1 Peter 5:8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

2 Corinthians 11:3 But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

Ephesians 6:11-13 so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness

One of the goals of the domain of darkness is to fill us with fear. If they can do that they effectively paralyze us and keep us from doing anything with our life that matters. If we include the commands to not be anxious there are over 100 commandments in the Bible to not fear, or be anxious.

Deuteronomy 31:8 The Lord is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

The cure for fear is prayer. Once the church got rolling in the book of Acts the leaders were thinking that the people would be to afraid to witness, so they called for a prayer meeting to pray for courage and boldness. It says in Acts 4:31 that when they had prayed they spoke the Word of God with boldness.

In our present day fear and anxiety are at a very high level. The devil is keeping that fear as hot as he can. Jefferson Baptist Church is having a “five-day prayer event” beginning this Monday. We pray from 5:00 to 10:00 am and pm. We will pray Monday through Friday. If you come and pray for one hour a day or more this next week, you will notice very rapid growth in boldness. Give it a try and see what happens. There isn’t much worse than a chicken heart.

Psalms 139:17-18 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.
When I awake, I am still with You.

When Patty and I were dating in College I was very afraid that I would lose her. She was the most popular girl on campus, and all the guys were wanting to go with her. I was the least known person on campus because I was such an introvert and recluse. I didn’t think that I had much of a chance of attracting her with my unassuming and bland personality. One day we had a conversation that changed everything, and catapulted our relationship into high gear. I said to her, “I am struggling with my grades because all I can think about is you,” and she responded by saying, “ I am having the same problem.” I thought, “wow! I can’t hardly believe this is true! But she said it! Wow, I am all she can think about! Whoooooeeeeeeee, thank You Lord!

As good as that was to hear from Patty to my love sick ears, it is even better news to hear that God’s thoughts about me are more numerous than the sand of the sea. That is a lot of thoughts! He must care for me a lot. That is a thought worth meditating on.

I wonder if I would have impressed Patty more by saying to her, “ The thoughts that I have about you are more numerous than all the sand on the sea shores in the whole world!” I will never know the answer to that question, but I do know that what I did say worked.

The more routine in my life the more I get done. If I write everything that I do in a month down on a list, it is a pretty long list. Some of the things that I do, I do once a month, others once a week, then daily, and then multiple times a day. If I do the list of daily things at the same time every day I am becoming organized routine and then I pick up even more speed. Some of the things on my list are locked in like church services, leadership classes, and accountability groups, so those get written down first, and then everything else gets written in around it. There is 168 hours in a week and I want to stuff as much in that time as I can. Some people like slow and easy, not me, I get super bored with slow and easy, I want fast and hard with periodic rest times plugged in. I like my rest times to be productive but sitting, like reading and writing. So I try to mix up “on my feet” activities with “sitting activities.” My list of daily activities get a number, 1, 2, or 3. Activities with a 1 are very important and can’t be missed like my Bible reading. Activities with a 3 have more flex in them and if things happen that I wasn’t expecting the 3’s can be sacrificed, such as writing in my journal or working on some of my projects. My journal writing is important, but my goal is three times a week, so it can move. If you play a game on your smartphone while flying on an airplane, you try and win. I have a game of trying to accomplish as much as possible in a week so I am always thinking about how I can improve my organization. Back in the days when I ran I had a wrist GPS that had a virtual running partner on the screen. I could program him to run at a certain speed so there would be him running on the screen and another runner that represented me. I could look and see if I was winning or losing the race as I ran, and it motivated me to pick up the pace if I was behind Gunner, the name I gave to my GPS running partner. My pages of daily activities scheduled throughout the day is my running partner, as it were. At the end of every day I can declare myself the winner or the loser. I have established some value statements so that I can maintain a fast pace, but not frantic. One of those is “interruptions in my schedule that are conversations with people get extra points, and if they are conversations with “vfp’s in my life they get even more points.” A vfp is a “very filling person.” Some people in my life fill up my gas tank, they encourage me, motivate me, make me smile, so I consider time with them in a week very important. Those times are seldom on my list, they happen accidently, but very easily, because I am always on the lookout for them, and will readily sacrifice several 3’s and even some 2’s to allow them to happen.

I work really hard to control my eating with good days and bad. I exercise all the self-control I can muster to speak only words that edify and give grace to those who hear. I struggle big time with not allowing reading, listening to, and watching the news, and current event experts eat up a bunch of my time, it is so addictive. Speaking of addictive, it is so easy to let NFL and NBA games and all the Sports Talk stations eat up huge amounts of time, and then justify it under the guise of relaxing and recovering from the stresses in life. I set goals and set stopwatches with alarms, and establish consequences and rewards for success and failure. And then the real challenge is taking every thought captive so that all that I think about is pure, right, true, and honorable. Every morning I make commitments to the Lord to exercise self-control in every area of my life and I pray and ask God to give me the strength to keep my commitments. I sincerely hunger and thirst for righteousness, I press on toward the goal of becoming like Jesus in every area of my life and character, I examine my life and my motives every night and confess all known sins and bad attitudes to the Lord.

I am growing in self-control in all these areas, but it is so stinking slow! If I live to be a thousand years old I may be able to say that I have finally acquired the character trait of self-control, maybe! Oh well, maybe it will get easier when I get older 😂🤣

Seven for Heaven is the name that we give to the list of “lost people” that we are praying for to get saved. The list can be one or one hundred; what they have in common is that we know them, and they are spiritually lost and headed for hell when they die. They can be neighbors, work associates, family, or friends. I have an even dozen on my list, and it only takes a few minutes to pray for them, so there is no good excuse for not praying for them every day.

Romans 10:1 Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.

1 Timothy 2:1&4 “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men. . . .This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Lost people are spiritually blind; they can’t understand the truth of the gospel, it makes no sense to them.

2 Corinthians 4:4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

We can pray for our seven for heaven list and ask God to restore their spiritual eyesight, and He will do that.

Ephesians 1:18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

He will also give us opportunity and the wisdom to share with them the gospel. The words of the gospel are powerful to give sight to those who are spiritually blind.

Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Acts 26:17-18 rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’

Acts 16:14 A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.

It looks like I could give five minutes every day to pray for a dozen lost people asking God to open their spiritual eyes so that they could understand the gospel, asking Him to set them free from the control of satan over their will, asking Him to provide an open door, a divine appointment with them to talk spiritual things with them, asking Him to give me the wisdom to know what to say and when to say it, and asking Him to convict them of their sin and draw them to Himself.

It doesn’t take much time, and that simple discipline would make a huge difference in the lives of a lot of people throughout our life if we would do it, but very few do.

Today I found out it is going to cost me $2,000 to get my outboard motor for my dory fixed, it is going to cost $500 for a brake job on Patty’s car, I have a hernia that needs surgery, the arthritis that I have in my neck has been killing me lately with this rainy – cold weather we have been having, I have developed a very painful sciatic nerve problem in my left leg, and my Parkinson’s disease seems to be getting worse. The admonition in the book of James is to consider it all joy when you have various trials, the Apostle Paul said to consider it all joy and to rejoice always in the midst of hard times.

The key for me is to start by thinking about the good things in life, now and in the past, and to praise the Lord for His blessings to me. Between my family and my ministry I have experienced so many blessings, it is impossible to remember all of them, but as I start thanking the Lord for a particular ministry or event I remember some more, and then some more. It seems as I am faithful and obedient to thank the Lord and not take any good gift from Him for granted my memory improves or He brings things to my mind that I had forgotten about.

Then it seems it is so much easier to be positive and thankful for present trials and I say “thank you to the Lord for every detail of my life, the good and the bad. I can say thank you for the trials because I know that they are producing character growth in me. I remind myself that the more trials I experience and manage the better I will do at the “Judgment Seat of Christ.” This life is going to be over soon, but the next life is for all eternity.

I was asked why I memorized so much of the Bible. I responded by saying that I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, that the very words are supernatural, they are living, they give life, they give wisdom and knowledge, they give guidance and direction, they are the very mind and thoughts of Jesus Christ the second person of the Trinity, the son of God. If I sincerely believe all that to be absolutely true how could I do any less. If I did any less it would be doubtful whether I really believed all that about the word of God to be true.

1 Peter 1:25 But the word of the Lord endures forever.”

Isaiah 40:8 The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.

Isaiah 55:11 So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;
It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire,
and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.

Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My word will not pass away.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.

Jeremiah 23:29 Is not My word like fire?” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer which shatters a rock?

Psalms 1:2-3
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers.

There are about 20 references to meditation in the Bible. Meditation is simply thinking about something a lot, going over and over it, what you think about a lot is what you do, it is what you become. Most just let their mind think about whatever it wants, and because of the world that we live in, our own flesh and the devil and his demons our mind left alone will always focus on and meditate on the negative.

Those who want to grow in character, bear much fruit, and grow close to Jesus will make memorizing scripture and medtating on what they memorize a high priority in their life. A good starter goal is to memorize one new verse each week and meditate on what you have memorized. Use some kind of system to make the most of your time. A good system that I used for year’s is to put verses on 3×5 cards and put the cards in a shoe box. Put the box next to your favorite chair or next to your bed, or hot tub. Pull out some cards in the back of the box and go over them until you have them memorized and then put the cards in the front of the box. Any of them that you struggled with put in the middle of the box. I use an App on my cell phone called “Bible Memory” and it works great. I can put verses in the system using any translation I want, memorize and review them often very effectively. The last five years that I have used this App I have memorized a hundred new verses each year.

So many people tell me that they can’t memorize, but you can, that is just an excuse, people don’t work at it because it is hard and most of us are into easy. The more you work at it the stronger your mind becomes, the easier it will be to memorize even more.

Q

Life, in general, makes us whiny, our flesh is naturally selfish and fusses at inconveniences and trials, and the devil’s demons are working 24/7 on our minds planting thoughts of discontentment. So to be a person who always rejoices, grumbles about nothing, constantly takes negative thoughts captive, and sets their mind on positive things takes a great deal of determination and self-control.

The key for me is to acknowledge that it is God’s will, His command to rejoice always.

Psalms 7:17 I will give thanks to the Lord according to His righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.

Psalms 86:12 I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and will glorify Your name forever.

Psalms 9:1-2 I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart;
I will tell of all Your wonders.
I will be glad and exult in You;
I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.

When we are positive instead of negative in our thinking and speaking we experience many blessings in life from God and others;

We have much better relationships with people, people enjoy being with us, we have more energy and strength, we have better health, we have a good marriage, we tend to raise much happier kids, God uses us more to do His work, people are attracted to our faith, we tend to make more money, and we catch more fish!

It is worth working on

The level of fire and passion in me at any given time is a key to my accomplishing a lot with my life and enjoying the activity that I am involved in. When I am hot, life is good, and things get crossed off of my “to-do” list fast. But the level of fire and passion in me at any given time is a massive variable in my life, and often is a mystery as to why some days are rocker launchers and other days are a ho-hum; I wonder what we are eating for dinner tonight day. One thing I do know with certainty is that when my fire is out I can’t simply “will it” back like turning up the thermostat on the wall. But I do know where the service station for passion and drive is located in my life.

Actually, there are a number of “fire starters” in my life including fishing, but one of the most effective is the encouragement I get from other people. That shouldn’t be a surprise to me because it is a major principle in the Bible repeated many times. It is God who gives the inner strength, will and motivation, but He always gives it to us through other people. God gives us what we need in order to run with endurance the race that He sets before us, but He requires humility on our part to seek it from others.

1 Thessalonians 5:11
Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.

Hebrews 3:13
But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Here are a few principles regarding the discipline of receiving God’s fire from others;

1. The more encouragement we choose to give to others the more we will receive, this is a fundamental law of God that applies to many different areas of our life, Luke 6:38 says, “Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.” Many don’t get much encouragement from others because they rarely choose to give it.

2. Certain people in my life are very effective at filling my gas tank full. I need to know who those people are and always be on the lookout for more like them.

3. Regular times of hanging out with these kleptomaniacs tends to keep my passion level at a constant level usually above 3/4’s full. That is so much more effective than waiting until I am in a major “blue funk” to seek it. Accountability groups, Bible studies, and prayer meetings of men with other men and ladies with other ladies is a great way to accomplish this fellowship time, but often purely social events work great for me.

4. The stronger the relationship that I have with others who light my fire the more effective the “giving encouragement” process is between us. But healthy relationships take time, work, and understanding in how to have a healthy relationship, which is the bottleneck in this whole process with most people, if we don’t value it we won’t work at it.

5. Most Christians don’t put a very high value on time spent with others for the purpose of encouragement so they don’t make it happen in their life. In their mind the effort and time required isn’t worth the payoff. They will struggle in their walk and relationship with Christ., bearing little fruit for God, and doing poorly at the “Judgment Seat of Christ.”