Malachi

Be careful to not let certain books and certain texts get "type cast." This happens to actors frequently. They become so identified with a certain character, casting them in a different role becomes difficult because viewers only see them as a particular character. Malachi is often cast in our consciousness as the "tithe" book. But it is so much more!

One of the greatest gifts Malachi is to us is the lesson of self-reflection through the power of the Holy Spirit. In John 16, Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. In Malachi 1:2 reads, "...but you ask: How have You loved us?" In 1:7, "...yet you ask: How have we despised your Name?" And again in 2:14 and 2:17 respectively, "Yet you ask: For what reason" and "...yet you ask: How have we wearied Him?" And in 3:7, "...but you ask: How can we return?" And in 3:8, "...you ask: How do we rob You?" In 3:13, "...yet you ask: What have we spoken against You?" Seven pressing questions!

God wants to have a conversation with us, one that is prompted by the Holy Spirit, self examination! Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 13:5, "...examine yourselves..."

What questions are the Holy Spirit asking of you today?

Pastor Fred

Psalm 126-128

There are some great "proverbs" in these three Psalms! Let's start with Psalm 128...

Verse one proclaims, "How happy is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways!" I have a saying, as goes the husband/father, so goes the whole house. This first verse is speaking directly to the Dad and the "everyone" in verse one refers to the family. We see this as we continue to read. Verse three speaks of the wife and children, and then in verse six, the grandchildren. We must not let a secular society deceive us into believing the fallacy, "If I'm not hurting anyone else, leave me alone." We are always hurting someone else if we are not walking in His ways... especially our families!

Psalm 127 reminds us that no amount of human effort alone will succeed in walking in His ways. We have been in a series at our church entitled "Am I?" It is a play on words with Jesus' seven I Am statements in the gospel John. The idea is that if He is in us, and He most certainly is for everyone who has made a vow of devotion to Him (John 14:20), then we should be becoming more and more like Him throughout our lives. His I Am's should inspire us to ask Am I? This is the truth of Psalm 127, we are desperate for who He is in us to empower us to become like Him. He is in us not just to reveal the standard of life up to which we fail to measure...but to change us! As we yield to Him (Psalm 127), He will enable us to walk in His ways (Psalm 128).

And as we walk on this journey of transformation, may we not be surprised by the hardships and trials that await us. Psalm 126, verse five speaks plainly, "Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy." Bruce Wilkinson unlocks John 15 like no other in his book Secrets of the Vine. God's use of discipline and pruning are essential to our personal transformation.

Psalm 128, verse 5 wraps it all up...

"May the Lord bless you... so that you will see the prosperity... all the days of your life!"

Pastor Fred

Summer Vacation

I'm taking a writing break for the summer...see you in September!

Pastor Fred

1 Chronicles 23-27

Every, every, every, function that supports the corporate worship service of your church is sacred, from the person singing to the person in the nursery!

Pastor Fred

Psalm 110

In this Psalm we find the reference that Jesus uses in Matthew 22:41-45 to declare His pre-existence, meaning life for Him did not begin within Mary. He presses the religious leaders who are questioning His divinity to explain Psalm 110. If David speaks of the Messiah as being his Lord, then how can they deny the divinity of the Messiah? The Messiah is the son of David through human lineage, Matthew 1:1-17, but His being as always existed, John 1:1-14 and Philippians 2:5-11.

How do you see Jesus? If it is as anything less than divine, press further into the Holy Texts given to us that we may all see Him as God!

Pastor Fred

Psalm 108-109

Imprecations. We need to understand that these texts are not given to us to give permission to us to seek the destruction of our enemies but rather instruction to us as to what we are to do with such strong feelings we will most certainly encounter at times in this life. An imprecation is a classification of Psalms where we speak of our feeling of deep hatred for another, our desires for their destruction. The only way we will ever be able to fulfill God's expectation that we love our enemies, as Jesus taught in the Sermon on The Mount in Matthew 5-7, is to take our feelings of anger and hatred to God. We give them to Him in prayer, prayers of imprecations, not because we hope to see them fulfilled, but rather to experience them being exchanged, hate for love, revenge for forgiveness, anger for mercy. We give Him the feelings we know do not belong in our hearts and He in turn gives us what belongs, the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26).

Pastor Fred

Psalm 30

In verse 12b of this Psalm, we are pressed to an intriguing question. The text reads, "...I will praise your forever."

The question is, could doing anything the Bible commands ever become tedious, especially, in the context of eternity, once we breathe our last breath and find ourselves in heaven where we will most certainly be praising God forever, among many other things undoubtedly, but nonetheless, praise will be an integral part of our existence in our eternity with Him in the New Heaven and New Earth...could we grow board of the repetition of praise?

Revelation 21:5, we hear Jesus saying, "Behold, I a making everything new..." This most certainly is filled with meaning but in part I believe is this, He has the power to make everything He asks of us just as fulfilling the millionth time as it was the first. That He is not bound by the law of diminishing marginal returns! There is no sense of repetitiveness in Heaven because He makes all things new, always! I believe as well that if we obey the mandates of Scripture with the right motives, one to please God and embrace the abundant life that He longs for us to possess, that we bring that same promise of newness to us in this life...that the study of Scripture, prayer, generosity, accountability...never becomes monotonous because of His power to bring "first time fulfillment" to every moment!

Pastor Fred