I read this from someone else’s Facebook entry of a “cut and paste” of a blog I wrote several years ago. I liked it so well I thought I would post it again. Fits for Easter.

I don’t like people telling me what to do. I try not to get irritated when they do, because it happens more and more as I get older, in fact even my kids boss me around now. We all have this reaction and resistance to being told what to do, and most of us have developed a patience or a self-control level so that we don’t make a big scene when we are treated like someone’s servant.

The one person that I want to boss me is Jesus. I want Him to lead me and to be my Lord in every area of my life. When I say, “I want” that is an intellectual wanting, in my heart I still tend to resist His Lordship in my life, there is this pride in me that thinks I can run my own life.  That independent spirit in me is really quite foolish when I think about the fact that Jesus is God, all wise, my creator, who knows everything about me, and loves me so much that He gave His life for me and paid for my sin. I want to be submissive to His Lordship and leading in my life so to make it more of a reality in my heart and soul I declare Him my Lord every morning, and ask for His help in being humble in my walk with Him.

It would seem like by this time I would have conquered this resistance to being led by the Son of God.  I am hoping that I get it down soon.

We had our “Good Friday” service tonight at JBC. The Jefferson Evangelical Church and the Abundant Life Center joined us for a community service together, and it was such a blessed time. The highlight of the evening was the Communion service and the worship that was part of Communion and that followed it. The main point of the evening was to try and understand the full price that Jesus paid so that our sins could be forgiven and we could live in heaven with God. We don’t really think much about the full price that was paid for our sins. Fully understanding the price that was paid for our redemption is sobering, are we that important to God that He was willing to pay that kind of price for our sins?

1. He left heaven, emptied Himself of all that He was as God and became fully man. How far was that journey?

2. He was tortured on the cross, and experienced horrendous pain as part of the price He paid For us to be forgiven.

3. He became our sin, that is, God the Father looked at,Jesus as if he actually committed the sins we committed and punished Jesus for doing them. He poured out His wrath as a holy God against the atrocities of all mankind’s sin on His perfect and sinless Son.

4. The oneness, the unity of the Son and the Father was broken for the first time in eternity as God the Father turned His back on His Son because He had become our sin.

5. Jesus felt the guilt and shame of the sins of every person who has ever lived or will live, His soul was tormented as our sins became His sin.

To think lightly, or naively about what Jesus did because of what we have done so that we could be forgiven is the ultimate in the lack of appreciation. We get used to the story of redemption and it no longer “wows” us with the amazing love of our Heavenly Father.

Well, I finished everything on the boat and I finished the trailer today and decided to take it on her maiden voyage at Freeway Lakes.I pulled it with my Kia Reo, and the Kia pulled it fine, though it looks funny because the boat and trailer are bigger than car😀. Once I got it in the lake she worked good. It is very stable, and I can stand clear on one side with very little tipping. I rowed for awhile and every pull on the oars resulted in a lot of net forward movement. I also ran it with the electric trolling motor, and on the lowest setting it went about 2 miles an hour. I would like it if I could get it to go 1 mph, because that is the perfect trolling speed. I might have to drag a bucket behind the boat to slow it down a bit. But it handled nicely, it was very stable, and it looks very nice, especially with me in it.

What makes a day good? With many it means no problems, no surprises, things went smooth, nothing unexpected. With others it means lots of work done, everything checked off their todo list. And with many it means meaningful time with friends or family. A really good day is when all of the above happened, which is not only a really good day, but a very rare day. Today was a super day for me because I got to spend 8 hours in the prayer room at JBC praying with a couple hundred different people through out the day. Every hour there is a 15 minute break in the praying and people come and go. Some pray for a number of hours but most come and pray an hour and then head off for work or whatever else is on their schedule. Today we averaged a little over 30 people in the prayer room every hour. One person prays a short prayer and everyone in the room is listening and agreeing with their prayer in their mind and heart, and then a different person prays, and so it goes for 45 minutes. During these times the presence of God couldn’t be any more real even I could see Him. Spending 8 hours experiencing such a strong manifestation of God’s presence does a lot to a persons spirit and soul. My faith grows noticeably stronger, my inner sense of peace is incomprehensible, my joy level is greater than it is on a fishing trip, and the very strong sense of God’s pleasure in me as His son is the best. Besides the intimacy with God, the fellowship with all the different people is so good. Listening to people talk to God about their wayward kids, their sick neighbors, their spiritually lost friends creates a special kind of bonding. 8 hours of being in God’s presence and intense relational bonding with people is what made this a very good day for me.

I built a little trailer for my new 10 foot pram that I just finished. I used 2 inch galvanized water pipe for rollers. I bought some drive in UHMW bearings for the ends of the water pipes, which amounts to a 5/8 inch hole in the chunk of hard plastic that has been machined to fit in the pipe. I welded an angle iron bracket on the side of the trailer with a 5/8 hole and ran a bolt through it into the UHMW. I made three rollers, put a winch on the front of the trailer, and side brackets to keep the boat centered. The boat and trailer weigh less than 500 lbs, and I can pull it with my Kia Rio. Thursday is supposed to be warm so I think I will give it a test. Our “Five Days of Prayer” is still going, and I am praying 8 hours each day in it so I will go fishing someplace close, probably “Freeway Lakes”.

It is hard to put into words the joy and satisfaction I felt today as I got the trailer lights wired and they actually worked, mounted the electric trolling motor on the back of the boat, screwed in the brass oar locks, got the fish finder all wired in and working, and charged the battery. When it was totally finished today I sat down in an old wood chair, and just looked at it for about 30 minutes. It is a mighty fine boat, if I do say so myself!

In the early days, 30 plus years ago, I fell asleep in corporate prayer often, actually most of the time. I still kept scheduling corporate prayer times for our church and I kept going, because I knew it was the right thing to do. I knew what the Bible said about prayer and I had read dozens of books on prayer, revival, and the history of the church, and it was pretty obvious that God didn’t do much except in response to prayer by the church, so I kept scheduling prayer times, and I personally kept going to the prayer times and praying and falling asleep. I remember thinking, “I think the clock actually slows down during corporate prayer times!”, they used to just drag. It took about 7 years of faithfully praying until things started to change for me. Our prayer times started becoming a major source of joy, passion, and strength, and my sense of God’s presence in the prayer room started to grow stronger and stronger. My faith in the power of prayer continued to grow as well. I became totally convinced that there wasn’t much that our church couldn’t fix,or change if we were willing to pray long enough for it. So now, 30 plus years later, here I am, a 70 year old man, having pastored for 43 years, 5 months away from our 50th wedding anniversary, and I truly feel like I am at the peak of my effectiveness for God. I am confident that my best years are yet to come, simply because I know that the more I do nothing but pray, the more God will work. So my life purpose statement right now is, “I will pray as much as I can, and I will work at convincing as many people as I can to pray with me.”

Jefferson Baptist Church began our “Five Day Prayer” event this morning at 5:00 am. In this first 5 hours of prayer this morning we had about 160 hours of prayer meaning that we had a shade over 30 people in the prayer room together every hour. It was a very blessed and powerful time of fellowship and sensing the presence of God as He joined us.

Over the last 30 years I have chosen to make Prayer the highest priority of my life and the highest value of our church. I have also chosen to make “corporate Prayer” , that is our church praying together, in the same place, at the same time, for the same things the main focus, emphasis, and value of my personal life and the life of JBC. The reason is because that was the emphasis of the church in the book of Acts in the New Testament, and also every revival in the history of the church over the last 2000 years has been preceded by a major emphasis and practice of corporate prayer.

Over the last 30 years many people have argued with me or simply chosen not to cooperate with me on my strong emphasis on corporate prayer. I base my decisions in life on the truth of the Bible, but I also place a strong emphasis on determining what is true from the witness and testimony of faithful and trustworthy people who have experience and wisdom. Over the last 30 years I have averaged almost 700 hours every year of praying corporately with others in the church. I don’t share that to impress anybody, but to say that the reason I pray so much is because of the experience that I have had with the Lord over the 30 years and the answers that have come as a result of the hours of praying. I would throw that out there to help convince you to make prayer, especially corporate prayer a key part of your life. Come join us, 5 to 10 am, and 5 to 10 pm Monday through Friday. Friday at 7 pm will be our “Good Friday” service.

At the Jefferson Baptist Church marriage retreat this weekend at Odell Lake Lodge there was several feet of snow, and the lodge has miles of trails for cross country skiing, snow shoeing, and snowmobiling. I decided to try doing some snowmobiling with several others. I had done a little bit of riding on a snowmobile in the past, but it was over 30 years ago, and I am 70 years old now, so I was a bit nervous. We took off and as we road I got more confident and started going faster and going around corners faster. It certainly isn’t like riding in a car or even on a motorcycle! There are lots of bumps and holes so snowmobiling is more like riding a bucking horse. It really is a lot of work riding those things because you are using your legs to take some of the shock out of all the humps and bumps, and you are constantly leaning one way or the other as you take the turns and hanging on for dear life with your arms getting a major workout. So even though it was cold it wasn’t long before I was sweating pretty good. There was a spot in the trail where a tree had fallen over so the two guys in front of me went around it by going up and around it on the right bank of the trail, and as I attempted to follow I slowed down to much and the snowmobile rolled over down the bank. It probably looked worse than it was because the snow made a relatively soft landing for me. The three of us rolled it back upright and got it started again and off we went. Now, I was no longer riding with confidence and my speed went down significantly, so that the other two guys had to stop and wait for me often. The reason I rolled the machine was because I was going to slow on the sidehill going around the tree, but the thought that if what I had just done had been done at the speed I was normally going it would have hurt for sure! I discovered that riding with abandonment is so much more fun and exciting than riding like a chicken, but though I knew that I couldn’t seem to make myself turn lose and just go fast. So when when the guys asked how much longer I wanted to ride I said, “I am about done in, let’s swing by the lodge and I will bail out.”

In life there are so many things that people never attempt to do, because they are afraid of failing. They really do want to do the things that they have often dreamed of doing, but the fear of rolling that snowmobile over causes them to be overly cautious and they keep doing the boring and mundane that they have been doing most of their lives.

Patty and I are leading and teaching at JBC’s marriage retreat at Odell Lake Lodge this weekend. We are having such a blessed time with 20 plus couples that are up here at the retreat. John Ditgen and his staff here at the Lodge are treating us like royalty. Being at these marriage retreats is super and teaching at them is very rewarding, and I am always stirred by my own teaching to pursue a better marriage and never be content with where we as a couple are in the quality of our marriage. A major key to growing and improving is self examination and reflective thinking about where am I right now as a husband, so I thought out and wrote down these 10 questions to ask myself. On each question I will rate myself from 1 to 10, with 10 being near perfect, and 1 being unbelievably bad.

(1) Am I overly sensitive and self-absorbed so that I easily get my feelings hurt by things Patty says or does.

(2) When Patty does do something that is wrong, bad, inconsiderate, or selfish do I forgive her quickly, because Jesus has forgiven me of everything or do I hang onto it getting angry, hurt, and bitter.

(3) Do I take the initiative to start conversations with Patty about spiritual things in our life.

(4) Do I take the initiative to pray with Patty at least 3 times each week.

(5) Do I look for opportunities to serve Patty, doing something as simple as making her a cup of tea.

(6) When Patty shares with me the details of her day or about a certain event do I honor her by listening to her with attentiveness.

(7) Do I exercise self control so that I never express anger at Patty not even a little bit of irritation.

(8) Do I praise Patty for all the things she does for me, aggressively looking for many opportunities to praise her and tell her how wonderful she is.

(9) Do I look for opportunities to encourage and motivate her to develop her spiritual gifts and ministry at JBC.

(10) Am I faithful to take Patty on dates for the purpose of communicating about our marriage and how we can make it better.

We are saved by grace, no good works required, but if we are truly saved we will do good works and we will hunger and thirst always to be more holy and righteous, but the cool thing is that God gives us all that we need to grow and become more mature.

2 Corinthians 3:5-6 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit;

That is grace. He forgives us of all our sins because of what He did for us on the cross, and He gives us the will and the strength to obey Him, to follow Him, to love Him, to serve Him, and to become like Him. But we must choose and act, Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 12, “I worked harder than anybody, but I did it by the grace of God”.

We are saved (that is we are going to live with Jesus forever with incomprehensible joy, instead of in torment in the Lake of Fire with the devil and his demons)because of what Jesus did for us on the cross which we could not do for ourselves. We could never be good enough to earn our way into God’s family, but Jesus was sinless and died to pay the penalty of our sins, and when we admit that, accept what He has done for us, and choose to follow and love Him we are totally forgiven and adopted into His family. But many have a false conversion experience and belief, and will hear Him say when they stand before Him, “depart from Me, I don’t know who you are”, and it will be to late to do anything about it.

The Apostle Paul says that we ought to test and examine ourselves to determine if we are really saved. 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?”

The best description of this test is in 1 John 2:3-6 “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.”

Another very cool part of grace is that as we press on to maturity, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, we still mess up,but He continues to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness as we confess our sins to Him.

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”