Valentine's Day

Our local newspaper has a weekly column written by various pastors around the area. I was recently asked to write it. Since it was so close to Valentine's Day, I thought I'd write about that. The following is the article they published. Enjoy.

I started writing this column on another topic, and then decided that I probably should write about love, since this is the season of Valentine’s Day. I was just in one store that had about three aisles of every kind of pink/red product you could think of. Lots of people are going to get cute and fuzzy/cuddly gifts this week. This is the season that talks much about love. Hopefully, there is lots of real love that is being expressed this "V" day, and not just a bunch of words.
The greatest expression of love is found in the familiar words:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16 NKJV
God loves everyone in the whole world so much that He gave us the gift of eternal life purchased by His Son, Jesus. We all want to be loved. We all need to be loved. God lets us know He loves us by giving us the gift of restoring a personal relationship with Him through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
If we had a contest to write a definition of love, I’m sure we could get a variety of entries submitted. Many would be good. Many would equate love with a feeling. "Love is the wonderful feeling I get when I’m with that special person." But, love is so much more than a feeling or emotion. Love is expressed in selfless action.
Somewhere in my ramblings through life I came across the following definition of love. I think it is the best one I have found. Love is the accurate estimate and adequate supply of another person’s need. The opposite of love is selfishness. Love is giving and meeting a real need of another. Let’s review the verse just mentioned – For God so loved that He gave. Let’s stop there. God, the author of love, expressed His love to all people through giving us something we needed more than anything else. He gave us the opportunity to receive forgiveness from sin.
Love looks at the real need of another person and does what is possible to meet that need. Love is about the other person, not me. Love is outward, not inward. That’s why the opposite of love is selfishness. A selfish person only thinks about the three most important people in the world – me, myself and I. A loving person thinks about someone else.
Love is giving. That is why a loving mother is up with her sick child at 3:00 A.M. Not because she doesn’t want to sleep, but because the child needs her care. Love is why a loving father goes out late on a cold night to rescue his daughter whose car won’t start as she gets out of work. Love is why . . . well, you can continue to come up with illustrations.
I trust that you can find ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day. I trust that you can find ways to express real love to others all 365 days of the year. Find a need, and then do something about it.

THE PRESENCE OF GOD

It’s Monday. That is a day that many people dread, since they have to head back to work after the weekend. Monday is a challenging day for pastors. No, not because we haven’t been working the past few days, but because we have. I love preaching and all that goes with it, the services and spending time with people. But, preaching and leading services is tiring.
On most Mondays I’m tired. This is true again today, but this is not a "bad" tired. As I think of yesterday, it was an awesome day. The strong sense of the presence of the Lord was felt in our services. It is sometimes hard to describe the presence of the Lord. As we sang praises there was a desire to sing and sing some more. The sound of all the voices blending together was beautiful. We could feel the power of God in our midst. It was amazing.
God has gives us to great promises. He said that He will never leave us. He said that His presence will fill us, especially as we worship Him. Our time together was powerful. I could feel His power during the preaching. I guess I shouldn’t say that since I was preaching, but God was there in a strong way throughout the whole service. From the responses during the preaching I know that all the people were feeling Him as well.
Yes, ministry is exhausting. When the "tired" comes from the great presence of God as we experienced it yesterday, then bring on the tired. I’ll take that any time.

I'm Back

I’m Back

Oh, my. It’s been over three months since I last wrote on this blog. I can’t believe I have neglected it that long. I have to get back in to the habit of writing. It’s not that I have not been writing. I have written two "books" that I have used for Bible Studies. We are in the process of going through them now. One is called "God Made The Family" and the other is "The Battleground Is The Mind".
I know I’ve been slow in writing, but I was just checking the blog of a friend of mine and discovered that he hasn’t written in about five years. Now, that’s getting behind.
I will attempt to be more productive in my writing. A quick post for this one.
Thanks.