I believe every person has an internal desire to make a difference. This desire was put in us by God. This desire has the capacity to grow stronger and stronger inside of us as we feed it, but it also can get weaker and weaker and even die. A key reason this God given desire goes away in many people is from frustration that comes from making no difference even when we try repeatedly. Once we get the impression that we are beating our head against a hard immovable wall we will quit, usually permantly. People who have arrived at this state of living are not happy, have low self worth, grumble a lot, argue, rant, you get the picture. The way to keep this from happening is to have some successes in changing things, making a difference. If I were your coach this is what I would tell you to do so that you became a super motivated change agent for God making a huge difference with your life. First thing, ask yourself if what you are presently doing is making a difference or ever will, if not quit and do something that does. A lot of activities feel good and have a degree of nobility about them but won’t change anything. Second thing is become involved in things that produce a small win, but are sure things. Small changes pile up and become significant accomplishments if one is steady and faithful at working at making a difference. Third thing is to pay close attention to hints and signs that God is giving an opportunity or open door. I believe God wants us to want to do something and look for it so it won’t just hit you on the side of the head. Last thing is to do as much as possible with others as a team. We will accomplish so much more with others. A great example of this kind of opportunity is the “Serve Inc” project on July 11th. The churches in Jefferson are coming together to do a community project of painting some of the Fire Hall, the Community Center, and some landscaping. No big deal, but for those who choose to serve it is a momentum starter or builder depending on where they are on the path to being a world changer.

Somebody in our church who I know well got their facebook account hacked and the hacker sent me a message pretending to be the person I know. They said that they had been awarded $150,000 that Facebook and UPS were giving to people with disabilities. I messaged back that I was super happy for them and congratulations and all that stuff. A bit later they messaged me again and asked if I had gotten my money yet, because they had noticed my name on the list. I responded that no, I hadn’t heard anything about any award of money. They sent me a name of a lady and said “Friend” her on Facebook and then ask her if I was one of the ones that was receiving an award. I thought, “what the heck” let’s see what happens. So I did that and got a reply back that indeed I was one of the people who was given a grant or award of $150,000. I think it was because it was 1:00 am in the morning and I was half asleep that I bit the bait like a stupid fish or maybe it was because we all are wishing we would get some extra money for any crazy reason, it wouldn’t matter but it sure would be nice to have that money. I started thinking what we would do with it. I naturally would give some to the Lord and the kids could use some of it, and I could do quit a bit around the house with some extra funds. Right in the middle of my dreaming about this money I got another message from my new friend giving me instructions on how to get my money. As I read what was written I noticed a number of misspelled words and some grammar that was worse than mine and I thought Oh,oh I don’t think this is ligit. I messaged the Facebook friend who I knew well in our church and asked if they were still up and they responded, yes. I asked if they could call me. The response was that they had lost their phone, so I asked if they could phone me with their husbands phone and I knew it worked because I had talked to him on it just a couple of days ago. No more response. Oh well, I didn’t want that stinky money anyway. Boy I hope I can hook fish the next time I go fishing as easily as I was hooked, sheesh, what a sucker I am.

I make todo lists and schedule each day very carefully wanting to use my time well and to accomplish as much as possible each day. Often something comes up and totally messes up my schedule. When that happens I thank God for the variety that He brings into my life, and the cool challenges that I get to solve. This afternoon my son-in-law from Fairbanks, Alaska texted and wondered if I could drive up to Portland and pick up a pickup that he just bought. They are flying down in September to go on an all family hunting trip to the Steens Mountains with us, and will drive the pickup back home. My son Seth said he would drive me up to get it, so I said OK. Found the place with no problem and checked out the pickup. The guy bought it new in 1973 and is the only owner. Seth agreed to drive it home so I took off in the car headed home while he did all the title stuff and gave him the money. When he started for home the pick up died in the middle of the first intersection. The owner took it back to his shop and after trying to get it running good decided that the gas was bad, the carberator was dirty and the spark plugs needed replacing. Seth called just as I exited the freeway at the Jefferson exit so I turned around to get him. The owner of the pickup brought him as far as Wilsonville but it was still very late when we finally got home. Not much I could have done to have changed much of that situation so I will try to get everything done on my expanded todo tomorrow. You never know, maybe I will.

Love seems to be a big deal right now. Seems like a good thing, but maybe not. The Apostle Paul in his second letter to Timothy who he was training to be a Pastor said this in Chapter 3, “you must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come. For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money….lovers of pleasure, and having an outward form of loving God, but it isn’t real.” Saw some little kids at an event recently and one of them began to fuss loudly. The Mom put a pacifier, one of those things that we called binkies, in the kids mouth and he was instantly good. Those things aren’t the real thing, and they produce zero milk, but they seem to fool the kid. Paul says of these people in verse 8 that they have a counterfeit faith. They think they have the real thing, but it is not real. They have been fooled by the devil, that is what he does. The big deal today is “God loves ____, you fill in the blank. But the big deal ought to be,”do I love God with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my might? In John 14:15 Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments, you will be holy as I am holy, you will pursue righteousness” I love the Lord with all my heart and every morning I declare to Him that I hunger and thirst for righteousness and ask Him to help me to please Him in very detail of my life. In the evening I confess my sins to Him and claim the promise of His Word that He will forgive me.
Experiencing His forgiveness motivates me to strive even more for purity of life, not to take advantage of grace and love. This is my life view and belief, I highly recommend it.

It is so nice to live life with total confidence that what I am using as my guide, my standard for right and wrong, my blueprint for success, my description of tomorrow and eternity, my definition of truth is the inspired inerrant Word of God. Some people give lip service to the Bible, I declare that the Bible is living and active and supernatural and the very thoughts of God. I can know God intimately and walk with Him by reading His Word. I can know His perfect will for my life as I look for it sincerely reading and studying the Bible. As the world declares their opinion of what is right and wrong, what is good and bad, what is holy and profane, I look to the Holy, inspired inerrant Word of God for what He says. Because my view of the Bible is so high I read it every day, I make decisions every day using the wisdom that comes from God’s Word, I spend 30 minutes every day memorizing it, I have devoted my life to preaching and teaching it. My relationship with God is based on the truth that He gives me in His Word.

I am raising Tilapia fish in my aquaponic set up in my greenhouse. I bought a 100 fish that were about 1/2 inch long January 1st and now they are about 10 inches long and weigh over a pound each. I took 5 female fish a male and put them in a 55 gallon glass aquarium as a brood colony hoping that I would have a bunch of new baby fish. But the fish have not been cooperating, no baby fish. They lay the eggs and then when the male fertilizes them the female momma fish picks the eggs back up and keeps them in her mouth until they hatch. As you watch the fish the moma fish that has eggs in her mouth becomes evident because her cheeks begin to pooch out and she doesn’t eat. I went out to feed my fish tonight after church and hallelujah, and one of my fish is pregnant. They usually have about 200 babies. I have a 10 gallon glass aquarium set up and tomorrow I will net the Momma fish and put her in the 10 gallon tank by herself and when the babies hatch she will spit them out, and then I will net her and put her back into the big tank before she eats her babies, where she will stay until she gets big cheeks again. The babies will be just 1/16 of an inch when born and when they grow to be about 1 inch I will put them in a big 300 gallon tank until they get big enough to eat. It won’t be long now before I will have lots of fish. Cool.

Went to the Vacation Bible School program tonight at Jefferson Baotist Church. There have been 350 kids coming each day since Monday along with about 180 volunteers who supervised, led games, did crafts, led singing, and taught Bible lessons. The program was super impressive, and it was so fun to see all those kids on the stage singing, doing hand motions and dancing around. The impressive part was the obvious good leadership and planning that had to have happened for what I watched to have happened. I thought of a passage in the gospels that is a quote from Jesus in Matthew 19:13-14, Little children were being brought to Him so that He might lay his hands on them and pray for them. The disciples tried to stop them from coming, but Jesus responded by saying, “Let the children come to Me for these are the ones that the Kingdom of heaven belongs to”. If we as a church want to please the Lord we can’t hardly go wrong planning and having programs that bless children and teaching them truth so they grow up to be strong champions. I believe the joy I was feeling tonight watching was from the Lord because He was pleased.

The temperature today and forecast for this next week reminds me of a Bible verse in the book of Revelation 16:8, “the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it scorched people, they were scorched with fierce heat, but they cursed God, who had authority over these plaques, and they did not repent and give Him glory.” This passage always puzzled me that people who know there is an almighty God who is in control of the weather would curse Him instead of submit to Him and serve Him and experience relief. All I can figure out is that being in submission to an almighty God who knows everything, is all powerful, loves us, created us, and is in control of everything is just more than they can handle.

My goal is to have my sermon for the weekend all studied and written by Noon on Wednesday. That gives Jean time to put it on Power Point and then I have 3 days to think about it and come up with some good illustrations. Got it done today about 3 pm. Close enough. I will be talking this weekend on the hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament that have been fulfilled literally. Lots of people scoff at the Bible but there is no book ever written that has more proof of its validity externally from archeology and history and internally from fulfilled prophecy. I enjoy very much studying about all the prophecies that have been fulfilled and all of those that are yet to be fulfilled. I have no doubts that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and not because I grew up that way but because of the study that I have done as a skeptic. Now that I do believe that the Bible is God’s Word, I would be a fool not to use it as my guide for life.

Spent an hour today with a young pastor who has been getting together with me periodically to seek wisdom. He is very refreshing to meet with. He is genuinely humble, asks very good questions that he has obviously thought about, listens attentively, and records the conversation so he can go back and listen to it again. His response to my answers is very honoring, and stimulates me to think and give good counsel and advice. He thanks me profusely when the hour is up for taking my valuable time to spend with him, but my thought is that I think I have enjoyed this conversation more than he has. I have had other young guys come and ask for counsel and mentoring, but it seems like many of them do more talking than listening, and it is obvious that they think they know a lot about being a successful pastor already. Every time I have a session with him my thought as he leaves is “he is a rare kind of young man”. I wonder why there aren’t more like him who are hungry for wisdom, humble enough to know they don’t yet have it, yet wise enough to know how to ask really good questions. My greatest joy at my age and stage of ministry is to pass on some of what I have learned over the years by experience to younger guys who will use it to successfully do God’s work and positively influence many people to live for God.