A Day in the Life of a Cambro!

I had the privilege of spending time this week with some wonderful folk from New York, Kentucky, etc. doing Disaster Relief work in Niskayuna, New York. Our task was to prepare 6500 sandwiches on Thursday evening in the fellowship hall of the Trinity Baptist Church which was kind enough to host the feeding unit from Kentucky. What a tremendous sight to see 150 volunteers form multiple assembly lines and get the job done! Many of these people were new to DR work, but proved to be fast learners and made quick work of the task. DR work is not for the fainthearted as we then awakened to start cooking hot meals at 2:30am. By 10:00am we had sent out 5200 hot meals to be trucked to Binghamton for the more than 20,000 families displaced by the flood waters dropped by tropical storm Lee.






A glossary of terms is necessary for any enterprise and DR work is no different. The Southern Baptist Disaster Relief ministry has an outstanding reputation among care giving agencies at work today. Red Cross does the delivering of the meals prepared by SBC DR. They do this delivering via a vehicle that resembles an ambulance. They are called ERV's, Emergency Relief Vehicles. When the hot meals are cooked, they are placed in a type of ice chest looking container called a cambro. These containers are lined with a specially designed plastic. Each cambro holds approximately 200 meals. These are transported to the site via Red Cross ERV's and then served to affected individuals.






My colleagues (Dr. Terry Robertson, Executive Director of the Baptist Convention of New York, and Mike Flannery, BCNY DR Director) and I left the Niskayuna feeding unit and traveled to Grace Community Church in Washingtonville, New York, where they are hosting the BCNY feeding unit. The team staffing this unit is made up of volunteers from New York, Mississippi, Tennessee, New Mexico, California, Ohio, etc. They are currently feeding approximately 1100 meals per day to affected areas as far as 2 hours away. We then traveled to Binghamton to do initial assessments as to how we could help there. Our first stop was the campus of Davis College, a strong partner with the BCNY in our kingdom challenge here in this territory. En route we had learned that approximately 150 students and faculty were stranded on campus with no electricity nor drinkable water. We asked Red Cross what we could do to help. We arrived on the Davis campus simultaneous with the ERV carrying water and other food supplies for those eager students. Among this delivery was a familiar site. One of the cambros we had assisted in preparing earlier Friday morning was now being delivered to those desperately in need. Karen Smith, Kentucky manager of the Niskayuna feeding unit, says, "we don't often get to see where the cambros go". So there you have it, a day in the life of a cambro!




We need more volunteers to man the feeding units and to do the mud-out work that will continue for the foreseeable future in all these areas, as well as, in North Jersey, where there are at least 15,000 damaged homes. For more information or to volunteer, contact Mike Flannery at 716-432-5333. Training can be done on the job.

From Little River to Indian River in Forty Years!

Sunday, August 21, 2011, it was my privilege to preach at the Indian River Baptist church in Philadelphia, NY. This is a delightful congregation on the banks of the Indian River Northest of Watertown, NY. (near Fort Drum) While Dolly and I traveled the almost two hours to the church, I began to think about forty years ago this month when the Little River Baptist Church in Southern Monroe County, Alabama had the poor judgement to call me as their pastor. Yes, next month will mark forty years since my ordination to the Gospel Ministry. I have often thought that I should send those fine folk a sympathy card for the sermons I forced them to endure.
We served there for about eighteen months while I finished my under graduate degree at what is now the University of Mobile (formerly Mobile College). We saw seventeen folk baptized and built and paid for a new educational building. We dedicated the building one Sunday and I resigned to go to seminary the next.
You may be thinking, how does one get from South Alabama to New York State. When asked, I often respond that I am directionally challenged. But the truth be told, it was a circuitous route. It actually started in the cafeteria at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS). I got a degree in cafeteriology. While sitting with classmates over cups of coffee, we would pontificate on a variety of subjects. One young man, who shall remain nameless, said boldly, "I will go anywhere the Lord wants me to go, as long as it is in the state of Mississippi!" Somehow that statement got ahold of me. When I went home that evening, Dolly and I had a prayer meeting and agreed before the Lord that we would not place any territorial limits on where the Lord might use us. We truly agreed that "wherever He leads, we will go". We agreed never to play the Jonah card. We were filling out paper work to volunteer for international missions when Dolly fell down a flight of stairs at seminary and our FMB (now IMB) advisor told us to stop because no one would appoint her with chronic back problems. We took that the mean that we would serve within the United States. The rest is history.
It has been a fun ride from Little River to Indian River and we cannot wait to see how He leads us on in the future!

Praise As You Pray!

The Model Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 ends with, For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. It ends with a hallelujah chorus, if you please. Never pray utilitarian prayers without acknowledging to whom we are praying. There is a difference between thanksgiving and praise. Thanksgiving is expressions of appreciation for what is done for us. Praise is the expression of adoration of the person without regard, if you please, for what they have done for us. It is the recognition that it all begins with "who" we are before the "what" we do. Praise is about the "being" and thanksgiving is about the "doing". Praise Him for who He is!
Holy! Holy! Holy!

Pray Avoiding Temptation!

While it is true that it is no sin to be tempted, it is a dangerous thing to get comfortable with being tempted. Chuck Swindoll says that we are prone to want to fly close to flame, hoping not to get burned. However, I have learned that there is an intersection where temptation and opportunity meet and when they do, there is an occasion for sin. I recommend that you avoid that intersection all together. Weight has always been an issue in my life. If there is ice cream in the fridge, I will eat it.(Opportunity+Temptation often=Sin) But if I do not bring it home from the grocery, then I will avoid it. Matthew 6:13a says, And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Satan tempts you so you may stumble. The Lord tests you so you may succeed at developing your character. Lord, help us not to fly so close to the flames that our hair is singed by the fire.
Chuck Lawless teaches that sin (temptation) looks so inviting while we are being wooed by it. However, when we step across the line to act upon the temptation, we are then trapped by the Evil One (Satan). One drink or one use of whatever the drug of choice it might be will not hurt is the lie. But then you are addicted and cannot get free. We even call it the "monkey on our backs". So we are taught to pray for deliverance from the Evil One.
I John 1:9 says, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I think we get this, that God will forgive us after we have sinned against Him. However, Matthew 6:13a is the preventive measure. If we prayed this one, we'd have to pray I John 1:9 much less often.
Pray Avoiding Temptation!

Pray With Forgiveness!

Did you know that it is possible to pray the Model Prayer and be asking the Lord to refrain from forgiving you of your sins? Notice Matthew 6:12, And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. In other words, forgive me in the same manner in which I forgive others. It is easy to see that if you are unwilling to forgive those who have wronged you and you repeat this prayer, then you are asking the Lord not to forgive you. You may take out the as in verse 12 and insert an equal sign (=) in its place. So you are actually praying forgive me equal to the way I forgive others. The same door you open to give out forgiveness is the one through which the Lord will come to deliver your own forgiveness, so if you don't open it, He will refrain from forgiving you. That prayer can be scary. Do you harbor ill feelings toward anyone in your heart? The book of Hebrews calls this a root of bitterness. I once read that anger and bitterness held toward someone else is like an acid, it is worse on the container than the one on which it is poured. I know that, in my life, I have learned that I can only find room in my life for one enemy and that is Satan himself.
You may want to suggest that perhaps no one has ever hurt me like they have harmed you. And if I had experienced what you had been through, then I would not be able to handle it even as well as you have. He was dying on the cross for our sins and said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Surely you and I have faced nothing that can even be compared with the torture of crucifixion, the bearing of our sins, and yet He was able to forgive us.
Every word in the Bible is inerrant and inspired and is there by the Spirit's design. Of all the elements in the Model Prayer, only this one is repeated in the following verses after the prayer. When the Lord sees fit to repeat something, I think it means we need to give it some special attention.
Pray with forgiveness!

Praying Dependently!

In Matthew 6:11, our Lord teaches us to pray, Give us this day our daily bread. It is interesting that at no time does He indicate that we should pray for our monthly needs, annual budget, retirement to be vested; but for our daily ones. Many people are finding that there is more month at the end of their pay check during these times of recession. Throughout biblical history, there is an emphasis upon daily dependence upon the Lord for our provisions. The children of Israel tried to store the manna provided for them for multiple days only to find that it spoiled. It was as if its built-in obsolescence was for 24 hours only. This required the followers in the wilderness to trust that the Provider would not forget them tomorrow. This fact prompted the words, His mercies are new every morning! No need to eat leftover mercies when His are new every morning. However, that requires us to trust Him! By the way, my wife refuses to ask the blessing over leftovers. She says they have already been blessed.
It is also interesting that He never suggests that we pray for our daily steak and potatoes. But we are taught to pray for our needs to be met, not our luxuries and wants to be satisfied. My dear bride and I will soon celebrate forty-one years of marital bliss. But when we first married, there were some rocky times. She is the baby and I am the oldest. We had many discussions about what is a necessity and what is a luxury. For instance, if you have seen a recent picture of me, you would know that I consider all hair brushes to be a luxury that I can see no need for.
Philippians 4:19 reads, And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Pray dependently!

Praying Submissively!

There is a beautiful couplet in the Model Prayer in Matthew 6:10 that reads, Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. This is a statement of fact, Thy kingdom come, followed by a statement of amplification or description as to what that statement might look like, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. The Scripture teaches that the kingdom of God is not territorial. In other words, you cannot say it is here or there, but it is in you. In short, the kingdom of God is in your life when you let Him be the King of your life. When He is King in your life, you will do His will. Surely if there is any place where the will of God is done, it is in heaven. This verse says that His kingdom becomes reality in us when we obey Him as is true in heaven.
Mr. Hughes, a fine deacon who served in the FBC, Central, (near Baton Rouge, LA) once told me that so often in his life when he reached the end of his rope, he just tied a knot in the rope and kept hanging on. He went on to say that he really only lived in obedience when he turned lose of the rope and fell into the loving arms of our Lord. You cannot submit to His will as long as you are still nursing your own will. Except a person die, he cannot live again!
When we pray, we do not seek to have Him submit to our will, but we submit to His! Pray submissively!

Praying Reverently!

While the first element of the Model Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13, "Our Father who is in heaven..." teaches us to pray confidently. This familiarity does not need to be to the exclusion of reverence. The same Jesus who said "Abba, Father" (which is translated, Daddy) also taught us to pray, "Hallowed be Your Name" . No matter how intimate our relationship with Christ, we need never forget that He is not like us. He is not just at the top of the list of humans, He is on a totally separate list. "His name is above every other name." Philippians 2:9 It seems that we either reverence other things than His Name in this country or we don't reverence anything at all. We are to come boldly before His throne of grace, but never to take this access to the Almighty for granted in any way. It is a unique privilege to approach the King of Kings in such a way. This is why I could never refer to Jesus Christ our Lord as the "Man Upstairs". Let us pray with confidence and reverence!

Praying Confidently!

Looking at the Model Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13 gives us insight into seven elements that should be prominent in our prayer life. Notice that I do not refer to this prayer as the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer is recorded in John 17. However this passage is an answer to the question as to how we should pray. Therefore, this is the Model Prayer. The first element of prayer is confidence. In 1975, I became pastor of the Jerusalem Baptist Chruch in Pumpkin (most often pronounced "punkin") Center, Louisiana. Our daughter, Cheri, was two years old at the time. She often accompanied me as we visited the homes of the families in the community. Her usual spot was standing on the front seat of my pick-up truck immediately behind my right shoulder. (Please note that this was long before child restraint seats or seat belt laws) She had so much confidence in her Dad until I could have told her that the cows in the pasture were snakes and she would have believed it. Or that the horses were dragons. Or.... Well, you get the idea. I believe that may be something of what our Lord had in mind when He said, Except you become as a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom... Do you have that kind of confidence in your Lord when you pray? Simon said they had toiled all night and caught nothing, but nevertheless at your word...Luke 5:5 Do you take Him at his word?

Ultimate Love!

Today we conclude the series of thoughts highlighting How To Guarantee a Productive and Effective Life from II Peter 1:5-11. The pivoltal verse in this paragraph of Scripture is verse 8 which reads, For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowlege of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have looked at these qualities: 1. Faith is the foundation for all things, You must be born again! 2. Add to your faith virtue involves Taking Out the Trash! 3. Add to your virtue knowlege, which we called Christianity for Dummies Like Me! 4. Add to your knowlege self-control, which we called Living a Balanced Life! 5. Add to self-control perseverance, Keeping On Even When It Hurts! 6. Add to perseverance godliness, You Must Say 'Yes' Before You Hear the Question! 7. Add to godliness brotherly kindness. 8. Add to brotherly kindness love, which we are calling Ultimate Love! Romans 5:8 reads, But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You can never say that no one cares about you again. Once and for all, the Lord has demonstrated his love for you and that's unquestionable. Someone has said they they asked Jesus how much he loved us and he stretched out his arms and died for us. Wow! No one ever loved like that! When I was younger, I often took up for other folk in school, on the bus, in the neighborhood. Those whom I took up for and often fought for knew that I loved them. However, on occasion, I got whooped! It's not all about just taking up someone's cause, but it's also about winning. Jesus took up for us and in a few weeks, we will celebrate Resurrection Day, which was his vindication that he won! You and I had no hope of ever paying the debt for our sins that we owed. Jesus owed no debt for he had no sin. However, he demonstrated his love for us in that he paid a debt he did not owe for you and me, who had no hope of ever paying our own debt. This is ultimate love! Agape means to lose sight of meeting my own needs in the meeting of the needs of the object of our love. Reminder: You are guaranteed a productive and effective life if these qualities are in you and increasing!

Brotherly Kindness

We are continuing our series of thoughts on, "How to Guarantee a Productive and Effective Life" from II Peter 1:5-11. Verse seven tells us to add to your godliness, brotherly kindness. The word used here is phileo. This is the term used in the transliteration of the city of Philadelphia. You may recall that this city is known as the "city of brotherly love". This quality is best understood in the passage often referred to as the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37.
There are three lifestyles in this world:
1. What is yours is mine and all I have to do is take it. This lifestyle is represented by the robbers who beat the traveler and left him half dead by the side of the road. Those who exhibit this lifestyle are takers and never givers.
2. What is yours is yours and what is mine is mine and never shall the two meet. The priest and the Levite who came by where the traveler lay but rationalized that they could not be bothered. Admittedly, they had some good reasons not to get involved. If they had touched the wounded man and he had died they would be unclean and have to go through a purification process before they could resume their religious duties. Do you know the names of your closest neighbors and what really makes them tick?
3. What is mine is yours and all you have to do is need it. The Samaritan represented this lifestyle. He went out of his way to help a stranger, not because of what he was hoping to get out of it, but just because the traveler needed him. Jesus asked the lawyer who was neighbor to the traveler and his reply was the Samaritan. Do you go out of your way to help others?

You Must Say "Yes" Before You Hear the Question!

Godliness is exactly what it sounds like...being like God. Perhaps a better way of saying it is to be Christ-like. The Scripture says,
"Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you." II Peter 1:5-11
Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is a great example of godliness. Upon hearing the news that she would bear a son who would be Jesus Christ, her response was, "Behold the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word." Luke 1:38
Notice that God has a five year plan for your life, but He is not going to give you the details up front. Godliness is totally counter intuitive. Our normally accepted practice is to examine all the implications and decide to go one way or another. We weigh the pros and cons and see whether to take the job, make the move, etc. However, God did not spell out all the details to Mary as to what she'd have to go through (such as the crucifixion of her son), but she said yes to God even without knowing the whole picture. Do you trust God enough to say yes to Him before you see the whole picture? I would have cheated myself a thousand times if I had not said yes to Him early in my life. On the other hand, I have been blessed a thousand times as much because I said yes to Him. Do you trust Him enough to say yes without seeing the full picture?

Keeping On Even When It Hurts!

Let's recap, we have been exploring the qualities that are referred to in II Peter 1:5-11, especially verse 8, For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowlege of our Lord Jesus Christ. I have called this study, How To Guarantee a Productive and Effective Life. We have explored several of these qualities, such as, faith which is the regenerational relationship with our Lord as we commit to Him our everything. We are instructed, then, to add to our faith virtue, the "Taking Out of the Trash" of our lives. Then to add to our virtue, knowlege which we addressed as "Christianity For Dummies Like Me!" Then we are instructed to add to our knowlege, self-control which we addressed as, "How to Live a Balanced Life!"
Today, we will look at how to add to self-control, perseverance. Perseverance and patience are often misunderstood. They do not imply a passive sitting and twiddling of ones thumbs while waiting for God to intervene in our situation so as to rescue us. This word really means to keep on even when it hurts. It means that I will not put down the load I am carrying no matter how badly it hurts to hang on. There is a scene in the movie, Facing the Giants where a football coach challenges one of the players to do the "death crawl" for 100 yards with another teammate on his back while blindfolded. It is quite a riveting scene. What are the challenges in your life that tempt you to turn back from the path of the Lord?
Colossians 1:9-12 tell us how to walk worthy before the Lord. Verse 11 reads, strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously. This verse alludes to two main sources of discouragement in life, circumstances and people. The word stedfastness refers to the circumstances of life and the word patience refers to the people in our lives. I don't know if you have noticed, but some people are hard to love. One man said he thought he would like the ministry except for the people he had to deal with. Relationships are a challenge, but a right vertical relationship with the Lord makes it possible to deal horizontally with the people in our families, our co-workers, neighbors, etc.
If you find yourself tempted to turn loose of the load the Lord has assigned to you, hold on, help is already there!

Living a Balanced Life!

As we continue to pursue the theme, "How to Guarantee a Productive and Effective Life", II Peter 1:6 says to add to knowlege, self control. Self control has to do with balance. I have come to believe that one of the most important words in the New Testament is this word balance. I don't know about you, but I have a strong compulsion to eat too much, sleep too much, work too much, etc. You can fill in your particular indulgence of choice. Have you ever noticed that there is a time signature for each musical piece? In the old Baptist Hymnals, you could see these in the upper left corner of the hymn. For instance, the time signature might be 4/4 or 3/4, etc. I am not a musician. In fact, I stood in chapel once with a music student whose response, after hearing me butcher the hymns sung, was to say that I must be a really good preacher because I clearly could not sing.

However, I have learned the difference between noise and music. It is rhythm. God made you with a time signature. It is six and one, six and one. He said to keep the Sabbath. He rested on the seventh day after creating the earth. When you work non-stop without a day off for just one week, you are trying to live life at the time signature of fourteen and one. You can do the math. I have found that He commanded us to follow the sabattical principle for our own good. In fact, I have found that I am much more productive and effective if I build into my schedule regular Sabbath Days. Admittedly, I have workaholic tendencies. Therefore, I am using time management and work to illustrate this point. You fill in whatever tempts you to get out of rhythm.

Let's make music, not noise!

Christianity for Dummies Like Me!

We are continuing to look at the idea of "How to Guarantee a Productive and Effective Life" from II Peter 1:5-11. Faith in Christ is the foundation, of course. Then we are challenged to add to our faith, virtue, which I have described as "Taking Out the Trash!" Then in verse five, the text reads that we should add to virtue, knowlege. Luke 11:24-26 tells of a man whose home was cleansed of a demon and the demon found no place of rest so it returned to the house from whence it had left. It found the home swept clean and in order. Therefore this demon brought seven other spirits and moved back into that house. The Bible says that the latter state of the man was worse than the first. It is not enough to take out the trash in our lives, but we must also be diligent to fill that void with the knowlege of Christ. This word for knowlege is very interesting.

1. It is personal, but not private knowlege. Perhaps you have heard it said that religion is personal and nobody's business but mine. The Bible commands that we gossip the Good News of the Gospel everywhere.

2. It is progessive, rather than static. My favorite verse in the Bible is Philippians 1:6 which says, For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. I'm sure you have seen the shirts worn by expectant mothers that read, "Under Construction" with an arrow pointing downward to the baby being formed within her. I believe that every Christ follower should wear this type of shirt. We have been lied to. We have been told that we are human beings; when, in reality, we are humans becoming.

3. It is experiential, rather than just intellectual facts. The word gnosis which is translated knowlege in the New Testament is the same word used to describe the fact that Adam knew Eve and they had a child. Knowing Christ needs to be experienced through a daily walk with Him. It is possible to know the facts, but never experience the relationship with Christ as one's own best friend. One man read the 23rd Psalm with all the eloquence of his learning. Then later an older gentleman got up and quoted the same psalm and the wise man who followed stated that we have been blessed to hear from one who knew the Shepherd's Psalm and from one who knew the Shepherd.

It is not enough to just take out the trash in our lives, but we must fill the void with the personal, progressive, and experiential knowlege of Christ.

Taking Out the Trash!

In II Petter 1:5, we are commanded to "add to our faith virtue". (KJV) Some other translations translate the passage as "moral excellence", among others. The meaning behind this word, virtue, is to cut away all the impurities in order to leave only that which is pure. It means to be unalloyed with anything impure, leaving only the highest quality material.

Iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17), but aluminum alloy does very little to sharpen another metal. There is a story of a silversmith who was leading a tour of how he got the silver pure. He heated the molten metal until he could spot the impurities floating in the kettle and he would dip them out until he could see his reflection in the silver with no signs of imperfections. Until the master silversmith could see himself in the metal, it was not pure enough. Until He can see himself reflected in you, then He is not finished with us, thankfully! He is not finished with me. (Philippians 1:6)

I have noticed at our house, if we do not take out the trash, it stinks! The same is true in our personal lives. We often do not claim the promise that if we will confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (I John 1:9) We are failing to take out the trash in our lives. Repentance is the lifestyle of the Christ follower. We can often fool many people about being filled with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). However, it is difficult to be filled with the person of Christ when we are half-full of trash. If I produced two barrels apparently filled with water to the top, they both would appear to be so. However, if you could not see that one barrel was half-full of sand, both would look filled but one was not. Appearances can be deceiving. You can fool most of the people most of the time, but you can never fool the Lord! Perhaps your first order of business should be to TAKE OUT THE TRASH!

How to Guarantee a Productive and Effective Life!

I am indebted to Boyce Evans, an Evangelist whom I met in the late 1970's while he was preaching at the First Baptist Church of Hammond, LA, for this idea. He gave me a small paperback book he had written by a similar title. It was, essentially, a Bible study of II Peter 1:5-11. This passage outlines a list of qualities that, if incorperated into your life in abundance, will surely result in a productive and effective life. "For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." II Peter 1:8 This sounds like a guarantee to me. I want to know these qualities and to make sure they are in my life so that I can have the guarantee to be productive and effective. There are several lists in the New Testament of desirable qualities that we, as Christ followers, want in our lives. One is found in Galatians 5:22-23 known as the fruit of the Spirit. There is also a list in I Timothy 6:11-12 in which Paul shares a list of traits worth including in one's life.

For the next several weeks, I want to share with you these qualities in a series of blog posts. In II Peter 1:5, the Scripture states, "Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge," The basis of all these qualities begins with faith. It should be known that absolutely nothing can replace a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. Certainly this passage does not convey that anything needs to be added to our faith in terms of justification. Jesus paid it all on Calvary. When we accept Him as Lord, we are completely saved. Our sins are paid in full. However, the qualities that follow are growth steps necessary to become as significant, productive, and effective as the Lord would want us to be. We will begin looking at these qualities next week.

Pedal to the Metal!

It is no secret that there are lots of changes going on all around us. The kingdom organization with which I am affiliated is no exception. John 5:17 also reminds us that God is always at work around us. God works in the midst of change!

Elijah found himself in the midst of a rather chaotic situation when he had just witnessed the defeat of the prophets of Bael and then his life was threatened and he hid under a juniper tree. The Lord took him to the mountain and he experienced the wind, an earthquake, and fire; but God did not speak to him through these catastrophic events. However, in the midst of the storm, God did speak to him through His still, small voice. (I Kings 19:11f) God spoke in the midst of the storm. He can and will speak, in the midst of your storm, if you are listening!

The Datona 500 is coming up in a few weeks. When a NASCAR driver is faced with the unpleasant reality of a multi-car collision in front of him, he is taught to listen to his spotter and drive through the smoke. This requires a great deal of trust or faith in the spotter being correct in his instructions. If he does not direct correctly, the driver may T-bone another car in the midst of the crash making the bad situation worse. But if he can trust the direction of the spotter, he can drive through the collision site to take the lead and remain safe in the process.

We cannot always see through the smoke during the storms of our lives. However, we can trust the spotter, the Holy Spirit, to speak to us through the storm and to guide us through to victory in His security. If you find yourself in the midst of one of life's challenging storms, trust and listen to the spotter and keep the pedal to the metal!