There are a lot of very important, or maybe a better phrase is well known people, who are being revealed as sexually immoral in the news lately. It is interesting that a country as sexually immoral as ours is, one where pornography addiction is increasing yearly, movies and television programs make moral purity seem odd, would all of a sudden make such a big deal out of these people’s sexual behavior. It wasn’t that long ago that the press was making fun of Tim Tebow for his public commitment to remain a virgin until he was married, and someone offered a million dollar reward to anyone who could get Tebow to sleep with them, and that offer became a point of mocking his commitment to be morally pure.

I am of the opinion that sexual purity is very important to God. People mess up on this area, and God forgives and restores, but He does so on the basis of conviction, remorse, and repentance. In our culture today the rules have changed from what the Bible clearly teaches as what is right and what is wrong. A passage of scripture that is one of my life verses is 2 Timothy 2:21-22

“Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work. Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”

“Useful to the master”, useful to Jesus, useful to the God of the universe! That is what I want more than anything in all of my life, to be useful to the Lord. “If a man cleanses himself from these things” , and the context is sexual purity, God will use him.

I remember as a little kid lining up in a line as the two biggest and oldest kids picked who was on their softball team alternating choosing among those who were in the line, and being the one who got picked last. It happened so much that I got used to it and even expected it to happen. But now I want Jesus to pick me to be on His team and for Him to give me lots to do that matters. He doesn’t choose on the basis of size, athletics, intelligence, talent, education, personality, He chooses on the basis of moral purity, that motivates me.

One of the clear evidences of an almighty God who made us is the inner desire in us for justice. We have it when we are very small children, and become aware of injustice and cry “that’s not fair”. This inner sense that there is right and wrong, that wrong ought to have consequence and good ought to be rewarded is put in us by God. Our conscience is a key part of our inner, real person that is our guide through life. Our conscience is our inner google maps system, it guides us well in making choices that are good, right, and a blessing to others. Our conscience can become calloused, that is it becomes less and less sensitive to what’s right and what’s wrong. Our conscience becomes calloused by degrees, little by little, compromise by compromise, and before we know it we are capable of doing just about any evil with little remorse or sense of guilt for doing it. Our conscience is seared when we start allowing the world around us to begin programming our brain in what is right and wrong. Again it is little bit by little bit but before long we believe what the world believes and we act the way the world acts. The Bible talks about those who overcome the world and says that those who do will have great influence on others and will be used by God in the lives of others. Blessed are the overcomer.

Rules are a tricky thing. On the one hand they are good and absolutely necessary. Without rules chaos reins, driving would be suicide without them, games would be impossible without them, relationships would turn into war without them, and the planet earth would self destruct. But on the other hand they can be the source of criticism of others, pride, and external phony righteousness. 2 Timothy 2:5 says, “an athlete doesn’t win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.” The major factor in determining whether rules are good or bad is the question, “who made the rules”. When I was a kid my brothers and sister and I played monopoly a lot. I always won because I made up new rules as we went along. After awhile they rebelled and quit playing with me, and we had to find a new game to play, but it was good while it lasted! The Pharisees, the religious rulers during the time of Christ made up rules and declared themselves righteous, but Jesus called them hypocrites, and said they were like graves, on the out side they looked good with all the f lowers, but on the inside they were full of dead men’s bones.

I follow the rules of Christ for my life, and I teach those rules to who ever will listen. The rules that God has given us are not burdensome, but life giving. They are intended by God to make us free, to give us joy, and to make us successful in anything we set our hands to. There are lots of rules in the New Testament, but many of them are overlapping, and many are repeated. I like lists so I have made a list of 10 rules in the New Testament that are the most important and the most impactful of all the rules listed. I think they pretty much are a summary of all the commandments that are in the New Testament.

If you would like to know what they are you will have to come to church at JBC this weekend because I am preaching and that is the topic of my sermon, or you could down load the sermon from our web sight.

The amount of information that is being broadcast on tv, printed, and sent out via social media today that is false is mind boggling. It is virtually impossible any more to know what is true and what is false that we see, hear, and read. But One thing I know for sure is that the Bible is true, the inspired, inerrant Word of God that tells me how to live successfully in a way that results in joy and peace in my mind and heart. It tells me as well how to have eternal life with God and to soon escape all this craziness and live with God forever with a new body that will never ache or get sick or tired, forever. In the midst of all the craziness and stuff going on I have done what the Bible says to do in times like this, “set your mind on the things above, not on the things of this earth”.

The Bible promises that things will get worse and worse until Jesus comes, so there is no sense getting all tied in knots over current events. As for me I have set my mind and heart on the day that Jesus comes, and in the mean time I will try and accomplish as much with my life as possible to help people know the truth of God’s Word that sets us free from anxiety, and gives us a hope that becomes the anchor of our heart and soul. One of the principles that I live by is that if we saturate our minds with God’s Word, the Bible, we will know truth from error. Hebrews, a book of the Bible in the New Testament says that those who have their senses trained by the Word of God will be able discern between good and evil. Yep, I believe it.

I am of the opinion that Self- control is one of the most important of the various character traits. It is close to being the foundation for every other character trait. Self- control is described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 when he says “I discipline my body and make it my slave”, Some say, “I beat my body”. I like the sound of that phrase, “I make my body my slave” , that is, my body does exactly what I tell it to do!! Wow, how I wish that were true! It seems often that my body is telling me what to do, and I have little power to resist. In another book of the New Testament that Paul wrote he says in Romans 7, “the things I don’t want to do I find myself doing, and the things that I want to do, I don’t seem able to make it happen”. I don’t think anything makes me feel weaker as a believer than blowing it, and messing up, saying something that I knew before I said it that it wouldn’t be wise, going off of my diet, staying up until 1 am when my goal is 11 pm . Growing in self control is like any other area of our life that we want to improve and grow in, we train ourselves to become a champion with disciplines and exercises, and we grow little bit by little bit. I am going to fast for 5 Days, drinking water and coffee only during our 5 day prayer event December 4th through the 8th. I will do it for the increased prayer focus and Power, but I also am going to do it as a training tool to control my flesh better. I welcome any who would like to join me, misery loves company.

What makes you feel good, happy, satisfied, fulfilled? There is a sense of enjoyment that comes from many things that I do, a good day of fishing is right near the top. But a deep sense of being fulfilled comes to me only when I know I have done something that is eternal in significance. Today I taught a class at 8 am on the “Justice of God” that I could tell many connected with. At 9:00 am I preached at our first service about the significance of the “Communion Service”, confession of sin, and forgiveness, and again there many who were impacted and shared with me the great sense of God’s presence they felt as they worshipped and remembered the death of Jesus through the “Communion Service”, and then again in our second service at at 11:30 am. I also taught a woman’s discipleship class at 10:15 am for an hour and a men’s leadership class at 1 pm for an hour. Tonight as I sit in my recliner I am tired, but it is a good tired. It feels really good to serve the Lord and do His work. I know that no one does that unless the Lord gives them the privilege to make a difference in someone’s life for all eternity. As I sit here thinking about the day and mulling things over in my head, I ask myself the question, “Why has God allowed me to do this?” “Who am I , that I should have this great honor?” It is a humbling experience as I think about it, but one thing I know for sure is that if God gives me something to do for Him that is significant I don’t want to blow it, because of apathy, laziness, distraction, procrastination, being entangled in all the business of life. I want to truly make a difference and be given more to do because I proved faithful.

Isaiah 53:6. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way;

Hebrews 2:1 For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.

Hebrews 3:12. Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.

It is my observation that almost everyone who is a follower of Jesus will drift away from Him at some point. It is usually subtle, and gradual, rarely on purpose. It is usually because of getting entangled in the affairs of everyday life to the point that the basic safeguards against drifting like attending church faithfully, reading our Bibles daily, and spending some time with the Lord in prayer are compromised more and more. People often drift to the point that they are helpless to do anything about it, though at this point they don’t care. The only recourse God has now is to take them through a major crisis to get their attention. Sometimes people repent and turn around, and other times they just get angry at God, and stay where they are.

Revelation 2:4-5. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent.

What we need to do is to practice Revelation 2:4-5 often and regularly. “Remember from where we have fallen”, then “repent and do the basics” that kept us close to the Lord and growing before we started to drift.

A key principle is whenever we take “Communion” we need to “remember” and “repent”. When I take Communion I pray and say, “Dear Lord, You are Lord! You are my Lord, and I have drifted like a dumb sheep from You, my God, my Savior, and my Lord, I repent now and commit to seek You diligently, please help me to do that.

We are having a Communion service this weekend at JBC. If it has been awhile since you have been in Church this would be a good weekend to come and recommit your life to following and seeking the Lord, making Him first place in your life before anything else. It is the only way to live if you want His supernatural joy and peace in spite of life.

I have been doing a bunch of reading of late on this age group of people in our country. It varies some depending on who I read but they were born approximately between 1982 and 2004 which makes them the 35 to 13 year olds in our country, our town, and our church. All the information that I read asks the question, “Who are they”? but my question is what do they need that they could easily receive at church if they were connected and what do they have to offer that would bless others. Some would say that they age of the church is over, but I operate on the basis of what the Bible teaches because it goes way over the head of what our present culture teaches.  A simple definition of a local church is a group of people who gather together regularly, faithfully, and systematically because we need other people in our life in more than a casual way in order to grow as a person in our character and in order to have real joy in our life. There are all kinds of groups of people who gather together with regularity, but the church is unique in that we gather in the Name of Jesus. In the Bible Jesus says, “When you gather together is my Name, I am with you in a special way”.   So, I being an old “Boomer” believe that Jesus gives me what I need through other people when I gather with them in the Name of Jesus, and that Jesus  gives through me to  others what they need.  We in our country are super independent, all ages, from top to bottom are very inclined to say, “I don’t need you”.  But in reading about Millennials I read that they are drawn to “community”, it just needs to be real, and transparent. Well, that is what I am drawn to as well, and I am an old “Boomer”.  I guess it just boils down to choosing to regularly gather with others who are real and transparent so I can experience Jesus through them, and it probably needs to start with me. I can do that.

This is a picture of the boat I am building. It will be a 23 foot ocean going dory. I am enjoying very much the challenge of building the boat and the learning that I am doing as I build it. Doing this sort of thing is what I do for play which renews my emotional energy tank. Burnout, weariness, and even some forms of depression are basically running out of emotional energy. Refilling our emotional energy gas tank is a skill that those who carry a heavy load need to learn if they want to continue accomplishing a lot with their life.