PRAYER THAT GETS RESULTS - Just hear me out and you'll see what I mean

July 25, 2018 – My Christian brothers and sisters at Watterson Trail in J’Town, Kentucky are alive and well, going and growing, showing and sharing the love of God in the everyday Christian life.  Things are different lately.  Our Tuesday Summer Series is simply fantastic.  I’ve often said that we have the very best gospel preachers in the entire nation within a 50-mile radius.  Our theme is “The Greatest Questions – The Greatest Answers – The Greatest Book.”  This week Brother Greg Circle from Palmyra, Indiana did an outstanding job teaching us about Jesus’ question in Matthew 16:24-28, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?  Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”  I always learn so much from our sessions on Tuesday’s.  If you have an hour on Tuesday, drop by 9607 Watterson Trail at 7:00 p.m. in J’Town for a lift.  Our goal is to honor God, show our devotion to Christ and our love for all.  We don’t always succeed in our goal, but we are certainly trying every day to be more and more like Jesus.  

Next Tuesday (July 31) our Brother Zack Martin from Cedar Springs will be with us to share a lesson from Hebrews 2:3 and the question “For what is your life?”

This Sunday (July 29) I’ll be preaching about prayer.  I want my prayers to get results.  Just wait a minute.  I know.  When you first think about that statement, “I want my prayers to get results” you might think that I’m being a presumptuous.  I am not being presumptuous.  I want to know that my prayers will be heard and answered according to God’s will.  Don’t you?  If not, why do we pray? Anyway, if you’ll give me the “benefit of the doubt” I’ll show you what I mean.  Our lesson Sunday morning is entitled, “What Prayer Isn’t – What Prayer Is.”  I’ll give you the first point:  Prayer is NOT negotiation.  Prayer is real.  Prayer is not what we do.  Prayer is who we are.  You’ll see.  We’ll have two points on Sunday morning and then the other two points on Sunday afternoon at 1:30.

Our “HOUSE TO HOUSE – HEART TO HEART” magazine came in this week.  This time we ordered plenty of copies, enough for you and your entire family, friends, neighbors, and anyone else.  I hope you’ll get one, read it for yourself, and then help us distribute them out to our community.  The edition is terrific.  Get yours this Sunday.  See you then, Lord willing.  God bless us all.

A little bit about SELF-INITIATIVE today.

July 2018 – SELF-INITIATIVE – Doing what needs to be done without having to be told to do it.

Take a look at Andrew, one of Jesus’ apostles and Simon Peter’s somewhat quiet brother.  In John 6 Jesus was helping all who came to Him.  He went up on a mountain, sat down, and lifted His eyes to see a multitude of people coming toward Him.  Jesus then asked one of His disciples (Philip), “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” even though He already knew what He would do.  Philip gave him the answer that most of us would have given; “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one of them may have a little.”  We would have probably said, “Jesus!  Are you kidding!  There’s not enough money in the bank to feed this many people!” Then Andrew shows self-initiative.  Andrew said to Jesus, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?”  Boy, did Andrew, Philip, and everyone else, including you and me, find out just what Jesus, the Son of God can do with whatever we have.   

I was thinking about others who showed self-initiative:  Pricilla and Aquila showed self-initiative when they heard a mighty eloquent preacher named Apollos preach about Jesus, except he only knew about the baptism of John.  They took Apollos aside and explained the way of God more accurately.  We find that Apollos “greatly helped those who had believed through grace” and he “vigorously refuted” those who denied that Jesus was the Christ.  You can read about this in Acts 18:24-28.

Joseph of Arimathea along with Nicodemus showed self-initiative and great love for Jesus even though they were somewhat shy in their faith when they alone came to take Jesus’ body down from the cross to prepare it and bury it in that brand new borrowed tomb.  Jesus didn’t need that tomb for long, only until Sunday morning.  This is a beautiful reading in John 19:38-42.  It is very difficult for me to read this passage without crying.  I would like to think that if I would have lived in that day, that there would be a third person with Joseph and Nicodemus…Mickey.

You can probably think of many, many more from the Bible that exercised self-initiative.  I enjoy these kinds of exercises…

How can we create and cultivate self-initiative within ourselves and within others?  I hope the following suggestions will help us do just that.

1.      GET DISSATISIFED – I’m not talking about being dissatisfied with God or Jesus or the precious gospel written once for all in the Bible, nor with someone or anyone else.  We must get dissatisfied with ourselves.  We need to realize that we can be better in Christ.  I can, you can be better.  Just realize it and then do what needs to be done.

2.      TURN LOOSE – Learn to say “yes” more often.  “Be zealous for good works” – Titus 2:14.  “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works" – Hebrews 10:24.  When we look at our limitations, weaknesses, and “humanness” as walls between us and our capabilities we kill self-initiative.  Saying “yes” sets us free from these walls.

3.      WEEN YOURSELF – Learn to stand on your own two feet.  Open your eyes and look around you to see where you are and then where you need to be and can be.  Don’t wait to be told to move forward.  Just move.  Assemble with the church anytime and every time you have the opportunity.  Volunteer to help in any way you can.  Study the Bible every day.  Pray in faith without ceasing.  Grow in Christ.  Try!!  God will bless you for it.

CHANGE - Something we want and don't want...

July 17 – CHANGE - Something we want and don’t want.  

Change can be frightening and at the same time interesting and exciting.  

Change is going on all around us, above us, and within us.  

Change – We may not accept it readily.  We may love it or hate it, look forward to it or deny it, accept it or reject it, bless it or curse it, try to alter it or pretend it doesn’t matter, but either way change just keeps on keeping on.  

All we can do is adjust and move forward with it and in it.  When we do, we’ll find that change can be a friend.  Don’t believe what I’m saying is true?  Look in the mirror. 

I try to talk to my children about life and living and they say, “Dad, things today are not the same as they were when you were our age.  Things have changed.”  Yep.  I know this is true.  

When I was a boy, my mother would send us outside this time of the year to play.  You know, I rarely see children playing outside anymore.  We had no cell phones, computers, or video game consoles.  To get our friends in the neighborhood together we’d have to walk over to their house or ride our bike if we had one to see if they could play.  And I lived out in the country.  Our friends were two miles away.  We had no expensive playground equipment.  Of course we did have trees to climb, barns to play in, and forests to explore.  We had no swimming pools or splash pools.  We did have streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds to swim in.  No organized sports except for the one’s we “organized” in the backyard between us, like “the goal line is the fence on my side and your shoes on the your side” or maybe setting up the bases for baseball; first base is a soda can, second is a baseball glove, third a paint can lid, and home is piece of cardboard.  And we didn’t always have a bat and a ball.  Sometimes we had a stick and a rolled up wrapped up something held together with rubber bands.  

Ever played Hide and Seek?  How about Mother May I?  No?  Then you haven’t really lived!  We did have an imagination, that’s for sure.  I’m glad things have changed.  And I’m sad things have changed.

God doesn’t change.  He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.  God does change.  He changes us, makes us better, stronger, wiser and readies us for all the changes that lie ahead.  I’m excited about all that God has in store for us in the near and distant future.  He knows.  We may not.  He does.

If God is for us, who can be against us? God is good. His mercy endures forever.

"Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!  For His mercy endures forever" (Psalm 118:1).
Let Israel say this.
Let the house of Aaron say this.
Let those who fear the Lord say this.
Let me say this; "Thank you, Lord.  You are good.  Your mercy endures forever."
What about you?

David was a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22) and so wrote, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord’” (Psalm 122:1).  What about you and me?  Are we glad when Sunday rolls around?  And what about our Tuesday Summer Series or our Wednesday midweek sessions?  Many Christians just “go to church.”  They find no real joy and meaning in meeting with their fellow Christian brothers and sisters.  Others start out well enough, but quit before long.  Some people won’t even try.

God expects His children to come together for worship, fellowship, and study.  The church of the first century certainly did.  Luke wrote in Acts 2:42 concerning the activities of the Lord’s church at the very beginning; “And they (Christians) continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” 

Just think about how blessed we all are even in the midst of our individual issues?  Are we not encouraged and challenged when we gather together?  Brother Jerry Macon shared a message on Tuesday evening (7/3) that every Christian needed to hear.  He spoke about God’s love and grace and power in answering the question; “If God is for us, who can be against us?”  I was thinking about too many of our fellow Christians who really needed to hear that message, but didn’t hear it because they were absent.

When you read Hebrews 10:23-25 in the Bible you find that; 1) God commands that His church meet regularly,  2) Meeting together keeps us spiritually healthy, 3) Meeting together keeps us strong and encouraged, 4) Every church meeting has its purpose: encouragement and the strengthening of our faith, and 5) We honor God when we meet together.  

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.  And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.”