New direction in posting

Should there be anyone who looks at this site please know that i have moved my archive for the Monday Encouragement to a new web site: leipsicfcc.org . You will find there the Monday Encouragements and information regarding the First Christian Church of Leipsic, OH.  You can also access sermons that I have been preaching as well.  thanks for checking in.

August 4, 2008

Good Monday!

            Have you ever wanted to do something so badly that you could taste it?  Well, not literally, but you know what I mean.  Maybe it was talk to someone about something or stand up for a wrong that had been committed or just plain believe for something that seemed impossible.  I have.  I’m sure you have too.  But sometimes, we think we can muster up the courage to do that “something” and for some reason or another we kind of back down and let the moment pass.  And then you beat yourself up and say, “If I was a better or a stronger person, I could do that.  Sometimes it’s a matter of faith.

            I was reading this morning about Peter and his experience of walking on the water.  That previous day had been some kind of day for Jesus and his disciples.  Jesus had just heard that Herod had beheaded his cousin, John the Baptist.  He attempted to go away by himself to be by himself and the crowds began pressing him.  In Matthew it says that He had compassion on them and spent the day teaching them.  At evening time, the crowd was hungry and He fed five thousand men (plus women and children) using only five loaves and two fish, and his disciples, Peter included, was given the job of cleaning up afterwards.    When that task was finished, the Bible tells us “Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd” (Matthew 14:22).  So in the boat they went (where was Jesus?) and off they went to the other side.  Verse 25 tells us that at the fourth watch (about 3:00 AM), a huge storm came up and just tossed the boat all over the place and the disciples became terrified.  (Oh, Jesus, where are you when we need you?!)  And then, from nowhere, they looked out onto the water and they saw Jesus walking up to them.  At first they thought it was a ghost, but then they realized that it was the Lord.  He was telling them to have courage and to not be afraid.

            So Peter, always the impetuous one, looked out on the water and said, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.”  He saw Jesus and he thought, “OK, it He can do that, he can certainly make it possible for me to do it too.”  And so, the Bible tells us “Peter got down out of the boat and walked on the water to Jesus.”  (“Hey, look at me, I can do it!”)  Here he was, perhaps feeling pretty confident in his abilities, when all of a sudden, it says that he saw the wind and the waves, he began to sink.  And as he was going under, this confident man looked over at Jesus and yelled out at the top of his lungs, “Lord, save me!”  I want you to hear what the next verse says. Verse 31 says, “Immediately, Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.  “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”  Peter cried out in prayer and the Bible says that immediately, Jesus responded.

            By the way, Jesus spent the time between dismissing the crowd and walking out to the boat in prayer.  Back in verse 23 it says that Jesus went up into the hills by himself to pray.  He prepared himself ahead of time for the things that were ahead of him.  Even after a busy and stressful day.

            I want to encourage you today to begin each challenge you are faced with in prayer.  If you have something that you need to do, or say, or believe, begin the process with prayer.  Don’t do it like Peter did, who prayed after the problem started.  Now the good news is that no matter when you pray, immediately Jesus will respond.  But it is much more profitable for you to begin your endeavor in prayer rather than after the fact.  Don’t be afraid to go to God in prayer.  He can’t wait to hear from you.

            Have a great week!!!  God bless.

Pastor Tim

July 28, 2008

Good Monday!

            This past week several of the churches in our community, including the one that I pastor, joined together to put on our Daily Vacation Bible School.  The location of our VBS is rotated each year and each church sends a representative to serve on a planning committee.  It was a wildly successful week.  Our biggest evening was on Tuesday when we greeted 140 children to the small church where we were meeting.  It was wonderful to watch the way everyone worked together to make it all work.  The pastor of the host church is a young man who is on fire for the Lord and the two of us had an opportunity to get to know each other a little better.  While I have been serving in Leipsic for 14 years now, he just completed his second year.  At one point Nestor asked me how I came to know Jesus Christ. 

            I told him that it was my wife’s fault.  Actually, Denise and I were just dating and she knew that I was not a believer.  She knew that she had a very small window of opportunity to tell me about Jesus and that if I was unwilling to give my life to Him she knew that there was no future for the two of us.  First she had “tricked” me into going to church with her.  We both worked at a grocery store and we both were scheduled a Sunday off.  We were going to go to brunch and she asked me to meet her at an address in Toledo.  I went to the address and it was a church.  I had never gone to church, and I was a little worried about what I was to do next.  The truth of the matter was this: I did not have a personal relationship with Christ when we first started dating.  She knew that. I thought I was a Christian (only because I knew I wasn’t of the Jewish or Muslim faith).  I didn’t really know what a Christian was.  I never grew up attending church of any kind.  My parents were not involved in a church and so Sunday mornings were just great “sleeping-in” days. 

After that first visit to church I started to attend regularly with her and found myself in a very uncomfortable setting.  I wasn’t uncomfortable because of the people in the church—I just didn’t understand what was going on.  But I was “smitten” by this young woman and I wanted to find out more about her, so I went to church with her to see what made her “tick.”  As she began to share her faith with me I decided that I could “pretend” being a Christian so that I could spend more time with her.  And so, in her presence I portrayed myself as a very “religious” person.  When I was with my “buddies,” I allowed my true nature to shine.  And so my “religion” was a game.  I was pious when I was with her but I was genuinely a heathen (which was my real nature) with my friends.  It was a game that I played in which I had to constantly be aware of who the players were.

One weekend, she had invited me to her church camp for a youth retreat that she had helped organize.  I had traveled there with her father, the two sons of the pastor of the church, and an elder of the same church, whose daughter was going to be baptized in a lake during an evening service that night. That evening I witnessed the young lady profess her faith in Jesus and she was then  be baptized in this lake in front of a very large gathering of people.  It was a pretty emotional time for many of the people who were there.  It seemed like they were celebrating something that I was not a part of.  I had no idea what the big deal was.  That evening in a cabin of several young men I found myself “trapped” with a bunch of Christians—and they were genuine in their “religion.”  They were having devotions and the baptism subject was a part of the conversation.  I made a few choice comments about what I had witnessed and it became clear to some there that I was not a part of their group.  They were very kind to me in spite of myself.  Something was going on that made me very uncomfortable and I was reacting to it very negatively.  I ended up burying my head in my sleeping bag hoping that this silly youth retreat would be soon over.  This group of guys was way too open in talking about their faith for me.  I was counting the hours before I was able to go home.  Little did I know that God had something in store for me the next morning.

            As the sun awakened us the next morning, following a breakfast in the mess hall, we all gathered to walk up a steep hill for morning worship.  The hill was the traditional place for worship and at the top of this hill was cement cross from which a wooden cross had been erected with the name Jesus hanging from a sign at the top of it.  Making a long story short, the minister who brought the message shared a message about the love of God and His desire to bring reconciliation to his created beings.  At one point he said that Jesus Christ came to die for the sins of the whole world and even if any one of us had been the only one on earth, he still would have died in our place.  I looked up onto that wooden cross and in my minds eye, pictured Him hanging there--for me.  I knew then that I could no long pretend to be a Christian—I needed to completely yield my life to Jesus and live for Him.  I quietly prayed to receive Jesus and my life was almost immediately transformed.  This was real stuff and I didn’t know what to do next. 

            God took care of that.  My transformation was so dramatic that things I used to want to do, I no longer wanted to do.  My friends and my family were the first to notice.  And it made them a bit uncomfortable as well.  To make matters worse (for those people) was that God called me to be a minister three months later and so it became really awkward for people to process that.  I don’t think I was obnoxious in my faith—I was just a very different person that people noticed.  My “buddies” didn’t really want to hang out with me any more and even a special cousin called me from Florida to ask if I was selling flowers at the local airport wearing a robe with a shaved head.  She hadn’t seen me for quite a while but was getting family reports that caused her to be alarmed.

            Jesus said that that would happen.  It’s actually what happens when any of us decide to carry His cross.  In Matthew 10, Jesus is talking about several relationship challenges that happens with a believer when he or she chooses to follow Him.  Eventually He says in verse 38: “If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine.”  In other words, to take up that cross to follow Jesus means that we must be willing to publicly identify with Him, to experience any opposition (or misunderstanding) and to be willing to even face suffering (loss of friends?) or death.  That’s pretty radical.

            I want to encourage you who are carrying crosses right now.  You may be going through some rough times because you are choosing to live your life for Christ.  Some don’t understand your decision, some might even reject you.  I know that is hard.  But let me encourage you that even in some instances, your commitment to Christ will eventually win those who misunderstand you to respect and love you for your commitment.  I know that is absolutely true in my life.  My family and my friends are some of my biggest supporters and encouragers in my life right now.  They thought I jumped off into the deep end back then, but now, they embrace me and encourage me all the time.  Go ahead and pick up that cross.  Like in my case, Jesus will help you through it.  He will give you the strength you need.

            Have a wonderful week and remember that I am praying for you.  God bless!

Pastor Tim

July 21, 2008

Good Monday!

            It’s funny how some things that happened so long ago kind of pop into your mind for what seems like no reason at all.  Last evening Denise was going through many of the 57,998 pictures that we have taken over the past 30 years and putting some albums in order.  What she was trying to do I think was put pictures of the recent weddings together and while looking through pictures she went down memory lane.  She found some correspondence between my mother and our oldest son, Tim that she had saved. He was writing some kind of paper about his grandparents (and I can’t remember what grade he was in) and he had written to my parents (and also to his other grandparents) to get the needed information.  Of course, as soon as Denise handed me the envelope I immediately recognized my mother’s handwriting.  Though she and my father have been gone for over 7 years now, I was able to recognize that it was from her.  It was one of those documents that just put a smile on my face as I recalled the two of them sharing their stories (that I had heard many times before).

            For some reason I was thinking of my 13^th birthday and some of the arrogant behavior that I demonstrated at that age.  I can remember telling my dad that he was an old man (he was only 39) and that there was no way that he could beat me in a foot race.  I think he was telling one of his stories about his youth and I challenged him to a foot race.  It was going to be more of a dash than anything of distance so the two of us went half a block down the street and someone gave us the “Ready, Set, Go!” command.  I can remember that we were neck and neck all the way toward the finish line and then for no reason that I could think of my dad dove for the finish line.  Thinking back on that event he may have lost his footing and was falling.  But the next thing I notice is that he had crossed the finish line on his back.  It was obvious that he was in a tremendous amount of pain but he just looked at me and said, “So hot shot, thought you could beat me did you?”  I was put in my place.  Now the end of the story is that in dad’s dramatic finish to the famous foot race, he broke his arm (the elbow if I remember correctly) and the subsequent trip to the Emergency Room and the arm placed in a sling served as a badge of victory.  As a matter of fact the very last words I ever spoke to my father before he and my mother died was, “So do you feel well enough to take me on in a foot race?”  They had met me in a restaurant as they were heading to Florida for the winter. He said that he felt pretty good—but not that good.  Two weeks later, they were both gone, having died of pneumonia. 

            I know that in my younger years I was a very arrogant, self-centered young man.  It is certainly one of the character traits that I am least proud of.  But over the many years of following Christ, I really feel that he has honed me in this area and for this I give Him the glory.

            I was going through an old journal this morning and came across a passage in Isaiah that I wrote about.  In Isaiah 66:2 the prophet writes: “This is the one I [the Lord] esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” Now the people that Isaiah was addressing here, the people of Israel, were the exact opposite of the kind of person that Isaiah is describing.  The nation was proud and arrogant.  If you will, they were acting like a 13-year-old boy who arrogantly was challenging his dad.  In the next verse, the nation of Israel is described as those who have chosen their own way.  Unfortunately, in the end, the nation was thrown over by their enemies and the Israelites were banished from their promised land into captivity.  In the long run, their arrogance and pride led to their destruction.

            Humility is something that God desires of His people.  Perhaps the most humble example we have is that of Jesus, who Paul says, “…being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8)

            I would encourage you this week that as you live each day, ask yourself if you are living in humility.  We need to always keep ourselves in check to make sure that we put others before ourselves.  The great news is that when we practice humility God will lift us up and shower us with esteem.  I appreciate it when God shows me that I need to be more humble.  I encourage you to allow God to keep you humble.  Because if we do, there is a great reward: He will lift us up.  Look at what He did for Jesus (as we finish the Philippians passage): “Therefore God exalted him [Jesus] to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (vv. 9-11)

            Now no one will bow to you (because we are not Jesus) but God will lift you up and others will notice.  So let’s agree to be humble servants of our Lord Jesus Christ—and let the lifting up belong to God.  Now God won’t dive toward the finish like and break something to make his point.  He will gently bring you to a point where you will certainly know that He is working on your life in this area.

            Have a great week and may God keep you safe this week.

Pastor Tim

July 14, 2008

Good Monday!

            During our second worship service yesterday I invited the children of the church to come up to the front and listen to a children’s lesson that I had prepared just for them.  During the summer when we do not have a Junior Church Program either I or our son Matt will teach a short, simple lesson geared just for them.  Yesterday was my turn to come up with the lesson.  I have been teaching children’s sermons ever since I first went into ministry and could probably tell all kinds of stories on things children have said.  They are a riot and they tell the absolute truth—except for yesterday.

            I was sharing with them that on Saturday I “celebrated” another birthday.  As I set the story up I asked them if they enjoyed having birthday parties and the told me that they did.  Since I told them that my birthday was on Saturday, I asked them how old they thought I was.  I said, “Give me a number.”  They got really quiet and they seemed like they wanted to give me a number but they were afraid of what I might say.  So I asked one of the little boys, “Do you think I am older or younger than your grandparents.”  He hesitated for a moment and then he said, “Younger.”  I told him I appreciated that and pressed them for a number.  They just wouldn’t budge.  I could not get them to give me a number.  So I told them, “OK. Since you won’t give me a number I’ll tell you how old I am.” I then said, “I am 152 years old.”

            Of course they laughed but I could tell that they didn’t believe me.  I said, “I have made a decision that from here on out, I am going to add 100 to the actual number so that when people ask me how old I am I will tell them this outrageous number so that they will in turn say, ‘Well you look pretty good for 152 years of age.’”  I have to think that this should always work in my favor.  Then I told them that most everyone thinks that I am older than I really am, especially when I am standing next to my wife who looks a bit younger than I do. (This is where I sneak in some kind of line to mention that she is actually a bit older than I am—but don’t tell her that I said that).  Of course then people don’t believe that.  But now that I am 152, and people say that I look pretty good for that age, I’m feeling pretty good about my self.  Except that it is not true.  All I am looking for is some kind of affirmation that I look pretty good for my age—even my real age. 

            As I continued in my teaching to them, I said, “Really though, looks have nothing to do with it as far as God is concerned.  I then told them the story of how the prophet Samuel was told by God to go to Bethlehem and find a man named Jesse (1 Samuel 16).  God told him that one of Jesse’s sons would become the next king of Israel.  So, one by one, Jesse paraded 7 if his sons before Samuel only for Samuel to hear from God that none of the 7 were the one.  At one point Samuel was convinced that one of the boys was surely the anointed one because of how tall and strong he looked.  But God said to him in verse 7, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 

So Samuel says to Jesse, “Are these all the sons that you have?”  And Jesse responded, “There is still the youngest, but he is tending the sheep.” (v. 11) The young shepherd boy was brought from the fields to Samuel and immediately God says, “Rise and anoint him; he is the one. (v. 12)  And from this point on we would read at different times in the story of King David that he (David) was a man after God’s own heart.  Now does this mean that David was perfect?  Of course not.  We know the story of his sin with Bathsheba and though he was still a godly man, that sin was very costly—for it cost David and Bethsheba their child. But in spite of this, David’s heart was devoted to God and he and God had a wonderful relationship.

 How is your heart?  Is it a heart that is in love with God? Is it a heart that when God looks at it is one that wants to please Him?  I want to encourage you to develop a heart relationship that puts God first in EVERYTHING—regardless of how good you look.  He desires that we love him with all of our heart, strength and mind. He wants us to have a personal relationship with Him and He is not at all consumed with your looks, your status in society, your family name—whaterver.  He is interested only in your heart.  So let everyone of us take a very close look at our heart.  Is it in love with God?  Does your heart and your character match?  Are you a believer who wants to do whatever God wants you to do?  These and many more issues can be compared to your heart condition.  My prayer is that when you do a study of your own heart, that it can be said of you that you are a man or woman after God’s own heart.  That when people see you, they see God.

Here is hoping that you have a wonderful week and I will continue to pray God’s blessings upon you.  Until next Monday…

Pastor Tim