Another One of My Heroes With the Lord

When they arrive at the gates of death,  God welcomes those who love him. Psalm 116:15

Another one of the spiritual giants in my life went home to be with the Lord last week. Dr. Gilbert A. Peterson was a man who I greatly admired and respected.

I first met Doc when I was a student at Philadelphia College of Bible when it was located in Center City, Philadelphia. He was the Academic Dean and was a figure big than life my eyes – not just in physical stature, but in the way he carried himself and served in his role.

I don’t remember the specifics, but there was a very challenging situation taking place on campus. Doc handled it with grace and firmness and I have seen many of my fellow students post on his page how they all remembered that time in our lives.

Doc could be perceived as intimidating at times. But he really wasn’t. He had a big heart and loved his students. He was never too busy to ask “How are you doing?” or “What’s God been showing you from His Word?”

He eventually became the President of Lancaster Bible College. Under his leadership the school expanded and grew and he laid a strong foundation for Dr. Peter Teague, who has taken the college to the next level of excellence.

Dr. Peterson’s wife, Delores, has battled MS for many years. Throughout this long, arduous journey, I have watched this giant of the faith lovingly care for his bride. He has modeled for many of us how to be a strong, but humble man under pressure.

So many of my heroes are transitioning to glory. They have given you and me a huge legacy. Now we are responsible to pick up the torch and run with it.

O may all who come behind us find us faithful;
May the fire of our devotion light their way.
May the footprints that we leave lead them to believe,
And the lives we live inspire them to obey.
O may all who come behind us find them faithful.  Jon Morh Birdwind Music

Going the distance with Jesus,

Bill Welte
President/CEO America’s Keswick

Daily Bible Reading: Judges 16-18

Think About This: The life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, like soaring on eagles wings, but is the life of day in and day out consistency, the life of walking without fainting. Isaiah 40:31 Oswald Chambers

Verses to Memorize: Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.  Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:1-3 (New Living Translation)

Magnify Christ in Your Body

…according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. (Philippians 1: 20) I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. (Romans 12: 1)

Paul’s goal was to magnify and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. Magnify is an interesting word. There are two kinds of magnification. There is the magnification of the microscope and the magnification of the telescope. The microscope makes little things look big. The telescope makes big things look larger.

Warren Wiersbe says, “Magnifying Christ means being a lens that makes a small Christ look very big and a distant Christ look very close.”

Paul’s desire was that people see Jesus in all His grandeur and glory.

How can you magnify Christ?

o Magnify Him with your lips as you testify of Him.

o Magnify Him with your hands as you happily serve Him.

o Magnify Him with your feet as you walk with Him and march to His orders.

o Magnify Him with your knees as you pray for others.

o Magnify Him with your shoulders as you carry a brother’s burden.

I beseech you therefore, brethren…. magnify Christ in your body! Dr. Roger D. Willmore is a major contributor in both volumes of Real Victory for Real Life and a popular conference speaker at America’s Keswick

Keswick, America’s  (2012-12-13). Real Victory for Real Life Volume 2 (Kindle Locations 3427-3452).  . Kindle Edition.

Daily Bible Reading: Judges 8-9

Think About This: Your Father is as near when you journey through the dark tunnel as when you journey under the open heaven! Author Unknown

Verses to Memorize: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

Richness in Jesus

So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. ~ Jesus, King of The Universe, in John 10

Oh beloved, it is true. We are – in Him – astoundingly rich.  The only problem we have, is that we have no idea how rich we are.  We do indeed stumble along in our squalid existence and miss the truth.

This fool of a writer had to go to one of the poorest spots, in the one of the poorest cities on the planet, to see it again this last weekend.  i am one the 0.02% of the ultra-rich in Indonesia. This is a place where the poverty line is reckoned to be something like $300 USD per year (i make this amount in about 36 hours). And over 120 million people in this country make less than $1.25 USD per day.   But this weekend, i realized that my money buys me much less than i sometimes think it does.

And still, i am the richest of men.

Muara Baru is a fishing community in North Jakarta.  The garbage of this immense metroplex of over 28 million flows into the holding ponds of this zone and is scraped off (mostly) before the effluent of the fetid rivers is pumped out into the ocean.  And it is near this pumping complex that the little town does its best to survive, while the men go out on boats and small ships to harvest food from the ocean – for others to eat.

To call this place poor would be correct.  The slightly reddish hair of the very small children, and their slightly sunken features point to a diet astoundingly short of protein and micronutrients.  The only clean water available must be carted in on hand-drawn units.  And the sparse spigots of running water only pass a slightly green liquid used for what passes for bathing.

And in this place i saw what riches really are.

A (very) little kindergarten girl upstairs (actually up-ladder) at the school we were visiting was finishing the drawing she had started in a contest.  She was drawing slowly and precisely, even though the contest had already ended.  She was engrossed in getting the colors of her rendering of the story of “Daud dan Goliat” (David and Goliath) just right.   She was dressed in the bright yellow shirt and blue shorts provided for the kids who are fortunate enough to begin an education in this village.  And while she was tiny from lack of food in the past, she had a relatively good complexion and was gaining strength from the meals she got in the school.  But there was something else about her that taught me what riches are.

She had a snippet of hope.  And it was this tiny little sliver of hope in this squalid place that drove her.  Oh yeah, she probably had nowhere really good to go at the moment, and might have even been hesitant to leave.  But there was something in this little elf of a person that showed me what can propel any person out of the worst of ghettos.  Hope.

Then, i went downstairs to some of the other activities.  And in the stink and mess and garbage and squalor of a place like this, i watched a bunch of kids begin to dance.  They danced to a traditional song of the village – and for a moment, they enjoyed the serious of business of heaven.  A moment of hope from a few of us visiting their tiny little school had propelled them into a joyful dance.

Along the way, a neighbor woman grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me close to have someone else take a picture while she beamed and giggled at the prospect of having a foto-op with a “bule” (foreigner).  She may have been someone who would have stolen my wallet or my virtue, but for just a moment she was breathing the fresh air of another human being simply being next to her – and treating her like the infinitely valuable person she was (and is).

Can we see it?  The tiniest scraped off shaving of hope, sent these people into nearly ecstatic response.  What about us?  We have been named inheritors of the very Kingdom of God.  We will be partakers in this – and in the coming ages – of the unfathomable riches of His grace.

The very storehouses from which the universe was built will be ours to explore and use.
The table at which our King dines, will have a seat with our name on it.

The Love that made the worlds will be the tie that binds us in communion with Him forever.

The thought of anything like pain or loss or wishing will be the furthest thing from our minds.

The very Person of Jesus will be our Brother and Husband and Lover and Friend – forever.

What might an understanding of this truth (if truly understood) bring about in our lives? Oh beloved!  Do we have any idea how rich we truly are?  Do we have any idea how immense is our Blessed Hope?  i do not think we do.  Yet.

L_RD, give us a glimpse.  L_RD show us a sliver that we might dance like those children in the alleys of Muara Baru! – Makala Doulos participated in the Colony of Mercy and is a regular Freedom Fighter Blogger

Daily Bible Reading: Judges 3-5

Think About This: True have his promises been; not one has failed. I want none beside him. In life he is my life, and in death he shall be the death of death; in poverty, Christ is my riches; in sickness, he makes my bed; in darkness, he is my star, and in brightness, he is my sin; he is the manna of the camp in the wilderness, and he shall be the new corn of the host when they come to Canaan. Jesus is to me all grace and no wrath, all truth and no falsehood; and of truth and grace he is full, infinitely full. ~Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)

Verses to Memorize: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

Who Are We Praying To?

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8 (ESV)

What’s our mindset when we come to the Throne of Grace in prayer? As for myself, when this Christian walk began, my mindset was, “Please God get me outta this mess.” Then as time went along it was, “God if You get me outta this, I won’t do it again.” And as more time has passed my approach to the Throne has changed and I really try to take “me” out of the picture. I have found out that praying in the foxhole is for foxes and is no way to approach the very God that through His grace chose me and granted me mercy. I guess what I am saying, in a roundabout way, is I gotta know who I am praying to.

During our Wednesday night Bible study, Pastor John Mol went through what he called the “Five Mindsets” of Matthew 7:7-8. However, he first takes us through Romans 8:13-17 to set the mood. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16). It won’t be some mystical inner voice that tells you are His but it will be by the fruit He produces in you (Gal 5:22-23) and by the power He provides you for spiritual service (Acts 1:8). If the Holy Spirit is in us then Christ is in us. He dwells in our hearts by faith. Grace in our soul is its new nature; the soul is alive to God, and has begun its holy happiness (That’s Matt Henry with the term “holy happiness”) which shall endure forever.

With that set here are the “Five Mindsets”….

1. “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” (Psalm 66:18) Pastor John pretty much summed this up like this, “If you’re gonna knock, you better not be cherishing iniquity/sin.” YHVH does not hear sinners who still delight in their sin.

2. “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”(James 1:6-8) We can’t be people with a double heart; we just don’t have the ability to maintain two souls.

3. “And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us.” (1 John 5:14) Because we do not yet in effect obtain that which we hope for, John wants us to understand that prayer with faith is the key. That nothing is asked but that which is agreeable to the will of God: so you gotta come to the Throne of Grace bold, surrendered and confident!!

4. “And He told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”(Luke 18:1) In “The Parable of the Persistent Widow” Jesus illustrates that men ought not to lose heart when it comes to prayer. The widow’s persistent request for justice against an adversary to an unjust judge may be the base of the point but it’s what is said in the following verses that gives us an assurance that YHVH will hear us each time we approach the Throne.

5. “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”(Hebrews 10:22) The first things that were available to the Levitical priests during the days of The Tabernacle was The Bronze Altar and Laver. The Altar was used to atone and The Laver was used to wash. Had this not been done and the heart of The High Priest not right, the bells on his robe would stop ringing and the rope tied to his ankle pulled to drag his dead body from the Holy of Holies. Praise YHVH that the Veil is torn!!

So I encourage you that when you pray do not do it from the foxhole perspective. (Let the fox have his privacy) Come boldly, surrendered and confident; make your request known and allow the peace of YHVH that surpasses all understanding, keep you firm in His grip!! Amen? – Chris Hughes is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy and is a weekly Freedom Fighter blogger

Daily Bible Reading: Judges 1-2

Think About This: “All answers to prayer are but the intervention of the providence of God in the affairs of men.”—E.M. Bounds

Verses to Memorize: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

A Model Husband

Husbands, love your wives as, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her … Ephesians 5:25

Last Monday morning at 6:10 AM, our my wife’s baby sister, Jeanne, slipped in the presence of Jesus after a long, hard, but valiant battle with ovarian cancer. She fought hard and victoriously.

Jeanne and Mark have been married for 36 years – unheard of these days with so many giving up on traditional marriage. I remember their wedding day so well. On that day Mark pledge his love to Jeanne and in his vows declared that he would love her “for richer or poorer, in sickness and in heath, till death they would part.”

Mark has been a loving husband all throughout their marriage. But I have to tell you that watching him the last four years and been an incredible example of servant-hood.

This last several months have been very difficult and emotionally draining on Mark and Jeanne as well as for their married kids, Jeff and Meg. In the midst of this battle with cancer, Meg’s husband was tragically killed in an automobile accident. We’ve watched Meg grow so much during the past several years and we are so proud of her.

Mark took up the responsibility of caring for his wife and daughter and has served them both so well. Perfect, nah! But you aren’t going to find a more devoted guy.

Mark left every morning to be at work at 4:00 AM and then came home and unselfishly cared for Jeanne, most nights staying awake with her, getting little sleep and starting the day all over again. But he never complained nor did he lose his level of commitment for his bride.

I’ve watched lots of men check out on their spouses when they are sick, and especially when the battle seems to be out of control and nearing the end. But I have to tell you – mark stood by Jeanne resolutely and fervently until her final breath on Monday morning.

Mark, I am so proud of you. Thank you for demonstrating Christ’s love to all of us, and especially to Jeanne. Thank you for setting a great example for all of us. I love you, brother.

Going the distance with Jesus,

Dr. Bill Welte
President/CEO America’s Keswick

Daily Bible Reading: Joshua 22-24

Think About This: Beloved, have you ever thought that someday you will not have anything to try you, or anyone to vex you again? There will be no opportunity in heaven to learn or to show the spirit of patience, forbearance, and longsuffering. If you are to practice these things, it must be now.  A. B. Simpson

Verses to Memorize: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

Grace and the Lordship of Christ

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth. ~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Ephesians 1

Oh beloved, it is true.  Those of us who have truly trusted Christ Jesus for our salvation have also become His bond-slaves.  To be saved by Him is to become His – for He is truly both Savior and Lord.  And the terms of this deal are not negotiable.  Our salvation is an exceedingly real and mysterious exchange. For the life we now live is utterly different than before.  We now live His Life.  And He now Lives ours, in us and through us.

Some of us come to the edge of this question of G_d overtaking our lives, and we flinch.  We have heard (and are deeply encouraged!) by the words describing His grace towards us.  We are calmed, and even attracted to the idea that we can’t do anything helpful enough to get ourselves to heaven.  And in this attraction, we begin to feel the warmth of His Love towards us.

But He gives more grace. The Love, which at first simply warms us, takes on a Life of its own within us.   And we begin to burn.

And as the fire of His Love burns away the falseness of our old man, the fear of G_d actually taking charge of our life is now seen for the foolishness it is.  For instead of putting us into slavery, He goes about working to smash anything that holds us back from the freedom His servants must enjoy to fully participate in the Great Commission He has for us.

Said simply: The Grace of G_d and His Lordship are just two aspects of His goodness which He uses to set us free.  They are not opposed to each other.  They are both beautiful manifestations of His goodness and Love towards us.

We come under His control, and His grace makes the work He does in us quick and sure.

We yield to His authority, and His grace sets us free from the illusion that we ever had control anyway.

We submit to His Love, and His grace frees us see that all we were ever looking for before was Him. He was, is and will be everything we ever need.

We willingly bend the knee and recognize Him as King of The Universe, and His grace puts a hand on our shoulder – and bids us rise a co-regent of His domain.

We cast ourselves before Him, and His grace casts our sin into the depths of an infinite ocean of His mercy – to be remembered no more.

We obey His command to fear not, and His grace blasts those fears back into the abyss from which they arose – never to bother us again.

Can we see it?  It took Infinite strength to accomplish our salvation.  It took (and takes) the KING of kings and LORD of lords to do it.  But the work of our salvation is not a re-entry into bondage.  It is, rather, an entry being made for us into a completely new level of existence. For we, under His authority, are the kings and lords He is making ready for eternity.

Will you let Him beloved?  Today is the day.  Let Him have you. – Makala Doulous attended the Colony of Mercy and is a regular Freedom Fighter Blogger

Daily Bible Reading: Joshua 12-15

Think About This: I am a bow on your hands, Lord. Draw me, lest I rot. Do not overdraw me, Lord. I shall break. Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break? ~Nikos Kazantzakis

Verses to Memorize: “But wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James 3:17-18

Walking the Walk or Talking the Talk?

Acts 19:11-20

Sometimes it’s very hard to understand why God allows someone to go on in their sin when those around them are so aware of it. Weather it friends, family, ministry or church, we all know someone who is way off track and seems to be “getting away with it”.

For the Christians of Paul’s day, it may have seemed as if Sceva and his sons were getting away with using the name of Jesus to promote themselves and their own cause which, in fact, they did for a season. But God will not be mocked and those who walk around spouting scripture for personnel gain will someday pay the price. That’s exactly what happened to Sceva’s 7 sons.

In Acts 19:15, God took His hand of protection away and the demons these men had been “flirting” with were let loose. It’s the same in the lives of those who think that they can walk around looking good and sounding good when in fact, the motives of their hearts are not pure. The demon tore them apart and sent them fleeing literally exposed for the frauds they were.

Now here’s some real encouragement. When the story got out about what had occurred, people began confessing their sins openly and had a righteous fear of the Lord. People who had been practicing witchcraft & sorcery (sin) came and burned their scrolls. Scripture says the total dollar value of those scrolls was 50,000 drachmas, a drachma being a silver coin worth about a days wage. That computes to 137 years worth of earnings for one man! That’s an incredible amount of evil literature destroyed. (Think of that in terms of today’s wages and drugs, alcohol or pornography being destroyed) How awesome would that be!

“In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.”

Just because we don’t see or understand why God is letting someone “get away” with their sin, doesn’t mean He will let it go on forever or that He won’t use it to bring about repentance and conversion to many. And lest we forget, the first place we need to look for this sin is in our own hearts and lives lunless we should have our lives torn apart and our sin exposed.

I would love to be part of a major reformation and conversion of the lost—but not in the way Scevas sons were used.  How about you?

Lord, forgive my impatience with those around me and the sins I so easily see in their live. Help me to take that as a warning and look more closely into my heart.

In Jesus name. – Steve Schmidt is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy, serves full-time at America’s Keswick and is a weekly Freedom Fighter blogger

Daily Bible Reading: Joshua 9-11

Think About This: No man who is full of himself can ever truly preach the Christ who emptied himself. —J. Sidlow Baxter

Verses to Memorize: “But wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James 3:17-18

Skipping the “Therefore”

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?”  Matthew 6:24-25 (NKJV)

Take a good look at the passage of Scripture that I am using today to get us started. Now tell me, given the context of what Jesus is saying here, do you really think it is a good idea to split these two verses from each other? I ask you this because I notice that, at times, this passage of Scripture gets discussed apart from each other. And when it does get cut in two verse 25 loses its “Therefore I say to you” segue. We need that “therefore” there to connect the whole flow, so that we understand that we are called to thought before we can be called to action. Now granted I am not giving you the entire call but it certainly ends with, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things will be added to you.”

When we read the story of Ai in Joshua 7 we encounter a fellow named Achan. Achan confesses to Joshua that during the raid on Jericho he grabbed himself some of the spoils or dare I say God’s “firstfruits”. What was meant as an offering to YHVH, Achan coveted, took, and buried. He brought into the camp that which was meant to satisfy YHVH’s wrath not to make Achan financially secure (not too smart, dude).  Everything in Jericho was meant to be firstfruits to YHVH and Ai was going to be a continuance of the offerings but Achan skipped the “therefore”. No one can serve two masters…You cannot serve God and mammon…Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life. To do anything contrary is idolatry.

Judas Iscariot skipped “Therefore’s” and some of us would agree he skipped more than Achan, but it only took one for Achan. In the New Testament we can read a few times where we can see that Judas wouldn’t take the time to connect to the thought to the action. After Lazarus was raised from the tomb, his sister Mary “therefore” took a pound of expensive ointment and anointed the feet of Jesus with it. Judas went BO-LLISTIC over that action and yelled out something about selling the stuff for some money to help the needy (yeah right Judas). To which Jesus replied, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have Me.”

John Stott would have this to say about serving masters, “So anybody who divides his allegiance between God and mammon has already given it to mammon, since God can be served only with an entire and exclusive devotion.” With that in mind it would seem to me that Achan really relied on what was tangible, maybe he only heard about the parting of the Red Sea and those other miracles performed in the desert. Judas was rumored to pilfer right from the very money bag that support The Saviors ministry work while He was here on earth. In either case they didn’t rely on YHVH for what they shall eat or drink or wear or whatever else they needed.

We get the “Therefore’s” after the call to thought, so that when the action hits we understand “as a result” or “for that reason” there has been something to follow. Unfortunately there are times when we are living right in the call to think it over first so we can take the bridge and therefore cross over it into action. Without a clear understanding to come to “rest” with a call to thought we can trip and fall into the action. Today’s Scripture verse is an example of why it is so very important not to isolate the Word of God when He invites us to look carefully and calmly at all options, weigh them up and then receive the call for action, all with a simple “Therefore.” Amen? – Chris Hughes graduated from the Colony of Mercy and is a weekly Freedom Fighter blogger

Daily Bible Reading: Joshua 5-8

Think About This: “And when the choice is seen for what it is—a choice between Creator and creature, between the glorious personal God and a miserable thing called money, between worship and idolatry—it seems inconceivable that anybody could make the wrong choice.”—John Stott

Verses to Memorize: “But wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James 3:17-18

That for Which We Stand

For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, And not according to what he does not have.
2^nd Corinthians 8:12

I recently found myself quoting a phrase that has been an anthem for me. “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” One of the areas of my life that was revealed to me was the lack of resolve I had. I was a “go with the flow” kind of guy. Then came this idea of standing firm or being steadfast, Paul says in his previous letter to the church of Corinth “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong”. This of course has to be tempered so we don’t become stubborn and unable to be taught.

The 8^th chapter of 2^nd Corinthians is a reminder to the church to live up to the commitment they made to contribute financially to the believers in need. It seems as though their faith has been weakened by the deceitfulness that they were either being taken advantage of or they were being asked to give what they didn’t have.

We sometimes can be led by fears of trusting God even when it comes to fulfilling a commitment we’ve made. Two things, don’t over commit or be hasty to follow your good intentions. I have come to find out that prayerfully considering making a commitment is wise.

Second, if you’ve committed to do something and it is within your means, then do it. We are memorizing a verse from Hebrews 12:1,2, the verse tells us that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses”. Paul uses the example of the churches of Macedonia and their faithful giving. This example is from a church that although they we known to have little they gave much. Paul says “I speak not by commandment, but I am testing the sincerity of your love by the diligence of others” (8:8), and so we see a challenge.

We all know the verse “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver”, it comes in the next chapter. By no means is this a “guilt thing”, like Pastor John says, “If you are giving begrudgingly than don’t give”. Giving, for some of us is something that God wants to work in us. I think it starts with being thankful for what we have. If you can say in your heart, “I give because He first gave me”, than AMEN! If not, then ask God to give you a grateful, giving heart. If you’ve been redeemed and have a willing mind, then let us give by “That for Which We Stand”. – Rob is a weekly Freedom Fighter blogger, serves on the full-time Keswick staff and is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy

Daily Bible Reading: Joshua 1-4

Think About This: Corporate worship is designed to instill vertical hope where horizontal hope has been dashed. Paul Tripp

Verses to Memorize: “But wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James 3:17-18

We All Need Wisdom

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;  he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” James 1:5-8

Everyone of us face those times when we need wisdom for a challenging situation in life. As men we are normally fixers. Give us a problem and as problem solvers we can fix just about everything. That’s how God has wired most of us.

But if we are honest, there are times when we hit a wall and we really don’t have the answers. So where do we turn at times like this?

I would like to suggest to you that we do what the writer of James exhorts us to do: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” James 1:5

In the third chapter of James, there is a picture of what godly wisdom looks like. In fact, this is our memory verse for this week. When we ask God for wisdom, it says that if we ask in faith without wavering, He will give divine wisdom.

But what does HIS wisdom look like?

His wisdom is:

Pure
Peaceable
Gentle
Willing to yield
Full of mercy and good fruits
Without partiality and hypocrisy

What I’ve discovered is that when I seek His wisdom vs. my own, His wisdom is exactly what is listed in James 3:17. It causes me to check my motives. Are my motives pure? Is my attitude in check? Am I trying to handle a situation with anger and hostility or do I have a peaceable spirit in dealing with the matter?

When I approach an individual regarding a conflict am I confronting in a gentle way or I am trying to be the bad cop or the overbearing boss?

Am I willing to deal with the situation with the hope of restoration or seeing God at work in the individuals life, or is my mind already made up and deal from the law vs. mercy and grace?

In my dealings with an individual is there any possibility that I am showing partiality? Am I asking the individual to do something that I should be doing and not doing in my own life?

These are good questions to consider when asking God for wisdom to handle difficult situations.

The bottom line is not to forget James 3:18 – “Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

What situation(s) are you facing today where you need God’s divine wisdom? Ask and be amazed at His answers!

Going the distance with Jesus,

Bill Welte
President/CEO America’s Keswick

Daily Bible Reading: Deuteronomy 32-34

Think About This: The world will teach you coping skills but God will teach you hoping skills.”Mark Chironna

Verses to Memorize: “But wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James 3:17-18