On good Friday, the words of Jesus on the cross are often highlighted. One of the phrases was to one of the thieves that were crucified with Jesus.

Luke 23:43
And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

Paradise was not heaven, it was the place of the saved or righteous dead. Until Jesus rose from the dead no one was in heaven because sin had not yet been paid for. Paradise was in the center of the earth and was in the same proximity as hell though they were separated.

Luke 16:23-24
In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’

The rich man was in hades or hell, and Lazarus was in Abraham’s bosom or paradise. They could see each other and they could hear each other.

In the Old Testament, Samuel the prophet had died and Saul was frightened about an upcoming war with the Philistines so he hired a witch to see if she could talk to Samuel and ask him some questions. When Samuel appeared to her he came up from the earth.

1 Samuel 28:13-14
The king said to her, “Do not be afraid; but what do you see?” And the woman said to Saul, “I see a divine being coming up out of the earth.” He said to her, “What is his form?” And she said, “An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped with a robe.” And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and did homage.

When Jesus rose from the dead He led all those who were in paradise into heaven as a big parade.

Ephesians 4:8
Therefore it says, when He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives,

When Jesus died on the cross he went to the center of the earth and when He rose from the dead He entered heaven.

Ephesians 4:9-10
(Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.)

Matthew 12:40
for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Now, because of our faith in what Jesus did and who he is we go directly to heaven when we die.

I have been having so many negative thoughts about going down and praying at the church during this “Five Days of Prayer.” I have felt terrible since day one of the prayer event, my muscles are killing me, I have had a constant upset stomach, my head aches, and I am exhausted. Sitting here tonight thoughts popped into my head nonstop about sleeping in and skipping prayer tomorrow morning, because after all I had already prayed 33 hours.

After I got over my pitty party which no one came to but me, I thought, this must be a really important prayer time, I can’t think of any prayer event in the past that I have struggled with going to as much as this one.

So, being the competitor that I am, there was no way I am going to let the devil push me around and win this fight. One more day, let’s end it with a bang!

There are so many people in our church who don’t participate in these prayer events. I know that there are legitimate reasons for some, but most I am thinking are like those Paul told Timothy about,”they are being held captive by the evil one to do his will instead of God’s.” Sad that Christians don’t have enough commitment to break free from the control of satan in their lives. I guess I shouldn’t be to critical, I came close to being one of those that the devil controlled.

It is amazing how much better I feel now after writing this.

Of all the things that we have to deal with in life I think physical pain is the most difficult for me. Not low-grade pain, but the kind that makes you wince and groan involuntarily. Of late my Parkinson’s seems to be getting worse, and I have been having increasing pain in my muscles when I move. The pain ranges from feeling like an electric shock, to being stabbed with a knife, to a cramp. It moves around but so far nothing below the knee or below my elbow. I have really never had real intense pain before, at least not that I remember, so I am learning how to manage it without turning into a whining wimp.

A major blessing is that I have zero pain while riding my stationary bicycle or when sitting in my hot tub. My hot tub is my go-to therapy when I wake up in the middle of the night with pain in my legs or arms. I am looking forward to my two month, 4,000 mile bicycle trip that we start in just over a week because when I ride my real bicycle for ten hours a day my Parkinson’s doesn’t bother me at all.

Pain has a way of wearing me out, and making me tired even though I may not have done anything. But it is mostly mental fatigue so a key to managing the consequences of the disease is to manage my thoughts. I do this by setting my mind on some physical activity that I am involved with and doing it in my imagination. It doesn’t produce the results of actually doing the activity, but close.

We all have blind spots, sin habits, and addictions in our life. They are extremely hard to get victory over, and most people just live with them creating so much heart ache in their life and relationships because of it.

The best way to get victory over entrenched sin habits and blind spots is to have good people in your life who will hold you accountable and reprove you for your lifestyle and decisions. In fact those who are humble enough to receive correction from wise people in their life will grow amazingly fast.

The problem is that most people are to proud, defensive, stupid to receive any kind of advice, correction or reproof, so they grow very little in character most of their adult life. The Bible has a word for those people.

Proverbs 15:5 he who regards reproof is sensible.

Proverbs 1:25 And you neglected all my counsel and did not want my reproof;

Proverbs 1:30 They would not accept my counsel, hey spurned all my reproof.

Proverbs 5:12 And you say, “How I have hated instruction! and my heart spurned reproof!

Proverbs 10:17 He is on the path of life who heeds instruction, but he who ignores reproof goes astray.

Proverbs 12:1 Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

Proverbs 15:31-32 He whose ear listens to the life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise. He who neglects discipline despises himself,
but he who listens to reproof acquires understanding.

This weekend was super full and busy. Friday I attended and taught a 15 minute devotional at Jim Lee’s graveside service, Saturday I preached at the “Memorial Service”for Jim at 11:00 am, then I taught my “Leadership Class” at 5:30 pm, and preached at the Saturday evening service at 7:00 pm. Sunday morning I taught my “Ladies Leadership Class” at 8:00 am, then preached at the 9:00 am worship service, next I taught my parenting class, then I preached again at the 11:30 am worship service, then my 1:00 pm “Men’s Leadership Class, then at 3:00 pm I taught my “Leadership Class II” class, and then we had a Church Elder’s meeting at 5:00 pm. And then I went home and played pinochle with my brother, his wife, and Patty until 9:00 pm and ate Rocky Road ice cream between games. Today we started our “Five Day Prayer” event so I was up at 4:00 am and prayed from 5:00 to 10:00 am. Then I went out to lunch with a friend, then I had a short appointment with another friend, and now I am home writing this blog and writing fast so I might have a 20-minute nap before I head back to the church for the evening prayer time from 5:00 to 10:00 pm

I lot of people complain about busy, but I like busy. There are several reason why I like busy.

1. I am busy with things that matter, that positively influence and impact other people.

2. I thank the Lord constantly for the tremendous and incredible privilege of serving Him. No one does anything significant for God unless He gives them the opportunity, takes them off the bench and puts them in the game as it were. I certainly don’t want to think or talk negative about such an awesome privilege.

3. At 73 years of age I probably don’t have a lot of time left to earn rewards from the Lord when I stand before Him at the ”Judgment Seat of Christ,” at the end of my life, so I appreciate very much the opportunities given to me to earn more eternal rewards.

4. Whenever I start feeling a little bit tired I pray and ask God to give me His strength to serve Him well. He loves to give His supernatural power to those who ask and ask a lot, that’s me.

5. I take little 15 minute breaks to sit and rest all through the day when it is possible to do so.

6. Tuesday and Wednesday I was at Klamath Falls shooting my Savage .17 caliber HMR rifle, at Belgium ground squirrels, known as sage rats, that were destroying an alfalfa field. I shot 900 bullets in two days, and thinned them out considerably. So when I started into this busy four days, my emotional gas tank was clear full.

7. I faithfully read the Bible every day for 30 minutes and also spend 30 minutes talking to the Lord in prayer. I ride my stationary bicycle for an hour every day, read 20 pages in a good book, listen to a great motivational speaker on a podcast while riding my bike, I spend 30 minutes memorizing and medtating on scripture, I write my blog, and I end the day spending a few minutes reviewing the day, examining my life and confessing all known sin to God. Those daily disciplines keep my soul healthy, and healthy souls enjoy life, whatever it might be.

There is a lot in the news about the war in Ukrain, but a more important war is the one that will be fought in the prayer room at JBC in the next five days. We will be praying for the next five days for ten hours each day for the souls of people who don’t know Jesus as their savior and are destined to spend eternity in the Lake of Fire with the devil in eternal torment. The war will be a spiritual one fought in the heavenlies all around us by the angels of God and the demons of Satan. The prayers of believers are what prompt God to commission His angels and it is also the source of their energy. So when we pray God commissions angels to fight and they are given energy as it were to successfully overcome the demonic enemy.

People are blinded by demons so that they can’t understand the truth of the Gospel. When we pray God delivers them and they are able to hear and understand the truth of God.

Come and join us in our prayer room.

When I was ten years old my Dad who was in the Navy for 20 years got stationed on Midway Island. He was also in the Naval battle of Midway during the Second World War on an aircraft carrier. Midway is a small Island, about 600 acres, the weather was warm, the water was warm, and because of the reef that went around the island there were only very small waves so swimming in the ocean was like swimming in a heated swimming pool. The depth of the water stayed relatively shallow for a long way out because of the reef. There was lots of different kinds of beautiful plants and trees and literally thousands of different types of birds, with the gooney bird being the biggest and most famous. There was about 100 people on the island with only about a dozen kids. There were no cars except a firetruck, an ambulance, and a car for the senior officer. Everybody road bicycles but the island was so small you could walk anywhere in 30 minutes or less. I would get up most mornings before school and walk around the island looking for Japanese fishing balls. They were round heavy glass balls, about the size of a basketball, that Japanese fishermen blew for floats for their fishing nets. They would break free of the nets, and because Midway was in the middle of the Japaneses current they would often end up on Midway’s beach. Midway was a ten-year-old boy’s dream place to live.

Dad left about three months before we did because they hadn’t yet finished the family housing. Mom took us to the Library and we checked out a bunch of books about Midway. As I read all the books and looked at the pictures of Midway I thought of “Swiss Family Robinson,” a book I had recently read, and got so excited about going, I could hardly stand it. It was like a dream and I got very envious of my Dad because he was already there. He wrote lots of letters describing the island, and he made it sound more wonderful than the books I was reading.

The day came for us to leave and I was so excited. On the first leg of the flight to Honolulu I got very airsick. So when we took off for Midway Mom loaded me up with some kind of motion sickness medicine. I promptly fell dead asleep and didn’t wake up until the plane landed. I remember waking up and looking out the window and yelling “we are here, we are here, we are here!”

So, that has become my description of death, “it is like falling asleep on an airplane and waking up in the most beautiful place ever.” We read all about heaven in the Bible, no death, no sickness, no politics, no war, no sin, a body that is better than superman’s, a mind smarter than the most intelligent person on earth, nobody feels anger, or jealous, or resentment, gets hurt feelings. But we have never been there so we get nervous about the unknown. We all have family and friends that are already there but they haven’t sent us any letters. We tend to think that those who die before the age of 99 have been shortchanged by God which is a totally stupid way to think in light of what heaven is like compared to here.

Death is like falling asleep on an airplane and waking up in the most beautiful place imaginable. I am looking forward to my airplane flight with great anticipation.

I am teaching a parenting class at our church, and one of the fundamental principles or I guess words is that effective parenting is training and coaching our children not raising them. A parent who follows the training/ coaching model sees themselves as a coach teaching a five-year-old kid how to play tennis and become the world champion by the time they are 20 years old. The one doing the coaching would have a plan, a system for training basic skills and a way of measuring or determining how things were progressing. Very few parents have goals for their kids or strategies on how to achieve those goals.

Patty and I had at least ten goals for our kids, and one of them was that our kids would be tough. There are other words that are used by various authors such as grit, strong, and tenacious but I like the word tough. Tough means that they make adjustments to unexpected difficulties with grace and dignity, turning the trial into a challenge to be conquered and enjoyed instead of a crisis to be whined about.

Our main tool for training each of our eight children to be tough was camping. We went camping for at least a week twice a year. The basic principle in camping is that everything that can possibly go wrong does and so we learn to adjust, fix, or ignore the unexpected problem and turn it into a contest, a challenge to be won. The problems and the unexpected is what makes camping exciting and fun. It is those challenges that become the family stories that are told for year’s.

One of our daughters is getting ready to move into a school bus with her husband and six kids because they sold their house and they will live in the bus while her husband builds a new house for them. My son-in-law has done this numerous times as a professional builder who enjoys the challenge as well as the profit from building and selling houses. They have lived in a one room log cabin, a canvas wall tent, a garage, a little bitty camper, and now a bus. She sends videos to us and to all of her siblings of the remodeling taking place in the bus to make it a home, even if it is a small one. Her words and her tone of voice make it clear that she is not feeling sorry for herself but enjoying the ride. I am sure her kids, our grandkids will grow up to be very tough adults who will manage life and the unexpected well.

We are living in an age when change and the unexpected is becoming the norm. It will be the tough people who bring stability and security to their families, friends, and those around them. The problem is that tough-minded people are becoming very rare.

Pride is a very subtle character flaw. It grows in us and we don’t notice it at all. I see it in people all the time, and I am sure they have no clue. Pride completely disqualifies us from God using us to do His work with His blessing.

On the engine in the 1969 Mustang that my grandson and I are rebuilding are some gauges, an oil pressure gauge, a temperature gauge, and a voltmeter. As we were running the engine after we rebuilt it we paid particular attention to the oil pressure gauge and the temperature gauge, because if we made a mistake in our rebuild, it would show up there.

We have some gauges in our life that indicate that pride is becoming a problem in our life, and we would do well to pay attention to those gauges.

1. How do we respond when someone corrects us, criticizes us, or tries to tell us how to do something that we feel we already know.

When God sees pride growing in our life He will prompt someone to become extra critical and judgmental of our life and performance in some area. If we respond with defensiveness, irritation, arguing, or returning the criticism back on the person who corrected us, know for sure that our pride gauge is in the red area.

The Apostle Paul had many critical, judgmental people in his life, and his response was, “I am well content with insults and criticism because when I am weak, then I am strong.”

2. A person with a pride problem will get their feelings hurt easily. This is often a big problem in marriages, and in families. It is tough being married to a person who you feel like you are walking on eggshells when with them.

3. Prideful people struggle with getting irritated and angry at others because the other person did or said something they didn’t like. Anger is a major blinking red light on the dashboard of our life.

4. Those who have had pride grow in them like a cancer are often argumentative, because they usually think their opinion, idea, or methods are right.

5. In a conflict between two people, if reconciation is going to happen one of the two will need to initiate that reconciliation. Prideful people rarely are the peacemaker in conflicts with others. And along with that they rarely admit that they were wrong.

The longer pride remains in our life the harder it is to conquer it, and become a humble person that God loves. Self-reflection using these five warning lights is a good thing to do if you want to be used by God.,

Here is a great Bible verse to memorize and meditate on.

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.

Going back to the NCAA College Championship Basketball game between Kansas and North Carolina last night. As I wrote in yesterday’s blog Kansas was behind by 15 points at halftime, and in the second half of the game they erased the deficit and won by 3 points. Kansas was a totally different team in regards to effort and focus in the second half. Coach Bill Self in his halftime speech to the team told them to double their effort on defense, and he must have delivered that speech with enough passion to motivate his players to do just that.

Words have tremendous power to influence those who hear them if the message is clear and delivered by an excellent communicator. There is also a law of God that comes into play in regards to excellent speech that positively influences others. This law is as sure as gravity. God not only created observable physical laws, but He also created social and relational laws. One of those laws is stated in James 3:11-12, which says, “Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh.”

A person who talks to others hurtfully will not be able to speak words that bring out the best in those same people. A father who scolds and humiliates his kids will not be able to build confidence in them or encourage them to higher achievements in life. A husband who dishonors his wife by how he talks to her will not be able to communicate convincingly that he loves her.

Those who want to influence others positively to higher achievement and more excellent performance must work hard at eliminating as much negative, demeaning, hurtful, and dishonoring speech from their vocabulary as possible.

God makes rules for life like basketball has rules for playing the game. Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:5, “No athlete wins the game unless he competes according to the rules!”