Is It Hard?

The other day our son suffered a seizure at the dinner table.  It was very frightening for my wife and I both.  As the seizure went on his body became so stiff that you could not move either arms or legs.  All I could do was follow my training.  It worked.

I remember asking God for help and He gave it with great measures of His grace.  We would not have made it.  Most importantly our son would have not made it.  He was sitting at the table eating dinner and the seizure hit like a lightening bolt.

As I fell back on my training I ordered my wife to call for the paramedics.  That did not go well.  I took her phone and began to yell orders at the dispatcher.  That was the wrong thing to do and I know it.  In the “heat of the moment” my daddy instinct took over and it was game on.  I am sorry for my actions; but, help arrived and quickly I might add.

I remember thinking to myself that if God did not miraculously intervene on out behalf that I was not going to live through this.  I thank God that He did move in and it was evident.  I was reminded of the latter part of Jeremiah 32:27, “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?”  God is posing a rhetorical question here and the answer is an emphatic “NO!”.

Now, I know that you; my readers, are facing insurmountable troubles.  Take time and consider honestly the question of Jeremiah 32:27, “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?”

So, how are you doing?

Call

As I was reading my Bible I came across this verse again.  It is an often quoted passage.  I wonder if I really get the meaning of this.

As my family and I have been experiencing some really difficult trials the past couple weeks it has caused me to simply look at passages like this again with a little more intent look.

Jeremiah 33:3, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”

As I thought about the first phrase “Call unto me;” I was reminded how most people really do not want a Saviour.  Far too many people today want a genie in a bottle.  Thy want a “personal diety” who will just show up when they need someone.  They want some super being that will be ready at their every beckon call.  It does not work that way.

The word “call” means we are accosting a person by calling out.  There is no time here to give up.  There are people and things that I have been praying for that have not been answered.  Some of these requests have been on my heart for many years.  We have to keep calling.

When we call out to God it means we keep going to Him and going to Him boldly asking.  It is not a one time request.  We keep going back and back until we get the request answered.

We will know it when God answers too.  The word “shew” means to front, to stand out boldly.  When God answers we will know it.  We had a very large situation in our lives and I prayed about it and God answered the request in such a way that I know for sure it was Him.

Too many so-called Christians do not see their prayers answered because of various reasons.  One that stands out to me is that they do not call upon God and ask Him.

So, how are you doing?

 

The Pastor’s Table Blog

Dear Readers,

I have come to a place where there are some technical issues with my blog site that I need to have taken care of.  My IT professional will be taking my site down and will be doing some necessary work.  I am going to take advantage of this and take some time off from blogging.  I hope you understand that this is a needed break.  It is my prayer and hope that this will stimulate my creativity and that I can spend more quality and quantity time with my LORD and Saviour Jesus Christ.  I hope to gain a deeper relationship with Him that will allow me to share more deeply from my heart with all of you.

At this time I do not know how long this absence will be.  The technical part will not take as long as one might think as my IT professional is very gifted and does amazing work; but, I am going to take advantage of this brief down time and stretch it out to help me a little.

I look forward to coming back with some fresh material that will be helpful to you and those you love and minister to.

Thank you for your understanding!  May God bless you and those you minster to,

Pastor David Dale

Seeking

I am saddened and angered about the downward spiral that we see in our nation on a daily basis.  We should not be caught off guard by it though.  The Bible tells us that it is coming.

As a Fire department Chaplain, I know that my phone hardly rings anymore.  Why?  People are leaving the Church because they do not see that it is relevant to their lives.  Because people do not acknowledge that God is an intricate part of their lives they just leave Him out totally.

Christians are being killed on a daily basis.  Christianity is deeply hated.  People try to relegate Jesus to just some man who lived a long time ago.  Wrong!

Jesus is the Son of God.  He is the Creator and sustainer of life.  So, one day all human beings will stand before Him as Judge and they will be sorry for not accepting His offer of salvation.

Look at what Jeremiah told the people of Israel in Jeremiah 29:13, “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”

People need to get back to seeking God.  Especiallly with their whole heart.

So, how are you doing?

Falling From Grace And Getting Back Up

I love the song “Grace” as performed by Laura Story.  You can listen to it here.  I have listened to this song over and over and it brings me to tears every time.  Why?  The truth of it.

You see without the grace of God we would be of all men most miserable.  We cannot live without the grace of God.

Remember that grace is God giving to us that which we do not deserve.  Think about that for a little while.  Almighty God who is Creator of all gives to us.  He gives liberally to us.  Yet, we snub Him and treat Him like some genie in a bottle.  Bless me over here!  Bless me over here now!

Yet, our Loving God blesses us richly with His “daily sufficient grace”.  Wow!  God knows exactly what we need and when we need it.  Then He opens the windows of Heaven and pours out His grace like a waterfall from Heaven onto us.

So, how are you doing?

Do You Know How It Feels?

As I get older I have come to the realization that nearly every part of my body hurts.  I cannot do what I used to do.

I have heard all of my life that when you do a hard days work you should lay your head on your pillow at night tired and have a sense of accomplishment for your hard work.  This is absolutely true.

As I am thinking along this line I want to ask you a personal question.  Do you know how it feels to lay your head on your pillow at night knowing that you have eternal life?  If not contact me and let me show you how.

Paul says in Romans 8:38-39, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We live in a day where the only constant is change.  With God Almighty, He never changes.  He loves you supremely and He has sent His only Son to purchase eternal salvation for you.  All you have to do is receive it.  It is that simple.

So, how are you doing?

ACTS Model of Prayer

A few evenings ago in our mid-week service I shared with those gathered another model for prayer.  It is called the ACTS Model of Prayer.  This is an acronym for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication.  As I was going through the introduction I shared how I prefer to start with confession as to remove all hindrances to prayer.  I then pointed out that would make this the CATS Model of Prayer.  Well…  That was not the desired outcome.  So, for the purpose of this writing I will follow the original  model.

I.     Adoration – Adoration is worship.  Now, I can see why start here.  We should worship the LORD both publicly and privately.  He is worthy of our worship!  As we worship Him this will bring into perspective how lowly and sinful we really are.  Then we can move on to the next topic of confession.

Worship is ascribing worth to Someone, someone or something.  I think it would be safe to say that if we have a wrong view of our God we will not worship Him as He deserves.  As I have shared in the past series on “How to Pray for an Hour” there is no time limit here.  You can be as free as you want to worship as long as you please.

II.     Confession – What is confession?  Some people have the idea that confession is letting God in on a secret.  This could not be further from the truth.  God is All-Knowing.  He knows very well what sin we are ensnared in.  Remember, Jesus died to pay the price for that sin.  He suffered the penalty for our sin.

Confession means that we say the same thing about our sin that God says.  It means that we agree with God about our sin.  Then when we confess our sin we can forsake it and move on in life with a clean account before God.  This frees us to live as God created us to live.

III.     Thanksgiving – For some people this is just a “most wonderful time of the year”.  When in reality this should be a lifestyle for a Christian.  What are you thankful for?  Think about Christians in other parts of the world that are thankful to have one page of God’s Word.  Think about the people that live on the street who are thankful to have one small meal a day.  Think about the elderly person that has been abandoned in a nursing home by thoughtless family and forgotten.  Think about the children that fill children’s hospitals all over the world.  Are you thankful yet?

Thanksgiving should be such a part of us that it flows like the breath from our nostrils.  Bible commentator Matthew Henry was robbed once.  Someone asked him how he could obey I Thessalonians 5:18, “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”  Mr. Henry’s response exemplifies this thought of thanksgiving.  He said that he was thankful that he had the money to be taken.  He further said that he was thankful that he was the one robbed and not the one doing the robbing.  Wow!  That is real thanksgiving.

IV.     Supplication – Supplication is where you pray for your own personal needs and the needs of others.  This is where I struggle.  Sometimes I feel prideful when I pray for my own needs.  Yet, we must.  God wants us to come to Him and ask.  He wants us to seek Him for ourselves and for others also.

There are times when God will bring someone to your mind and my mind.  When He does this we need to stop what we are doing and pray immediately for whomever that is.  You never know what the results might be.  We could be the one that prays a prayer that saves someone’s life.  Prayer is serious business.  It is the King’s business.

So, how are you doing?

Pray For One Hour 12

Matthew 26:40-41, “And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?  Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

XII.  Pray for one hour:  Praise – Prayer should begin and conclude with praise.  Psalm 9:1, “I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.”

The word “praise” in this verse means literally, to use (i.e. hold out) the hand; physically, to throw (as tone, an arrow) at or away; especially, to revere or worship (with extended hands); intensively, to bemoan (by wringing the hands) (Strong’s Concordance).

When we come to praise we need to do it wholeheartedly.  God does not deserve halfhearted worship.  He gave His all for you and I so we need to give our all to Him no matter what we are doing.   I remember hearing the baseball coach yelling at us to “put your heart into it!”  He could see that we were not giving our all to what we were supposed to be doing.

If we are not careful we will just go through the motions of prayer.  It will become just some other thing we check off our list of things to do.  It should not be this way.  We need to go to prayer in a spirit of expectation.  We need to meet our Heavenly Father there each and every time.

So, how are you doing?

Pray For One Hour 11

Matthew 26:40-41, “And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?  Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

XI. Pray for one hour – Listening:  Receive spiritual instruction.  Ecclesiasates 5:2, “Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God:  for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth:  therefore let thy words be few.”

I have noticed a trend in so-called Christianity.  I hear people praying and telling God what to do.  Really?  What gives you and I the right to tell Holy God what to do?  Nothing!  What we need to be doing is keep our mouth shut and our ears tuned into Him.  This is called listening.  It is a lost art today.  I know I am guilty of not listening.  We hear someone tell something and we immediately want to tell them how to fix it.  In the right place there is nothing wrong with this.  When it comes to time with God it is wrong.  We need to be listening for God to give us His orders.   He is our Commander in Chief.  He is our King of kings and LORD of lords.  We take orders from Him.  We need to be silent before Him and listen for Him to speak to us.

So, how are you doing?

Pray For One Hour 10

Matthew 26:40-41, “And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?  Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

X. Pray for one hour – Meditation:  Ponder spiritual themes.  Joshua 1:8, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein:  for then thou shalt make thy way propserous, and then thou shalt have good success.”

The world is seeking for success.  All you have to do is watch television and see all the health, wealth and prosperity people advertising their “thing” whatever it is.  People seem to spend their waking moments thinking about anything but spiritual things.  We suppress them out of our minds.  We don’t want to deal with them.  We need to though.

You and I should be like the cow.  A cow has multiple stomachs and when they chew up the grass or grain it moves through their digestive system from one to the other.  I know this is gross; but, it is an accurate illustration.

We read the Bible; but, we don’t study It.  We seem to glance over It; but, we don’t take time to digest it.  Then when it comes time to pray we don’t have anything in our minds to meditate upon.  If we fill our hearts and minds with God’s Word then there will be plenty to meditate upon.

So, how are you doing?