It’s a historic Friday here in America.  We’ve just seen the two major political parties nominate a black man for president and a conservative woman for vice president.  All the politics made me decide to jot down a quick note on the state of this blog!

If you are regular reader you’ve no doubt noted the lack of regular posts for the past week or so. This has been due to my schedule and my own personal issue of grief.

I’m hoping to get back to more regular posting next week, once I’m back from the Labor Day Weekend Family Camp that is. So I doubt I’ll post anything on Monday, but hopefully Tuesday I’ll be back on track and moving forward.

Thanks for sticking with me here, and if you’ve got anything to say to me you can do it in the comments, but I won’t be around to approve any new commentators until sometime on Monday.

God bless you all and have a happy and safe Labor Day weekend!

KCC has a tradition that every year on Labor Day all of us who want too go off to camp out for the weekend near the Grand Canyon.

And yes, I’m going! I spend a load of dough on camping stuff, and will do the rest of my shopping tomorrow! So watch out!

Just so all of you who will be there with me will know, this picture I found pretty much sums up a great deal of my philosophy on dealing with the local wild life!

Dealing with the Wild Life!

[NOTE: I've been so very busy over the last week and just got back home to Kingman last night. So rather than taking time I don't have to try and put something up here - I'm going to re-post this one, since it talks about fatigue and ministry, both of which I can relate too right now!  How about you? Enjoy!]

I preached on Overcoming Weakness yesterday, as part of my series called Overcoming Life’s Storms. The series takes a look at the problems faced by the 7 churches in Revelation chapters 2-3.

It’s not an exposition of those chapters, rather I’m taking the main issue of each church and exploring how those impact us and apply to us today. If that sounds interesting you can go to the CCR website. click on Audio Sermons in the nav bar and either stream or download the message, and/or many other messages I’ve preached this year.

During my research on this topic I found plenty of verses dealing with this issue. So of course I couldn’t use them all. In fact that’s one of the most difficult problems I often face in my sermon prep – trying to decide which ones to use and which ones not to use.

One of the passages that I didn’t use today, but have thought a lot about this last week is 1 Cor. 2:1-5.

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 (NIV)

Where to start with this one huh? I’m not going to exegete the passage, but just reflect upon it’s personal impact on my as a Pastor.

But first – you knew this was coming didn’t you? – I just have to point a few things out. One of the things I love about this passage is the radically different picture it paints for us of the Apostle Paul from what we normally have.

Who would read the New Testament and come up with the idea that when Paul preached in a new area was full of “weakness and fear, and with much trembling?” Even if some of that might have been due to fatigue or illness, it’s still 180 degrees away from what we normally think about him!

I love it!

I wonder how true this is of most of us in the Ministry today?

I don’t mean to imply that we ought to be afraid of preaching. I know a lot of Pastors do approach the pulpit with a lot of nervousness or fear, but many don’t.

I’m one of the latter – I love to preach! Just love it and usually have fun doing so. Not that I think my sermons are perfect mind you. I’ve preached many a stinker in my time, trust me on that one!

I’m thinking of something deeper than a mere fear of performing some ministry task. I’m just wondering if we, like the Apostle Paul, approach all ministry acutely aware of our own inabilities and weaknesses? How aware, consciously aware, of this.

Read more »

As you can see – it was pretty windy!  But I hope that above and beyond the physical wind, the Wind of the Spirit was blowing as well.

If you’d like to see more pictures, visit my Dad’s Site and follow the link up top!

Me at the '08 Raider Memorial

Address to the Raiders

Memorial Service, Minneapolis, MN

8-22-2008, 9:30-12:30 PM

You can do something on the spur of the moment, make a quick decision without giving it too much thought, and it can change the rest of your life.

That’s how some of you became Raiders, and you’ve never been the same since. And of course that’s how some of you got married – but that’s a subject best left for another time!

I’m sure that none of you knew when you volunteered to become Marine Raiders where that road would take you, or that you would be here today, as part of the rear guard, as the Raiders slowly move into history.

One of the questions almost everyone asks as they look back on their lives is this, “Did I do something that will last, did I make a difference?”

Last year I answered that second question with a resounding, “YES!”I There’s no doubt that the victorious campaigns all of you fought in have changed the world, and continue to do so today through the lives of millions of people who are born into freedom thanks to your sacrifices.

Today I want to look for a moment at the first question. Will the Raiders be remembered. Will there be a lasting Raider legacy. Back in 1998 when I was putting together my Dad’s web page I was trying to come up with a catch phrase, a slogan that would summarize what we were trying to do. Suddenly the phrase, Keeping the Legacy Alive popped into my head, and without giving it too much thought I used it.

Websites are great tools, but the Raider Legacy isn’t dependent on them. Instead it lives on today all in this country, and all around the world. The young men and women to make today’s Marine Corps know your legacy. They study it, talk about it, and look up to it. It’s 65 years since the guns went silent in the Pacific. Since that time Military leaders and the Marine Corps itself have come to recognize just how far ahead of your time the Raiders were.

Today’s young Marines look at your exploits as the stuff of legend, and they look to you as their legendary forefathers. It is to you they trace much of their training and combat technique and philosophy. In their eyes you are legends.

Your legendary legacy will live on as long as the Marine Corps endures. And even beyond. Anywhere anyone wants to understand how Special Forces work, sooner or later they will study and appreciate the legendary Marine Raiders.

My father stepped into legend a little less than a month ago. And all of you, his brave and beloved comrades, though you linger in this mortal veil, your time will come soon enough.

I want you to know that your legacy will stay alive, not through the efforts of your children or authors or websites or associations, as important as those people and efforts are.

No, your legacy will live on because of what you did so long ago and so far away. Your brave hearts and fighting spirit ensure that the Raiders will be long remembered, and even after all of you are gone, you will continue to teach generations yet to come the art of war.

You have fought well. Soon the battle will end, but your legacy will live on. I’d like to leave you today with one of the verses I read at my father’s funeral:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7-8 (ESV)

Semper Fi, May God bless all of you, our great country, and the United States Marine Corps!

Hello everyone!

As you may know I’m at the United States Marine Corps Raider Reunion in Minneapolis Minnesota right now.

For the first time ever I’m putting up pictures on my Dad’s Raider site the day I take them!

Just click here to go to Dad’s site, there’s a link to the pictures right up top, underneath the notice of his death and the Heading.

This is the second in my rambling series of posts on some rambling thoughts I’m having about the limits of knowledge. My first post, available here, was about how our very fallibly memory is an absolute on the power and usefulness of knowledge in our lives.

Knowledge is great but the way we learn and what we learn must always be held a little suspect. For as just about everyone knows it’s a proven fact that we are much more open to “facts” that support what we already believe, and discount “facts” that don’t.

You see this all the time in political discussions. You also see it in religious and spiritual ones. For example if you don’t believe in God, then you are just naturally going to accept the science that supports that, and reject the science that indicates there must be a Creator.

I believe that our beliefs and ideals have a much greater impact upon our view of the universe we live in and ourselves and God than we will usually admit.

That’s why all real learning and spiritual growth takes concentrated effort. It’s hard to come to grips with a reality that we don’t like, which is why so many of us don’t. How many addicts do you know who’ve died rather than accept the reality of the truth of their addiction.

And they aren’t alone either. Spiritually many people choose to close their eyes and march into judgment rather than accept the fact that they are sinners in desperate need of a Savior.

When we consider all this the words of Jesus make a lot more sense. How many times did Jesus rebuke his disciples or the Jewish leaders for their blindness.  I can only be blamed for my blindness and unbelief if it’s something I’ve chosen. That choice is usually unconcious, but it’s a choice none the less, and it’s a choice that will be judged by the Judge of all the universe.

I don’t know about you, but I know all this sure gives me pause.  Well, at least I think it does!

UPDATE: We have a winner!!

Congratulations go out to Pastor Brian VanDyke, who’s my Associate Pastor, and who is a fan of Iona too, a fact I didn’t know until just now!

If you read my review of Mark Batterson’s new book, Wild Goose Chase, then you know I recieved two copies, one for myself and one to give away.

So here’s the plain and simple contest.  The first person to correctly the following question, in the comments, and includes his or her e-mail wins!  I’ll know who’s first since the software puts them in order they were recieved.

Here’s the question – What is the name of the Christian music group who had a song about the Wild Goose on their first CD?

Hint: I talk about it in the book review!

Happy hunting!

Note: I received my copy of this new book free of charge, as a review copy, and have another one to give away! I’ll be posting my give-a-way contest post around noon today. I haven’t been paid to review this book or anything, but through you ought to know I did get it free]

Mark Batterson is a busy guy.  He pastors a large church in Washington DC, he has a widely read blog, and he’s an author as well.  I reviewed his first book, In A Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, and I loved it! Now comes his second book, Wild Goose Chase. You can buy it on Amazon, or just about anywhere else. It’s from Multnomah press and is 192 pages long in paper back.

The title comes from an old Celtic tradition of likening the Holy Spirit to a wild goose. This will probably be news to most people, but not to me. I’m a fan of Iona, and on their first album they had a song called Flight of the Wild Goose, and it was explained there. I’ve always loved that image, so was happy to see Batterson use it.

The main theme of this book follows along with what he wrote in his first one. He’s trying to motivate us to get out of whatever cage we have put ourselves in, and “chase the wild goose.”  Live courageously for Christ, dare to be different and follow the Spirit where ever he leads.

Batterson says there are six common cages that hold most of us back. He identifies them as:

• The cage of responsibility (irresponsible responsibility he calls it).
• The cage of routine.
• The cage of assumptions.
• The cage of guilt.
• The cage of failure.
• The cage of fear.

I dare anyone to say that you haven’t wrestled with any of those. In fact, I think most of us have been caged by all of them at some point in our lives.

In the course of exploring these cages Batterson shares a lot of great ideas with us. As he did in his first book he’s great at introducing us to ideas from the worlds of science, art and culture. He intertwines this with Scripture and personal experience with a frank and engaging writing style.

He also manages to avoid the plague of most modern Christian books of having way too many long, repetitive stories designed to drive the truth home to the reader, who apparently is so dense he has be told the same thing ten times before he begins to get it!

Illustrations he has, but they are short, sweet and too the point, which makes them all the more powerful! Other authors (who in an act of Christian charity and restraint I won’t name) please take note of this!

Rather than try and take you through the whole book, I wanted to share with you two points he made that really spoke to me and my life right now.

At one point Batterson points out that we have to step out in faith before everything looks ready ! To bolster this point he points out that Scripture says that signs followed Jesus and the Apostles.  Whoa!  Now of course I knew that, but I hadn’t thought of it quite that way before!  The more I thought about it the more I saw that was the answer to a situation I’m dealing with in one of our ministries.

Perfect!

Another great insight I hadn’t thought about that he points out is that Peter betrayed Jesus and then the rooster crowed.  We all know that right?  But have you ever noticed that Jesus restored Peter in the morning when roosters would have been crowing. Point out that God brings us face to face with our fears and guilt, ans washes them away by the blood and the Grace of Jesus!

This is a good book, a very readable book, and you’ll enjoy it.

I highly recommend it!  Go out and buy it already!

It’s Monday morning and I thought I’d share a few more thoughts about the passage we’ll be discussing at the Men’s Bible Study this morning.  Here’s the passage under consideration:

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 2 Peter 1:3-4 (NIV)

You just have to say this about the Bible in general and the New Testament in particular – it’s bold!

The Spirit inspirited writers of the Bible never held back proclaiming how powerful the salvation found only in Christ actually is. They don’t seem all that concerned about being taken out of context either. This passage is often taken by cultists and other religions and made to say something it’s not saying.

It’s not hard to do so, because Peter opted for boldness over safety.

He says that we have been given everything we need for life and godliness in Christ! Even more than that he says that we participate in the divine nature through Christ.

Whoa!

So what does he mean? I won’t take the time to list the major ways this has been twisted to fit other people agendas. Instead, I’ll just try and simply sum it up, to get you started on your Monday.

When Peter says we’ve “been given everything” that’s exactly what he means!  The salvation found in Christ isn’t just pie in the sky by and by!  Jesus is an all sufficient Savior who has provided us with everything we’ll need to obey and follow him in that Salvation!

Notice that all this is “given” to us. Which brings us back once again to Grace!  Yes, it’s by the Grace of God found only in Jesus Christ that we can discover everything we’ll ever need to know and live the will of God.

Next he says that it’s through God’s promises that we can “participate in the divine nature.” Contrary to what a lot of guru’s like to say, this does not mean that we can either become a god or become god. The Bible is clear there’s only one God and you and I aren’t Him!

The word participate is a form of the common Greek word for fellowship!  It means to share in common.  So we participate in the divine nature because once we’ve made Jesus our Lord, we share that nature as people who’ve been born again, or born from above.

God doesn’t make me or you god, that’s not possible! But he does share some of the moral and spiritual qualities that he posses with us, thereby helping us become more like him as we seek to follow Jesus!

Whew – I don’t know about you – but that’s enough to get me through my Monday!