rockbridgebaptist.org Blog

How often do you think about God during the day? Sometimes I get to the end of the day and I realize I’ve hardly thought about God. I get so tied up in “the now and in the urgent” that I forget the important. Jesus said we worry about many things, but only one thing is important. God is what matters. He’s the One that controls my boss. He’s the One that controls my work-flow. He’s the One that manages my team. Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” God alone gives me the ability to think and plan and do. Wouldn’t it be wise to stay in touch with Him throughout the day? God’s word reminds us again and again to keep Him first in our thoughts. Paul says to do it “continually” – Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. I Thessalonians 5:16-18

So if it is God’s will for us to keep Him in the forefront of our mind throughout the day, how do we do that? I certainly don’t have all the answers or I wouldn’t be writing this article. But I am trying to draw closer to Jesus on a moment-by-moment basis, to share in His fellowship and to try to carry out the Lord’s prayer – to make “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” Here are a couple of things I’m trying to give me a right focus.

1) Praise Him First: When I wake up, before my feet hit the floor, I begin to pray. I ask God for His wisdom and guidance. I begin the day with praise and thanks that God knows me and is always with me. Psalm 139:17-18 “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, you are still there.”

2) Morning Bible Reading: I find it amazing that when I begin my day reading from His Word, I find application for the day’s passage in my life. It’s like God’s Word is living and active. Hmmm – maybe I read that somewhere before? Putting God’s thoughts in my head in the morning helps me meditate on it throughout the day. Psalm 63:1 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where there is no water.

3) Daylight Fast: Nothing gets my attention quite like my stomach. When it rumbles just a little, I run to satisfy it. So I have tried to use that to remind me of God’s presence. I simply don’t eat during the day once in a while. Skipping one or two meals one day a week helps get control of my desires (discipline) and reminds me throughout the day the He is near. It reminds me to thank Him for living in a land of abundance where hunger is a choice and not a daily inevitability. It reminds me how very good He is. Psalm 34:8 “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.”

4) Broader Vision: Sometimes my vision gets so narrow. I focus only on my work or my needs or my church. I need to be reminded that God’s plan is bigger. God’s plan encompasses the world. How do we keep from getting so focused on “me and mine”? I try with some newsletters. One I get from “Operation World” is a prayer focus on a different nation each day. As I write this, I’m looking at today’s – the focus is on Sumatra, Indonesia. It says, “The earthquake and tsunami in 2004 killed over 200,000 and rendered 500,000 people homeless. Further tragedies are inevitable. Sumatra is the largest unevangelized island on earth.” The newsletter has challenges for prayer for that nation. It helps remind me that God has a big agenda and a global kingdom. And I can be a part by adding my prayers. My problems and my issues are small – and I serve a great God.

5) Evening Prayer: Toward the end of the day I try to call upon the Lord. This is harder for me – when the pillow calls, I am instantly asleep. Piper is better at remembering and reminding me, “Don’t we need to pray…” (She’s such a good wife.) Evening prayer is a good time to rehearse the day with the Lord, to go back through it all…to remember the times I didn’t do so well, and ask for forgiveness….to ask for wisdom and strength not to make that same error again tomorrow. It’s a time to talk to God about the ones I love and the needs they have….. And to ask for His perfect peace.

May you walk with the Lord and in His fellowship,
Pastor Bill

July 4th we will celebrate America’s independence. Flags will wave. Many churches, including ours, will have patriotic songs. We’ll loudly proclaim, “God bless America”. As a citizen, I love America–I love living in peace and prosperity. As a citizen, I love living in freedom and luxury.

But as a Christian, I wonder what does God think of our nation? I think the Bible gives us some clues. Israel was once “One nation under God.” They kept saying, “God bless Israel.” But in my mind, I hear King Jeroboam declaring religious tolerance as he set up alternative worship centers. I imagine listening to King Ahab make a long speech proclaiming proudly, “We are no longer a nation just of Jehovah, but a nation of Baal and Ashtoroth, a nation of Molech and Chemos.” Yet Israel continued to wave flags and sing songs of, “God bless Israel.”

Can you imagine Jehovah God standing back and saying, “I’m so proud of my people for overcoming their biases and narrow mindedness”? Did God continue to bless that nation?

For some time, there has been an e-mail floating around the internet usually called, “Prayer for our Nation”. Presented by Rev. Joe Wright (mistakenly attributed to Billy Graham or Paul Harvey) to the Kansas House of Representatives, it goes like this:

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good,’ but that is exactly what we have done.
• We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
• We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
• We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
• We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
• We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
• We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self -esteem.
• We have abused power and called it politics.
• We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it ambition.
• We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of
• expression.
• We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

You may not agree with all of that, but here’s my point – As we celebrate Independence Day, I hope we will pray and remember that God blesses the nation whose God is the Lord (Psalm 33:12). Not the nation that invokes God’s name. Not the nation that has a godly heritage. Blessed is the nation whose God IS the Lord. J. Vernon McGee preached a sermon once titled, “America needs a declaration of dependence,” saying we need to return to dependence on God, not our wealth or freedom or military power (see Zech. 4:6 and Psalm 20:7).

2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Have a blessed Independence Day – and don’t forget to pray.

This week Rock Bridge began a new chapter. God orchestrates things like a row of dominoes that fall into place. Piper and our Mission Ministry Team invited Tim Cummins to speak as a part of our North American Missions month. In talking with Tim, he pointed to a local ministry need for Rock Bridge to work with Keith and Cornelia Harrell at Legacy Commons apartments (Formerly known as Villa Nueva, formally known as Westwood apartments). Beth spoke with Keith and he lamented that many of the children there participated in the free lunch program when they were in school, but many did not receive lunch when they were out for the summer.

That sparked something in Beth – something that Billy Hybels wrote about in a book called, “Holy Discontent”. The description of that book says:

“What is the one aspect of this broken world that, when you see it, touch it, get near it, you just can’t stand? Very likely, that firestorm of frustration reflects your holy discontent, a reality so troubling that you are thrust off the couch and into the game. It’s during these defining times, when your eyes open to the needs surrounding you and your heart hungers to respond, that you hear God say, ‘I feel the same way about this problem. Now, let’s go solve it together!’

Bill Hybels invites you to consider the dramatic impact your life will have when you allow your holy discontent to fuel instead of frustrate you. Hybels shows how you can find and feed your personal area of holy discontent, fight for it when things get risky, and follow it when it takes a mid-course turn. As you live from the energy of your holy discontent, you’ll fulfill your role in setting what is wrong in this world right!”

When I read that book a couple years ago, I thought it was great. When I heard Beth Gomes talking about hungry children in our neighborhood, I saw it happen in her life. It was beautiful to see! The same look was in Gloria’s eyes when she collected over 100 coats to keep children warm. It’s the same look Piper gets when she talks about the needs in Honduras. The same look Ann gets when she talks about counseling hurting people.

When we let God break our hearts with the things that break His heart, we simply MUST take action. I’m proud of Beth for helping lead in taking action. I really encourage you all to get involved in this project. But I also encourage you to take action on your own project – what burns in your heart? What brings tears to your eyes? When God has tears in His eyes over a situation, He calls some of His children to join him in making the change. He does it by breaking our hearts. Perhaps He is calling you too.

Will you let God break your heart? And will you let that brokenness “thrust you off the couch and into the game”? If God be for us, who can be against us? Please look for ways to be Christ’s hands and feet today. Piper is doing it with a trip, Ann does it with a word, Gloria did it with a coat. Beth is doing it with peanut butter. What will you use? You can make a difference.

When I started seeing the plans Beth was making to feed hungry children, I wrote her the e-mail below. I wanted to share it with you and ask you to join me in participating and praying.

May God pour out His grace on this adventure! and may it splash out all over you for the effort and organization you’ve put into this. Jesus said in the final judgment we would stand before Him and He would tell us the distressing news that He was hungry and we didn’t feed Him. Mother Teresa was asked how she could continue to look into the faces of the devastated, the poor, and the dying – She said in each person she saw, “the face of Jesus in one of His most distressing disguises”. I pray all of our church would look at these children and see Jesus in a distressing disguise. That we would find the heart to reach out beyond our walls. Beth, we simply must pray that this outreach is a time when we see Jesus, when our church will see Jesus, when these kids will see Jesus.

I love my church. I love the people. I love being in community with you. I especially love when we are the hands and feet of Christ.

Sunday, when I opened the bulletin and saw that Rock Bridge had met its North American Mission Offering goal of $2,500, I was so very excited and so very proud. It might have been easy for people to not give because the economy was bad or because of uncertainty in the job market. It might have been easy to not give to something that does not directly benefit our church. But none of that happened. Rock Bridge, you gave.

Thank you. Thank you for giving to something bigger than our church. Nationwide, last year offerings from churches like ours helped start over 1,300 new churches and helped fund over 5,000 missionaries preaching the Word. That is so great.

Thank you, too, to the Missions Ministry team for leading our church in giving to Kingdom work in North America. Thanks for the great mission videos about the impact that mission giving has. Thanks for arranging the missions speakers. To hear Tim Cummins speak about reaching people moves it from being something other people are doing to something we can do! Every time I hear him speak about taking the church to the people, I have to evaluate whether I am doing all I could for the Kingdom. Mr. Bennett…. I so much admire that man and the power of his ministry in Clarkston. May God raise up 100 more like him.

Last Sunday I preached on “Now what.” And I want to apply it to our mission giving. We banded together and gave $2,500. Now let’s give something more. Not a check, but let’s give ourselves to the work. We have opportunities in which you can get involved. First, we have an opportunity to partner with Keith and Cornelia Harrell during June and July to help needy kids right in our neighborhood. You’ll be hearing more about this, but be ready to join in the work.

In July, we will have Backyard Bible Celebrations (VBS) with Keith at the apartment complex and in 3 neighborhoods around our church. This is such a great opportunity to tell people about Jesus and to directly touch people who might never come to our church. This is a chance to do Kingdom work – to be God’s hands and feet. You can make a difference! Don’t let Satan rob you of participating in expanding His kingdom by lying to you that there’s nothing you can do or that you are not needed. Show up. Hug a kid. Shake hands with a parent. Smile. You can do this. Without Jesus, these kids and families are lost – forever lost. We can change their destiny. Jesus is calling – the harvest is ready.

So Rock Bridge, congratulations and well done. Thank you for your generosity. Let us continue to build on that by giving not just our money, but ourselves. As Paul said of the churches in Greece – For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will. Corinthians 8:3-5 (NIV)

God loves you and I’m praying for ya –
Pastor Bill