Notes of Faith May 27, 2022

Make Me your focal point as you move through this day. Just as a spinning ballerina must keep returning her eyes to a given point to maintain her balance, so you must keep returning your focus to Me. Circumstances are in flux, and the world seems to be whirling around you. The only way to keep your balance is to fix your eyes on Me, the One who never changes. If you gaze too long at your circumstances, you will become dizzy and confused. Look to Me, refreshing yourself in My Presence, and your steps will be steady and sure.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the Cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. — Hebrews 12:2

But You remain the same, and Your years will never end. — Psalm 102:27

This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything. — 1 John 3:1-20

*

Let us fix out eyes on Jesus

Welcome problems as perspective-lifters. My children tend to sleepwalk through their days until they bump into an obstacle that stymies them.

If you encounter a problem with no immediate solution, your response to that situation will take you either up or down. You can lash out at the difficulty, resenting it and feeling sorry for yourself. This will take you down into a pit of self-pity. Alternatively, the problem can be a ladder, enabling you to climb up and see your life from My perspective. Viewed from above, the obstacle that frustrated you is only a light and momentary trouble. Once your perspective has been heightened, you can look away from the problem altogether. Turn toward Me, and see the Light of My Presence shining upon you.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. — 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim You, who walk in the light of Your presence, O Lord. — Psalm 89:15

Excerpted from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young, copyright Sarah Young.

Our attention, focus and perspective should be on Christ.  No matter our circumstances, an eternal perspective will give us peace that passes understanding, even joy as we see His plans for our glory fulfilled.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 26, 2022

We Need You, Lord

Yet another unspeakable tragedy has shaken us. How can it be? Our hearts are broken over more mass shootings, and for the communities and every person and family whose life is forever affected by the shocking violence and indescribable loss. We need Jesus. He is the only One who can bring peace, hope, and restoration to our broken, hurting world.

Today's inspiration comes from:

God Is With You Every Day

by Max Lucado

Lord, let your mercy be upon all who suffer

For the Tough Times: Do It Again, Lord

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. — Matthew 6:9-10

Dear Lord,

We’re still hoping we’ll wake up. We’re still hoping we’ll open a sleepy eye and think, What a horrible dream.

We are sad, Father. And so we come to You. We don’t ask You for help; we beg You for it. We don’t request; we implore. We’ve read the accounts. We’ve pondered the stories, and now we plead, “Do it again, Lord. Do it again.”

Remember Joseph? You rescued him from the pit.

And Sarah? Remember her prayers? You heard them.

Joshua? Remember his fears? You inspired him.

The women at the tomb? You resurrected their hope.

The doubts of Thomas? You took them away.

Do it again, Lord. Do it again.

Most of all, do again what You did at Calvary. After Your Son lay three days in a dark hole, you turned the darkest Friday into the brightest Sunday.

Do it again, Lord. Turn this Calvary into an Easter.

Let Your mercy be upon all who suffer. Give us grace that we might forgive and faith that we might believe.

And look kindly upon Your Church. For two thousand years You’ve used her to heal a hurting world.

Do it again, Lord. Do it again.

Through Christ,

Amen.

Excerpted from God Is With You Every Day by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.

The perfect wisdom and plan of our sovereign God is being fulfilled.  There are many things that seen painful and devastating in life yet God uses them all to witness to the truth and bring glory to His name.  This life is but a vapor and then our eternal destination arrives . . . with our Lord and Savior in glory and splendor or separated from Him in punishment and suffering forever.

Pray fervently, not only for the families left behind but for all those who need Christ.  Only then will we see hearts, attitudes and actions change from evil to good.  May the Lord pour out His grace and mercy on us as we seek to be love and serve Him both now and forever more.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 25, 2022

Soul Fuel
by Bear Grylls

When I was growing up, Madonna once said, “Jesus Christ was like a movie star, my favorite idol of all.”¹

Napoleon Bonaparte went further: “I know men, and I tell you Jesus Christ was not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and other religions the distance of infinity.”²

And then there was novelist H. G. Wells: “I am an historian, I am not a believer. But, this penniless preacher from Galilee is irresistibly the centre of history.”³

There has never been a human quite like Jesus. He towers above us all in goodness and courage, in impact and influence. The greatest artists, leaders, and thinkers, all put together, are dwarfed by Him.

Yet Jesus did not come to impress us. He said He had come to save us, in total humility, as God come down among us. If He is who He says He is, and the Gospel is real, then this is very good news. He simply wants us to learn to reach out and trust Him to help and calm us, to forgive and restore us. If we are to live fully and empowered, then this has to be the first step.

So wherever you are with God — whether you are searching, are wanting more, or have turned your back and are walking away — this verse is truth:

The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. — Luke 19:10

Jesus did not come to impress us

Who was Jesus?

At some point in life, most people find themselves asking this simple question. We all have to make up our minds, just as people did back when He was walking on earth. For them — and us too — there seem to be only three credible, possible answers:

He is out of His mind. (Mark 3:21)

He is possessed by Beelzebul! (Mark 3:22)

[He is] the Son of God. (Mark 3:11)

In other words, He was either insane, evil, or God.

I used to think, Couldn’t He simply have been a good teacher and good guy? But then I looked at His life and words. Do good teachers repeatedly claim to be God? Do they claim to be one with the Father? Do they say they have come to die for all of mankind? Do they raise people from the dead and walk on water and calm storms? Those are strong claims and strong deeds.

C.S. Lewis reasoned that “a man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be [insane]… or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice… But, let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”4

Who we decide Jesus is to us is a big question with big implications for our lives. But if we study the overwhelming and compelling evidence and then choose to believe that He is who He said He is—if we can take that leap of faith and ask, “Are You really there, and are You really good?”—it can be the start of an incredible journey and adventure. An adventure into life.

That’s why the offer He made two thousand years ago still stands for us today:

Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. — Matthew 11:28

Even today, for you and me, right now — that invitation has the power to change everything. If we let Him, He seeks us, saves us, strengthens us, supports us, and shows us how to live every day.

Scott Cohen, “Madonna: The 1985 ‘Like a Virgin’ Cover Story,” Spin, May 1985.

Clayton Kraby, “Napoleon Bonaparte’s View of Jesus,” Reasonable Theology, https://reasonabletheology.org/napoleon-bonapartes-view-of-jesus/.

Thomas A. Harris, I’m OK—You’re OK (New York: Quill, 2004).

S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001). Mere Christianity: copyright © C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1942, 1943, 1944, 1952. Extracts reprinted by permission.

Excerpted from Soul Fuel by Bear Grylls, copyright BGV Global Limited.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 24, 2022

Article by Jared Compton
Professor, Bethlehem College & Seminary

I get asked two questions every time I teach Hebrews. You can probably guess both. (1) Who wrote Hebrews? That one’s always first. And (2) what are we supposed to do with Hebrews’ warning passages? Does Hebrews teach that believers can lose their salvation? After all, the letter issues warnings like this: “If we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment” (Hebrews 10:26–27). Which of us hasn’t felt the sting of a text like that? And that’s just one of five such warnings in the book (see 2:1–4; 3:7–4:13; 6:4–8; 12:25–29).

Three Strategies

Unfortunately, I’m not sure we can get very far in answering that first question. (For a start, see here.) But I do think we can make some headway with the second. To that end, I want to suggest three strategies that will help us read Hebrews’ warnings better. I’ll sketch each first and then take a step back and conclude by reflecting on the help each provides.

Read the warnings in light of Hebrews’ structure.

Hebrews is tough to outline. It’s different from the other letters in the New Testament. Paul, for example, often makes his arguments first and only then applies them to his audience. Thus, we get the argument of Ephesians 1–3 and only then the application of Ephesians 4–6. Hebrews, however, breathes a different air. The letter moves back and forth between argument and application or, as these genres are commonly called, between exposition and exhortation. The author is like a preacher who pauses to apply after every main point. It’s an effective rhetorical strategy, but it also makes outlining the letter difficult. And it can hinder us from seeing the developing logic of his argument and feeling the cumulative weight of his applications.

For example, we can struggle to see the connections between what Hebrews says about the “world” Jesus entered in 1:6 and that God subjected to humans in 2:5. Hebrews gives us a clue, telling us the “world” in 2:5 is that one “of which we are speaking.” But the author also interrupts his argument with an exhortation — his first warning (2:1–4) — causing us, if we’re not careful, to lose the trail. Other examples like this could be easily given (see the mentions of Melchizedek in 5:1–10 and 7:1–10, in light of the exhortation of 5:11–6:20).

The point is, the structure of Hebrews invites us to read the letter not only front-to-back but also “genre-by-genre” or, we might say, “side-by-side.” If we don’t, we run the risk of misreading its theology and missing its pastoral force.

Read the warnings in light of Hebrews’ story line.

Hebrews everywhere tells the Bible’s story. We can see this with even a cursory look at the typography of our English Bibles, with page after page of Hebrews punctuated by indented quotations of the Old Testament — one, the longest in the New Testament (see Jeremiah 31:31–34 in Hebrews 8:8–12). Hebrews, however, tells the Bible’s story in two ways or, better, with two distinct emphases. In the author’s arguments or expositions, he emphasizes the discontinuity between the Old Testament story and his audience. What was only promised in the Old Testament has now been fulfilled in the New Testament. In his applications or exhortations, however, it’s just the reverse. In these he emphasizes the continuity between the Old Testament story and his audience. What happened in the Old Testament era is just like what’s happening in the New Testament era.

What’s more, in his exhortations, his analogy of choice is the wilderness generation (see 2:2; 3:7–4:6; 10:28; 12:25). If we miss the analogy, if we fail to feel the continuity, then we’ll blunt the sharp edge of the warnings themselves. After all, it was precisely that former generation — remarkably rescued by God from Egypt, led through the desert by God’s visible presence, sustained in the desert by God’s miraculous provision, and given a law from God himself (see 3:9; compare 2:4; 6:4–6; 10:29; 12:26) — who hardened their hearts and perished in unbelief. There’s a reason, in other words, that Hebrews skips over the wilderness generation in chapter 11’s “hall of faith.” Just like the author’s audience, the wilderness generation lived “between the times,” between the exodus and the promised land, experiencing a kind of inaugurated eschatology. We are not meant to miss the similarities. Thus, the question that hangs in the air exhortation by exhortation and warning by warning isn’t simply “How could they?” but rather “Will you too?”

“The question that hangs in the air isn’t simply ‘How could they?’ but rather ‘Will you too?’”

Now, we must add that this way of describing the author’s storytelling risks oversimplification. After all, while Hebrews emphasizes discontinuity in its arguments, continuity is nevertheless everywhere present. What else are we to make of the author’s consistent focus on the “self-confessed inadequacy” of the Old Testament? Of course, the New Testament era is an advance beyond the Old Testament era, but the advance is precisely what the Old Testament era led us to expect all along with its anticipations, for example, of another priestly order (Psalm 110:4) or a new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31–34). Similarly, while Hebrews emphasizes continuity in its exhortations, notes of discontinuity are sounded as well. It’s these notes of discontinuity, in fact, that underwrite the ratcheting-up we see in the warnings: If the wilderness generation suffered for its unbelief, how much more will you (see 2:3, 12:25)? It’s one thing to refuse to believe God’s Old Testament speech; it’s quite another to refuse his superior New Testament speech (see 1:1–2; 2:1–4).

In short, Hebrews invites us to read its warnings “side-by-side” and in light of the continuity between its audience and the wilderness generation. Both lived during incredible chapters in God’s story. But, even here, Hebrews also invites us to see the discontinuity between the two. After all, the author’s audience doesn’t just live during an important chapter in God’s story but during a later and, indeed, better chapter.

Read the warnings in light of Hebrews’ soteriology.

Hebrews’ soteriology — doctrine of salvation — is wonderfully rich, so I can only summarize a little part of it here. It’s important that we see that Jesus’s death has inaugurated a better covenant, one that’s better both because it has better promises — new spiritual abilities for every covenant member (8:6, 10–11) — and because it provides better forgiveness. New-covenant members, Hebrews tells us, are completely forgiven (8:12; 10:17–18). God promises them that he’ll remember their sins no more! Hebrews calls this complete forgiveness perfection. It’s something that wasn’t available for the wilderness generation (10:2–3; cf. 11:39–40) but is now, thanks to Jesus’s sacrifice-ending sacrifice (10:14). This perfection, moreover, is what gives covenant members — Hebrews calls these believers — access to God’s presence, in part now (10:19–22; 12:22) and fully later (12:26–28). Again, this access simply wasn’t available under the old covenant, as Hebrews says again and again (see 9:8–10). Hebrews goes on to assure new-covenant believers that in the interim period, their pilgrimage to the heavenly city is sustained by an indestructible high priest, whose intercessory ministry is described as infallible (7:25), and by a heavenly Father, who not only initiates but also continually energizes their perseverance (13:20).

Thus, if we accept the author’s invitation to read his warnings “side-by-side” and against the backdrop of the wilderness period, we’ll see that his own community lives in a new era of God’s story, an era in which covenant membership means something even better than it meant for the wilderness generation.

Three Reflections

With these strategies in place, we’re now in a position to reflect on the warnings. Does Hebrews teach that believers can lose their salvation? And, if not, what are we to make of them? Let’s tackle these questions head-on by looking once more at each strategy, reflecting on them in reverse order.

Secure Salvation

When we read the warnings in light of Hebrews’ soteriology, we see that the nature of the new covenant implies — guarantees — that its members cannot and will not fall away. New-covenant members cannot lose their salvation. To suggest otherwise risks undoing precisely those features that make the new covenant new and, thus, better.

Story Line

If we read the warnings in light of Hebrews’ story line, we see that the author’s analogy of the wilderness generation only goes so far. Again, Hebrews’ audience lives in a new and better era of God’s story. This means that the two communities — the wilderness community and the author’s — are mixed but in different ways. Everybody in the wilderness generation was part of the covenant community, but only a few persevered to salvation (for example, Caleb and Joshua). The rest perished in unbelief, as the author’s warnings repeatedly tell us. In other words, old-covenant membership did not guarantee salvation in the way that new-covenant membership does.

The old-covenant community was a mixture of believing covenant members and nonbelieving covenant members. The author’s community, however, is still mixed but in a very different way. While everyone the letter addresses professed to be part of the new-covenant community, only those who persevered actually were. Those who apparently had fallen away (10:25) were, at one point, part of the author’s congregation — part of the Christian community — but never truly included in the new covenant. Otherwise, they would have persevered. Again, to say otherwise risks misreading the Bible’s story and seeing continuity where there is now glorious discontinuity.

Structure

In light of all this, when we read Hebrews’ warnings “side-by-side” to feel their collective weight, we may now discern their pastoral function with more precision. I see at least three such functions.

First, the warnings explain the spiritual status of those who walk away from the Christian community. And it’s devastating (see 6:6; 10:26). What else would you expect to happen to someone who’d seen and experienced the goodness of the gospel — God’s new-covenant work — only to deliberately turn away from it? It’s like seeing and experiencing the goodness of the exodus and rebelling on the cusp of the promised land. People like this, Hebrews tells us, neither want nor get a second chance. One doesn’t get to deliberately reject Jesus twice.

Second, the warnings also enable the perseverance of new-covenant members. They are one means God uses to sustain the faith of those he’s perfected. (For others, see, for example, the author’s prayer in 13:20 and his biographical sketches in 11:1–40.)

Third, and finally, the warnings exhort professing covenant members to walk in true repentance and genuine faith by showing them the consequences of turning their backs on what they’ve heard and experienced.

Hearing Hebrews

Applying these strategies to Hebrews won’t alone answer every question we have about the warnings, but they will point us in the right direction. They’ll help us, above all, benefit even more from the goodness of this part of our Bibles, to the end that we’re better equipped to do God’s will (13:20), leading to our greater joy and God’s ever-deserved glory.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 23, 2022

“My wayward children,” says the Lord, “come back to me, and I will heal your wayward hearts.”  — Jeremiah 3:22 NLT

“Don’t talk to your kids about God as much as you talk to God about your kids.”

I forget where I first heard that line, but it’s one of my favorite pieces of parenting wisdom, particularly during those seasons when our kids don’t particularly want to hear us talk — about God, or about anything else.

Teens are not alone, of course, in their willingness to wander — to want to figure things out on their own, even when doing so takes them down a dangerous or disobedient path. “We all,” the Bible says, “have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way.”1 For a parent, though, it can be painful — and scary — to watch a child make choices that run counter to God’s design, to the “rich and satisfying life” that Jesus says He wants us to enjoy.2

Prayer Principle

The most effective way to get your teens to make good choices isn’t to talk to them about God; it’s to talk to God about them.

When I started doing the research for this book, I reached out to a network of friends — and friends of friends — to ask people if they’d be willing to share their stories. I wanted to know how other Christian parents were navigating the sometimes-tricky teen years and, even more than that, I wanted to know how they were praying.

I’ll never forget opening an email from a woman named Lara, a lifelong churchgoer who loved God and believed His Word to be true, but who had never considered using the Bible to help shape her prayers…

Lara’s world was spinning out of control. Her daughter Samantha was gone — and the nightmare was starting again.

Her mind flashed back to the first time Sam had run away, during the summer before her freshman year in high school. A tip from one of Sam’s friends led Lara and her husband, Peter, to call the police, who found Samantha in a house where other young runaways were known to have stopped for shelter. The satanic symbols that marked the walls served as a chilling portent of the home’s darker purpose: it served as a gateway to the streets of Los Angeles — and to prostitution.

At the time, Lara had been frantic — and then grateful beyond words that her daughter had been found so quickly. That very day, she and Peter had taken Sam to a counselor, who recommended that she be hospitalized for treatment of depression and low self-esteem. Lara and Peter were stunned: Samantha was a popular, straight-A student. She was athletic, musically talented, and pretty. Listening to the counselor’s diagnosis, Lara had felt her heart sink. She didn’t even know how much she didn’t know about what was going on inside her precious daughter.

After a month at the treatment center, Sam had come home. The family celebrated her return, and Lara — who had spent her adult life in church and Bible study — had been thrilled by the news that Samantha had recommitted her life to Christ. At last, Lara’s dream of having a healthy Christian family seemed within reach.

She and Peter had been fairly strict in the past, fearing that — if things were left up to her — Samantha would make hurtful and potentially life-scarring choices. Maybe, they had thought, it was time to give her some more freedom. But that was easier said than done, particularly when the “friends” who tended to gravitate into Samantha’s orbit seemed to be such a troubled, rebellious lot. Trying to talk things out with Samantha rarely helped; more often than not, their conversations turned into arguments.

Now, looking at the empty bed in Samantha’s room, Lara couldn’t help but wonder whether they had given her too much freedom. It was the spring of Samantha’s junior year — more than two years since the police had brought her home the first time — and she was gone again.

Lara felt like a total failure. Her only consolation was that, unlike the first time she had left, Samantha did not appear to be in imminent danger this time. Taking shelter with whatever school chum would have her (and sometimes sneaking into her boyfriend’s house after dark), Samantha showed up for school, continued to get excellent grades, never missed a day of work at her after-school job, and even went to her piano lessons. The only thing she refused to do was to come home.

Knowing her daughter was nearby did little to ease Lara’s pain. What should she and Peter do? Samantha was like a toddler, Lara thought, throwing a temper tantrum whenever the rules got in the way of her desire for independence. If they forced Samantha to come home, she would only run away again.

Lara decided to confide in a few close friends. After hearing what she was going through, one of them mentioned that she had heard about Moms in Prayer on the radio. Praying for their children couldn’t hurt; in fact, Lara thought it would be a definite step in the right direction, particularly if she had other mothers who were willing to come alongside to give her strength. Even with Peter sharing the load, her burden had gotten too heavy to bear.

Talking to God sounded like a relief.

Put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love

The women began meeting weekly to pray. It didn’t take long before Lara realized something was different. A lifelong Christian, she had always believed in prayer, but when this group of moms prayed, they often used Scripture — the actual words in the Bible — as the basis for their prayers, and for the first time, Lara began to sense that God’s Word was alive. She couldn’t seem to get enough of it. Even when she wasn’t praying with the group, she found herself turning to her Bible, letting the words slip off the pages and into her heart to fill her with strength (Lara’s prayers are in italics after the Bible quotations):

In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help.

From His temple He heard my voice; my cry came before Him…

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; He drew me out of deep waters.

He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster,

but the Lord was my support. — Psalm 18:6, Psalm 18:16-18

Lord, help us. Rescue me. Rescue Samantha. Be our support.

Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth. Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants. — 2 Timothy 2:25-26 NLT

Teach me, Father, how to reach out to Samantha. Give her a knowledge of your truth, and let her escape Satan’s trap.

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise — Psalm 56:3-4

I do trust you, Lord. I do.

And then there were passages that seemed to be written expressly for Samantha. Lara hung on these words — praying the Scriptures when it was too painful to pray about the details of her daughter’s life — and clung to the hope they provided:

“I will… recapture the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols.” — Ezekiel 14:5

Recapture Samantha’s heart, Almighty God, and let her return to You!

For the grace of God that offers salvation… teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age. — Titus 2:11-12

Shed Your grace on her, Lord. Teach her to say no to her worldly passions and desires and yes to the life You desire.

If You, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand?

But with You there is forgiveness,

so that we can, with reverence, serve You.

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in His word I put my hope…

Put Your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love, and with Him is full redemption. — Psalm 130:3-5, Psalm 130:7

Thank You, Lord, that You do not keep a record of Samantha’s sin — or of mine. My hope is in Your word. Let Samantha’s life — all of our lives — be fully redeemed by Your unfailing love.

Five weeks after she had left, Samantha came home.

This time, there was no big celebration — and no dramatic, overnight change. With help from their pastor, Peter and Lara made a covenant with their daughter, a contract that outlined rules and freedoms that came with family life. Samantha agreed to continue in counseling, and Lara continued to pray. God, she knew, had protected Samantha when she and Peter could not; truly, as the psalmist said, God had “reached down from on high” and rescued their family.3

Today — more than two decades later — Samantha is still a risk taker. She often finds herself in prison and in other dangerous places, only she isn’t running anymore. Instead, equipped with a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, she is ministering to those who have found themselves scarred by wrong choices, people whom others have given up trying to help. She loves her family and treats them with appreciation and respect.

“It is so faith-building,” Lara says, “to realize that God was at work, even when we couldn’t see Him. He is a faithful, powerful, redeeming God — and without Him, we would never have made it through those dark years.”

Poised for Prayer

All of the prayer concerns in this book are spiritual battlegrounds, but rebellion is an issue where Satan’s hand is often the easiest to see. As the one who comes to “steal and kill and destroy,”4 he likes nothing more than to rip our families apart, making parents and teens think their fight is with each other rather than with him.

Prayer Principle

As you fight for your teen in prayer, remember that the battle is not with your child; it’s with the thief who comes to steal and kill and destroy.

Lara would be the first to tell you it isn’t easy, but that perseverance — in pursuing your teen, in showing love when it’s hard, and in prayer — is the key to winning this battle. Here’s what I mean:

Pursue. Your teen may say they don’t want to talk to you and don’t want to do anything with you, but don’t close the door on those things. Instead, do everything you can do to show you are interested in their life. Attend sports events and recitals; take them out to breakfast or lunch; ask about their friends, their schoolwork, their activities. If they rebuff you, don’t be discouraged. Take your cues from Hebrews 10:

stand your ground in the face of suffering, even when you are publicly exposed to insult and persecution (Hebrews 10:32-33);

do not throw away your confidence (Hebrews 10:35);

persevere, knowing that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised (Hebrews 10:36).

Love. We often think of love as a warm and fuzzy feeling, but more often than not, love is a decision — one motivated by patience, kindness, perseverance, and hope.5 Prodigal teens can be tough to love. And if we had to rely on our own strength, we would be doomed. Thankfully, though, we are not alone. God shows us what unconditional love looks like — He stays by our side and calls us back to Him, no matter how often we blow it — and when we struggle to do the same thing for our kids, we can ask him to do it through us. We can be, as Scripture says, His “ambassadors” carrying Christ’s love to our kids even as we plead with them to “come back to God.”6

Pray. Lara saturated her heart and her mind with the promises in God’s Word, praying “continually” — and we can do the same thing.7 Set aside time each day when you and your spouse will commit to earnest prayer for your teen. If you’re a single parent or if your spouse won’t join you in prayer, ask God to give you another prayer partner. Take courage from Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:19–20:

If two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in Heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.

Because again, talking to our kids about God is not nearly as important — or as effective — as talking to God about our kids.

Isaiah 53:6.

John 10:10 NLT.

Psalm 18:16.

John 10:10.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7.

2 Corinthians 5:20 NLT.

1 Thessalonians 5:17.

Excerpted from Praying the Scriptures for Your Teens by Jodie Berndt, copyright Jodie Berndt.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 22, 2022

Article by Tom Steller
Tom Steller is serving through Training Leaders International as the Director of Theological Education in Cameroon.

In 1987, a sequence of thought from one of the shortest books of the Bible grabbed hold of me and never let me go. Bethlehem Baptist Church was in its fourth year of missions renewal when a veteran missionary serving in Mexico said to me in passing, “There is a big difference between a church that has missionaries and a church that sends missionaries.” As a young missions pastor, I drank this comment in, wanting to know more. A short time later, I read in my New American Standard Bible,

You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. For they went out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support such men, that we may be fellow workers with the truth. (3 John 6–8 NASB)

On my fortieth anniversary as a pastor at Bethlehem, on August 1, 2020, Pastor John Piper prayed the commissioning prayer as my wife, Julie, and I joined the ranks of the “goers.” After helping to send some of the dearest people I know to some of the most remote places on earth, I am now one of the church’s “sent ones,” training current and future pastors in Cameroon to be both goers and senders in the greatest cause of the universe. I have been a happy sender, and now am a happy goer, backed up by a church who has sent me in a manner worthy of God.

The main point of the passage in 3 John relates to this ministry of sending. You can see it in verse 6: “You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God.” I see three important aspects of sending in this passage: (1) the value of sending, (2) the mandate of sending, and (3) the manner of sending.

Value of Sending

Sending missionaries must be valuable, because look at how happy it makes the apostle John. Some missionaries from John’s church, it seems, had visited Gaius’s church and told him of their work (3 John 7). The missionaries then returned to John’s church and testified in front of the whole congregation of Gaius’s love for them (vv. 3, 5). When John hears this testimony, a big smile fills his old-crinkled apostolic face, and he writes to Gaius. Listen to the joy and warmth of the first four verses of this neglected letter:

The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers. For I was very glad when brethren came and bore witness to your truth, that is, how you are walking in truth. I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth. (3 John 1–4 NASB)

According to verse 2, perhaps Gaius was not doing well health-wise, and perhaps his business was struggling — and so John feels the need to pray for these matters. But Gaius’s love for the missionaries assures John that his soul was prospering. The prospering soul is the soul that is walking in the truth (v. 3) or working together with the truth (v. 8). In other words, he’s not living a fantasy; he’s not living “the American Dream.” He is living in a way that fits with ultimate reality, where God is at the center.

The value of sending can also be seen in the phrase “you will do well to send them” (v. 6). The word for well carries with it the sense of beauty. It is beautiful to wash the feet of those who go out for the sake of the Name. If the feet of those who carry the gospel are considered lovely by God (Isaiah 52:7), it should be no surprise that God views the people who wash those lovely feet as doing something beautiful.

“It is beautiful to wash the feet of those who go out for the sake of the Name.”

Finally, notice in verse 8 that in God’s eyes there is no hierarchy of value, with the missionary on top and those who send playing second fiddle. In verse 8, we read that both the goers and the senders are “fellow workers with the truth.” Both are equally valuable before God, the lives of both equally significant in God’s opinion — which is the only opinion that matters. The most important thing is to let our lives be consumed with seeking the kingdom first. Whether we seek his kingdom in Cameroon or Myanmar, or where we currently live, is a secondary issue. But if God does lead you to stay where you are, your soul will prosper as it ought only if you are involved in sending others to the mission field.

Mandate of Sending

God commands us to be senders, to be actively engaged in helping missionaries get to the field and stay on the field. It is not optional. We can see this in verse 8: “Therefore we ought to support such men.” Since they go out for the sake of the Name, and since they don’t sell the gospel for money, therefore we ought to support them.

Sending missionaries is one of the oughts and shoulds of the Bible. Our all-knowing and all-loving Christ knows that our souls will prosper as they should only as we look beyond our own immediate interests and lift up our eyes to God’s global purpose.

“The most exhilarating experience in life is to be a fellow worker with God in making his name known.”

One of the most exhilarating experiences in life is to be a fellow worker with God in making his name known, both in our own neighborhoods and among the unreached people groups of the world. God commands only what is good for us, so it’s no wonder he commands us to be senders.

Manner of Sending

Now, what does it mean to send a missionary? How is it done? I want to get practical here, but first I want us to look at the logic and the content of verses 6–8.

You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. For they went out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support such men, that we may be fellow workers with the truth.

John exalts the importance of how we send as high as can be imagined. We are to send “in a manner worthy of God.” And why should we send missionaries in a manner worthy of God? Notice the logic: “For they went out for the sake of the Name. . . . Therefore we ought to support such men.” Verse 7 is the best definition of missionary that I am aware of in the Bible. A missionary is not someone who goes out for merely humanitarian concerns, as important as those are. A biblical missionary is driven by a zeal to exalt the name of God, to declare his glory among the nations, to make known the beauty of the character and work of Jesus Christ. These are the only missionaries God commands us to support.

And since they go out for the sake of the Name, we must support them in a manner worthy of God. When it comes to sending, no verse in the Bible has gripped me more than this one. To send a missionary in a manner worthy of God means a lot more than having missionary names on the church’s website, or adding a line item in the budget, or signing a check here or there. So, what does it mean to send a missionary?

This particular word for send occurs nine times in the New Testament, always in the context of helping Christian workers get to where they need to go to do the work of the kingdom. In Titus 3:13, Paul uses the same word, writing, “Diligently help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way so that nothing is lacking for them” (NASB). To send is to offer very practical help. It includes finances, but it goes way beyond finances. Notice in 3 John 5: “You are acting faithfully in whatever you accomplish for the brethren.” That word whatever shows the breadth of what is included in sending.

It takes only a little thought to imagine the upheaval that a call to missions would bring to your life. Imagine that God called you to change all your career plans, to prepare to go to the mission field, and then to serve him there for years to come — all of which would be compounded if you were married and had children. Now imagine what might be a blessing to you in your preparation stage and in your time on the field and when you returned for a season of home assignment. None of us can do everything our imaginations could put on such a list, but no one is being asked to do it all. So let’s each search our own hearts as to what our particular role may be in helping to send our missionaries in a manner worthy of God.

Fellow Workers with the Truth

The ministry of sending is both joyful and dangerous. While serving as a sender, God may surprise you and lead you to become a goer, a “sent one.” And goers may return home for a variety of reasons and become some of the best senders. While senders devote themselves creatively to do “whatever” on behalf of the goers, they will be especially motivated to being a goer to their immigrant neighbor, or international students at a nearby university, or a green-card worker in the next cubicle over.

But remember, senders and goers are fellow workers with the truth — equally valuable in God’s choreography of accomplishing the great purpose of winning worshipers from every tribe and tongue and nation. Both are called to be passionately God-centered, whether they go out for the sake of the Name, or remain in their home culture helping to send others in a manner worthy of God. A prospering Christ-filled soul is vital to the task of both.

Our church has been working on sending missionaries well for many years.  Today it is one of our greatest ministries.  May we continue to send missionaries well!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 21, 2022

Notes of Faith May 21, 2022

Depression, Anxiety, and Other Things We Don't Want to Talk About

by Ryan Casey Waller

So, what is the purpose of suffering?

I once worked with a man who started limping around the office one day. He had tripped during a recent half-marathon and thought his ankle was just taking longer than usual to recover. But then he started to trip when walking down the hallway and couldn’t keep his balance when leaning over the fountain for a drink of water. One time he walked into my office to deliver a letter and fell for- ward as if he’d been shoved hard from behind. He was flustered and embarrassed, and I felt awful for him. Within months he had his diagnosis.

ALS.

For the next nine months he trekked into work while the disease went about its nasty work inside his body. It wasn’t long before he needed a walker to get a drink from the water fountain. In less than one year’s time, he went from running half marathons to moving as slowly and robotically as any person I’ve ever seen. It was devastating to watch. What must it have been like to live through?

Soon thereafter, at barely forty years old, he was forced to retire. The week he left the office for the last time, one of my colleagues observed that this man was now “going home to face his cross.” Everyone in the room gave solemn nods of agreement. I just stood there thinking, This is so unfair.

And it was.

And it is.

He died a short time later.

I hand-fed him a meal a few weeks before his death, and I have never seen a more ravaging disease in my life. The kind of physical suffering this man endured was beyond my comprehension. I wouldn’t wish this form of death on my worst enemy.

You know other stories like this one. Perhaps you’ve even lived one or are living one right now. On average, twenty-five thousand people die of starvation each day.1 Are you kidding me? A client of mine is currently facing charges of aggravated assault. If she receives time in prison, she’s decided she’d rather die by suicide than face imprisonment. Please, no.

There is no darkness into which Jesus will not give chase

Why is this the world we live in?

The best answer I can find is the one revealed in the first pages of Genesis when

God created humans and made them distinct from other creatures in a very particular manner: He gave us freedom.

God told Adam and Eve that they could have their run of the garden of Eden. They had total dominion over the land and could do as they saw fit with only one exception: They were not to eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But you know the story. They did just that, demonstrating in that moment what has been and remains true for all of humanity: we have the freedom to choose what we do in this life.

God, apparently, loves freedom.

And since God created humanity in His own image, it must necessarily be the case that we, too, are free and designed to love and explore our freedom. Unlike the beasts of the earth who operate by instinct, we humans can choose to resist our instincts and make decisions by using more complex moral constructs, like right and wrong, to make decisions. If we were unable to veer away from good, we would not be truly free.

Could God have set this whole affair up differently? Of course. God is God, and God can do whatever God wants to do. But this is what God has done. This is the world we live in, and this is the world we must learn to make sense of if we are to find some semblance of peace within the suffering.

But what about mental illness when there is no choice involved? I can understand that God did not will Hitler to murder millions of Jewish people but rather that Hitler and others like him were the cause of that immeasurable suffering.

But what about brain abnormalities that cause perfectly kind people to believe the trees in the park are trying to eat them?

And what about mothers who give birth to their children and want nothing more than to hold and care for them but are stricken so hard by postpartum depression they must be readmitted to the hospital and kept away from the babies they just carried for nine months?

How does God’s love for freedom help us to make sense of this kind of suffering?

Again, I wish I had a better answer for you, but the best I can find also comes from Genesis.

From the moment Adam and Eve made the decision to stray away from God’s intentional plans for life on earth, nothing has been the same. And this includes our bodies and the illnesses that plague them. I want to be careful here. I am not suggesting that illnesses are God’s way of punishing humans but that they are simply another reality of our living in a fallen world. Mental illness is not the fault of any one individual but rather a disappointing reality for what it means to live life on this earth. Should I say it again, just in case?

Mental illness is not a punishment. It is just one of the gnarly waves of suffering we humans ride in this thing called life.

To accept this mindset requires a certain deference and humility toward God, for it could be easy to stamp our feet and demand that it ought not to be so. We want to say, God should have done this! God should have done that! God should have done better! But then, where would that get us? As Job learned, we are not God. And we cannot undo what God has already done. This brand of humility is exemplified quite beautifully in the words from a survivor of Auschwitz:

It never occurred to me to question God’s doing or lack of doings while I was an inmate at Auschwitz, although of course, I understand others did... I was no less or no more religious because of what the Nazis did to us; and I believe my faith in God was not undermined in the least. It just never occurred to me to associate the calamity we were experiencing with God, to blame Him, or to believe in Him less or to cease believing in Him at all because He didn’t come to our aid.

God doesn’t owe us that. Or anything. We owe our lives to Him. If someone believes God is responsible for the death of six million because He didn’t somehow do something to save them, he’s got his thinking reversed. We owe God our lives for the few or many years we live, and we have the duty to worship Him and do all that He commands us. That’s what we’re here on this earth for, to be in God’s service, to do God’s bidding.2

There is something to this. It is hard to swallow, for sure, but there is a deep truth in these words. If our purpose in life is to journey back to God and become fully human along the way, then, yes, we must oppose suffering at every opportunity; but to find ourselves stuck in an existential crisis over the nature of this existence is to miss the boat entirely. The point, as a Christian, is not to eradicate all suffering or even overcome suffering but to endure it faithfully and ease it in people and places when we are able to do so, as Jesus did. All of this makes it a little easier for me to swallow the reality of mental illness.

I think.

I hope.

What helps the most, however, is the image of Jesus Christ on the cross. The truth is that I’m not sure I could worship a God who hadn’t tasted the bitterness of the kind of suffering we humans experience on a daily basis, especially those of us who suffer in the mind.

But when I look at the cross, I see a God so intent on loving and living with his people that He was willing to crawl into the deepest pit of suffering known to humanity so all of humanity might know

There is no darkness into which He will not give chase.

John Holmes, “Losing 25,000 to Hunger Every Day,” UN Chronicle 45, no. 2 & 3 (April 2008).

Reeve Robert Brenner, The Faith and Doubt of Holocaust Survivors (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2014), 102.

Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Hill and Wang, 2012).

Excerpted from Depression, Anxiety, and Other Things We Don't Want to Talk About by Ryan Casey Waller, copyright Ryan Casey Waller.

Many struggle with earthly issues that we may or may not know.  If we are going to love our neighbor, we should help those suffering with illness and disease endure to the end with faith, hope and love.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 20, 2022

Notes of Faith May 20, 2022

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children [or embitter your children], lest they become discouraged. (Colossians 3:18–21)

Dad’s Peculiar Responsibility

Now, the reason I give that much context for verse 21, which says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged,” is that I want fathers, I want Matt, to feel the amazing responsibility that God gives in a special way to fathers. And the reason I say special way is because verse 20 says that children are to be obedient to their parents, not just their fathers: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” But when it gets to verse 23 and the peculiar responsibility for the children’s encouragement, he does not say, “Parents, do not provoke your children.” He says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children.”

And of course, mothers shouldn’t provoke their children and discourage them either, but he gives the fathers this peculiar responsibility in a special way. So, dad is the head of the family. And the reason I say that is because, in verse 18, it says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands.” So, if children are to be obedient to mom, and mom is to submit to dad, then there’s a peculiar burden, a responsibility, that God places on dad to lead the family. And he is to lead it in a way that is, first, not harsh with his wife and, second, not discouraging to his children.

“There’s a peculiar burden, a responsibility, that God places on dad to lead the family.”

So dad’s call not to discourage his children is part of a larger fabric of his peculiar husbandly, fatherly responsibility. And I emphasize the word responsibility rather than rights, because that’s the tone of the passage. That’s the tone of reality. God gives to husbands and fathers a burden of responsibility. This isn’t a place for the blustering of a man’s rights as head. This is a place for bearing the peculiar burden of responsibility as husbands and fathers.

Authority Without Provocation

You can see it is a daunting — and I would say even impossible, in one sense — responsibility to so deal with our children that they don’t become dispirited or discouraged or lifeless. This involves a work of God, not just man. The translations include “don’t exasperate your children,” “don’t provoke them to anger,” “don’t embitter them.” Those are all the translations that you see in versions that are out there.

But the general idea is this: since verse 20 says that children should obey the fathers and mothers, the father should not back away from requiring obedience just because a child tries to use pouting to coerce dad not to make him go to bed when it’s time to go to bed. Verse 21, “don’t discourage your children,” can’t be used to nullify verse 20, which calls us to require obedience from our children.

So, children can’t blackmail their parents into canceling out verse 20 because they say, “Look, Dad, you’re not supposed to discourage me. I’m feeling discouraged, and so you can’t require that of me.” You can’t do that with the Bible. So, verse 21 must be saying there is a wrong or a counterproductive way to require obedience of your children, which only discourages, and there’s a helpful way to require obedience of your children. The command to dads not to provoke our children to discouragement can’t be used to make the dad passive or lazy or indifferent to the children’s misbehavior.

How Not to Require Obedience

“What does it look like when you are requiring obedience like verse 20 says you should, but doing it badly so that you’re knocking the spirit out of your child?” So let me direct Matt and the rest of us to these eight ways that I would describe for how not to require obedience of your children. How do ways of fathering knock the life out of a child, discourage a child, dispirit a child? I’ve got eight of them. I’ll just name them briefly.

1. Nagging

Don’t try to get obedience by nagging. The word nagging was invented because there is such a thing as repetitive demands or repetitive requirements that are really annoying and exasperating because they are demeaning. You feel like, “I’ve heard you say that three times now. I’m going to do it in the time frame you gave me. You don’t need to keep telling me to do this.” That’s what the child might be feeling, even if he’s not saying it. So, don’t require obedience by nagging.

2. Demanding

Don’t try to get obedience by being the dad that only demands. Demand, demand, demand, demand — and he never has a conversation with the child. He never gives a compliment to this child. He never celebrates anything with the child. He never explains anything to the child. All the child ever hears is do, do, do, do, do, demand, demand, demand, demand. So, make your requirements part of the fabric of a much richer communication with your child, so he knows you are more than a demander.

3. Getting Angry

Don’t try to get obedience by setting the tone where every requirement sounds angry. “Dad’s always angry. He doesn’t know how to give any cheerful requirements. He thinks that in order to get anything done, he has to sound harsh and mad.” Well, Dad, you don’t. That’s counterproductive. That’s discouraging.

4. Always Resorting to the Rod

Don’t try to get obedience by always using blows. There’s a world of difference between a thoughtfully and firmly and lovingly applied discipline of spanking after defiance, and a slap-happy dad who always seems to be swatting at his children. Don’t accompany your requirements of obedience with hitting the child.

Spankings are fitting and hopefully, carefully, soberly, patiently, and lovingly applied so that the child himself knows that the reason he’s being disciplined is clear. He knows what he’s done, and he deserves this measure of discipline, but don’t make slapping or swatting or blows a normal accompaniment of your requirement of obedience.

5. Embarrassing

Don’t try to get obedience by embarrassing the child — perhaps by asking him to do something in front of people that is so obvious, he’s going to do it anyway. Seek ways to make your commands respectful, showing that you expect intelligent obedience.

6. Belittling

Don’t require obedience by belittling your child. For example, don’t call him names. Don’t speak in a way that he feels contempt coming from his father. Don’t ask him to do something the way you would ask a 3-year-old if he’s a 9-year-old.

7. Requiring the Impossible

Don’t demand things that are impossible for the child to do at his age. Don’t set him up for automatic failure. Don’t say, “I want you back here in thirty seconds,” when you know that’s not even possible. You’re asking the child to fail, which is discouraging.

8. Withholding Forgiveness

Perhaps most important — they’re all important, I think, but this is probably most important — don’t try to get obedience without creating an atmosphere of gospel forgiveness. So many dads and moms fail to teach a child early that Jesus has provided a way to get relief for their guilt after doing bad things — a way to be forgiven.

“Don’t try to get obedience without creating an atmosphere of gospel forgiveness.”

Without this, the child doesn’t know what to do with his own sins, which he knows he commits. Every kid knows he does bad things. So every command starts to feel like a potential digging of a deeper hole of guilt. Without a pattern of confession and forgiveness, the child will probably become secretive and deceitful. So, Dad, you must speak the gospel, teach the gospel, so that the child understands how the blood of Jesus gives forgiveness and life and relief. And you must embody the gospel in your own confession of sin and your own offer of forgiveness.

You have a heavenly Father that has modeled all of this for you and toward you. And there is hope, therefore, that you can be a father with children who are both obedient and encouraged.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 19, 2022

A Hot Cup of Coffee with a Friend

And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. — Job 2:13 ESV

When someone is hurting or struggling, it’s natural to want to lend a hand.

Church folks are great at organizing help in all sorts of ways. Are you having a baby? Is someone in your family ill? Just let the ladies in your church know, and within no time they will have a lasagna and some lemon bars delivered to your door. People will mow your lawn, bring you groceries, and watch your children. We are a society of doers, which can be a good thing. However, there are times when even the most sincere offering cannot make the situation better.

Lord, help me learn the ministry of simply being present

Oftentimes nothing can be done, and the best way to help is to just be present. For all that Job’s friends may have done wrong, they got this part right. When they heard of all the tragedies Job had endured, they decided to show up. They couldn’t fix anything, and they didn’t presume to know how he felt. They simply sat with him in silence.

Sometimes hurting people just need your presence, to sit and drink a cup of coffee with no words spoken.

Sometimes all people need is a moment when they’re not obligated to share all the details and you’re not pressured to offer advice. When there’s nothing to be said, don’t say a thing. A chance to breathe and a friend’s presence can be two of the most healing things.

Lord, help me learn the ministry of simply being present in someone’s pain. Teach me to put aside my own discomfort or need to fix things and simply offer silence and coffee.

Excerpted from Devotions from the Front Porch, copyright Thomas Nelson

Just being there for someone is very hard to do.  You want to say something, but you don’t know what to say.  If you do speak, you will stumble and stammer all to often and not say anything that is truly helpful.  It is better to just be there for those we love and give them our presence as a gift of healing.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith May 18, 2022

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up. — James 4:7–10

Wisdom from the horse farm

The Holy Spirit replaces pride with kindness.

It was a raw, rare “oh-crud” moment for Philip. One second, the camp director was riding confidently atop Spur, a handsome mustang who stood fifteen hands high. The experienced horseman was demonstrating basic riding techniques to a group of enthusiastic junior high horse lovers. The crowd’s oohs and aahs felt pretty good. They’re lovin’ this, Philip thought to himself, and I’m totally on my game today!

But without warning, a series of loud, startling sounds — smack! thud! crunch! — sent Spur into crazy-horse meltdown... and ended up launching Philip high into the air. Nearby ranch hands had dropped a crate they were unloading from a truck, and that had spooked the horse.

With his arms flailing and his body rocketing above the arena, everything seemed to slow down, at least for a split second. Just below him Philip could make out the wide eyes of his slightly amused, slightly traumatized kids... the mouthing of unrepeatable words from his staff... the violent bucking of his crazed mustang. And then came the inevitable: a loud thud as his body made contact with the ground.

“Ouch,” he whimpered.

Philip slowly sat up and ran through a quick, mental self-triage: No blood. Everything is still attached. No harm done! (Just a seriously bruised ego.)

“My horse freaked, which is completely out of character,” Philip later explained to his campers. “He bucked me off for the first time ever.”

And since Spur is big and strong, Philip said the buck felt like a bomb had gone off under his backside. It was a sharp vertical acceleration — like nothing he had ever experienced before. But when he came back to his senses, the words of James 4:10 raced through his brain:

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.

The greatness of God should humble us. Yet for most people being humble brings to mind a form of weakness.

As believers we must walk in the footsteps of our Lord and place ourselves under His loving guidance. As we walk in humility, we enjoy the day-to-day release from stress, as God intended. Not so with pride.

The Bible has some tough words about pride:

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. — Proverbs 16:18

We all need to be bucked off our high horses from time to time so we can fall on our knees before Jesus.

Sure, I’ve been bucked off my horse more times than I care to remember, but I’ll never forget how it stings when I’ve been bucked off my high horse.

These have been moments when my cringeworthy comeuppance has been put on display for all to see. Around six years ago I had the wild idea that I wanted to homeschool my kids, yet because — as I have been reminded on numerous occasions — I’m not exactly qualified, and I’ve got my hands full looking after farm critters, I decided to take a different approach. I got together with some other parents with the same desire, and we found a way to pool our resources. What’s more, we hired two teachers who actually knew what they were doing.

Our modernized one-room schoolhouse was born, we were an official homeschool “group,” and it was good. Well, at least for a while.

Kids were everywhere on my farm, reading to God’s creation outside, catching frogs for science, and taking regular trips to the fishing hole. We were living my homeschool dream. It was Little House on the Prairie but with internet.

Then some real drama unfolded in our community, and it wasn’t the lighthearted, Walnut Grove kind that you’d expect from Harriet Oleson. One of our teachers was having a hard time keeping up with the number of kids in our group. The differing ages and abilities seemed to overwhelm her. And by giving 100 percent of herself to each individual student, she was quickly burning out. On top of that, I will admit, I was not giving her my full support. You see, I was unwilling to do the job myself, but willing to spout off about how easy it was to do.

“Just put some papers in front of them and let them get to work,” I’d tell her. “This isn’t that difficult.”

You see why I need Jesus?

The short version of this is, thankfully, this teacher humbly stuck it out despite my behavior. But teacher number two did not.

And this is where I had to eat a heaping portion of humble pie.

Wow! You teachers! I praise you, because for the rest of our school year, my friend Tracy and I filled in the gaps that teacher two left behind. We were exhausted by the end of it all. We saw — and experienced — what the other teacher was trying to tell us the whole time.

Teaching is difficult; I know that now.

Humility means we put others above ourselves, and it’s painful when the Holy Spirit lets us know when we are being cocky and proud because usually it ends with us being put to the ground. In this case He fed me dirt.

Jesus values humility.

Lord, the Bible tells me that striving to be humble is serious business to You, so I want it to be serious business in my life too. I want to submit myself to You and Your will. Give me the strength to resist the devil, and draw me into a closer walk with You. Clean me up, purify my heart, and help me to be humble before You. Amen.

Excerpted from Country Soul by Cara Whitney, copyright Cara Whitney.

Prov 29:23

23 A man's pride will bring him low,

But a humble spirit will obtain honor.

NASU

Isa 66:2

"But to this one I will look,

To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.

NASU

James 4:6-7

"GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD,  BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE."

NASU

James 4:10

10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

NASU

1 Peter 5:5-6

GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD,  BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.

6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time.

NASU

Job 22:29

the humble person He will save.

NASU

Luke 1:52

52 "He has brought down rulers from their thrones,

And has exalted those who were humble.

NASU

2 Chron 7:14

If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

NASU

Matt 11:28-30

28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.  30 "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

NASU

May we learn the joy and exaltation of humility before the Lord and receive the salvation that only He provides!

Pastor Dale