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Being Prepared

10/1/2015

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Living on the farm, October was a woodcutting month. I can remember we’d get those first cool nights, look out at the empty woodshed and realize it was time to get going. So each day, in hot sun or cool rain, we’d drive out into the woods, cut and drag and split and haul and stack until we were confident we were prepared for any kind of winter. It’s true what they say about wood heat, “It warms you twice.” When the frigid nights of January arrived I was glad we began cutting in October.

When I wake up early in the morning, I really don’t feel like praying or reading God’s Word. I’m tired and would like to go back to sleep. But I don’t know what kind of day it is going to be and if I don’t spend that time with the Father, I’ll be unprepared for it.

Every day brings something new. A new opportunity to share my faith, to help someone; to resist some temptation; to overcome some obstacle; to face a tragedy; to experience a blessing from God. There’s a song that says, “The path that is my portion may be through the flame or flood, but His presence goes before me, and I’m covered with His blood.”

Take time each day to enter His presence and you will be prepared for the path that awaits you.

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” Psalm 23:4


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He Is Looking for Fruit

9/16/2015

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“He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season…” Psalm 1:3

I have several fond memories of my grandparent’s farm in October. Frost covering the grass each morning; the colorful leaves beginning to fall to the ground; the smell of wood smoke in the air; and the crisp, flavorful apples growing on the trees. They had several good apple trees scattered around their yard and garden, but my favorite were in an old grove on the other side of the barnyard. They were Jonathan’s and I loved their flavor, yet because they were untended they were small and you had to search for one without wormholes. They weren't worth harvesting and most ended up on the ground for the deer to scavenge.

Recently we stopped at a roadside fruit stand and bought a box of Jonathan’s. How big and beautiful they were! These came from trees that had been pruned and watered and fertilized. These were what Jonathan’s are supposed to be like!

Jesus said that He is the vine and we are the branches. Our life should be coming from Him and if it is, the Father expects to discover good fruit from us. What is this fruit? The Bible describes it as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Jesus cautioned that if His Father, the gardener, didn't find fruit on the branch He would begin to prune it. If we remain in Him, if our life is drawn from Him, if our roots are planted in Him and we drink in His words and stand in His light, we will produce the fruit He is looking for.

As Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruit.”


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Our Identity

6/28/2015

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If your identity is in your race;
If your identity is in your sexuality; 
If your identity is in your politics;
If your identity is in your doctrine;
You will always try to justify yourself because 

you will not see beyond yourself.

But if your identity is in Jesus, your focus will be on wanting to please Him, and being content in fulfilling what He has called us to do. Jesus came to seek and save the lost, and until the last soul has been spared the fires of hell; until the world ceases to offend its Creator, no other cause is as important. You have no rights to lose; you have a cross to bear.

“I have decided to speak only of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

 


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The Way God Designed It

2/9/2015

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As the weather has warmed up recently, I notice some of my bulbs have broken through the earth and green shoots are sticking up over 6” above the ground. Spring is on its way. How long will the winter weather hang on? No one really knows, not even the popular rodent from Pennsylvania. If I really get concerned about winter hanging around I don’t look to the groundhog, the Farmer’s Almanac or even my daffodil bulbs. I look at my calendar. It reminds me that spring always follows winter because that is the way God has designed it.

“Do you know the laws of the heavens? Did you give God authority over the earth?” (Job 38:33)… “As long as earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”(Gen. 8)…“There is a time and a season for every activity under heaven”… “I know that everything God does will endure forever.” (Ecc.3)

To Job, God declares that He is in control and just as there are seasons in the climate He has established, there are seasons of life. God has ordained that things will come and then pass. There will be times of plenty and times of want, times of joy and times of sadness, times of toil and times of rest. The coming spring reminds me that there is the hope of life, of a future provided by God. He has said it will be so, so it will be as He has said. The weather, the world, our future…He is in control. That is a relief! 
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Good Old Days

1/24/2015

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Do you ever long for the “good old days?’ There is a large creek in NE Washington State where my great grandparents’ homestead is. I used to go up there every summer. Twenty four hours of every day, water winds down the many miles from Deep Lake to the Colombia River, slowly eating away at the sandy banks. Each year we would discover some of the deep spots where we loved to swim the year before had been filled up with sand and a new one created somewhere else. So in our swimsuits and bare feet we’d have to make a new path over the hot rocks and through the brush and thistle. But did that stop us? No. We’d tiptoe our way until we found a spot to play in the water that was always 10° colder than I would have liked.

The creek is a living organism that is constantly changing and though it never looked the same from year to year, we just dealt with the new challenges the best we could. We had to if we wanted to enjoy it.

There are some ways we experience God that shouldn’t change. However, there are others that will. And like that swimming hole, if we’re willing to make the effort we can still be refreshed.

2015 will look different from 2014, that’s inevitable but ok. Enjoy the memories, but expect God to do something new.



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    Pastor Chris is married to Carolyn. They have seven grown children, and are
    ​raising one of their seven grandchildren.

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