My Father, the Preacher.

The landscape blanketed in white snow sloping upward into the soft yellow sky an hour before sunset could not take my eyes away from watching my little son.  He was walking before me dragging his blue sled in his journey toward another adventure at the top of the great mountain set before him.  It was like a living “Calvin and Hobbes” winter moment sketching itself out right before me.  The backdrop of nature could only add to the beauty of these moments with my son.  Up until these priceless and fragile seconds, I had been searching over the last ten years for the “perfect preacher” to write about.  There have been so many men the Lord has used to influence and shape my life thus far and it was extremely difficult to narrow down to one specific servant of God to write about.  This “Calvin and Hobbes” time with my son changed it all for me.

            “Dad, are these your foot prints?”  My five year old son, Aidan, asked me as we were headed up “Mt Everest” for the third or thirteenth time.  “How about this one?”  He steps in it.  “Yes, I think that one is mine.”  The sweet blessing of seeing him want to put his foot in my steps lifted my heart to thank God for the precious life He had given me in the birth of my son.  It encouraged my soul and increased my longing to follow in the footsteps of my Father.  I took this opportunity to talk with my beloved son about the importance of and joy in following Jesus Christ as He walks before us through the thick snows of this life.  “How do I follow Jesus?  Where are His footprints?” Aidan asked as he looked around his feet for any sign of the Divine marks of God’s feet.  “We follow Him by His Spirit through His Word.  As I follow Him, you follow me.  In His timing and by His grace, you will one day lead your son in the same way.”  My heart lifted up to my Father praying sincerely that He would save my son and give him the heart to follow Him and lead his own children Homeward.

            In that instance, all of the blessed memories of walking with my Father brought forth the very One Preacher that I hadn’t noticed up until this point.  In Romans chapter One it is written, “…He promised … through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord…” (verses 2-3).  This passage of Scripture declares that it is God the Father who is the Preacher of the Living and Powerful Gospel and that this Gospel concerns His own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.  All of the men God has used in my life, all of their fine points and good qualities were all flowing out of the Heart of God, my Father.  In man there is nothing good apart from Christ and even then, after conversion, it is only the Spirit of God within us that makes us of any worth.  All of Scripture testifies of this reality.  As I stood there watching my son, and thinking of all the men God had used to make me who I am today, I realized that it was not anyone other than God who has ultimately been there to teach me and guide me and mold me into who I am  and am becoming. 

            I was almost 27 years old before the Lord God poured out His life giving Spirit into me giving me life and a new song in that heart.  He did this through the preaching of His Word.  My Father, the Preacher, never speaks any Word in vain.  Every jot of what He says is done with power and purpose.  He hardens hearts and breaks hearts.  He gives life and takes life.  He does whatever His heart pleases and all that He does is soaked in Grace, Goodness, Sovereignty, and Holiness.  He upholds and sustains all of creation and yet He still makes the “time” to hold the hand of each one of His children as they walk through the snow.  The very love He has for His Beloved Son (John 3:35) is the Gospel.  All that He does proclaims the glory of His Son, Jesus Christ.  In this I am learning that all that I do throughout the day with my wife and sons and those the Lord allows into my life, is a great part of Proclaiming the Gospel.  The Puritan Richard Baxter wrote often of the violent necessity for the men of God to live the Gospel daily so that they do not destroy on Monday what was Proclaimed on Sunday.  Robert McCheynne, Jonathon Edwards, George Mueller, John and Andrew Bonar, Charles Spurgeon, David Brainerd, Apostle Paul and Peter, all testify boldly to this absolute necessity for the preaching servants of God.  For instance, God through Paul writes to Timothy, “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity…. Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you” (1 Timothy 4:12,16 NKJV).  Here we learn that how we live makes an impact on those who “hear” us.  All of our day by day lives is an opportunity to proclaim the Gospel to the world.

            No one in my life has made such an impact on me like my Father, the Preacher.  He is constantly here guiding me and teaching me and demonstrating to me how to live and love and simply “Preach the Word.”  I am just a child with a blue sled striving joyfully and proudly to walk in my Father’s steps.  I am thankful that He is behind me all the way, catching me when I fall, holding me up, and carrying the burdens that I cannot carry on my own.  For this, and much more, and I am thankful to Him and to Him alone belongs all of the praise and glory!! Amen!

Amber Glow and Amazing Grace

I remember vividly, as if in the last moment, a living portrait of my wife Natalie taken by my heart a few hours after my son Aidan was born.  After months of uncomfort, pain, tears, and back ache, the blessing of our first child was given to us by God our Father.  With the birth of this little one came also an enlightenment within me to a side of my wife I had yet to see.

I awoke, quietly, by the stirring of my spirit to behold my precious wife robed in beauty and grace, silhoutted by amber glow from the lamp-light softly pouring through the drawn curtain behind her.  This glimpse of her warmed my soul and a new appreciation for her blossomed in my heart.  The scent of praise for all that God had done for me by bringing her into my life years earlier, filled the chambers of my heart with the fragrance of love and thanksgiving.  I pray that it was well pleasing in His Throne room that evening.

To see my precious bride like that, even now in memory, warms my affections for her.  I am once again stirred in spirit by the amazing grace our Father had shown us both that night.  My wife, with tears full of love looking down upon the son that God had given her;  and me, in the shadows, watching them both in reverence of the Fathers love.

I was reminded by this vision of the years we had had up until that moment.  Three years earlier both of us were bound up in darkness and separated from God.  Both of us were without hope, purpose, or joy.  Both of us were depressed, searching for meaning, and full of anxieties.  Both of us were harrassed, helpless, and alone, like sheep without a Shepherd.  Now, as amber light blanketed her, it was as if in that one single moment our life was summed up beautifully in three little words,  “In the Light.”  Amazing grace had been poured over on us both.  We were no longer separated from our God.  We had been given hope, purpose, and joy.  We had been lifted up out of darkness and carried into the Kingdom of Light.  Depression and Death had been conquered.  We had been found and taken into the flock of God by the Lord our Shepherd.  Here in this moment, He had blessed us once again.  He had blessed me once again.  A new child to tend and care for.  A wife to walk Home to our Father’s House with.  Amber Glow and Amazing Grace.

The Life of a Sojourner: A Meditation on 1 Peter 2

According to the living word of God, we were created, chosen, redeemed, and gathered together into His body so that we all would “proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.”  For “once we were not a people, but now we are God’s people;  once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy.”  Thus Jesus Christ, through His Holy Spirit, uses His penman to write to us Divine Words of urgency drenched in Divine Love:  “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.  Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”  As sojourners, we are to simply trust God and take Him at His Word.  He is our Father and it is His desire that we understand Him so that we can live the life that is well pleasing to Him.  He is teaching us through His Word — walking with us through His Word by His Spirit.  He is not out to talk over our heads for He knows that without understanding the crows would rob away the seed of the Word from our hearts.  We must go aside in order to be with Him every day, in prayer and meditation and fellowship with Him, so as to privately learn from Him the ‘meaning of the parables.’  He will (and is) teach(ing) us.  Listen and obey His loving guidance: “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.  Honor everyone.  Love the brotherhood.  Fear God.  Honor the emperor.”

Grass Roots

“Above all let us learn how holy and spiritual-minded all believers should be.  They should never aim at any standard lower than that of the Sermon on the Mount.  Christianity is eminently a practical religion.  Sound doctrine is its root and foundation, but holy living should always be its fruit.  And if we would know what holy living is, let us often bethink ourselves who they are that Jesus calls “blessed”. (quote from Ryle in his commentary on Matthew 5:1-12)

Praise the Lord for the teachers that He has given to us all in order that He might encourage us and build us all up into one body with Jesus Christ as our Head.  Praise the Lord for sending us His Holy Spirit which guides us and comforts us and transforms us through the power of His Holy Word.  Truly, truly, without Him we can do absolutely nothing!

Praise the Lord for the work He is doing in our marriage and our relationships with our children and with the brethren.  Praise the Lord for His perfect love and grace and mercy toward us all.

May God, our Father, truly be glorified in us all today!

Praise God for our “Folks” serving the King of kings and Lord of lords down in Costa Rica.  May God truly bless the work He is working in and through them and their children.   May our Father bring us all back together soon.  We love and miss you all.  In the words of our Johnny Touchet…”keep on keepin on”.

10.8.2004 (a letter to my wife)

the thought of Aidan mesmerized by the television bringing on a trance that causes his thoughts and imaginations to cease…haunts me this morning.  i don’t want this for our children.  i don’t want our children to be raised by mr. rogers, or sesame street, or csi.  i am responsible to shepherd and protect my family from the wicked one (clinging all the while to Jesus Christ, the true Shepherd and Protector of us all)…from sin…and at times it seems from our own worldly desires.  God teaches that we are to not conform ourselves to the world but are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds…how can this be done if our minds are zoned out into non thinking mode in front of the “idiot box”?  this is a battle our whole family struggles with.  we must seek guidance from our Lord…we must seek our satisfaction and pleasure in Him and in His mission.  we must guard our hearts, minds, souls with all our strength from this world.  we must protect our children and lead them in the way of Christ, which is narrow and upward…instead of the world’s wide road which leads down into destruction and hell!  television isn’t so much the problem…the heart of it all is disobedience, bad stewardship of time, pride, uncontentment, lack of reverance for God, lack of hatred for sin, and ultimately a lack of love for each other, our children,  or the Lord Jesus Christ who died for us so that we might live for Him.  you know that this has been a struggle for me for some time…and i am constantly beaten down by it…but this can not and should not be so…Christ is our strength and He is the mighty Conquerer of all sin and the world…in Him the victory in this battle is ours.  i must learn this.  we must learn to use His time more wisely.  we must learn to redeem the time.  we must learn to pursue love.  we must learn to protect each other and our children from things of this world.  we must train ourselves in godliness.  we must live for Christ and must die, daily, to this world.  we must be led by the Spirit of God as He teaches us through His living Holy Word…for IT is the Lamp unto our feet and the Light unto our path.  we must chose for ourselves this day…this day, whom we will serve.  we must strive to serve and love the Lord with ALL our heart, mind, soul, and strength.  our souls and our children’s souls depend on it.  may God give us all we need to be faithful in the raising up of our sons!

i am sorry, Natalie, that i have failed to guide our family in Christlikeness…and in godliness.  i am sorry that i have not loved God or you enough to guard you from the world and sin.  i am sorry that i have not loved God’s Word or my family enough to lead us in the teachings of His Truth which is our daily Bread, Water, Life, and Future.  i am sorry, Natty, for not redeeming the time with you and for allowing us to be sucked up in worldliness and stagnant unusefulness.  i make the pledge to guide us from this point on as best as i can by the leading of the Holy Spirit in the way of the Lord God…which leads to everlasting life.  i pray that God will forgive me and help me to turn 180 so that i might honor Him with my life as i lead us Homeward by following Jesus of Nazareth to the far off country.  please prayerfully consider ways that we can redeem our time and protect the hearts and minds and souls of one another thus setting an example to our children of how to honor Christ through love and devotion to Him and to each other.  the children our indeed watching…may God open their eyes to see Him in all His beauty and glory and may we not from monday-saturday tear down violently with our lives what was proclaimed to us on Sunday.

i love you Natalie…please forgive me for my lack of shepherding the little flock the Lord God has entrusted unto me.  may God grant us grace to overcome our sin and the wicked one who seeks to discourage, destroy, and devour us and our little children.

simple moment

all that i can think of in this moment is something that i just read a few minutes ago…”sometimes the whitest lilies grow up out of the dirtiest ponds”…the author was speaking of Jesus of Nazareth of Galilee.  may it be that God teaches us all that is found in His name “Jesus”…and “Nazareth” and of “Galilee” and may that lead us to consider the title give to Him on the Cross at Calvary: “Jesus of Nazareth.  The King of the Jews”

does anything good come out of us?

come and see…Jesus of Nazareth!!!

a silent mule, the lollards, and an uneducated servant

strap a bundle of Bibles, food, water, and the basic essentials onto the back of a mule and he will go where he is led.  give the Lollards a bundle of written sermons, tracts, and Bibles, send them out and they will get “the Word out”.  give an uneducated servant a bucket of water and instruction and he will wash his masters feet.  these three pictures have been in my mind this morning.  praise Christ for them all.  He does not need me for anything.  He has given us the grace to labor for Him, in love, for His glory, in the fields of the nations.  as we “Go” anywhere, surely we can be as a mule, a lollard, and an uneducated servant of the most High God.  to be privelaged enough to have Him strap His Word onto our backs with food and water for the hungry and weary….to be given written sermons, tracts, and Bibles….and a bucket full of water (along with the Spirit of humility working within us)…and then to be sent out to serve His beloved ones in simple devotion to Him and His mission….this is the treasure Natalie and i truly desire.  Lord lead us in Your ways for us!

“to live is Christ and to die is gain!”

“I walked out to the hill just now. It is exalting, delicious.  To stand embraced by the shadows of a friendly tree with the wind tugging at your coattail and the heavens hailing your heart, to gaze and glory and to give oneself again to God, what more could a [Christian] ask?

Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth.  I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him.

Perhaps, in mercy, He shall give me a host of children that I may lead through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose fingers’ ends set them to burning.  But if not, if only I may see Him, smell His garments, and smile into my Lover’s eyes, ah, then, not stars, nor children, shall matter– only Himself.”

–Jim Elliot  

(“Jim Elliot and four companion missionaries to the Auca Indians of South America were martyred in 1956, when Jim was just 29.  The deaths of these men had repercussions around the world as their story was told in books by Elliot’s widow, Elisabeth;  Through Gates of Splendor and Shadow of the Almighty.   Shortly after the massacre, many of the Auca Indians became Christians.  Their story is one of the most dramatic of the history of the twentieth-century church”)

“to our Folks”

“Thy way, not mine, O Lord, however dark it be:  Lead me by Thine own hand:  choose out the path for me.  Smooth let it be or rough, it will be still the best;  Winding or straight, it leads right onward to Thy rest. 

I dare not choose my lot;  i would not, if i might;  Choose thou for me, my God:  so shall i walk aright.  Take thou my cup, and it with joy or sorrow fill, as best to Thee may seem;  Choose thou my good and ill.

Choose thou for me my friends, my sickness or my health;  Choose thou my cares for me, my poverty or wealth.  Not mine, not mine the choice, in things or great or small;  Be thou my Guide, my Strength, my Wisdom, and my All.”                -Horatius Bonar, 1857

O, that our Christ would stir within our hearts a greater  surrender to Him as our loving Guide, Strenght, Wisdom, and Shepherd.  He has a plan and He knows what is best for each and every one of us.  Truly, for Natalie and myself, He has chosen our friends for us…and He is knitting our hearts together with theirs no matter how great the distance may be.  no matter how far physically we are from one another, our hearts grow closer day by day as we are led Homeward to where our Father, our Messiah, lives and dwells with His little ones.  we shall soon be Home.  How great is that thought.  yet, while we are here lets continue to encourage one another daily to pursue love, peace, hope, mercy, grace, and a greater passion for His mission and a greater compassion for His people.  yesterday, Danny Aiken in his opening address to the students, challenged us to begin to pray in a new way…he told us to no longer pray, “Lord, should i go to foreign missions”, but to boldly pray to the Lord of the Harvest, “Lord, unless You say no…i shall go!!!”  why?  because He desires that all nations, tribes, tongues, and people groups hear the Good News of Jesus Christ!!!  this is why He came.  this is what God desires for the Father loves the Son (john 3:35-36).  pursue love…love one another just as He has loved us.  all of us have been gifted by His Holy Spirit at conversion…and each of us have a blessed responsibility to be on mission with God.  we have been made “lights in the world”, and “ministers of reconciliation”, and “children of God.”  pursue love!  there is no greater love than this..a man lays down his life for his friends.  Danny added, “…unless God says no…there is no reason not to Go!! for He has already told us to Go in His Word!!”  this is not to be seen as a burden to any of His children…this should be our joy and desire.  some of us may never touch foreign missions with our physical feet….but our knees can definitely touch every square inch of this earth we are sojourning through in prayer.  Remember that His only prayer requests to us while He walked on this earth was that we would pray to Him to send laborers out into His harvest for the laborers are few!  our churches are full and overflowing with gifted saints of light who have been given a new heart saturated and sanctified in love.  God has given our lives meaning and purpose and all that we need to fulfill what He desires.  all i hope is that, together as a family in Christ, we would all seek daily to encourage each other to use the giftedness God has given us to build each other up in the body of Christ and to daily encourage each other to seek to be a laborer in His fields…to those who have never heard.  may God unite us all here and abroad and may we all with one voice praise Him who is worthy of all praise.   thank you Jacob and Courtney for your faithfulness to me and Natalie in the daily encourage you have given us in word and in example, even while you are in Costa Rica.  may God use you both to move more of us into missions.  we love you very much!!!

“without love”

without love the best of us…and all that we do is worth nothing…we are nothing!  all the studying in the world will amount to nothing if one is not a doer of the Word.  hearing amounts to nothing if by faith we do not walk in the Light just as He is in the Light.  yet the desires within us at times is not to love or walk humbly before our God.  truly truly our flesh is warring against our soul.  the world hates us and satan is seeking to deceive, devour, and destroy us.  we must cling to Christ Jesus.  we must pray without ceasing to have new hearts daily…to have our desires changed into what He desires of us all.  we must strive for holiness and love and peace and grace and mercy knowing all the while that He has promised to give us all of Himself when we, as little children, come to Him with all of our heart and mind and soul and strength.  we must love Him and yet we cannot change our own hearts to do this.  we need His daily grace.   our hearts must be changed…we must not be ashamed of the Gospel of God for it alone is the power of God unto salvation…it alone has the power to give us new hearts.  we need desparately hearts of flesh and not hearts of stone.  we need to engulf ourselves in the deep deep love and Word of Jesus.  we need to drown ourselves in His grace and mercy.  we must forsake all that we have and all that we desire and all that we are for His name’s sake.  He will finish all that He has begun in each one of His little ones.  He will not fail.  He has spoken to our hearts and has revealed to us the desires of His own heart as written in His Holy Word.  He has alowed us to enter into His heart and to hear the very desire of His soul…His only prayer request to us while He walked on this earth was that we should “pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send laborers into His field for the harvest is white and the laborers are few.”  He is telling us to ask Him to throw laborers into His fields for their are many of His own still lost among the nations of the world.  He forsook the pleasures, comforts, rest, peace, the paradise of Heaven with His Father to come into a sin-diseased, dark, violent, corrupt, enemy land in order that He might, through His brutal violent blood soaked death, save each and every one of us who call upon Him as Father.  are we not willing to do the same.  as Thomas Kempis has well said it: “do we seek comfort and rest and pleasure from this world”…(the very world who hated and killed our Lord…the very world that He has told us hates us because it hated Him)…”do we seek to walk through this life comfortably when Christ Jesus walked the way of suffering”….love soaked suffering!!!  as Bonhoeffer has said, “when Christ bids a man to follow Him He bids Him to come and die.”  surely we are all to deny self, take up our crosses daily and follow Him.  but we must not soften what He is saying because of our own selfish desires to stay comfortable and living in pleasures using Grace as a cloak to pursue that which He has not called us to pursue.  our only Security is in Him.  He is our Provider.  He is the only place where true Joy and Peace and Rest and Happiness can be found.  He wants us to have Him…He wants us to live and be with Him.  we must discipline ourselves to follow Him clinging tightly everyday to the promises He has revealed to us.  He clearly tells us to “take up our crosses, daily” and then ”Follow Me!”  where was He going when He said that.  He had fixed His eyes on calvary.  He was going to die…physically.  we must mortify our flesh daily through prayer and desparate clingings to His Holy Spirit, yet we also must be ready and willing and in fact pursuing to die violently for Christ.  not that we make ourselves martyrs..but that we are always ready to be crushed, beaten, deastroyed for His names sake…we must be willing to “GO” simply because He has said “GO”.  if we asked our children to do something and then their response was, “well, i don’t feel that my parents want me to obey” how would we respond?  we cannot allow our feelings to dominate our thinking.  as we hear all the time…”think right, do right, then feel right”.  we are called to be transformed through the renewing of our minds.  fact: there are millions of people around the world who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ.  fact: they must hear the Gospel in order to be saved.  fact: the laborers ARE few.  fact: this nation and this world is not our home.  fact: He desires that every nation, tribe, people, and tongue worship Him.  fact: He said “Go” and make disciples of all the nations teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. 

fact: this is His desire.   can we say that we are a people after God’s own heart?  are we pursuing His desires for the nations simply because we love Him and desire to honor and please Him just as His Son Jesus did?  are we submitting to His will for His glory?  are we thinking more about our comforts or feelings or pleasures here or more about what Jesus of Nazareth did for each of us?  are we storing up Grace in barns or are we being used by God to channel His grace to all those around us?  are we striving to be nothing, to be servants, to be forgotten so that He will be exalted? He became poor so as to make many rich.  are we pursuing violently with all our moments the very same things?  our lives are all about Him.  He loves us all and has demonstrated this love by being crucified for us.  He has given us the Message that must be proclaimed.  have we known Him?  have we been with Him?  have we seen Him, touched Him, felt Him,  been made alive by Him?  He was moved with compassion and wept bitterly for the many sheep without a shepherd.  He desires that His lost ones be found.  we are scattered every where.  there are places in this world that do not have any one to preach and proclaim Christ.  think.  we must fight to be apart of His work.  america is not God’s nation.  He has one nation that He is gathering from all nations and that nation is a holy nation that will live forever with Him in paradise.  this world is fading away and many millions are perishing.  we have the Gospel.  we have Christ.  we have God as our Father and the Spirit of God within us.  we have His Word and His promises.  we have prayer and His power.  we are invincible…what can man, or nations, or satan do to us.  the One who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world.  what can stop His Word from going forth?!  nothing!!  “GO”.  will He tell us to Go and then not be with us?  NO…for He has promised to never ever leave nor forsake us.  there are no closed countries to the Gospel (as i have heard a preacher say recently)…you can get in to any country in the world.  you can get in…you may not get back out.  beatings away us.  imprisonment.  persecution (mental and physical).  but what is all this momentary afflictions compared to the height and weight and depth of the eternal glory set before us.  God, please change the desires of our hearts.  make us think and see and love like You do.  put into each one of Your children the very Heart of Jesus so that we will not waste our short lives on temporal things.  make us blind to the world’s desires…keep us from temptations.  strip us of all of our idols and make us sold out, spilled out, and spent for Christ work among all peoples, tribes, tongues and nations.  make us live as pilgrims and strangers.  remind us that this is not our home.  this is enemy territory that we are dwelling on.  make us ones who no longer live to eat and entertain ourselves with the pleasures of this world…set our hearts and longings on our Home with You.  drqw us near to You and lead us Home to You down the road You have chosen…the narrow road.  take away our sin-full contentment with living routine lives around meaningless temporals with no eye on eternity….make us, Your children, extreme in everything.  help us to be filled with zeal, love, humility, wisdom, grace, meekness, and joy.  make us fully aware of our dependence on You.  make us daily celebrate our “dependence day”…every day clinging to You to use earthen vessels such as us to take Your Gospel every where.  smash us like Gideons’ lanterns…let Your light pour out.  break us like bread and feed the multitudes.  strip us of our pride and false securities…open our eyes so that we might see and worship You and then send us out, scatter us across the nations for Your glory.  take all that we have and use it for the advancement of our King across the white fields.  make us hungry for the salvation of all of those whom You poured Your blood out for.  make us aware of the many corners of the world that need us to GO.  make us Go.  for Your names sake.  give us true LOVE!!

pray without ceasing.  give up everything for Him and for His mission.  Go!!

“the Father Loves the Son” (John 3:35)