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As a preaching pastor, I like to wake up early on Sunday mornings and get to church early to think through my sermon one last time before I preach it to the congregation. On this Sunday morning the alarm goes off at 4 a.m. as usual. I wake up and get ready as normal. But on this Sunday after I get out of the shower and get dressed, I make my way to the back room of my house to find my eleven year-old son, Matthew, completely dressed and ready to go to church with me. In hushed tones and quiet whispers, he tells me that he wants to help me at the church this morning. I think about it for a minute. He said, “I am willing to do anything you need, dad. I can really help you.” I love my son and I love spending time with him. His action put me in a quandary at that moment. Do I bring him with me to church knowing that there is very little he can help me to do? More importantly, as his dad, I know he needs to get back to bed and go to sleep? I make my decision. I know that nothing needs to happen at the church in the morning. I simply my read my sermon and practice it to an empty sanctuary. I know he needs the sleep. Therefore, I choose to ask him to go back to bed. I believe It was the wiser of the decisions.

I think I can draw a parallel to my spiritual life with this story. This morning was just like every other morning. The alarm went off. I took a shower and got dressed. Then I see the Lord in my room. I spend time with him and I talk to him, but I also notice that he is dressed differently. This morning he is dressed and ready to go to work with me. He is sitting in the chair hoping to be invited to work with me. Do I tell him that there is not much he can do today, and keep him home to watch my house and take care of my kids, or do I take him to work with me? This morning I choose to bring the Lord to work with me. That means that what I listen to on the radio he listens to, what conversations I have throughout the day, he hears and listens to. What I see he sees. What I think he knows. Knowing all of this, I still choose the wise decision and ask him to come along with me throughout the day. I invite him into all of my life, not just my devotional life.

Blessings….

Yesterday I was helping my ten-year-old son Matthew with yet another whale project by working with an orbital sander on his newly carved whale. As I was sanding, my shirt got caught in the sander. I instantly turned it off. I stood in my garage for a minute with the sander now dangling from my belly with a death grip on my shirt thinking what should I do. I went in the house to seek help from my thoughtful wife. She was of no help I ended up extracting the shirt little by little from the sander. The shirt is ruined, but it was not a big deal.

As I thought about this event, I learned many lessons from this incident. First, don’t go to your wife for help, she will only want to take a picture of it and post the picture of me with a sander attached to my shirt on Facebook. (PTL her phone was dead.) Second, teach Matthew to never wear loose clothing as he is using certain kinds of tools. Third, find a different way to remove some of the fat off of my belly. Sanding it off with an orbital sander is not a good idea. Trust me.

I was reading an article by Jonathan Edwards the other day.  The article is titled “A New Apprehension of Christ” and is found in the “Invitation to Christian Spirituality, An Ecumenical Anthology” book edited by John R. Tyson.  (I am not an intellectual and read this for pleasure.  I am in a Doctoral studies class and it is part of an assignment. I did, however, find this article quite convicting.)

Edwards is making a journal entry for January 12, 1723.  In this entry he renews his baptismal covenant.  I thought since it is the new year, I would post the covenant he made so that the few people who read this blog might also do the same.  It would be awesome if Christians would recommit their complete lives to the Lord and take this covenant to heart.  The world would be turned inside out for Christ as His people once again live out the confession of faith.

From Edwards as paraphrased by me: “I give myself and all that I am and all that I have to God.  I acknowledge that I am not in any respect my own: I claim no right in myself, no right in my heart, no right in my mind, and no right in my affections. I have no right to my body and any of its members; no right to my tongue, my hands, or my feet; I have no right to my senses, my eyes, my ears, my sense of smell or taste.  I have given myself completely away and have not retained any thing as my own.  I spent my time with God this morning and I told him that I give myself completely to Him.  I have given every power to Him; so that for the future, I will challenge or claim no right in myself, in any respect. … I have this morning told Him that I did take Him for my whole portion and my happiness, looking on nothing else as for any part of my happiness, nor acting as if it were a source of my happiness; and this morning I will fight with all my might against the world, the flesh, the devil, and to the end of my life to obey Him in all things.  And this morning I did believe in Jesus Christ, and received him as Prince and Savior and profess an obedience to the gospel, however hazardous and difficult that may be. … I pray to God, for the sake of Christ, to look upon to receive me now as entirely His own, and deal with me in all respects as such; whether He afflicts me or prospers me, or whatever he please to do with me, I am his.”

Thanks for reading this prayer. ….Paul

Last week I got a call from my wife.  She found a slide for her parents pool that she wanted to get for my son’s birthday party.  The problem was that it was just too expensive.  It was a good idea, but we could not afford it at the moment.

But, that didn’t stop her from thinking about what to do so that the pool time would be more fun.  Then she was driving by a construction site and saw a large PVC pipe in the dumpster.  This gave her an idea.  She had a vision.

She checked with the construction supervisor and he said that it was OK for us to take the pipe out of the dumpster and take home.  So, I loaded the 24 inch in diameter pipe into the back of our SUV and took it home.  Now I had a challenge.  How do I convert this dirty, ugly pipe into a waterslide for my kids?  I thought about it for a while.  Then I penciled out a plan and headed to HomeDepot.  There I picked up the necessary parts and started building.  After a few hours of cutting, screwing, and painting, the kids had a very cool waterslide complete with a deck and spraying water.  After it was finished being built, I took it to the pool.  The slide was a big hit with all of the kids at the pool party.

This is how it is for us spiritually.  God finds us in the dump.  Spiritually; we are filthy and sinful.  Then with the transforming power of the Holy Spirit he cuts (ouch, I really hate those hard times), and paints (but I really liked the way I looked before, even though it was ugly), and binds us together with love and purpose into something that brings great joy and usefulness to his kingdom.

The tube was originally designed to just move water underground in the darkness.  Now it has been repurposed so that the water which flows through it brings joy and happiness to many kids.  I wonder, am I really ready to be redesigned so that the Holy Spirit can flow through me in a public way and bring others joy and happiness? Or, am I content to live in the darkness and just let the water flow through me with very little impact on others?

I don’t know about you, but I want to be repurposed and redesigned  for Christ and his glory even though it will mean some painful moments.

Thanks for reading this post. ….Paul

I am not the most prolific blogger, so I apologize to those who want to read more of my ramblings.  Here are some of my thoughts I wrote on Psalm 17 yesterday during my devotions.  I just paraphrased it so that it made sense to me.

Psalm 17
You, O Lord, have tried and tested my heart
You have visited my night
You have tried and tested me and found nothing evil (I wonder if this is also true of me?)
I have determined with my mouth not to transgress (What great challenges)
I have avoided the ways of the violent and evil people
I have kept my steps on your path and my feet have never slipped
I pray to you

knowing that you will answer
knowing that you will incline your ear to me
Show your steadfast love to me.
Hear what I have to say
Display the wonders of your faithful love to all who seek refuge from evil people
Keep me as the apple of your eye
Hide me in the protection of the shadow of your wing (Why do I need protecting?)

For the wicked seek to do me harm
The wicked speak arrogantly
The wicked have surrounded the steps of the righteous
The wicked set their eyes to cast us to the ground
The wicked is like a hungry lion ready to tear
Arise, O Lord!  Confront the wiicked, subdue them
With your sword, save me from the wicked
With your hand, save me
The wicked fill their womb with treasures
They are satisfied with children
They leave their abundance to their infants

As for me, it is enough that I shall behold your face in righteousness
I will awake and be satisfied in your likeness

Here is the great thought: In other words, being protected by the Lord, and trusting in the Lord, is greater than having many children and much materialism, and yet living as if the Lord does not matter.  I need to constantly check that I have my priorities in check.

Talk to you later. ….Paul

I am sitting in Pasadena, CA. At the Mighty Waters preaching conference. I was just challenged to reach my Samaria. Samarians are the people I would like the wrath of God to fall on and would cheer it on. These are the people I seek to avoid and have no concern that I don’t know them or a heartnto reach them. If I am honest, there are many people in this group for me. The first step for me is to identify them and then to begin to pray for them. May my heart break for the people God’s heart breaks. It is time to go. The next session. I will share more later.

I really enjoyed Friend Day.  I believe that the Spirit was present and that people were engaged and excited to be a part of this big day.  It was great seeing all of the people meet at the tent and welcome the guests.  It was great to have so many children present and a great program for them to participate in.  The music portion of the worship service went well and I hope that my message was clear. I really think that God is doing something wonderful here at the church.  God has given me a wonderful team of volunteers who have gone over and above in their efforts to help people feel welcomed and encouraged.  So, if any of you read this post, thank you for all of your efforts.

If I can figure out how to update the Colton Community Church website, it will have a link to this page.  That means that this site will no longer be a hidden site, but a public site.  Yikes!

I love it when the church is busy.  I started my morning off by listening to Luke 7, 8, and 9.  In these passages, Jesus again displayed great grace in touching people who were on the outside, and confronting those who are stuck in religious traditions.  My struggle is to continually try and grow comfortable in my uncomfortableness.

I believe that God is going to something wonderful with the people in the church.  I know many people who have told me that they have specifically invited friends to church for Friend day.  If you have not asked anyone yet, please just be courageous and ask someone.  It is really easy.  God is blessing the church with many new people as well.   I don’t know all of these people yet, but I am trying just to get their names.

Please pray for our next mailing we are going to be doing next week.  The mailing is another avenue we have to reach more people with the gospel.  The theme of this mailing is “Come and see.”  It is my prayer that many people would come and see God’s people worshiping him, hear his word preached, and then turn their life over to him.  May the Spirit stir in these people’s hear a desire to fall in love with Jesus.

That is it for the moment.  ….Paul

OK, this must be a God thing, because it was not a Paul thing.  I get a call from my friend Jeff.  He is in Texas, but lives in the Inland Empire.  He calls me to ask me if the church can help.  It seems that his wife is at the house with parts of a dead bolt in her hand and does not know what to do.  For some reason, I can’t think of anyone else to call, so I tell him that I will drive to his house and go and see what I can do.  I am going to do it.  I am the person who still has a broken front door lock on my own house because I can’t seem to get it to work.  I stop by Lowes and purchase a deadbolt thinking if I need it great, if not I can return it.  I get to his house and his wife opens the door and shows me the carcass of the once happy locking cylinder.  My friend’s dead bolt is dead.  There is one spring which is now a simple piece of wire.  All of the little pieces of metal have fallen out and springs are sprung.  The lock is dead.  But God was on my side.  I take out my handy dandy screwdriver, unscrew their dead bolt, open the new deadbolt package I purchased at Lowes and install the new parts into the old shaft.  This only took a matter of five minutes.  I fixed a broken dead bolt.  Now Jeff can still enjoy Texas.  The truth is that this is what the church needs to do for each other.  We need to be willing to ask someone for help, then let them help, then just say thank you.    That is it for the moment.  I just thought I’d update my blog. ….Paul

Thursday, March 10, 2011

I finally figured out how to log back on to this blog.  It has truly been a case of trying everything and then just happening upon the right combination.

I am excited about Sunday.  Amos 5 and 6 are powerful passages which speak just as powerfully to our religious culture today and what we hope in, as long as it means we have a large house and two cars, as it did 2,7oo years ago to the people of Israel who lived in summer and winter houses, practiced their religious services, yet had no personal relationship to the God who rescued them from slavery and planted them in the land flowing with all good things.  When did religion become become more powerful than a relationship with the personal God of creation?  I spoke to a woman today who is beginning to understand this.  She has finally realized that going through the motions while living in a lifestyle filled with sin is not an acceptable form of worship.  How can she expect the Lord to bless her in such circumstances?

I am just rambling because that is what I am suppose to do on a blog. Right?