We went to church yesterday at “Shelter Bible Church” in Fairbanks, Alaska. This is the church that our daughter Shelly and her family attend, and are involved in. Shelly’s husband, Philip led worship and one of the young Elders in the church preached on Psalms 89. It was a great time of meeting with the Lord and worshiping with different people. I have attended the worship services of many different churches in many different States and countries in the world over my lifetime. Based on a rough review in my mind of my travels I would guess I have been in the services of about 100 different churches. Some of them have been very large, with 1000’s of people in attendance in huge sanctuaries such as “Willow Creek” in Chicago, “North Point” in Georgia, and “Saddleback” in San Diego. Others have been very small, in fact in one church in Arizona when 6 of us on a bicycle trip walked into the service we literally doubled their attendance. These churches have been very different in many ways. One church in a country where Christians are very persecuted met in a home, with people coming about every 15 minutes so as not to draw attention to their meeting together. Everyone sat on the floor which was dirt in the dark, because there was no electricity and they didn’t want to open the shutters on the windows so people outside would not hear them. They spoke softly, song softly and I preached softly for 3 hours. Sometimes people in American churches will fuss and argue a bit about the best way to “do church” usually based on their own personal preferences. I have seen so many different kinds of churches, in so many different settings, doing things in so many different ways, and personally having a great experience with the Lord and His people in most of them, that I have come to the conclusion that most of what we fuss about doesn’t really matter much. One of the motto’s at our church, Jefferson Baptist, is that “God doesn’t bless methods, He blesses unity and love”.

Jesus loves the Church, gave His life for the Church, promises to build His Church, and is in the process of making her beautiful. The Church is the eternal “Bride of Christ”, the “Body of Christ”, and God’s method and tool of accomplishing His will in the world today, the Church is the only hope of the world. The world scoffs at the church and many believers do as well, but God is God, and what He says He will do, He will do, and what He loves, we ought to love as well. Part of my every morning prayer of commitment is, “I love Your Church, Lord Jesus, I love JBC, and I will do my part to build Your Church and to make her beautiful”.

One of the very clear truths in my life is that much of who I am today as a person in character and values is a result of my parents. God works in people as God, but most often works through other people, and He most definitely worked through my parents in my life.

There are hundreds of references in the Bible to God blessing people. The fact that God blesses or withholds blessing is assumed by most believers. Often when I sneeze someone will say, “God bless you”. In reading all the verses on God blessing people it is clear that His blessings are conditional, not random or arbitrary, there is always a reason.

I have 4 basic motivators in my life. I am motivated by the fear of discipline from the Lord, the fear of consequence for wrong choices. I am motivated by the desire for reward from the Lord in this life and at the Judgment seat of Christ at the end of my life. I am motivated by my love for the Lord, my desire to please Him, and my desire to sense that pleasure in me. And I am highly motivated by the fact that my behavior influences others and impacts their lives. God chooses to bless others because of what I do and my relationship to Him. There are a number of Bible verses that I have memorized and meditate on to keep this motivation hot inside of me.

Psalms 112:1-2 Praise the Lord! How blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments. His descendants will be mighty on earth; the generation of the upright will be blessed.

I greatly desire that my family be blessed by God and it appears that I am a factor in that blessing. Today I am committing myself to seek the Lord diligently, to fear the Lord, to serve Him, to obey Him, and to Love the Lord with all of my heart. I am motivated to make this commitment for a number of reasons and a key one is that it will make a difference in my family, I believe a big one.

I am the patriarch of sorts over the 45 people in my immediate family, and in the Old Testament the Patriarchs were the ones who blessed their families. I am also the Priest in an unofficial sort of way as either the husband, the Dad, the Father-in-law, or the grandpa of everyone in my family, and therefore the spiritual leader.

Numbers 6:23-27 Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, ‘Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them: “The Lord bless you, and keep you; The Lord make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance on you,And give you peace.’ So they shall invoke My name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them.”

That is a powerful blessing that the Priests spoke over the sons of Israel. Read it over slowly a half dozen times , and see if you don’t feel a very strong sense of God’s grace and power in those words. Though I am not Aaron or one of his sons I am going to pray that “blessing” over my family daily, and I believe it will make a great difference in their lives as I exercise my spiritual authority with God on behalf of those He has given to me.

In my last blog the pictures that I put in of my son Seth and his soon to be wife, Amie didn’t come through so I have included them and Amie’s 4 children in this blog.

Patty and I are at our daughter Shelly, her husband Philip, and their 6 wonderful kid’s place in Fairbanks, Alaska for the next couple of days having a wonderful time. This coming Sunday, September 29th, our son Seth is getting married (the last of our 8 kids to get married) to a wonderful lady, named Amie in Idaho and all 8 of our kids, 6 son-in-laws, daughter-in-law, and every one of the 27 grandkids will be there. At 70 years of age our family is the most important part of our life, the most memorable part of our history, and the most significant accomplishment of our life. Almost all of the 45 people in our family love Jesus, and love each other, a true miracle in our age of dysfunctional families. I am so much looking forward to the gathering and the family interaction and fellowship that will take place. Patty and I regularly pray together for various members of the family, and I pray for everyone of them everyday in my own private prayer time. I can do that from memory as I start at the oldest, Sarah and her family and go all the way down to Sally and her husband, Aaron and their 3 kids. When I pray for them all in my head it goes fairly fast, taking less than 10 minutes, as I hit the high points in their lives. My favorite way to pray is to go through the pictures I have of each one of the family in various situations and stages in life, and to write prayers for each one of them, and also to read the prayers I have written previously in my journal. I try to do that about once each week. I believe God has given me a special “authority” with Him on behalf of my family. Jesus makes this statement as He prays for His disciples in John 17:9, “I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me”. God has given me a great wife, 8 great kids, and an expanded family, and I will faithfully use the power and authority I have been given on their behalf. My simple main prayer is, “Lord, please bless my family“. God’s blessings are joy, peace, strength, wisdom, opportunities to serve Him and bear fruit, protection from the devil and his demons, and growing character that is like that of Jesus.

For the last week I have been in the wilderness of Alaska on the Yukon River with two son-in-laws hunting for moose, grizzly bear, black bear, or a wolf. With my Alaska tag I could get any one of the 4 animals, so I was going for whatever I saw first. We got up at 4:30 am every day and were on our stand by 5:30 am where we made noises like a moose and beat on a log attempting to sound like a bull moose thrashing the brush with his antlers or two bull moose fighting. I stood by myself and glassed with binoculars until 9:00 am every morning and 4:00 to 9:00 pm every evening. On one side of where I stood was a big meadow, slew, and beaver pond, and on the other side was the Kandik River, a tributary of the Yukon, I would glass in one area for 5 minutes, then beat on the log, and then glass in the other area for 5 minutes. I was about 1/2 mile from camp and those in the camp could look down and see where I was standing. The last morning the others got back to camp before I did and looked down the river towards me, and saw a monster bull elk crossing the river behind me as I was looking through the binoculars in the opposite direction to the meadow. They all hopped in the jet sled and motored down but he crossed and went in the brush, and I never did see him because when they started the boat I looked their way. The bull was probably less than 200 yards from me which would have been an easy shot. I still haven’t recovered from the disappointment and have said, “If only” over and over constantly in my mind ever since. Now I have graduated to saying, “Oh well” over and over in my mind. My son-in-law, Philip, who lives in Alaska, who put the trip together, was our guide, and his brother-in -law motored up to our camp in his jet sled, on the last day to help haul out our camp and the moose meat that we didn’t get. On the 4 hour boat ride back down the Yukon River he saw a big moose and shot it and we all helped butcher it and haul it back to the jet boat, so I will bring a little moose meat back with us. It was an awesome trip, with great fellowship with my son-in-laws, lots of alone time with God for 8 hours a day on my stand, and amazing Alaskan wilderness beauty. I fished in the middle of the day and caught lots of Arctic Graying, and we even ate some of them. “Darn, if only, I shoulda, Oh well”.

In the morning I am headed out to the wilderness in Northern Alaska with 2 son-in-laws, grizzly bear and moose hunting. There will be no cell service there so this is the last Blog I will write for a week. Hopefully I will have great stories and pictures of bear and moose in a week when I get back to civilization. I am taking my iPad and an extra battery and plan on reading and writing in between treks down the Yukon River from our camp and the surrounding area, and praying for everyone in the church. I like adventure and I am looking forward to some encounters with some Alaskan wildlife.

Our son-in-law Thomas’s Birthday was yesterday so he, Sherri, their son Courage, Patty and I went out to dinner to celebrate. So the big deal in a nice restaurant is going over the menu and deciding from all the wonderful choices what you are going to have. It sometimes takes awhile for everybody to make up their mind, and it helps if we agree ahead of time to exchange bites so we at least get a sampling of food that we didn’t order. I got to thinking about dying recently because of some things going on in my body, and I wondered what it would be like if God gave us a menu with various options on how we would die, and when. I bet that would create quite a bit more “hand wringing” than choosing between steak and fish for dinner. I would choose this one,

Hebrews 11:5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.

This would be my second choice, actually it sounds pretty cool, I think a I will make it first.

2 Kings 2:11 As they were going along and talking, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire which separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven.

But this is the one that I would really choose,

1 Thessalonians 4:17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

While we were at the Steen’s Mountains camping, hunting, and fishing the last couple of weeks a guy shot a buck with his bow and then fell down the cliff where the buck went and was killed.

Several years ago a fellow I knew had a heart attack while fighting a salmon.

My Dad died from liver cancer and the last couple months of his life he was at home and spent lots of time with family.

I could go for any of those as choices if I couldn’t have the rapture one.

So how about the “when” part of the option on the menu. I felt good at 40 with no aches or pains, and I could climb Mt Adams easy, and all my kids were born. Leaving then would have eliminated so much physical pain and disappointments in life, why wait.

I am soon to be 71 and I have so many aches and pains, I am always tired, I can’t hear very well, my eye sight is getting worse by the day, and I can’t remember where I left anything. I am thinking it is only going to get worse every year, a glorified body like that of Jesus sounds really nice right now.

I was reading about what is called dying grace which many Bible passages talk about such as Psalms 23, “even though I walk through the valley of death …. the Lord will comfort me”. Dwight L. Moody said on his death bed,”This is glorious! Earth recedes; heaven is opening; God is calling me”. Many martyrs expressed great joy while being burned because of the grace given them at that moment.

Once we get there the time will go rapidly, and it will be just like the blink of an eye and everyone will be there together with the Lord in amazing joy. Hebrews 2:15 says, “and He will free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” If the Lord makes me stay here until I am 100, I will work as hard as I can and bear as much fruit as possible, but as Paul says in Philippians, “to depart and be with Christ would be so much better”!

My life purpose statement is, “Be a man devoted to prayer, and convince as many others to become people devoted to prayer as is possible in my lifetime.”

I wrote that for myself way back in February of 1989 at the conclusion of the first ever 4 day “Pastor’s Prayer Summit” held at Cannon Beach Conference Center. 1980 through 1988 were very tough years as a pastor for me as it seemed that I could do nothing right and I was always in trouble with someone or a group of people at JBC. I was sure that more people wanted me gone as the pastor than wanted me to stay.

I went to the Prayer Summit having made up my mind that I had made a mistake when I thought God was calling me to be a Pastor, and that I needed to get back into dairy farming where I had some idea of what I was supposed to be doing. My 4 days of continuous prayer with 63 other pastors changed that emphatically in my mind and heart. I committed to God that I would continue as a Pastor and that I would stay at Jefferson Baptist Church until I died. I became convinced that every problem that I had experienced was because of a lack of prayer, and that I could change anything, rather God would as a result of prayer, not a little prayer, but much prayer, devoted prayer.

Over the last 30 years since I wrote that purpose statement for myself I have pursued a lifestyle of prayer. I continually write new and bigger goals for myself in regards to the discipline of prayer, I have written a book on prayer and have preached and taught on the topic of prayer all over the world.

It is interesting to me that prayer has never gotten easy. My flesh hates to pray as much now as it did when I first started this journey. If I don’t make goals, keep track of my time in prayer, write out many of my prayers, keep lists of prayer requests and the names of people that I am praying for, my devotion to prayer begins to fade.

Over the last 30 years the most important part of my prayer life has been the time that I spend in prayer with other people in our church. The more time that I have spent in corporate prayer the hotter my devotion to prayer has become, and the less time that I have prayed with others the colder my devotion to prayer has become. It is a very simple principle to understand, but so very true.

Pastor Mike Dedera recently was officially ordained as a minister of the gospel by our church as a member of the Conservative Baptist Association of Churches. There were 5 other pastors, an official from the Conservative Baptist office, 4 JBC Elders and an Elders wife on the panel that examined Mike. By examine, I don’t mean like a doctor’s visit, but for 3 hours on 4 different nights the panel asked Mike all kinds of questions about his theology. When he would give an answer they would ask a follow up question, and really made him squirm and sweat, all that was missing was the bright light in his eyes. As he was grilled about what he believed I thought, every serious Christian ought to go through this. The truth is most Christians would totally fall apart and probably start crying, even the men, trying to explain what they believe and why.

The Bible prophecies that as we get closer to the end the proliferation of weird doctrines will increase dramatically and many believers who don’t know what they believe will get sucked into these false doctrines.

1 Timothy 4:1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,

Ephesians 4:14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine,

2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,

In my 8:00 am class this year I am going to teach on basic doctrines of the Bible and we will talk about systematic theology. As a result of the class you will know what you believe to be true about God, about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit, and you will know how to explain the inspiration of scripture. We will talk about spiritual gifts, about healing, the “voice of God”, and many other topics.

The class will start on my birthday, October 27, if you want you can bring me a birthday present😀

Almost every week someone will correct my grammar or spelling in my blog. I appreciate it because I want to get better at writing and grammar and spelling is a key part of communicating accurately to others. I wish that I could remember each week what I am corrected on so I didn’t have to keep learning it.

Hermeneutics is the system that we use to determine what someone meant by what they wrote. It isn’t easy with the Bible because of the time difference, of almost several thousand years at the shortest to approximately 3500 years to the longest between us who read today and those who wrote the various books in the Bible. That means many things are different, way different between the writers and the readers culture and understanding of words and their meanings. We understand that the writers were “inspired” by God through the Holy Spirit leading and prompting the various writers, and that today the Holy Spirit helps us to understand the supernatural book of the Bible, but that doesn’t negate good scholarship, study, and thought in arriving at our theology and doctrine. Our system of hermeneutics acknowledges that the authors of the various books of the Bible didn’t write in a vacuum, but that they had a history and a culture, and wrote out of that experience from the past and present.

One of my favorite verses when it comes to interpreting the Bible is Proverbs 25:2 “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”

In a conversation in writing with a person they asked, “where does Jesus teach about this particular topic?” and I answered, “He doesn’t“. “Well, how can it be true then?” I responded by writing, “Where does Moses teach on that subject?” They accurately responded, “I don’t think he does”. I wrote, “You are right, he doesn’t, so how can it be true then?” Their response was right on, “I don’t think Moses had to have written about a topic for it to be true”. And my response was, “ So if Moses didn’t need to teach about a topic for it to be true, why did Jesus?” I went on to write, “If you study the teaching of Jesus you will find most of it already written somewhere in the Old Testament, He was teaching what He had been taught as He grew up, an example being Jesus telling a parable in Luke 14 about not picking out a seat of honor at a banquet, which is very close to the proverb in chapter 25 of Proverbs. But did Jesus teach some brand new, never before revealed truth? Sure he did! lots of it! How about the Apostle Paul, did he teach some stuff that he had learned as a student of the Old Testament, yes he did, a lot. But did he teach some brand new, never before revealed truth as well, yes he did. You see, the Bible was written progressively, and you have to interpret it in the direction it was written.

So now we have a simple rule of hermeneutics that gets violated all of the time, “Use scripture to interpret scripture, but don’t do it backwards”, which simply means, Genesis was written before Revelations, interpret it that way.

I am teaching a class this Fall on Theology, Doctrine, and How to Rightly interpret the Bible. It starts on October 27th, will meet at 8:00 am on Sunday morning at JBC in the Discipleship Center, upstairs in room 201. You all are invited.