Then I remembered what the Lord had said:
‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’
Acts 11:16 (NIV)
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As we consider that our faith is a living reality, it helps to remember that God’s great reason for writing us the Bible (which is a book of history) is to guide us through life. Call to mind what Paul said, 1 Corinthians 10:6,11 (NIV)
“Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did… These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.”
What the apostle is saying here is that we need to recall the history of God’s dealings with His people recorded in Scripture. As we see how the Lord dealt with His people in the past, we can compare it to how we are being dealt with now and learn the same lessons the saints did so long ago.
When people come along and try to tell the suffering saint that they must have sin in their lives to be in such sorrow, the tired saint can point to the believers of all ages and give demonstration that God’s children in every time and locality have been in the furnace of affliction.
Then too, we can point out how over and over again Scripture tells us that we are appointed to suffer but not to ultimate wrath from God (eg. 1 Thessalonians 3:3 and 5:9). We feed our faith as we recall the situations in which God’s people suffered long ago and how they overcame even when they were tortured and died for their faith (Hebrews 11:36-40).
Continue reading 'How To Feed Your Faith (3)'»
Then I remembered what the Lord had said:
‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’
Acts 11:16 (NIV)
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Memory is a wonderful gift from the Lord. The longer we live, the more we have to remember. Sometimes our memory banks get filled up it seems, and the most recent events seem to fall off the edge of our memories.
I thank the Lord for my memory. I appreciate my ability to recall things from many years ago as though they happened yesterday. I recall the sound of voices now long silenced in death. I hear the shouts of delight as my cousins and I swam in the lake way back of the farm property.
I still recall the sound of the four cylinder flathead motor in the Willys Overland car my older brother and I drove all over the country roads around my Dad’s farm. Then there is the sweet smell of newly cut hay. On my memory goes.
Continue reading 'How To Feed Your Faith (2)'»
Then I remembered what the Lord had said:
‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’
Acts 11:16 (NIV)
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Download Adobe PDF reader here
As a boy on the farm, I recall my chores of feeding the animals. Hens who laid eggs had to have a bucket of wheat each day. I had to keep the dish of ground oyster shells full to ensure they had the needed calcium for laying eggs with hard shells. They also needed a bucket of laying mash in a feed trough every day.
The pigs ate a great variety of vegetable waste from food preparation, plus skim milk mixed with dusty powdered food from a big 98 lb. sack of pig food. I remember the stick of kindling wood used to stir the pigs’ food in the bucket.
Then I had to gather eggs every day. We had a kind of laying hen called Plymouth Rock. They had narrow stripes of white and black, something like zebras. Their temperament was such that I could gently reach under a hen on her nest to pull out any eggs there and she would not bite me. That was an important consideration for a 7-8 year old boy.
Cows had to be milked twice a day or else they got very upset. I learned a great work ethic. I learned that you do not get anything for nothing and I learned that you had to work consistently every day in order to see results from your labour. Farm life is no place for the lazy or irresponsible.
Continue reading 'How to Feed Your Faith'»
It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.
The law from your mouth is more precious to me
than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.
Psalm 119:71-72 (NIV)
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Recently I attended a Sunday service at a fine evangelical church and enjoyed a sermon that beautifully developed Christ from the Old Testament story of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17). The people were very friendly and I felt welcome among them.
Following the service I left but not before being greeted by a number of people who had known me from a former church where I had preached. Upon seeing me for the first time with a cane, their love for me caused them to express concern for my well being. I thanked them for their desire to see me well and then quoted our verse for today.
As we conversed, it occurred to me that they might think I was flippant about my medical issue. So I shifted the focus of the conversation around to speaking about the blessing of suffering.
In our evangelical churches today there is an unhealthy aversion to any form of suffering or adversity. We all recognize that every one of us is programmed from birth to avoid harm, and this is a blessing from our Creator. We need to protect ourselves every way we can from any form of danger—or threat of the same.
Continue reading 'The blessing of Suffering'»
So I was left alone…Then I heard him speaking…
“Do not be afraid, you who are highly esteemed,” he said.
“Peace! Be strong now; be strong.” When he spoke to me,
I was strengthened and said,
“Speak, my lord, since you have given me strength.”
Daniel 10:8-9, 19 (NIV)
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I recall a very wonderful Thanksgiving Conference in London, Ontario where I preached about 25 years ago. As the day progressed we sensed that the Lord was truly speaking.
Following the day of ministry I visited in the home of a dear man of God who was slowly dying. He was thrilled with the sense that the Lord drew near as he attended the conference. His way of summing up the ministry was to say, “His voice was heard!”
Our verses today speak of a remarkable time between Daniel and the Lord. Daniel had gone into mourning over the spiritual problems he faced in exile. He fasted, deprived himself of the other daily necessities and sought the Lord.
Continue reading '“His Voice Was Heard”'»
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