Faith Maturing

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Thursday, August 16, 2018

Praise the Lord!  I will thank the Lord with all my heart as I meet with his godly people.  How amazing are the deeds of the Lord!  All who delight in him should ponder them.  Everything he does reveals his glory and majesty.  His righteousness never fails.  He causes us to remember his wonderful works.  How gracious and merciful is our Lord!  He gives food to those who fear him; he always remembers his covenant.  He has shown his great power to his people by giving them the lands of other nations.  All he does is just and good, and all his commandments are trustworthy.  They are forever true, to be obeyed faithfully and with integrity.  He has paid a full ransom for his people.  He has guaranteed his covenant with them forever.  What a holy, awe-inspiring name he has!  Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true wisdom.  All who obey his commandments will grow in wisdom.  Psalm 111:1-10^(NLT)

This Psalmist understands how valuable it is to the spirit of a human be present in the church house for worship.  He gives genuine thanks from his heart there, marveling over all the good things God does for His people.  He maintains that all of God’s acts reveal something of God’s character, which is glorious and majestic!  He declares that God’s covenant love, God’s righteous lovingkindness, never skips a beat, and God’s power is on display as God’s people are blessed, and the influence of obedience to God grows into a worldwide mission of blessing and awe-inspiring good deeds.

The final two sentences of this Psalm should be the bedrock life’s theme for any believer who wants to see their faith grow:  fear the LORD, obey His Word and grow wise!

To watch faith mature in another human being is truly awesome.  To see faith develop and begin to flower into Kingdom fruit is beyond joy…it becomes what the Apostle Peter blurted-out as a doxology about a life-lived that walks in faith, not sight:

You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.  1 Peter 1:8^(NLT)

As a pastor, I’m in a unique position to have a front-row seat to seeing faith mature.  It is startling sometimes.  A young lady and her fiancé wanted to marry.  They were not part of the church I served, (or any church for that matter) but loved (in her words) the lovely setting of your little church.  At the time I thought, oh, brother…!  And I was right…they had no clue, other than some basic understanding that a wedding ought to be connected to God in some way.  We counselled for six weeks, all the while me feeling like she despised my constant emphasis on becoming a Christian family, and wishing we’d just get it over and get on with the wedding.  Well, the wedding happened…and I was glad it was over, hoping for the best.  To this day I have never laid eyes on them again. 

It took ten years, but one Sunday morning, just before leaving for the church, “Bridezilla” called to thank me for being a faithful pastor; she and her husband were being baptized that morning.  Faith maturing!

For You Today

As you set out for whatever you’re going to do today, take a moment to reflect on where faith has grown (yours, or perhaps someone else you’ve known for a long time).  Give thanks for what God has done…it’s the foundation of wisdom to fear God, love Him, and obey his Word.  And when faith matures, good stuff happens!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

Coronation Among the Donkeys

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Monday, January 15, 2018

When they reached the edge of town, Samuel told Saul to send his servant on ahead.  After the servant was gone, Samuel said, “Stay here, for I have received a special message for you from God.”  Then Samuel took a flask of olive oil and poured it over Saul’s head.  He kissed Saul and said, “I am doing this because the Lord has appointed you to be the ruler over Israel, his special possession.  When you leave me today, you will see two men beside Rachel’s tomb at Zelzah, on the border of Benjamin.  They will tell you that the donkeys have been found and that your father has stopped worrying about them and is now worried about you.  He is asking, ‘Have you seen my son?’  “When you get to the oak of Tabor, you will see three men coming toward you who are on their way to worship God at Bethel.  One will be bringing three young goats, another will have three loaves of bread, and the third will be carrying a wineskin full of wine.  They will greet you and offer you two of the loaves, which you are to accept.  “When you arrive at Gibeah of God, where the garrison of the Philistines is located, you will meet a band of prophets coming down from the place of worship.  They will be playing a harp, a tambourine, a flute, and a lyre, and they will be prophesying.  At that time the Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you, and you will prophesy with them.  You will be changed into a different person.  After these signs take place, do what must be done, for God is with you.  

1 Samuel 9:27-10:7^(NLT)

If you rewind a little in this story Saul is wandering the countryside looking for lost donkeys.  His father had sent him and his brothers to scour the land for the wandering beasts.  In the midst of the most mundane of everyday tasks, God’s prophet, Samuel shows up to crown a donkey-hunting nobody king in Israel; go figure!  To confirm what’s happening the prophet tells young Saul he will meet two men at a specific tomb who will tell him to come home because the donkeys are found and his father is now worried about his son.  In addition, he’ll meet three other men herding goats, carrying wine and bread, which they would offer to him.  And in addition to that, he would meet a band of preaching prophets, striking up the band music while they’re preaching…and Saul would join in prophesying loudly!  And just for good measure Samuel even names the instruments of this symphonic orchestra of preachers!  If you fast forward in this chapter you find it all came true.

What does it all mean?  There are several valuable lessons here; lessons beyond learning there are actually preachers who can do music (but in my case that would be a miracle)!  Just the sheer mathematics of Samuel’s prophesy are staggering.  He named a dozen or so participants, including what they would do and say.  He named animals, food, musical instruments, and places where all this would happen.  That it would all follow that script allows for only two possibilities – Samuel had set it up as an intricate ruse to convince Saul, or it was truly a miraculous vision giving insight into what would happen that day.  And, by the way, if you’re tempted towards that ruse thing – what do you do with the documented reality that later Saul actually became king in a land that had never had one before?  The astounding odds stack up to the moon on that one!  Faith with solid proof to back it up is the first lesson.  The second lesson I take away is that the mundane or even distasteful things we all do, like hunting for donkeys when we’d rather be fishing or playing third base for the Yankees, are not too far off God’s beaten path. 

I have learned to look for God in the most everyday kind of places.  One of the places God wanted to use me was about thirty years ago at a wedding for Bridezilla.  They were strangers to me, not church members.  She and her fiancé were only marginally acquainted with matters of faith.  They had seen our chapel and it was the perfect setting.  I require six sessions of pre-marital counselling, and she couldn’t understand why, but dutifully showed up and grunted through the times.  The wedding went off well, but the road to get there was rocky and less than gracious.  I got the distinct feeling when they drove away that day after the reception that she was so glad to see me in the rearview mirror, I’d never see them again.

Fast forward 10 years – I had moved 60 miles away and was not expecting any calls that Sunday before church.  When I picked up the phone it was Bridezilla:  hello, pastor Brownworth?  She sounded so different, but my suspicions were accurate – she had never wanted to see my face again.  She told me that those times in counselling when I said you can’t have a Christian home without two Christians humbly submitted to God, and serving Him, had annoyed her back before the wedding, and stuck in her craw…but eventually found its way into her heart.  She and her husband were being baptized that day, and she wanted to say thank you for being a faithful pastor. 

For You Today

Are you hunting donkeys…or waiting on God?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com