Boldness

Happy April. If you are visiting please consider joining me.

Below is a April 1 Good News!

Good News 040111 Boldness 

"Almighty God, may they be filled with the Holy Spirit

 and speak the Word of God with boldness..."

-- Acts 4:31  

                April fool’s day is a day of practical jokes, misleading emails and general tomfoolery! Ok, so let’s skip reading our devotional, forget the Holy Spirit and our Lord so that we may participate. That will not work because we cannot hide from the God we all believe in.

            Today the comics in the newspaper will have Fool’s Day jokes, the news and sports programs will be full of them and there will be a few bogus press releases to get your attention. If I was to write a press release for today it would be “Bob shoots par at St. Andrews!” or “… donates a million towards the church mortgage.”

People would recognize immediately that these were jokes and some would know they were my fantasies.

            Today like all days I hope this devotional puts you on track to recognize the Holy Spirit in your life and the role it plays for you. While others are playing the jokes, we need to be sure that we are bold in our faith.

Blessings to you all and enjoy the start of April.

Thought for Today: For today we will be bold in our faith and remember that it is ok to be a joker also!

Prayer for Today: Father, we give thanks for all that we are and have. We thank you for having the freedom to enjoy a good joke, a great laugh and the faith to know the real truth. We thank you for being with us and meeting our needs.

Amen

Harvest !

We are approaching Easter. Lat's celebrate with new friends.

“It’s still four months until harvest’?

I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields!

They are ripe for harvest.”

(John 4 vs. 35) 

            We are in the spring of the year and our fields are softening from the winter frost and it is getting close to planting time. Harvest will be in the fall. That is how the world works in my upper Midwest mentality. We till, plant, weed, water, prune and when we are lucky, we harvest. Along the way there is wind, rain, hail, heat and all the forces of nature that we have no control over. June and I had beautiful gardens for over twenty years and miss it a bit every spring.

            Jesus is not talking about a food harvest, his disciples are. Jesus is talking about making converts, telling the story, inviting people to worship. To that task there are no seasons. Hold on to that thought because there just may be times of harvest in our churches; times when we are more invitational than others.

            There are times when we are fairly open to inviting people to worship, Easter, Christmas, rally Sunday and many special events throughout the year. It is fairly easy and most of us feel comfortable inviting people to join us at those special times. However, there are 52 weeks a year and most of us hold on to our invitations to worship way too much. 

            We are all proud of our faith, our congregations, and our church and are willing to share on special occasions. We are asked to “…open your eyes and look at the fields!” Let’s ask a fiend to join us soon.

Open your eyes and look at the fields! 

Thought for Today: Many of us are members of declining Christian churches. Today let’s think about why.

Prayer for Today: Dear Lord and Father, our troubled world seems to often take control of our lives. Trouble seems to supersede your will. Today we give thanks that in our personal world we have a choice to follow you. We pray that we can choose to contribute to doing your will here on earth by following Jesus teachings.

St. Patick's Day

St Patrick's Day Speial!

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Stand firm, then,

and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

(Galatians 5 vs. 1) 

            Growing up in Boston there was always a very large St Patrick’s Day parade and celebration. There were stories about a saint who drove the snakes out of Ireland, green beer and buttons that said everyone was Irish for today. It was great fun; mythical fun without a grain of truth to it!

            St Patrick was an Irish saint and lived from 387 to 461. He is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. Wow, I never heard that growing up. Wikipedia does not mention green beer or parades. He was a great man who converted a country. He allowed the Irish to become free of their demons (maybe snakes?) and experience the grace of Christ. We need to honor him for that today! 

Thought for Today: Today let us honor a person who spread our faith and the grace of Jesus to heathen population. Ok, let’s do it by drinking a toast with green beer! 

Prayer for Today: Dear Lord and Father, today we give thanks to Saint Patrick and the many saints of the first millennium. They brought the grace of Christ to the world and made our lives special. We pray that in some way we are guided to carry on their work.

Amen

Life Plan

My real simple message today is let's have a plan and work it with faith.

^“The plans of the diligent lead to profit

as surely as haste leads to poverty.”

(Proverbs 21:5) 

            In the 40’s and 50’s there was a Boston announcer that used to say “A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.” Today we live in a fast paced society that seems to demand instant gratification.  In the business world everyone is looking for the proverbial “low hanging fruit”; the diet fads are advertising fast weight reduction; if a trip is more than 400 yards we drive to save time. We want what we want when we want it and often fail to be diligent, persistent and patient.

            In the 80’s at a sales meeting Ty Boyd did a presentation called “The Life Plan” in which he talked about making a plan for life like we do for business. He preached that we needed to set goals for life and keep our focus on attaining those goals.  We all start out with a plan, but many let it go and start reacting to life’s situations rather than implementing the plan.

            A strong factor in keeping a life plan in order is spirituality. Spirituality gives us the ability to focus on the good rather than reacting to the negative. Having the ability to forgive and to pray helps get through the tough days and keep our focus on the plan. In Paul’s message to the Romans he advised, “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.  Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” We need that to be a part of our life plan.

Thought for Today: Today let us remember where we want to go. There will be both positive and negative distractions. Today let us focus on our spirituality in both celebration and under stress. Let us give thanks when things go as planned and pray when they do not.  

Prayer for Today: Dear Lord we are busy working our plan every day. Today we pray for success, positive memories and that our plan fits your plan.

Amen

James Madison Qute

The following was sent to me by by mentor, friend and brother in Christ.
It says a lot about what may be failing in America today!

James Madison, the 4th president of the United States is quoted as saying:
"We have staked the whole of all our political Institutions upon the capacity of mankind for
Self-Government, the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."

Who's Macro

If you feel our Country and world are out of control read this:

Who’s Macro?

Please do not take this post as a political piece but I am feeling a lot like my life is out of control. Not the daily issues but in computer terms it seems my macro is not what I would like. I guess I am looking for the land of milk and honey, the golden years or to live happily ever after. We are trained to look for that in all those books our mom’s read to us when we were growing up.

            Well, another old time expression is “life begins at 40”. It may not seem like that as you approach that milestone but at 70 or 90 looking back it will feel that way. It is all a matter of perspective. Believe it or not, age 40 through 60 are most often the best years of our lives.

            My macro issues are with what I call the new world economy and what I see happening in the world. I feel quite helpless. It seems that whoever I talk to feels the same way. We all want to end war, be at peace, reduce taxes and live happily ever after. That is the challenge.

            The solution to my issue is that I need to focus on the correct Macro; the spirit of our Christian Faith as opposed to the Government macro. The politicians around the world certainly have changed things with the new world economy and making war over WMDs. They have not impacted the words of the Lord- The real Macro was written by Paul.

 ^“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law ….Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. (Galatians 5 vs. 22 & 24)

Thought for Today: We need to focus on our daily lives for survival, there is no truer fact. With that said, this week let’s do what we need to do to survive but keep Paul’s letters and the word of our Lord in our daily lives. It will fit in if we let it.

Prayer for Today: Dear Lord, today we pray for our world and country. We pray that we can find a way back to jesus word and Paul’s macro.

Amen

Punxsutawney Phil

0202 Good News 020111 Punxsutawney Phil

We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world”

and that “There is no God but one.”
For even if there are so-called gods,

whether in heaven or on earth…

…for us there is but one God,

(1 Corinthians 8 vs. 4 & 5)

            On Groundhog day every year in Pennsylvania they forecast the end of winter. This year Phil’s shadow was seen and it was declared that winter will end in six weeks. Well, you see Phil is never wrong because somewhere in the world in six weeks it will be warm; probably not here at my come in Minnesota.

            Phil is a character, not even a legend. He is no Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed or Ichabod Crane. He is just a ground hog being disturbed for a group of people in Pennsylvania to have fun. Frankly he is not a very good idol!

            I would love to see them open Phil’s den next year and have Jesus step out in a white robe, the sun beating down on him in a heavenly glow, and have the crowd speechless. Imagine Jesus saying something like, “Sorry folks but even I refuse to do a long range forecast. There will be more bad weather here in the north country but do not fear for the Lord will be with you.” He would then give is his blessing and arise toward the heavens.

            Bless you all and may we have an early Spring!

Thought for Today: The Lord blesses us and keeps us 365 days a year.