Psalms 100:3 Know that the Lord Himself is God;

It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;

We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

I was talking to a person the other day who said that he was mad at God, and because he was mad at God he was going to choose not to believe in him. That has to be the most arrogant statement a person can make. 

Isaiah 45:9 Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker—

An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth!

Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’

We live in a time when people get angry at the government, at bosses, and at parents. If we are upset at our parents, our spouse, our boss, or our government, we can say things and do things that may help, but God? People who think that they can shake their fist in God’s face, bully Him, or rebel against Him have a very low view of God and aren’t thinking very clearly at all about all His creation around us and His power. We are not talking about Zeus, Baal, or some other pagon god that can get whipped by another god on a bad day. God is all powerful, there is no other God besides Him. 

I have concluded that the thinking of some is so strange that it must be demonic deception.

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,

How did that happen, and how could they escape? Discussions that I have with these people go no place fast. I will pray for them that God will remove blinders and set them free from their anger. 

Psalms 2:1-4 Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together

Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us tear their fetters apart

and cast away their cords from us!” He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.

We had prayer tonight at the Jefferson Evangelical Church. About eight people attended, and we prayed for an hour. My goal as the Pastor is to grow the church. The most powerful way to do that is through prayer. It is easy to count the number of hours of prayer happening in a month and the number of people praying. I call that prayer hours. Tonight, we had eight prayer hours, eight people for one hour. As the number of consistent prayer hours in the church grows, so will the church. It is simple. It isn’t rocket science. So, the strategy is simple. Increase the number of hours of prayer times and events happening each month in the church. Then, through preaching, announcements, and reminders, increase the number of people attending the prayer events. It works because God said it would. We pray, God works, and the more we pray, the more God works. Amazing. 

Patty and I are both on a diet. She counts calories, and I count carbs. Whatever we are counting, the main ingredient is self-control. I got overweight because I couldn’t say no to donuts, cake, ice cream, candy bars, etc. When I discovered that I was allergic to sugar and gluten, I gained some immediate self-control. Because if I ate what I was allergic to, the consequences would be almost immediate. That has helped me now that I am officially on a diet. I am controlling what I eat; I am exercising at least 30 minutes five days a week, I am getting at least 8 hours of sleep every night, I am taking some essential vitamins, I am putting sunscreen on when I go outside for any length of time, I am visiting my dermatologist every two months, my regular doctor every six months, and my urologist every two years. Besides that, I change the oil in my pickup every 3,000 miles!

All of that is to try and stay physically healthy, except for the pickup. But much more important than my physical health is the health of my soul. A healthy soul requires the same kind of discipline and routine. I read my Bible every day. I spend 40 minutes every day memorizing scripture verses. I spend time with God in prayer every day. I read good Christian books five days a week, journal daily, examine my life for sin, and confess all known sins to God daily. I read my goals two times a week and commit my life to Christ as Lord of my life daily. Why? Because I want a healthy soul that is growing to be more like Jesus every day of my life. Self-control is easy when there are immediate rewards or consequences, but most of the rewards and consequences in my life, both physically and spiritually, are delayed. Those disciplines take much more self-control. The important thing for me is to remind myself why I am doing these disciplines; I try to do that almost daily. “This is what I truly want, and this is what I need to do to get it.”

I bought a hot tub, which was delivered today. I have it all hooked up, filled with water, and blowing water. I have been struggling for the last year with hip pain, so I decided to give this a try. It is about three steps from our bedroom door on the back porch, so it is only about six steps to my bed when I am limp like a rag from the heat and water jets. It sort of reminds me of the old pickup we had on the farm when I was a kid. We were always fixed it to get a few more miles out of it. Even with my aches and pains and the various body parts that have quit working, I am functioning quite well. I can study, read, memorize, write, and teach as well as ever. I can fish, hunt, and work on projects around the house. I am starting on a big chicken house this week as soon as I get the chicken fence done, and I spent a couple of hours today buffing the paint job we just finished on the 1969 Mustang. I move much slower than I used to, take a lot of ibuprofen, and take rest breaks regularly, but I still get almost everything crossed off of my to-do list every day, even though there is less on it now than there used to be. God is good, and I thank Him all day long, every day, for my blessed life. My daily goal is no grumbling, complaining, feeling sorry for myself, and saying thank you all day. Jesus is coming soon.

I played baseball in College from 1967 through 1969, over 50 years ago. When JBC was first started, I played softball on our church team. We had a pretty good team, as I remember. But it has been over 30 years since I played softball. Last year, I was talked into playing one game because our church’s team didn’t have enough players. I am unsure why I agreed to do it, except for the fun and the challenge. For some reason, I decided to be on this year’s team. Hopefully, I will only play when there aren’t enough players. My 22-year-old granddaughter will also play, and she hasn’t played much. She was a high school and college soccer player and a good athlete. This last week, I bought gloves for her and me, and today, we played catch for 30 minutes. It took a little bit of throwing, but I got to where I could throw the ball close enough to where she was standing that she could catch it. However, we were only about 15 feet apart. But practice makes perfect, but in my case, practice will make a little bit better. The physical indicators of old age are increasing at an accelerated pace in my life. Still, I am doing as much as possible to slow down the slide into a permanent bed in a rest home, playing softball, riding my bicycle on long trips, fishing, exercising, hunting, walking, and playing golf. Every stage in life has its unique challenges to overcome. Those who recognize that these challenges are meant to be conquered and overcome, not fussed about, usually make it to the top of the mountain. I enjoy the present challenge of doing something meaningful with my life instead of sleeping in my recliner. We will see how long I can run in this current marathon. The key is to seek the Lord diligently and ask for His strength, guidance, and wisdom all day long. Old guys have gone downhill in many things, but most of my old friends and I have grown in faith in God’s promises as we have gotten older. A strong faith makes up for a lot of physical deficiencies. 

I keep track of college basketball during the season, but I don’t watch any games until “March Madness,” the end-of-season tournament made up of the best 68 teams in the nation. Now, they are down to 16 teams left standing, soon to be 8, then four, and then the national championship on Monday night, April 7th. This game is my second favorite of the year, just behind the Super Bowl. A number of us will be watching it together upstairs in the Discipleship Center at JBC on the super big screen, with fried chicken and other food that people bring. You all are welcome to come and watch it with us. I am hoping it is Duke and whoever. I bet you can’t guess why my favorite team is Duke. I played basketball in high school and college. Both my boys played from the time they could dribble through four years of college, so I watched hundreds of hours of basketball. A number of my grandkids play now. It has been 40 years since I have touched a basketball, but I still enjoy watching it and cheering on my favorite teams. We don’t have television, and I am often busy when teams are playing, but I enjoy watching the games I am interested in on YouTube in the evening on my iPad. I will watch the replay of Duke and Arizona that played earlier this evening tonight. Competition is an interesting characteristic of many people; it often brings out the best in people and sometimes the worst.

The Bible has many illustrations using completion, so it is a characteristic God put in us. I spend almost an hour daily memorizing scripture and reviewing the verses I have already memorized. I have an App called Bible Memory that I use to help me. The main help it gives me is the extra motivation to spend an hour every day working on it. The motivation comes from the competition between myself and others using the same App. We get points for memorizing and reviewing verses, thousands of people use the App, and everyone gets ranked on how many points they have earned. My brother Cliff and several of my Pastor friends are way ahead of me. I am in 235th place and trying hard to move up. If I miss one day of memorizing, I can fall two or three places; I hate it! Several people have accused me of memorizing scripture for the wrong reason. My ultimate motives are pure, but it helps to have some competition. Try it and see if you can catch me. Scripture Memory is the name of the App. 

I keep track of college basketball during the season, but I don’t watch any games until “March Madness,” the end-of-season tournament made up of the best 68 teams in the nation. Now, they are down to 16 teams left standing, soon to be 8, then four, and then the national championship on Monday night, April 7th. This game is my second favorite of the year, just behind the Super Bowl. A number of us will be watching it together upstairs in the Discipleship Center at JBC on the super big screen, with fried chicken and other food that people bring. You all are welcome to come and watch it with us. I am hoping it is Duke and whoever. I bet you can’t guess why my favorite team is Duke. I played basketball in high school and college. Both my boys played from the time they could dribble through four years of college, so I watched hundreds of hours of basketball. A number of my grandkids play now. It has been 40 years since I have touched a basketball, but I still enjoy watching it and cheering on my favorite teams. We don’t have television, and I am often busy when teams are playing, but I enjoy watching the games I am interested in on YouTube in the evening on my iPad. I will watch the replay of Duke and Arizona that played earlier this evening tonight. Competition is an interesting characteristic of many people; it often brings out the best in people and sometimes the worst.

The Bible has many illustrations using completion, so it is a characteristic God put in us. I spend almost an hour daily memorizing scripture and reviewing the verses I have already memorized. I have an App called Bible Memory that I use to help me. The main help it gives me is the extra motivation to spend an hour every day working on it. The motivation comes from the competition between myself and others using the same App. We get points for memorizing and reviewing verses, thousands of people use the App, and everyone gets ranked on how many points they have earned. My brother Cliff and several of my Pastor friends are way ahead of me. I am in 235th place and trying hard to move up. If I miss one day of memorizing, I can fall two or three places; I hate it! Several people have accused me of memorizing scripture for the wrong reason. My ultimate motives are pure, but it helps to have some competition. Try it and see if you can catch me. Scripture Memory is the name of the App. 

With this great weather we have had the last couple of days and the availability of grandkids because of spring break, we are building a 600-foot fence around our orchard to keep chickens. We are starting with 16 chickens, though a dozen are still teenagers. We will expand that until we have enough chickens to keep the grass eaten down enough so that we don’t have to mow it. With eleven people living here at our place, we go through a dozen eggs daily, which are expensive. We will grow a garden for the first time in years, and I will catch even more fish than usual. It will be fun! Growing up on a farm, we always raised most of our own food, so it will be exciting to do that again and have jobs for my grandkids to do.

One of the main strengths in my life that I received from growing up on the farm is my understanding of the laws of the harvest. One corn seed produces one corn plant. There are different kinds of corn seeds and dozens of practices and methods of growing corn, but the best of all things will be readily determined by the harvest. The harvest determines all success. Proper practices and techniques on the dairy resulted in much milk, and appropriate practices and procedures in our farming resulted in bumper crops of hay. That is the bottom line in farming: do the right things. We were always contending with weather, prices, and disease, but everybody was. We learned the right stuff from other farmers consistently experiencing bumper crops. That is the fundamental law of living life. How much we are growing in character like that of Jesus and how much fruit we are bearing in our service to God is because of living by correct principles. I learn those principles from the Bible, personal experience, and others. 

The only sport that my father ever got into was boxing. We didn’t watch a lot of boxing on television, but we watched most of the championship fights. My dad’s favorite fighter when he was a boy was James J Braddock, the Cinderella Man, who won the heavyweight championship during the Depression. When I was a kid, the main guy we rooted for was Cassius Clay, Mohamad Ali. Another of our favorites was George Forman, who died just three days ago at the same age I am, 76. Big George, as he was called, won 76 fights, 68 by knockout, and lost just 5. One of his losses was probably his most famous fight when he was knocked out by Mohamed Ali in Africa, called “The Rumble in the Jungle,” in 1974. He finally won the championship back when he was 45, the oldest fighter ever to win a heavyweight championship. In 1977, George became a follower of Jesus. He also became an entrepreneur and a businessman. He became very well known because of the George Forman Grill. It is always fun to hear people’s stories, the details of their lives, and how they came to know Jesus Christ as their personal savior. George is in heaven now, and his story is over, but those of us who are still alive are still writing our biography. Make it interesting, exciting, and an obvious God story. 

One of the things that I love doing is looking at pictures from years ago that bring back good memories of events and accomplishments. Now that I don’t do so much, I love remembering the good old days when I did. One of the things that I used to do and don’t do anymore is run. When I was 55, one of my long-range goals was to run a marathon when I was 90, but I will not make that goal. Oh well, it seemed possible when I was 55. This picture shows our daughter Shelly when she and I ran a 10K together in Fairbanks, Alaska, at midnight when I was 63. I ran my last race 7 years ago when I was 69; I also ran that race with Shelly. Even though I don’t run anymore, I can still ride a bicycle, walk, sit in a boat, and reel in fish. One of the things that reading history and reviewing the history of our own lives does is to remind us of the faithfulness of God. Philippians 1:6 says that God began a good work in me and will perfect that beginning good work until I see Jesus. I may not be running anymore, but I am more like Jesus in character now than I was then. We all need to be able to say that confidently. If we want to grow and we work at it, God will make it happen.