As I was casually sitting in my office with my elbows on the desk reading, it dawned on me once again what privilege it is to know the Lord and His saving grace and sovereign will.  I was privileged early this morning to reflect through prayer and meditation on the largesse of our glorious God.  With pensive stare, I held my gaze until I saw through the man in the mirror and seized hold of the man who paid the ultimate price for me, Jesus!

As I thought of Him, I realized again what glorious life He intends for His children.  He said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field.”  Nothing more brilliant or bold has been declared about the Believer’s life.

We are designed to enjoy a life of adventure.  We are called to the ultimate adventure.  We are on a treasure hunt searching for hidden treasures.  WOW!  What a glorious venture to embark upon.

I constantly meet people who are unhappy with their lives. They are unhappy because they have no adventure.  Instead of embracing the “life more abundantly” they are promised, they seem to spend their lives stuck in sameness.  These people just circle on the carousel of mediocrity.  Always moving, but never gaining ground.  And yet, God in His unmerited favor and extravagant grace invites the “believer” to an adventurous life.  We are invited on the ultimate treasure hunt.  It is the single greatest experience a believer can have, an experience which cannot be eclipsed.

Have you ever heard anyone issue the call to “Get Back to the Basics?”

Hans Hoffman once said, “You must eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”

In the Apostle Peter’s first epistle, he wrote, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s grace.”  The Apostle admonishes each of us as believers, to remember that we are to be managers of God’s grace.  We are managers, stewards, and dispensers of God’s amazing grace. The Church must pour out God’s grace to a lost and dying world for lost people to ever know and grow in God’s grace.

To do so, frequently church leaders must return to the mirror of Biblical ministry!  We must hold ourselves accountable to the mirror.  What do we see in the mirror?  As a church, or as a fellowship, what image have we become?  What does ministry look like to us?  Does that which appears look like that which God designed in the Book of Acts?  Have we drifted as a ministry?  Have the currents of complexity moved our moorings?

I have really been blessed the last few weeks to share on Wednesday nights at our Biblical Studies class, an incredible tour through the Bible. (We are still just in Exodus, if you want to join us!) What is so cool is that there is this overall theme throughout each lesson and it’s simply this: God has a plan!

From Adam to Noah, From Abraham to Joseph to Moses…God always has a plan! And His plan never fails! Oh yeah, I know it don’t fit it into our time table, and it doesn’t have some of the escapes that we would put it in there, but the amazing thing is, God always, always, always has a plan…no matter the circumstances…and even the better thing is this: He always HAD a plan…redemption is from Genesis to Revelation…the Cross was not a knee jerk reaction to a universe out of control! It was always in the plan!

Musings from a Weekend of Wonderment!

The lexicon of languages fails to augment the intellectual capacity of man in his best and boldest efforts to describe Holy Awe, and Grace-filled Wonder!

For centuries, mortals who have occupied the AD territory (after Calvary) of human experience have struggled in their exploration of God meeting men.  To explore that experiential element of what it must have felt like for the High Priest to enter into the Holiest of Holies in Moses’ Tabernacle or Solomon’s Temple.  Any student of Scripture is ultimately drawn to that moment where Wonder and Awe collide behind the veil of the temple.  It is only there, in that smallest of cubicles where no natural light can penetrate that the trepidatious steps of man would find entrance into the chamber of Awestruck Wonder!

It never ceases to amaze me how many people believe they have been “called” into the ministry of “Fire Brigade.”  These people are under the impression that their “ministry” is to put out fires.  They dutifully busy themselves toting the heavy hoses required to extinguish any and all flames of passion and dreams.  They reason, that because they have no fire, no passion; they assume that it’s their God-given right to extinguish yours.  They are all about putting your fire out!  It’s simple, if they don’t have it; they don’t believe you should either. Therefore, their sole mission in life is to kill yours!

These people are dream killers!

They gather in their holy huddles and validate one another’s fears.  They “discern” all that is wrong with those people who do not look like them or act like them.  They find “fault” with anyone who cannot gain their approval.  And oh yea’ – this brigade of people do a lot of discerning!  The “super”-spiritual they are!