Sometimes it feels like I will never finish the things I need to do on my “to do” list. I thought this afternoon that I couldn’t finish my list in two lifetimes.

Notice the word “feels,” it feels like I will never finish. It is normal to “feel” overwhelmed when there is a long list of fairly big jobs to get done. The key to conquoring that “feeling” is to identify an easy job or project on your list and get right on it. The feeling that will come over you is, “piece of cake!” If you don’t have any easy things on your list just add one. Is that legal!? Listen! It is your life, your list, your jobs, your attitude, just do it! I added the job, “Answer ten emails.” It took me 30 minutes and then I was thinking, “you can do this!”

Everything we need comes from God.

Everything we need comes to us from God through other people.

The number of healthy relationships that we have dictates how much of what we need we actually receive from God.

Our pride is our biggest problem in having healthy relationships, and in seeking healthy relationships.

We all tend to think, “I am God’s favorite and He will give me what I need direct, no middle man needed.”

We all tend to be passive in pursuing healthy relationships, but that lack of diligence in pursuing genuine friends is a major growth inhibitor.

The book of Proverbs is full of principles on how to have a growing number of relationships that are growing in intimacy.

A biblical friend is one who will admonish and correct you when you sin or get off-track.

When we are humble in our relationships and will hear, learn, and respond to their counsel God will give them the word’s we need; believe that!

Hebrews 12:1-3 . . .let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. . .so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

“The race that is set before us.” That would be God! He has set the race, He has determined the course. Some days the course is easy, all downhill, but most days there is a lot of uphill running, some days that is all there is, uphill, and it is steep.

Run with endurance!” That would be me, at least it is supposed to be me! Another way to say it is, “don’t quit, never quit, if you have to walk, then walk, but don’t quit, absolutely never quit.

Jesus focused on the result of the cross and the joy coming because of the price He was paying. I am focused on the finish line, I think every day about standing before Jesus and giving an account to Him of my life. I want to hear Him say, “well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master. Here, is a throne with your name on it, right next to mine, have a seat!”

Tonight at JBC Dr Matt Bain preached, and he will preach again tomorrow in both services. Tonight as I listened and took notes he said, “The Bible commands us to be strong, being strong is something we choose to be.” I thought to myself, “right on!” A strong person manages life, they run with endurance the race that is set before them by God, they don’t get all stressed out by the unexpected and the unwanted events that happen to them. Five characteristics of those who are strong.

1. Strong people believe in the sovereignty of God. They know the difference between what can be changed and what can’t, they zealously change what they can and they trust God for what they can’t.

2. Strong people know that God is not concerned with our life being comfortable and free of trials; he is primarily concerned with our character growth, that we become like Jesus. Strong people know that problems make us like Jesus but only if we rejoice instead of whine.

3. Strong people continually ask God for His strength so they can run with endurance the race set before them. They believe God gives His strength to those who ask.

4. Strong people are always looking for opportunities to serve the Lord, to serve others, and to serve their church. God gives His strength to those who will use it.

5. Strong people are much more concerned about the well-being of those around them than themselves, and they are continuously looking for opportunities to change things for the better.

For me personally the thing I desire more than anything else is God’s strength. God is powerful, infinitely so, and He loves to give His strength to people who seek it, and declare that apart from Him they can do nothing.

If you read the Bible through and while doing so you highlight every prayer that you read with blue crayon. Then when you finish go back and read all of the blue highlighted verses and ask the question, “what is being prayed for?” You will find that the prayer for strength is the most often prayed prayer. It seems that God is sending a message, “I am God, I am all-powerful, and I give my power to those who ask for it, and the more you ask the more I give.”

Every morning I ask God for His strength and I also ask for His wisdom, He promises to give both to those who are humble and ask because they know that they need them. and with those two they can conquer anything. Wisdom is knowing what to do and say in any situation God sovereignly puts us in.

Patty and I were married on August 24th, 1969. I was 20 years old and Patty was 21. It seems like just yesterday, but it also seems like a loooong time ago, so much has happened! The Bible says “the two shall be one.” I can’t imagine being any more one than we are. We are total opposites in every way but it is like we have the same brain. God has blessed our marriage, our family, our ministry. Life has been full of challenges, disappointments, and trials, but they seem so trivial amid all the blessings. The key thing in our marriage is that every decision, big and very small, has been in pursuit of God’s will and serving Him. We are a team not seeking the good life but seeking to please our creator, our Savior, and our Lord, and it has turned into the good life. Over the years the more we have made everything about serving Him the closer we have become. At this point our relationship seems so natural, intuitive, like flying.

People are regularly rude to me. They don’t talk to me, make eye contact with me, or in any way acknowledge my presence. Why would they do that? Most of the time it is because they know that I am a pastor and they are intimated by what I believe and teach even though they may never have listened to me, or they are opposed or disagree with what I would believe to be true. At times it is because I am conservative politically, and that leaks out. Occasionally it is another believer who has gotten upset at me for something I have said or done. Sometimes people are mad at God and I become the lightening rod, as it were. The Bible is very clear on this point, we are commanded to honor every person, to be kind, gracious, and nice.

One of my memory verses is Micah 6:8,
He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?

When someone is giving me the cold shoulder I wonder what they are thinking, and what their goal is with such behavior. I personally work very hard not to treat anyone with any less respect than I would treat one of my own kids, and with difficult people going out of my way to say Hi and chat for a minute. I want to be a man that loves kindness, and goes the second mile. God blesses those who are nice to difficult people.

How can a person say “I love You, Jesus.” You can’t see Jesus, you can’t hear Him like your wife or husband, so if you say that you love Jesus, what do you mean? How can you measure that? Isn’t that just a statement that people make, but has no substance to it. It is difficult to discuss this because everything that is used as proof by most people is inside feelings and emotions that can’t really be weighed or counted.

Don’t get me wrong, I say, “I love You Jesus” a lot, all the time. It is very important that we love God, it is the foremost commandment in the Bible. In fact when we define what a Christian is using the Bible as our authority the only definition that really works is “a Christian is someone who loves Jesus.”

John 14:23 Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

1 Corinthians 16:22 If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed.

It is so important that we genuinely love the Lord, not just say, “ I love you” with little understanding if we really do or not. It has been my observation that many people who are quick to say, “ I love You, Jesus,” have been trained to say it by their church, by the words in our worship songs and the “church language culture,” we want to fit in and appear spiritual so we talk the talk. It is incredibly easy to become self-decieved.

My love for my wife can be measured by what I do for her, how I treat her, the sacrifices that I make in order to make her happy. What I feel doesn’t really matter, it is what I do that matters.

The church is called “The Bride of Christ,” “The Body of Christ.” “The Body of Christ,” is used over a dozen times in the New Testament, and it means, “The body which is Christ.” Jesus Christ is manifesting His presence in the world through the church.

I state my love and commitment for Jesus this way; “My love for my church is my love for Jesus, my commitment to my church is my commitment to Jesus.” I can see by my actions my level of love, I am not guessing or being deceived by words only.

It is easy to see from Revelation 2 and 3, and from life that there are many unhealthy churches, liberal churches, so it is very important that we find a good church and love them, serve them, learn from them, worship Jesus with them. I love You, Jesus, with all my heart.

When we were raising our eight kids, and now with 27 grandkids, we often heard them say, “I can’t wait.” They could wait because they usually had no choice, but they were expressing their excitement and great anticipation for a particular event. I am often in the same state of mind; two months before I was scheduled to head to Alaska for salmon fishing I could hardly think of anything else, and now with archery season just a week away, whoooeeee, I can hardly wait.

But the most anticipated event in my life is the return of Jesus or my death, both of which will result in me being in heaven with Jesus. As 1 Corinthians 2:9 says, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.”

Hebrews 9:28 so Christ. . . will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

Philippians 3:20-21 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

I am “eagerly awaiting” my departure from this life to the next. Many are fearful of their impending death, I am anticipating it eagerly. While I am here on this earth, I will live my life to the fullest, accomplishing as much as I possibly can, growing in character as much as I possibly can, but every day I think about this perhaps being the day that I cross the finish line, I can hardly wait.