This coming Sunday morning at JBC I am starting a class at 10:20 am in the main sanctuary between the two Sunday morning services. The class is about demons and angels and the part they play in our life. Angels are supernatural beings that serve God, they do for Him whatever He tells them to do.

Psalms 103:19-20 The Lord has established His throne in the heavens,
And His sovereignty rules over all.
Bless the Lord, you His angels,
Mighty in strength, who perform His word,
Obeying the voice of His word!

Hebrews 1:14
Angels, are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?

Most of what God commands His angels to do revolves around taking care of us. They are ministering spirits sent out by God to serve us. The classic passage concerning this care and protection is in Daniel 6:22,

“My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths and they have not harmed me”

One of the key principles in the Bible is that when we pray God sends His angels, and the more we pray the more He sends.

Daniel 10:12
Then he said to me, (the angel) “Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words.

When we pray God also gives His angels more strength, and the more we pray the more strength and power He gives them.

Prayer is not merely making a simple request of God, but prayer is a force in that when we pray God commissions angels and the more we pray the more He commissions. When we pray God gives power and strength to His angels and the more we pray the more power they get.

The “Five Days of Prayer” started Monday and will go until Friday. We pray from 5:00 to 10:00 am and 5:00 to 10:00 pm.

God blesses some people, and other people He withholds blessings, and some He curses. There are very many verses in the Bible that talk about God’s blessings. God blesses those who pray and the more they pray the more God blesses.

What are God’s blessings? Some think it is a problem free life, but that isn’t blessing. Some think that it is lots of money. There is nothing wrong with money, but many people who have lots of it are not blessed by God, not even a little bit.

The greatest of all God’s blessings is joy. Joy that comes from God is steady and strong, not up and down with circumstances or events, not as a result of a good day or feeling good. Joy is more than a happy feeling, though it for sure includes that, joy is a sense of security in the future, a sense that all is well.

A second blessing of prayer is strength and power. God gives strength, God gives power. He gave it to Samson, to David, and to many others. “Those who wait upon the Lord will be renewed in their strength.” I need God’s power and strength so I will pray much.

A great blessing that is promised over and over to those who pray much is peace, freedom from anxiety about pressures and problems. A confidence that God will protect and provide. A freedom from the fear of failing or being ashamed.

Another great blessing that I desire greatly is wisdom. God gives wisdom to people, His wisdom. The ability to make right decisions in every situation. The ability to say the right words in every situation. The more I pray the more wisdom God gives, now that is a great deal.

Jefferson Baptist Church is starting their “Five Days of Prayer” tomorrow, starting at 5:00 am. My goal is to pray for 40 hours during this time. That is not because I am holy, it is because I am not, but I want to be.

My son Sam, his son, my grandson Isaac, and I went elk hunting this last week in Eastern Oregon. We had all drawn cow elk tags, and were hoping that we could get at least one elk between us, but we all were able to shoot an elk, that doesn’t happen very often to me. My pickup looked cool with three elk in the back of it as we drove home. We just about got them all in the freezer today, though it is going to take multiple freezers to hold all the meat. Part of the problem is that I brought home a hundred pounds of fish from Alaska and 50 lbs of caribou from Alaska as well.

I grew up hunting with my Dad and my boys were hunting with me about as soon as they could walk. It is one of my favorite activities, especially with family.

One of the best things about hunting with friends and family are the stories that come out of each of the hunts, we can spend hours telling stories of all the previous hunts that we have all been on, and even though we have heard some of them dozens of times they are still fun to tell and listen to. Stories are a very powerful way to maintain unity in a family or a group of friends.

Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament and much of what he wrote about happened many years before he was even born, so how did he know what to write? Stories that were told over and over and passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes stories go crazy wild in the retelling of them , but other times they maintain a very strict and tight adherence to the original. With the Holy Spirit working in peoples minds and hearts it would have been an easy thing to bring the truth of what happened in human history down through the years until Moses wrote it in the Bible for us to read today.

The Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. He worked in the minds and hearts of men as they wrote history, wisdom, principles, and truth so that we would have everything we needed in the way of knowledge to live our lives successfully and to know God intimately.

The main thing is that we read it faithfully, daily is best, and that we live by the principles and truth that is in it.

As I juggle my various responsibilities and favorite activities trying to get everything done in 24 hours, the one thing that I struggle to keep front and center in my life is prayer. It is so easy to let the amount of time that I spend in prayer slip because of the hectic and busy lifestyle that I live. I like busy and hectic, but maintaining balance and priorities is sometimes like trying to catch a chicken.

The most effective thing for me is corporate prayer that comes around regularly. At JBC we have a “Five Day Prayer Event” approximately every three months. There is prayer ten hours each day for the five days and I make a goal each time we have the “Five Days of Prayer” to pray for 40 hours. My faith in the power of prayer goes up a ton because of this prayer event, and my private prayer life is devoted and hot for a couple of months following.

Prayer changes things, and it changes people. The more we pray the more God works. The “Five Days of Prayer” starts on Monday morning.

One of the traits that some older men go through is tending to lose touch with reality or with who they really are in their abilities. Their mind remembers them doing certain things, so they tend to think they can still do them until they are in the middle of doing something that they once did, and it dawns `on them, “ I can’t do this anymore!” I am becoming more and more like that in my goal-setting. I write my goals, remembering past years, and I think, “No problem, I can do that,” then I realize at the end of the year, “I guess I can’t do that anymore.”

As I have been going over and reviewing my 2023 goals in preparation for writing my 2024 goals, I realize that there are a fair number of my goals that I didn’t quite finish and a significant number that I didn’t even start on. I think, “Whooooeeeeee, I am getting wimpy in my old age! There are some men that, when they realize there are things that they can’t do anymore, quit trying altogether, excuse themselves from most all significant accomplishments, and lapse into a lazy, comfortable, no-pressure lifestyle. They aren’t a bad person, but they don’t finish their life well.

As a person writes their goals, balance is key. Our goals must be hard enough to challenge us, motivate us, and press us on to growth, but not so hard that they discourage us, demotivate us, and make us feel like a wimp. I realize that my physical energy is declining, and also my stamina, I get tired quickly. I can’t do as much as I once did physically. That is a difficult pill to swallow for an ex-farm boy, marathon runner, mountain climber, hiker, hunter, and builder. I make and increase exercise goals, thinking I can still do it. I just have to work harder, but somewhere in that process, I wear out and give up and quit.

But I still have as much mental energy, if not more, than last year. I still have as much emotional energy, fire, passion, drive, and maybe even more than last year. My spiritual part is stronger, I have greater faith, and I am more focused on serving God.

So, as I work on next year’s goals, I am cutting back significantly on the physical goals and focusing on the areas I am most strong in. I will still set hunting, fishing, and building goals, just easier and fewer. Instead of bicycling across the USA, coast to coast, I will do some “day rides.”

I will read more, learn more, pray more, write more, memorize more, teach more, visit more, and play more golf. It is all about being a good steward of what God has given us and bearing more fruit for Him. It sounds like a good year.

I had a discussion with a young man recently about his father who had recently died. He related how his Dad had been a very strong Christian all of his life, but that in the last five years of his life he just faded away in his Christian character and passion. He shared with me that he did a little research on his own out of curiosity, and he found that the majority of Christian men who have walked with the Lord and served Him well most of their lives don’t finish well. This fellow asked me why I was finishing well. I reminded him that I had not yet finished so it was probably a little early to give me credit for doing that. But I also said that I thought about this topic a lot and had indeed noticed that many quit running the race long before they crossed the finish line. My goal, I said, was to finish my life at a sprint, not a crawl. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4:6-7, “the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. “ That is what I want to be able to say right before I enter into glory.

So, how can I make that happen, what are the prerequisites to crossing the finish line at a sprint. I think a key is setting and pursuing goals. If we have our eye on the finish line we will run until we get to the finish line. I am starting to write my goals for 2024. I start early so I have a lot of time to think and pray about what God’s will is for my life. Our goals energize us, they keep us focused, they help us overcome the weariness that old age is all about, they give a sense of urgency so that we aren’t content with just sleeping away our life.

I will publish my goals in this blog in the next couple of weeks and I would encourage every reader of this blog to send me a copy of their goals for this next year of their life. Run the race well, run the race with endurance, run the race until the end, don’t grow weary, don’t run without aim, don’t box as though beating the air, discipline your body and make it your slave, not the other way around.

Patty and I went to an event tonight where our oldest daughter, Sarah, was speaking. I thought she did a marvelous job of teaching the Word of God in a unique way that held people’s attention and communicated clearly the truth that motivated those listening to life change. As her father, I was very proud of her. She has done a lot of speaking but tonight was the first time that I have heard her.

I am a professional speaker/teacher/ preacher; that is, I preach and teach most of the time in one form or another as my occupation. It is my ministry; that is, I do it for God, but I still get paid by people who listen to me. Because it is what I do, I work diligently at getting better and better at the skill and the craft of communicating truth to people in a way that makes sense to them, motivates them, and encourages them to change how they live their lives. I recognize that teaching the Bible is a supernatural event that the Holy Spirit is empowering. Still, I also have listened to many teaching the Bible who claim to be empowered by God and guided by the Holy Spirit but who are as boring as dirt, make no sense at all, and encourage no one to life change. There are several factors in being a great teacher for God: giftedness, character, holiness, prayer, and especially diligence in preparation; God honors, blesses, and empowers those who are not lazy in their preparation, who recognize the sacredness of the privilege of teaching the Holy Word of God to people, and give it their all.

1 Timothy 4:15-16
Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure spiritual growth both for yourself and for those who hear you.

At this stage in my ministry, I do a lot of coaching with Pastors on their preaching/teaching ministry. I listen to many sermons and lessons both by those just getting started in their ministry and by those who have been at it for years and have become masters at teaching the Word of God with power. I haven’t heard very many as effective as my daughter was tonight, but then, I am a very proud and prejudiced Dad.

It is interesting to read the various estimates of the number of people who have lived and died in the history of the world. Whatever system is used and whatever the number of years that is used as the total number of years that people have lived on the earth, it is a large number, in the billions. Have you ever pondered on the fact that you are one person in the midst of billions of people? I think about it all the time. I am a self-aware person. I think, I talk to myself, I am aware, I pray to God, I believe that in the midst of all that is going on and has gone on, that God is intimately aware of who I am, that He loves me, has plans for my eternity, and has been working in my life shaping and forming me into a person being created in His image and likeness.

I am self-aware, but I have no sense of what is going on inside your soul. You are self-aware, but you cannot read my mind or have any idea who I really am on the inside, only God knows my heart. We are all a bunch of islands, as it were, living together, talking to each other, trying to understand each other, touching, kissing, and hugging each other in various degrees of intimacy. It all is a huge mystery, almost infinite.

In the midst of the sea of history, in this great ocean of humanity, here I am like a little cork bobbing around in the ocean, trying to make sense of it all, trying to feel some sense that I have purpose, value, and meaning. It is no wonder that as our world, which used to have some level of sense about what was going on, is unraveling, more people are becoming confused, disillusioned, terrified, and with no sense of purpose or hope for the future, just a number.

My anchor is the Bible. It is a history book of a tiny slice of the history of the world and humanity. But in that small sampling of the totality of life, it is clear that it is not random, by chance, or out of control. God, who is very real, wise, and mighty, is in total control, and I am a crucial part of His life and plans for the future. I know that without a doubt. It isn’t hard for any person who feels the lostness of life to find purpose and meaning in God. Any person who truly seeks diligently for Him will find Him.

Patty and I got home from Alaska this morning. She was hanging out with grandkids and I went hunting with two son-in-laws for caribou on the North Slope of Alaska. The North Slope is that area of Alaska that is north of the Brooks Range, which is the northern most areas in Alaska. There is one road in that entire area that goes to Prudhoe Bay and the oil fields.

We drove 14 hours on this road called “The Haul Road” from Fairbanks, Alaska, north, to where we put Philips boat in the Sagavanirktok River, which most call the Sag River. The road was gravel, muddy, and very, very bumpy. We went up the Sag River for an hour and then turned onto the Ivashack River and went for several more hours until we reached the spot where we camped for a week, hunting for caribou.

The North Slope is Tundra with no trees, just little bushes. It is all on permafrost so the ground is all wet and spongy and you sink in every step that you take. It is incredibly hard to walk on, and in fact, I didn’t walk on it much. I got in a spot where I could see a long way and looked for caribou with my binoculars and then prayed that they would walk close enough to my chair that I could shoot them. None did, but both of my sons-in-law got very nice caribou and they shared the meat with me so we brought 50 lbs home with us on the airplane. Caribou meat is the tastiest of all meat in my opinion.

We are home now for the next nine months so I will be writing my blog every day, teaching and preaching every week, fishing a little bit, golfing a little bit, exercising, reading, and getting older slowly. Here are some pictures of our Alaskan adventure.

Patty and I are leaving for Fairbanks, Alaska this morning at 8:00 am This will be the last blog for two weeks. On the North Slope where we are hunting there is no cell service. I will take lots of pictures and write a couple of blogs about our adventures when we get back.