I was building a deck today, and I lifted some concrete pier blocks and pulled a muscle in my back. I am limping around now like a one-legged duck. I plan to sit in my hot tub for a long time, rub some linament on my back, and take some ibuprofen.
2 Corinthians 5:2 For indeed in this house, our present body, we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven.
Whenever I get sick, have a bad back, or get a headache, I think about heaven and my glorified body.
Philippians 3:20-21 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
When I was younger, I would think, I hope Jesus doesn’t come back yet because I still have some things to do and experience, but now I can’t think of a single thing I haven’t done or experienced that matters much. I am ready and anxiously waiting.

I feel so much better right now physically than I have felt in years because I finally figured out that I am allergic to a bunch of different foods, and I am avoiding them like the plaque. Six months ago, I was maxed out on my Parkinsons’s medicine, and now I am taking none. Six months ago, I couldn’t sleep more than four hours at a time because of my muscle cramps and tremors, and now I can sleep 9 hours without waking up once. During the last bicycle trip, I thought that was my last trip, and now I am signed up to run a half marathon on April 6th, and I am going to leave on a 2400-mile bicycle trip with my brother and his wife on May 20th. Also, I am considering making a 6,000-mile bicycle trip by myself, unsupported, and hitting all lower 48 estates in 2025. At this point, I am just thinking about it and planning the route. At 75 years of age, health is a day-to-day thing, but I am very thankful for my relatively good health now, and I plan on bearing as much fruit as possible and having as much fun as possible until some health issue pops up, which could be any day.

My motto for my life is to control what I can control for maximum production and rejoice about the things I can’t control.

I know that there are tasks that I do that are my responsibilities; they have a significant benefit for others in my life, and doing those tasks is important to them. I am not motivated to do those tasks because I necessarily enjoy them but because of what they do for others. There is a deep satisfaction in being a faithful man and doing those tasks when needed. Being motivated to be faithful in doing these kinds of tasks is what the Bible calls being a servant to others.

Jesus said of Himself, “I did not come into the world to be served, but to serve and give My life as a ransom for many.”

As a person moves from being a two-year-old baby to a 75-year-old man, there needs to be continual growth in character so that we are more and more motivated in life choices by a “servant’s heart.” Having a “servant’s heart” doesn’t mean that we simply go through life doing what others want us to, but that we choose to do what they need.

Periodically, I hit stages in my life where I start feeling a strong sense of being overloaded. I am not usually really overloaded but struggling with motivation. The “why” has gotten cloudy in my thinking. If the “why” moves to “have to,” “supposed to,” or ” you need to,” I get to feeling tired, and I start procrastinating on tasks that I used to do with great enthusiasm.

I want to move through life doing the desires of my heart, not obligations or duties. They can be the same activities, but the “why” has gotten refocused and cleared up. It is easy for our “self” to focus on ourselves instead of others. The shift is subtle and usually hard to detect, but it is a constant pull in all of us, requiring periodic mental tune-ups. It is a self-talk issue as we remind ourselves that Jesus is the Lord of our life and that we serve Him by serving others.

Jesus said, “When you do what you do for others, even the least important of them, you do it for Me.”

As people of flesh, we all have some negative tendencies, and we must overcome them as we live life. One of them is procrastination, putting off doing what needs to be done even though we know that doing so will result in negative consequences. I have often asked myself, “Why do I do that??” The answer is, “That is just the way we are.” But we can change and grow and, as Peter says, “put on the divine nature.”

I can sit in my recliner and think, “I need to get up and run on my treadmill for thirty minutes; I will do that in five minutes.” But I often will continue to sit there until it is too late to do it. It doesn’t seem that big a deal at the moment, but later, I will kick myself for being such a wimp.

I regularly will take on a character trait as a personal goal to improve, and decisiveness is my goal for the next several months. I have come up with some mottos that I will say to myself to push myself in this area. One of them is, “Don’t just keep looking through the scope, pull the trigger, shoot something!” I have memorized a number of Bible verses on this problem; one of them is in John 4, where Jesus says, “You say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest, but I say to you, “lift up your eyes and look, the fields are ready for harvest now!” Another one of my commands to myself is, “Do it now, Duke, not in five minutes, do it now!”

I did research on a bunch of book reviews and recommendations from other pastors on the best book on this subject, and I purchased and am not reading the book, “The Now Habit,”

I enjoy challenges and competition, and I fully expect that I am going to win this contest with my flesh, the world, and the devil.

Some years ago, I did a series of sermons called “The Dirty Dozen,” about twelve reasons God doesn’t answer our prayers. One of the twelve reasons our prayer power is reduced with God is because we are haphazard and wimpy in our Bible reading.

Proverbs 28:9 He who turns away his ear from listening to the law, Even his prayer is an abomination.
John 15:7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

I want my prayers to God to have great power and influence, so I am highly motivated to stay disciplined in my Bible reading and memorizing.

The key is having a system or plan for reading your Bible that you can keep track of and have a time and a place that you usually read, as well as a goal and system for your Scripture memory time.

At least fifty blessings come into our lives from faithfully reading, studying, and memorizing God’s Word.

Occasionally, people will respond to me, saying, “I don’t want to be motivated to read the Bible because of reward,” and my response is, “Why not? God wouldn’t have put all those promises to us in His Word if they were less than noble.”

It is obvious in the Bible that pride is a bad thing; God doesn’t like pride at all, and there are many consequences listed in the Bible that come right from God as punishment for pride. I’m not too fond of pride in myself when I see it coming out in various circumstances and situations. It is hard to see in myself, and I can tell that many people I am around a lot don’t see it in themselves, either. There are many reasons and causes for our pride, but whatever the reason for it being in my life, my goal is to root it all out, like hoeing weeds in a garden. And just like weeds, it keeps growing back again, so the weeding has to be a continuous part of my life.

Patty’s car started running poorly last week, so I took it to my mechanic, and he plugged in this little gauge that read codes that the car puts out, indicating the problem. He read the gauge, declared the problem, and fixed it in about an hour, and it runs great now.

I thought to myself; I wish I had a gauge that I could plug into my ear and tell me what my problems are. That would be so cool and would certainly speed up the process of me becoming holy.

I have a built-in gauge like that; it is my mouth, but if I don’t listen attentively to what comes out of it, I will miss what I need to know to grow. One of the things that happens in my life is that people will tell me things that I already know very well, which almost everyone knows, so I am not sure what their motive is for telling me because I know that they know that I already know what they are telling me, and it ticks me off!!

When that happens, and it often does, I need to take a deep breath and quote the verse in my mind that says, “God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble,” and then say thank you. I am sometimes successful in responding the way I know is pleasing to the Lord, but often, I respond with some kind of sarcastic and obnoxious comeback that is rude. I will usually say to myself, “Why do I do that? Pride, there it is, plain and simple, now fix it.”

When the “Five Days of Prayer” is on the horizon, I significantly adjust my responsibilities and schedule to devote at least eight hours daily to prayer. But I picked up this nasty head cold and have been at home all week in bed or sitting in my recliner instead. I have been participating in the prayer time via Zoom, but after about two hours, I find it very hard to concentrate on the words when I can’t see the people praying on my iPad screen very well. So I switch to working on my Scripture Memory, Bible reading, writing, and book reading. As a result, I am getting extra time on each of those disciplines, which is nice as a change of pace. I have been enjoying this extra rest, sleep, and extra time on spiritual disciplines so much that I think I will plan on a sick week every month. Patty asked how I was going to make that happen, and I said that I would pretend that I was sick; after all, I used to do that when I was in grade school, and she responded by saying, “Well, don’t expect me to wait on you ‘hand and foot.'” Sheesh, here I thought I had married a good wife! She probably won’t let me breathe on her in the middle of the night, either!

All of that to say, “rest” is a part of God’s agenda for our lives. I do a pretty good job establishing periodic rest times in my life, and as I have gotten older, I have increased those as needed. Many times, for me, rest isn’t just sitting and sleeping but just a change of activity and routine. I go on a month-long bicycle trip each summer, riding about 70 miles daily, listening to sermon podcasts while I ride, and reading and writing in the evening. It is an excellent change of pace that keeps me healthy in my body, my mind, and my emotions. I used to take one day off each week from ministry responsibilities, but now I take two, at least from activities where I am speaking, leading, or involved in church activities.

When I was a kid cutting firewood with my Dad, he would stop regularly and sharpen the blade on his saw. It would take 15 or 20 minutes, and he would occasionally say, “It takes extra time to keep your saw sharp, but if you didn’t take that time soon, you wouldn’t be cutting much wood. That is how rest is in life; if you take periodic rests, your brain works better, you have more energy, and you have a much better attitude about life.

Remember, watching television, playing video games, reading the news, and other such activities aren’t effective rest times. Reading the Bible, reading good books, listening to good podcasts, praying, writing, painting, working on your 1969 Mustang, fishing, and sleeping is.

I try not to be, but I become a big wimp when sick. I moan and groan when Patty is around so that she will come over and give me some sympathy and ask if she can get me anything. I hate it when she is gone too long because there is nobody to moan and groan to. She has never told me to shut up and quit complaining, but I can tell when she gets a little weary of my need for attention and sympathy. Occasionally, she will hurt my feelings with her responses to my baby’s behavior. As she crawled into bed tonight, she said, “Please don’t come on my side of the bed tonight and breathe on me!” What kind of thing is that to speak to a man on his last leg of life!

All I have is a nasty head cold; I cough and sneeze, my nose runs non-stop, I blow my nose constantly, my head hurts, my muscles ache, and I have zero strength. It sounds terrible but isn’t; it’s just a major inconvenience. We have so many people in our church with cancer who are going through chemo and radiation, others with MS and heart problems, and some have seizures.

One of the principles of dealing with life is, “Many people are going through worse things than I am, so rejoice always and pray for those going through real problems.”

I haven’t been able to go to the five days of prayer much this week, so I spend more time than usual praying for people in our church who have a variety of trials and problems.

Many people have trials so much worse than mine, so I need to rejoice because I am not going through what they are going through and because my rejoicing results in character growth for me.

And I rejoice because my wife loves me so much!!

I went to our “Five Days of Prayer” tonight as I felt better from the cold I have had for the last three days and had a wonderful time. It is such a blessing to listen to people as they pray their hearts for their lost friends, neighbors, and family. People know the consequence of remaining an unbeliever, so the passion and concern for those they know who are headed for hell is powerful.
As I was lying in bed listening to people’s prayers via Zoom for the last three days, I would try to figure out who they were by their voices. Tonight, I was doing the same in the prayer room as I tried to figure out who was praying. It is hard when people have their heads bowed; I can’t see their faces or tell precisely where the sound is coming from.
Here is a significant axion of my pastoral life;
“The corporate prayer of a church family is the most powerful force on the earth.” Those who don’t participate are missing out on a powerful experience of the presence of God. Being part of such an amazing experience of power and unity is supernatural.
‘I truly believe that the number of people who gather to pray is significant to God and that He is waiting for that number to reach a tipping point that He has determined before He does truly amazing things in and through that church. I also believe that we are close to that prayer volume needed when we will see and experience an incredible outpouring of His Holy Spirit into our geographical area. I want very, very much to experience that before I am done here and head off to heaven.

For the last couple of days, I have been sick with a bad cold, lying in my bed listening via Zoom to those in the prayer room at JBC praying for lost people to be saved and for God to bless and work in our church during our five days of prayer. It has been a blessed time for me; it isn’t as good as being there in person, but it is a close second.

A fundamental principle taught and believed at JBC is that when we pray, God works, and the more we pray, the more He works.

Another principle is that when we gather together to pray, the presence of God is manifest among us; that is, we can powerfully sense His presence with us, and in His presence is fullness of joy.

Another principle taught and believed at JBC is that in His presence, we will grow in our faith, and the stronger our faith, the more powerful our prayers become.

Another fundamental principle of JBC is that demons can’t stand to be in the presence of God, so when we gather and pray together as the church of Jesus Christ, all who are there are cleansed and freed from the power of darkness.

There are many more principles regarding prayer that we have learned, believe, and live at our church, and that is why God is blessing us and using us to reach lost people and make disciples.