We All Have a Story

One generation will praise Your works to another,
And will declare Your mighty acts. (Psalms 145:4 NASB)

 

We are all in debt to Christ for his marvelous grace and the previous generation who told us about that grace.  We, in turn, pay our indebtedness by telling the next generation about God’s unmerited favor.  We all have a story to tell.

 

As I wrote my first manuscript, I was plagued by recurring thoughts.  Reflections would linger in my mind; Who are you to write a book?  What do you have to say?  Nobody is going to want to read your book.  As I dwelt on these notions, I didn’t feel like I could write a sentence, much less a book.  Despite these mental images, I still had a desire in my heart to tell of God’s faithfulness in my life.  I decided to write it as a love letter to God.  If no one read it, yet, if I wrote it with love in my heart for him, I was pretty sure God would read it.  Also, I wrote it for my grandchildren and those who would follow, as a remembrance of life, but more importantly, about the God that I served.

 

The main problem we have is that we think we have no story to tell.  C.S. Lewis once said that “there are no ordinary people.”  We think that we have nothing to say because we have never been a pastor or a missionary.  We conclude that because we have never been delivered from a great sin—just a bunch of little ones, that we have nothing interesting enough to share. Wrong.  God most often shows up in the small details of our lives.  It is in the fine print of our lives that God proves his faithfulness.  If God is not real in our everyday lives, then he is not real at all,

 

If God has redeemed your life and given you beauty for ashes, you have a story to tell.  An experience is never really fully enjoyed until it is shared with someone.  Some may communicate it verbally, others through written language, but we all must praise God's works from one generation to another.

 

The image is used with permission by Microsoft.

 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

 

No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets

Don’t put out the Spirit’s fire. (1 Thessalonians 5:19 GW) 

William Bordon, after he graduated from high school in 1904, was called to be a missionary. At different points in Bordon's short life, he wrote in the back of his Bible, no reserves, no retreats, no regrets. 

Though he came from a very wealthy family, wealth did not possess him. Early on in his life, a friend expressed that he was throwing his life away by becoming a missionary—he wrote in his Bible, no reserves. After he graduated from Yale, he was offered very lucrative positions—he penned, no retreats. His missionary call narrowed to a Muslim group in China. After doing graduate work at Princeton Seminary, he left for Egypt to study Arabic before arriving in China. In Egypt, he contracted spinal meningitis and within a month was dead at age twenty-five. Before his death, under the other two notations he had made in his Bible, he wrote—no regrets. 

 William Borden's seemingly untimely death a waste of human life? Absolutely not. Thousands of people have read his story and have been encouraged in their missionary call. God never wastes any of our sorrows. 

Things happen to Christians. We experience what we don't expect, and some expectations don't come to fruition. The Christian life often entails disappointments that we can't understand, but God uses them for his ultimate good. God lives in the eternal now. God makes decisions based on past, present, and future considerations. Humans remember the past imperfectly, know what is happening now, and nothing about the future. God dwells on eternal priorities, man on temporal ones. Our heavenly Father always knows best.

Church history is littered with people who have done great things for God yet had become sullen and cynical at the end of their lives. Things happened to them that may have seemed unfair or unjust. Some ended their lives in unbelief rather than faith in God. We, like William Borden, at the end of our journey, need to be able to say, no reserves, no retreats, no regrets. 

The image is used with permission by Microsoft. 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

A Call to Fasting, Repentance, and Prayer. 

This election is a fork in the road. If the Democrats are elected, this country will become a nation with only a secular mindset. From its founding, this country has been an experiment in what can happen if people put their trust in God and follow His commands. The Democrat Party has blatantly ignored God’s command, “Thou shall not commit murder”, in their platform supporting abortion rights. 

If the Democrats take the Presidency, The House of Representatives, and the Senate, secularism will become the state religion. The result of this election will bring about persecution of the Church. Light does not co-exist with darkness. Darkness hates the light, and by nature tries to snuff out the light. If sin persists, and we continue to call good, bad, and bad, good, God will have to bring judgment on this nation. When judgment comes, it rains upon the just and the unjust. 

Some of us in my Facebook Group, “Pray for POTUS”, have been fasting every Tuesday. I invite anyone to fast tomorrow (Sunday) through Tuesday (election day at 3 PM). There are many different ways to fast. I ask you to repent for the sin of abortion in this nation—the taking of 62,0000 lives that God created. I also ask you to pray for Christians in this nation. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has said that if all Christians would just vote it would determine the outcome of the election. Pray that Christians will see the ramifications of Biden and Trump’s policies and not just their personalities.  

Lord, I pray in the last days before this election, you would find a reason to be merciful. I pray that you raise up your people to pray and fast and turn from our wicked ways. Lord, you said that if you found ten righteous people that you would not have destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Lord, have mercy on the United States of America.

Never Look Back

No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,

(Philippians 3:13 NLT)  

 

The Miracle Mile

In 1954 Englishman Roger Bannister and Australian John Landy, who were the first two men to break the four-minute mile, met in a race in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, called the "Miracle Mile." With ninety-seconds remaining in the race and Landy ahead, he glanced back over his left shoulder to see his opponent's location.  At that moment, Bannister surged past Landy on his right side and won the race by eight-tens of a second.  Many observed that if Landy had not looked back, he would have won the race.

 

The Apostle Paul had learned what John Landy had not, that taking our eyes off the prize is never good.  There is a principal in life that what you focus on, you tend to achieve. Paul knew that the key to success was to forget the past, both good and bad. 

 

Many have noted that rarely are people defeated in their faith by today's problems alone, but by also dwelling at the same time on yesterday's failures.  We are not designed to multi-task present and past struggles.  Looking back on past failures, other than for redemptive purposes, is always counterproductive.  Paul knew that he had "not achieved" or become perfect, but he must press on, looking forward, to become more like Christ.

 

Conversely, considering past successes can limit our future vision.  Every new movement of God has been resisted by the previous one.  Good can become the worse enemy of best.  Certainly, if anybody could have rested on his past achievements, it was the Apostle Paul.  He had suffered and achieved more than any man alive, yet he knew that he had to continue to strive until he arrived in the presence of Christ in Heaven. John Landy dominated the race until the very end when he took his eyes off the prize.

 

Are you, like Landy, going to lose the race because you are looking back? Keep your eyes on the prize, heavenward.

  

The image is used with permission by Microsoft.

 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com

God's Dreams or Ours

But God said to me, ‘You are not to build a house for my Name, because you are a warrior and have shed blood.’  (1 Chronicles 28:3 NIV)  

 

  David was excited about building the Temple for the Lord, yet he could not build it.  The test for David was whether his dream was God’s or his. 

 

I have had some ups and downs in my service for the Lord.  I once served as a ministry leader and had great hopes and dreams.  Not long after I started, I was abruptly taken out of my leadership role.  Some years later, I was asked to serve on the board of directors for this ministry.  The question I had to ask myself was, did I own my dreams, or did God? To this day, I serve on this board and get great pleasure in seeing some of the plans that I had accomplished through another leader.

 

David seemed to have the same anticipation for seeing the Temple being built by this son Solomon (1 Chronicles 28:10-21 NLT).  It is not about who gets to accomplish the work, but are God’s plans being fulfilled?  President Reagan had a plaque on his office wall that said, “there is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.”It is much the same in Christian service.

 

I am convinced that many do not see their dreams fulfilled, not because they are not faithful enough, but they are unwilling to give them up. Give them up in the sense of allowing others to come in and take responsibility with a little different skillset—people, who because of their calling and gifting, can take the work to a higher level.  In 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 (NLT), the Apostle Paul instructs us that it is not important who plants or waters, but that God brings the increase.

 

There is a strange dichotomy in the Kingdom of God. If you give something up, you keep it.  If you lose it, you find it.  If God has the ultimate ownership of our plans and dreams, He has the right and responsibility to decide who and how they are accomplished.  It is not about us but Him.  Are your dreams God’s?  If so, then they are bigger than you, and He is the only one that can fulfill them.

 

The image used by permission from Microsoft.

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

 

Our True Hero

But David kept thinking to himself, “Someday Saul is going to get me. The best thing I can do is escape to the Philistines. Then Saul will stop hunting for me in Israelite territory, and I will finally be safe.”  So David took his 600 men and went over and joined Achish son of Maoch, the king of Gath.  (1 Samuel 27:1-2 NLT) 

We love to hear and speak about the heroes of the Bible, and rightly so.

Yet, the true hero in all our Bible stories is always God.

 

David was said to be a “man after God’s own heart,” yet we see him giving up and going over to the enemy. Subsequently, he has to feign insanity to stay alive (1 Samuel 21:13). In the end, King Achish forsakes David (1 Samuel 29). Unbelief always leads to disappointment.

 

David’s experience is not an isolated story in the Bible. Elijah, after his great victory over Baal on Mount Carmel, ran in fear from Jezebel (1 Kings 19:1-3). After saying that he would die for the Lord, Peter denied Him three times ((Luke 22:54-62). At times, the history of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their descendants reads like a trashy novel. The Bible clearly records that the best of us still have clay feet.

 

We don’t like to hear things like this about our heroes, yet God must have a message for us. God uses imperfect people to accomplish His perfect will.  We should never place our security in mere flesh. I am not suggesting that God is not concerned with bad behavior because he is. Nevertheless, if he waited to use us until all our ducks are in a row, he would be delaying a long time.  Unflattering stories about our Bible heroes can be an encouragement to us. They remind us that the true hero in all our stories is the Lord Jesus, and if God can use the fallible characters described in the Bible, he might be able to show his glory through flawed people like you and me. 

 

Image used with permission by Microsoft.

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

 

Idolatry, Injustice, and Violence

For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.  For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites. (1 Kings 11:4-5 NASB)

History is as instructive to us today as it was in Solomon’s day.  Solomon turned to idolatry, and if you read the history of the Kings of Judah and Israel, you see the injustice that was accompanied by violence.  Today much is said about violence and injustice, but very little about idolatry.

Today we see the injustice that precipitates violence and violence that propagates injustice. It is a vicious cycle. Some white people have done despicable acts because of their racial hatred, and some black people have reacted with violence against people who are innocent just because they are white. We have traded one type of injustice for

another.

In our country today, it appears we have been majoring on the results of the problem rather than the source of it.  We have begun to reject the God of Heaven.  We have commenced to, without shame, say that bad is good and good it bad.  We have sanctioned the taking of innocent life and the acceptance of alternative lifestyles condemned in the Bible.  Milcom, the idol mentioned in our text, involved sacrificing their children.

Does that sound familiar?  We have started to worship the false gods of the progressive culture and are reaping the whirlwind of injustice and violence.

How did God start to remedy the problem?  He sent the prophets.  Where are our prophets?  You and I must be that prophetic voice, and there’s always a cost for speaking the truth.  Fill in the blank.  I____________ will serve the one true God.

The image is used with permission by Microsoft.

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com