As I was contemplating what to write this month, I received a phone call from Brazil.  This was no ordinary phone call, this was a video phone call, courtesy of “Skype,” the internet, and the computer in my office.  I quickly “left-clicked” the icon that said “accept call” and proceeded to…  Actually nothing happened.  I could hear my friend in Brazil speaking on the other end, but he could not hear or see me.  He tried again, and… nothing.  Brian Karr, a young man who lives a couple of doors up the street from the church office, stepped into my office at that moment and recognized the trouble right away: the web-camera was not attached to the computer.  I attached it, and, voila! I was looking at and speaking to my friend.

            While we were talking he got a phone call on his cell phone—isn’t modern technology marvelous—so he excused himself from our conversation for a moment, and answered his phone, speaking in Portuguese.  This happened again a couple of minutes later.  And all of that made me think of prayer. 

            What’s that got to do with prayer, you say?  Well, first, in order to pray, one has to have a “connection.”  Psalm 66.18 says it this way: If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened…  In order for us to talk with God, to approach Him in prayer in the first place, we need to have established a “clear connection,” one in which we are approaching Him in repentance, in sorrow over our sin and sinfulness, and in a desire to know and do His will.  When that is certain, then we can be assured God listens, as the Psalmist in 66.19-20: but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer.  Praise be to God, Who has not rejected my prayer or withheld His love from me!

            Another thing it brought to mind is how God works, or rather how He teaches.  He keeps us humble by using those from whom we often would rather not learn to teach us.   1 Corinthians 1.27-28 says it this way: But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things…  He humbles us to pray, He humbles us to learn to speak with Him, He humbles us, sometimes, in whom He uses to teach us to pray.

            The final thought had had to do with the greatness and the infinite capacity of our God.  When my friend got the phone call, he had to stop one conversation to begin another, and then he spoke in a language I do not understand—fortunately he did.  Yet God doesn’t have to stop any conversation to hear another, and He hears them all in whatever language they are spoken—He understands them all.  He has people from every tribe and language and people and nation, (Rev. 5.9.) 

            The bottom line is this: praise God for prayer, for the privilege of speaking with Him, whenever we want, because of what Jesus has done.  Take advantage of that privilege: keep connected—keep repenting.  And learn more about how to do it, even from those you think you can’t learn from. Don’t just think about it, pray about it!

– Pastor Jim

While I always think of American Independence this month, I just found out that it is also the month of earth’s aphelion. Say what? This is when the earth’s yearly orbit around the sun takes it farthest away from the sun, about 1½% father away than it is at its perihelion, or its closest point to the sun, during January. What makes it really interesting, and odd to our thinking, is that some of our hottest days, (in the northern hemisphere), occur when our planet is farthest away from the sun, and our coldest days when we are closest to the sun. That’s because our temperature is controlled by the tilt of the earth on its axis, not its orbit around the sun.

In the northern hemisphere, during the summer months, the earth’s position on its axis makes the northern hemisphere closer to the sun than the southern, exposing our hemisphere to more of the sun’s light than the south, hence we are in summer and they are in winter. Since there is more land mass in the north than water, we collect more of the sun’s heat and it’s hot. In the south, even when they are rotated “closer” to the sun, there is more water than land mass, so the temperatures are moderated. (If all this sounds confusing, ask a science teacher, like Brian Davis—he’ll have a whole lot more time and space than one column in Tidings to explain it.)

But all that brings two thoughts to my mind. The first concerns the wonders of our Creator. He designed our planet so that we would experience the seasons—Genesis 8.22 says: As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease—but so that we would experience them comfortably. He made the summer come in the northern hemisphere at the time when the earth was farthest away from the sun. And in the southern hemisphere, He made the land mass less to regulate the temperature, (water takes longer to heat and dissipates it more quickly.) God is so wise.

The second has to do with our relative nearness to God. James 4.8 says: Come near to God and He will come near to you. There are times in our lives when we sense that we have been led to places that seem far from God, that we, in our “orbits,” have been taken far from the “Son.” I do not speak of those times we have run from God on our own. Rather, I speak of those times when God has sent us on errands seemingly far from the center of His Presence, way out of the comfort of His people and fellowship. At those times we need to “turn on our axis,” and lean toward the Son. We need to draw near – ever nearer – to Him at those times and experience the warmth of His Presence.

So, this month when you begin to feel the heat, remember that while the earth is as far away as it’s going to get from the sun, it’s warm because it’s tilted toward the sun, and that’s part of the wonder of God’s creation. And remember, too, that you can be just as “warm” as you “tilt” toward Him, even from “far away.” You think about that.

– Pastor Jim

June means Flag Day. Huh?! That’s right. Flag Day. On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress approved the flag design of its Marine Committee. Though it was probably only approved as the naval ensign, the standard that would fly from the masts of our ships—two years later the Secretary of the Board of War lamented that we still had no national flag—there already were several flags being used by our Revolutionary troops and the Congress appears to have chosen one of those designs, or perhaps several of them. The design they approved, though it specifies no particular arrangement of the parts, most closely resembles the one we recognize as the “Betsy Ross” flag. (Historians are divided as to whether or not Betsy Ross really sewed it.)
That design became the banner of what became these United States. And every year, whether most Americans are aware of it or not, we celebrate the anniversary of that date—yep, that’s right, we celebrate Flag Day. On that day, and through that week, Americans are supposed to fly the US flag to commemorate the adoption our national banner – the Stars and Stripes.
And that reminds me that we as believers also have a “banner.” The hymn comes to mind in which we sing of being “’neath the banner of the cross.” Perhaps one might think of the Song of Solomon, where it says the “his banner over me is love.” But the most informing passage is Isaiah 11.10: “In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to Him, and His place of rest will be glorious.”
The Root of Jesse in that passage is Jesus. He is our banner. Although the passage has to do with the end of the ages, that is, with Christ’s second coming, He really is our banner now. But that begs the question: What does it mean that He is our banner?
In the passage in Isaiah it says that “nations will rally to Him.” The picture is one of war, a battle in which someone takes the flag to remind the troops of that for which they fight, to call them to courage, to call them together, to call them to charge to victory. It “rallies” them for battle. Jesus is the one for Whom we fight, around Whom we gather, the One Who encourages us, Who calls us to fight against His enemy.
But this flag denotes victory. Once the battle is fought and won, the only flag still flying, or raised over the battlefield, is the victor’s. That Jesus is our banner, our flag, says that the battle for us has been fought and won, we are His and He is ours, the victory, won at the cross, is certain.
That flag flying over that battlefield denotes ownership. Having won the battle, the place over which it flies is now under the jurisdiction of the victor whose flag flies. To say that Jesus is our banner is to say that we belong to Jesus and that we are under His sovereignty—He rules over us… and we rest in Him.
So this June 14th, and every day for that matter, remember this: Jesus Christ is our banner: He won the victory at the cross, He calls us to continue to fight with Him in the continuing battles, and He now rules over those of us who are His. What a Banner! What a Lord! What a Savior!

PASTOR’S PONDERINGS

This month includes the “Run for the Roses,” one of the most famous of all horse races.  People from all over the world will gather in Kentucky to watch the world’s fastest, three-year-old thoroughbreds run 1.25 miles in what has been called the “most exciting two minutes in sports:” the Kentucky Derby.
Though raised in suburban settings, I spent some time with horses at the camps I attended.  I learned a lot about horses, including that they have a herd mentality, (they want to be with other horses), they are fairly easily trained once “broken,” and they aren’t really all that bright.
Interestingly enough, God’s Word says all that, and compares us to horses in Psalm 32.8-9: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.”
God teaches us, those whom He has “broken” and brought to Himself.  Like the trainers who ready the horses for the Derby, He trains us for life and eternity.  He has given us His Word and His Holy Spirit to enable us to understand that Word and how it applies to the life He has called us to live.  Like the horse’s jockey, that same Holy Spirit is present with us each step of the race we run.
But, unlike the horse, we are not made to be controlled by the bit in our mouths.  We are not created without understanding or without freedom.  God’s expectation is that we will exercise our freed minds and our freed wills, no longer under sin’s control but under the control of righteousness and directed by His Holy Spirit, to run the race righteously, to run in such a way as to please Him.  But many times we choose to run to please ourselves.  We get off track and start running in the fields some place, not in the race at all.  We do not “come to God.”
God is not averse to using “bit and bridle” on us to keep us in the race.  He is very capable and willing to discipline us, those He loves.  But what He desires is that we love Him enough to run the race freely, to follow the gentle leadings of His Holy Spirit rather than the sometimes painful pull of the bit.
Here’s the challenge: let’s all choose this month, and every month, to run the race freely, to stay on track, and to listen closely to the leading of the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures, obeying what God says there, rather than rebelling against His Word and His promptings and willfully going our own way.  Let’s avoid the pain of God’s “bit.”  You think about that.

– Pastor Jim

PASTOR’S PONDERINGS

Years ago, my family and I visited St. Augustine, FL, the oldest city in the continental US.  There is a fort there that I found particularly fascinating.  And I recall that it was on that trip that we saw Halley’s Comet—a disappointing sighting to be sure.  But what brought that trip to my remembrance today is that April 2nd is the anniversary of the founding of that city.  On April 2, 1513, Ponce De Leon, the Spanish explorer, landed at that site and claimed the land for Spain.  I don’t know what you remember from your elementary or middle school history, but what I remember is that Ponce De Leon was looking for the Fountain of Youth.  (Pictured at left is Ponce De Leon’s “Fountain of Youth” in St. Augustine, an attraction we did not see on our trip there.)
People want to live forever—always have and always will.  We don’t want to live forever with the problems, diseases, and heartaches we have, but we want eternal life.  And we do all kinds of things to get it, to try to stay young and to cheat death, including paying doctors all kinds of money to come up with better drugs and cures for the sicknesses we endure and electing government officials who will fund cures for the ones we can’t afford.
But the reality is that none of that works.  There is no fountain of youth, there is no escaping death, there is no man-made eternal life.  All of us have an appointment with death and then with our Maker, (Hebrews 9.27.)  But the good news is that God gives eternal life to those who trust in Christ Jesus and it is not simply life after death.  He puts it this way in John 17. 3: Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom You have sent.
Eternal life is knowing God.  And we can do it—know God—and have it—eternal life—now!  (In fact, if one waits until after dying to try to get it, it’s too late.)  1 John 5.11 tells us that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.  Verse 20 of the same chapter tells us that …we are in Him who is true — even in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.  The point is this: eternal life is in Jesus Christ and is Jesus Christ.  To know Him, to trust in Him, is to possess Him, and therefore, to possess eternal life, not just a quantity of life, but a quality of life, glorious life, Godly life, good life, holy life, loving life, for God—Christ—is glorious and good and holy and love.
What every person wants you can have, right now.  Actually, you can have more.  Most people are willing to settle for living longer.  You can have life, real life, God-life, because you can have Christ.  Why settle for anything less?  You think about that.

– Pastor Jim