You’ve heard the saying, “It’s crunch time, baby!” Crunch time is when you have to muster up all your strength and determination and… make a decision. It’s the time you give all you’ve got, go the extra mile, focus on the goal. When I woke up this morning and felt the pain in my mouth for the third straight day, I knew it was…crunch time. I had to weigh the pros and cons, I had to fight my flesh. I cried. I prayed. I looked into the future when the pain would be no more. I cried and I prayed some more. I knew I had to make a decision. Ugh. I have to go to the dentist.

Have you ever put off making a decision because you knew that the thing you had to do was going to bring pain? Maybe you were going to have to spend some money you didn’t think you had, yet you knew it was best to spend the money now, or else it was going to cost you more later. Maybe that decision was a little more critical than mine, maybe it was life changing.

I am reminded of the account in the book of Acts when Paul was standing in front of King Agrippa giving his testimony and preaching about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. At one point the governor, Festus, interrupted Paul, “You’re out of your mind, Paul.” He shouted. “Your great learning is driving you insane.” At this point Paul tells the king and the governor that he is not insane and reminds King Agrippa that Paul knew that he had been familiar with the things that were being told about Jesus.

This tells me that King Agrippa had been contemplating life and death and the hope of salvation. In other words, He was pondering his need to give his life to God. But, for him, giving his life to Christ would mean tremendous changes in his life, and those changes could have very well including losing his royalty and easy life style. He says to Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to become a Christian?” Paul then says to Agrippa, “Short time or long – I pray to God that not only you, but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.”

Now, you may be wondering where all this is going. I speak of this because I believe that over the years we have compromised our Christian walk and the decision to surrender our lives to Christ has boiled down to a simple mental affirmation. There isn’t any real demand to change how we live. But, I remember a time when surrendering the life to Christ meant that lifestyles changed drastically and at times, those changes were not pleasant.

Listen, there is a reason why the Bible says that sin is pleasurable for a season. Giving your life to Christ means that there are certain pleasures that you are determined to live without. There will be certain things that you will not strive for and other things that should not be attained. Sometimes Christianity means a change in a profession, a change in a career, and a change in habitation. All these changes can disrupt the life and bring pain and suffering. Nonetheless, what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and yet in the end, lose his soul?

Maybe you are contemplating Christianity and thinking that it might not be real convenient right now to become a Christian. Maybe you are a Christian and God is drawing you into a deeper walk. You know that there are certain changes that He wants you to make and you’re stalling because you know those changes are not going to be convenient for you.

The thing you have to remember is this: God knows that if you let Him take charge of your situation, there will come a time when your heart will leap with joy and gratitude that you made the decision and surrendered to Him.

Have a God blessed week!
Pastor Jim

It’s Saturday morning and Vacation Bible School is done for another year. Whew! Time to rest. Time to enjoy the blessedness of – doing nothing.

I would personally like to take this time to thank all of you who participated with this year’s VBS. You all did a wonderful job and are worthy of this praise and thanks. I admire all of you, you’re patience was evident and everyone kept a good Christ-like spirit. People don’t realize that there were some who worked 8,9 and 10 hours a day at their regular job and then rushed right over to the church for another three hours of (fun and games?! )

I was particularly impressed this year with the love and mellow mood of all the workers. In years past tension would make stress levels beyond bearing and people walked away saying, “I’ll never do that again.”

But, they always do – come back, that is. You see, you have to understand the VBS volunteer. They love kids to the point of action. Their talk matches their walk. They have a heart for children, to minister to them beyond their own physical conveniences. They are willing to be put out even if it means loss of sleep, late suppers and earlier mornings. They fight the battle of thoughts, “Is there some way I can get out of it this year without my conscience eating me up?” But their hearts see the faces of smiling children; their ears hear the song of their voices singing the songs that they hope will stick with them forever.

The hope of Jesus ministering in some way to those children, to any child, keeps those volunteers with their nose to the grindstone. It keeps them coming back. They know that their Master is pleased with their labors. “Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me.” They know that their labor is not in vain and they know that Jesus will never forget the kindness that they showed His little ones.

The Saturday morning after Bible School is like going to bed after a long day of strenuous activity and your muscles finally get to relax. There may be a little twitching, a little ache, a little soreness, but there is also a nice sigh of contentment. The job got done, the day is over and responsibilities were fulfilled. There is something extra sweet about the rest you experience after you know that you gave it your best.

I’ve been tired and sore after a day of doing nothing and I was more miserable because my conscience was keeping me awake. “I could have done something.” “I could have given a little.” “I wished I would have done something.” You know, when we get up to Heaven and hear Jesus say, “Well done, My good and faithful servant,” I want to be able to look Him in the eye and receive the look that He’ll give me. I want to enjoy that rest and I don’t want to lose any part of it.

Going to Heaven as a believer is going to be nice. Going to Heaven as a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, is going to be great! Again, to all of you workers of this year’s VBS, “Well done and enjoy what little rest God gives you right now. Because you know as well as I do, your heart won’t allow you to stop serving Him in one-way or another.

Have a God blessed week!
Pastor Jim

The other day while Robin and I were eating our supper, she unfortunately developed a case of hiccups. No big deal? You’ve never heard her hiccup. They measure 3.5 on the Richter Scale and can top out at 120 decibels! Don’t believe me? When she gets these things I have to run and open the windows of the house or we get that vacuum effect. The house nearly collapsed years ago when her lungs were good and strong. If they last longer than two minutes, the dogs gather around her and howl! All right, maybe I’m exaggerating a little. But I am telling you, I have never seen anyone with hiccups as violent. So, I devised a plan; I pretended to choke on some food. Good intentions. Wrong plan! I figured that if I could scare her just a little, she would lose the hiccups, right? Well, she did and she just about lost her supper as well.

Afterwards, I had to swear that I would never do anything like that ever, ever…ever again! I don’t know how many times I told her I was really sorry and that I would never do that ever, ever…ever again! As I looked back on what happened I realized that even though my intentions were good, what I did was wrong. Now, you may not fault me, you may even say, “Let bygones be bygones.” But think about it for a minute. I did wrong, and as a Christian, I shouldn’t just pass it off as a little mistake. I know that some people won’t agree with this but nevertheless, I prompted feeling in Robin that she should have never had to deal with. I tricked her, and in a sense it was lying to her. I can go on and on with this and show that pretending to choke on my supper was really, really stupid and Jesus would have never acted that way. Did you know that Paul tells us that everything that does not come from faith is sin? Therefore, can I not rightly conclude that, though my intention was good, I still sinned by doing wrong? I sinned, but I did it unintentionally.

The Lord even spoke about this in Leviticus when He was giving the law to Moses and the children of Israel. “If a member of the community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands, he is guilty.” Lev.4:27 So, as far as God is concerned, or better said, as far as how He looks at it, even if I do wrong without realizing it, I am guilty. Now, instead of complaining that this doesn’t sound fair and you really don’t think that God should condemn anyone for mistakes done unintentionally, why not look at it according to the grace of the Gospel? You see, Jesus paid for all sin. That means intentional sin and unintentional sin; sins committed in full awareness and sins committed in ignorance. The Blood of Jesus has righted all that is, was or ever shall be, wrong in all of God’s creation.

This is why Paul tells us in Colossians, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, (Jesus) and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Col.1:19,20

Can God forgive me of my sin? The answer is a resounding, “Yes!” He is willing, He is able and He has forgiveness of all of our sin, even the slightest of infractions, even the smallest of deeds. One more thing: Now, if God has so forgiven us of even the slightest of sins against Him, should we forgive even the slightest of sins against us. Maybe some of us Christians wouldn’t get so offended so easily if we could only remember what Jesus has done for us. Isn’t this what it means to have the Blood applied in our lives? Thank God for the Blood of Jesus Christ!

Have a God blessed week!
Pastor Jim

Jesus spoke a parable about it and St. Paul exhorted us about it -sleeping while we should be awake! Jesus’ parable is about ten virgins that were sleeping when the “midnight cry” was given; Paul’s exhortation goes like this, “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.” For some reason, God must have thought it important to warn us that some of the Church was definitely sleeping just prior to His return.

Do you remember the story of Rip Van Winkle? Written by Washington Irving in 1819, the story is set at the base of the Catskill Mountains just before and just after the Revolutionary War. It seems that everyone loved ole’ Rip with his nonchalant, I’d-rather-be-sleeping demeanor. That is, everyone but his wife. She was a cantankerous old thing and wouldn’t give Rip a moments peace. Well, it just so happened that Rip got to hide away for a little snooze –that lasted twenty years! When he awakened, so much had happened, so much had changed.

So I thought I would tell you folks out there in the world wide web, some of the changes you may be noticing if you just happen to be waking up right about now. For instance, the United States is on the verge of a socialistic take-over. Big Brother is here and he is pushing his agenda down the throats of every American citizen –except himself. I heard that by the year 2010 the United States government will have its hands in (some way or other) about 40% of the private sector. And this, I am told, is for our own good.

Soon everybody in the country will have health care, what kind of care that will be is yet to be seen. The Government has already ousted execs from the car industry. I wonder what will happen to doctors that don’t get on board with the national health care? We are still aborting babies… No, let me rephrase that, we are still murdering our children and calling it women’s rights. We are now marrying men to men and women to women. We call it same-sex marriages. I call it sin and an abomination that God will surely punish. We are even ordaining homosexuals and lesbians in the ministry of God’s Word. Go figure! The same Word that condemns such behavior is now being applauded, practiced, and promoted by these folks.

Jesus would be turning over in His grave if He were still in it! BUT HE’S NOT! Which brings me to the next things I would like to tell you about. A survey dating back as far as 1961 revealed that 54% of ministers polled did not believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ; 56% didn’t believe in the virgin birth; 71% didn’t believe in a literal heaven and hell; 89% didn’t believe in the deity of Jesus Christ and a whopping 99% didn’t believe in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

We no longer preach about the Blood. These days it’s more like: try to be a good person, and maybe God will let you have what you want. I could go on and on but I don’t want to nag you to death with all of this lovely news. I would be afraid that you might wander off somewhere and fall asleep again. And we certainly don’t want you doing that again. I have an idea. Let’s (All us Christians) wake up so that Christ will shine upon us while we hold out the Imperishable Word of God that can save our loved ones and friends –“before night cometh, when no man can work.”

Have a God blessed week!
Pastor Jim

Jesus said that it was more blessed to give than to receive and I have found that to be the truth in my own life. I always enjoy giving more than receiving. I like helping rather than being helped. I get uncomfortable more times than not, when I am being helped. I have found this law at work in my life: When I receive, I want more; and contentment flees like a scared bandit. I am miserable when I’m not contented. Discontentment breeds ingratitude and ingratitude makes me envious, sullen and cranky. Guess what? Nobody wants to be around a sullen and cranky person!

And so, to add insult to injury, I am left alone in my misery. Wow! What a life. Can you imagine living alone with your thoughts that continually nag day and night? “You should have gotten that promotion.” “How is it that no one blesses you with groceries?” “They should have picked me.” “I deserved that more than they.” On and on it goes, only to make your life more miserable still.

“If only I could excite some pity for myself, then I would see things turn around. If I could get people to feel sorry for me, then I could get what I wanted –what I deserve.” Honey, if your life has gotten so bad that you need pity to get through your day, to go on with life, then let me tell you about a Friend of mine.

He lived for Someone else; He came not to do His own will, but the will of His Heavenly Father. By all rights, He should have been born in a palace, and yet, there was no room for Him at the inn. His own brothers did not believe Him and His family said He was out of His mind. Foxes have holes and the birds have nests, but He didn’t have a place to rest His head. There were murderous attempts on His life and yet He continued on with His purpose. He would bless folks with food and healings and they would walk away from Him when He tried to teach them. They wanted Him to give them what they demanded and they refused to receive what He had to offer.

He was acquainted with sorrow and familiar with suffering. He was despised and rejected by men. He was chastised so that men could know peace. Instead of a crown of gold, his brow felt the sting of thorns. Instead of a scepter, He received the scourge. He gave and gave, until at last, He gave it all –His Life. But here is something that you may never have thought of. If you or I were to ask Jesus what He thought about His life, would He change anything if He had it to do all over again? I am sure He would say, “I wouldn’t change a thing.” Jesus lived the most blessed life because it consisted of giving. He was contented, though He owned nothing.
He knew peace beyond any man and joy that surpassed our imagination. We sustain ourselves with food, He sustained Himself by doing His Father’s will. He knew the blessedness of life. His life was and is the blessedness that we so desperately long for. He is the blessedness of Life.

“My purpose is that you may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that you may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that you may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Colossians 2:2,3

Have a God blessed week!
Pastor Jim