I teach a number of leadership classes at JBC each year that last about 8 months. Each person in the class commits to memorizing about 2 new verses each week, reading in assigned books, reading their Bibles every day, spending time with God in prayer each day, and attending class and taking notes of my lesson and taking a quiz each week on the previous weeks lesson. Then at the end of the year they give a 15 minute sermon in church. Tonight (Saturday night service) 3 spoke, and tomorrow (9 :00 am & 11:30 am services) 6 more will speak, 3 in each service. These end of class sermons from those who have finished the class are my favorite services of the year. I feel so proud of each person and look forward to see how God is going to direct their lives into serving Him. In the class I teach all about goal setting, and each student sets their own goals for the 8 months they are in the class, and reports on them each week. I also teach on various character traits and the importance of growing in these 26 different character traits as followers of Jesus. The basic goal of the class is that each person who goes the full 8 months without quitting would be an influencer of people inside the church and outside. I teach that God gives us His authority inside of us as we prove faithful and worthy, and that authority as an invisible force coming from us draws people and influences them to follow Christ.

I went fishing today with some friends, and it was the most eventful day I can remember having, in that just about everything that could go wrong did. We met at my house at 6 am and headed out to Detroit Reservoir pulling my 20 foot pontoon boat. We got to Stayton and had a flat tire on the boat trailer. The jack that I had was to small to jack it high enough to get the tire off so we used two jacks with blocks, and finally got the tire off. The spare wasn’t the spare in that the bolt pattern was wrong and wouldn’t fit. It was then that I remembered that two months earlier someone had a flat in front of our house and had no spare so I loaned him the one for my boat trailer and a jack. He promised he would bring the them both back the next day, but I have not seen him since. I went to Les Schaub’s in Stayton and bought a new rim and tire for $181, it took a while but we got it put on the boat trailer, and then we headed for the Lake at 11:00 am. When we got there we launched the boat, got the 40 horsepower Johnson started, and then we put the electric trolling motor down into the water as well to test it, it was fastened to the deck in the front. It was a very nice trolling motor with 80 lbs of thrust, and it had a gps built into it and I could control it with a remote device that had an auto pilot on it. We took off across the lake, but I forgot to raise the trolling motor, and the water pressure on it from going full throttle with the outboard caused it to bust off of the deck and fall to the bottom of the lake! Oh well, it was just a motor! So we got 4 fishing rods baited and hooked on my 2 down riggers, but somehow the 6 pound weight went down faster, farther than expected and it ran out of cable and went to the bottom of the lake as well. We had the lines from two fishing rods hooked to it, and as the cannonball went to the bottom it stripped all the line off of the reels, the new braided line that I had just put on the evening before. The line from one of the remaining functioning rods somehow got into the prop and immediately stripped all the line off of the reel and wound around the prop. So now we have no trolling motor, only one fishing rod with line on it, only one down rigger, and the wind is blowing hard, it is getting cold, and starting to rain. Wow, I was having so much fun having all these adventures.

I watched the first game of the Western Conference Finals for the National Basketball Association between the Portland Trailblazers and the Golden State Warriors last night with some friends at our house. The Blazers did pretty good for the first 3 quarters and then lost by 20 points in the 4th quarter. It looked like they just ran out of gas. The 6 of us that were watching cheered and rooted for the Blazers passionately but it didn’t do any good, they still lost. We will give it another try on Thursday.

I like to compete with others in card games, bunco, fishing, running, biking, horse shoes, things that don’t really matter much. It is fun to compete with friends, and I really try to win, but if I lose, no big deal.

But I don’t want to compete with others when it comes to my behavior, my character, my success or failure as a Pastor, as a husband, father, or grandfather. Comparing myself to others is a guaranteed way to create either pride or a sense of failure depending on who I compare myself to. It takes diligent awareness and     self-control of my  self-talk and thinking when I am around other people, especially pastors so I don’t let myself start mentally comparing and competing.

What I have worked at doing is to compete with myself. I try to evaluate myself accurately in the area of my Pastoring skills, my character, my performance as a husband to Patty and other areas of my life that are important.  I do this in writing in my journal periodically, especially at times that I think I have done either really good or bad. I then reflect on the question, “Am I better or worse compared to what I was one year ago, have I improved or am I plateaued?” Hebrews 6:1 says, “Let us press on to maturity”, Philippians 3:12 says, “I press on so that I might lay hold of that for which Christ laid hold of me for,” and Philippians 3:14, “I press on toward the goal of the upward call of God.” “Pressing on” is an attitude of wanting to win, to conquer, and to achieve.

When I was in High School there was an annual, end of the year “Awards Ceremony” held in the gym, and everyone was invited. It was rewarding and fun to get an award or Letter for accomplishing something significant in athletics or academics. Most of the awards were based on being better than others, on head to head competition, someone was the winner and got the award and others were the losers. Today I am “Pressing on” and working hard for the “Awards Ceremony” that will be in heaven with Jesus as the Judge, called the “Judgment Seat of Christ”.

2 Corinthians 5:10  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be rewarded for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

I think about this event coming up in my life everyday, and I am consumed with winning. I won’t be beating a person, but I will be beating the devil, the world system I live in, and my own sinful flesh. I am wanting with everything in my to hear Jesus say to me on that day, “Well done, good and faithful servant”.

The Bible says in Romans 12:2, ” Do not be conformed to this world”. That means, don’t let the values, the standards, the morals, and the philosophy of the world around you be yours. The devil is very real, and his demons as well, and he is called the god of this world by Jesus, which means he controls to a great extent the values, the standards, the morals, and the philosophy of the world. When you become conformed to the world you are conforming to the will of the devil. It is a very subtle kind of influence that draws people away from being fully devoted followers of Jesus and serving God to giving token credence to the Almighty with sporadic attendance at church. There is so much at stake for all eternity to not be super careful about the health of our soul, and the longings of our heart. The only people who will not be fooled by the craftiness and scheming of the devil are those who read their Bibles faithfully. Hebrews 5:13-14 “For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, (the Bible) for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice (they read the Bible) have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” It is so important to establish a ritual, a specific time and place where you read your Bible and pray.

I am teaching a principle this weekend as I preach at JBC. If you give joy to the people around you, God will give joy to you. Whatever measure of joy you give God will multiply it in your life. The most powerful way to give joy to others is by honoring them with our words. And the reverse is also true, if you cause people to feel hurt, offended, unimportant, and undervalued by your words, God will make sure that you feel the same! Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, so we are supposed to honor our mother. Gifts and flowers are nice, but affirming words and praise far surpass any gift that we could give. It would be really good if would start affirming and honoring our mothers more than once a year. And we could move to people in our life like our dad, brothers, sisters, boss, employees, and neighbors. It is a good commitment to make to God, “I will honor those who are part of my life now and those who You decide to bring into my life in the days ahead.”

Sunday is Mother’s Day, a day to honor our mothers. My Mom was the best. She is the reason that I am serving the Lord today with my life. I was in church every week, no excuses were accepted. I usually attended 2 or 3 different Vacation Bible School events every summer growing up, summer camp, Sunday School, Youth Group and even prayer meeting where there were 4 old ladies and me. Like many of the most renowned Christian workers my Moms main thing was that she was faithful, she just did what she was supposed to do year after year after year. The first part of Proverbs 14:1 is a great description of my Mom, “The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands.” My Mom was wise and she build a great family and legacy.

Today in our culture there are many foolish woman and men who because they didn’t acquire wisdom in the early years of their life tear their relationships, marriages, and family’s down with their own hands. They usually do this with their words.

I attended the very first Blazer game at Portland in 1970. I was 20 years old, and I had been married for only a few months, and had just quit college and moved back to the farm to work with my Dad. Patty and I moved into the basement of my parents house remodeling it into a little apartment. There were about 4,000 people who attended that first game, and we, 3 friends and I sat 4 rows up from the court. I have been a Blazer fan ever since that first game. I exalted with the National Championship in 1977 led by Bill Walton, and groaned with many others over the pass on Michael Jordon, and Kevin Durant.

Being a fan of a professional sports team is an interesting phenomenon. I don’t know any of the players, their wives, their character, their values, or their faith. They get paid enormous amounts of money to play a game that I played in High School and college. They aren’t really very old, in their 20’s and early 30’s. Their opinion on what shoes are best seems to matter a lot as well as their political views. I watched them compete with the Denver Nuggets on television tonight and winning to tie the series at 3 games apiece, shooting almost 4 hours of time eating popcorn. I have often thought that I would probably be wise to bail on all sports interests and TV viewing. It would be such a time saver. But I continue to watch the games, discuss with friends the why’s and whatfors of each season as the playoffs unfold, debating what decisions and trades need to be made to improve the team and chance of winning another National Championship. I wonder what the value is of being a fan?

One of my personal goals is to go to a seminar at least once each year that is for Pastors. I went to one today that was held in Lebanon with two son in laws who are pastors, my son, Sam who is a pastor, associate pastor, Brandon, and bunch of other local pastors that I know well. The seminar was good, but the really fun part for me was seeing all the young guys that were there getting motivated to serve the Lord as they Shepherd a church full of people. I made a goal to go because I want to get a little wiser and more skilled in this complicated job of trying to move people closer to God. I didn’t come away with any new ideas, strategies, or methods, but I did come away encouraged about the Church. The Church is the hope of the world, but the Church has been taking it on the chin for awhile now, so today was fun as I was in a room of about 75 pastors who were mostly young guys.

For most of my life I have had a bowl of ice cream in the evening while sitting in my recliner reading, sometimes 2 bowls if there was a blazer game on or some other game that warranted a bowl of ice cream. On January 1st this year I went on “no sugar, no wheat” diet that has had a profound impact on my health. That means that I haven’t had any ice cream for almost 6 months. Patty has bought me several brands of ice cream that is “no sugar”, but it tastes terrible, and I have not had any more. Since quitting I have been looking for a new vice. To qualify the vice needed to be a food or drink that I enjoy because ice cream was sort of an end of the day celebration for having gotten through another day and for accomplishing some things that mattered. So a celebration required something that tasted really good like ice cream did, that is why that “no sugar” stuff wasn’t going to cut it. Well tonight I dubbed the new celebration vice, pop corn with lots of butter. It is very enjoyable to sit in my recliner reading and munch on pop corn casually and occasionally lick the butter off of my fingers. Actually I have to lick my fingers often because I read mostly from my IPad and the butter messes up my screen big time as I touch it to turn pages . Popcorn with lots of butter is not exactly a low calorie snack, which is why it qualifies as a vice. I don’t want to totally eat and drink what is good for me, that would make life boring for sure. So now I will be trying various brands and ways of making it that will make it even more wonderful and qualify me as an expert on popcorn. Continue reading →

Over the past 60 years of my life I have had periodic seasons where my faith in God, Jesus, heaven, and the Bible have waned. I have these huge doubts pop into my mind, and have thoughts like, “I only believe this because I was brainwashed when I was a kid”, or “If this all is really true it seems that I would see more answers to my praying, or “Why are there so few people who seem to be truly changed on the inside by the Gospel?” In talking to other followers of Jesus it looks like what I have experienced is common to most believers. Even in the Bible those who wrote thousands of years ago what we read today went through these seasons of doubt and confusion. In Psalms 73 the writer was having such an experience and writes, “But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling, My steps had almost slipped”, and also, “When I pondered to understand this, It was troublesome in my sight.” It is weird the timing and the content of these thoughts and doubts that periodically flood over me. I have come to the conclusion that God does to me what He did to Job, He gives satan permission to harass me for the purpose of testing me, and he does this by trash talking to me, as it were, and I hear him in my thoughts. 1 Timothy 4:1 “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons”. Also in Revelation 2:10 “Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested”. And it appears that God also tests us, in Genesis 22:1 “Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham”. There was a mental wrestling match inside my brain and heart on each of these events, and the result has been that I have come out a bit stronger in my faith. It feels like when I was in wrestling in high school and won a match. In Revelation 2:11 it says, “He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.” The Greek Word for “overcomes” is where we get “Niki” as in the shoe company, and it means “winner”. I don’t enjoy these wrestling matches and I hope I have had my last, but they do appear to be part of life that God has planned as He makes us like Himself in character.