 month old group in ways we wouldn't have if we had our normal meeting. There is something about eating and laughter and fellowship that gets us close to one another in ways I can't describe.
As we turned on to our street that evening at 8:45 the first thing I saw was the yard lights on at our house. What a relief! We had power! No more getting ready by candlelight and bumping into things in the pitch black darkness of country living.
Another important lesson I thing I learned was that there were others who had it much worse than we did. Like Stephanie, my server at breakfast that morning whose home was flooded and she and her family escaped with just a few garbage bags of their belongings and wouldn't be able to be back in their home until next week, if then. As we drove to supper we saw 20-30 trees down along the way, thankfully none on houses but still something else to have to deal with as things began to dry out. At our place we only had a few limbs down, not whole trees. I also learned to be thankful for the people who supply our power and fix it when it goes out. I saw crews from Oklahoma and Ohio out in my area fixing power lines. What a wonderful fraternity of helping other people than those you are paid to take care of. I think there's something we could all learn from the utility companies.
Lastly, I thought about how horrible it would be to be without God's power in my life. I am reminded of the psalmist David's cry in Psalm 51:11, "don't take your Holy Spirit from me." It is one thing to be without electrical power but the truth is we can make it without it, but for a believer who knows what the POWER of God does in our life we never want to be without that! The truth is His Power never goes off or is interrupted by storms. His power is ever constant and all we have to do to keep it going strong in our life is keep our hearts tuned in to Him.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
I'm One of "Those People"
One of the things I enjoy most about my job is getting to work with people in Celebrate Recovery. These are people who have what we call; hurts, habits, and hangups. It strikes me as odd that everyone on the planet has "hurts, habits, and hangups," because every being has a sin nature. Very few of us will admit our hurts, habits, and hangups that have caused us to hurt ourselves, hurt others, and also cause others to hurt us. One of the reasons I enjoy working with "those people," as they are sometimes called by those who think they don't have any issues, is because they recognize they have wounds and pain and the best way to deal with them is to face them honestly. Jeremiah 6:14, "You can't heal a wound by saying it's not there!" is a verse we quote regularly to help us face our denial.
Maybe you don't need a 12 step recovery program, but if not, you certainly need a biblically balanced program, be it a small group, a regular bible study you do with others, or somewhere you can exercise self examination and accountability to bring about the neccessary life changes God wants to make in your life.
Maybe you don't need a 12 step recovery program, but if not, you certainly need a biblically balanced program, be it a small group, a regular bible study you do with others, or somewhere you can exercise self examination and accountability to bring about the neccessary life changes God wants to make in your life.
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