This Sunday (January 22) is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday.  At First Baptist we celebrated it on the 8th, because I didn’t want to interrupt a sermon series that I just started.  The sermon was entitled “A Call to Life” and can be found here.  At the close of the sermon I had a chance to use a video that may be the best video I’ve ever seen regarding the Sanctity of Human Life.  It doesn’t just talk about abortion, but mentions all of the various issues that are involved.  If you desire to be moved, click this link!

So, what have I decided for this upcoming year?  Well, first of all, I’m reading through the Bible in a year again.  I’ve frequently recommended the “Daily Walk Bible” for people who are novices to the idea, because if gives you some explanation and application for each daily reading.  This year I’m using the ESV Daily Reading Bible.  The plan has you go through the OT once, the NT twice, and Psalms twice during the course of the year.  Here are the daily readings online, or a pdf plan you can print out.

I shared during the summer that it had been a hard year for me emotionally, spiritually, and mentally.  Well, it got a little better, but I can now add physically to that list!  I decided I needed a spiritual reset if you will, so, in addition to the above plan, I’m also reading through the Bible in 90 days.  There’s an entire program for it, but you can find the reading plan here and use it with any Bible if you so desire.  I have a Bible that I’ve marked for that express purpose.  So far so good!

The physical problems have been nagging and ongoing, with my blood pressure topping the list.  I had very good success with the Atkins diet years ago, including incredible blood work, but got away from it.  I made a resolution to make some eating changes for 2012 so that I could lose some weight, but I didn’t realize how radical those changes would be!  I just happened to download a free book for my kindle called “The Perfect 10 Diet.”  The author made a lot of sense, especially with some of his comments regarding the additives and preservatives that we use in food.  I suppose that some of my recent problems with migraines over the summer may have influenced me as well!  Anyway, to make a long short (too late!), we have completely changed the way we’re approaching food/dieting in the new year.  And of course, you can’t have a resolution about dieting without having one on exercising as well!  Nuff said.

This blog has also been a source of consternation to me.  Sometimes I feel that it’s just one more thing to do, and wonder if it’s really necessary.  At other times I think that it’s a really neat idea, and that I should utilize it more.  Oops!  I don’t think that I can manage a daily post like some do, but I would like to shoot for once a week (hence this post).  I will probably manage a few a week for a while, but, knowing my past history, at some point it will probably become a struggle to post weekly, and I’ll barely be able to manage that.

Well, that’s it for now.  Over time I’ll reevaluate, make changes, and probably be happy and frustrated all at the same time!  I pray that we’ll all find a way to become closer to God in the New Year.

I have been a part of three Baptist organizations now, and the ongoing trend seems to be this:  Existing church = worthless; Church plant = Godly.  The rationale behind this thought process is that existing churches simply do not or cannot reach people the way that church plants do.  That idea is born out statistically, and existing churches do need to place a priority on reaching people.  However, it is also a serious problem when a church or an organization makes evangelism the sole focus of its ministry.

Although I have some issues with “The Purpose Driven Church,” it does provide us with a decent framework for what a church is supposed to do Biblically:  fellowship, discipleship, worship, ministry, and evangelism.  You may be familiar with the concept from reading “The Purpose Driven Life” (which I also have some methodological issues with).  Here is the point: evangelism is not the only aspect of a churches ministry, and to judge a church solely by that criteria is unBiblical.

A blog post got me thinking about this issue recently.  It is by a church planter who is successful, and feels like he has neglected some aspects of church life and ministry along the way.  His post is entitled Church Planters and Missionalotry.

What a month!  It all stated with what I thought was severe gout, but actually turned out to be a foot infection.  That, coupled with a sinus infection and some severe migraines kept me feeling pretty bad for a couple of weeks.  In fact, for the first time I actually had to preach while “under the influence” — I had to take some migraine medication to get through Sunday morning.  Unbelievably, that morning was also the morning of our “thrice annual business meeting!”

Then, in what will be likely remembered for a generation, was “the storm.”  Wind gusts up to 69 miles an hour.  Trees down.  Power outages that lasted for serveral days for many people.  But it gave us a chance to minister!  We fed and warmed about 35 church related and 15 non-churched people that weekend.

Another church meeting, a call to fill in at a Bridges event, changes to our Youth program, filling in at Sunday School…I’m waiting for that after summer slow down!  Maybe in January!

We never know what the future may bring.  We can have it in our heads that one thing will happen a particular way, and it may end up being entirely different!  That’s why I try to remember the above passage, as well as what it says in Acts 16:6-7: Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them.

How often are our schedules rearranged by God Himself so that we can accomplish something or something more for His kingdom?  Do we really believe that God allows things to happen to us because of something we have to do or to learn?  How frequently do we get aggrevated by our circumstances when they are God ordained and we need to pay attention to His leading?

It seems trite, but we should always remember that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).  I know that it’s a lesson that I need to keep reminding myself of…

…especially since the pace of our lives continues to go at breakneck speed.  This weekend we have Fall Fest and we are helping Val’s parents with their basket booth.  Upcoming minstry events include the GLBC annual meeting, a working vacation (where I officiate at my nephew’s wedding), the possibility of some new ministries starting, two church wide dinners…whew!  We’ll see what lessons and surprises God may have in store for us in the weeks ahead.

I also read two articles recently that I found interesting regarding pastoral ministry and preaching.  First, a tongue-in-cheek article on “How to Get Rid of Your Pastor.”   The second article answers the age old question, “Why should I go to church this morning?”  ( How to Get the Most Out of Your Pastor’s Preaching)

“Evening wolves.”
Habakkuk 1:8

While preparing the present volume, this particular expression recurred to me so frequently, that in order to be rid of its constant importunity I determined to give a page to it. The evening wolf, infuriated by a day of hunger, was fiercer and more ravenous than he would have been in the morning. May not the furious creature represent our doubts and fears after a day of distraction of mind, losses in business, and perhaps ungenerous tauntings from our fellow men? How our thoughts howl in our ears, “Where is now thy God?” How voracious and greedy they are, swallowing up all suggestions of comfort, and remaining as hungry as before. Great Shepherd, slay these evening wolves, and bid thy sheep lie down in green pastures, undisturbed by insatiable unbelief. How like are the fiends of hell to evening wolves, for when the flock of Christ are in a cloudy and dark day, and their sun seems going down, they hasten to tear and to devour. They will scarcely attack the Christian in the daylight of faith, but in the gloom of soul conflict they fall upon him. O thou who hast laid down thy life for the sheep, preserve them from the fangs of the wolf.

Roxanna had always complained that her mom and I were preaching at her, so I probably needed to be careful about that.  I was also told that we were scheduled to cry at 2:06, six minutes after the ceremony started.  What do you do with that!?!?  Now if I don’t cry, what does that mean?!?!?

Well, I did cry, but it was when I went to tell Roxanna that we were ready.  I teared up a little during the ceremony, but made it through.  I decided to keep it short and sweet; after all, it was garden wedding and the families were the only ones there.  Besides, I wasn’t sure how much I could get through!  This is what I said:

Val and I have always talked about this day with great anticipation.  We’ve always believed in marriage based parenting rather than child based parenting, so we’ve looked forward to the empty nest time of our lives.  But as this wedding has gotten closer, I’ve had more trouble with it than I anticipated.  You see, I’ve always been the one Roxanna would call on when she needed help.

“Dad, I need a ride. Dad, I missed my bus.  Dad, I need help with my taxes.  Dad, help me fill out this form.  Dad, I dropped by phone/laptop/iPod again and it’s not working.  Dad, I was just in an accident.  What do I do?”

A lot of her requests have been about computers: “Dad, my computer won’t turn on.  Dad, my computer has a virus.  Dad, my computer cord is broken.  Dad, my computer won’t connect to the internet.”

But my favorite happened while we were living in NYC.  Roxanna was about an hour away on the other side of the city, and she called and said, “Dad, I’m lying in the middle of a field, and I can’t get up!”

Now, as annoyed as I was when some of these things happened, it did let me know  that Roxanna needed me and that I was the one she would naturally call on for help.  That’s not going to be the case anymore, and it kind of makes me sad.  But that’s the way it’s supposed to be.  Scripture teaches that, “For this reason (marriage), a man (and a woman), will leave his father and mother and be joined (be glued to) his wife.  And the two will become one flesh.”  The only person you should be closer to in this life is God Himself.

Are you ready to make this commitment to each other, and do you pledge to be glued to one another for the rest of your lives?

The dark night of the soul. This phenomenon describes a malady that the greatest of Christians have suffered from time to time. It was the malady that provoked David to soak his pillow with tears. It was the malady that earned for Jeremiah the sobriquet, “The Weeping Prophet.” It was the malady that so afflicted Martin Luther that his melancholy threatened to destroy him. This is no ordinary fit of depression, but it is a depression that is linked to a crisis of faith, a crisis that comes when one senses the absence of God or gives rise to a feeling of abandonment by Him.

Spiritual depression is real and can be acute. We ask how a person of faith could experience such spiritual lows, but whatever provokes it does not take away from its reality. Our faith is not a constant action. It is mobile. It vacillates. We move from faith to faith, and in between we may have periods of doubt when we cry, “Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief.”

We may also think that the dark night of the soul is something completely incompatible with the fruit of the Spirit, not only that of faith but also that of joy. Once the Holy Spirit has flooded our hearts with a joy unspeakable, how can there be room in that chamber for such darkness? It is important for us to make a distinction between the spiritual fruit of joy and the cultural concept of happiness. A Christian can have joy in his heart while there is still spiritual depression in his head. The joy that we have sustains us through these dark nights and is not quenched by spiritual depression. The joy of the Christian is one that survives all downturns in life.

I also came across a wonderful sermon that Charles Spurgeon preached on Job 35:10 that he entitled “Songs in the Night.”  His great insight and understand comes from the fact that he himself suffered from severe depression.  Here are some excerpts from that sermon:

Man, too, like the great world in which he lives, must have his night. For it is true that man is like the world around him; he is a little world; he resembles the world in almost every thing; and if the world has its night, so hath man. And many a night do we have—nights of sorrow, nights of persecution, nights of doubt, nights of bewilderment, nights of anxiety, nights of oppression, nights of ignorance—nights of all kinds, which press upon our spirits and terrify our souls. But, blessed be God, the Christian man can say, “My God giveth me songs in the night.”

It is not necessary, I take it, to prove to you that Christian men have nights; for if you are Christians, you will find that you have them, and you will not want any proof, for nights will come quite often enough. I will, therefore, proceed at once to the subject; and I will speak this evening upon songs in the night, their source—God giveth them … their matter—what do we sing about in the night? … their excellence—they are hearty songs, and they are sweet ones … their uses—their benefits to ourselves and others.

I. First, songs in the night—WHO IS THE AUTHOR OF THEM? “God,” says the text, our “Maker:” he “giveth songs in the night.”

Any man can sing in the day. When the cup is full, man draws inspiration from it; when wealth rolls in abundance around him, any man can sing to the praise of a God who gives a plenteous harvest … It is easy to sing when we can read the notes by daylight; but the skillful singer is he who can sing when there is not a ray of light to read by … Let all things go as I please—I will weave songs, weave them wherever I go, with the flowers that grow upon my path; but put me in a desert, where no flowers are, and wherewith shall I weave a chorus of praise to God? How shall I make a crown for him? Let this voice be free, and this body be full of health, and I can sing God’s praise; but stop this tongue, lay me upon the bed of languishing, and it is not so easy to sing from the bed, and chant high praises in the fires. Give me the bliss of spiritual liberty, and let me mount up to my God, get near the throne, and I will sing, ay, sing as sweet as seraphs; but confine me, fetter my spirit, clip my wings, make me exceeding sad, so that I become old like the eagle—ah! then it is hard to sing.

It is not in man’s power to sing, when all is adverse. It is not natural to sing in trouble—”Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name:” for that is a daylight song. But it was a divine song which Habakkuk sang, when in the night he said—”Though the fig-tree shall not blossom,” and so on, “yet will I trust in the Lord, and stay myself in the God of Jacob.” Methinks in the Red Sea any man could have made a song like that of Moses—”The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea;” the difficulty would have been, to compose a song before the Red Sea had been divided, and to sing it before Pharaoh’s hosts had been drowned, while yet the darkness of doubt and fear was resting on Israel’s hosts. Songs in the night come only from God; they are not in the power of man…

II. Thus we have dwelt upon the first point. Now the second. WHAT IS GENERALLY THE MATTER CONTAINED IN A SONG IN THE NIGHT? What do we sing about?

Why, I think, when we sing by night, there are three things we sing about. Either we sing about the yesterday that is over, or else about the night itself, or else about the morrow that is to come. Each of these are sweet themes, when God our Maker gives us songs in the night. In the midst of the night the most usual method for Christians is to sing about the day that is over. “Well,” they say, “it is night now, but I can remember when it was daylight. Neither moon nor stars appear at present; but I can remember when I saw the sun. I have no evidence just now; but there was a time when I could say, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth.’ I have my doubts and fears at this present moment; but it is not long since I could say, with full assurance, ‘I know that he shed his blood for me; I know that my Redeemer liveth, and when he shall stand a second time upon the earth, though the worms devour this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God.’ …

Remember, it was not always night with thee: night is a new thing to thee. Once thou hadst a glad heart, a buoyant spirit; once thine eye was full of fire; once thy foot was light; once thou couldst sing for very joy and ecstacy of heart. Well, then, remember that God, who made thee sing yesterday, has not left thee in the night. He is not a daylight God, who can not know his children in darkness; but he loves thee now as much as ever: though he has left thee a little, it is to prove thee, to make thee trust him better, and serve him more…

He who can sing songs in the night, too, proves that he has true love to Christ. It is not love to Christ to praise him while every body else praises him; to walk arm in arm with him when he has the crown on his head is no great deed, I wot; to walk with Christ in rags is something. To believe in Christ when he is shrouded in darkness, to stick hard and fast by the Saviour when all men speak ill of him and forsake him—that is true faith. He who singeth a song to Christ in the night, singeth the best song in all the world; for he singeth from the heart.

I am pleased to report that I am doing much better – there was a time when I don’t think that I could have done much worse!  I still have some moments, but the things that are helping me through it the most are the Word of God and prayer!  Remember, Romans 10:17 says that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”  The Bible is God’s precious gift to us, and it helps us to have and increase our faith: “but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31).