If God would answer a question that I had, just one, I think I would ask Him, “what sin is committed more often in the world than any other?” I think I know the answer, Philippians 2:14, “do everything without any grumbling and complaining”. I think also that might be the sin that most bugs God, if He can be bugged by people.  There is a dozen different reasons why He would give us such a commandment.  One reason is that God knows that we dictate our own happiness level by how we talk. Most think our joy level is determined by our circumstances, but the truth is, our joy is determined by how talk about our circumstances. So many people live like victims because they think that the events around them, most of which they have no control over, determine their joy. Rough way to live life, as a victim. Think how this can lead to greater depths of despair. A person grumbles and complains because of an event that they don’t like or agree with, and the result is that they feel less joyful and happy, which leads to even more complaining and grumbling about the unfairness of life, which leads to more bitterness and down it goes like a big slide into misery that is self produced and caused.

Gravity was created by God. He created all the laws of nature and all the laws of life. If a person breaks the law of gravity to far off of the ground he will die. If a person breaks this law of how to have real joy or we could call it, “how to kill your own joy” they will be miserable and most often everyone around them will be as well, because they will blame everyone around them for their misery.

since 2002 I have flown to Sirra Leone, West Africa 22 times. We go with a group,from our church to do some kind of ministry work in the most destitute country in the world. We have started churches, schools, done medical trips, built buildings, drilled wells, and started an orphanage. When we go we want to take as much with us for the ministry work as we can so we tell everyone that goes on a trip that everything they will need for two weeks needs to be in their carry on so we can use all the checked bags for ministry stuff. As you pack that small bag you think fairly carefully what is essential and what isn’t.

When you die and if you have trusted Jesus you will go to be with God forever and ever. When you leave this earthly, physical body and move into your new, glorified body what do you get to take with you? No fishing boats, no money, no cars, no video games , no tv, no house, no position or title. So do we get to take? Our character, who we are on the inside. Life is designed by God to foster the growth of our character. All our trials are caused by God to promote spiritual growth and character.

The most powerful way to exercise our character and stimulate it to great growth, and make it complete like that of Jesus is to love other people, especially when we work hard to love our enemies and the hard to love, and those who have hurt or wronged us.

All of life now for me is like being at a big gym with lots of running, biking, swimming, lifting weighs.  So love is a double edged sword, it blesses those we love and it blesses us as we love.

“What do you want?” That question was asked of me by a waitress that was obviously having a bad day, judging by the manner in which she asked me the question. She continued her rude manner of talking to us as she took our orders and brought the food, but in spite of her gruff personality the service  was good, and the food was excellent so I gave her a nice tip. Later as I thought about the encounter, I sort of zeroed in on the question for some reason, “what do you want?” Jesus often asked people that question before He healed them, and God asked Solomon that question, and he answered wisdom, and God gave it to him.

What do I want? I would like it to be sunny tomorrow, I would like the Atlanta Falcons to win the Super Bowl, I would like to go fishing, I would like to catch fish when I do.  How many “wants” do I actually have? If I identified every single want that is in me, and I ranked them from the strongest, most passionate want down to the ho-hum casual desire. A second question would be, “what are you willing to do to help bring the number one want into   Reality?” The stronger the want the more I would be willing to do.

A motto of mine is, “the stronger my want the more I will do, the harder I will work, the more I will sacrifice, the longer I will pray, the more money I will give, the harder I will fight, and the more successful I will be.”

But the  stronger my want the greater my disappointment will be if for some reason what I want, I don’t get. How will I respond to not getting what I wanted? How will I act? How will I treat people? The answer to that question clearly defines my character, and it also determines the level of blessing God will give me.

Several weeks ago I heard that someone in our church had major surgery, and because he couldn’t work as he was healing up he lost his job, and then with no income had their car repossessed. When I heard this I thought of the car we had that was an extra one that someone had given to us. We hadn’t driven it for a year because the starter had gone out and I hadn’t taken the time to replace it. I replaced the starter, had a friend fix a window that wouldn’t go up, put a new headlight bulb in, washed it and then waxed it and buffed it, cleaned up the inside, and did a dozen other little things to it. They came and got it this afternoon, and as they were driving out our drive way I remembered the verse in the Bible that Jesus quoted. He said, it is more blessed to give than to receive, meaning, you will get way more joy from giving a car away to someone who needs it then you will have if someone gives you a car.

Pastor  Mike Dedera preached on love this weekend at Jefferson Baptist Church. The gist of the message was that love is a commitment we make before it is an emotion we feel. The greatest commandment in the Bible is to love. The point is that it is a commandment that we choose to obey, or choose to disobey. Those who fall in and out of love will mess up their lives and the lives of others around them. Love is patient by choice, love is kind by choice, love does not take into account a wrong suffered by choice, and love puts the other person first by choice. We choose to love our husband or wife, we choose to love those we like, we choose to love our enemies, and we choose to love the really difficult to love. The result of choosing to love by choice, by commitment instead of following our emotions is that we have good marriages, we have unified families, we have healthy relationships that bring great joy into our lives.

We have physical bodies that we try to take care of so that we will have good health and won’t get sick. We also have a soul, our inner person, the real us, and we can have a healthy soul or a sick soul. When we choose to love those around us our soul becomes healthy and strong, resulting in joy, peace, confidence, freedom from fear, strong self worth, and a deep contentment.

When we choose to hate people, to be bitter towards them, to slander them, to refuse to help them, to wish the worst for them, and to rejoice when they suffer or fail, we cause our own souls to be sick and weak. It is funny, though I guess funny is a poor choice of words here, that those who hate somehow think that they are changing things or making people pay, but the only one that pays is themselves.

Truman was President when I was born. I don’t remember him except that my Dad liked him, and compared every President after that to him. I remember quite a bit about Eisenhower, and I was a Freshman in High school when Kennedy was assassinated. I was in Mr. Berkeley’s geometry class when we heard the news. Of all our Presidents Obama was my least favorite. I was so sad when he was elected for a second term. But I faithfully prayed for him every week, and asked God to bless him, to fill him with a knowledge of His will, to protect him from evil, and to give him great wisdom as he led our country. I refused to make jokes about him that were dishonoring or to enter into discussions that were not honoring of him as our president, no matter how much I disagreed with his decisions. I voted for President Trump, but if Hilary Clinton had been elected I would have made the same commitment in regards to her. The reason is because I believe in God, and I believe that He is a sovereign God, that is, He is in charge of everything, every detail, even the smallest, most insignificant. I often don’t understand God and what He is doing, but He is not required to explain Himself to me, He is God and I am not.  I also believe He has communicated clearly His will for me, and how I am supposed to act. I can’t dictate that to others, but I am committed to loving God with all my heart, serving Him with all my strength, and obeying Him in every detail of my life. He has said to honor our rulers, to pray for them, and to trust God. I choose to do that, and a blessing that I have from Him because I trust Him and work at obeying Him is great peace and joy.

We basically are the sum of the choices that we have made over our lifetime. Wisdom is when we choose to do those things that move us toward good character growth, and a growing relationship  with Jesus and others, and significant accomplishments in our life.  There are millions of choices in our lives, and the number is growing everyday. It can be very overwhelming as we try and figure out what is best for our life. Here are a half dozen guidelines that I have used for a number of years in the choosing process in my life. I actually started making this list way back in 1976 when I was struggling with whether I should stay on the dairy or become a pastor.

(1) Ask God for His wisdom and guidance every morning before you start the day. God loves to give His wisdom to those who ask for it.

(2) take some time and think through what your values and priorities in life are. The goal here is to greatly simplify your life and reduce the number of choices that pop up in your life everyday. It is like if you lived in the wilderness in a little log cabin all by yourself with a bow and arrows, a knife, and an axe. Most of the choices that you are regularly faced with now would never enter your head. Prune your life as much as possible of low value activity, simplify, simplify, simplify and the number of choices will drop off tremendously. spend your time doing the things that result in significant accomplishment.

(3) Don’t make important choices until you have to so you can think, get counsel, and ponder on the results of the various choices once made, but when it is time make the choice decisively, don’t procrastinate.

(4) Get as much counsel as time allows from the wisest, most experienced people you know. Our pride often keeps us from this, but this principle is the bulk of what the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament is teaching.  The basic message of Proverbs is, the more counsel you get the less apt you are to make a poor choice.

(5) we are all asked to make many choices that are unimportant, that is it really doesn’t matter much which way we choose. Give those choices away to others. We all tend to be control freaks by nature, that is we want to decide about everything for ourselves and others. Train yourself to stop that by giving most of your choices away. Ask the waiter what he recommends on the menu and go with it. Ask your wife what would be good for you to wear to church. Choosing is very tiring so eliminate all choices from your life but the very important ones, and you will have the mental and emotional energy left to think clearly.

(6) If you make a bad choice and you know it, think about what you should have done and why, think about what prompted you to make the wrong choice, make whatever restitution may be required because of the consequence of the wrong choice, and then forget about it. You can’t literally forget about it but you can choose not to dwell on it and replay it in your mind over and over again.

I have three gas tanks in my physical body, my physical energy gas tank, my emotional energy gas tank, and my mental energy gas tank. If any one of those three run out of gas I don’t do very well. I have learned how to read the gas gauges of my body to tell when any one of those three gas tanks is getting down to quarter full, and I have learned how to fill them up again fairly rapidly. That is a skill that many have never learned, and they pay the price. The basic way of filling our gas tanks is to rest. That rest can be sleep, recreation, hobbies, fellowship, solitude, and travel.

When I used to run marathons I discovered that if I would run 10 minutes and walk 1 minute I would finish the race faster than if I ran the whole thing. On our cross country bicycle trips across the USA to the Atlantic Ocean where we averaged 70 miles every day for 60 days we would take a short stand up break every 5 miles. We would stand over our bike and drink a bit of water, take a picture of the scenery, talk for a minute and then off we would go. Every 10 miles we would lean the bicycle up on a post and walk around a bit, drink some water, eat some trail mix, look at our maps, and chat about how things were going. We would take a full hour break at noon and take a day off every 7 days.

I have been teaching at our annual seminar the last three days, and now Patty and I are over at the coast in a nice motel for three days resting up. I am looking forward to getting back at it this weekend, and I will do it with three full gas tanks.

Jesus said that God the father was glorified when we bear fruit. He said if we do not bear fruit we are worthless. Also if we do bear some fruit God will work with us, nurture us, strengthen us, equip us, and provide the resources so that we can bear more fruit. Fruit is the good changes, the growth, and the character that happens in other people’s lives because of our influence.  Bearing fruit becomes very addicting. It feels so good to know that you have influenced another person to grow, change, choose for the better in their life.

This past two days I have been teaching about 150 people who have come from various places, some as far away as Los Angeles about prayer, how to increase the amount of prayer in their life, how to motivate others to pray, and the power of prayer to change other people in their life.

Prayer is the mightiest force on earth and when people pray their marriages improve, their kids improve, their health improves, their joy goes up, and they change things in their own  life.

It is Patty’s Birthday today. We went to the Olive Garden today after church and celebrated. She is the world’s all time best wife ever. Wednesday after I get done teaching in the seminar we are doing at our church we are headed over to the “Inn of he Spanish Head” for a little down time. I look forward to many more years with this wonderful life partner.