Are You Being Watched?

My wife and I received a complement this week. A wonderful, unexpected complement.

It came from a former student of mine - a young lady that now works for my wife in our college library. Over the past week or two, the library has been moved from its old cramped space to a beautiful building which includes a 24 hour computer lab and a on-site cafe situated near a fire place.

During the school year, my wife supervises 20 students - as she is responsible for the circulation department and the computer lab. During the summer the number of students is greatly reduced, but so is the work load.

My wife completed her move this week. For the first time in her life, my wife has an office, a real office, of her own. Not a cubicle, not a desk set up with a three other desks - an office with a desk of her own that is not shared with anyone else.

To help her celebrate the move, I had a dozen roses delivered to her office. They came in a bright red vase that goes well with the cherry wood finish on my wife's desk.

And that is when it came, the complement. She said it to my wife - "You and your husband have the example of the perfect marriage." Now, if she had just met my wife, we might question it. But this student has known me for two years and my wife for a year-and-a-half.

Do we have the perfect marriage - no way. If you knew us 20 years ago, you would have thought we we had the marriage least likely to survive. At that time, both my wife and I wished the other one would leave - but we were both too weak to leave. And then God started working in our marriage - and we started working at our marriage. It was 17 years ago that a mutual friend commented on our marriage that she never had never seen a couple work harder at their marriage. I don't know if that is true or not; but whatever work we did, has paid off. Do we have the perfect marriage - no way. What we do have is a good marriage, one I am proud to be part of and one I enjoy being part of.

But there is another lesson to be learned. And it is this - we are being watched. Our faith is being lived out before others. We have no idea who is watching, but others are watching our successes and our failures. I wonder what else I am teaching others as I live my life. I trust that I set an example that will draw others to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Savior, like a shepherd lead us,

much we need thy tender care;

in thy pleasant pastures feed us,

for our use thy folds prepare.

Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus!

Thou hast bought us, thine we are.

Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus!

Thou hast bought us, thine we are.

Attr. to Dorothy A. Thrupp, 1779-1847

What Do I Miss?

My wife and I are taking a brief weekend trip away from home. On the way here Sandra saw a ground hog (or some similarly sized critter) walking up the bank along side the road. I never saw it - and sorry that I did not.

I know that those critters are there - they are usually dead when I see them, hit by some vehicle or another. But I rarelly see them alive. And that is sad.

But I am also left wondering what other blessings God may bring my way that I miss. I may not be driving the car, but so caught up in my life that I do not see what God is sending my way. I really want to see all that God has for me - yet I miss it. I am too busy, I am to involved, I am not listening to God, even when he is there.

Maybe tomorrow I can see more of what God has for me. I trust the same is true for you.

Open my eyes, that I may see
glimpses of truth thou hast for me;
place in my hands the wonderful key
that shall unclasp and set me free.
Silently now I wait for thee,
ready, my God, thy will to see.
Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine!

Clara H. Scott (1841-1897)

Yours because His,

Pastor Patrick

Somebody HAS to be wrong ...

I am a member of a private USENET group. Recently we began discussing a significant difference in the practice of our faith. Earlier this week I added the following thought in response to the comment in the second line.



======================================================

Someone wrote:
> Someone HAS to be wrong.



Could it be that everyone is wrong?



Scripture teaches that we are all broken - first, because as a created being we are not God and therefore limited in what we know and what we can do. Second, we are also broken because of the fall - the fall teaches every area of our lives has been touched by man's fall. We are not as bad as we can be, but there is not an area of our lives that has not been effected by the fall. This includes our theology.



Our goal is to understand God to the best of our ability, but because we are broken people, we can be assured that conclusions that we come to are not perfect.



All of us will do the best that we can do, but it is only God that knows how it really all fits together. For me, this means I hold tightly to my conclusions; but at the same time I must show enough grace to allow that others may be more right and me more wrong.



When I get to heaven, I will ask God to help me to understand how it is really supposed to fit together. In the meantime, I will do the best that I can and trust that others will do the same.



Yours because His,



Pastor Patrick

Joshua and Pain

Some thoughts Joshua and the problem of pain

1. We all deserve to die
2. Part of what makes us so mad is that we want everyone to experience God's grace - but God never promised this
3. The stories standout because they are the exception - not necessarily the norm
4. Grace is offered to all - but we must be willing to accept it.
1. Rahab
2. Gibeonites
3. lots of small towns that were not destroyed.
5. In spite of the flaws, we want God to let us be us
6. Instead, we need to let God be God

The Picture

Today I was sitting in the church and looked up.  A picture caught my eye, a picture that I must have seen numerous times in the past.  The first thing that caught my eye was the smiling children walking along a spring path with what looked like cherry blossoms in the background.  I suppose it is okay for children to smile, but it looked like all the children had the same smile.  Their mouths were open, a bit of teeth were showing and they were all looking up.  The picture got stranger and stranger when I realized it made no difference whether a child looked from the right or the left.  It made no difference whether the child was a boy or a girl.  It really bothered me that these children could all be smiling - that just is not the life know for myself or for my children.  But then something happened ...

I looked up - not way up, just the three inches from where the children stood smiling to what they were smiling at.  There in the focal point of the picture was Jesus.  He was carrying another smiling child, holding the hand of another young girl, also smiling.

The minute I saw Jesus I relaxed and I felt a smile on my own face.  It was as if it was okay for children to smile in His presence.  I am not so naïve as to think that Jesus makes everything okay, but it was also a relief to know that the artist was not merely painting smiles to paint smiles.  Rather, he was reminding us all that Jesus did love the children.  It is also a reminder that Jesus loves us.  One day we each, as believers, will be at home with Jesus.  And I am reminded that is okay to smile when I think of Jesus.

Blessings,

Pastor Patrick

Publishing Sermons

I have spent much of the last couple of years experimening with inexpensive tools that can be used to publish my sermons. Let me review three tools I have looked at during that time:

1. www.sermoncentral.com
   I started two or three years ago posting my sermons here - it took a great deal of work to post a new message and then each message has to be approved by the site administrator. If they choose to not approve a message, there is no indication what rule or policy has been violated so that the message can be edited, if appropriate.
   
   The biggest advantage of Sermon Central is the availability of a large database of sermons - free after contributing 40 sermons. Sermons posted on SermonCentral are also searchable from LOGOS Bible Software. I fear sermons published here are often used by those looking for sermons they may want to preach as their own.
   
2. www.blogger.com
   By using a blog to post my sermons, it is easy to allow my parishioners access to my public site. If I had to retype every sermon, this could be a tiresome task. But there is an easier way. http://docs.google.com can import MS Word, Oo.com, or StarOffice files. Once imported, the same program can also publish to www.blogger.com. Other programs can post to the Blogger and to other blogging sites as well. I like The Journal - http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/ for this purpose.
   
   This is my prefered method of posting my sermons.
   
3. www.Bible-Explorer.com
   Bible Explorer is a free Bible search tool. It also has an active set of community of offerings - which can be used for posting sermons. Sermons have to be cut and pasted into the internal word processor and made available to the entire Bible Explorer community.
   
   Bible Explorer is the least well known of the these three tools. But it has the potential of being made available to large number of people who are looking for Bible reference material - rather than just previously delivered sermons.

I expect that there are other useful tools for publishing sermons - I would be interested in finding other ways to distribute my sermons.

Blessings,

Pastor Patrick

On-Line Bible Study Tools

On-Line Bible Study Tools

1. Nave's Topical Bible

http://bible.crosswalk.com/Concordances/NavesTopicalBible/

2. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance

http://bible.crosswalk.com/

3. Torrey's Topical Textbook

http://bible.crosswalk.com/Concordances/TorreysTopicalTextbook/

4. Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown)

http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/JamiesonFaussetBrown/

5. Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible

http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/MatthewHenryComplete/

6. Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament

http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/RobertsonsWordPictures/

7. Wesley's Explanatory Notes

http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/WesleysExplanatoryNotes/

8. NET Bible (Study Bible)

http://www.bible.org/netbible/index.htm

9. e-Sword (Free Bible Study Software)

http://www.e-sword.net/bibles.html

10. On-Line Bible Atlas (By Bible Chapter)

http://www.openbible.info/geo/

11. On-Line Bible Atlas (By Historical Context)

http://www.studylight.org/se/maps/