Arrival in Heaven

Featured / pastorpete51 / 21 Comments

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.                   1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 ESV

Rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks put the circumstances of our lives, both good and bad into God’s hands and help us see them through His eyes. Last night our beloved daughter-in-law Melinda slipped from this world into the presence of Jesus. And while we are overwhelmed with grief and shock, these words are promises to which we cling. Melinda has finished her race. Her battle with cancer is finished. And while that pernicious disease claimed her physical life, it could not touch her soul. That remained fully and exclusively in the hands of Jesus with whom she now lives. Nancy and I didn’t know how to process the news that came in three words. “She is gone.” Yet as sadness rolls over my heart I sense the message echo back from Heaven, ” She has arrived!”

Joy is a Choice

/ pastorpete51 / 4 Comments 
Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. James 1:2-3 NIV

Who doesn’t want joy? From a thousand book titles to the theme of a million Christmas cards, the word joy beckons us towards this seemingly elusive feeling. But the Bible’s concept of joy, is not a feeling that comes and goes in our lives, but a command to embrace just as we embrace our children, on both their good days and bad. But the Bible doesn’t ask us to blindly jump up and down when things go awry. Today’s verse gives us tells us that we can rejoice because trial teach us perseverance. I am reminded of when, as a teenager, I worked in a factory that producing copper tubing. When the tubing first arrived, it came in 5-inch diameter, thick-walled tubes, each one being almost 20 feet in length. Our job was to take those rough tubes and extrude them into much smaller precisely manufactured pieces. But first, the copper had to be annealed. Annealing is a process of rapidly heating the copper in a furnace and then immersing it in cold water. Without annealing, the copper remained hard and impossible for us to work with. But once the annealing was completed, the tubes were softened, so we could they could be extruded into the various sizes our customers needed.

Trials are what God uses to anneal our character. Before facing trials, most of us are too overconfident and proud of our own abilities for God to use us to serve others. But I have found that He is an expert at using circumstances to heat up my world, and then just as things seem unbearably hot, He turns things around plunges me into cold water. When the shock of these changes wears off and I turn to God for help, I discover that though my situation has not altered, somehow, miraculously, God has changed my own heart. The desires, dreams and goals I held so tightly to earlier now have been replaced by His and a peace, greater than I can understand. Then I realize that God has got me right where I belong, and a joy, that no one can take away settles in my soul.

The Great Commission Has Not expired!

/ pastorpete51 / 5 Comments 
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

The pastor has tattoos and preaches in flipflops, the music is too loud, and the crowd is too big. are just a few of the items on the laundry list of reasons people today give to turn down an invitation to church. Ironically, the list we heard thirty years ago was, all they sing is old hymns, you have to wear a shirt and tie, the pastor is boring, and only a few old people go there. The church has faced pushback, ridicule, and even outright persecution, in every generation. It may feel discouraging, pointless, or old-fashioned to continue presenting the claims of Christ and asking people to make a decision to follow Him. But the presence of opposition in no way invalidates the necessity of continuing to do the job that Jesus gave us to do.

The Great Commission has no expiration date, and even in this age of an AI Jesus and slick marketing, a simple, person to person, gospel message is still the most effective way to lead a person to Jesus Christ. It isn’t hopeless, someone else’s job, or a forgone conclusion that the church will fail. God’s word, honestly and fearlessly spoken, still has power. But we don’t need to start knocking on doors or even begin preaching on street corners to reach lost souls. God will put individuals in our path or will arrange for us to be in theirs. Our only job is to tell people about God and share what He has done in our life. Keep inviting anyone who will listen to come to Jesus and keep believing that what the Holy Spirit has done for 2,000 years, He will continue to do till Jesus returns!

Rock of Ages

/ pastorpete51 / 1 Comment

Ironically this hymn, which could be called our declaration of independence from sin and death was first published in England in 1776, the year we in America declared our independence from Great Britain. Also, noteworthy, “Rock of Ages” was the last and greatest work of August Toplady, who died just two years later at the age of thirty-eight. Last Sunday, the residents at Discovery Villages. joined in quite heartedly. Though they come from a variety of denominations, as we sing these words, we are united by our faith in Jesus Christ, who is the rock of our salvation and our hope for eternal life. I pray you might be blessed as you listen and even better as you join in.