I ride my stationary bike an hour every day. The reason is because I want to keep myself strong and healthy. Physical strength is great, and I love it when Patty oohs and aahs when I flex my muscles and calls me Rocky. But having a strong heart or soul is many times more advantageous to living life successfully than physical strength. Most of us know how to be physically strong even if we don’t do it, but most don’t know how to be strong on the inside. Strong people manage pressure well, they don’t fret and worry about things, they can carry a heavy load of responsibility without burning out, strong people don’t quit, they are calm when everything seems to falling apart and give peace and calm to those around them. Strong people face and deal with crisis in such a way that those around them feel more secure and confident.

So the question is how do I become a strong person, a person with a strong heart and a strong soul.

Deuteronomy 31:6. Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.

Ephesians 6:10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.

Let me suggest five principles of being strong on the inside in the face of crisis, and the unknown.

1. You make yourself weak by complaining, grumbling, and fretting about hard things in life. It is a bad habit and until you break it, you will not come close to being what you could be in strength and accomplishment.

2. The natural thing to do with news about a mass shooting is talk it to death. Analyze, evaluate, blame, and try to figure out motives. It might seem like a good thing, but talking about our trials, crisis, and the bad events in our life makes us look weak, and feel week.

3. Ask God for strength. God loves to give strength to those who ask for it, and the more we ask the more He gives.

4. Read the Bible everyday. God’s Word the Bible Is supernatural and God loves to give His strength to those who honor him by reading it.

5. Strong people will make us stronger than we are, and weak people will make us weaker than we are when we hang around with them.

A key thing is you have to want to be strong, you want people to trust you and to manage their lives like you do. When a crisis comes like the Los Vegas shô

Reading the news tonight about the shooting in Los Vegas that killed 59 people and wounded over 500 the big question is motive, why? There had to have been a lot of thought and planning that took place before last night. During those many hours of buying the guns and ammunition and transporting all of it to a particular hotel room for a particular day and event what was happening inside Mr. Paddock’s mind. An older man who is reported to be a millionaire is sometimes eccentric or senile, but this was crazy. This shooting is reported to be the worst in U.S. history. I wonder if there will be one that is yet worse? Probably, I wonder when, and again the question, what will be the motive, why, what drives a person to such evil?

2 Timothy 3:1. But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.

It appears that things are getting worse all over the world. I wonder how much worse they can get. Evil is a strong word that implies much more than just being bad, and evil would certainly be the word to use for this person and act. The devil is very real, and the author or father of evil. He has an agenda, and it appears to be escalating. When Judas betrayed Jesus it says in the Gospels that “Satan entered into Judas”, and he then did one of the most evil acts in all of history.

So, what has all of that got to do with me, and you? If we are in the “last days” and things do get increasingly worse in the world, and in our country what do I do, how do I live, what is my plan? Most will wring their hands in despair and blame somebody, and then try not to think about it, until the next time. I think my plan is going to be, first to pray for victims and family of victims that God will give them strength, joy, and peace in spite of their crisis, and that they will turn to Him as their God and Savior. Then I will pray for the opportunity to influence those in my life who are experiencing anxiety and despair because of events in our world to totally trust the Lord with their life. A a main commitment in the midst of all the hysteria, blaming, anger, and politicizing is I am going to work at being a man who is calm and at peace, not indifferent or uncaring, but one who knows without a doubt that God is on His throne. I will choose not to get caught up in all the “conversations” about the “news”. And above all else I will look forward to the coming of the Lord.

The total number of people who have attended or visited JBC and then have stopped coming over the last 41 years that I have pastored here is probably over 10,000 people. I have a commitment that I will pray for every person who visits at least twice every week for two months so I remember many of those who have attended if even for a few weeks. Today someone came up and said Hi to me, and I knew that I knew them, I just couldn’t quite come up with a name in my memory. When they told me their name I immediately remembered them. It had been 17 years since they had been to church, and we had a nice conversation about their life and all that had transpired sinceI I had seen them last. They assured me that they would be back soon, and I promised them that I would faithfully pray for them that they would indeed be back and seek for and serve God.

For some reason all people tend to drift away from God rather than towards Him. God is very real and loves us and wants to have an intimate relationship with us and when we are close to him we will feel peace, security, confidence, joy, and strong so it is amazing that we so easily do drift away from Him, but we do and when we drift away we start feeling anxious, guilty, depressed, and unhappy. Psalms 16:11 says, “In Your presence is fullness joy, and in your right hand there are pleasures forever”. Whenever I begin feeling even a little bit flat I turn my attention on seeking Him, on focusing on him.

October is a good month, fall salmon fishing, hunting season, and my birthday! Because things seem to start this time of year I make October my beginning of the year as far as my yearly goals are concerned. I typically start writing them October 1st and have them done by October 27th which is my birthday, but because I like to have them done by the time I start teaching my leadership classes I finished them yesterday. I have 70 goals this year, and I am excited about most of them. Many of them are repeats from last year, and are basic disciplines such as my Bible reading goal and a number of my prayer goals. I have had them pretty much the same for years, and I probably would do fine without having a goal to do them, but I like to include them as I use my goals as an example for others as I teach about goal setting a lot during the year. It is a good place to grow to when your goals are done year after year until they become a habit and then move to “delight”, that is you couldn’t hardly not do them because they have become such a part of your life, your character. A lot of people fuss about goals because they want to do what they ought to do because they want to do it. That is a nice place to grow to, but it takes awhile to get there, and it probably will never happen without goals. Hebrews 6:1 has become my main personal Bible verse this year, “I will press on to maturity”. “Press on” is obviously a phrase that speaks of effort, discipline, and hard work. It is also a phrase of focus, an expression that means, “there are a lot of things happening in life , but I am zeroed in on growing in character, maturity”. I have found that goals are a great tool to create focus and intensity on what is important to us. One of the questions that I ask people as I attempt to help them grow is “was the last 12 months a time of significant personal growth for you?” Almost every response I get back is “I don’t know” which means “no”. So the next question is “what do you think it would take for the next 12 months to be a time of significant growth for you?”. Again the response is usually “I don’t know”. One more question,” would you really, really like to make the next 12 months a time of very rapid growth in character in your life?” I then offer to help them make that happen by teaching them to write personal goals and hold them accountable to do them on a weekly basis”. Some excitedly agree, but most say no. It is just to threatening. It is easier to stay in our plateaued state than to write and pursue goals.