July 9, 2017

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones."  Proverbs 3:5-8

Most of us have read the beautiful poem called Footprints. It’s brought comfort I think to all of us. If you haven't read the poem I am confident you have seen the painting inspired by it.

What’s interesting is that the lady who wrote "Footprints", Margaret Fishbeck, went through amazing trials. The person that she loved left her, she caught meningitis, and was literally bedridden for many months. She came to the lowest place of her life. During that time, another man fell in love with her and wanted to marry her. But she wouldn’t marry him. She basically said, "I’m out of trust. I’m not sure I trust God. I know I don’t trust men. I’m out of trust."

One night in her diary as she lay in bed, she began to write that beautiful piece, "Footprints". And that night she saw the answer. I’ll just take a moment to read it to you, if you’ve never heard it: "One night a man had a dream, and he dreamed that he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes of his life, and for each scene he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to him and the other belonging to the Lord. After the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. And he also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and at the very saddest times of his life. This really bothered him, and he questioned the Lord about it. He said, ’Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you’d walk with me all the way. But I’ve noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there’s only one set of footprints. I don’t understand, Lord. Why, when I needed you the very most, you would leave me?’ And the Lord replied, ’My precious, precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.’"

Trusting God requires many different responses from us. This third chapter of the Proverbs gives a helpful listing of those requirements.

Let's focus on this one today. Trusting God means believing that He is carrying you when it feels like it and when it doesn't. Sometimes the footprints don't appear until the end of the journey. But that is the point of trusting - His promises are His proof of His presence - not His footprints!

Will you rest in His arms today and enjoy the journey?

July 8, 2017

"You have said, Seek My face. My heart says to You, Your face, Lord, will I seek, inquire for, and require." Psalm 27:8

What are the necessities of your life? What do you absolutely have to have? Can you even name those essentials that you could not be without?

I'll bet if you took the time to figure it out you would find it is a short list.

David, the Psalmist King knew! The one indispensable thing for him was God's presence! He could not - or more accurately - would allow himself to be denied the presence of God.

To "seek God's face" means to come into His presence. The great John Piper frames it this way:

"This happens through “seeking.” Continual seeking. But what does that mean practically? Both the Old and New Testaments say it is a “setting of the mind and heart” on God. It is the conscious fixing or focusing of our mind’s attention and our heart’s affection on God.

“Now set your mind and heart to seek the Lord your God.” (1 Chronicles 22:19)

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” (Colossians 3:1–2)

This setting of the mind is the opposite of mental coasting. It is a conscious choice to direct the heart toward God. This is what Paul prays for the church:

“May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3:5).

It is a conscious effort on our part. But that effort to seek God is a gift from God.

We do not make this mental and emotional effort to seek God because he is lost. That’s why we would seek a coin or a sheep. But God is not lost. Nevertheless, there is always something through which or around which we must go to meet him consciously. This going through or around is what seeking is. He is often hidden. Veiled. We must go through mediators and around obstacles."

Herein is the merging of discipline and desire. The desire to seek God motivates the discipline to schedule time and screen distractions and study the Word until you hear from God and experience His presence.

Understand that there is a sense in which you are never out of the presence of God in terms of His protection and care. But communing with Him and connecting with Him in that intimate spiritual fellowship that your soul craves requires you full focus.

If you have not sought the face of God for awhile, why is that? Is it because of a lack of desire? Has your heart grown cold? Has sin crept into your life? Have you fallen in love with the world?

Or have you become distracted or diverted or discouraged due to the commotion around you? Has your lack of discipline allow the world to smother your schedule and clutter your mind?

Seek His face today!

Boundary Lines

"Do not move an ancient boundary stone set up by your ancestors."  Proverbs 22:28

Do you know where the boundary lines are on your property?

I'll bet you do! I'll bet that is important for you - and it should be!

It is equally important that your neighbors know where those boundary lines are as well!

You don't want them building something too near your property line!

With that though in mind, imagine what it would be like if your boundary lines were being changed occasionally. One day your boundary line is in its traditional and legal place, but the next day it is two feet inside that place. Then, a week later it is four feet outside of that line. After a month or so you have lost track of where it actually is because it has been changing so often.

That would take the joy out of owning your property and it would strain your friendship with your neighbor.

This simple little illustration emphasizes how important clear and consistent boundary lines are!

A wise man understands that. The foolish person is led to believe that freedom is the result of removing all boundaries.

Have you been tempted to think that way?

If so, think again!

Freedom is only found within the boundaries of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. For within those boundaries is forgiveness, the freedom from guilt! And within those boundaries is cleansing from sin and freedom from shame! Within those boundaries is peace and freedom from condemnation!

Are you longing to be free?

Freedom is found at the boundary line of faith!

July 6, 2017

"But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults.  Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer."  Psalm 19:12-14

When God’s Word gets welcomed and becomes active in your life, it convicts you of sin and leads you into His will. When He uses His Word to work His will in your life, look what thrilling things happen through you.

Verse 12 – "FREEDOM FROM FALSE GUILT" – That’s thrilling! False guilt is from the Enemy of your soul. He is the "accuser". He will dig up things from your past that God has already forgiven and remind you of them to discourage you and defeat you. But through the Word, God's Spirit will remind you that you have been forgiven and He will make you aware of any unconfessed sins so you can find forgiveness for those as well.

Guilt is a good thing that the Holy Spirit uses to point out a sin that you have committed. But false guilt is not good and is used by the devil to defeat you.

Verse 13 – "FREEDOM FROM WILLFUL SIN" – “blameless” – pure in thoughts and motives. Sin is what happens when you exercise your will against God. For instance, you know that something is wrong. The Word of God says it is wrong and the Holy Spirit tells you it is wrong but you willfully decide to do it anyway. That is willful sin and it is dangerous because it is rebellion against God by after you have committed to follow Him.

Followers of Christ will sin occasionally, but they should not willfully sin. They may get caught up in a moment of anger or a moment of thoughtlessness and sin against God - but to deliberately sin against Him is something Christians should not and need not do.

When the Word is active in your life and you are aligned with His will you can be blameless - free from intentional sin!

Verse 14 – "PLEASING TO GOD" – If there is anyone that you would want to please it would be God! And if there is someone you don't want to displease it would also be God! To know that you are obeying God's Word and to know His will is being accomplished in your life and that He is pleased with you - that’s thrilling! When you see God using you to bless someone else or to inspire them and you are aware that it is His power at work in your - that is praiseworthy!

The Psalmist rejoiced in God's work of righteousness being accomplished in him through the Word. As he meditated on the grace of God at work in him it inspired him to offer praises to God.

What praiseworthy thing is God doing in you?

Are you praising Him?

No Morality, No Government

I received this in my email and thought it worth sharing in the wake of our Fourth of July service and celebrations.

From recent reporting by Todd Starnes of FOX News:

Sen. Sanders deemed Vought unsuitable for office because he [Vought] believes that salvation is found alone through Jesus Christ. He [Sanders] said someone with that kind of a religious belief system is 'really not someone who this country is supposed to be about.'

Bernie Sanders doesn't have a clue of what he's talking about. Thankfully, other Senators rebutted their colleague from Vermont:

Sen. James Lankford warned that Sander's comments [come] 'dangerously close to crossing a clear constitutional line for how we evaluate qualifications for public service.'

'The First Amendment is crystal clear that the federal government must protect every American's right to the peaceful and free exercise of religion," the Oklahoma Republican said. 'We cannot say we have the free exercise of religion and also require people to practice their faith only in a way that government officials prefer.'

From 1775 to 1797, George Washington served as the chief military and political leader of the new United States of America. Celebrated as the "Father of his Country," Washington stated in his Farewell Address of September 19, 1796:

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity. Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness-these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens."

Washington cautioned that the "one who labors to subvert a public role for religion and morality cannot call himself a patriot." * Bernie Sanders' recent statements certainly fit Washington's warning.

John Adams, our second President, amplified Washington's tenet: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

The carcinogenic of Secularism - Christianity's chief competitor - thrives in the absence of instruction about America's Godly heritage. Secularism metastasized in America when the U.S. Supreme Court removed prayer and the Bible from public schools in 1962-1963; likely the most spiritually destructive event in the nation's history.**

Leftist Bernie Sanders advanced a European-style socialistic platform in his campaign for president in 2016. Government-run healthcare, higher taxes, ubiquitous government interference and regulation, open borders, and a cradle-to-the-grave Welfare state: That is Sander's vision.

As to America's heritage, he would be well served to peek at the 13 original State Constitutions before he makes a complete idiot of himself. 

EXHIBIT A

Pastors and Christian leaders were instrumental in the founding of America:

• Plymouth, Massachusetts, Pilgrims' Pastor Rev. John Robinson
• Providence, Rhode Island, Rev. Roger Williams
• Barnstable, Massachusetts, Rev. John Lothropp
• Exeter, New Hampshire, Rev. John Wheelwright
• Boston, Massachusetts, Rev. John Cotton
• Hartford, Connecticut, Rev. Thomas Hooker

Add signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States:

• John Witherspoon was a Presbyterian pastor.
• Hugh Williamson had been a pastor earlier in his career, before becoming a doctor.
• Robert Treat Paine served as a military chaplain.
• Lyman Hall was a minister prior to the Revolutionary War.
• Francis Hopkinson was a church music director and edited a famous American hymnbook.
• Roger Sherman, wrote the doctrinal creed for his denomination in Connecticut.
• Benjamin Rush, pioneered Sunday School in the United States and founded the country's first Bible Society.
• James Wilson, trained as a clergyman in Scotland, became an attorney who taught students the Biblical basis of civil law.

Add more pastors to the first Congress:

• Frederick Muhlenberg was a Lutheran pastor elected the first U.S. Speaker of the House. He was the first signer on the Bill of Rights.
• John Peter Muhlenberg was a Lutheran pastor, who became a General, and then U.S. House and Senate member.

EXHIBIT B

In 1784, 1785, and 1787, Congress passed the "Northwest Ordinances" - drafted by Thomas Jefferson. The purpose of the legislation was to arrange a method by which new states would be admitted to the Union. Three to five states could be carved from the "Northwest" territory, which eventually broke into five states: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Part of the legislation read, "No person, demeaning [conducting] himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be molested [harassed] on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments."

Of particular interest is Article Three of the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

A generation later, April 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian and political scientist, set sail with Gustave de Beaumont for the United States, to study America. "From Sing-Sing Prison to the Michigan woods, from New Orleans to the White House, Tocqueville and Beaumont traveled for nine months by steamboat, by stagecoach, on horseback and in canoes." ***

As a result of de Tocqueville's observation, he published his two-volume work, Democracy in America, in 1835 and 1840. What do you suppose immediately caught the attention of the Frenchman?

"Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America, I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country.

"[Religion in America] must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion - for who can search the human heart? - But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions".

Secularists, like Bernie Sanders, don't have a clue as to the Christian history of America. They have usurped the culture and now loom large over Big Business, public education, universities, government, Hollywood, arts and entertainment, and TV executives and media: i.e., the cultural mountains of influence.

There is good news in America. Gideons and Rahabs are beginning to head toward the public square. Hold onto to your seat because it's going to be a bumpy ride, for somebody's values are going to reign supreme.

David Lane

American Renewal Project

* Daniel L. Dreisbach, Reading The Bible with the Founding Fathers

** goo.gl/Wf49bV. Also, consider that the lone dissenter, Justice Potter Stewart, said this in 1963, "It [the Abington School District v. Schempp ruling] led not to true neutrality with respect to religion, but to the establishment of a religion of secularism."

http://www.history.com/topics/alexis-de-tocqueville/print

July 4, 2017

“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” II Chronicles 7:14

You may have wondered recently, “How did things get so bad so quickly in America?”

You may be afraid to ask, “Will they ever get better?”

The answer to the first question may hold the key to the second.

While, in fact, our culture has been declining steadily for decades here’s one more question that could answer the first two, “Did things get so bad because sinners were behaving like sinners or did they get so bad because Christians weren’t behaving like Christ?”

If you read what Solomon has to say in the verse above and it will give you a hint. Several hints, in fact! Let’s see:

1) “if my people….

2) “...who are called by my name…”

3) “…will humble themselves…”

4) “…and pray…”

5) “…and seek my face…”

6) “…and turn from their wicked ways…”

Would sinners be referred to as “my people”?

Are sinners called by His name?

Who would most need to humble themselves?

Who is most likely to be commanded to pray?

Would sinners be seeking God’s face?

Is it becoming clearer?

Things got worse because God’s people weren’t what they were called to be. He promises they will get better when His people get better.

He’s ready!

When will you be ready?

July 3, 2017

"Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to its people." Proverbs 14:34

There is no doubt that our Founders recognized the importance of the Christian faith in the formation of this new Republic. It is also clear they embraced that faith and recommended to all.

Those who say otherwise are simply uninformed or deliberately unwilling to admit it. Consider these several quotes chosen from an impressively large collection of Quotes of the Founding Fathers.

“I rejoice that the religion of Jesus prevails in your parts; I can tell you the same agreeable news from this quarter. Yesterday I returned from Piscataway in East Jersey, where was held a Baptist annual meeting (I think the largest I ever saw) but much more remarkable still for the Divine influences which God was pleased to grant. Fifteen were baptized; a number during the three days professed to experience a change of heart. Christians were remarkably quickened; multitudes appeared.”   James Manning - MEMBER OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS; PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

“[Governments] could not give the rights essential to happiness… We claim them from a higher source: from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth.”- John Dickinson - SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION; GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA; GOVERNOR OF DELAWARE; GENERAL IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

“I have sometimes thought there could not be a stronger testimony in favor of religion or against temporal enjoyments, even the most rational and manly, than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments and [who] are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare their unsatisfactoriness by becoming fervent advocates in the cause of Christ; and I wish you may give in your evidence in this way.” - James Madison -  SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION; AUTHOR OF THE FEDERALIST PAPERS; FRAMER OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS; SECRETARY OF STATE; FOURTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED

“Our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion.” -  Noah Webster -  REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER; JUDGE; LEGISLATOR; EDUCATOR; “SCHOOLMASTER TO AMERICA”

“The Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children under a free government ought to be instructed. No truth is more evident than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.” -  Noah Webster - REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER; JUDGE; LEGISLATOR; EDUCATOR; “SCHOOLMASTER TO AMERICA

“The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man.” – Thomas Jefferson

“As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and His religion as He left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see.” – Benjamin Franklin

I find it an incredible blessing that we had such wise and godly men involved in the establishment of our great nations!

GOD BLESSED AMERICA!

GOD PLEASE CONTINUE TO BLESS AMERICA!