The cool thing about taking pictures now is you don’t have to wait to get them developed and the date is on the top so you always know when it was taken. It is so fun to go back and look at pictures of my kids and grandkids of things we did together. As I look through them, some of them I identify as in the favorite category. This picture is one of my favorites because of what it represents. My boys Sam and Seth had been doing Triathlons together for some time so I decided to do one with them in Sunriver near Bend. It was an Olympic distance tri and consisted of a one-mile swim in Cultus lake, a 25-mile bicycle ride with some big hills, and a 10K, 6.2-mile run. I had been riding my bicycle a lot and I had run a lot in years past, but I didn’t swim much and wasn’t even sure that I could swim a mile. I started swimming three days a week at the pool in Albany with Seth and I was really slow, but I kept swimming and once a week I would swim a mile. It would take me an hour to swim it, but I was pretty sure that as I kept swimming I would get faster, but that didn’t happen.

I had to swim with a wet suit on because of the temperature of the water so I found a place that rented wet suits in Portland and rented one. The cool thing about wet suits is that you float in them. I practiced swimming in it at Foster Reservoir and discovered that it was easy to roll over on my back and take a rest whenever I needed one because I floated like a cork. In the race, there were 500-plus participants and I came in second to last on the swim. I beat an old lady. I couldn’t get the wet suit off after I got out of the water and I was rolling around in the parking lot where my biclycle was waiting for me trying to get it off. Patty said I looked like a big walrus rolling around. I finally got it off and took off on my bicycle. I actually moved up about a hundred places on the bike ride and then held my own on the running portion. My boys finished the race and then ran back and met me and finished with me. I felt very honored as their father when they did that.

I have as a guideline on my goal setting each year to do something really, really hard, and also to do something that I have never done before. That was the hardest thing I have ever done and I had never done it before. This year I am going to row my drift boat out one mile in Cook Inlet up in Alaska, catch a limit of halibut and row back. I don’t know how hard it will be but it will be scary for sure.

A number of years ago when we were camping I was attempting to tie up a tarp over us because it was raining. I was standing on a round log turned on its end that was about two feet off of the ground, trying to get the tarp as high over our head as possible. As I was stretching to reach a branch to tie the tarp to, the log I was standing on tipped over and I fell into our campfire landing in it with my hand. I burned it severely and was driven to the emergency room of the closest hospital. Now, years later, my hand works fine but the area that was burned most severely has no feeling in it, it is totally numb, like a piece of wood. The Bible ays that some people have seared their own conscience with a branding iron, meaning that they can do wrong and not even know it is wrong. And then the Bible talks about those who have effectively made their conscience sensitive so they are aware of even small inconsistencies in living.

Our conscience is part of our soul and is a very important part of our inner person, the real us that is going to heaven someday. As we grow in our character and become more Christlike in our behavior our conscience is what guides us as we make choices and decisions. The more tender our conscience the more closely we will walk with Christ in life. Our conscience gets calloused when we deliberately choose to do wrong because of the pull of the world and the temptation of the devil. As our conscience gets more and more calloused sinning gets easier and easier to do.

People often get to a point where the Bible calls them spiritually blind. They are totally incapable of understanding the gospel, and the only way they can get saved is by God doing a miracle in their heart and restoring their spiritual eyesight. He does that on the basis of the prayers of a saint or saints who are interceding for them.

1 Timothy 4:2
by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron,

I have been reading about the current revivals taking place in Kentucky and in other places, and also historical revivals which were quite a bit bigger than the current ones judging from the things written about them. But the common denominator in all of them is prayer, much prayer, desperate prayer, seeking prayer. I have been devoted to prayer for 35 years but I am going to ramp up the amount of praying that I do, and I am going to do more encouraging of others to pray more, to pray sacrificially, I am also going to teach about prayer more, and write about it more. Things change when we pray and the more we pray the more change happens. We have a “ Five Days of Prayer” coming up soon so I am going to write a bunch about how important it is for all of you to come, and participate.

I know you are all as frustrated over our culture, government, and media as I am. I hate feeling like I am a victim. A victim is someone who has no control, no voice, and no influence on his world. I have the power available to me to have great influence. I can stir up a huge amount of change, but it will take some time. It will take a lot of time praying. Some think they can pray like saying grace over a meal and have some effect, I don’t think so. We need to pray like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

I intend to do that, to pray as if God is listening, believing that He wants to work in our world around us, but will not until we want it, want it so much that we are willing to pray for it with passion and time.

The command to be submissive is given numerous times in the Bible. We are supposed to be submissive to authorities in our life, children to parents, wives to husbands, and mutual submission within a family or in a church family. We tend to interpret the word submission to mean that we have to obey when we are ordered to do something by another person. We can call that definition reactive. A much better kind of submission would be proactive which is described in Philippians 2:3-4,
“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”

A character requirement to practice proactive submission is initiative. “Look out for the interest of others.” On the farm growing up my Dad would say regularly, “don’t wait for me to tell you what to do, look around and see what needs to be done, and then do it.” That is initiative. When you look around and see what you can do for someone else, that is being a servant to that person, and you are being submissive to them in putting their needs ahead of your own and you are practicing initiative. Such activity is very pleasing to God and He promises to reward and bless the person who practices such submission.

When we become a submissive servant to our spouse we are expressing a high form of love which is very powerful in causing relationships to get close and strong. Also when we take initiative and meet a need in someone else’s life we earn the right from God to influence that person in their character growth and closeness to Jesus.

Jesus is the ultimate example of this form of submission. He saw that we had a need, our sins needed to be taken care of. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit took initiative, and while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He expressed a strong desire not to go through with dying for us, but it was the only way we could be forgiven so He submitted to our needs over His desire. “ Have this attitude in yourselves that was in Christ Jesus.”

Over the years of working with people with various sin habits and addictions and seeing some overcome the bondage they were in and others struggle for year’s sometimes gaining some ground and then back they fell where they were. I would give counsel and advice that some seemed able to follow and do but others struggled big time trying to consistently follow the disciplines. As I worked with various people over the years it was a complicated thing trying to find keys to success. Every person was different and seemed to have various issues that were contributing factors to their struggle. With some there were events in their past that seemed to cement them into a place of no growth or change. Getting past those often took a lot of time.

But with all the differences and variables in people’s journey toward holiness, there seemed to be several common characteristics. One was a deep and genuine grieving over their failures in life and the longing to conquer them.

Psalms 51:3 For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me.

Psalms 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

A second was a total and complete admission that they couldn’t win this war without God’s help and strength, the cry to God for help was loud and clear.

Psalms 18:6 In my distress I called upon the Lord,
And cried to my God for help;
He heard my voice out of His temple,
And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.

And the third was a lot of help from others that was sought after humbly. The help from others was mostly in the form of encouragement and prayer, lots of prayer.

Hebrews 3:13 But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

Matthew 16:18 “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”

The book of Nehemiah is all about rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem that had been torn down by the armies of Nebacanezar. It was a major miracle of achievement as a bunch of peasants rebuilt the wall in 52 days while being harassed by neighboring tribes of people.

Exodus 25 through 40, 15 chapters was all about building the tabernacle. Much of 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles is all about Solomon building the First Temple. The book of Haggai is all about rebuilding the 2nd Temple after it had been torn down by the army of Nebacanezer, and half of Ezekiel is about building the third temple.

When Jesus said that He would build His church, He obviously wasn’t talking about a building made out of rocks and wood, but a spiritual house made with people. Today the temple of the Holy Spirit is each believer’s body and the church gathered is a spiritual house and each believer is a living stone, and each local church is a temple of God.

1 Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

The church is the temple of God, the church is the body of Christ, the Church is the Bride of Christ, the church is the champion of the gospel, and the church is the hope of the world.

Jesus is building His church today in spite of all the critical statements made about the church. He is building His church using willing, committed people. Flawed people, but people who love Jesus, and people who love His church like He does. I have spent my entire adult life building on His church, and it has been a very rewarding life. Every Christian ought to be plugged into a local church using their gifts, time, energy, and money to build their church and make her beautiful for the bridegroom, Jesus. At the “Judgment Seat of Christ” the rewards that we receive will be mostly based on what we have done for His Bride, the church, our church.

Today is Tuesday, and on Tuesday’s I write most of the day from 7:00 am until 7:00 pm, with a few walking breaks thrown in if my legs are cramping up to much. Today I wrote the church family letter for JBC and also the church family letter for Agape Family Fellowship, our daughter church that meets in Tangent. Then I wrote a report for a pastor accountability group that I am in. I am speaking at a men’s breakfast in Sweethome this Saturday so I needed to write that sermon, and then when I finished that I moved on to the sermon I will be preaching at JBC on Wednesday night and Agape on Sunday morning. On Tuesdays I try and get a couple of extra blogs written for days that I am super busy.

Before I start writing I have no clue most of the time what I will write about. Sometimes I start with “today is Tuesday and I have no clue what I will write about,” and then this switch goes off in my head and I just keep writing. After a little bit of writing, I usually take a turn in a particular direction and I get more and more focused on a topic and out pops this sermon, blog, or lesson. It is always kind of exciting to see what the end product will be when I start. There have been times when I am finished and read over the finished product, that I don’t like what I have written at all so I wad it up and throw it away.

I have wondered about this gift of writing that I seem to have. I pray every day that God will guide me and help me to perfect it so that I can have more and more influence on people who read what I have written or listen to the sermons that I preach. I pray that God will grant me a special anointing when I write, and that He will draw people and prompt them to read my stuff, and that their lives will be impacted positively towards Jesus.

I have talked to a lot of different people about what they believe is wrong or probably a better way of saying it is I have listened to a lot of different people tell me what they think is wrong. I have a very long list of sinful activities that people have shared with me over the years; playing pool, because pool tables are in taverns, buying groceries in a store that sells beer, drinking beer, going to movies, dancing, gambling, which would include buying or selling raffle tickets, or buying lottery tickets, playing cards, at least with regular playing cards, rook or uno cards are ok, working on Sunday’s, woman wearing pants to church, listening to music that is secular, you especially don’t want to listen to Johny Cash.

My basic principle is, if the Bible says it is wrong, it is wrong, if it doesn’t mention it then it may be wrong for me because I have decided that it is wrong for me but it could be absolutely ok for every other person in the world.

Romans 14:5 One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.

Colossians 2:16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day—

Colossians 2:20-23 If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

The Bible says it is absolutely wrong to have sex with someone other than your spouse, it also says it is wrong to have sex before marriage.

Hebrews 13:4 Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

But it doesn’t mention gambling though many people have become addicted to gambling and have destroyed their financial health and security because of gambling. I bought $100 dollars worth of raffle tickets at our Sportsman’s Show to try and win the gun safe and I bought $20 worth for my grandson. Neither of us won anything. The Bible doesn’t mention drinking beer as a sin, though it does say that drunkenness is very bad and stupid. I go to lots of movies, I have danced though not much, I love to play poker.

A key principle is, don’t judge others by your own personal standard, and don’t be intimidated by others who have written their own version of the Bible.

We all get into fights, arguments that get heated and end with no winner, both parties mad at the other one, and both parties blaming the other one thinking confidently that they are wrong. I have done a ton of counseling of people in that no-win situation, usually married couples, sometimes business partners, work associates, neighbors, and even friends. I have been in that situation with Patty a lot in the past, a few times with people in the church and a number of times with other Pastors.

When I am in this knot with another person my predominant thought is how do I fix them, change them, convince them, or intimidate them to my view or opinion so that I can be the winner, after all, I am right and they are wrong. The conversation is almost always an argument. When I am thinking like that there is seldom a comfortable resolution. If there is another conflict with the same person it is usually worse, more intense, and longer lasting.

A second solution that I have often used in a conflict is to simply cope with the person. I think to myself, they are too stupid or stubborn to see that they are wrong so I will just ignore the problem, the difference , and cope. That method ends the argument but it damages the relationship. It is easy for me to feel like a martyr when I take that approach, and after a number of such “sacrifices” I will talk to them and treat them like a person that owes me a million dollars, a bit haughty and condensending.

The method that works if I can pull it off is to assume the other person is right and I am wrong. I don’t have to own the entire problem, because no conflict is ever 100% one person’s fault, but I do need to own enough so that I see the solution as me doing the changing, and also thinking of something that I can do or say to bless the other person. This results in me growing in character and in humility, and I am sure in God’s blessing in my life.

I seldom act right in the first round of a fight. I usually have to write about it, coming to my senses as I do, and writing out my planned on actions and words.

It is amazing that when I focus on changing me instead of my adversary, how God then changes them.

As I get older and my Parkinson’s slowly progresses some of my daily disciplines that had become habit and relatively easy to do have become very difficult to do faithfully so they have now become duties that I do because I need to. I go through these mental tug-o-wars with myself, “ride your bike,” “I don’t feel like riding my bike tonight,” “you wīl feel lousy tomorrow if you don’t ride,” “one day won’t hurt,” “Yeh, but you know one day always turns into two days,” “not necessarily,” “don’t risk it, you don’t want to end up like so many others with Parkinson’s,” “oh, all right, come on, Duke, you lazy, good for nothing, ride that stupid bike and quit acting like a baby!” And off I go.

I read my Bible every day, I pray every day, I read 20 pages in a good book every day, I write my blog every day, I spend time memorizing Bible verses every day, I read my goals every day, and a half dozen more disciplines, every day, every day, every day! “I don’t want to read today,” “just one day,” “I don’t feel like doing anything today!” “I will get back to it tomorrow, I know I will! Just one day!”

Ohhhhh, all right! I will do it!

Dear Lord, please help me now. I am struggling, I have lost my motivation. You are my strength, You are my rock, You are my shield, You are the one who lifts my head, You are my glory, I can do all things that is Your will for me, I can do this. Thank You, I love You.