Face Up With God - Stay the Course

Stay the Course

John 12:27 Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. 28 Father, glorify thy name.

Coming to the cross for Jesus meant hard decisions. As He prepared Himself and the disciples for this juncture a rare truth came forward.

Stay the Course

Jesus talked about the need for a seed to die in the ground in order to grow. Then He declares the tempest in His soul. What will I say? Will I hold up to the challenge in front of me or ask for release? He stayed the course. We are glad He did. Great gain can mean great pain. He had suffered much. More was ahead. To endure takes leaning on God's faithfulness.

Stay the Course

My friend, Jeff Mitchell, is celebrating his 15th anniversary as pastor at Tabitha Baptist. At a supper in his honor from the congregation, it impressed me the love and wisdom and suffering he has lived in staying the course. Not many endure. The joy and love in that body is evident every time I am with them. He has passed an heritage through his faithfulness and continues to build.

Stay the Course

At the annual Character Counts breakfast for Boy Scouts of America in Oklahoma City, a retired navy commander spoke of standing responsibly in the face of adversity. A tragic accident cost lives and his lifelong dream career. Integrity held him on course with truth. We need such men who stay the course.

Stay the Course

Character First is a consortium of men and women in all areas of society. Our county sheriff publicly stands for character. Businesses like Kimray stand for character. Men and women gather to focus themselves and our city to continue in moral character. I remember attending church with Tom Hill, the visionary, 28 years ago. He and his family were on course then. He is staying the course still. Nations are impacted.

Stay the Course

At our quarterly business and community leadership luncheon, we honored coaches. There were great and faithful Christian men in attendance. The Jim Thorpe Association partnered to bestow honor on whom honor is due. These coaches have given their lives to influence character in others along with coaching a team. They have stayed the course and influenced lives constructed with character.

Stay the Course

In a recent eclectic gathering of leaders in Oklahoma City, stories were shared from around the world of interventions of God. From the Arabic people of the Middle East, the Ugandans in Africa, the Waodoni of South America and teens of North America came stories of the fruits of staying the course. Bearing Fruit Communications and partners are rifle focused to impact our present generation with moral and ethical integrity. In the context of lives that have been lived in His service for decades come great changes in societies and people.

Stay the Course

Pray to stay the course. Pray for others to stay the course. Your metro needs it. My metro needs it. Our metros need it.

Let us Pray:

Father, You are ever faithful. Your mercies that strengthen us are new every morning.

Help us stay the course.

Encourage faithfulness to timeless moral principle to shake our societies to sensibility.

Help us stay the course.

Encourage faithfulness to moral purity to provide a secure and holy embrace of fidelity to us and our friends. Work in us that our thoughts, words, and actions would be consistent with Your will.

Help us stay the course.

Encourge faithfulness to family to stick in our minds that we would bring blessing not cursing to generations.

Help us stay the course.

Encourage faithfulness to justice and mercy and everlasting truth in us that we might stay the course.

Help us stay the course.

Encourage faith in our leaders in business, community, congregations, government, and education. Let it be real faith that holds under pressure. Let it be long suffering faith that does not wilt. Let it be faith based on Your Living Word, Jesus, the Christ.

Help us stay the course.

Help us to stay the course that others might see and embrace this same Christ alongside us.

Help us stay the course.

Bring To Me What You Have Spoken of Me

Through the Eyes of a Father’s Heart

“Bring to me, God, what You have spoken of me.”

Genesis 18:19 19 For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”

“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.” That is my prayer. I want what Abraham had. Every day for a week, I have prayed it all day long. In the night, I wake praying that prayer. There is something about it that will not leave me alone. Why won't it go away?

This Thanksgiving, my heart turns toward my physical and spiritual and relational children. All are important. As a Dad, the children of my wife, Dian, and I are precious. They count a lot in my thinking and praying. As a pastor of some 20 years in the same metro, spiritual children who have looked to me for guidance and leadership are priceless. As a businessman and manager and community participant, those that have looked to me for direction are powerfully on my mind. As a personal mentor of men, those that have looked to me are present in my thoughts. In all of these ways people have been impacted and had direction pushed into their lives through example.

“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.”

Abraham was a commander of lives. Command pushes. Command influences. Command is generally not gentle. In Genesis 18:19, God tells us that Abraham received so that he could ‘command’ into the lives of his children and his grandchildren and his community. He was to command righteousness and justice. He was to command the way of the Lord. God gave to Abraham what He had spoken of him because He could trust him to live the message into the lives of others. Abraham was a generational influencer. God gave him much because of that.

“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.”

Abraham was a harvester of lives. What he commanded into others brought back to him the promised blessing. Through Isaac and his sons, Jacob and Esau, nations were born. Through Ishmael and his sons came nations. Entire people groups were birthed out of Abrahams fathering. He was known among the peoples of the area and respected and followed as an example. Not many dared mess with Abraham.

“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.”

Boy, I sure don’t measure up to Abraham. On the other hand, I need to. Every father does. Every businessperson does. Every pastor does. Every community leader does. We need to measure up. Our stature needs to go up not down. The world is a downward measuring stick. Someone like Abraham is an upward measuring stick. We need to measure up. < /span>Our lives should flow over into others that they would change. Our lives should change our world not just bounce off.

“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.”

Daily thankfulness for all God has done impresses on me. There is a reason for His bringing to me what He has promised of me. There need to be bridges into the lives of others over which the blessing is carried in the ways of God, righteousness, and justice. Those bridges are built on trust and honesty and walking in the ways of the God of righteousness and justice. I am thankful and I am sober.

“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.”

The prayer is dangerous. You are accountable to do something with what He brings. This journey is not just about hoarding. It surely is not about living with the world’s definition of humility. Humility is power and presence under control and right realization that God is in control not us. Great humility is only displayed when we have great resource.

“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.”

Prayer is meant to change us. This one will change you from the inside out. Are you prepared to handle God delivering everything He has spoken of you in His word? Get prepared. Focus on being prepared. Quit pretending in faith and make living God’s way in righteousness and justice a priority. Make sure your life is adequate and your bridges are in place. Then pray that prayer in faith believing. Your family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, congregants, and others are depending on you doing just that. Your Father is depending on you doing just that. He is ready. There is much for which to be thankful. There is much more He would like to perform even as He has spoken of you.

“Bring to me, God, what you have spoken of me.”

Have a great Thanksgiving. Remember what God has done for you. Expect more. Remember that what He has done for you He did so that you could pass it on. Have a great Thanksgiving for a couple of weeks. Have a great Thanksgiving every day of your life. Have a great Thanksgiving all the days of the lives of those who look to you. Thanksgiving is a heritage. Pass it on in prayer.

Christmas or Xmas?

Christmas as a word and a season is losing ground. Maybe we should go back to Xmas? What, isn't that just a lazy way to write Christmas? No, the X is the first Greek letter in Christ. The X to me, says, it is all about Christ. At a recent office party someone asked about that Xmas. It gave me a valid reason to witness about the Christ that came. When you read that word, Christ, you pronounce it differently than Christmas. Maybe we should say the word the way it is meant. Christ Mas. Christ not cryst. Say Merry Christ - Mas loudly this season. Use the X (Chi) to remind yourself if needed.

Seems that a few mega churches have decided the world is flat. Yes, they feel we should succomb to modernity and skip gathering together in celebration of the coming of God to man. What? Yes, it is the manner of some to gather less as the day approaches. Yet, our gospel tells us to not be like some who gather less, but gather more. The day approaches.

The day of apathy approaches. The day of ineffective congregations with no power approaches. The day of being so preoccupied with meeting the world on the ocean of comfort that we have lost sigth of the shore of Christ approaches.

The great television show of the day, Lost, centers on the problem. We are lost. We are without bearings. We do not know where we are or what is going to happen. How did our world get there? In Christ, I know exactly who I am. I know what is going to happen. He told me that before anything new happens, He would tell us. I know my calling to witness and pray and study my bible. Yet, as a whole we are lost. Our signals are coming from a lost world. No wonder we are lost. Shouldn't the signals come from the difinitive scripture?

People want valid and consistent purpose that stands the test of time. People want a strong tower to which to run.

This Christmas put the X back in. Happy birthday, Jesus. Merry Christ - Mas.

Revolution? Observation?

“The revolution of faith is swelling within the soul of America. It will affect you and everyone you know. Every social institution will be affected. This is not simply a movement; it is a full-scale reengineering of the role of faith in personal lives, the religious community, and society at large.” -- George Barna

The above quote by the prognosticator and observor, George Barna, leaves something to ponder. Does God wait on us? Is a revolution something we do or He does?

These same words could have been written at any time about any time in the last 2000 years. There is always a revolution going on in our world. There is always a group of people ready to embrace the Gospel. God does not wait for revivals. He is busy all the time.

What is different about these times? Is it valid to watch the world to determine what is happening or should we be watching the Holy Spirit. Should we be polling unbelief to find belief? Should we be polling in our prayer closet to determine the next steps not the last observation? These are questions that many times have dual answers. Yes and Yes. We should observe and shape. We should see what men and women need, and we should ask the Holy Spirit to give us openings into their hearts that have unseen portals.

Create a revolution. Men are always tired of religion that is not faith. Women are always looking for strong and valid relationships based on compassion. Children are always accepting of true love and concern. Create a revolution.

Get more concerned about loving God above all and loving your neighbor as yourself. Do that and a revolution will follow you and the Jesus that is in you. Quit worrying about the ten commandments and what some city is doing about Christmas. Get intimately concerned about how you exhibit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control and how you celebrate the coming of God to men.

Revolution is not what others think. Revolution is what God thinks and how we agree with Him.

Hypocritical Fish?

A recent foopaw was noted in the Christian community. Seems that on a Washington State Democratic Party website online store, an offensive sticker was sold. The sticker was in the shape of a fish with fire, the word Hypocrite, and a cross for the eye. Not knowing the intent of the barb, I have little to say what it meant.

Maybe it was a frustrated Christian wondering why other Christians were condeming hurting people to hell. After all hell is not punishment for committed sins in the bible I read. It is the endgame for staying separated from God and not accepting Christ as redeemer and savior. Isn't it? Does the gossip (those who spread negative words about others) burn in the same hell as the homosexual? Abortion never made it to the list of the seven deadly sins like slander. Who is the judge of men's hearts anyway? Or maybe they all can live in the same heaven through Christ's redemptive blood?

It amazes me to have seen what I have seen said about these people in Washington State of which none of us know anything. From what I have seen, Democrats are going to hell for being Democrats. Huh?

Lest we be found guilty of the intent of the sticker, what does being a Democrat or a Republican have to do with Christianity? There is certainly a lean against Christian morality in the Democratic party as a whole. Yet, there is a certain lean against Christian compassion in the Republican party as a whole. Is one better than the other? Is it a matter of party or of personal commitment to Christ.

When the righteous rule the city rejoices. Neither party counts in that sentence. Only the heart of the man or woman is counted righteous in Christ. It is a tragedy that a mistake is made in posting such an item of anger from any group. It would be a greater tragedy to attack, slander, and gossip against someone for an action for which we have no explanation.

What was their intent?

What was their interpretation?

Who was the delegated person who posted it?

Was it intentional?

Were they hacked and set up?

We do not know. We should not say.

Silence may be misinterpreted. It is hard to misquote.