I have a class that I teach on how to teach and preach effectively. In the first class I shared some basic principles that I was taught year’s ago. I have tried to follow these over the years as I have had the goal of getting better, just a little bit better every time I speak.

1. Always be learning. A basic law of God is that people learn from a learner not a know it all. Once a person thinks they have it all figured out they stop learning and they stop teaching effectively. Learners read a lot, they listen to good teachers and preachers, and they seek counsel and advice from wise people in their life. Learners are constantly expanding the breadth of their knowledge-seeking. A teacher and preacher of the Bible can spend all their time studying and learning from the Bible but if he learns how to tie flies, learns how to weld, learns Spanish, learns how to grow blueberries, and many other things his teaching will become much more alive and interesting.

Proverbs 2:2-5
Make your ear attentive to wisdom,
Incline your heart to understanding;
For if you cry for discernment,
Lift your voice for understanding;
If you seek her as silver
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will discern the fear of the Lord
And discover the knowledge of God.

2. Learn how to write well. I read a lot of books, but I buy three times as many books as I read. When I start to read a book that I have purchased I give it one chapter to prove to me that it is a good book worth the time it takes to read it. If it doesn’t hold my attention well, then I throw it away or delete it if it is a Kindle or e-book. I want to learn how to write so that I hold people’s attention as they read, so I will only read books that do that to me so that I become a better writer by reading good writing,

A fundamental law of communication is that the better you write the better you will teach. As I write my daily blog I am constantly going back over and rereading what I wrote to determine if it makes sense, if it is clear, if it is logical, and if I think it will hold people’s attention as they read it.

A cool thing about the program that I use to write and publish my blog online is that it gives me a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly count of how many people read my blog. As I look at the numbers, it gives me the motivation to learn how to write better and to work at my writing harder.

More tomorrow.

I spent about 3 hours this evening planning the trip that several of us will take to the East Coast on bicycles this summer. The trip is about 4,000 miles and we will average about 70 miles each day. What I was doing was picking out campsites at approximately 70-mile intervals. Most of the time we have to reserve campsites at least two weeks ahead of our arrival date to be sure we will get one. I have an app on my iPad that shows every campground in the US, and there are a lot. But even with the good number of campgrounds many of them are full weeks in advance. And even with the number of campgrounds there are days when we will ride only 50 miles and days we will ride a 100 miles because that is just the way the campsites work out. We will be riding what is known as the TransAmerican route established by an Association of bicycle riders called Adventure Cycling years ago, so the route has already been determined, I am just figuring out the daily ending point. One of the cool things is that because this is an established route, we meet a lot of other bicycle riders doing the same thing we are. Meeting and talking with other bicycle riders is one of the enjoyable things about this kind of trip.

Once I get everything all figured out, I will have a library of maps, one for every day of the trip. Each night in camp we look at the next days map, what the next night’s camp will be like. We check out the elevations to see how much we will climb, and I check the route on Google maps to check out the road conditions, especially if there are rumble strips and what width the shoulders are.

It is nice knowing what the next day will be like, but often that knowledge makes us nervous and apprehensive. If we see that a very steep hill is coming up the next day sometimes I struggle to sleep because of the nervousness caused by the foreknowledge.

Even with maps and computers there is still most of the next day left as mystery as to what will happen. God is sovereign and He promises to direct my steps and guide my way, so the challenge is to learn how to trust him and live each day with peace and joy.

I am restoring a 1969 Mustang with one of my grandsons, and I am having a really good time. I am doing quite a bit of the work by myself of late, now that school has started, and Isaac has less time. I go out to my shop all times of the day usually for just 30 minutes of working time, at a time because of the business of my schedule. I was out there a couple of nights ago from midnight until 1:30 am. I am working on the engine, the brakes, the steering, the body, and the transmission and driveline. I have been falling asleep in my recliner while watching YouTube videos of some aspect of restoring a classic mustang, and I have learned a ton.

I think the reason I am enjoying this project so much is that it is such a major challenge. It was a total rust bucket when we got it, and every part of the car needs rebuilding. I am learning something new every day, and I am acquiring a dozen new skills.

As I work on the car I pretend that it is me and that I am God turning this pile of rusty nuts and bolts into a beautiful car. In the same way, God is in the process of transforming my life into a person who is holy and righteous like Jesus. Sometimes I will say out loud while working, “Lord, are You having as much trouble with me as I am having right now on this car?” “Please help me to cooperate with You as You transform me into something beautiful and valuable.”

I am having so much fun that I have started looking for another car that I can restore when we finish with this one. I am trying to find one that will be worth some money when I finish with it so I can sell it and make some money. I am getting a little faster and better in my rebuilding skills as I am getting plenty of practice.

I have a lot of different ministries happening right now. I teach five different Leadership classes each week, I am preaching at our Wednesday night service each week, I am preaching at Buena Vista Community Church each Sunday morning, I am involved in five different accountability groups each week, I just volunteered to lead the Seniors ministry, I am leading and overseeing the “Small Group Ministry” in our church, I am working on and preparing to teach a two-day pastors seminar in January, I write a 300 to 500-word blog every day, I meet with 3 to 5 different people each week to talk about ministry, marriages, kids, jobs, etc., I am teaching for two hours this Saturday at the Men’s Conference, I am preaching two weekends in November while Pastor Mike goes to Africa to teach, I pray for every person that attends JBC every week, which takes about an hour every day, I work with the staff at JBC, and every night I pray and thank God for the privilege of serving Him and building His church. Then I asked Him for a little bit more to do.

Some people worry that I am going to burn out, but that will never happen, and here is why;

-I love doing ministry, I love serving the Lord, I love building His church, it is so fun being in the game and not on the bench.

-I never feel sorry for myself for being so busy, tired at the end of every day because serving the Lord is a great privilege and blessing that many don’t have. Many Christians are on the bench, many are bored out of their head just mowing their lawn, feeding their cat, and watching television.

– I thank the Lord every day for blessing me with so much to do for Him.

– I never grouse, complain, or grumble about others in our church who don’t do much. Ministry is a privilege not an obligation, it is a blessing not a burden. It would make as much sense as me saying, “Why do I have to eat all the ice cream! Look at Jude over there, he is not eating any ice cream!” Complaining and grumbling makes you tired, being thankful gives you passion.

– Every day I ask God for His strength and passion to do His work. God loves to give His power to those who ask for it and who are doing His work. Busy is not hard or tiring when you have supernatural energy from the infinitely powerful God.

– When I do well in ministry I thank God for giving me the strength, the wisdom, the giftedness, and for making me adequate as His servant. Pride short circuits God’s power, his joy, and future service.

-I constantly remind myself that God would not give me an opportunity to do something for Him without giving me the energy to do it, without giving me the resources to succeed at it, and without giving me the wisdom to build His church, His body, His Bride, and to glorify Him.

– I remind myself everyday that I am going to stand before Jesus at the end of my life, and He is going to reward me for everything that I have done for Him, and those rewards are going to be eternal and amazing.

– I take naps, I go fishing, I build cars, I bicycle, I spend time with my family, I hang out with friends at JBC, I sit in my hot tub, and I read my Bible every day.

Life is good, very good; God is good, very good. He loves me, and I love Him, and I love to sense His pleasure in me as His servant.

God has established areas of authority and submission in the world. The government is one area where there are Kings and Presidents who have authority over people, that authority comes from God. Pilate said to Jesus, “don’t you know that I have the authority to crucify you?” and Jesus responded by saying, “you have no authority other than what God has given you.” The authority God gives is over a given jurisdiction, no further. Today you see government attempting to exercise authority way beyond their God-given jurisdiction and the result is division, conflict, rebellion, and confusion. Another area of jurisdiction is business and commerce where you have bosses, employees, and a hierarchy of authority. Another area is the church. The last is the family. The family is the foundation of all other areas of authority and submission. God established the family first. Every area is set up by God with authority and submission and the person designated as the leader has God given authority within a jurisdiction. Humans because of the “Fall” have a pull towards power over others, a craving that is hard to control, and because of that craving for power leaders in every realm tend to abuse their God-given authority and move outside the jurisdiction that God has given them. The founding Fathers of the United States who wrote the Constitution understood that pull and established a government with checks and balances so that the abuse of power could be curtailed. The Bill of rights were added to the Constitution to limit the power of the government by establishing jurisdictions, and to guarantee personal freedom for the people.

There have always been bad leaders in every realm of life. Leaders have responsibility to protect, to maintain a unified community, and to influence positively, but many leaders are irresponsible and do little to benefit those who they are responsible for.

Leaders are also bad when the craving for power prompts them to move outside their jurisdiction. Some husbands think that being the leader makes them the boss, the lord of the house, over their wife and kids, and they become the dictator issuing “mandates.” loading it over those allotted to their charge.

Whenever leaders abuse their God-given authority, and begin to Lord it over people the result will be conflict, disunity, resentment, anger and rebellion.

A classic example of moving outside one’s jurisdiction was in the news recently.

“In the Virginia gubernatorial debate on Tuesday evening, Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe insisted that parents should have no role in directing the education of their children.”

Presidents are leaders by God’s assignment, and employers, fathers, husbands, and pastors are as well. If those in roles of leadership find that those they are leading are angry, and there is little peace the wise thing for them to do would be to seek counsel and wisdom and adjust their leadership style recognizing that they are the problem. Very few leaders are that wise or humble. Everything rises and falls on leadership.

In the Bible God designates the husband as the primary leader in the marriage. That doesn’t mean he gets to decide where the family goes on vacation, or what kind of car they buy. It means that the husband is responsible for a number of things in the marriage and the family, either he makes it happen or it generally doesn’t happen.

The first responsibility of the leader is to maintain a strong unity in the marriage and the family. When a marriage and family are unified, there is joy, great joy. When there is division and conflict, there is chaos, anger, bitterness, and hostility. Leadership exists in any institution for the purpose of unity. You can judge the strength and quality of the leadership in any institution by the level of agreement that exists.

Luke 11:17 Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls.

The devil is the great divider, he is constantly working behind the scenes trying to cause division and strife. He knows that he can destroy marriages, families, churches, and countries by introducing irritants into the relationships and culture.

But good leaders do whatever is necessary to preserve unity, to heal conflict, and to resolve differences. They don’t give up, they don’t blame others, they don’t throw up their hands and let things go on their own. Leaders own the problem, they take the blame, they take initiative, they are not apathetic about their resolve to fix the problems. Husbands that are strong leaders seek counseling early in a conflict with their wife. They are humble enough to know that they often need help as they lead. As a pastor over the years much of the counseling I have done has had two characteristics about it; it was way to late and the wife initiated it.

Matthew 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Romans 12:18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.

Psalms 34:14-15 Depart from evil and do good;
Seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears are open to their cry.

Jesus as a man was not born with character, He grew in character by living life.

Hebrews 2:10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.

Jesus was “perfected“ through sufferings. To be “perfected” is to be made mature in character. God designed life in His infinite wisdom to be the ultimate character builder.

2 Peter 1:4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

We have the potential to grow in holiness, righteousness, and character to the point that we have the nature of Jesus.

One of God’s most powerful tools for causing growth in us is marriage.

Ephesians 5:25-29 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,

Jesus is in the process of making the church holy and blameless and that is the responsibility of every husband and every wife, to make each other holy and blameless by our proactive, thought out, and loving influence.

Married couples who understand the purpose of marriage and pursue that purpose have the blessing of God on their efforts and their marriage.

The wise design and plan of God for us can be totally messed up by our poor choices and failure to cooperate with His plan.

Every morning when I get up I pray my “Prayer of Commitment,” and one of the commitments I make is, “Today, Lord, I will love Patty the way You love the church, and I ask You for the wisdom and the strength to influence her so that she becomes like You. I also ask that You will perfect me through her, and that I will be submissive to that influence so that I grow rapidly to be like You.”

Gary Thomas wrote the book “Sacred Marriage” several years ago, and the subtitle is worth the price of the book, ”what if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy.”

I believe that my responsibility as a pastor given to me by God is to teach, preach, counsel, lead, and admonish people in my church so that they become holy, at least they are moving towards being like God in character. Paul declared that to be true of himself in Colossians 1:28-29 “We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.”

So, if that is true of me as a Pastor, and it certainly was true of me as a parent, I believe it is also true of me as a husband. I have the responsibility given to me by God to be an influencer in Patty’s life so that because of me her growth into the image of God is accelerated. It certainly isn’t automatic, I have to work at it, pray about what I do, think, evaluate, and strategize my choices, words, and behavior so that I can have maximum influence in her life.

In the same way Patty is my coach, my pastor, my leader, and because of her influence in my life in a variety of ways my character and holiness level is way beyond what it would have been if It was just up to me.

Some Pastors don’t do a very good job shepherding their flock. Their preaching is boring, they are lazy, they don’t pray for the people in their church, and their example is poor. In the same way, some husbands and wives aren’t very effective in influencing godly life change and growth in their spouses.

A main reason is because they have not realized they are called by God for such a role. The purpose of marriage is to make us holy and righteous, and some do and many don’t. Think about how you can become more effective as a change agent in the life of your spouse, what works, what doesn’t. Because this is God’s purpose for marriage He will give us wisdom as we seek to become the world’s greatest spouse changer.

This last week I wrote about five qualities I was looking for in a potential wife. Those same five qualities are a main goal that I have as I seek to influence Patty in her growth spiritually and in character. I don’t nag, or lecture, or scold, but I do praise, suggest, pray, and model. Any time there is purpose in our living we become much more focused in what we do and say, and our influence increases substantially.

The fifth quality that I had written down was I wanted a wife that had a healthy soul. If I forgot her birthday, it wouldn’t destroy her self-worth, if I went out with a bunch of friends and didn’t get home until 2:00 am she wouldn’t be upset with me, if I didn’t notice her haircut or new dress she wasn’t going to pout and declare that I didn’t love her. I wanted to be married to someone mature and grown-up, not a child who threw a fit whenever she didn’t get her way. I wanted a cheerful, happy wife, not prone to fretting about the future, open to change, willing to try new things, not afraid to try scary things, and wouldn’t know what it means to be embarrassed. That is a lot of words to describe one character trait, but I was sure I would recognize it when I saw it.

I fully intended to love my future wife like Jesus loved the church and make sacrifices to do so. I knew that whoever I married would have basic needs that I would need to meet as her husband. I was committed to loving her, honoring her, and protecting her, but I wanted to do that in an environment of freedom.

I had two friends who were older than me and were married. It seemed to me that they were always in trouble with their wives about something. Their wives weren’t partners or friends; they were jailers, mothers, Kate Brown. I often thought to myself when around them, it would be better not to be married than in the marriage they are in. They walk around on eggshells whenever they are with them.

A story that I have told a thousand times about Patty but I love telling it because it was the key event that cemented in my mind that she was going to be the perfect wife for me, if I could just convince her to marry me. Though I am telling this story last this was the first close encounter I had with Patty and that got everything going.

I was on our College’s basketball team, and because we practiced when everyone else was eating, we ate by ourselves. Patty worked in the cafeteria as part of her financial aid package so she was usually working behind the counter while we were eating. One evening our coach came in while we were eating and excitedly declared that he got us free tickets to the “Far West Classic” at the Memorial Coliseum. This was a major college basketball tournament with some of the best teams in the nation playing, and the seats were mid-court and just up from the court. We all got excited and were talking about the event and the players we would see when Patty loudly declared that she should be able to go with us because, after all, she fed us every night. The coach rolled his eyes and said “Only guys can go.” She borrowed a suit from a guy who was a friend along with a hat, put it on stuffing her hair up into the hat, and showed up at the team bus as we were loading up to go to the first game. Patty was intending it to be a joke and planned that after everybody had a good laugh, she would head off back to the girl’s dorm, but coach talked a couple of guys into grabbing her and hauling her onto the bus with us. So Patty went to the game dressed up in a man’s suit that was way too big for her, tripping over the pant legs as she walked and looking very, very ridiculous. At first I was disgusted with the dumbness of this whole thing, but as I watched her through the evening I thought, “most girls would be dying a thousand deaths right now, but she is actually enjoying herself. At first I thought it was because she was the center of attention, but as the evening wore on, I could see that all the attention she was getting from the guys wasn’t really that important to her, she was just having a good time amid a unique experience.

I thought to myself, “there is one secure, confident, lady. “ It was about a week later when I asked her out on our first date.

Pastor Mike has been preaching on the family and the last couple of weeks his sermons have been on marriage. That is what prompted me to write these last several blogs as a complement to the information taught on weekends. Another reason that I decided to write these even though most have already heard the stories I used, is because 1 Peter 3 teaches that husbands are to honor their wives, so I decided to write something about marriage and to write it in such a way as to honor Patty.

The fourth quality I was looking for was a woman who understood and was comfortable with the roles of husbands and wives as described in the Bible. A vital part of that was that she would be submissive to me as her husband. My definition and mental image of how that would work was almost totally defined by what I had grown up with and witnessed between my Dad and Mom.

Sometime during my Junior year in High School, our church had a visiting missionary, and he spoke on marriage. The only thing that I remember him saying that has stuck in my mind all these years was, “the perfect illustration of a relationship that was based on authority and submission was Jesus Christ and God the Father.” He went on to say, ”Jesus was God, equal with the Father. Jesus was all-powerful, all-wise, but He was submissive to the Father in everything.” The purpose of the authority and submission in the Trinity was to facilitate unity; even in a perfect, sinless relationship authority and submission were required for the sake of unity.

Once we started dating regularly we saw each other and spent time together almost every day, and it wasn’t very long before I recognized that we got along quite well. In our conversations, our walks, and various activities Patty had a natural and gracious way of practicing deference toward me that made me feel like a king, and made her very attractive to me.

I was on the school baseball and basketball team, and in both sports we practiced during the regular dinner time in the cafeteria and ate after everybody else was gone. The people who worked in the kitchen would put food on those big metal dishes with multiple divided off areas, one per guy, and then put them in the oven to keep them warm for us. Patty worked in the kitchen as part of her school financial aid program, and she was often working when we came in to eat. All the guys got their own platter of food out of the oven and sat down, but when Patty was working she would bring mine out to me. The guys started giving me such a hard time about it that she began to bring everyone’s out. Once she figured out our schedule she would have them all set out on the table waiting for us when we walked in.

It didn’t take me very long to decide that I wanted to marry her.