Monthly Archives: November 2019

Blessed breeds Thanksgiving

Jeremiah 17:7 Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.

How can you be thankful, if you were not blessed first? Being blessed breeds the Thanksgiving, thankful to whomever you were blessed by. If you are thankful for your kiddos, you spouse played a major role in that. If you are thankful for your health, God played the lead in that, maybe with the aid of doctors expertise (which He gave them). If you are thankful for your toys, or the stuff this world measures worth by, I bet you are thankful to yourself, and that just feels kinda weird doesn’t it? That has the ring of an old late night skit, one of self-affirmation “I am good enough, I am smart enough, and dog-on it, people like me.” When you really start looking at being thankful to yourself, for all the things you have, that just gets weird, and a level of pride that condemns is building up in your life.

E v e r y t h i n g in your life is filtered through God’s sovereign hands. Like it or not, believe it or not, all the blessing in your life were designed or allowed in it by God. James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. It is a much deeper subject to go into God’s sovereignty of using bad gifts as good things, but even God can use bad things to do ultimately good work. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, his ways much greater than ours, and since he sees all of time the same, it is a complexity we cannot fathom, but one we can have hope and faith in.

As you spend today reflecting, start tracing back the origins of where you “gifts” came from. Let God stir your mind through humble realizations of how he has been working in your life. He has given me many gifts, taken many away to teach me lessons, but I trust my Father and his ways. I am most thankful for the Trinity, and all the work they do for all of us. I am thankful for my family and their hearts for God in a world that isn’t. I am thankful for the ministries God has given me, in seemingly every path of life. I am blessed to be called a child of God, and for that, am I thankful. (You can be too)

A Good Filter

Luke 22:31 And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat.

What if God told you that? What if God told you that Satan was gonna sift you, press you, shake your world to see what falls out, what passes the test, what rises to the top? Sifting in it’s definition is about the removal of impurities, the pressing of something through a strainer to see what is strong enough to survive the test. The good can be what falls through the filter, or what survives the pressing and remains. Peter (Simon) was the most outspoken disciple, the loudest, proudest, gonna out-do everyone else in the group, the never will fail Jesus when others will…..yet Jesus said you won’t even admit you know me when asked. The commentaries are fascinating and deep in the context of this passage, but we must simply understand that sifting is part of the sanctification process of Christianity, of God’s ways of making us more like Christ, of how God removes the impurities in our lives to draw us ultimately closer to him.

There likely is not a Christian who understands this sifting in some degree. There is not a true Christian that has not experienced some pain since Salvation; prosperity gospels that preach differently do not produce the sifting of God, and therefore lead others to Hell. When I think of my testimony, of my continued sin struggles, of how I am unworthy, yet God gives more grace, I remember how God talked about Paul’s conversion. God took the “greatest sinner by his own words,” and used him to reach the world, yet he also suffered greatly along the way. Acts 9:16 For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” God was continually sifting Paul, removing the pride as Peter, and through the pain drew both of them to incredible ministries and heavenly work.

There is another avenue of sifting, a practical daily approach to living as a Christian. Do you filter your life through your faith? Do you question what you see, what you hear, how you respond, how you proclaim, how you live life in view of how God views your life? Do those around you know you are a Christian, or how do they view Christianity by the way the supposed Christian acts? If you realize you need to act more like a Christian, that conviction of sin is healthy. To make the change is simple; just pray and open God’s Word each day and read. That creates a filter that removes impurities, lets the good in you rise to the top, lets the world see Christ in you. Sifting doesn’t always have to hurt, but a good filter makes a better Christian.

Yesterday’s Breakfast?

John 9:25 He answered and said, “Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.”

I had a birthday last week, one that I have dreaded for years. I turned 52, the age that my grandfather died, likely from the stress of owning business similar to the one I am in. My grandmother told me a lot about how the stress worked on him, the worry and anxieties that employees never understand. I find myself on a similar path, stressed to the breaking point, my analytical ability slipping, physical strength failing, and my every shrinking memory fading….father time is taking it’s toll on me. I always struggled with memory, even earlier in life. I could never retain what I read. I can be grabbed and moved by a book, but not recall it when I put it down. I truly have lived in the “present tense” for most of my life, an inner battle only few understand. Only by the grace of God has the last ten or so years found me reading more about God, and remembering it, by his Spirit that lives in me. When my memory fails, my Spirit recalls, right on time, every time.

Jesus was with his disciples who where questioning sin, and the results of it, in a very big way. They came across this blind man from birth, and they asked if he was blind as a result from his parents sin (a big question many people ask themselves). Jesus said no, he was born to draw glory to God. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. (ESV) Everyone knew he had been born blind, so everyone wanted to know how he was healed. Can you imagine what that was like to him, and even those he shared his testimony of Jesus healing him to? The religious of the day brought him and his family to “court” to get them to change his testimony. Likely a great work of God was happening through this man sharing his faith in Jesus, his testimony was threatening the Pharisees rules. This uneducated man preached to the preachers a powerful sermon of his faith in Jesus Christ! 27 He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” 30 The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

This weekend at the last Trackside Church service, Dale told everyone we will always point them to seek God through prayer and his Word; that is our and any disciples mission, to urge the hearer to seek and find God themselves. You cannot spend time with God today and be the same person you were yesterday. You will be changed from the inside out as you pray and read God’s Word each day. You might even remember the perfect verse, at the perfect time, and have no idea where it came from; especially if you can’t remember breakfast yesterday.