The Branch Church

Cymbala's Excerpt Of Love - Still Relevant to The Church

“One Sunday about 20 yrs ago, back in our days in the YWCA, I said something impromptu while receiving new members into the church that has stuck with us ever since.  People were standing in a row across the front before me, and as I spoke, the holy spirit seemed to prompt me to add, ‘And now, I charge you, as pastor of this church, that if you ever hear another member speak an unkind word of criticism or slander against anyone – myself, another pastor, an usher, a choir member, or anyone else – you have the authority to stop that person in mid sentence and say, ‘Excuse me - Who hurt you? Who ignored you? Who slighted you? Was it Pastor Cymbala? Let’s go to his office right now. He will get on his knees and apologize, and then we’ll pray together, so God can restore peace to this body.  But we will not let you talk critically about people who are not present to defend themselves.’”

“New members, please understand that I am entirely serious about this.  I want you to help resolve this kind of thing immediately and meanwhile, know this: If you are ever the one doing the loose talking we will confront you.’”

“To this very day, every time we receive new members, I say much the same thing. It is always a solemn moment. That is because I know what most easily destroys churches. It is not crack cocaine. It is not government oppression.   It is not even a lack of funds.  Rather, it is gossip and slander that grieves the Holy Spirit.”

“People nod their heads with understanding, and as a result rumor and busy body talk are kept to a minimum.  We have had to confront a few people along the way, of course, but the general concern to live with clean hearts and clean speech before the Lord prevents many problems from ever getting started.”

“I’ll never talk about you, until I’ve talked to you. Then I’ll only talk for you, and never against you.” – Anonymous

Amped

“[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death…”
– Philippians 3:10 (Amplified Bible)

The Little League Temple

    I started playing baseball when I was 7-years-old. I was in the "minors," and played for the Mets. I don't remember much of practice, but I'll always remember my first at bat. I got up to the plate in front of my parents and the rest of the crowd, took my right-handed hitting stance, and stared in the pitcher's direction. The problem? I was in the LEFT-HANDERS batter's box! I heard the crowd laugh. The umpired helped me to my batter's box, and I preceded to strike out.

That moment didn't leave any kind of permanent scar on my psyche, and I turned out to be a pretty good player. I made All-Stars as a starter my last year of "Majors," my only "Junior year," and every year of "Senior" Little League. It was a wild ride from ages 7 to 17 playing baseball, and I will treasure many of those memories.

One of the reasons I think I have fond memories of Little League is because I don't ever remember sacrficing family or church time because of it. Maybe they were the proverbial simpler times, but I distinctly remember my parents making our church and family life the two things that sat highest on the totem pole. I don't remember us having a take it or leave it attitude about baseball, and I made my commitments on time, but there was definitely priority and balance. Fast forward to today. Now, it's me watching my 6-year-old pick up a glove and a bat, whether it's for practice or a game, and beginning his quest toward All-Stardom (or at least at having fun) so that he will build some good memories as well. However...

What I have noticed from a distance before my son officially started playing, and especially now that he is, is how much "emphasis" is placed on Little League. I'm not talking about the kids either, I'm talking about the parents and guardians of the players, as well as the officials who administer the league.

Today's leagues seem to be year-round, week-round, and all around obsessive. One pervasive thought seems to be, "If I dont' get my kid to practice (all 3 this week), work the snack bar, sell the candy bars, do the fundraising, etc., etc., etc., then my kid might have to sit the bench for the game. Another, is the fact that parents are highly comptetive, and want their kids to be. How many instances of parents fighting in the stands (or worse) have we seen in the media over the last decade? There seems to be a certain pride or prestige that comes as a direct result from how "good" your kid is compared to the next kid. (This to me, has satan's grubby hands all over it). Then there is the "what if" factor. What if my kids gets good enough to go pro? Why, that would be like winning the lottery! All of these dynamics and more factor into why such an emphasis is being placed on youth sports. Ultimately, however, like many areas in life, if we are not careful, we will be sorry.

I realize that teaching kids things like community, responsibility, a good work ethic, comradare, healthy competivetiveness, etc. can all be good things. There are, however, valuable life-skills that no amount practice, games, or "kind of sport" variety will be able to teach them, and that I feel/fear are being replaced by youth sports. Without giving a subjective extensive list, I'll just give a subjective two-point list:

1. Emphasizing sports over God, will teach your kids how to priortize God in their life when they get older.  Any sport that you continually show your kids is more important than your time spent in worship, or that you consistently put "over" a healthy regimented church-life schedule, stands a good chance of coming back to haunt you by coming back to hurt them.

By showing them that taking 3 or 4 months "off" from regularly attending church, since it's this season or that season of sports, is a bad move as far as seed-planting in their lives. Spending time showing them that "something else" can easily take up God's time and it's no big deal, will mean that they won't look to God when they need to look for Him later. It means they will look to "something else." Showing them that you can't get up and go to church for 1.5 hours on Sunday, but you can make 3 practices and work the fundraiser for baseball throughout the week, doesn't send a mixed message to your kids, it sends a clear one: God gets the leftovers, if that.

While we're here, I might as well say your kids are also watching as you spend the money to register them for baseball, spend money on supplemental equipment and gear, spend the money for gas to get them there 3-4 times a week, spend the money at the snack bar and pizza party, and their watching when you have little or no money to give to God in worship when the offering plate comes passing by. Our kids are always watching. Even when they don't know they're watching... they are.

2. Emphasizing programs over authentic family relationships, will mean your kids will look to you less (if at all), when they're older and facing the rough storms of life. Andy Stanley talks on this subject a bit in some parenting small-group curriculum I've watched. He notes that as parents, we have a great deal of leverage over our kids from the time they are born, until they become teenagers. Everything from being physically larger, to being the people who control the money factors into that leverage. Obviously, the hope is that we are using that leverage in humility and love, but the fact remains it is there. However, as they get older, the kids stop caring about the leverage as much as they used to. They don't fear the spankings, the groundings, or having the money or car keys withheld. "When this happens," Stanley says, "if you have not built solid personal relationship with your kids - deep and meaningful relationships - you will have no leverage, no influence, and no weight in helping them foster good choices as young adults."

It's scary to think of, but Andy's point is simple: Too many parents are replacing significant and authentic relationships with their kids, by putting in its place program after program after program. Once of his final thoughts on this centers around the fact (not anecdotal bookmark, but fact) that he has never had an adult, or married couple, in his office for counseling who says something like, "Well, my parents never took me to baseball or karate enough." It's usually, "My mom or dad never spent time with me." Which is highly insightful when thinking of the statement: Making sure your kids are on time to all of their games and practices, is not necessarily spending time with them.

Soccer and baseball practice aren't going to teach your kids how to handle the rough years of their marriage. Those programs aren't going to teach them why some of the majorly wrong choices their friends are making are wrong. Only God's word, God's spirit, and God's love working through YOU is going to do that.

I've already been thinking through and putting into practice the fact that our family will not worship at the "Little Leauge Temple." We will be responsble and loving contributors, who are supportive of the team and the league, but we will not be pressured or cornered into placing these things over God or our family. Spending time as a family in the stands watching our kid play ball, or even being on the field during practice working with him and the other kids are all good things. However, they are not substitutes or equivalents to authentic worship and relationship building. Telling your kid you can't make the batting cages trip on Sunday morning because there's no way you're going to miss family time and God time with them, is an infinitely better road to take.

 

The Lion, The Lamb, and The Marines

Excerpt from Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper:

"The Lion of Judah conquered because He was willing to act the part of a Lamb. He came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday like a king on the way to a throne, and He went out of Jerusalem on Good Friday like a lamb on the way to the slaughter. He drove out the robbers from the Temple like a lion devouring its prey. And then at the end of the week He gave His majestic neck to the knife, and they slaughtered the Lion of Judah like a sacrificial lamb.

"So Christ is a lamb-like Lion and a lion-like Lamb. That is His glory - 'An admirable conjucntion of diverse excellencies.'

"This glorious conjunction shines all the brighter because it corresponds perfectly with our personal weariness and longing for greatness [and purpose].  Jesus said, 'Come to Me, all who are labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart' (Matthew 11:28-29). The lamb-like gentleness and humily of this Lion woos us in our weariness. And we love Him for it. If He only recrutied like the Marines, who want strength, we would despair of coming."

A "Refresher" From John Piper on Marriage

The following are some thoughts from the writings of John Piper from his marriage sermons and book entitled This Momentary Marriage

Marriage

She is God’s gift to me—far better than I deserve. We speak often of the wonder of being married till one of us dies. It has not been trouble-free. So we imagine ourselves in our seventies or eighties—when divorce is not only sin, but socially silly—sitting across from each other, perhaps at Old Country Buffet, and smiling at each other’s wrinkled faces, and saying with the deepest gratitude for God’s grace: “We made it.”

Most foundationally, marriage is the doing of God. And ultimately, marriage is the display of God.

What these words point to is marriage as a sacred covenant rooted in covenant commitments that stand against every storm “as long as we both shall live.”

The ultimate thing we can say about marriage is that it exists for God’s glory. That is, it exists to display God. Now we see how: Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant relationship to his redeemed people, the church. And therefore, the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists. If you are married, that is why you are married.

In Genesis 2:17, God had said to Adam, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” I take “the knowledge of good and evil” to refer to a status of independence from God in which Adam and Eve would decide for themselves apart from God what is good and what is evil. So eating from this tree would mean a declaration of independence from God.

In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins,
for without it no human fellowship,
least of all a marriage, can survive.

But now I want to emphasize another truth about grace: It not only gives power to endure being sinned against, it also gives power to stop sinning…Grace is not just the power to return good for evil; it is also the power to do less evil—even power to be less bothersome. Grace makes you want to change for the glory of Christ and for the joy of your spouse. And grace is the power to do it.

One of the things that is crystal-clear in Ephesians 5 is that the roles of husband and wife in marriage are not arbitrarily assigned, and they are not reversible any more than the role of Christ and the church are reversible. The roles of husband and wife are rooted in the distinctive roles of Christ and his church. The revelation of this mystery is the recovery of the original intention of covenant marriage in the Garden of Eden. You can see this most clearly when you ponder what sin did to headship and submission and how Paul’s teaching here in Ephesians 5 is so perfectly suited to remedy that corruption. When sin entered the world, it ruined the harmony of marriage not because it brought headship and submission into existence, but because it twisted man’s humble, loving headship toward hostile domination in some men and lazy indifference in others. And it twisted woman’s intelligent, willing, happy, creative, articulate submission toward manipulative obsequiousness in some women and brazen insubordination in others. Sin didn’t create headship and submission; it ruined them and distorted them and made them ugly and destructive.

Therefore, headship is not a right to control or to abuse or to neglect. (Christ’s sacrifice is the pattern.) Rather, it’s the responsibility to love like Christ in leading and protecting and providing for our wives and families.

Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christlike, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.

When a man joyfully bears the primary God-given responsibility for Christlike, servant leadership and provision and protection in the home—for the spiritual well-being of the family, for the discipline and education of the children, for the stewardship of money, for the holding of a steady job, for the healing of discord—I have never met a wife who is sorry she married such a man. Because when God designs a thing (like marriage), he designs it for his glory and our good.

Sin is what you feel and think and do when you are not taking God at his word and resting in his promises.

To put it another way, while the contentment of faith does not put an end to our hunger, weariness, or sexual appetite, it does transform the way we go about satisfying those desires.

1William Lazareth writes: “As to the recommended frequency of marital coitus, the hale and hearty spirit (if not the actual words) of Luther’s sexual counsel is reflected in the humorous couplet traditionally ascribed to him: ‘Twice a week, hundred-four a year / should give neither cause to fear.’” Luther on the Christian Home (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1960), 226.

Jesus said, “Whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward” (Matt. 10:42). Of course, Jesus also said that we should love our enemy (Matt. 5:44), and Paul said to give a cup of water to our enemy (Rom. 12:20). That kind of love will receive its reward. But here Jesus says to show simple kindness to people precisely because they are followers of Jesus. And that too will receive its reward.

But the one I want to mention is this: God made bodies and material things because when they are rightly seen and rightly used, God’s glory is more fully known and displayed. The heavens are telling the glory of God (Ps. 19:1). That’s why the physical universe exists. Consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, and you will know more of God’s goodness and care (Matt. 6:26–28). See in the things he has made his invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature (Rom. 1:20). Look at marriage and see Christ and the church (Eph. 5:23–25). As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you declare the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Cor. 11:26). Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). The material world is not an end in itself; it is designed to display God’s glory and to awaken our hearts to know him and value him more.

The greatness of marriage is not in itself. The greatness of marriage is that it displays something unspeakably great, namely, Christ and the church.

The most fundamental task of a mother and father is to show God to the children. Children know their parents before they know God. This is a huge responsibility and should cause every parent to be desperate for God-like transformation.

As husband and wife, they are a drama of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and the church. That is where God wants children to be. His design is that children grow up watching Christ love the church and watching the church delight in following Christ. His design is that the beauty and strength and wisdom of this covenant relationship be absorbed by the children from the time they are born.

So Paul knows that if a dad can help a child not be overcome by anger, he may unlock his heart to a dozen other precious emotions that make worship possible and make relationships sweet.

Some people never grow out of this childish self-centeredness: “My emotions are the measure of your love; so if I am unhappy, you are not loving me.” We have all experienced this kind of manipulation.

The point I am stressing is this: When Paul says in Ephesians 6:4, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger,” don’t just stop doing things that provoke anger; start doing things that prevent and overcome anger. Start doing things that awaken in the heart of a child other wonderful emotions so that they are not devoured by anger—the great emotion eater.

Few things are more painful than divorce. It cuts to the depths of personhood unlike any other relational gash. It is emotionally more heart-wrenching than the death of a spouse. Death is usually clean pain. Divorce is usually unclean pain.

This is the work of God, not man, and it does not lie in man’s prerogative to end it.

This is amazing. It implies, in other words, that there are laws in the Old Testament that are not expressions of God’s will for all time, but expressions of how best to manage sin in a particular people at a particular time. Divorce is never commanded and never instituted in the Old Testament. But it was permitted and regulated—like polygamy was permitted and regulated, and like certain kinds of slavery were permitted and regulated. And Jesus says here that this permission was not a reflection of God’s ideal for his people; it was a reflection of the hardness of the human heart. “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.”

Therefore, remarriage after the death of a spouse is not only legitimate, but it speaks a clear biblical truth—after death there is no marriage.

We are not left alone. He is with us to help us. If we have been sinned against, he will make it right sooner or later (Rom. 12:19). He will give us the grace to flourish while we wait. And if we have sinned, he will give the grace to repent and receive forgiveness and move forward in radical new obedience.

The reason for the omission is different: Focusing on the pragmatic effects of marriage undermines the very power of marriage to achieve the effects we desire. In other words, for the sake of all these beneficial practical effects, we should not focus on them. This is the way life is designed by God to work. Make him and the glory of his Son central, and you get the practical effects thrown in. Make the practical effects central, and you lose both.

The beauty of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church shines brightest when nothing but Christ can sustain it.

Say What?

“When they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit." Mark 13:11

Did you ever have one of those "seasons" - could be an instance, day, a week, a year! - where you just can't seem to communicate what you want to? You try and say things to people and it comes out wrong, or they take it the wrong way. Then you try and correct it, and it's like adding lighter fluid to the situation. You want to pull your hair out, and you're saying to yourself, "NO! That's not at all what I meant. I wish you could see my heart!!!"

I was reminded by the Holy Spirit today why so many text messages, emails, and yes, even conversations can go wrong in this way. The principle is outlined by Christ in Mark 13. He's talking to the Disciples about not having to worry about what they are going to have to say to the leaders and officials who take them captive after His death for preaching the gospel. The last part of verse 11 reads:

    "For it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit."

I am convinced that this is one of those transferable principles for our lives. I say this because God says it here in His word, but also because I've experienced it. Just as I have been in those awful and frustrating situations where my true heart is not being conveyed, or my tone is misjudged, I have also had days of spending ample time with God, and having Him speak through me.

I can think of a few situations where I had had great early quiet times with God. Prayed. Read His word. Praised. Cried. Felt Him guiding me through my day. Then, "out of the blue," He brings me a situation that is way bigger than I can handle, and the right words just flow out of me. I look back and what I've said, or verses I've quotes, or illustrations I've used, and just marvel. Then I'm quick to give credit to God, because I say something like, "I didn't even know that was in me," and realize it's because it wasn't - God put it there as a result of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Just like someone who gets drunk a lot is probably known for saying dumb things when he or she is drunk, and then is forgiven or taken in context because his or her friends know "it was the alcohol talking," the same principle is true of the Spirit. People filled with God's Spirit on a daily or hourly basis - "be filled" better translates to "KEEP being filled" - are known for giving pearls of wisdom when they are asked, or at the right moment. Even better, they're known for shutting up when the situation calls for it. The book of Proverbs is replete with the message: "A fool is known for talking a lot, but a wise person keeps quiet, and is a good listener."

Why am I 36 years-old and just now learning that I'd be better off shutting up if I know I haven't spent quality time with God, or better off not holding the dumb things people say against them as much as I do?

All praise to Jesus. I'm going to go read and pray now.

Our God - Chris Tomlin

So awesome...God is amazing. I'm ineffably in love with Him...

If you have time, put some headphones on and just worship...

Lyrics:

Water you turned into wine
opened the eyes of the blind
there’s no one like you
none like you

VERSE 2:
Into the darkness you shine
out of the ashes we rise
there is no one like you
none like you

CHORUS:
Our God is greater
Our God is stronger
God you are higher than any other
Our God is Healer
Awesome in power
Our God, Our God

Bridge x2:
and if our God is for us
then who could ever stop us
and if our God is with us
then what could stand against

OUTRO CHORUS x2:
Our God is greater
Our God is stronger
God you are higher than any other
Our God is Healer
Awesome in power
Our God, Our God

DNR

ON SATURDAY, I spent the morning hours at at CPR training class. I was tired while I was there, but I made sure to stay as alert as I could because I knew that what we were learning was important. I was told at the class that administering CPR on a person in danger of dying can give them at 50/50 chance of survival. If you add a defibrillator into the scenario, the chances go up to 80/20.

The "spiritual thought" that kept creeping into my mind all morning was in the form of a question: "What are we trying to bring people back to?" My thought wasn't meant to be mean or fatalistic, but you don't have to think long and hard about the world, and all that goes on in it to think, "If a person is 'on their way out,' and they're about to die, are we really 'rescuing' them?" Of course I know there are many good things to live for: family, the beauty of God's creation, and the ability to spread God's message of salvation. But no sooner was my course of thinking about to end, when the instructor of the class brought up the scenario of trying to resuscitate someone who is wearing a DNR bracelet. A Do Not Resuscitate bracelet. He told us that if we spotted a DNR bracelet, that we should not do anything except let the 911 operator know the person had a DNR bracelet on, and wait for the paramedics.

A quick Google look says: A do not resuscitate document is a binding legal document that state resuscitation should not be attempted if a person suffers cardiac or respiratory arrest.

Suddenly my scenario thinking came into fruition and I started wondering what it would be like to be trained in CPR, be standing over someone who was dying, and then seeing that bracelet, being legally obligated to let them die. Without wanting to go to deep, or trying to sound smarter than I am, what happened to me that morning was that I went from thinking "what are we saving people back to," to "wow, some people have really thought through whether they wanted to be 'brought back' or not, and decided 'not.'"

Overall, my resolution to my mind's contemplations led me back to the Christian mandate from God. In a very real way, everyone who has truly been born again, has been resuscitated by the very breath of God. In having been brought from death to life though Jesus Christ, we have not only been rescued, but we have been given spiritual CPR training through the Holy Spirit - Simply put, those who are spiritually alive, are called to "go unto all the world," a world that is filled with spiritually dead people, and pray and speak and pray and love and pray that God will breathe His very breath into them as well.

And with this mandate, God doesn't say that people have a DNR option. God does what He wills with whom He wills. We don't know who's going to be saved, or who's not. And even though we know that God's word speaks of a very real Hell that will be filled by those who were not spiritually resuscitated, our job isn't to look for bracelet. We thank God our job isn't to choose or judge who would deserve such a bracelet.

Our beautiful calling is to tell people about Jesus. 

Ephesians 2:1-10

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

From Skid Row to England

I was thinking this morning about this Jesus we have, and how universal He is. For some reason I started remembering my friend pastor Ron. He used to do anything for crack cocaine. Crack was his god, and for pastor Ron, the idea of becoming a pastor never occurred to him while he was homeless and eating out of dumpsters. Then one day he was at a park in L.A., and while he was looking for something to eat in a trash can, a 10 year old little girl who was on a picnic with her family was about to throw something away when she looked at pastor Ron and said, "Mister, Jesus loves you." He remembers knowing it was God's voice then, and with tears streaming down his face, surrendering to Christ. Across the Atlantic a century ago C.S. Lewis was born, and while I don't know much about his conversion, I do know he went from secular scholar to Christian theologian. C.S.Lewis studied at the prestigious Oxford College in England, and has written many books including: The Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity. Thinking about how different these men are magnified the reality of Christ being who he said He was, and that "we would know them [believers] by their fruit." No other power could be so plain that it could turn a crack addict into a pastor, or a skeptical academic into a theologian whose works are still ready widely today. Only Jesus, because Jesus is real.

The Sower Explained to DM Again

"The great commandment is to love God with everything in us." Those are words from the YouTube video below that John Piper uses to paraphrase words first spoken by Moses, and later by Jesus. I wish I, or anyone that writes, could capture for other people what it's like to "love God with everything in us." I wish that because I want to do that! I guess a good place to start is by WANTING to love God with everything in us. I was struck by several thoughts on my drive home today, and one that I wanted to share (paradoxical statement to follow) was that it sometimes can be downright impossible to try to explain simple obedience to God to others, even those who are close to you. That's not a frustrated statement, nor is it meant to sound puffed up, or as though I'm speaking from an enlightened position.

I think where I'm at in my life - right now at 6:24pm Pacific time - is at the WANTING to be so in love with God that I want to obey Him no matter what the cost. Tied into my thinking about explaining obedience - and I guess I should be clearer in saying "obedience that doesn't follow logic" - is the reminder about Jesus' parable of the soils. There are four kinds of soils that deal with God's word and ultimately His kingdom and our salvation. The parables are described in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8.

The first one is the seed that is planted in soil that is "beside the road." This seed has no chance of growing and would be like trying to plant something on the sidewalk. The second one is the seed sown on rocky places. This grows immediately, but has nothing for the roots to really take hold of, and eventually goes away. The third one is "among the thorns." This seed grows too, but after a while is "choked" out and dies. The fourth is the good soil. The good soil produces not only the plant that was planted, the fruit from the plant.

What I started thinking about was a message that I heard that reminded me that only one of these soils represents a true child of God. The pastor illustrated that taken at face value, Jesus was saying what He meant - Plants that were planted on concrete never grew at all. Plants that were planted on rocks, and are blown away by harsh elements die. Plants that start to grow and are strangled and mangled by thorns, die. Only plants in good soil grow. Only those plants bear fruit. Only those PEOPLE are going to be saved.

I was thinking on my drive home that I want to be good seed in good soil. I was thinking on my drive home that the thing I have reminded myself the most of for the past I don't know how long is seed planted in thorny soil. Thorny soil, according to the Creator of the Universe and everything in it - starts to love God, trust God, step out on faith for God, obey God, pray to God, rely on God for everything corporeal and invisible, and then something remarkable happens. The "WORRY OF THE WORLD AND THE DECEITFULNESS OF WEALTH CHOKE THE WORD, AND IT BECOMES UNFRUITFUL."

I keep staring at the words in bold print. I've read them over and over now, and I can think of example after example of how this has been executed in my heart and life. How it has been on display for my wife, and for my friends, and even for my church. I don't want to waste anymore time with this kind of worry. I only want to be fruitful. I took a picture of what my wife was serving up for dinner when I walked in the door, and what my kids were already eating. Here it is:

Obviously I was still thinking about all of this when I sat down to eat with my family. Halfway through the meal and the conversation with my kids, I jumped up to grab my phone so I could take a picture of what God had blessed us with. My plan was to Google some images of the oatmeal like substance that we often see others in third world countries who are malnourished eating. But I don't have to. From these pictures alone you can see what I was seeing. A blessing fit for a king. We're so rich. We're so rich that we can give our kids meat, and bread, and chips, and fruit, and a drink, and even a desert. And the biggest conclusion I think I came to tonight was that I need to get to a place where my thinking is "right." That I think right about God and His word. That I read it accurately and preach it the same way.

My update for this blog is that April and I are on the same page. She's so stalwart when it comes to the things of God and the things of her family. Sunday afternoon I registered and paid for "Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God." It's a conference in October that I felt God wanted me to be at - even if I go alone. Now I know He wants me there.

Please check out the video that describes the conference. Maybe God will lead you there too. I really do look forward to being with you on Sunday! God bless you.

in Him,

Pastor David