My main purpose and goal in my life is to become like Jesus in character, to press on to maturity, to become as much like Him as is possible.

Romans 8:29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;

“Conformed to the image of his Son” is the purpose of life established by God. He causes all things to work together in such a way that all things that happen will be a cause or stimulus for greater growth in me

A major anchor in the speed of my growth in character are the sins that I commit. It isn’t the sins themselves that are the problem but what I do in response to my own sins. If I justify as not so bad, blame others for my committing them, or simply ignore them, the consequences for those sins stay in me. The consequences are a loss of power from the Holy Spirit, the loss of God hearing and answering my prayers, a hardening of my conscience so I become more prone to sin, and many more consequences. God’s solution to my sin problem is to confess my sins as sin with no excuses.

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.

Psalms 51:1-3 Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me.

If I examine my life and confess all known sin to God He forgives me of those sins, washes me, and removes the consequences from my life. Another great blessing that comes into my life from God when I humbly confess all of my sins is that He gives me a greater grace to overcome the power of those sins, and I grow in holiness.

Romans 5:20 but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

One of my “daily disciplines” is to reflect about the day and to replay events and situations in my mind and with humility, transparency, and honesty to look diligently for sins that I have committed, even little ones, and to confess those sins to God as sin.

I slept in this morning until 9:00 am and then I propped myself up in bed and read until noon. It has been a long time since I have done anything like that. The reason was with Pastor Mike gone to Africa I was going to be preaching and teaching 7 times this weekend so I wanted to start out plenty rested because of all the energy I use up preaching. I had gone fishing Friday so my emotional gas tank was full, and I have been reading my Bible 12 chapters every day and spending time with God in prayer everyday so my “Will Power” gas tank was full as well. I teach young preachers that part of the responsibility of preaching the Word of God is not only to teach people how to live the principles in the Bible, but to give them the energy to live them, part of that energy comes from us. If a Preacher doesn’t have the energy to give, the sermon is going to be a dud. I have preached plenty of those in the past and don’t want to do any more. It is an amazing privilege to preach and teach the Bible, the inspired, living, and inerrant Word of God. It is also a very scary responsibility, one that I want to do very well at every time I get the opportunity. So, with all that said I need to go to bed so I am not dragging in the morning while preaching.

I went fishing at Diamond Lake today with my son-in-law Mike and a friend. I don’t think I have ever fished at Diamond Lake in November before, because it is usually to cold. But today it was 60 degrees, the sun was shining brightly, and the fish were biting. We could see early that we were going to be catching a lot of fish so we released all but the very biggest, and still all got our limit of 5 fish apiece. I don’t think any made it to 20 inches but a number were close, and very fat. Very few things are as enjoyable to me as a day of fishing with friends, especially when it is warm and the fish are biting. I was supposed to go salmon fishing at the coast with another friend but it got cancelled for lack of rain and fish, so this trip was arranged about 9:00 pm last night, nice substitute!

We all know that life is hard, full of trials, heartache, and pain. It is supposed to be, God made it that way. He created life as a time when we grow in character to be as much like Jesus as is possible so that when we get to heaven He will enjoy us and we will enjoy Him because we are alike. Life is hard, but heaven is wonderful, so focus on eternity, and live life with purpose.

But strong people who are running the race set before them with endurance and grit need to get revived regularly and systematically. God created everything in a week and then established that there be a regular day of rest every week, systematically, routinely. As people we have several different gas tanks that need filled up routinely. The physical gas tank is the easiest to understand and fill up, take a nap. The emotional gas tank is a little bit trickier to understand and fill up, and when we don’t we don’t have much passion, are unmotivated, and experience depression and burnout. The third gas tank, the “will power” gas tank is very important to our running with endurance, it is what keeps us from quitting when life gets tough.

So, physical renewal happens when we take a nap, exercise, and eat right. Our emotional gas tank is filled up by fishing, or working in the garden, or quilting, or dinner with friends. So, what about our “Will Power” gas tank? Isaiah 40:31 says, “Those who wait upon the Lord shall be renewed in their strength, they will mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not get tired, and they shall walk and not become weary”. Do you think this verse is talking about physical energy, emotional, or “will power”? It is the strength of our soul, our inner person, our will. I am confident that “waiting on the Lord” is reading the Bible, praying, worshiping, confessing sin, gathering with other believers, the basic spiritual disciplines that so many neglect because of business.

Philippians 2:13 says, “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

Who does God work in to give “will”? those who “wait on the Lord”. I sleep every night, you could say it is a routine. I eat, usually three times a day, a very entrenched routine that I seldom miss. I go fishing a couple times a month, I work on my boats, I work on my cars, I ride my bicycle, and I keep track of the amount of time and frequency that I play so I am always on fire and motivated to save the world! But the strength of my soul, my inner will to never give up, to endure, how do I fill that tank up? Wait on the Lord! Every day, routinely, systematically, keep track, it is very important.

One of the commands in the Bible that I work very hard at keeping is “so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all me”. That is getting harder to follow in light of the political climate in our country. People’s views and opinions seem to have grown stronger and many have become very emotional in the support and defense of their views. And I admit my own views and opinions have become much stronger and important to me than they have ever been. My personal view is that abortion is murder. It is as much murder as it would be if I shot someone in the head with a high powered pistol who was standing in line in front of me at WalMart who was taking to long to check out. I believe the Bible is very clear that life begins at the point of conception in God’s view. Hundreds of thousands of pre-born people have been murdered in our country for a variety of reasons, but mostly for convenience. I also believe that the devil and his demons are very much involved in the hysteria that is connected with most discussions on this topic. The devil’s agenda is is to kill and destroy people created in the image and likeness of God, and he especially likes to destroy children. God is God, He is in charge, He is the judge, and our country is under the judgment of God for the murder of so many young lives whose potential was never experienced. I have prayed and prayed over the years that somehow a God would do something to overthrow “Roe vs Wade”. I don’t believe that any other topic or agenda is as important as this one .

We started our Wednesday night service tonight at 7:00 pm. I will be teaching through the book of Philippians and the theme will be “being joyful in times of trial”. We started tonight by going through Acts 16 that describes the start of the church in Philipi by Paul on his 2nd missionary journey. He and Silas were arrested by the Romans and beaten with rods, thrown into prison, and put in a torture device. The normal practice when a criminal was beaten with rods is that all the skin would be gone off of their back, muscles would be torn and often bones exposed. At midnight while they were in the torture device after being beaten with rods they began to sing hymns. There was an earthquake and all the prisoners chains fell off and the prison doors flew open, and Paul led the jailer and all his friends and family to faith in Jesus. The power of singing and worshiping God after being beaten an inch from death. A church that begins like that is started on a good foundation of rejoicing in spite of trials. Teaching the Bible is my favorite thing to do, it is the most rewarding thing I do, it pushes my joy button like nothing else. If you don’t have anything else to do come on down and learn from the book of Philippians. Even if have something else to do, skip it and come on down and learn the power of a rejoicing life. So many people skip going to church because they work all week and want to do something on the weekend or have to work on the weekends. Gathering together with other believers is Gods will, He commands it in Hebrews 10:24, so it ought not to be an option for us. So Wednesday night at 7:00 to 8:00 pm is a solution, come on down and worship and learn and grow.

We all have in us desires and wants. Some of the things we want are selfish, worldly, even evil. But some of the things we want are very noble and good. In Psalm 37:4 God says, “delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart”. I love that verse and the phrase ” He will give me all the desires of my heart”. All of my desires, the good and godly and the evil and the selfish are all in this control room in my mind and the one that is strongest is at the top having most control over my life. The worldly and selfish desires naturally float to the top in the control room of my mind, and when that happens I am controlled by those desires. I have to choose and exercise self-control over my heart to keep the noble, God pleasing desires at the top. When those God pleasing desires are at the top of my heart He gives them to me, He promises He will, but I have to guard my heart continuously so that the selfish desires that are so numerous and strong don’t take over the castle of my heart. One of the disciplines that helps immensely to keep my mind and heart focused on God honoring activities is to set goals that I believe are the will of a God for my life, and to read those goals at least once each week.

I am going to go on a one month bicycle trip this coming summer in the month of June. I was working for a little while on the route this evening. I kept changing my mind once I got it down so I have about 20 different routes semi finished so now I just have to finish one of them after I pick which one it will be. As I try to decide on the various routes one of the factors is the road. I have a number of apps plus google earth that I can see the condition of the road. I look at the width of the shoulder and if it has rumble strips and where they put them on the road.I can also look at one app and it will tell me how many cars drive on it each hour. I wish they had an app that I could buy that would tell me how many dogs are in a particular route, that would be amazing. After I get the route finalized then I have to look for campgrounds anywhere from 50 to 90 miles apart with definite preference for the 50 miles. I enjoy the planning part of the trip very much.

Jesus said “You we’re faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things”. God gives us opportunities to accomplish something significant with our life if we are faithful.

In 1 Timothy 1:12 Paul says, ” I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service.

We live in the day and age of, “if doesn’t work out just quit, no big deal” I have been married to the same wife for 50 years, I have been pastoring the same church for 44 years. Sounds a bit on the boring side, but that is exactly the opposite of what it is. A faithful man or woman is is one whom God can trust to do what they said they would do.

Proverbs 28:20 A faithful man will abound with blessings,

It amazes me how quickly someone will totally sever relationship with another person who they have been very close with for years over a hurt or offense. It is as if they have this “delete” button in their brain that they choose to push that erases all the good times, meaningful conversations, and sacrifices the other person has made for them over the years. All they remember now are all the bad things. As I observe this phenomenon in relationship after relationship over the years I have become very convinced that bitterness is a very toxic poison and it doesn’t take very much of it in the heart of a person to destroy huge amounts of good memories. One of my “sayings” that I repeat as often as people will listen is, “forgive anybody of anything no matter how bad it is, and do it quickly otherwise you will severely damage your own soul”. For some odd reason people think that choosing to hold a grudge is somehow paying a person back for what they have done, it is totally nonsensical. It is like shooting yourself in the foot with a gun, and saying to the person who accidentally stepped on your foot, “so there, take that”. It would be very humorous if the consequences weren’t so serious and severe. Bitterness seems to destroy the ability to think rationally, with wisdom, and insight. Some of my greatest disappointments and hurts in ministry have been from people who I have met and counseled with for months, even years, prayer for, prayed with, gone out to dinner with, taught for hours, made huge sacrifices for, and got very close to, and then have them totally walk out of my life because of something that I said or did that hurt or offended them. Sometimes I can predict who will do that, but most of the time it is a major shocker that bewilders me, hurts and grieves me terribly, and leaves me hesitant to move beyond professional in my relationships with people. Then I remind myself, “don’t get bitter at bitter people”, think and act with love like Jesus. Help me Lord to lead, serve, and love like You.

As a pastor I regularly meet people who are not speaking to a parent or a child or other relative or friend (used to be friend) because of a hurtful experience. As I talk to them about forgiving others, seeking peace, reconciliation, and the consequences of bitterness they explain to me why their situation is an exception, and that God wouldn’t really want them to forgive this person. Often they will say that they really have forgiven them they just don’t want to talk to them or have anything to do with them. Often some of the circumstances surrounding the bitterness and broken relationships are amazingly trivial, but once an offense has been taken up, no matter how small, unless forgiveness happens quickly the offense grows bigger and bigger until there is a huge blindness to reality.

The warnings in the Bible about bitterness are everywhere. Simply put there probably isn’t anything we can do that has more consequence to it than being bitter. The opposite is to forgive anybody of anything quickly no matter how bad what they did to us is and no matter how many times they have done what they have done. It seems a bit overboard to say it like that but Jesus is quite clear on this. We have been forgiven of everything by Him because of His death on a cross, and He commands that we forgive quickly anybody of anything. The consequences of failing to do this is Jesus not forgiving our sins, which means He will not hear our prayers, we will not have peace or joy, we won’t be able to understand the bible, we won’t have any power, and He will turn us over to demons and allow them to torment us.

Over the years a number of people have gotten upset at me because of something I did or said. I try hard to reconcile with anybody who is upset at me and it usually works out, but there a few people who refuse to forgive me. One fellow has been holding a grudge for over 40 years. About once each year I send a letter, an email, or a message on Facebook attempting to reconcile with him, but so far no success.

I love to read stories of people who have forgiven others of incredible wrongs of cruelty. Many of the wrongs are committed during war and those who were tortured, mutilated, and have friends and family killed later make great efforts to find their tormentor and communicate personally that they forgive them.

I wonder why it is that some can forgive great offenses and others struggle with bitterness over the smallest of slights. I think it has to do with how aware we are of how much we have been forgiven, the price Jesus paid for our forgiveness, and the great gift we receive of eternal life because of what He did. So many take their salvation for granted and have little wonder, awe or gratefulness for the amazing gift of heaven.