Thou hast bo’t me with Thy blood, Opened wide the gate to God;
Peace I ask, but peace must be Lord, in being one with Thee.

May Thy will, not mine, be done, May Thy will and mine be one;
Chase these doubtings from my heart Now Thy perfect peace impart.

Savior, at Thy feet I fall, Thou my life, my God, my all;
Let Thy happy servant be One for-ever-more with Thee! Amen 

This song holds a special meaning to my family — it was one of the songs chosen to be sung at my father-in-law’s funeral years ago in Tampa — and I haven’t heard it sung since.  The words are so beautiful — especially if you are struggling with grief, worry, cares, burdens, or even temptation.  They form the basis of a beautiful prayer.  At the time of Papa Fred’s passing, I wasn’t all I should be.  This song really spoke to my heart during his service and I often find it on my heart and lips during some of the difficult times that have passed since. 

I was not let down last evening.  Standing in front, enveloped by the melody, harmony, and most of all the sound of so many heart opened completely to the Lord moved me nigh unto tears.  Can I ask you something?  Don’t overlook the short, small songs in your songbooks.  Yes, some of them were put there as filler.  However, many of them have great meaning and can break through to your hearts in unexpected ways.

They are blessed to be staying in an apartment building owned by the Homewood church.  It is in a beautiful part of town, on the edge of Red Mountain, and is surrounded by parks and historic homes.  The trees, shrubs, and so many of the flowers were in full bloom…  Everywhere I looked, I saw, as it were, postcards from God reminding me of His creative power and His love for us as displayed in the home He gave us.  I am told the Homewood Church maintains the apartments for those who have lengthy hospital stays, transplant patients, and out-of-town family of those undergoing these type medical procedures.  I must tell you…  this is one of the most wonderful “ministries” I have ever encountered in my life as minister.  What good is the body of Christ if we can’t help relieve suffering?  And what better to relieve suffering than to offer a helping hand during a medical crisis — often the most trying, frightful, and vulnerable times we will face in our lives. 

I’m praying for the Homewood Church today, that God will continue to bless His (our) family there, and thanking God for Rodney’s wonderful recovery.  Will you do the same?

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/24/frequent-church-goers-frequently-fatter/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_gupta+%28Blog%3A+Paging+Dr.+Gupta%29

What is sad about this is that Christianity is under attack from numerous areas today.  It is more socially acceptable among the elites to be a muslim than it is to be a Christian.  The day will come when the inroads of Islam in this country will be so great that even the elites will regret the way they discouraged the masses from following the way of Christ.

2 “Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; For the LORD GOD is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation.” 3 Therefore you will joyously draw water From the springs of salvation. 4 And in that day you will say, “Give thanks to the LORD, call on His name. Make known His deeds among the peoples; Make them remember that His name is exalted.” 5 Praise the LORD in song, for He has done excellent things; Let this be known throughout the earth. 6 Cry aloud and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”  Isaiah 12:2-6

Gilbert brought his tractor over to the house beginning Saturday to start breaking up our garden spot.  First, he used the turning plow.  After he finished, I slipped out to the garden with a tape-measure and computed that the turning plow dug down almost to a depth of 30 inches.  On Monday, Gilbert returned again with the tractor.  This time, the roto-tiller was in tow and he set to work on the garden.  I watched him from the lawn mower.  He pulverized every last clod of dirt.  It looked like fine powder to me.   I would have thought the garden spot was great — one of the best I ever had, but it didn’t satisfy Gilbert!  “Mike, I need a new pin in my tiller.  I’ll get it in the morning and  come back tomorrow to finish up right.”  He was back on Tuesday.  He went over and over the garden — then skipped over about ten feet and started going over and over what will be my little melon patch.  Not one square inch of dirt missed his attention to detail.  For you golfers out there, I actually could have practiced bunker shots when he finished.

They say the best sermons are preached without words by lives that are lived.  I admire Gilbert Springer and the sermon he preaches everyday.  The love and attention he showed my garden is the love and attention he shows my girls.  I know for a fact it is the same love and attention he shows his children and grandchildren on a daily basis.  He was no different with his wife, with the church he has loved for the better part of 50 years now, for every aspect of his life. 

 Yes Gilbert preaches a beautiful sermon. 

If I had to define his love for God with a scripture, I can think of none better than this:   ”Hear, O Israel ! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one ! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.”  ~Deuteronomy 6:4-7.

If I had to sum up the way he lives everyday with a scripture, it would be this:  “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”  ~Ecclesiastes 9:10

Thank you, Gilbert, for all you do for so many people.  You are appreciated!

Last night was the March Area-Wide Youth Devotional (AWYD) at Austinville Church of Christ.  You can tell a lot about a church by how they respond when 300 kids invade their space.  The Austinville church was wonderful — friendly and helpful — and the service was equally an encouragement.

The theme of the AWYDs this year has been “Here Am I, Lord Send Me.”  We’ve tried to take some Bible characters and show how God used them — and then make direct application to how God can use young people for His glory today.  Stephen Kelley did a marvelous job of telling the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  He said something that rocked me to my socks.  I’m sure I’ve heard it before — probably even said it — but it didn’t register like it did last night.  

Stephen pointed out how God chose to use a 12-14 year old girl to carry out his plan for redeeming the world — and she was obedient to God’s call.   When  Stephen said that, I stopped, looked up from my Bible, and there was Maddison sitting in the pew in front of me (and a little to the left).  Maddie is 14.  Mary was no older than her!  And Mary was obedient!

Times change.  Cultures change.  People don’t.  I wonder if I would be obedient to God if I knew His plans involved my 14 year old daughter?  I have trouble being obedient today when it is just me and the battle for my mind…  Yet Mary, who couldn’t comprehend everything that was happening, was willing to trust God and obey.  I don’t particularly like that song — “Trust and Obey” — but there is no other way to be happy in Jesus.  Sunday evening was outstanding because I was reminded once again in a powerful way to trust and obey.

Tonight, I had the pleasure  (along with Bill Shadix and Gilbert Springer) to attend a Gospel Meeting at the Old Moulton Road Church of Christ (OMR) in Decatur.  My grandmother, Ruby Rhodes, was one of the original members of the OMR church.  I remember her telling me how some Sundays they didn’t have any men present at all back in the early days.  OMR is the congregation I attended while growing up. It is where I was baptized into Christ late on a summer Sunday night.  I led my first song (“Here We Are But Straying Pilgrims”), led my first prayer, taught my first class, and preached my first Gospel sermon at OMR.  If I remember correctly, that sermon was an acostic-type sermon based on the word “RESOLUTION.”  Brother Joe Corley was away over the New Year’s holiday and the congregation suffered through my feeble attempt.  OMR is still the home congregation for my parents and my aunt and uncle. 

In 1986, we had a guest speaker at OMR named Allen Dvorak.  He was excellent then.  I remember him preaching (I’ve always paid attention to preachers) even though I was only 12 or 13 at the time. Allen Dvorak returned to OMR this week to speak in their Gospel Meeting.  He presented an excellent message from Romans 3 called “The Divine Solution To Sin” that dealt with the theme of justification by grace through faith.  It was an excellent presentation that really made me grateful to be a Christian. 

One thing that I wrote in the margin of my Bible during the sermon was found in Romans 3:24.  The verse says:  “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.”  The bolded words, “as a gift,” are interesting.  They mean someting given “freely” or something given “without cost.”  However, they have another meaning.  The same Greek word is used in John 15:25.  Notice the words I bold in this reading:  “But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their law, they hated me without a cause (John 15:25).”  The very same word translated “gift” or “freely” in Romans 3:24 is translated “without a cause” in John 15:25. 

What’s the big deal, preacherman?  Here is the thought that made my night outstanding:  God sent Jesus to shed His blood for me without a cause other than the fact that He wanted to.  We have redemption for no reason other than His love.  Without cause.  That’s an outstanding thought!

Here I launch out into the deep of blogging again! I am happy that you decided to join me for the journey. I don’t know exactly where this will lead, except that I am sure we both will learn some things about God, His Word, ourselves, and our lives “under the sun” along the way.  Oh, and by the way, feel free to take a gander at the more ancient posts from a previous ramble.  You might find something of interest.

In Love & Faith,

~Mike

For example, Evangelical Christians, who are born-again and possess specific theological and social views, were the only group where a high percentage (90%) listed as many as six of the 19 future-life possibilities as being very desirable. The six outcomes this group chose were:
Having good physical health.
Having a close personal relationship with God.
Having a clear purpose for living.
Living with a high degree of integrity.
Having just one marriage partner for life.
Being deeply committed to the Christian faith.

The goals that were chosen by only 1 percent of Evangelicals were “achieving fame and recognition,” and “having a comfortable lifestyle.”

Other findings of the research:

Those who see themselves as Christian, but not born again, were less than half as likely to say that being active in a church or being deeply committed to the Christian faith were very desirable.
Protestants were twice as likely as Catholics to say that working in a high-paying job was highly desirable as a life goal.

By a margin of between 9 and 16 percent, Protestant Christians who attend a mainline church were less likely than non-mainline Christians to say that being personally active in a church, wanting a close personal relationship with God, or wanting to be deeply committed to the Christian faith were highly desirable.

‘Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, – in my case, cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases – and there are millions in America today – find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God’s will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence ‘What It All Means,’ Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

The first is that we shouldn’t spend too much time trying to answer the ‘why’ questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can’t someone else get sick? We can’t answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don’t know why I have cancer, and I don’t much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a cen ral feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

But despite this, – or because of it, – God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don’t know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.

To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life,- and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non believing hearts – an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, exuberantly – no matter how their days may be numbered.

Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease,- smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see, – but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance; and comprehension – and yet don’t. By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

‘You Have Been Called’.  Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet, a loved one holds your hand at the side.! ‘It’s cancer,’ the healer announces.

The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. ‘Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler.’ But another voice whispers: ‘You have been called.’ Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter,- and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our ‘normal time.’

There’s another kind of response, although usually short-lived an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes ( Spain ), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.

There’s nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, – for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.

Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.

We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us, that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God’s love for others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples’ worries and fears.

‘Learning How to Live’. Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God’s arms, not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.

I sat by my best friend’s bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was an humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest! uncomf ortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. ‘I’m going to try to beat [this cancer],’ he told me several months before he died. ‘But if I don’t, I’ll see you on the other side.’

His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn’t promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity, – filled with life and love we cannot comprehend, – and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.

Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don’t matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things!, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it. It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up, – to speak of us!

This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.

What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don’t know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who believe, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place, in the hollow of God’s hand.’       

Tony Snow

Blessed be your name
When I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name

Every blessing you pour out,
I turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say…
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be your glorious name

Blessed be your name
When the sun’s shining down on me
When the world’s all as it should be
Blessed be your name

Blessed be your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in the offering
Blessed be your name

Every blessing you pour out,
I turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say…
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, Blessed be your name

I wish it were always easy to have that song on my heart, but it isn’t.  I can’t fathom the faith of Job who, after losing his children, properity, and health, sat in a heap of ashes scrathing his boils with a piece of broken pottery and said:  “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

We went with the youth group this evening to Monday Night Live.  Brother Hill gave a good lesson on Joseph, David, and Josiah and how they were able to change their world for God’s glory even in their youth.  The little church building in Eupora was filled.  I imagine the evening was a great encouragement to the congregation meeting there.  I was impressed by our kids — 14 went on the trip.  We had an excellent turn out!  I am so excited that Monday Night Live will be at our home church on July 28th.  It’s going to be great.

On Sunday, I am starting a new series called “Blessed Be Your Name.”  I started from scratch studying the attributes and characteristics of God.  I threw out my previous outlines and studies.  It is absolutely amazing how knowing God can change the way we live our lives — even the way we think — and the way we worship.  I can’t even begin to imagine how much more there is to understand about God.  Our feeble minds just can’t fathom it.  Knowing Him is loving Him — trite but true.  If you’re in the area, make sure to join us at 10:00AM for worship and these lessons.  I really feel led to speak on this unlike anything I have done in a long time.

We are leaving in the morning for Vivian / Texarkana.  It will be our second trip in a week to visit a sister who is in the hospital.  The Lord has answered our prayers and she is much improved.  When we left Texarkana last Wednesday, she was on a respirator and we didn’t know if she would live.  Now she is in a private room, talking, eating, and breathing on her own.  Only God could do this.  Glory!

We are finally unpacked at home except for a few things we probably would never miss.  The walls even have pictures!  From the first time we walked into this house, it felt like home.  And it still does.  Our new work is great!  I underestimated the difficulty in adjusting to a totally different way of doing things, but I am feeling more comfortable every passing day.  There was such a good spirit on Sunday.  Worship was awesome!  Scott and Kenny do an outstanding job as worship leaders.  I was wired on adrenaline when I left Sunday morning…  and when Sunday night came around, I was wiped out. 

Mac and Mary spent the night with us last Monday.  It was great seeing them.  It’s amazing how close you can become with some people.  We talked and laughed and maybe even cried a little together.  I miss them and everyone in Louisiana and Texas.  Our home is always open to you.

Enough rambling from me.  When you pray, make sure to stop and just say thank you for all God does in our lives.  As Dave Ramsey always says, we are definitely better than we deserve.  Blessed Be Your Name!