Jesus prayed for His future followers, which would be us, in John17, and asked God the Father to make us one even as Jesus and the Father were one. Jesus declares that our genuine unity would be enough to convince the world of the truth and reality of God, and that Jesus was sent by the Father.

We are commanded by God to pursue unity and peace with each other, that we are to work at it diligently. So exactly what does that mean, what is it that we are supposed to do. I believe the Ford Motor company makes cars and trucks far superior to those of all other companies. I have a good friend who believes that Fords are junk. Does one of us need to switch our car and truck company loyalty in order to be unified, and if one of us doesn’t can we still be friends?

There is a big difference between unity and uniformity or conformity. Uniformity says that we need to believe the same things, hold common values and priorities in life, and even like the same things. Unity, on the other hand allows us to have totally different beliefs, values, opinions, and likes, and still be good friends and enjoy each others company and fellowship. We can have great unity with others that are totality different if we have the character traits of patience, self-control, deference, and kindness.

Right now in our country and in our church there is a growing difference of opinion on the solution for the coronavirus pandemic. There are those who feel strongly that we need to keep doing all the things that are mandated and strongly suggested by the government to prevent the further spread of the virus. And in the other corner, we have those who feel strongly that the whole thing has been overhyped by the media, that the government has way overstepped their constitutional authority and violated our constitutional rights in the process, and is destroying the economy and the lives of very many people who will lose their businesses and livelihoods.

So, how do we maintain good unity in the midst of the current situation and strongly felt opinions and positions. Do we all need to agree and if so how do we decide which way we are going, and what do we do with those who decide they aren’t changing their views. Do I need to preach a sermon on why one of the views is God’s view, and if anyone refuses to conform then they need to go to a different church? That would not produce unity, just outward conformity.

Tomorrow I will give the keys to maintaining good unity in the midst of great diversity of opinion and belief. This is very important information because unity is the major reason God blesses and uses a church.

I have found over my 71 years of living that balance is very important to my soul health. There are many different areas of my life that accomplishing balance is very important. One of them is the balance between ”work hard, accomplish the goals, be focussed, don’t give up, busy is good, keep your priorities straight, push until it moves” and ”relax, rest, take it easy, whatever, fishing, oh well, I will do it tomorrow, time for a nap, and I love my hot tub”. The problem is the teeter-totter tendency. Imagine a teeter-totter, like what used to be in playgrounds before someone decided they were unsafe, with each of the two opposite lists I just gave on each side. The goal is that the teeter-totter would be level from side to side, balanced, but instead it goes up and down, first one side being the big deal and then the other side, back and forth. Out of balance living creates a tension in us, an unrest that destroys peace, joy, self-worth, contentment, relational intelligence, and energy.

The key to maintaining balance in life, like walking on a tight rope over Niagra Falls, or between two very tall buildings is to recognize the signs of out of balance living. For me, it is primarily an inner agitation that I can’t really put my finger on as to the cause. Wisdom is required to choose and regulate activity in my life and to be very diligent in my self-talk.

The most important ingredient to maintaining this balance is a trust in God and His sovereignty that relaxes me. This trust doesn’t take away my fire and my sense of responsibility, but it does take away the fear of failing, it takes away the obsession with goals and activities that makes me feel guilty at the end of the day instead of fulfilled. I have memorized these verses and meditate on them often to help me maintain this perfect balance between being relaxed and being obsessed.

Psalms 127:1-2 Unless the Lord builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late,
To eat the bread of painful labors; For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.

Proverbs 10:19 When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, But he who restrains his lips is wise.

When I was 23 years old I worked a construction job for a few years as a ”Powder Monkey” blowing up rocks for asphalt plants, landfills, and road construction. I worked with a guy named Doc who was 60 years old, the best powder guy in the country, very grumpy, and very mean. It seemed like it was impossible to do anything good enough not to get yelled at, though I tried very hard. I asked my Dad what I should do, and his answer was rather short and to the point, ”Keep your mouth shut and do the best that you can”. We had a big drill that would bore 2 ” holes through solid rock up to 100 feet deep which we would fill with dynamite in order to reduce it to rocks the size of a grapefruit that would go through a rock crusher to make gravel. Between jobs all of our bits would be taken to a machine shop to get sharpened, and Doc would always do it. We went on a job that was a 5-hour drive from the head office, and when we got there we discovered that Doc had forgotten to pick up the sharpened bits. While we were standing there, Doc cussing up a storm, and me trying to hide behind the truck so as not to get yelled at, the ”Big Boss”, the owner of the business, his name was Lester, drove up and asked why we weren’t drilling yet. Doc replied and said, ”Dee forgot to pick up the bits for the machine shop”! I just stood there, saying nothing, not believing what I just heard. Lester handed me the keys to his pickup, told me to go get the bits, to drive as fast as I could without getting a ticket, and don’t stop to eat or sleep. When I got to the machine shop, 4 hours later, it was closed so I curled up and went to sleep on the front seat. After sleeping a couple of hours the shop opened, I got the bits, drove back to the job, and didn’t complain to anybody.

A couple of days later, the ”big boss” Lester and I were working together for a little bit, and he said, ”I know that it was Doc who forgot to pick up the bits, the owner of the machine shop told me that it was always Doc who did that job. I was quite impressed with you and your character in not defending yourself and taking the blame the way that you did. I am going to give you a big raise because I want to keep you working for us.” Woe, that worked out alright.

When I was twelve years old our family lived in Alameda, California not very far from the Navy Base that was located there. My Dad was just months away from retiring from the Navy, having served since before World War II for over twenty years. He and I would occasionally walk to the Base and fish off of the docks. We would take our fishing rods, a small tackle box, buckets to sit on and to put the fish in that we caught, and a few pieces of bread which we used for bait. We would tie a lead weight on at the end of our line with about six hooks tied on above the weight, each one being about a foot apart. We would take a piece of bread and roll it around until it was a nice little doe ball the size of a pea and put one on each hook. We would then jig that collection of tasty doe balls up and down in the water about ten feet below the surface. It would usually only be a few minutes before we had a perch on our line, and sometimes two or three at one time.

Most of the time when we went fishing the wind was blowing briskly, as it normally does at the coast. But one time, late in the evening, it was an absolutely dead calm, and the water in the bay was flat and smooth as glass. Dad set his bucket and fishing stuff down and walked over to one of the many Navy ships that were tied up to the docks. He leaned out and put his hands on the side of this enormous ship and began to push with all of his might. I remember thinking to myself, ”Yikes, Dad has lost it, he should have retired months ago”! He pushed for a long time, and I began to seriously worry, and then the ship began to move away from the dock! My thinking immediately changed too, ”Wow, my Dad must be Superman”! He sat down on the edge of the dock, and asked me to sit down next to him and gave me this little speech that has incredibly impacted my life ever since; ”I don’t know exactly how it works, but somehow as I pushed my energy was being stored up in the molecules in the steel in the hull of this ship. After there was enough of my energy put into the mass of this ship it moved. It wouldn’t have worked had there been any wind, but tonight was the perfect time to show you this principle. Two things that I want you never to forget, first of all, if I had gotten discouraged and quit, it wouldn’t have moved and everything I had done up to that point would have been lost, if you want to move or accomplish something very big you have to keep pushing and never give up. The second thing is, if you had helped me we would have moved it in half the time.”

If you die from the Coronavirus, and you are standing before God and He asks you, ”Why should I let you into My heaven”, what would your answer be!

You might say to me, ”I don’t believe in God”. That isn’t going to change the fact that you will stand before Him, and I wonder if you will say the same thing then.

I had a person say to me once, ”The Christian God you worship is one of many, and he is my least favorite”. Someday that person will not be standing before the one, true God belligerent and shaking his fist, he will be on his knees recognizing how wrong he was.

We will all die one of these days, and then if the Bible is true it will be too late to do anything or to believe anything different then what we have brought with us at that point.

Most of the people that I have talked to who say such things have arrived at that point in their thinking, not on the basis of serious research, study, and thinking but from reacting to people, and experiences in life that were hurtful. It seems that an eternal destiny of either heaven or hell would merit more truth-seeking than most do.

I know a Dad who offered his son a large sum of money if he would read the book, ”The Case for Christ”, and the son angrily refused. I thought, ”Why would someone refuse to expose themselves to something that could very possibly be true”, but many people in this world do just that.

In the Bible God says, ”If you seek Me, you will find Me”. That is a promise that God makes to any person who would start on a journey seriously seeking the truth.

Wouldn’t it be nice to know for sure that when we die we will get a wonderful new body, that there will be no more sorrow or pain, and that our life from that point on will be full of joy forever? I know that for sure because I know the answer to that ultimate question that God will ask me on that day when I see Him face to face.

This post is the end of a three part series, so if you haven’t read the last two days, please do that before reading this one, in fact it would be good to read them anyway so this makes more sense to you.

Five keys to telling good stories;

1. Keep your story short. The number one reason that stories move from good to boring is that they go too long, usually because there is too much detail. The rule that I follow is 200 words written and 2 minutes spoken, with 300 words written and 3 minutes spoken as the absolute maximum.

2. Tell your story in a straight line. Our minds like listening to a story until it gets confusing and nothing makes a story confusing as much as rabbit trails, it is like telling multiple stories at once. That might work in movies but not when you want to hold someone’s attention while you are telling them a story.

3. Use people’s names as much as possible instead of pronouns unless the story is about only one person. Again, people don’t listen to confusing stories and the over use of pronouns makes a person’s brain have to work too hard to figure out who is being talked about as the story moves along. As I listen to different people tell stories that are both good and bad this principle is often the difference.

4. Work at creating a mental image or picture with the words that you use. Use words that describe the scene in the story with colors, size, movement, and sounds. It is as if you are painting a picture using words so that the person listening easily gets a mental image as you tell your story. But, a word of caution, this is where many people cross the line into boring because they give to much detail. This principle is the biggest difference between good story-tellers and bad, the best stories have just enough detail, and the bad too much.

5. Writing is the single most important factor in the first four principles being followed successfully. Writing is a discipline that many often skip because it takes to long, but skipping it almost guarantees that a story will be boring. Any story that I tell in a sermon or lesson is always one that I have first written out. When you write it out and read it back to yourself it is so much easier to ask yourself how you did on the four keys to a good story. I am always looking for good stories in daily experiences, and when I see one I write it out and then memorize it.

So I think that most serious followers of Jesus should start writing as a key method of communicating and influencing others spiritually. We can share with texts, emails, on Facebook, Facebook messenger, and with blogs. We can read what we have written or memorize it and do a video and post it on YouTube or Facebook as well. If you work on your writing skill by learning how to write better, practice your writing, have others give you advice, both on the mechanics and on the content, and pray a lot over it and about it, God will bless you and use you. The main problem is that most will not start this journey, but you have to start if you want to be effectively used by God in the lives of others. God guides a moving ship not one sitting or going in circles.

In my opinion and experience the most effective tool in spoken or written communication are well-told stories. Stories connect with people, hold their interest and are very effective in making and impressing a point of truth. Jesus told stories and much of the Bible is given to us from God in stories. You could say that God is the ultimate storyteller, which is why I believe those that read the Bible a lot will be the best storytellers.

Which brings me to my next point, stories that are poorly told are worse than no story at all because they very quickly bore people and then they stop listening or reading. So when I talk about growing in skill, one of the main things I am talking about is learning how to be a good storyteller. One of the problems is that because stories are personal we automatically like them so we have a hard time being critical of how we tell them. It is essential that we become our own worst and best critic of how we communicate our stories to others. We have all heard stories from others that we have to tolerate in order to be polite, be obsessed with not being that kind of storyteller.

Tomorrow I will give you 5 guidelines on being a world-class storyteller. Even though I am not in the category of being one of the best storytellers yet, I have that as a goal, and I know what it takes and what I have to work on to get there. I read a lot of short stories written by the best and ask myself continually while reading, ”what makes this story interesting, why does it hold my attention so strongly, and why is it so entertaining. I also pay attention when I hear someone tell a story that is very good, and ask the same questions. Becoming a good storyteller is like learning how to play play tennis, or swim, or paint a picture.

I believe with all my heart, mind, and soul that heaven is a very real place and I am going to live there forever. I believe that the Lake of Fire is a very real place as well and many of the people I know and care about are going to be tormented there forever and ever. I am going to heaven forever because I have believed in Jesus Christ, trusted Him as my personal savior, and I am following Him as my Lord. I now have the responsibility to share the good news of the free gift of salvation

All of a sudden the number of people that I can have a face to face conversation with is reduced down to mostly immediate family, so how do I share the gospel with people now? The Apostle Paul was a preacher and a church planter with amazing energy and toughness traveling all over the known world on 3 missionary journeys, but he also spent much time in jail because of his faith. While he was in jail he wrote letters back to the churches he had planted and to pastors he had mentored. Paul’s method of evangelism changed when his circumstances changed. The greatest work of Paul is what we have in the New Testament that he wrote teaching us how to know God and live for Him.

So I have made writing my primary method of sharing the good news with as many people as possible. I write my blog every day, praying diligently that God will help me to grow in my writing skill, and that He will give me great wisdom to know what to write and how to write it so people’s minds are captured and their hearts are changed. I also pray everyday that God will prompt people to read my blog, more and more.

So tomorrow I will tell you what has been my most important tool in writing.

There are a lot of very hard, and very critical decisions needing to be made by our president in the days ahead in regards to the global pandemic, other countries, and the economy. It won’t matter what he does or says there will be many who are against it. This whole thing has become so hyped and so incredibly blown out of proportion by the media that leading in the midst of it all has to be incredibly difficult. The single most important key is for those who follow Jesus to pray diligently for our President and the rest of our countries leaders that God would lead them to do His will. The Bible instructs us to pray for our leaders;

1 Timothy 2:1-3 First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,

God is more than powerful enough to guide my president, the Governor of Oregon, the senators and Representatives, and to change their heart where needed, and I believe if enough of God’s people do that God will work, guide, and bless.

Proverbs 21:1 The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes.

King Nebuchadnessar was a very powerful, wicked, cruel, and prideful ruler. He led what has been called the most powerful world empire in the history of mankind. He became a main character in the book of Daniel and the prophecies made by God through Daniel revolved around him. The reason is because Daniel prayed diligently for his King, and God turned Nebuchadnezzar’s heart towards Himself;

Daniel 4:37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride.”

Dear Lord,

I pray for President Donald Trump, for Governor Kate Brown, for the Senators and Representatives and those who are Judges, that You will fill their heart with the knowledge of Your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so that they will please You in all that they do. I pray that they will make decisions as leaders of this wonderful country that will bring Your blessing on the United States of America and that we might become a godly nation once again. I pray that You will bring godly and wise people into their lives to counsel them and teach them Your truth and way. I pray that You will give all of them great strength to bear up under the huge pressure that surely must be upon them. I pray that You will deliver them from the control and temptations of the devil. I pray that You, Lord will be glorified and that Your Word and the Gospel will spread rapidly across our land and the world. I love you, Lord.

This is a picture of my computer screen during the first day of our ”Five Days of Prayer”. We have averaged 30 people praying every hour during our first 2 days of praying, and it has been a very powerful and enjoyable time. We are using a program called ”Zoom” which allows multiple people to converse together while showing our faces. We can do up to 100 people at one time if we ever have that many. One person prays at a time as the others listen and agree in their mind and their heart. If a person doesn’t feel comfortable praying out loud they can just listen and agree.

There are some major pluses for this system of praying. One is that there is no commute time to the church facility in order to pray which was a factor in all of our past prayer events, and kept many from participating much. Another really big plus for me is that I can hear everybody very clearly when they pray. In past prayer events I only heard about half the praying which made it hard to concentrate on the prayer and not fall asleep. One other plus is that each persons name is under their picture so you don’t have to worry about forgetting someones name as you pray with them.

We have 3 more days left in our ”Five Days of Prayer” so why not join us for part of it. We pray from 5 to 8 am and 5 to 8 pm. Each of the next 3 days. You can tune in for all of the hours or for 5 minutes, what ever you want. You have to have a meeting number and a password to get into the prayer meeting. If you email me at duke@jbc.church or text me at 503-559-5282 I will send it to you.

Prayer changes things, especially corporate prayer, it is the most powerful force on the planet earth. God obviously does the work, but not until we pray. It is His way of getting us involved in His work and to spend time with Him, He wants our time. Prayer also changes us, changes our character, changes our heart, changes our motives, again it is God who does the changing but He does it when we pray.