Notes of Faith August 10, 2022

Notes of Faith August 10, 2022

Slow To Anger

Article by Scott Hubbard

Editor, desiringGod.org

Many of the most common troubles in the Christian life come from relating to God as if he were like us — as if his kindness were as slight as our kindness, his forgiveness as reluctant as our forgiveness, his patience as fleeting as our patience. Under impressions such as these, we walk uneasily through the Christian life, insecurity rumbling like distant thunder.

John Owen (1616–1683) goes so far as to say,

Want of a due consideration of him with whom we have to do, measuring him by that line of our own imaginations, bringing him down unto our thoughts and our ways, is the cause of all our disquietments. (Works of John Owen, 6:500)

If we were God in heaven, we would have grown impatient with people like us long ago. Our anger rises quickly in the face of personal offense. Our frustration boils over. Our judgments readily fire. And apart from the daily renewal of our minds, we can easily measure God “by that line of our own imaginations,” as if his thoughts matched our thoughts, and his ways our ways.

Thank God, they do not. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). Our human nature has no ruler to measure God’s goodness; our natural imaginations cannot grasp his heights. His kindness is not like our kindness, his forgiveness not like our forgiveness — and his patience not like our patience.

‘Slow to Anger’

The God we meet in Scripture is a relentlessly patient God. He usually accomplishes his plans along the winding path. He fulfills his promises without haste. He compares his kingdom to a mustard seed.

The greatest displays of God’s patience, however, appear in response to our sin. “God is patient” means not mainly that God waits a long time, but that God shows longsuffering kindness to sinners (Romans 2:4). As God declares to Moses on Mount Sinai, he is not just “slow,” but “slow to anger” (Exodus 34:6).

Consider the context of that famous declaration. Israel has just left slavery, redeemed by God’s mighty hand. They have watched the Red Sea swallow Egypt’s army. They have stood before a mountain wrapped in smoke and lightning, the entourage of the Almighty. They have been covered by the blood of the covenant. And then, in some of their first moments of freedom, they exchange the glory of the living God for a cow (Exodus 32:1–6).

Judgment follows (Exodus 32:25–29, 35) — striking yet restrained, tempered by a mysterious mercy. God does not destroy them; he does not forsake them. Instead, he reveals his glorious, incomparable name, like an unexpected dawn in an all-black sky:

The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Exodus 34:6)

Why does full judgment tarry and mercy beckon? Because, unlike us, God is “slow to anger.” His wrath visits the unrepentant (Exodus 34:7), but only after taking the slow path. Meanwhile, his mercy stands ready to run.

Here on the slopes of Mount Sinai began a song that would be sung by Israel’s prophets and psalmists, sages and kings, even under the nation’s darkest nights (Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 86:15; Joel 2:13). The living God is a patient God. And in the shadow of his patience we find hope.

Patience Toward His Enemies

God’s patience, like his love, has special significance for his chosen people — the slow-to-anger God of Exodus 34:6 is none other than “the Lord,” Yahweh, the God Israel knows by covenant (Exodus 3:13–15). And yet, amazingly, the record of God’s dealings in Scripture reveals a marked slowness to anger not only toward his covenant people, but toward those who hate and oppose him.

The most forceful examples of God’s wrath, for instance, begin as examples of his patience. The flood waters swallowed the earth only after “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared” (1 Peter 3:20). God lingered for four generations before cleansing Canaan of its idolatry, for, he told Abraham, “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (Genesis 15:16). And nine warning plagues fell on Egypt before the devastating blow to the firstborn (Exodus 11:4–8).

God’s wrath may be “quickly kindled” when the time for judgment comes (Psalm 2:12), but until then, he warns and invites (Psalm 2:10–11). God’s patience toward his enemies extends so far, Owen observes, that his people sometimes cry out, perplexed, “How long before you will judge?” (Revelation 6:10; Psalm 94:3). And still he patiently waits.

God, the patient potter, bears with the rebellious clay of his creation. He endures vessels of wrath with “much patience” (Romans 9:22), Paul tells us. How much more, then, does he deal patiently with vessels of mercy?

Patience Toward His People

When Paul rehearsed his testimony to Timothy, he framed it as a story of God’s patience:

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:15–16)

God saved this “blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent” (1 Timothy 1:13) so that no humble, broken sinner would think he’s out-sinned the patience of God. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus is patient toward his people — perfectly patient. As patient as the prodigal’s father, waiting on the porch (Luke 15:20).

Nor does his patience end when former rebels like us heed his summons and become his sons. As Israel’s faithful celebrated again and again, God not only “was” slow to anger; he “is” slow to anger (Psalm 103:8). His patience, like his love, endures forever (Psalm 136). To what else can we ascribe his ongoing kindness, his every-morning mercies, his present help, and his ready forgiveness, through all the fluctuations of our souls? Today and every day, “He does not deal with us according to our sins” (Psalm 103:10), but according to his great patience.

“In Christ, your life tells a story of divine patience.”

In Christ, your life, like Paul’s, tells a story of divine patience. God was patient with you as you wandered from him — scorning his Son, treasuring sin, scarcely giving him or his gospel a thought. He is patient with you now, as you daily find need for forgiveness. And he will be patient with you tomorrow, and the next day, and until the day of Jesus Christ, when he finally finishes the good work he’s begun (Philippians 1:6).

And why? Because, some several centuries after Moses, God once again revealed his slow-to-anger name. This time in flesh and blood.

Patience Supreme

In Jesus, the God-man, the song of God’s slowness to anger swells to its crescendo.

Jesus’s ministry was one of patience, for to be with us was to bear with us (Luke 9:41). He lived here as light among darkness, sinlessness among sin, the straight among the crooked — as the unrivaled prince of patience. We occasionally see the pain of his patience, as when he says, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?” (Matthew 17:17). But he mostly kept the cost hidden, pouring out his soul to his Father (Luke 5:16), and receiving from his Father the patience needed as his enemies slandered him, his neighbors rejected him, his disciples misunderstood him, and the crowds tried to use him.

And thus he also died. Though twelve legions of angels stood ready for his summons (Matthew 26:53), he never called. Instead, Patience incarnate took the lashes, the thorns, the nails, allowing his creatures to mock him with the breath he gave, all while pleading for their forgiveness (Luke 23:34).

In the cross of Jesus, we see not only that God is patient, but how God can be so patient. How could he, “in his divine forbearance,” pass over former sins (Romans 3:25) — and how can he, in his divine forbearance, continue to show us mercy? Because the patience of God, in the person of Christ, purchased our forgiveness (Romans 3:23–24). God’s patience rests on the passion of his Son. And therefore, his patience will last as long as our resurrected Christ pleads the merits of his blood (Hebrews 7:25) — which is to say, forever.

Let Us Return

English pastor Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) once prayed, “Teach me . . . to read my duty in the lines of your mercy.” And what duty do we read in the lines of God’s merciful patience? In the words of Isaiah, “Return to the Lord” (Isaiah 55:7).

“Whoever and wherever we are, God’s patience invites our repentance.”

The patience of God is a beckoning hand, an open door, a pathway home. It comes to us as Jesus came to Matthew at the tax booth: not to condemn us, and not to comfort us in our sins either, but rather to turn us again to “seek the Lord while he may be found” (Isaiah 55:6), whether after a miserable lapse or simply a regrettable moment. Whoever and wherever we are, God’s patience invites our repentance.

And what do we find when we return to him, confessing and forsaking our sins? We find a Father running to meet us (Luke 15:20). We find a Savior who has already been knocking (Revelation 3:20). We find a God who abundantly pardons and plentifully redeems (Isaiah 55:7; Psalm 130:7). We find a Lord whose patience is perfect (1 Timothy 1:16).

One day, we will stumble and sin no more; the good work begun at our conversion finally will be complete (Philippians 1:6). But until then, the patience of God is not bound to the measure of our weak imaginations. It is not the pinched, passing, shallow patience we so commonly find among men, and within ourselves. His patience, like his peace, surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). Return to him, then, now and forever, and in returning find rest.

I pray that we all might come close to being slow to anger. We are so easily offended and want to last out to protect ourselves. It is not necessary, (for the most part), and more often causes greater pain and suffering than any kind of help. Let us learn to be more loving, forgiving, patient, slow to anger. . . I told my children something long ago that I need to practice myself – Be the more spiritually mature in any situation and circumstance. Respond in love and your life will be more peaceful and less stressful.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith August 9, 2022

Notes of Faith August 9, 2022

You Do You?

Today’s devotion is from Levi Lusko’s new devotional, Roar Like a Lion, for kids aged 6-10. Feel free to share this with your young friends and forward to moms and dads you love!

Do what is right to other people. Love being kind to others. And live humbly, trusting your God. — Micah 6:8 ICB

Have you heard the saying “You do you”? It’s pretty popular these days. It means you should do your own thing — whatever makes you happy. Of course, that also means that everyone else should be free to do their own thing — whatever makes them happy. Sounds good, right?

What if the thing that makes you happy makes someone else unhappy?

Or whatever makes someone else happy leaves you feeling hurt? That definitely doesn’t sound so good. God has a much better plan.

Instead of you do you, God says you should do what’s right for others.

Show the world how awesome God really is

What does that mean? An awesome verse in the little book of Micah sums it up for us: “Do what is right to other people. Love being kind to others. And live humbly, trusting your God” (Micah 6:8 ICB). Because, as it turns out, living the way God wants you to isn’t about you at all. It’s about God, and it’s about others. You see, God created you to show everyone around you how amazing and full of love He is. The best way to do that is to treat everyone the way God treats you — with lots of love and kindness.

So instead of ignoring your brother, let him play the video game with you. Instead of interrupting your friends to talk about what you want to talk about, listen and show interest in what they care about. Help your dad put away the groceries, and offer to help your mom make dinner.

Get out there and show the world how awesome God really is!

Get ready to roar!

Micah 6:8 gives us three ways to live for God. Today, let’s work on kindness. Who can you be extra-kind to today? Maybe include your little brother or sister in a game with your friends, or let them ride in the best seat in the car — even if you already called it. Offer to bring in the mail for an older neighbor. Or be kind to your community by picking up litter. How many kind things can you do today?

Lord, teach me to be who You created me to be so I can do what is right, be kind, and trust in You. Amen.

Excerpted from Roar Like a Lion by Levi Lusko, copyright Levi Lusko.

I be me, U be U, we be 1 in Christ! John P. Spitler

Live life in community for that is how and why we are created.

Love God, Love Others!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith August 8, 2022

Notes of Faith August 8, 2022

Interview with John Piper

Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org

Why does the Bible tell us not to be overly righteous? That is today’s question. It’s a sharp one from a perplexed Bible reader and pastor named Aaron. “Hello, Pastor John! Can you explain two texts to me? The first is this: ‘Be not overly righteous,’ which we read in Ecclesiastes 7:16. And square that with Peter’s lofty command: ‘As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy”’ (1 Peter 1:15–16). What would it mean to be ‘overly righteous’? Is the ESV translation accurate here? Here’s a little background story: I was laughing at a crude joke. I caught myself, and I turned and said to my Christian friend that I felt guilty for laughing at it. He said to me, ‘Well, doesn’t the Bible say not to be overly righteous? I think a little guilty laughing is fine.’ He was right about the text. But this statement didn’t sit well with me. How do these two texts hold together in your own mind, Pastor John?”

I’m glad it didn’t sit well with him. It doesn’t sit well with me either. My first thought when I heard this question was, “I should not try to answer this question, because I’m not sure what Ecclesiastes 7:15–18 means.” I remember over the years returning to these puzzling verses several times and coming away each time, after all my efforts to read the commentaries and do the work in Hebrew, saying, “Well, maybe I’ve got it, but frankly, I’m still not sure.” So, my second thought was, “Well, at least I should admit that publicly.” And I should make the difficult effort, I think, because there are a lot of verses in Ecclesiastes that I’m not sure about. The whole book is a little bit of a puzzle to me. But I think, in all fairness, I should give it a try so that we all have at least one plausible interpretation, even if we may not be sure it’s the only right one.

So here is Ecclesiastes 7:15–18:

In my vain life, I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.

Slightly Unrighteous?

Now, without any context and without any sense of what this author says elsewhere about righteousness and wickedness, I suppose you could say that these verses mean, “Well, be a little bit unrighteous: tell a few dirty jokes; laugh a little bit at the sinfulness that you see on the screen; be a little bit wicked; be a little bit unwise.” I suppose you could say, “Well, it’s what they say, and it must mean that.”

But that would fly right in the face not only of the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, who told us that our righteousness better exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees or we’re not going to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20), and “be holy because your Father in heaven is holy” (see 1 Peter 1:16–17); it also flies in the face of what the writer of Ecclesiastes himself says, because he ends his book like this: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). And he adds this: “For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:14). In other words, he does not encourage just a little bit of disobedience — maybe just one or two commandments, or just a little white lie. That’s not what he says. In fact, he says every deed will be brought into judgment; every secret thing will be found out.

These are not the words of a man who thinks it is prudent to lighten up on our vigilance over the fullness of our obedience to God. The entire Bible, plus the context of Ecclesiastes itself, warns us not to think he is teaching us to be a little bit wicked, a little bit unrighteous, a little bit unwise. So we stand back and we say, “Well, what on earth does it mean, then?” Ecclesiastes 7:16 says, “Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?”

Righteousness of the Pharisees

Now, what if I paraphrased it like this? “Do not be greatly righteous, and do not be righteous with the aim of great righteousness, and do not become bloated with wisdom.” What would you hear in that paraphrase? Well, what you can hear in that paraphrase is my sense that what he’s getting at here is not a warning against true righteousness, or not a warning against avoiding wickedness, true wickedness, but a warning against a kind of righteousness that is excessive or great in the sense of being fastidious or lopsided or showy.

And as soon as I say that, I can’t help but hear in my own words the words of Jesus — and maybe that’s why I’m thinking it up, because those words are tucked away at the back of my mind — regarding the kind of distorted righteousness (perhaps he would say excessive righteousness), of the scribes and the Pharisees.

For example, Matthew 23:23–24:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.

“We should not become so preoccupied with the minor aspects of righteousness that we neglect the major aspects.”

It’s not a stretch, is it, to call this over-much righteousness or excessive righteousness in an ironic way — righteousness that is super-vigilant over tithing every spice in the spice drawer, but neglectful of justice and mercy and faithfulness.

We all get this. We use language this way. Jesus could have easily said, with Ecclesiastes, “Be not overly righteous.” That is, don’t make yourself too wise because there is a kind of fastidious, lopsided, showy righteousness and wisdom that God abominates. So I don’t think the point of Ecclesiastes is that we should be a little bit unrighteous or a little bit unwise, but rather that we should not become so preoccupied with the minor aspects of righteousness that we neglect the major aspects, nor should we become so caught up in clever casuistry to justify our blind spots, like the Pharisees who had all kinds of ways worked out to do the kind of little bit of unrighteousness that they wanted to do.

And then in verse 17, to parallel verse 16, Ecclesiastes says, “Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time?” I can’t help but think that he provided this audacious parallel to being overly righteous in order to draw out how wrong it would be to interpret the previous verse any other way than ironic. It’s just over the top, I think, to suggest he would be saying something like, “Just be a full, solid, wicked person — not excessive, just full, solid, normal wicked. Just be that.” It’s crazy. I mean, you cannot believe that this writer is saying that. I think he expects us to say, “Don’t you see this as irony in the way I’m saying this?”

Don’t Be a Fool

So instead, I think he’s saying something like, “Look, if you get the idea that the pendulum should swing from over-much righteousness to over-much wickedness, don’t even begin to think that you can lengthen your life by being a standout villain, a villain who isn’t just your average run-of-the-mill villain. Don’t even begin to think that I’m suggesting that you should be an over-much wicked person. It won’t work. You can’t save your life by being that way.”

“Let the things that are clear in Scripture control your thinking rather than the things that are unclear.”

And then at the end of that clause, he simply says, “Don’t be a fool.” And the reason that stands out is because he does not say, “Don’t be an over-much fool,” or “Don’t be an excessive fool.” He said that about righteousness; he said that about wickedness. He doesn’t say it about being a fool. And I think it’s his way of saying, “Hey, do you get what I’ve been saying? Only a fool would miss what I’m saying by thinking I’m commending a little bit of unrighteousness, a little bit of wickedness.”

But just a couple of cautions here at the end about difficult passages of Scripture (because this is one). First, let the things that are clear in Scripture control your thinking rather than the things that are unclear. You have a lifetime to get more clarity on the hard passages, but obedience is called for this afternoon — today. And the second thing I would say is to beware of those people that our friend referred to: beware of people who latch onto unclear texts to justify worldly behavior. This is not the evidence of biblical wisdom or biblical righteousness.

God has promised the true believer in Christ to be made more like Christ day by day until one day we are taken to be with Him. There is no unrighteousness in Christ, therefore, we should pursue a holy, righteous life. Will we get there. Not on earth. But we should still pursue the One who called us and saved us, our Sovereign Lord and Savior. In His righteousness we stand. Seek His perfection and glory while you live this life and be made perfect in the eternal life to come!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith August 7, 2022

Notes of Faith August 7, 2022

Are You Not Provoked?

The Jealousy of God

Article by Greg Morse

Staff writer, desiringGod.org

I remember a line in the television show that men in the Poldark family were known for being “hasty, sharp-tempered, and strong in their likes and dislikes.” This sentiment has struck me as masculine. Not because God approves of hastiness or sharp tempers (he doesn’t), but because men ought to have something of what lies behind them: strong convictions.

How rare are warm-blooded men of zeal these days, men of strong likes and dislikes — even within the church? When ambitious men of the world spend time around men of the church — men supposedly imaging Christ’s likeness, possessing Christ’s Spirit, and commissioned to win eternal spoils — do we fault them for sensing an absence of purpose, a coolness of flame, a dryness of ambition? Do they see men “who by patience in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality” (Romans 2:7)? Do they feel ashamed of their small pursuits and eager to cast them off for the Christian man’s pulse and existence?

“How rare are warm-blooded men of zeal these days, men of strong likes and dislikes — even within the church?”

Or do they not wonder what these Christian men really wake up for in the morning? It isn’t clear. They’re moderate in their likes; moderate in their dislikes. They remain room-temperature. They never have that look in their eye. They smile and smile, but never laugh from the belly, nor give a firm handshake or word when the occasion calls. That man, that weapon, that sword is beat into a plow.

Relaxing Among Idols

Can you imagine such men sitting by peacefully in Athens in the first century? They rest among the commotion, waiting for friends to arrive. Initially they may have been startled by the many idols bought, sold, and displayed. Beautiful statues of Greek gods and goddesses fill the city, some saying it was “easier to find a god than a man.” This is not true worship, the thought might come. But as a few moments pass, they begin to wonder, What’s for lunch? . . . And what’s taking Timothy and Silas so long to get here?”

Now witness another man of God, a man of strong likes and dislikes, seated in the very same place.

Now while Paul was waiting for them [Timothy and Silas] at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. (Acts 17:16–17)

We can imagine him looking around, tapping his fingers at first. Then we see him begin to sway and nod and take a deep breath. Perhaps he bites his lip; then clenches his fist. A fire is kindled in his chest, fed by the words seared on his heart — “I am Yahweh; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols” (Isaiah 42:8).

Why should these exquisite nothings receive the praise that belonged exclusively to his God? Why do men buy “not-gods” and call them gods? How dare they embrace false deities in the Lord’s marketplace, while breathing the Lord’s air, under the Lord’s sun? Why did their idolatry feel comfortable parading at noonday? What are these but offenses against the Holy One; Philistines mocking to be answered?

He cannot, like so many other men, sit quietly and watch. He must open his mouth and speak of Christ to give vent his fuming soul.

Hunted

Jews were tracking Paul. They recently stirred a mob against him in Thessalonica, then agitated the crowds against him in Berea. They would eventually follow him to Athens as well. If anyone had an excuse to keep a low profile, it was him. If anyone had a reason to take this time “off,” it was him. Yet he did not pour water on the flame from those buckets of “practicality” so plentiful in our own day. Troopless, he went in alone.

He rose to his feet as a man possessed — a man who did not count his life of any value nor as precious to himself, if only he could finish his course and his ministry to testify to the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24). He walked over to the people, looked at a group of potential attackers, and spoke grace. In the synagogues, he reasoned with Jews; in the marketplace, he open-air preached to Gentiles. Not occasionally, but daily.

He soon became a spectacle to the people. “What does this babbler wish to say?” some asked. “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities,” others answered (Acts 17:18). They requested to hear more of this strange teaching, news of this “Jesus” (Acts 17:18–21).

When he’s invited to preach in the Areopagus, he concludes his sermon,

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:30–31)

When they heard of resurrection, some mocked. Others said they would hear him again. “But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them” (Acts 17:34).

On Active Duty

When you witness Paul provoked into preaching day after day, what do you see?

When I see Paul risking his life to charge into the hostile city alone, I witness the New Testament equivalent of David running at Goliath, Jonathan and his armor-bearer charging the Philistines, Phineas piercing the rebellious couple, Joshua campaigning into the Promised Land. “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood,” Paul explains, “but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). According to Paul, our armor, our enemy, our warfare, is not less urgent or real for being unseen, but more.

“Our armor, our enemy, our warfare, is not less urgent or real for being unseen, but more.”

When we hear him standing and heralding to anyone who would listen, there stands one who descends from a lineage of men possessed with God’s own jealousy. God is passionately, rightly jealous for his name on earth; Paul shares that jealousy. God detests his praises going to idols; Paul does too. Paul’s Master did not sit idly in heaven, but came to earth calling for repentance and announcing the good news and becoming good news — how could the servant sit idly after Jesus had proclaimed, “It is finished” (John 19:30)?

And can you see Paul’s great conquest at Athens? Paul took the battlefield proclaiming Jesus — dead and now alive. Some laughed, some procrastinated, but others believed. He walked away with immortal gains — the souls of Dionysius and Damaris and the others won to King Jesus.

Where Flags of Satan Fly

When you consider the man wondering about his lunch and the apostle Paul fighting demons over souls, which man are you more like? Which man do you want to be?

This contrast challenges me because, too often, I find myself identifying with the docile man. “What should I have for lunch?” is the daily theme — while Rome burns, devils laugh, and Christ is belittled or altogether ignored.

But I want to be more alive. I want to feel more concern for Christ’s name. I want to be consumed in the flames of my Lord’s likes and dislikes. I long for my little candle to be engulfed in his forest fire. And I want to turn with vengeance upon any and all distractions from this devotion to Christ. Don’t you?

Don’t you want to look around at the flags of Satan flying overhead and care about Jesus and souls enough to be provoked? The sins of his city so affected Lot that he lived day after day “tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard” (2 Peter 2:8). Don’t you want these reminders to affect you and spur you on to greater love, greater prayer, greater boldness?

Stirred by the Zeal of God

What could happen if a group of men and women awoke from complacent slumbers, provoked and sent forth with God’s own jealousy into a community? If more professing Christians felt triggered by idols and shared a “divine jealousy” for the church (2 Corinthians 11:2)? If we obeyed Paul to “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good” (Romans 12:9). Genuine love. Genuine abhorrence. Genuine clinging to what is good, stirred by God’s own zeal to do what is good.

With these, under the blessing of God, the world can yet again be turned upside down.

If the timing of the Lord’s return is yet far distant, then my prayer would be that I rise up with a zeal for the Lord and proclaim the truth of Christ among the false idols that surround me. Should the Lord tarry, I pray for many that appear against the truth of God that their hearts would be broken and that they would repent and come to Jesus in faith. Whether we are in the last days before the return of Christ or not, we should have a zeal for Him and truth that will not allow us to sit in false comfort but stand and proclaim truth to all those in our sphere of influence. We are created and placed where we are “for such a time as this!”

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith August 6, 2022

How to Stay in Love with God

A few years ago, we sat with a younger couple over dessert — listening to their lives, learning them.

Fifteen years and six kids separated us (they had none). Our bedside book stack held books about raising teens and finding God in pain. We were tired from early morning baby cries and late-night conversations with big kids. Our friends were fiery-eyed with vision for our community, overflowing with dreams for their future.

They had ideas and passion, and I had to look at my planner to remember what the next day held.

But one question they asked brought everything together:

Why is it that so many couples we see decades ahead of us have become complacent in their faith? It feels like they grew stale.

What they saw ahead, we saw in our peers. We’d been asking the same question to ourselves. Friends with a once-unwavering passion for God were now tired. Bibles collected dust. Church was a social event, the preaching an opportunity for theological scrutiny and one-upmanship.

But we didn’t look at these friends as “those people over there.” We felt the sobriety of this potential in our own lives.

In our honest admission… it felt more natural to task than to pray. To worship.

With six kids and a big broad vision for family, we could slide into the idealism of principals and lose the fire of love for God.

Though I’m not tech-savvy, scrolling is natural. Accessible. Picking up my phone was easier than digging for what drove me to escape (God).

Twenty years of adulting included so many stories of disappointment. And this disappointment — unexamined and buried — so often leads to distance from God.

As our young friends’ question knocked around in my mind (for years since), I’ve learned something:

Life is made up of middle minutes.

Mowing the lawn.

Folding laundry.

Changing the sheets and renewing our drivers’ license.

Sorting through produce at the grocery store.

Yet when we said “yes” to Jesus, so many of us had our eyes on the great exploits of Daniel 11:32. We thought “yes” to Jesus meant a wildly-alive life in God… until real life happens. Cleaning bathrooms and filing taxes and navigating conflict with our spouse or our parents. We close our Bible after morning quiet time and replace a flat tire an hour later. Missions trips have 350+ days between them. (And even foreign missionaries will tell you that their everyday includes just as much, if not more, mundanity as it does “sharing the Gospel”.)

This is where adoration brings life

Perhaps 20 percent (or much less) of our life includes outwardly obvious exploits for God, but there are thousands of these minutes in between.

And they are minutes during which we receive the same invitation from God:

Will you meet with Me, right here?

Could it be that in our 20’s and 30’s and 40’s, and on… our lives in God get formed over these minutes?

In 1 Thessalonians 5:16, Paul exhorts us to “pray without ceasing.” Our grandmothers crochet this and hang it on walls. We moderns may have it hand-lettered and hung in our office.

But the act of praying… all the time… requires us first to want to talk to God.

This is where adoration brings life.

Adoration is the nexus of the grit of my life and God’s Word and His whisper. Adoration is where I come to Him, from within a minute in my life that stretches me or causes me anxiety or makes me want to escape to my phone, and I bring Him those emotions, and I let His Word intersect with my own heart and mind.

It looked like this for me, this week:

A child writhed, struggling with the natural teenage tension — wanting freedom yet still hungry for dependence. In their wrestle, they lashed out at me. My heart hurt for this child. My heart hurt for me.

I became like a teenager in my insides: wanting to be heard, desperate to be seen, alongside a mix of anger and sadness. I rehearsed the conversation in my mind, reaching for how to say what I felt better… how to make my point heard louder. My inner dialogue, coupled with fears I let in about my relationship with this child and even their future, sent my mind roiling.

Until.

I stepped away to a quiet room in my house.

I brought my ache to God. (This is key. The Psalmists gave us a grid for how they brought their real emotion to God, as they adored.) I told Him how I felt. It took minutes to unravel the initial, more obvious thoughts and, then, discover what lay underneath them. It wasn’t just this moment that had made me ache. Fear draped like a wet blanket over any clear thinking I might have.

I told God how I felt. I invited Him into my internal dialogue.

I opened the Word. After disrobing my heart before God, I realized my driver: fear. I had fears about this child’s future, our relationship, my motherhood, and on and on. These helped me know where to start in His Word. I needed to find God as the one who fielded my fear. I remembered Psalm 18.

David calls God in Psalm 18, “my rock,” “my deliverer,” and “my fortress.”

This was enough for me. If I was honest, I didn’t believe God was steady enough for this circumstance, wasn’t sure He could deliver either my child or me from our failure — and certainly didn’t find Him safe from my inner accusations or my child’s unfettered thoughts about me, in their pain.

So, I adored from this place.

This was my prayer:

God, I feel helpless. I feel like I’m failing, and I’m afraid of the future for this child and our relationship. This conversation has me spinning in fear.

Your Word tells me You are my rock. I have a hard time believing this, but Your Word says it’s true; thus, I adore. God, I adore You as my rock. You steady me because You are steady. You don’t move.

Your Word says You are my deliverer and my fortress. I feel unnoticed, even by You. I wonder if You could or even would deliver me. Deep down inside, I wonder if You would care enough to be my fortress. But Your Word tells me otherwise. God, I adore You as the one who cares enough to deliver me. You want to deliver me from this very moment. You want to lift me above it, while giving me the safety of knowing what to do in it. You shield us – both my child and me – in Your safe fortress.

There were more words than this, but you get the gist.

For adoration to impact the recesses of my heart, I have to bring those recesses to God. And in order for my thinking to shift, I have to acknowledge the dissonance between what my fear tells me and what His Word actually says.

And as I pray, unfurled before Him and vulnerable enough to receive what He might say in His Word… my heart shifts.

This is adoration.

It’s changing me, minute-by-minute.

And so I might say to this young couple today, as they look ahead, desirous to stay wildly alive in God as they grow in age: give Him your middle minutes. The ones that seem insignificant and the ones you rush past.

We learn to fall in love with God over a lifetime, one minute at a time.

Written for Devotionals Daily by Sara Hagerty, author of Adore.

Mark 12:29-31

THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.' "The second is this, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

This is the beginning of eternal life. Love God, love others, and everything else will fall in place.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith August 5, 2022

All Things

If Job could have known as he sat there in the ashes, bruising his heart on this problem of providence - that in the trouble that had come upon him he was doing what one man may do to work out the problem for the world, he might again have taken courage. No man lives to himself. Job’s life is but your life and mine written in larger text...So, then, though we may not know what trials wait on any of us, we can believe that, as the days in which Job wrestled with his dark maladies are the only days that make him worth remembrance, and but for which his name had never been written in the Book of Life, so the days through which we struggle, finding no way, but never losing the light, will be the most significant we are called to live. -Robert Collyer (Streams in the Desert)

What if in the midst of Job’s trials he could have read, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose?” (Romans 8:28)

Would those words have brought him comfort, hope, and perhaps even joy, or would they have seemed a small, almost offensive quote that failed to assess the scope of his circumstances?

Remember, the book of Job is the oldest book in the Bible so he would not have had the context of understanding the history of God’s interaction with His people. The Bible stories of our youth would not have been in the library of his memory. David and Goliath, Daniel and the lion’s den, the nativity story, Calvary, Paul’s epistles, are all yet stories to be told and lessons to be taught long after Job’s death.

You may think this a strange question to ask but let me ask you an even stranger one: Why would we, with the account of God’s Word, the history of our own experience with God, the gift of His Son, and the revelation of His Holy Spirit ever doubt for a second the absolute integrity and unalterable truth of that verse found in Romans?

Job, this righteous man surely did wonder at his circumstances yet proclaimed, “I know my Redeemer lives” and “Though You slay me, yet will I trust You!”

Job had so much faith based on so little information! Often we have so little faith based on so much information! Can any of us testify that God ever failed us? Has God ever fallen short or not come through for the best interests of the kingdom in any situation throughout history or in our lives now?

He is always faithful! He simply cannot be unfaithful.

So we can be absolutely sure in the midst of whatever our present circumstances may be, that all things are working together for good. The only thing we have to be sure of is that we are “those who love Him” and we are “called according to His purpose.”

This is really a simple thing to determine. You either love Him or you don’t. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Proclaim your love for Him today in both the words you say and the life you live. If you truly love Him, the “called” part is automatic, because every disciple is called to His purposes.

It always comes back to love, have you noticed that? In Job’s life as in ours, the enemy of our soul seeks to discourage and damage our love relationship with Jesus. It is in that arena that the battles are always won or lost.

The story of Job’s life serves as a great testimony to God’s faithfulness and an encouragement to every believer going through a struggle. In the same way, our life’s story should serve as a similar testimony and encouragement to others watching now and hearing later.

In the final analysis, we will remember more the treasures given in darkness than the blessings received in the light. We will be remembered more for how we dealt with adversity than how we dealt with blessing.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart.” And then you will possess the assurance that in any and every situation all things are working together for good. All things!

________________________________________

Perhaps some of you felt this letter sounded somewhat familiar. In fact, this edition of the Praiseletter is a reissue of a letter I sent out over a decade ago.

Some of you are aware that I recently had surgery for prostate cancer. The surgery went well, my recovery went and continues to go well also. However, it was time to write the Praiseletter right in the middle of all this surgery stuff and honestly, I just wasn’t up for it. My daughter suggested I go back and find a letter from the past that may be just the right message for the present. Hence...All Things.

This letter ministered to me as though it had been sent from a friend to encourage me in my present circumstance. I pray you find similar encouragement.

Please continue to keep both Linda and me in your prayers as we continue on the “upward way.”

We trust Him completely and find peace and rest in His continual faithfulness and sufficient grace.

In Christ,

Dallas Holm

I receive Dallas Holm’s newsletters through email and have requested permission to forward them to my faithful followers of Jesus. His writings, his music over the years, have blessed me immensely and I love sharing all of it with you. May God give you mercy, grace and hope for the day and joyous expectation for tomorrow.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith August 4, 2022

Closer Than You Think

Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.” — Matthew 14:27 NKJV

When the disciples saw Jesus in the middle of their stormy night, they called him a ghost. A phantom. To them, the glow was anything but God.

When we see gentle lights on the horizon, we often have the same reaction. We dismiss occasional kindness as apparitions, accidents, or anomalies. Anything but God.

And because we look for the bonfire, we miss the candle. Because we listen for the shout, we miss the whisper.

But it is in burnished candles that God comes, and through whispered promises he speaks: “When you doubt, look around; I am closer than you think.”

~In the Eye of the Storm

God honors radical, risk-taking faith

God's Help is Near

The Lord is close to everyone who prays to Him, to all who truly pray to Him. — Psalm 145:18

Healing begins when we do something. Healing begins when we reach out. Healing starts when we take a step.

God’s help is near and always available, but it is only given to those who seek it. Nothing results from apathy.

God honors radical, risk-taking faith.

When arks are built, lives are saved. When soldiers march, Jerichos tumble. When staffs are raised, seas still open. When a lunch is shared, thousands are fed. And when a garment is touched — whether by the hand of an anemic woman in Galilee or by the prayers of a beggar in Bangladesh — Jesus stops. He stops and responds.

~He Still Moves Stones

Depend on the Lord; trust Him, and He will take care of you. — Psalm 37:5

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. —

Psalm 34:8 NKJV

Merciful father, I see that You are good. I fear you and am humbled when I look toward Your face. You bless me when I don’t deserve it.

Lord, I often feel far from You. Bring me close and remind me what it’s like to be in close relationship with You.

Would You be with all those who are lonely right now? Surround them with a loving community and fulfill all their needs.

Thank You that I don’t need anything when I am in You.

In the name of Jesus, amen.

~ In the Eye of the Storm

Excerpted from Grace for the Moment Notetaking by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.

All we really need in life is the presence of God…He is with you all the time and everywhere you go. Be blessed in His presence!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith August 3, 2022

Tim Moore: If you missed our most recent episode of Christ in Prophecy, then you really missed out on a great blessing. Joining us on our program was special guest Joni Eareckson Tada!

Joni’s testimony will give you hope. Her life changed in an instant when she dove into the Chesapeake Bay and broke her neck. At the tender age of 17, she became a quadriplegic. Refusing to wallow in despair, she overcame unexpected adversity to serve as an example of how to live by faith through extreme suffering. To cite Jeremiah 29:11, “God had a plan for her, to give her a future and a hope.”

Nathan Jones: Joni guided us through the writings of Jeremiah, the so-called “Prophet of Doom,” particularly Jeremiah’s second book — Lamentations. In our “Jesus in the Old Testament” series, we’ve left the period of the kings of Israel and Judah, from roughly 1000 to 600 BC. The era was a sad commentary on the decline of a nation that initially had pledged itself in a covenant relationship to Almighty God.

Tim Moore: Jeremiah’s book of laments captures his heartbreak at witnessing the ravishing of Jerusalem and the people who refused to repent of their faithlessness and wickedness. Written shortly after the fall of the city in 586 BC, it is the saddest book in the Bible. It contains horrors almost too graphic to read. But, even as he expresses the bitterness crushing his heart in Lamentations, Jeremiah clings to the mercy of God, expressing hope in the midst of despair.

Joni’s Amazing Testimony

Tim Moore: Joni, you were confronted with a calamity. At some point or another, all of us will experience at least a minor calamity in our life, and it is only human nature to dwell on our pain and loss. Without dredging up too many painful memories, please share how the accident affected you initially, both spiritually and psychologically.

Joni Eareckson Tada: As you can imagine, I was utterly devasted. I am seventeen years old, athletic, on the go, and ready to head to college. I had asked the Lord Jesus right before I was to go to college orientation if He would please do something in my life that would bring me closer to Him. I knew that college would have its temptations, and so, I wanted a closer walk with Jesus.

Now, I had prayed that prayer right before high school graduation. And, not but two weeks after my graduation from high school, I took a reckless dive thoughtlessly into shallow water. My head hit the bottom of a sandbar. The impact crunched my neck back, smashing my vertebra, and severing my spinal cord.

I cannot begin to tell you the despair I felt, especially having just asked God to give me a closer walk with Jesus. I remember laying in the hospital bed thinking, “Lord Jesus, if this is your idea of an answer to prayer to draw me closer to you, then I’m never going to trust you with another one of my prayers again.” I was devastated, and so I plummeted into depression.

But, thank the Lord, there were Christian friends who were praying. Real quickly friends, when people ask me: “Joni, what should I say, or what should I do, for this person who just suffered a catastrophic injury or illness?” My first response is “Pray!” because we wrestle not against the flesh and blood of spinal cord injury or other disabilities, no, we wrestle against powers and principalities that would love nothing more than to keep us steeped in depression. So, I thank God for Christian friends who were praying for me back then.

Nathan Jones: Praise the Lord! Most people might not know, at least in the younger generation, that there was a whole movie made called Joni dedicated to telling your life and experience, should they wish to know more about your testimony.

Obviously, when you don’t have access to your body anymore, that’s a very despairing situation. Was there a particular Bible verse that helped you keep going and help you become an overcomer? Because, Joni, you clearly are an overcomer.

Joni Eareckson Tada: During my depression, there was one Christian friend who pulled up a chair by my hospital bedside and he said: “Joni, I know you want to get out of your despair. Let me give you a Bible verse that can be your anchor. Start here.” And then he quoted to me 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

I remember saying to my friend, “What?! No way! I’m not going to do that. I don’t feel thankful. I’d be a hypocrite if I did that.” And he wisely said, “Joni, let’s read the verse today. It doesn’t say ‘in everything feel thankful,’ rather it says ‘in everything give thanks.'”

There’s a really big difference between trusting God and having trustful feelings. So, you’ve got to push your emotions aside. Push away that box of Kleenex. Just take a deep breath, a step of faith, and start giving thanks.

And so, I did just that. I started mouthing thankfulness. I really wasn’t thankful, but I wanted to be obedient. And so, I started thanking God that my hospital bed was at least near the window. I thanked God that my family was supportive. I thanked God that people were coming to visit me. I thanked God that after so many months I was finally able to sit up in a wheelchair. I thanked God for the breakfast that the nurses would first serve on my side of the hospital hallway because that meant it would be warm. For all kinds of things, I started giving thanks to God.

Those small, drastic obediences of giving thanks really exercised my muscle of faith. Over time I began to feel thankful. I believe it was God’s reward for my faithfulness in relying on His Word. He gave me the emotion of thankfulness. So, I would point to 1 Thessalonians 5:18 as the verse that really kick-started me on the path of righteousness and back to God.

Tim Moore: Joni, so many people will look upon your physical limitations, as they are obvious and apparent, but they will also see that you have become an overcomer. Many people in our society today carry deep emotional and spiritual scars. How can we be sensitive to the hurt and suffering happening to lives all around us and still point people to the kind of faith that you exhibit?

Joni Eareckson Tada: As I said at the onset, pray for these people. Don’t pray sporadically, rather pray committedly, diligently, and specifically. Come alongside them. I had friends who were faithful in visiting me on a regular basis. They not only brought their Bibles, but they also brought their guitars, and they brought pizza. When I got a weekend pass, they took me to a local mall. They did things with me. They just embodied the gospel of Jesus. They didn’t just preach at me — they loved me. And of course, love is a verb; it does things. Their expressions of love got me back into the mainstream of life.

I also think it is important to be realistic. This July made it 55 years that I’ve been in a wheelchair. I also live daily with chronic pain. I don’t sleep very well because I am often awakened by the pain. There are mornings, actually on most mornings, I wake up and before my eyes are even opened I’m crying out: “Oh, God, I cannot do this one more day. I’m so tired of this pain. I don’t have the endurance. I can’t do quadriplegia anymore!” But, then I add: “Jesus, I can do all things through you who strengthens me. Lord Jesus, I am empty. I am cavernous. I need your filling. I can’t do one more hour without You. God help me!”

And, do you know what? It is in this way that God loves to pour out His grace on people. He resists the proud. He resists those who hit the alarm, jump out of bed, throw back the covers, take a shower, scarf down breakfast, and race out the front door on automatic cruise control without hardly ever giving God the tip of the hat of a quiet time. He resists those people. But, He gives grace to the humble. The humble are simply people who wake up in the morning realizing their desperate need for Jesus. It’s how I’ve lived these past 55 years in a wheelchair, which makes my smile pretty authentic, and not made of Colgate, for sure.

Nathan Jones: Joni, let me tell you how much of an inspiration you’ve been to me. My father used to take me to book trade shows in Nashville, and I remember looking up at you and watching you paint. I can’t even draw a stick figure, and here you are painting with your mouth! This shows how young I was because I was looking up at you sitting in a wheelchair. And then, years later, when my youngest son was diagnosed with autism, I ran into you at a convention. You stopped everything and gave me some information about your ministry, Joni & Friends. My wife and I have been supporters of your ministry for 15 or so years now. So, I just want to tell you being an overcomer has been an inspiration to so many people, especially to my wife and me.

Joni Eareckson Tada: Oh, Nathan, thank you! I’m still drawing with my mouth. I recently drew a picture when my occupational therapist encouraged me in occupational therapy to draw something that expressed my feelings. And so, I drew my face in anguish. It is a face of, “Oh, God, I’ve got to do this. This is the way I’m to live my life?” Not only is it my portrait, but it is also everybody’s portrait. At times we all say: “God I can’t do this. This is my life? How am I going to manage?”

And so, that particular charcoal drawing pretty much expresses where I was at the time of my injury. And, oh, the difference the Lord Jesus has made! And it is why that particular charcoal drawing is one of my favorites, for it reminds me of where I have come from and the power of the grace of God to change things.

Tim Moore: You reminded me of what happened when Jesus spoke at the synagogue in Nazareth. He proclaimed a Messianic passage that was fulfilled in the hearing of the people sitting there that day. But, the rest of Isaiah’s prophecy, He did not read, for it pointed to a time when the Messiah would indeed fulfill the rest of the scripture which foretells that the Messiah would bestow “a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” That is so evident in your life.

And yet, as we look into the book of Lamentations — a book of lament and despair — the prophet also has a moment when he glimpses the hope that exists even in the midst of despair. In times of trial and despair, what can Jeremiah the prophet teach from the book of Lamentations to those of us living today?

Joni Eareckson Tada: We all know that verse from Jeremiah 29:11. Some probably have it embroidered or placed on a plaque on our walls. “For the Lord knows the plans He has for us, to give us hope and a future.” And yet, Jeremiah wrote that as the people of God were being dragged off into slavery to spend the next 70 years in abject subjection to rulers and domineering tyrants. It was not an easy time for them.

I love Lamentations 3:21-26 because it is so hopeful. Jeremiah says, “But this I call to mind,” okay, whenever you’re suffering, whenever you are hurting, Lamentations 3:21, “…this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The Lord’s great love will keep me from being consumed, for His compassions never fail, they are new every morning.” Okay, right there — great is God’s faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion, I will wait for Him.” This calls to mind the goodness of the Lord Jesus and that He is especially good to those who hope in Him, to the one who seeks Him every single morning.

Nathan Jones: Jeremiah had just witnessed Judah being destroyed by the Babylonians and his people taken away into exile, so he is naturally lamenting. Exile is God’s tough love for hundreds and hundreds of years of Israel rebelling against Him and breaking their covenant. God shows them tough love. But, in the midst of their suffering, Jeremiah offers hope that the Lord is also giving. It’s rather a dichotomy, isn’t it? We’ve got tough love, but we also have God showing tough hope. How can we all gain that tough hope?

Joni Eareckson Tada: I love the way you put that, Nathan — tough hope. Hope is best described in Lamentations 3:32-33. These verses are anchors in my life, okay. These two verses have changed my life. Jeremiah says, “Though He,” that is God, “…brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love.” Now, get this, “…for He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.”

So, right there in that one little Bible verse, Lamentations 3:33 really reflects the heart of God. Though He allows grief and affliction to touch us, He doesn’t do it willingly, that is, He doesn’t do it from His heart. He did not want my diving accident to occur in the sense that He enjoyed it, or got a big kick out of it, or “Oh, let’s break this girl’s neck and now let’s see what I can do with that.” No. No. No! Suffering and affliction, when it comes to us by His overarching will and foreordained plan, is something that God takes no delight in.

That one little Bible verse — Lamentations 3:33 — reflects the heart of God like nowhere else in the Bible. Think of it, the book of Lamentations is divided into five chapters, and the first two chapters are each comprised of 22 verses. The last two chapters also have 22 verses in them. However, the middle of the book is chapter three, and it comprises 66 verses. Now, here is the intriguing part, the exact middle of that chapter is verse 33 which reads, “He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.” Wow! That Bible verse falls in the exact middle of the entire book of Lamentations. It is right at the apex of the entire book.

I think there’s a good reason why, because when it comes to suffering, whether it was the suffering that the prophet Jeremiah was speaking of to God’s people, or the suffering that God might allow in our lives, God wants us to know that He has the heart of a Father. We may not understand His ways, but He definitely wants you to understand that He has the heart of a kind and compassionate “Abba, Father, Daddy.”

It doesn’t make God happy to see us hit with hardship. But, oh, my goodness, it does make God happy when He sees all of the things He can do in your life due to it, and how He will encourage others through it, if you would but trust in Him and believe that His mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness!

I would like to meet this special lady if God allows here on earth. What a testimony! Making comparisons is usually not a very good way to understand our lives but as I look at my own life and struggles and compare them with Joni’s and other dear friends that have suffered greatly, I am overwhelmingly blessed! And so are they! God is good all the time and does have eternal perfection waiting for those who have prayed and longed for relief from suffering in this life. We will be there soon, praising, worshipping, giving thanks for His faithfulness.

I know I will see you soon Joni. Praise the Lord!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith August 2, 2022

Am I a Kingdom-Minded Leader?

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal. ~ Albert Pike

A while back, I bumped into an older lady who recognized me as the pastor of Life.Church. She explained that she was a member of another church in town. Although I didn’t know her pastor well, I said that I’d heard a lot of great things about him. She responded, “Wow! I can’t believe you’re speaking well of the competition.” Shocked, I explained that in no way did I view her church as a competitor. She shot back, “Well, your church is definitely our competition. We’re fighting to make sure we get as many members as we can before you and other churches get them all.”

God’s heart must break over that kind of attitude. Jesus said in Luke 11:17,

Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall.

Seventeenth-century Puritan minister Richard Baxter echoed Jesus’ sentiment when he lamented, “Is it not enough that all the world is against us, but we must also be against one another? O happy days of persecution, which drove us together in love, whom the sunshine of liberty and prosperity crumbles into dust by our contentions!”

The more possessive and competitive we are, the more divided we become. Virtually every ministry I’ve ever known that had it was not divisive. The leaders were Kingdom minded.

What do I mean by Kingdom minded?

A Kingdom-minded ministry is one whose leaders care more about what God is doing everywhere than what God is doing right here. Kingdom-minded leaders know it’s not just about their own ministry. A Kingdom-minded ministry is generous and eager to partner with others to get more done for the glory of God.

It’s hard to have it without desiring that other ministries succeed. When you have it, you know that it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to God. He gives it. And since it is his and not yours, you’re grateful to have it and willing to share it.

Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined

Those who have it know it is not about them. It is not about their personal names. It is not about North Point, Elevation Church, Transformation Church, Gateway Church, Wesley United Methodist, First Baptist, First Presbyterian, First Christian, Calvary Chapel, Hope City, Redeemer Covenant, Fresh Life, Lord of Life Lutheran, Holy Ghost Temple of Righteous Praise, or whatever your church is called. It is not about your student ministry, your children’s ministry, your YouTube presence, your church app, your new logo or website. And it is certainly not about your name.

It is about Jesus.

There’s no other name under Heaven by which we can be saved, and so no other name really matters. It’s all about Him.

I learned this the hard way. There was one particular year in our church when we definitely didn’t have it. This happened to be the year our church didn’t grow. I think we didn’t grow because we had lost focus — I had lost focus — and it blurred, faded, and disappeared.

One weekend that year, I was driving between our two campuses to speak. Each time I made that trip, I passed several churches. By the looks of one’s empty parking lot, very few people were attending. With a combination of pride and pity, I prayed, God, help this little church. I pray you would bless them and they’d reach a ton of new people.

As I was praying, I felt like God asked me a question. Craig, would you be excited if their growth exceeded yours?

My honest answer was no.

That’s hard to admit. No, I wouldn’t have been happy if this church outgrew ours. It wasn’t that I didn’t want them reaching people. I just wanted to reach more. No matter how you slice that apple, I was territorial, insecure, and self-centered. While I had a heart for God’s Kingdom, my biggest desire was to build my kingdom, and God simply won’t bless that. He shouldn’t. I think that’s why we weren’t growing. If I were God, I wouldn’t have grown our church either.

Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their Kingdom is not of this world and yet they lay their hands on everything they can get.” Do you know any pastors like that? We say our church or ministry is not about us. But for many of us, “us” is all we can talk or think about. Not only is our Kingdom not of this world but to build our kingdoms is surely one of the grossest sins. After I recognized my sinful attitude, my prayers changed. God, make me more generous. Expand my heart for others. Make me a Kingdom-minded leader.

As pastors and Christian leaders, we should be thrilled when other ministries succeed. You may think you are, but have you noticed how much easier it is to be pumped for those who are growing in another town? Yeah, God! I’m thrilled their ministry in that other state is growing! But if they’re in my town, it’s easy to feel threatened or competitive. What? The church down the street is doing well? They must be preaching a feel-good message.

That attitude is wrong.

It’s dangerous.

I’d go so far as to say that God won’t let a ministry keep it for long if they won’t give it away. Keeping it to yourself is a sure way to kill it. Ministries that don’t have much of it often work hard to guard what little of it they have. What’s funny about it is that the more you try to hoard it, the less of it you tend to have. The more you’re willing to give it away, the more of it God seems to give.

Adapted from Lead Like IT Matters: 7 Leadership Principles for a Church That Lasts by Craig Groeschel.

There is not a lot about my personal ministry or the ministries of our church over the years that I have been here that has been what I expected or planned. But God! Love those words…But God has done exceedingly abundantly above all that I could ask or even think and I am grateful to be a part of serving Him and you in His kingdom work. Let us be a blessing to ALL in the kingdom for His name’s sake. This is certainly not an earthly competition! Be heavenly minded!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith August 1, 2022

Notes of Faith August 1, 2022

Article by Marshall Segal

Staff writer, desiringGod.org

You Need Good Friends

Few realities in human life are as captivating, fulfilling, and elusive as friendship. Most of us have tasted its deep and dynamic potential for good at some point along our journeys, and yet most of us can also testify to having neglected friendship, maybe for years. Maybe for decades. As Drew Hunter observes, “Friendship is, for many of us, one of the most important but least thought about aspects of life” (Made for Friendship, 23). How much time do you spend thinking about your friendships?

Many of us give our friendships less attention than they deserve, and we suffer for it. The absence of good friends slowly starves everything else we do. A husband without good friends will be a worse husband. A mother without good friends will be a worse mother. A pastor, a doctor, a teacher, and an engineer will all be less effective at their callings without the support and camaraderie of friends. And this thread weaves quietly through Scripture. How many saints can you think of who do something worth imitating while friendless?

To be sure, Jesus stormed the grave by himself. It had to be so. And yet even he spent most of his life and ministry with a handful of guys. And as the cross drew near, he said to them, “No longer do I call you servants . . . but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). He may have died alone, but he lived among brothers, because friendship is an essential part of being fully human.

Unnecessary and Vital Love

That being said, friendship is an unusual relationship because it’s not essential to existence. It’s why friendship is so often neglected — and, ironically, why it holds so much power and potential.

C.S. Lewis writes, “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival” (Four Loves, 90). We spend tens of hours a week on work because we would die without food and shelter. Friendship isn’t feeding the kids or paying the mortgage. But it can make parenting richer and more bearable, and make a home feel a lot more like home.

We may be able to live — to eat, drink, work, sleep, and survive — without friends, but what kind of life would that be? The truly good life, we all know by experience, is a shared life. Lewis goes on,

Our ancestors regarded Friendship as something that raised us almost above humanity. This love, free from instinct, free from all duties but those which love has freely assumed, almost wholly free from jealousy, and free without qualification from the need to be needed, is eminently spiritual. It is the sort of love one can imagine between angels. (98)

“We may be able to eat, drink, work, sleep, and survive without friends, but what kind of life would that be?”

Unnecessary and angelic — this describes the mysterious reality of friendship. It raises, or even removes, the ceiling on all our other experiences. Most of what we love to do, we love to do all the more with friends. Those who find meaningful friendship experience a nearly super-human life. Why? Because they get to see more of God, and because they get so much more done, together.

Personal Windows into God

How does Christian friendship raise us above the unremarkable rhythms of our humanity? First, by intimately introducing us to more of God’s creativity and supremacy. Those who see him together will see more of him. Lewis captures this capacity of friendship when he writes,

Friendship exhibits a glorious “nearness by resemblance” to Heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. . . . The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have. (79)

The beauty and worth of God cannot be exhausted by one pair of eyes, by one finite mind and heart. Therefore, two really can see more than one. The more we share of him, the more we have of him. Surely, this is one reason why God plans to redeem people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, right (Revelation 7:9). Because whatever makes each of them unique prepares them to notice and treasure dimensions of Christ that millions of others might miss.

So it is in friendship. As we gaze at God together, over months and years and longer, walking through joys and sorrows, victories and losses, blessings and adversity, we get to see him through each other’s eyes. Worship is communal and contagious. Every human life has the potential to be a unique window into the divine. Because that’s who God is — Father, Son, and Spirit forever adoring and glorifying one another.

Courage in Flesh and Blood

As friendships help us see more of God, though, they also unleash us to live more radically for God. What good have any of us done in the world without the help or encouragement of friends? As you take yourself back through anything you’ve accomplished in life and ministry, and then allow yourself to look around for a minute, what do you see? For many of us, we see faces. The most defining moments of our lives have been most defined not by addresses, degrees, or promotions, but by people — often, by friends.

Hunter highlights the unusual and spiritual productivity of friendship:

One of the greatest gifts we can offer our friends is sheer encouragement. As we listen and light up to their ideas, we stir their souls into action. We lift their hearts and spur them on. Much of what is truly good in the world is the fruit of friendship. (71)

Why did Jesus send the disciples out in twos (Mark 6:7)? Perhaps he was concerned for their safety on the road (a kind of grown-up buddy-system). It seems far more likely to me that he wanted them each to have built-in, by-their-side courage to keep going when ministry got hard. He knew they would do far more good as twelve pairs than they would on twenty-four different paths. (WHAT? Sould be six pairs Mark 6:7, and then Jesus sent out the 70 in pairs as well Luke 10:1) He knew they would conquer sin and Satan together in ways they couldn’t alone.

Friendship Isn’t About Friendship

These two insights about friendship — that friends helps us see more of God and that they free us to do more for his glory — explain what makes friendship precious. And what makes it possible. Good friendships, after all, aren’t about friendship, which means we won’t experience them by focusing on them. Again, Lewis, wisely observes,

Lovers are always talking to one another about their love; Friends hardly every about their Friendship. Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in some interest. (78)

“Good friendships aren’t about friendship, which means we won’t experience them by focusing on them.”

Lovers often find one another looking for love. Friends find one another while chasing something else. They providentially collide while striving after God, while studying his word, while loving their families, while meeting needs in the church, while discipling younger believers, while pursuing the lost. “The very condition of having Friends,” Lewis continues, “is that we should want something else besides Friends. . . . Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travelers” (85).

If you want to experience real friendship, go hard after God, take bigger risks to glorify him with your life, and then look around to see who’s running with you.

Friends are friends forever, if the Lord’s the Lord of them. Find an eternal friend and stick closer than a brother!

Pastor Dale