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Friday, June 29, 2012

America Needs You!

During WWI there was a famous JM Flagg poster that portrayed Uncle Sam pointing at the reader declaring “I want you for the US Army.” This poster morphed over the years and has taken many different forms. There are hundreds of pictures of these posters on the Internet. Seeing one of the posters recently got me thinking about the idea: America Needs You!

America does Need You!

America needs you to pray
America needs you to pray for the President, Vice-President, House of Representatives, Senate, and the Supreme Court, the military leaders, business and finance leaders. Our country needs the wisdom of God.

America needs you to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength
When each of us loves God the way we are meant to then our priorities end up in the right order, we spend our money correctly, we put people before things and not things before people. I heard Pastor Lindus say one time “Never love something that can’t love you back.” It is easy to use people and love things when we have our priorities in the wrong order. The correct priority is to love people and use things.

America needs you to love your neighbor as yourself
When each of us loves our neighbors as we should the world becomes a place of peace, creativity, stability and prosperity. When we fail to love our neighbors, no matter who they are or how different they are than us, the world becomes a place of conflict, creativity is stifled, instability becomes a way of life and prosperity is out of reach. The Scriptures talk about how easy it is to love someone like you or who loves you. The challenge given by Jesus 2000 years ago to love our neighbor was not a challenge to love those like us or who love us. The challenge was to love those who are different than us and who maybe don’t like us.

America needs these attitudes and actions from every one of us. America needs you to pray. America needs you to love God. America needs you to love your neighbor.
Matt

Friday, June 22, 2012

Praying for our country and leaders



The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, the pastor of the church in Ephesus, regarding praying for those in authority. He told Timothy: I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. This is good and pleases God our Savior, … (1 Timothy 2:1-3 NLT)

Paul wrote these directives at a time when Nero, the Emperor, had absolute power. Ultimate authority for life and death was literally in the hands of Nero. Nero was not a benevolent leader. History records many of the atrocious activities of this leader. Yet Paul wrote these things: Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf; give thanks for them. If this was the instruction for Timothy and the believers in the Roman Empire how much more applicable are the instructions for believers today? We are clearly instructed to: Ask God to help our leaders; intercede for our leaders; give thanks for our leaders.

As we approach the anniversary of our country’s birth and as we draw near to another election of the leaders, we need to obey the directives of Paul to Timothy. We need to: Ask God to help our leaders. We need to: Intercede for our leaders. We need to give thanks for our leaders.

The goal of praying for those in authority is, ‘so that we can live peaceful and quite lives marked by godliness and dignity.’ Living peaceful and quite lives marked by godliness and dignity happens in two ways. One way is that God answers prayer and the circumstances and conditions of society make it possible for people ‘to live peaceful and quite lives marked by godliness and dignity.’

The other way that this happens, is that God answers prayer by forming the attitude in people so that they ‘live peaceful and quite lives marked by godliness and dignity’, regardless of the circumstances and conditions of society. God answers prayer and works in hearts, so that His followers have an attitude of peaceful and quite lives marked by godliness and dignity, in a world that is opposed to them and in a society that is out of control.

The follower doesn’t get to choose which way God answers the prayer. The bottom line is that, God wants to create in us ‘peaceful quite lives marked by godliness and dignity’ regardless of what is happening in the land. If you didn’t know it ‘peaceful quite lives marked by godliness and dignity’ is what God is trying to do in you and me when we pray for those in authority.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Spiritual Growth takes Diligence

As most of you know I’m concerned for and passionate about spiritual growth. I find myself burdened by a desire to see each individual person at SWAG grow spiritually and that the nature of Jesus would be formed in their life.

Spiritual growth is best compared to ‘health’ then it is to just growth. Good physical health doesn’t just happen. It takes diligence and intentional action for good health to happen. Good health takes work when it is easy and exciting and we’re inspired. Good health also takes work when we find ourselves in the middle of the drudgery of life. Spiritual growth doesn’t happen naturally. Spiritual growth takes work and lots of it.

The Apostle Peter wrote to the first century believers encouraging them to be diligent in the drudgery. It is pretty easy to work hard when we are inspired, when there is a looming deadline or when we have a goal to achieve. Working hard and being disciplined is not so easy in the drudgery.

Peter wrote: For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-8 HCSB)

Notice his words: MAKE EVERY EFFORT. Those are diligence, hard work and discipline words.

Don’t let yourself be weighed down though. Even in the area of discipline God wants to work. One of the Fruits of the Spirit is Self-control. Self-control is something produced by the Holy Spirit when we yield and cooperate with Him.

Jesus, teach us how to be diligent, hardworking and disciplined in the times of drudgery. Holy Spirit, create the fruit of self-control that we might grow spiritually. Amen

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Passing It On

One of the lessons that will be repeated over and over as we study through the book of Judges the consequences of what happens when one generation fails to pass on to the next generation the truths of God. This is not just about failing to teach the truths but also a failure to create situations and environments for each succeeding generation to experience the love, forgiveness, intervention, guidance and provision of God.

Judges records it this way: “After that generation died (the generation that had been in the desert and had crossed the Jordon River), another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the LORD or remember the mighty things He had done for Israel.” (Judges 2:10 NLT)

The instruction to the children of Israel was clear. They were to pass on to each generation the truths of Scripture. The book of Deuteronomy starts with these instructions: “Listen, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 NLT)

When grandparents and parents fail to pass on the truths of God and create situations and environments for their posterity to experience the work of God, there are disastrous consequences to future generations. Passing on the truths and creating situations and environments for the next generation to experience the work of God will not guarantee that loving, fearing and serving God will take, BUT failure to pass on the truths and failure to create situations and environments for the next generation will almost certainly destine the succeeding generations to forget God.

Judges continued to record history: “The Israelites did evil in the LORD's sight and served the images of Baal. They abandoned the LORD, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They went after other gods, worshiping the gods of the people around them. And they angered the LORD. They abandoned the LORD to serve Baal and the images of Ashtoreth.” (Judges 2:11-13 NLT)

The number one priority of grandparents and parents is to pass on the truths of God and to create opportunities for the next generation to experience God.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Celebrate America - Prayer Needed

I need to ask you to pray for wisdom and for finances for Celebrate America, the annual fireworks event that South Whidbey Assembly has organized and hosted for the last 17 years, in Freeland.

This has been a very difficult year organizing the event. We have had multiple obstacles to overcome all the way from changing the firework pyrotechnicians to the fundraising. The fundraising has not gone as well as it has in previous years. The cost of most components of the event has increased again this year. We have ironed out almost all of the difficult areas except the funding.

All of the businesses that have been large supporters are either unable to help this year or they have had to cut back their support significantly. This has left us with more than a $10,000 shortage.

The determination was made, we needed to have $20,000 of the money pledged or in hand by the end of May or we would have to cancel the event. As of May 31st we are a few thousand dollars short of the $20,000. The total budget is $29,000, so even if the $20,000 was realized we still have about a third of the money to collect.

The South Whidbey Record is running another plea on Saturday and we are shaking every bush we can think of that may not have been shaken so far.

The decision has not been made yet, to pull the plug. I am waiting until the last possible minute in hopes that the funding comes in.

A decision will be made by June 10th whether or not the event will happen. It would be too bad not be able to offer this event to the community. It is in Jesus’ hands.

Please pray that we will have clarity, as the week goes by, and that, if Celebrate America should happen this year, that the money needed will come in quickly.

Thanks.