There was a recent addition to the menu selections at Wesley Owens Coffee shop that has really thrown me for a loop.  I never really drank coffee on a regular basis until we moved to the Monument area and I was introduced to the wonderful world of the heavenly Wesley’s Caramel with an extra shot of caramel.   Aric mixed me up a cup and I have been hooked ever since!  Here’s the problem.  The new flavor that has become my favorite is called “Pumpkin Patch”.  Now, I don’t know exactly why but there is just something about walking in and standing in front of people and ordering a “pumpkin patch” coffee.  It sounds like something that should come with a free toy with every cup.  But it is the greatest thing on earth!  So I am sort of stuck in how to go about continuing to enjoy this wonderful experience and avoid the embarrassment from ordering a “non-manly” sounding coffee.  I mean, I’m a Mountain Dew kind of guy  heavy on the dew part.  I won’t order a Strawberry Crush when I’m around other people, even though I really like the flavor. I have a reputation to uphold.   I was in the drive-thru this week and actually pleaded with the lady serving me my Pumpkin Patch to change the name so I could be more comfortable in ordering it.  I suggested “Super Sludge with an extra shot of sludge.  Anything but Pumpkin Patch!  She said she would see what she could do.  All of this really got me to thinking as I remembered the passage from Matthew 10:32 where Jesus said-“Everyone therefore who shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.”  What’s your comfort level in proclaiming that you are a follower of Christ to the world?  Jesus is the greatest thing that this world has ever seen or ever will see.  Are you proclaiming that truth with how you live and how you talk with other people?  I pray we will grow in our understanding of the importance of proclaiming with “boldness” that we are Christians to the world without hesitation or concern for our comfort levels. The world desperately needs to know the greatness of our Savior so that they can have salvation too.

Psalm 42:1-2 says, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

Does this describe your relationship with God?  As you prepared to come here this morning to join with the rest of the family of God were you excited?  Perhaps a few spiritual goosebumps appeared in your anticipation of joining the rest of the church to worship and praise and to encourage and be encouraged?  The relationship that God so earnestly desires from you is to simply draw near to Him so He can draw near to you, James 4:8.  There are so many ways in which we can draw near to God.  The most obvious way is to meet with God through His word.  We “draw near” by not only reading but listening to what God has to say to us.  His word is alive and active and it is just as applicable to us reading it today as it was to our forefathers who heard it many years ago.  God speaks to us through His word and tells us how much He loves us.  God also tells us specifically what He wants from us in how we live our lives.  Another way we draw near to God is through prayer.  Prayer is the place where we get to talk directly to God.  We are told in His word that He knows all of our struggles and all of our needs.  When we draw near to God in prayer we need to make sure our hearts are in the right place.  God knows before we open our lips what is in our hearts.  He wants to hear from our hearts and what He wants to hear is how much we love Him.  That is why He created us, to be in a loving relationship with Him.  Another way we draw near to God is through each other.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 18:20- “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them”.  When we gather together and share in loving relationships with each other we need to realize that we are also drawing closer to God through those relationships.  Again, that is why He created us.  These are a just a few of so many ways to draw near to God.  I pray we all grow in our relationships so that we do long after God as the deer pants for water.

Psalm 40:5-“Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done.  The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.”

Ever given any thought to the plan that God has for you in this world?  In this passage the psalmist is praising God for all the wonders and all the things God planned for them.  The same truth applies to us today.    God has so much He wants to show us and he also has so much He wants for us to experience.  At the top of the list is a loving relationship with Him.  To think that the creator of the universe longs for a deep relationship with us is sometimes too much for us to comprehend.  And yet, John 3:16 continues to ring out the truth declaring God loves us so much He sent His only Son to die for us.  Why?  Because God longs for a deep relationship with each and every one of His creation.  God does not want a long distance relationship.  God wants to walk hand in hand, step by step with us. 

Have you ever wondered about all the other plans God has for you?  Ephesians 4:20 tells us He is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us”.  This is not to say that God gives us everything we ask for, contrary to many thoughts that exist today.  It is telling us that our God is more than able to take care of any and every thing that comes up in our lives.  God has plans for each of us to live our lives every day knowing that there is nothing that can happen to us that He can’t handle.  With that in mind we are reminded that God has plans for us to live our lives with confidence.  Other plans on God’s list must include the fellowship with one another that He wants us to have.  This is easily seen by reviewing all the many “one another “ passages in His word.  The challenge for us is to continue to walk by faith and grow every day in our relationship with God and each other.  I pray we will share the sentiment of the psalmist in saying, Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done.

While driving up to the office the other day I had one of those “precious memories” moments.  From out of nowhere a song just popped into my head and I just started singing away to myself and all the other hundreds of motorists speeding on their way to their destinations.  The song was The Lord’s Supper written by Tillit S. Teddlie.  Good luck finding this one in any of the present day hymnals.  It was written 87 years ago which means it has gone the way of “out with the old and in with the new”.  I wish it was still in our modern books.  I have copies in my office library of every hymnal I grew up with so on this particular day I was thrilled that I did.  When I got to the office I found the book with the song in it and quickly turned to the page and there it was.   Something amazing happened as I looked at the words once again.  I could actually hear the song being sung exactly as I heard it when I was a child growing up in the small congregation in Holly, CO.  I could actually hear my precious grandma singing the words with her  sweet, sweet voice.  “When we meet in sweet communion, Where the feast divine is spread;  Hearts are brought in closer union, While partaking of the bread.  Precious feast all else surpassing, Wondrous love for you and me, While we feast Christ gently whispers: Do this in my memory.”

It is a wonderful memory for me.  I pray that my sons will have similar memories that they will think of down the road in their lives.  The memory of fellowship.  The memory of family.  The memory of communion.  It is this thought that opened my heart to really understand what Christ was doing on the night he was betrayed.  Luke 22:19- “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying,  “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”  He was stressing the importance of fellowship and family.     

I pray that we will grow in our understanding of God’s plan for His family when we hear the words, “While we feast Christ gently whispers, Do this in my memory”.

Heb. 13:8- “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

Amongst some of the most amazing things that my family and I have experienced in our move to Monument is the amount of change in areas that we were most familiar with in Burlington.  We have a Safeway store in Burlington that we refer to as “Safeway Lite” because it does not carry all the products and services that the larger stores carry.  Each week in the local paper there was always a huge sales flyer for Safeway with all the products and services you could ever imagine.  It was really frustrating to us because we knew that there was no way we could ever enjoy any of the “specialty” items in our local store because they did not carry them.  Trish and I went on our first big grocery shopping trip to the Safeway store the day after we arrived in Monument.  As we walked through the doors and took our first look we realized how some of the Israelites must have felt looking over into the Promised Land.  What an awesome sight!  Trish was on a mission for specific products so she went her way while I drifted over towards the “DELI” section.  It was just as I had dreamed it would look like for so many years as I stared at the perfect pictures in those taunting flyers back in Burlington.  I stood there for what seemed like days and even felt the moisture from a small tear that had formed in my right eye.  We had arrived!  Trish came back to drag me away from all the beautiful items and took me home to let it sink in.  WOW!  It sure wasn’t like this where we came from.  The same thing applied to many different areas.  Our phone system was CenturyTel.  Not here.  Our cable company was Baja.  Not here.  Our bank was First National Bank.  Not here.  So many changes.  So many differences.  So many things we will have to adapt to.

That is why I loved coming across the verse from Heb. 13:8 about Jesus.  He is the same yesterday and today and forever!  He never changes!  Trish and I will have to adjust and adapt in many different areas with our move but there is one area that remains completely unchanged.  Jesus Christ is the same here as He is in Burlington.  The love of God is the same here.  The power and the grace and the forgiveness and the guidance are All the same here.  From one end of the world to the other there are no differences and no changes when it comes to God and his plan for His creation.  We are His children wherever we go and His love and His plans are unchanged.  There is something to be said about consistency.  The two messages today are built around this truth.  God is unchanged throughout time so we better make sure we continue in our relationship with Him in the same way.  God wants us to avoid falling into the area of what I call “Twinkie Christianity” and He certainly wants us to avoid becoming part of the “Frozen Chosen”.  It is my prayer that we will grow closer to God as we praise Him for His unchanging and consistent nature.

Practicing What We Preach

As I read from my bible in Matthew 23 I see a whole bunch of red.  This tells me first of all that Jesus was doing all the talking.  But as I read through the chapter I also see that Jesus was “seeing red” so to speak.  He was very angry.  I know that He was angry because I see a whole bunch of exclamation points!!!  “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!”  Ouch.  The teachers of the law and the Pharisees were really “in big trouble” because of how they lived their lives.  They had everything right on the outside but on the inside they were terribly rotten.  Jesus was stating all the areas that made Him sick concerning this group of people and the main emphasis always boiled down to one problem, hypocrisy.  The teachers and Pharisees were perfect in how they told everybody how they were supposed to live their lives but the problem was how horribly imperfect the teachers and the Pharisees  were in demonstrating that teaching in their own lives.  They were hypocrites!  Telling others how they should live and then not living that way themselves.  Jesus was “setting them straight” and we best not just shake our heads and say how awful those folks must have been back then because the same message applies to every one of us today.  Matthew 23:2-3- “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.  So you must obey them and do everything they tell you.  But do NOT do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.  That was a tough truth for the Pharisees and it is an even tougher truth for us today.  We had better be practicing what we preach.  We had better be living lives that reflect what we are telling other people concerning being Christians.  We best not talk about loving one another if we are not loving one another.  We should avoid talking about bearing one anothers burdens if we are not bearing one anothers burdens.  It would be very wise to not talk about forgiving and accepting one another if we are not in fact forgiving and accepting one another.  Jesus saw red when He dealt with the teachers and Pharisees because they were not living lives that reflected what they were talking to others about and the same truth applies to us today.    The messages today will focus on the process of practicing what we preach.  The “Parable of the Barren Head” contains truths involving acceptance and growth.  The evening message of “Prioritizing Our Priorities” will focus on truths concerning our perspective as God’s church.  Through it all I pray we will all grow in our understanding of what it means to be a people that practice what we preach.

Luke 10:17-20 includes a verse that has been misinterpreted through the years.   Verse 19 says that Jesus gave the followers the authority to “trample on snakes and scorpions”.  Many people have lifted that verse completely out of the passage and have established religions based entirely on that concept.  I have decided that I would be a terrible member of that religion.  The main reason that I would never make it is because there would never be a live snake for me to demonstrate this passage with.  A snake wouldn’t stand a chance in my sight.  It wouldn’t even get one “hissss” out before I would have it dead.  So what are we to make of this passage involving snakes, or even the passage from Mark 16:18 where it is written that believers can pick up snakes with their hands and it will not hurt them?  Should we prove our faith by dumping a whole box of live snakes in our auditorium so we can grab hold of them?  I will never have to worry about proving this one because I’m telling you that the only snake I would ever pick up would be a dead snake and then only with a long shovel.  The message this morning is entitled “Snake Trampling 101”.  I pray we will grow in our understanding of what really is the most important part of the passage from Luke 10.  “Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”  God doesn’t want us to go around picking up live snakes to prove our faith.  God wants us to go around rejoicing that the poison of sin no longer has any power over us!  The evening message will continue with the topic of snakes as we take a look at the history of snakes in the bible and why it is so important to understand the history “before” we interpret later scriptures involving snakes.

May God bless us as we live lives that show the world the basic principles of snake trampling! 

Acts 4:13- “Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John, and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were marveling, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.”

I am so thrilled that there is no entrance exam to get into heaven!  Can you imagine a test of 144,000 questions where you had to get every single answer right to get in?  Question #1-“Who was the man whose name means “baldness” that was part of a rebellion against Moses?”  I’m afraid I would have to put the pencil down along with my head because I simply don’t possess that much knowledge.  I’ve been around many people who did have that kind of knowledge and sadly it only makes me feel worse for not knowing as much as they do.  The most awesome news for today is that nobody has to have a doctorate degree to understand the simple gospel of Jesus Christ.  We should find great encouragement in realizing that when Jesus began His ministry and needed to choose disciples He did not go to the most prestigious schools of the area.  Jesus walked along the seashore.  Jesus chose men that were “unschooled and ordinary”.  What a description!  But we should also acknowledge that Jesus didn’t choose a bunch of dummies.  He chose men that could think for themselves and make decisions for themselves. 

We are here today and nothing has changed in regard to what is required to be in a right relationship with God.  There is only one question that needs answered concerning salvation.  There is only one answer to give, and that answer is Jesus.  That is exactly what Peter said right before the rulers, elders, and teachers of the law marveled that Peter and John were uneducated and untrained.  Acts 4:12- “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”  It seems so simple and yet so many people refuse to accept it.  The same truth applies to the church.  This morning’s message is entitled “Church for Dummies”.  The focus is not on intelligence but rather simplicity.  We will look at the very simple and basic plan that God used to create His church.  My prayer is that we will all grow in our understanding of that simple plan.

Romans  6:13- “Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness.”

Not many people like being told what to do.  I remember as a kid using the most common response in those situations, “You’re not the boss of me!”

Truth of the matter is that I still use that phrase many times in my current life.  People don’t like being told what to do.  People want to call their own shots in life and be in complete control of what they do.  To a degree this is o.k. but to another degree it is terribly wrong.  There will always be somebody over you that will tell you what to do.  If you disagree with that statement then consider the results of not filing your taxes one time. 

The idea of having someone over us needs to go much deeper.  The God who created the world and everything in it is wanting to be the one over you.  He created you to be in a perfect relationship with Him.  A relationship in which you follow His commands and His directives in how you live your life.  Unlike many situations we experience in our physical lives, we do have a choice when it comes to God.  We can very easily say, “You’re not the boss of me”, and turn and walk away.  The passage from Romans is telling us this very truth.  The writer is telling us about the choice we have and he is encouraging us to choose God; the God who brought us from death to life.  The question for this morning is, “How much of yourself are you offering to God?”  Is God truly the boss of you?  Does God call the shots when it comes to your life, or are you only giving Him a partial piece of yourself while you try and call the shots on the rest?  I pray that we will grow in our understanding that God needs to be the complete boss of us.  And I pray that we will realize that there could be no better arrangement.  Rom. 6:22-“but now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”  Choosing God to be the boss leads to holiness and eternal life.  I say “count me in”.  I pray you say the same.