Friday, February 27, 2009

For heaven's sake too!

In two days I will be delivering a sermon that I wrote about last week. I was supposing that someone would comment with at least a speculation as to what I meant, or what passage of scripture I would use.

I think that the passage I will use to demonstrate this heart issue is Luke chapter six. Let me present the first two verses:
Luke 6:1 And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. 2And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days?

This is just a taste of what the passage is about. I would encourage you to read the previous chapter and at least the first eleven verses of chapter six.
Doing nothing for Jesus can be a compliment or an indictment. It is not what you aren't doing that determines which it is. It is what you are doing that has significance. The issue in Luke chapter six is a lack of understanding both of who Jesus was, and what the Sabbath was about.

Do you know the purpose of the Sabbath?

Exodus 16:21-29; Exodus 20:8-11;
Exodus 31:16-17 Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. 17It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.

Matthew 12:5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?

Mark 2:27 27And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:

Let me ask this, what were the Pharisees doing wrong?

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Scared to pray?

I don't want to take the time to share all of the details regarding our union meeting last week, but I do want to share what went on at home while I was gone.

Karen has been very purposeful (and faithful) over that last two years in praying with the girls during my meetings at church. I tell you that because when I left for the union meeting last week, Karen called our three girls together and said "We really need to pray for Papa and his meeting tonight."

Of course, this prompted some questions. The girls said that they didn't know I was at a deacon meeting and thought that it was something from work. Karen told them that it was a union meeting and it was about work; it had nothing to do with church. This was the point that Audrey chimed in...

"A Union Meeting! It's not even for church?! Mom, then why did you use your 'deacon meeting' voice? You scared me."

Thursday, February 19, 2009

It's all in the name

So we have good friends that were expecting their 4th child. We have been praying for a safe delivery and a healthy mom and baby. Praise the Lord, everything went well and mom and baby are doing fine!

The funny thing is that this family already has 3 boys. I think they may have been counting on another boy.

Karen and I have 3 girls. Were we to have another one, we would be expecting a girl.

If I remember correctly, picking out baby names is quite a chore. It takes weeks of throwing names around (sometimes months) before a couple settle on a name. Karen and I never got to use a boys name. Now that I think of it, after Emily was born, I don't know that we even talked about boys names again.

This week we found out how close our friends were when they named their baby.

For those of you that don't know, my girls are named:
Emily Elizabeth, Audrey Ahnna, and Kaylin Elise - Our friends girl:
L--ily ------------------------a---na---------------Elise


Lilyana Elise-8lbs 5 oz and 20" long. Praise the Lord!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

What are we doing (?) for heaven's sake!

Here is a sneak peek at my next sermon...

I have mentioned several times that I was going to do a message on a specific topic. Many of you have heard me talk about it either at ABF or on Wed. nights, or maybe I even mentioned it the last time I preached. What I am talking about is the Christian that spends his/her life doing nothing for Christ.
When you hear me say that there are Christians that have spent their life doing nothing for Christ, you immediately think that I am insulting that person. You think of it in negative terms. It would take a lot of boldness to go up to a believer and say that they were doing nothing for Christ. The irony here is that many of us are proud of being that very Christian.


I would like to show you today what I mean when I say that our church, and the world, is full of believers that are doing nothing for Christ, and are proud of it!
In order to show you what I mean, let’s look an example in the Bible where people were proud of the fact that they were doing nothing for God.


Okay, I'll stop there for now. I do not want to let the cat out of the bag too early. Does anyone want to hazard a guess as to the passage I will use?

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Ordered out

It is ironic how the Lord puts things into our lives. Here I was a couple of weeks ago griping about Robert's Rules of Order, and the last week has found me studying them because of a Union meeting that we have tonight and tomorrow.
I do not want to go into all of the dirty details, but we have had some things happen in our union lately that have not been favorable to our image. In regard to that, I have been making a little wave for the last week or so in order to stimulate change. The acting President of our Union has already stated that the motion my Captain is going to make tonight will be ruled "out of order". That is where I come in with the "appeal from the decision of the chair".
Karen laughed when she caught me reading through Robert's Rules the other day. I will be leaving in just a few minutes to put what I have learned into practice. Hopefully this will be my last experience on all matters related to Roberts! (though I do like his milk)

Monday, February 16, 2009

Booked

Well, what a long weekend we have had! We had a 5" snow on Friday (when I was at the station) so I had to go straight from the fire station on Saturday morning to plowing snow for several homes and for our church.
On Saturday afternoon, the girls and I set up for a movie event that we were having at church that night. Karen and the girls were in charge of all the child care because we thought the movie should be for couples and adults. After all, it was Valentine's Day!
When we completed set-up at church, we went to my brother's home for a quick birthday party. We combined the birthdays of 4 people, ate some cake, and headed back to church.
As it turned out, the movie (Fireproof) lasted longer than expected due to two power outages that occured. The power company was down the road changing transformers.

After the movie, we handled all of the clean-up and made it home by 11:00 p.m.

Sunday morning Emily and I left for church at 8:00 a.m., with Emily behind the wheel. Yes she has her instruction permit, and Sunday morning is a great time to drive because no-one is on the road! After the morning service and Sunday School we had an all church business meeting.
After the business meeting we had a membership team meeting because we had a lady in our church that wants to be baptized and join the church.
At 1:00 p.m. (10 minutes after the membership meeting) we began our deacon meeting. This lasted until 4:00 p.m. at which time I had to go fetch my car that another member of the church had borrowed for the afternoon. This found me back at church at 5:30 p.m. for our evening service which began at 6:00 p.m. and ended at 7:00 p.m.

We then drove to my Mom and Dad's for dinner and a visit with my grandmother who is in town for a few weeks. Obviously we stayed far too late because we didn't get home until 10:30 last night!

Today, I intend to read a book - I should get started on it just as soon as I pay the bills, finish my taxes, write next week's sermon, write Emily's Bible test, check Emily's Bible homework from the last 4 weeks, write up and distribute a motion for tomorrow's fire department union meeting, clean some corn for our corn stove and send all of the pertinent information from yesterday's meetings into the church office.

Now that I think of it, I wonder if our Library would just have the cliff notes?

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Finding time...

Ha! I'm still here!

I would have written sooner but there is more pressure on me now because someone commented on the titles to my posts. Now I can't write anything unless I can come up with a title first.

Actually, like always, things have been busy. There are lots of things going on in church, in my home, and at the fire station. We have been operating without a contract at work for over a year now and it doesn't look like we will have one any time soon. We ended up going to court over the difficulties with negotiations and we are still looking for some clarifications on the court's rulings. One of the things that has been finalized is that I will no longer receive personal leave days. I have also lost 95 hours of annual time per year. (for those of you that don't know, those are vacation days.)

I have been praying about going to Peru again this summer. We have a team that is supposed to go from church but they are looking for more men. I have been asked to lead the trip. One of the problems is that I am scheduled to work 5 days in that 2 week period. I wrote a letter to my chief asking to switch my furlough or use some of my "banked" annual leave hours but he turned me down. I emailed another driver on my shift who has the furlough period that I would need and asked him if he would be willing to trade furloughs. I haven't heard back from him yet.

As I told you all a few weeks ago, I incurred more damage to my little beater truck. I now has no radio, no A/C, no front right brakes, no passenger side mirror, the passenger window will not go down, the passenger side lock does not work, and it is just plain getting tired of all I have put it through over the years. Karen has also been making comments about how embarrassing it is in the parking lot of the church and wherever else I run errands. It is a very handy little truck though and we need it to last so that we can haul our pets to the vet and pick up chicken feed and things of that nature.
In order to extend the life of the truck, I have decided to cut down on the mileage I put on it every week. This led me to go car shopping. I was fortunate to find a 96 Chrysler LHS for $1,000.00
Unfortunately, the car had no brakes and no steering capabilities. I would go into detail but you wouldn't believe how bad it actually was. I installed new front brakes, new front rotors, a new driver's side caliper, and new inner tie rod ends. I also fabricated new rack and pinion bushings in order to stabilize the rack, installed two new carriage bushings, added 4 quarts of oil, changed the air filter, bought a new V-belt, and changed the spark plugs and wires.

Guess what, the car drives great! I now have a total investment of $1,393.00
Yep, I did all that for $393.00! (the shop I took it to wanted to charge me $2409.00 to do all that work. It pays to do it yourself)
I now have a car with leather seats, a great radio and CD player, a sunroof, power steering, all the mirrors that cars are supposed to have, power windows that operate, an auto transmission, digital climate controls, rear seat climate controls, instant and average fuel economy display, miles to empty (I never understood that one because it already has a gas gauge), outside air temperature, a digital compass, and some sort of traction control feature with an on and off switch. In fact, the car is so loaded with features that I haven't even discovered them all yet.

I know you're not that interested in old cars, but at least it gives you an idea of what I have been up too lately. Now I just have to see how long I can drive it before I get hit by another deer.

Well, this post is getting too long. There is still more that I would like to tell you. Maybe I'll have time to write more later. Till then...