Men’s Easter Breakfast

Brothers,

I hope you already know about our 64th annual Men’s Easter Breakfast and are planning to attend. But just in case you haven’t yet decided, please let me formally invite and encourage you to join us this Saturday, at 8am, in the Family Life Center for a wonderful Southside tradition.

This is such a meaningful event for me. For almost 13 years I have enjoyed a great morning of food and fellowship with my father and my sons, as well as the other men of our church and community. Each year I see many generations of men gathering for this grand tradition. What a great legacy the men of our church left to us 64 years ago.

Please plan on coming and bring your son(s), father, grandfather, uncle, nephew, co-worker, neighbor, best friends, and anyone else who would enjoy this special time. In addition to the food and fellowship, we will also enjoy some singing (manly songs) as well as a great message by Rev. Mike Hudson of Ortega United Methodist Church.

So, to recap:

• This Saturday (March 30th)
• Southside UMC’s Family Life Center
• 8:00 – 10:00am

Please plan on coming as we prepare to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Stand Firm,
Dale

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day

The post below is three years old, but has lots of good links about St. Patrick and is well worth checking out. At the very end of the post I have included a new video on St. Patrick from the Apostleship of Prayer. Enjoy.

Blessings,
Dale

As I write this I am wearing a green shirt. I began the day in a light blue shirt. But my kids steadfastly refused to stop pinching me until I yielded to the tradition of St. Patty’s Day.

I got to know a little about St. Patrick through two sermons/lectures. One was by Joe Morecraft and the other by T.M. Moore. Both men captured my imagination as they revealed to me more than I ever knew about this incredible Christian man. I’ve provided three short articles and/or devotionals below that will introduce St. Patrick to you. God used him mightily and celebrating his life every March 17 is probably a good thing insofar as it points us to Christ and what one person can do for the Kingdom of God.

St. Patrick: Why His Message Still Matters
Brother Colmán Ó Clabaigh, OSB
at CrossWalk.com

March 17 is upon us again, and all over the world everyone is an honorary Irishman or Irishwoman for 24 hours. St. Patrick’s popularity is a result of the wanderlust of the Irish, and there is no corner of the world in which his name is not honored.

Yet, if his name is known, his story is less familiar and his message often gets drowned out by the parades, the plastic shamrocks and the green-dyed beer.

The little knowledge we have of him comes from two letters he wrote in the course of his missionary work in fifth-century Ireland.

Click here to read the whole article. (also, make sure to check out the great links to more info on St. Patrick at the end of the article.)

In Honor of St. Patrick
by Mark D. Roberts
at The High Calling

Today is St. Patrick’s Day. Most people think of this day as a time for wearing green and that’s about it (unless you’re Irish!). St. Patrick gets relatively little attention on his day, so I thought I might offer a few thoughts in his honor, including a prayer that is attributed to him.

Patrick’s story reads like an Indiana Jones-type adventure. Raised in Britain (yes, not Ireland), Patrick was captured by pirates in A.D. 405 when he was only sixteen years old. The kidnappers whisked him away to Ireland and sold Patrick into slavery. He spent eight years as a captive in this pagan land.

Click here to read the whole article.

Concealing the Gift
by T.M. Moore
at The Fellowship of St. Ailbe

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We are right to remember this great saint, who labored so diligently in the cause of the Gospel, against unimaginable odds, but with unprecedented fruit. Sechnall, Patrick’s contemporary, was correct in referring to him as the light of God to the Irish. That, indeed, is what he was.

And what about us? Patrick’s mission field was all of Ireland, and he lit up the house with his diligent and faithful work. Our mission field is wherever God has set us, in the places and among the people we see week-in and week-out. Are we shining the gift of the Gospel on the people around us or concealing the gift of God under the bushels of timidity, fear, or simple disobedience?

Click here to read the whole article.

The Lord Bless You,
Dale

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The Shepherds are Few

Matthew 9:35-38

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. [36] When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. [37] Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. [38] Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

I think I used to always read this passage through the lens of evangelism. And to be sure, there are implications for that in these verses. However, it occurred to me that what led our Lord to make a plea for “workers” was the noticeable need for shepherds over the harassed and helpless flock of God. The text says that the flock was in such poor condition, that it was as though it didn’t even have a shepherd at all.

And so Jesus makes the point that the need is great, but that the workers – those who would be shepherds – are few. He then declares to his hearers that they (we) should ask the Lord to send such workers into these very fields that are in such desperate condition.

God’s flock is in need of faithful shepherds today as well. There are many families without a faithful shepherd in the home. Churches often have greater needs than the one “professional shepherd” on staff can respond to. The wayward, helpless flock of God is in dire need of faithful shepherds who will lead and guide her, nurture and feed her, defend and guard her, admonish and instruct her – love her to the point of pouring his life into her – even to the point of losing his life for her.

The need is clear. So why aren’t there countless shepherds standing in line to care for God’s flock?

One reason can be found in these words of Gideon,

“How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family” (Judges 6:15).

Whether false humility (cowardice) or real, many flee responsibility before God because they do not feel that they are “up to it.” But since when has God been counting on unaided man to do his bidding? His answer now is the same as it was to Gideon, “I will be with you” (Judges 6:16).

This reminds us of Paul’s words to the church at Corinth regarding God’s use of the weak and foolish things of this world to confound and humble the “strong and wise.” God uses us, but he isn’t “dependent” on us. There’s an important distinction here. And that’s one reason the shepherds are few.

Perhaps another reason is the sacrificial nature that is required to be a shepherd. It’s not a romantic or glamorous post in God’s Kingdom. For those seeking their own end, however, it has often been used as a vehicle for their own name’s sake.

To such Peter says,

1 Peter 5:2-3 – Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers–not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; [3] not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.

For those who would use their position of shepherd as a stepping-stone to their own power, fame, and wealth, Peter’s words must come as quite a shock. He reminds us that shepherds have been entrusted, by God, to care for his tender lambs. And their watch over them must come from the heart – from a genuine willingness to serve them. It isn’t a means to personal fortune. It ought not be drudgery. If certainly should not be a means by which power and control are sought after. It is sacrificial – my life for yours – your life for theirs.

To be an example to the flock is to be always “on duty.” It is to always be intentional in your thoughts, words and deeds. It is thinking, speaking, and doing rightly – Christianly – and then caring for the flock accordingly. This isn’t easy. It is a dying to self. But unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it cannot produce many seeds (John 12:24-26).

And that’s what we’re shooting for – many seeds – fruit that is good, lasting, and abundant (John 15). Our Lord has told us that the need is great. We needn’t look any further than our own family, church, friends – all of our spheres of influence. The harvest is plentiful, but the shepherds are few. Won’t you be a shepherd for God?

Stand Firm,
Dale

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Choose This Day

Choose This Day

Joshua 24:14-15

“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. [15] But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

James 4:4

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

The road of life is filled with many choices:

• Whom will I marry?
• Where will I live?
• What will I do for a living?
• How will I raise my children?
• Who will educate my children?
• Will I believe in God? And if I do, is there more to it than simply believing he exists?
• What will be the standard of my moral conduct?

Today’s Scripture highlights the most important choices we must make. And, as the rock group, “Rush,” observed, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

In the preceding verses of Joshua 24, Joshua took the children on an historical reconnaissance in order to remind them of who God is and what God had done for them in the past. Implicit in this was the covenant that God had made with Israel and how they could, therefore, also look to the future fulfillments of God’s promises…IF.

When God made covenant with Israel, it included blessings and curses. Obedience, faithfulness, and loyalty would be rewarded with divine blessing beyond their wildest imaginations. Disobedience, unfaithfulness, and treason, on the other hand, would result in God’s curses. It seems so obvious as to which should be preferred.

And so, after laying out the history of God’s love for his people, Joshua presented the people with a choice. He told them to serve God only and to throw away the idols of their past. Whom would they serve – the gods of their ancestors or the living God? Joshua answered as the covenant head of his home by declaring publicly, “…as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

It is interesting, and quite telling, to see how this theme of choosing between the Living God and the god of the age – between covenant-faithfulness and spiritual adultery – is repeated over and over again in God’s Word. The fact is, we will all bow before something or someone, simply by the living of our lives. Who will be the object of our worship is the choice ever before us.

James lays out the choice before us with crystal clarity. He says that friendship with the world is hatred toward God. What exactly dos he mean here? Well, he’s not talking about loving people and desiring to minister to them. Instead, he has in mind what Paul had in mind in Romans 12:2 – love for and conformity to the sinful, fallen, disobedient patterns of this world, this present age of man and its ruler, this kingdom of darkness (as Paul puts in Colossians 1).

James follows by saying that “anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world [in the way described in the previous paragraph] becomes an enemy of God.” James is essentially putting before God’s covenant people in the New Testament the same choice that Joshua put before God’s covenant people in the Old Testament: Who will they bow their knees to: the gods beyond the River, the gods of the Amorites, the state, secular worldviews, modern American materialism, Hugh Hefner’s Playboy hedonism, the falsehood of neutrality in education propagated by secular humanists, the superficial entertainment mentality of much worship in today’s churches, selling out the gospel (compromise?? Embarrassment??) by watering down the message, and on and on and on?

James calls people who do this “adulterous.” They have left their first love to cozy up to the gods of the Amorites and the gods of Egypt.

People cry out for their free will, their rights, and their autonomy. God gives them that option, but not with impunity. There are consequences to foolish choices. This seems to be so patently obvious, that it needs no examples. People may choose Baal or Molech or Ra or the god of this age if they so choose. They can exercise their moral choice to their heart’s delight. They can revel in their “free will.” But the wrath of God will be leveled against all such unrighteousness and ungodliness as a manifestation of the curse.

This curse can come in countless ways. After all, its dispenser is an infinite Being. A corrupt culture, pagan children, radical illiteracy, increased levels of crime, escalating godlessness in the public square, countless babies born to unwed mothers and into extreme poverty, babies who never make it outside the womb, drugs, violence, sexual and monetary hedonism, the worship of self (even in…or especially in the church), etc. Don’t misunderstand me: God is not going to curse us for these things. These things are the curse.

Had God’s covenant people not spent the last 100 years committing spiritual adultery with the temptress of the age, we might not be experiencing all that we are.

By God’s grace, however, we learn that God’s people are always being called back to covenant faithfulness – to throw away all the other gods of our past and love, obey, worship, and serve the one true God… and him only. Each and every day that we are granted another day to live, we are given another opportunity for repentance and covenant-faithfulness. And like all covenants, it starts with an individual and his family.

So choose this day whom you and your household will serve. There’s only one right answer.

Grace and Truth,
Dale

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Watch Out for Deceptive Words

Jeremiah 7 (selected verses) and Galatians 5 (selected verses)

As was often the case in the life of Israel, God was not happy with them. They brought it upon themselves. Israel’s history went something like this: God would first save them and then establish or reestablish a covenant with them. In response, Israel would repent, and then, after the good times were rolling, Israel would commit spiritual adultery (i.e., run off after foreign lovers). Predictably, after her disobedience (and the subsequent punishment for said disobedience), Israel would routinely cry out to God, be mercifully heard by him, and the whole process would start all over again.

It is Israel’s response to idolatrous and adulterous false teaching that our texts deal with today. The Lord, through Jeremiah, tells his people that if they are going to be allowed to continue to live in peace, then they are going to have to reform their ways and their actions (v. 3).

Verses 5-7 serve as a warning against wrong behavior and an encouragement for right behavior.

If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, [6] if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, [7] then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever.

 So why would God’s people act disobediently? Verse 8 gives us a clue: They were trusting in deceptive words that were worthless.

Again, God says to them in verse 23,

…Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you.

 God wanted so much to bless them, but he wasn’t kidding about what would happen if they didn’t obey him. However, they must have thought he was, for we read these sobering words in verse 24,

But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.

God’s people were stubbornly committed to their sin… and for that sin we discover God’s indictment about them. Verse 28 tells us that truth had perished…that it had vanished from their lips.

Because they were no longer trusting in God’s Word, but trusting in the deceptive words of false teachers instead, they were soon to experience the wrath of God.

There’s a similar story in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul was bewildered with the Galatian Church. They had heard and responded to the pure Word of God as Paul had preached it. But, like God’s people in an earlier generation, many of the Galatians began trusting in deceptive words. They were being enticed to mix the finished work of Christ with their own works as a means of salvation. Paul was dumbfounded at such a move. We read in verses 7 and 8…

You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? [8] That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.

 God, through Paul, was warning them (and us) that such deceptive words were (are) like a little yeast, which works through a whole batch of dough (v. 9). It infects it like a disease. In the Bible, yeast often symbolizes evil or a false teaching.

When people begin to listen to deceptive words rather than the Word of God, trouble is sure to follow. Satan, the father of deceptive words, is not stupid. He will show us the worm, but not the hook. He will never show us the consequences that must follow his deceptive words. Instead, his words will always appear quite enticing, beautiful, practical, and relevant.

That is why everything must be tested against God’s Word – the Word properly understood. Even the best of intentions can be marred by deception. The church must constantly be on her guard against such yeast that seeks to contaminate her whole body. Whether it is what is preached from the pulpit, what is taught in a Bible study, the administration of a committee, or what programs are being implemented for evangelism, service or mercy, the church must always make sure she is taking her cues from God’s Word.

This may seem like a no-brainer, but today’s texts reveal that the church has not always gotten this right. In fact, the history of the church shows us over and over again what a little yeast can do. Even a cursory glance at the contemporary church scene shows plenty of evidence of the very idolatry and adultery that Jeremiah and Paul warned against.

So stand firm against all deceptive words. Cling to God and his Word as the only sure light by which to navigate through the world, the flesh and the devil. Only with and through God’s Word may we know the one true God and his Son, Jesus Christ, whom he sent. That alone is eternal life (John 17:3).

Grace and Truth,
Dale

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My Life for Yours

(I thought I might share this devotion again. I wrote it a few years ago.)

John 12:24-26

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. [25] The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. [26] Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

In our scripture Jesus is teaching his disciples that he is going to die, but that he must if they would live. A kernel of wheat must die if it would produce many seeds.

Why hasn’t reformation and revival broken out across the church at Southside…or any other church around us lately? There are perhaps many reasons, but could one reason be that we are holding on too preciously and tightly to our own lives – unwilling to die – so that we might reproduce many seeds through our deaths? Do we love our lives too much in this world, so much so, that we are actually losing our lives?

My life for yours. Genuine, substitutionary, and sacrificial living. Following and serving our King wherever he may lead…to whatever end. This brings honor from the Father. This glorifies the Father.

My life for yours. Training and nurturing our children in the Lord – when we rise, when we go to bed, as we live throughout the day, when it’s convenient, when it’s inconvenient – making sure that our children are not merely “taught at” but saturated in the things of God each day, all day – because they are eternal beings and heirs of the King. “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

Are we leaving a godly legacy to and for our children and our children’s children for a thousand generations? Are we dying so they can live – really live? Can we think outside our individual lives to see how our own deaths will extend the Kingdom of God by producing many seeds? Will we believe the promises of God that he has made regarding faithful, covenantal parenting? My life for yours and for a thousand generations after you. Talk about a payoff!

But this is hard. That’s why it’s called death. Death to self. It is intentional, committed, disciplined. It’s every day, all day. It’s the discipling of our children because it is our joy, blessing, and responsibility before God to do so. Our lives for theirs. The Kingdom of God grows in such ways. Darkness is engulfed by light through such ways. Reformation and revival are ushered in through such faith and obedience. God promises blessings to such as these.

We must die. We must do with less stuff if it means more time with our families. We must wrestle with our children at the end of the day…even when we are tired. We must discipline our children, even when we would rather not. We must cast a God-glorifying vision before our children (and reiterate it every day) of who they could be for Jesus. We have to read great stories to our children (even when we’d rather doze off) so that their imaginations can ignite as they put themselves in the places of the characters in the stories. We have to read to them about the heroes of the faith who have gone before us, so that they might see how others have given themselves for Christ and his Kingdom. We absolutely must teach our children who our God is – his person, plan, power, purpose and so on. We must drive home again and again what the gospel is and is not (after all, we’re not trying to merely make better citizens or “behaviorally correct” robots). We must teach them grace and show them grace. They must learn what it means to know, love, and follow Christ. They have to understand that our faith is a total world and life view that addresses every sphere of life.

We are called to create Christian cultures in our homes though the power of God’s Word and Spirit, that those cultures might spill out into every other sphere of life. This is first and foremost our (the parents’) responsibility, not others…not even the church. Our lives for theirs. We must die so they can live.

Can we let go? Of our wants, things, desires, passions – our very lives? We must if we would find real life – abundant life – eternal life. Life in service to the King is not our own…it’s better. Only in dying are we raised. Only in dying are more seeds produced, and therefore, more fruit. Our lives for theirs.

From our commitment and hard daily labor now, what might God do in response? Might he use one of our children, (or one of our children’s children), to bring many to Christ, to redeem the culture, to usher in reformation and revival in the church, to extend the Kingdom of God as never before? We have every reason to believe he will! But we must die. We must fall to the ground and die. We must hate our lives in this world. We must give our lives for our children’s lives, and for their children after them, that God might be pleased and choose to honor us by blessing those for whom we gave our lives.

My life for yours. Our lives for theirs. This is biblical faith.

Grace and Truth,
Dale

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Discipling Your Kids

Discipling Your Kids

I love my kids. I love being with my kids. I love reading to my kids. I love wrestling with my kids. Did I mention that I love my kids? One thing I really love is discipling my kids – teaching them every day, all day (Deut 6:4ff) the things of God. This ought to be every parent’s greatest calling, joy, and responsibility.

Faithfulness in this will bring about covenantal succession that could last a thousand generations. If you are a parent, you should know that whether or not you are evangelizing and discipling anyone else (and, of course, you should be), you surely ought to be evangelizing and discipling your children. God commands it.

By the very nature of things, this will be a 24/7/365 task. There are at least two reasons why this is the case.

First, you can’t just pass along a platitude once and expect it to take. The lessons of our faith must be repeated over and over again in a variety of ways – when you sit down for breakfast or dinner, when you tuck them in at night, when you drive them around town, when you have family worship, and on and on and on. No one gets it right all the time, but even there, our mistakes and shortcomings are opportunities to teach lessons such as forgiveness, repentance, perseverance, etc. But, we are called to practice what we preach – for our own sakes as well as to model godly behavior before the wee watching eyes in our homes.

The second reason we must devote so much time to discipling our children is because we live in a culture that does not cultivate Christian character. Our world’s default key is stuck on depravity, wickedness and evil. If I want to change the font on my computer, I have to consciously make the effort to find and select the one that I want. So too, if we want to nurture our children in the things of God, we will have to make a considerable effort, for such effort will go against the grain of the world, the flesh, and the devil. This is simply the way it is.

Let’s join together in the cause of stamping out the nominal Christian home. Let’s raise kids whose faith flows through their bloodstream. Let’s produce and reproduce warriors for Christ who will take the gospel and extend it into every sphere of life. Such children will not arise accidentally. But they will become such as they are educated, equipped, encouraged, and nurtured by loving parents who seek to honor God by being faithful stewards of the most precious treasure entrusted to their care.

Stand Firm,
Dale

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