There are many today who have a psuedo salvation, they think they are saved, but aren’t, and they will find out at the end of their life, but then it will be to late.

Matthew 7:22-23 Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’

The Apostle Paul says we ought to test ourselves to see if we are genuinely saved.

2 Corinthians 13:5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!

There are three tests that we can use to determine if we truly were born again in the past; one of the three is called “The Perseverance of the Saints.” This test basically says, “if you are genuinely born again and in God’s family you will run the race with endurance, you will finish well, you will not fall away.”

Colossians 1:23 if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.

Hebrews 2:1-3 For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

Hebrews 3:6 but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.

Hebrews 3:12 &14 Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. . .For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end,

Hebrews 6:4-6 For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.

1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.

It would be a good idea if you find yourself getting lukewarm, drifting away, or losing interest in spiritual disciplines to recommit to following Christ, don’t assume you are in God’s family when you may not be. The consequences of being naive in this area of our life are severe and eternal.

2 Timothy 4:6-7 says, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith;”

At the end of his life the Apostle Paul says, “I have finished the course.” I am 72 years old and I have no idea if I am going to die tomorrow or if I am going to live another 30 years. I do know that the probability of me dying is increasing each year significantly now.

There are continuous opportunities in my life to sin, to fall away from the Lord, or to become a lukewarm Christian. I continually motivate myself by saying, “you are too close to the finish line to mess up now; finish well, ” I probably say that to myself at least a dozen times every day. “Don’t mess up now, the end is close, and you will see Jesus.”

The worst thing I can do now is coast, take it easy, and stop running. I would like to coast across the finish line, take it easy, enjoy life but I would be so much more susceptible to sinning, messing up, and becoming a casualty in the Christian life.

Duke, you are too close to the finish line to mess up now, keep running.

I am getting ready to fly home from Soldotna, Alaska with three, fifty-pound boxes of frozen sockeye salmon. One thing I know for sure is that there will be several roadblocks that I will have to deal with before I get home. I fly out of Kenai to Anchorage on a tiny, single-engine plane that holds eight people, and they can’t take the weight of the 150 lbs of fish, so they will fly it to Anchorage on three different flights. I will need to retrieve the boxes individually and check them in at Anchorage for Portland. I just got an email from Alaska airlines that said there were increased security measures installed in Anchorage and that it would take three hours to get checked through. I have exactly three hours between when I land in Anchorage and then take off again. Whooooeee it is starting already! Because I have flown so much over the years I have established my list of guidelines for managing the unexpected without losing any more of my hair.

1. I plan on there being a number of problems, roadblocks, and issues before I get home so that when they happen I am not surprised or frustrated by them, I am just waiting to see what they are.

2. I choose to look at the problems that I will encounter as adventures and challenges that stretch me and add to my character, and never say or think, “why me, Lord ?”

3. When an unexpected problem happens I ask myself this question, “can I solve or fix this problem?” If I think I can, I go after it, but if my assessment is that I can’t get around it, I just go with the flow without any fussing.

4. Some problems can be solved only one way, that is with some extra money. I establish the maximum amount extra I will pay and stick with that.

5. Most problems need other people’s help or cooperation to solve. I work hard to make an appeal to those people for the help I need, with lots of graciousness. If I want to receive help it is essential that I don’t demand, accuse, get angry or irritated.

6. I have read through the Bible and highlighted every prayer in the Bible in blue to use those prayers as a guideline in my praying. There are several one-word prayers in Psalms, “Help!” So, I pray silently in my heart a lot while traveling, “Help me, Lord, please!”

7. Every time a problem is solved, I am careful to pray, “Thank You, Lord, ” and when I pick up my luggage and fish at the Portland airport and text Patty to come and get me, I pray, “Dear Lord, thank You for the wonderful trip, the unique challenges that You brought into my life to grow me, and the help You provided, I love You.”

Transitions are when we change locations, activities or focus. They can be daily, short and regular transitions like coming home from work, finishing a television program and then mowing the lawn, or finishing dinner and then studying our Bible. They can be longer more major types of transitions like coming home from a vacation and then going back to work, changing jobs, or moving to a different house.

Whatever kind of transitions they are in our lives, a principle of life applies that many have not discovered or been taught about. During the time of our transitions is when we will make our worst choices in life, when we will waste the most time, and when we will treat people the worst.

I am a couple days away from leaving three weeks of exciting, and very enjoyable time of fishing in Alaska and heading back home to my “regular” life. I want that transition to be positive, quick, and fruitful. It is like shifting gears in a car with a manual transition, you can grind the gears or shift seamlessly. Here are some guidelines I use in my life when anticipated major transition points are coming.

Set goals for what you want to accomplish. Goals have tremendous power to move our focus and our brain from the old to the new. One of my goals is to get our winters firewood split and stacked. It is all in my front yard in the form of “rounds” all dried just waiting for me to get it split and stacked.

Strategize on ways to accomplish the goals with first steps clearly established. One of my strategy steps is to recruit some grandkids to help me. Transitions are often huge time wasters because we go in circles trying to figure out what to do next. Indecision is a killer in productivity and is a major contributed to depression and being unmotivated in life. As my Dad used to say to me, “Don’t just stand there, do something, anything.”

Determine and make a firm commitment to be positive and nice in all conversations with people during the transition period with absolutely no grumbling or complaining about anything. One of my worst mistakes with Patty was to complain about everything that didn’t get done around our house while I was gone for a month on a bicycle trip; it didn’t go over very well.

I used to lead or be part of short-term mission groups to Africa, Vietnam, and other places worldwide. I have been part of two different groups of about a dozen that came up to fish in Alaska for the last three weeks. Over the years, I have been part of hunting groups, fishing groups, service groups, bicycle groups, and travel groups. In all of these experiences with groups of people, some are fun and enjoyable to be with, and some are a significant pain, good people, but who don’t seem to do well away from home outside their everyday circumstances.

The character traits of those most enjoyable to be with are those who have a cheerful, thankful, appreciativeservant’s heart. Those who are a pain are those who don’t seem to enjoy serving others, grumble a lot about everything that isn’t right, want things to go their way, and tend to create an environment of tension and disunity in the group.

This is an area of our life that anyone who is a follower of Jesus should seriously evaluate themselves in and work diligently to grow and improve in. There are very few things that destroy our witness for Jesus as much as being critical, negative, complaining, and selfish. Being a positive, cheerful person is a matter of choosing. It is easy to acquire the habit of being a fusser in our culture, but we must choose to grow out of that habit if we want to influence people to follow Jesus positively.

I make rules for myself on how to live life in relationships. They aren’t mine; they are applications of principles that I have read in the Bible. My rules are written so that I can review them, remember them, and live them.

One of my most important rules is made up of several rules put together in a package. It goes like this; forgive anybody of anything quickly because God in His love and mercy has forgiven me of everything, and if I don’t forgive others, God won’t forgive me. Don’t replay the injustice that was done to me in my mind over and over again, which will cause the sense of being treated poorly to proliferate. Don’t vent on others and talk about what happened to them. And for sure don’t gossip or slander those who wronged me.

I violated my rule for living life with and around other people this past week.

In Alaska, this time of year, almost everyone has the same goal, catch lots of fish. Because of the fever, this desire can cause and the large number of people who have this fever, clashes are inevitable. At the place on the Kenai River where I fish, there is another person who regularly fishes there as well. There are understood rules for fishing with others that almost everyone knows and practices, but this fellow that fishes in my spot breaks all of them. Besides that, he is a lousy fisherman who rarely catches anything. Whenever we fish around each other I get in lots of tangles with him, rather he gets in lots of fishing with me. Whenever you get in a tangle with another fisherman it takes up valuable fishing time from catching sockeye salmon to get untangled. The other night I got in three really messy tangles that were all his fault. I violated my rule big time in regards to this person today. In the middle of one of my rants, I realized what a poor witness I was for Jesus. I repent.

The key to getting in lots of hours of fishing and just a little sleep is catching a nap periodically throughout the day. I can close my eyes and be asleep in a few seconds, sleep very sound for 10 minutes, and wake up refreshed and ready for another round of fishing.

Last night at 2:00 am I said, let’s quit and go back to camp, I just fell asleep while fishing. It is now 9:00 am and I am ready to go back to the river! Wow, I slept good last night! Life is good! The fish are in, the fellowship with other guys is fantastic, the food is wonderful, my bed is very comfortable, I was so tired but now I am anxious to get back at it, and Jesus is coming soon, probably right when this fishing trip is over. In a few minutes we are going to process our fish, we clean the fillets, vacuum pack them, and put them in the freezer. Those sockeye salmon fillets are so pretty!

Normally in my life I operate by routine and schedules, and it is usually pretty tight as I try to make good use of every minute of the day. Up here in Alaska at fish camp I have no routine or schedule, everything changes every day depending on the fish, they control my life!

Last night we started fishing at 10:00 pm with the intention to stay until 7:00 am, but there wasn’t a lot of fish in the river so we came back and went to bed at 2:00 am.

I wouldn’t like living my life doing whatever, whenever, but for a couple of weeks it is refreshing. I have 73 goals, a dozen commitments, every minute of the day is in my scheduler which I check about every 30 minutes, routine, schedules, goals, and commitments are how I operate normally, but a break from the “normal routines” occasionally keeps my purpose in life strong and focused.

When it is time to get on the airplane and fly home I will be ready to get back to the routine, but now I am enjoying total randomness.

I like building boats. Up here in Alaska, where we fish, we fish from the bank, and we do pretty good, but there are lots of people fishing in Alaska. So, I am building a fiberglass drift boat that we can leave up here to use each year. Drifting down the Kenai we will be away from the crowds and have access to fishing spots that don’t get fished much.

Yesterday I went to the local lumber yard to buy a few things for the boat, and I discovered that they have a hard time finding enough people to work here, so they settle for people that they usually wouldn’t hire. I had an encounter with a young guy who was very nice, but obviously knew nothing about building or anything related. But it was a very funny experience that I actually enjoyed.

I asked the young man behind the counter if I could get three Kiln Dried 2 x4’s ten feet long. He said, “what is that?” I said, “2 x 4?” He said, “no, kiln dried.” “I said, “the board is dried, like your cloths being dried in a dryer, the opposite of ‘green.’” He said, “green? All of our boards are light brown, not green.”

I asked if they had a “random orbital” sander. He said, “what is that?” I said, “It has a round pad that goes round and round.” He said, “I don’t know, ” so I said, “I will just go look at your tools and see if I can find one, thank you.”

I asked, “do you have small plastic towels?” He said, “what is that?” I said, “do you cook?” He said, “Yes, I love to cook, and my girlfriend thinks I am a good cook, ” I said, “so, you know what a spatula is?” “Sure.” “OK, I want something that looks like that but has a straight short handle.” He took me right to them.

I could tell by his responses to me and his body language that he was used to getting yelled at by customers, which was easy to understand why at this point in my shopping experience in this store. So, I thought, this could be incredibly frustrating or it could be an enjoyable experience because of the uniqueness of it, I think I will choose to enjoy it, and be nice to this young guy, and maybe when the next guy who asks for kiln-dried, he will know what he is talking about.