When God Tells Us Not To Pray

Three times God told Jeremiah “do not pray” for the people (Jeremiah 7:16, 11:14, 14:11). Have you ever heard this? How does this command from God sit with you? It really depends on your understanding of God.

If you believe that God does not exist, then it does not matter to you. If you believer that God is not involved in our lives, then you are similar to the atheist who does not believe that God exists. I am not like these people. I believe God created all things, nothing holds together without God’s active involvement, God is supremely powerful, God knows all things and that He is everywhere. I am in desperate need of God working in my life. There are too many things out of my control. I have too little influence on things that really matter.

To have God say, “do not pray” because He will not listen is the worst that can happen. If God does not intervene in my life, He if is not active, then I am lost. Do you understand the importance of God saying, “do not pray”, or have you never really thought about it? Maybe you shoud.

2007 Family Christmas Letter

Sam and Melissa were married on July 20th of this year. The day was perfect. The wedding and reception were a good reflection of their personality. Lori and I enjoy the addition of a daughter to our family. Sam works as a sales person with Sprint and Melissa is a third grade teacher in Independence. They have a nice apartment in Liberty and have settled well into the married life.

Luke is a junior at Belmont University in Nashville where he is continuing his work toward a degree in psychology. This year he is a resident assistant in the dorm and he is part of a group that bakes pies.

This year we said good bye to a friend who had lived in our house for over a year. Jason had lived with us as he raised support for his missionary work in Central Asia. In May he left for a five year tour of duty. It was our pleasure to have Jason with us during his preparation to be a full time missionary.

Lori continues to work at Love Bites Café in Riverside. The café is a family owned business and we have been adopted into the family. She has taken a few classes in the women’s program at seminary.

Chris has one semester plus one class remaining for a Masters of Divinity degree. He continues to work on a part time basis as an engineer, working this year what will be the largest ethanol plant in the country.

Lori and Chris took a vacation/scouting trip to Colorado in August. We rode the motorcycle to Pueblo and worked our way up to Fort Collins. We spent time seeing the country side and visiting with some Baptist officials about opportunities for applying my seminary training in Colorado after graduation. We have applied for an internship next summer in northern Colorado in another step toward determining the next step after school.

Last year we reported the addition of Amos the Labradoodle. He has taken up fetching of papers in the morning; unfortunately we do not take the paper so my job is to return the paper to the rightful owner.

God has taken care of us this year and we trust He as done the same for your family.

Chris, Lori and Luke

Three Months

This day started like most everyday. There were tasks and activities that were very normal. I attended class and handed in an assignment. I talked with a professor and worked a half day. I did some shopping, actually just following Lori around the store, and went to a birthday party. In my family, we have three birthdays on consecutive days in the first week of December.

It is routine in my family to have these parties. They are low-key affairs, but we enjoy the time we spend together. This night was not normal. It started yesterday when the doctor asked for Mom and Dad to come in today. Brother Mark went with them to hear the report from the doctor. Dad had surgery five years ago to remove a spot on his lung and came out of surgery with 1/3 of his lung removed. They had found cancer during the surgery. Today the doctor said they had found two problems, one in each lung. When asked about the seriousness of the report, the doctor estimated that Dad has three months to live.

What is there to say? I am sure there will be much to say in the weeks to come. Right now the words are not coming. There is one thing that I know. God is in control. He has blessed our family with more things that we can count. More than the things that God has given us, He has promised Himself. This is the promise that I will need in the coming weeks.

The Secret of Life

There is an emphasis in the American life of being significant. We should have a purpose driven life. The promise is we will find fulfillment when we determine our purpose and achieve that purpose. The good kid goes through college and earns a good degree. He finds a good job and has dreams of climbing the ladder. Five or ten years latter, disillusion sets in when work becomes a daily grind. Where is fulfillment?

The young woman marries, has children and spends her life raising the kids. I applaud this mother. After 15-20 years of hard work, she finds teenagers living in her house that believe they know everything and their mother knows nothing. Where is fulfillment?

No matter where we look in the world, we will ultimately run out of hope there is fulfillment in the things we do. The person who has a bad relationship with God is in a bad place. Nothing will fix the problem.

It can be different for those with a repaired relationship with God. Repair of their relationship with God comes when they have realized they are hopeless and they have turned from their wrong ways and accepted the grace available through the sacrifice of Jesus. A person in this position can let go of the vain struggle for significance through our efforts and find significance in the mundane life we live because of the presence of God in our lives.

If you read Ecclesiastes, one of two things will happen. You will despair because all life is vanity. The other option is to understand the life on this earth will not bring fulfillment, it will only come through a relationship with God. A relationship on God’s terms, not ours. You can see this in one verse that I found.

Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun. – Ecclesiastes 9:11

Lord, help me to live this life with Your perspective. This will enable me to live the full life, pursuing the right things, giving up the pursuit of things that will not satisfy. Help me to be satisfied with the rich blessing you have given.

Worship

Psalm 150 tells us of many different ways to praise (worship) God. The first half of the psalm talks about praising God for who He is. The second half talks about different ways to praise God. So what is the point?

The first is obvious, that God deserves our praise. If we came face to face with God, our only reaction would be to worship Him. In His wisdom, we are shielded from God’s glory. The reason is that God desires true worship. The automatic worship of someone who is face-to-face with God is not of the same nature of the voluntary worship of a person who worships God in faith.

Another point is the method of praise. There are seven instruments mentioned and the expression of worship through dance. The number of ways of worship is expressed tells me that worship is a personal expression. Some people can play one instrument or another, others can dance, others can sing. These are expressions of worship of the heart, true worship that is busting out of a person.

On one level I long for this type of worship. I am tired of the same old routine, the dullness of church. But as I think about it, this type of worship is revolutionary and is bound to make some people uncomfortable. That is the wonder and unexpected nature of the appearance and/or work of God. I think I am ready to see God bust out and live with the loss of my comfort level.

Amos the Labradoodle

This morning, as usual, I took Amos outside for him to do his duty. My custom with Amos is to attach a rope to his collar so if necessary I can grab the rope to encourage Amos to go inside when I think it is time. Amos has found the paper that is on the driveway to be very interesting. No, he has not learned how to read yet, but he does love to pick up the paper and run around the yard with his prize. Amos knows if I call him to come inside he does not have to listen, unless I hold the rope. The other day I found out that just stepping on the rope was not enough proof for Amos; I had to pick it up. When I have the end of the rope in my hand and tell Amos to come inside, he runs right up to the door. There is no need to use the rope to pull him toward the door.

After we went inside, Amos ran upstairs and jumped in bed with Lori and I sat down to read some from the Bible. This morning I started with Psalm 104, which describes the complete control that God has over every facet of creation.

You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth. Psalm 104:6-9 (NIV)

God speaks and creation obeys. You could say there is a rope on the collar of every element of creation and the rope is in God’s hand. When God speaks, creation obeys.

When I have an obvious display of my lack of control over simple things, like this morning with Amos, it is comforting to know that God, my Father, has control of everything. I do not have to be in control.

Church Planter or Pastor?

So when does a church planter turn into a pastor?

This weekend we traveled to the Springfield area for one last motorcycle trip before the weather turns cold. We rode into Arkansas on Saturday and ended up in Ozark, Missouri for the night. I wanted to attend church on Sunday, so prior to the trip I looked up a church planter’s website for Springfield to see if there was a new church that we could attend. There happened to be a church adjacent to the hotel that was listed as a new church on the church planter’s website. So that was the church we attended.

The service was good, the music was good, the preaching was good and there were a significantly higher percentage of friendly people at the service as compared to a ‘normal’ church. This church has been in existence for three years, they have their own building, two services on Sundays and they are in the process of paying off a loan for land they are planning on moving to someday. Since I am thinking that someday I will be planting a church, I noticed many things that I liked about the church that I liked and I have filed them away in memory

Is this a new church? I guess the answer would be yes if you count it in years. But this church is mature in what they do. They are apparently healthy and progressing as a church. They did not seem to be in survival mode at all, they looked prosperous. I say the leader of the church as moved from being a church planter to being a pastor. It appears the listing of this pastor as a church planter on the church planting website represents a much broader definition of what a church planter than I hold. A few reasons could be the website that does not get updated or the owners of the website like to have as many church planters listed as possible. In any case, I would like to understand their definition of a church planter. Is it someone who has planted a church sometime in his life? Or is there an expiration date for church planters, a time when they turn into pastors. Is this false advertising on the part of the church planter’s website?

Dexter and His New Motorcycle

Yesterday I found out about a friend from my previous church who was involved in a motorcycle accident. Dexter was traveling on his new Honda Goldwing with his wife. They were on a four lane road when the tire blew out on a SUV that was nearby. The driver of the SUV lost control and swerved into Dexter. They both ended up in the median of the highway. The driver of the SUV died at the site after being ejected from the vehicle. Dexter and Susie survived the accident and were life flighted to the hospital in KC.

My first thoughts were thankfulness to God for sparing the life of my friends. Dexter is still in the hospital and Suzie has gone home after a week in the hospital. They will have a long recovery ahead of them. It is interesting that in this case those doing the dangerous act of riding a motorcycle survived the accident when the driver of the SUV died. Another thought is the randomness of this event. If there is any fault, which will be difficult to justify, it is to the woman or whoever was responsible for the maintenance of the SUV. Possibly the tire blowout could have been prevented by checking the condition of the tire, but maybe not.

Another thought, which is minor compared to the life and death issues already discussed, is the loss of a dream. Dexter and Susie just purchased this motorcycle. Based on this bike being one of the best touring bikes available, I assume they were planning on taking the bike on long trips. This dream was lost when that tire failed. I mourn the loss of this dream. As people get older, the possibility to achieve a dream diminishes, sometimes to the point of impossibility. Is this a case of another dead dream?

This is a story of contrast. I mourn for the lost of the driver, of the dream of touring the country on a motorcycle, but I thank God for the preservation of my friend’s life.

The Kingdom of Heaven

So what is the kingdom of heaven like? Jesus tells three parables in Matthew 25 that give pictures of the kingdom of heaven.

The first tells of ten virgins who are waiting for the wedding party, five are foolish and five are wise. The foolish virgins do not bring extra oil for their lamps, but the wise virgins have extra oil for their lamps. Prior to the arrival of the groom, the foolish virgins must leave to buy oil because none of the wise virgins will share their oil. The groom arrives, the wise virgins enter the wedding party and the foolish virgins do not enter.

The next parable tells of a man who went on a journey. Prior to leaving, he left sums of money in the hands of three of his slaves. The first slave had five times the money of the last; the second had twice the money of the last. The first two slaves doubled the man’s money, but the last did nothing with the money. When the man returns, the first two enter the man’s kingdom, the last slave is excluded.

The last parable tells of people who are allowed into the eternal kingdom because they had done good to others. The other people do not enter the eternal kingdom because they had not done the good to others.

What are the conclusions? One is that we are all on our own to get into the kingdom of heaven. The wise virgins did not receive blame for being selfish by not sharing their oil with the foolish virgins. The good slaves receive rewards for their work in doubling the man’s money. The last parable tells us of people entering the kingdom of heaven by the good thing they have done.

Another observation is the link of doing things (works) and entering the kingdom of heaven. It is clear from multiple passages that no one can work their way into heaven. It is a gift. So what is the point? It is clear the person who is really following Jesus will do the good things that qualified the good people in the last parable. Will the person who does not good get to heaven? No man can know this answer. If this person has accepted Jesus as their savior, they will get to heaven. The Bible says this person is a new creation. This new creation should show in the way the person acts. So is the person who does no good really on the way to heaven?

The final observation is the clear teaching of the Bible about every person having one of two destinations. One will be joyful and the other will be horrible. Each of these destinations is permanent. One is called heaven the other is called hell.

As the worker at the airline ticket counter asks, what is your final destination?

Colorado

In August Lori and I rode the bike to Colorado for a week. The trip was a vacation and a scouting trip. Vacation because Colorado is an excellent destination and I could not think of a better traveling partner than Lori. Scouting trip because we are looking for the place we will be moving to in two years. Prior to my starting seminary, Lori and I agreed that we would move wherever we needed to in order to be used by God in whatever way He pleased.

Here are a few of the vacation activities for Lori and I during the week.

• We ate dinner at Lori’s Hacienda in Garden City, Kansas.


• We visited the Great Sand Dunes near Alamosa.


• We rode the bike through the mountains, retracing part of a trip we took with the boys about ten years ago.


• We rode across trail ridge road in Rocky Mountain National Park.

The scouting trip included talking with three SBC leaders about church planting opportunities, visited the third service of a new church, stayed with a church planter and spent time in Fort Collins.

What are the results of the trip? We rode over 2,500 miles on the bike. We found a potential place to live in the city of Fort Collins. We decided to pursue an internship for next summer to try Colorado and church planting on for an extended period. That was a successful trip!

Sam and Melissa

Two weeks ago tomorrow was a big day in my life. It was not the top day, but it easily hit the top ten. My oldest son, Sam was married to Melissa.

Why was this day a big deal? The first reason is because it was my son who was being married. I attended a wedding a few weeks before and it was a special occasion. Anytime two people make the public statement of commitment to one another, it is a big deal. But that was not my son or my daughter. Two weeks ago it was my son. Lori and I had the front row at the ceremony. It was a big deal.

The wedding was a big deal because it marked a big change in Sam’s life. Two years prior, Sam had finished one year of college with no plans for returning. He was drifting in life and I thank God that He took care of him in those days. Change started happening, very slowly, but it happened. Come to think of it, the slow change is most often a real change. What was the reason for this change? It was Melissa.

Another reason the wedding was a big deal was the work and expense that Melissa put into making the day just as she wanted. The wedding was in a beautiful church and there was a sit down dinner at the reception. Certainly not like our cake and punch reception in the basement of the church. It was a great time and an excellent way to make a special mark on the special day. To this untrained eye, everything went off perfectly.

The final reason for special nature of the day was the meaning of the day to others. The primary purpose was to unite these two in marriage. But there was a wonderful side benefit of allowing parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins to have a day to remember. For those of us who are married, it was a day to remember our marriage day. It was a time to dream of the promise of Sam and Melissa’s life together compared to the partially realized dream of my life with Lori. May Sam and Melissa have half as much fun being married as we do.

Sam and Melissa, thank you for going to the trouble of having the wedding. Thank you for sharing this event in your life with us. Thank you for not making the decision to just start living together without the great marker in time of the wedding ceremony. Thank you for betting your life on living together with each other and reminding me of why I did the same 24 years ago.

Evangelism

So what comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘Evangelism’. Is it a picture of a deranged religious zealot? Maybe it is a wave of guilt because the pastor talks about evangelism like you should be doing it, but you are not? Potentially you are totally indifferent to the term. Or you may not know what it means.

In simple terms, I define evangelism as telling others about Jesus. Some would use the term to mean living a good life, or giving things to people, or preaching a sermon in a church. These do not fit my definition, because there is no direct confrontation with the person of Jesus.

So why should you do evangelism? The question assumes that you are a Christian. By that I mean that you have understood your bankruptcy before God, knowing that you are not perfect and you can never make yourself perfect. You have heard about and accepted the free gift of being made right with God through the sacrifice of Jesus, which is shown by his perfect life, his willing sacrifice of his life on the cross and Jesus’ resurrection. The process of becoming a Christian is all done by God, simply accepted by you. A term that describes this process is the Gospel.

The first reason to do evangelism is that Jesus commanded that we should do it:

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – Matthew 28:18-20 NIV.

For years I knew about this command and simply ignored it. It is amazing that Jesus would put up with a follower of His that simply ignores Him. But He does.

There are other reasons for doing evangelism. One is that by doing evangelism you demonstrate understanding of the Gospel. Active evangelism shows that you believe the Gospel; you really believe that if people do not hear and act on the Gospel, they will spend eternity in torment, separated from God.

The final reason that I will add today is that evangelism brings me face to face with the unpredictable work of God. Last Sunday, Darrin, Lori and I were talking with some men in a park. The first man we talked with was incoherent and simply wanted food. We did not have any money or food. We did talk to him about Jesus, but that did not seem to go anywhere. Then we talked with some other men who we had previously talked with. It was then the first man called us all over to him and told us that we needed to pray. He started praying. It was the heart talk of a man who knew he needed God to act. The situation in these men’s lives was not good and they needed God to intervene. After he was done, another man prayed, and then it was my turn. I prayed, but it seemed insignificant compared to the prayer of a man who just a few minutes before was incoherent. I was at a place and time where God had shown His presence. Wow.

So why do I do evangelism? There are more reasons that I have given here, but as scary as it can be sometimes, I do want to see God moving in His unpredictable way. I have witnessed it before and I will witness it again. I just cannot tell you when, but the chances are better when I am trying to talk to others about Jesus.

Father's Day 2007

I have always wanted to ride a motorcycle. I never rode one as a kid and did not start riding as a young man. Marriage, full time job, family expansion with two boys came and the ‘practicality’ of starting a motorcycle riding career was not good.

I started talking more about riding a motorcycle as the boys made their way through high school. As my youngest son approached high school graduation, my wife gave me an encouraging comment about starting to ride a motorcycle. I signed up for the local riding course, earned my motorcycle license and bought a motorcycle. I started using the motorcycle as my primary commuting vehicle. I would ride all winter, as long as there was no snow.

Last summer we took a ~4,500 mile, two week trip to Yellowstone, Boise, Las Vegas and Flagstaff. It was one of the best vacations I have ever taken. We rode in a snow storm in Yellowstone and experienced 117° in Vegas.

So this brings us to last weekend. We had five of us and three motorcycles for a trip to St. Louis for the weekend. The one event was pizza at our favorite place in St. Louis, but the main event was riding the bike with my two boys. It was the best father’s day I have ever had. It was even better than the one when Tom Watson won the US Open (which is cheating because I was not a father at the time).

Advice that I would give to the young parent, spend time with your kids. Take trips, do special things that you will never be able to repeat at another time.

Introduction

I work as an engineer and I am currently between my 2nd and 3rd years of Seminary. My plan is to move west from KC and be involved in introducing people to Jesus and organizing churches.

The introduce people to Jesus part has always been hard, as predicted in the Bible. I have spent years in a Baptist church that told me to do evangelism but never showed me how to do it. With no one to take my hand and show the way, I never tried. I was living life in disobedience to the command of Jesus (Matt 28:18-20) but I did a good job of covering up any problems that I had with my disobedience.

My life has been slow progress toward deeper commitment to Jesus, my Lord and Savior. He has been my Savior since the summer of 1973 when I accepted the free gift of salvation at the end of a Christian summer camp. The active embrace of Jesus as Lord has been the tougher part. I earned a couple of Engineering degrees, was married to Lori, started work as an engineer, and did life. As the years passed, it became apparent that I could continue working as an engineer and have the life drained out of me, or I could embrace the Lordship of Jesus in my life and have a full life. Choosing the later has brought me down a path that has led me to working part time as an engineer and doing four classes each semester in seminary. The description of this path will have to wait until another time.

Currently I am trying to learn how to do 'evangelism', which is the churchy/seminary word telling people about Jesus. My plan this evening was to help out with a church that I do not attend in their efforts to reach out to others with the message of salvation through Jesus. The church cancelled. It breaks my heart the majority of churches in this country are like this church. Ignoring the command of Jesus as a corporate body and as individuals, just like I did so well for years (not that I am excellent in my level of obedience today, just trying).
I long to be part of a group who attempt to be obedient to Jesus. I am not concerned with perfect obedience, mainly because that is impossible. I want to be with a group of people who try.