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Francis Scott Key once said, “The patriot who feels himself in the service of God, who acknowledges Him in all his ways, has the promise of almighty direction, and will find His Word in his greatest darkness, ‘A lamp unto his feet, and a lamp unto his paths.’” And Woodrow Wilson said in 1911, “We are born unto a Christian nation.” If you’re over 60, you may remember different times, lighter times, times when the most awful thing you could do in school was talk or chew gum in class. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that murde...
How’s your JQ (Joy Quotient). Jesus prayed for his Disciples “...that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” Paul prayed, “...that I might finish my course. With joy.” In Galatians 5:22, Paul lists joy as one of the gifts of the Spirit. So clearly God wants us to share in His joy. Yet Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, spells out four things that can rob us of our joy. They are: 1) Circumstances, 2) People, 3) Things and 4) Worry. Who among us has not allowed one or more of these to rob us of our joy? Yet Paul does not leave us...
One of the more important aspects of a happy and meaningful life deals with relationship. Both personal and interpersonal and perhaps most importantly, our spiritual relationship. In case you hadn’t noticed it, both the Old and New Testaments point out God’s desire to have a very special relationship with His people. Many of these relationships were indicated by the names by which God’s people knew Him. For example: the name El Elohim points to the covenant relationship God has with His people. The name El Shaddai (God Almighty) points to th...
Here I’m speaking not of the call to salvation, the “greatest call” outlined in Romans 10:9, “That is you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” For that is the call of Christianity itself. No, here I speak of the great call to all who have already accepted the call to Christianity. Jesus mentions it when asked to tell what was “The greatest commandment.” He mentioned it in verse 38 of Matthew 22. He first says in verse 37, “Love the Lord your God with all yo...
To quote the inspired words of Forrest Gump is to call to mind the simple fact that often we are the cause of our own troubles. “Our own worst enemy,” as my father used to say. How this happens is often a process. A process of thought or, to be more specific, wrong thought. Several verses of Scripture can point us to the genesis of that wrong thinking. The book of Judges recalls a time when, “Each man did what was right in his own eyes,” yet Proverbs 21:2 reminds us, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord ponders the heart...
Imagine you’re facing an assassin, an assassin who has been hired to kill you. Now imagine handing him the weapon to kill you with. I know this is difficult to imagine and yet that is exactly what pride is like. Satan, the great deceiver, comes to “destroy both body and soul” (Matthew 10:28). We give him the tool of destruction when we willfully become prideful. Scripture records the following words, “I hate pride and arrogance” (Proverbs 8:13), “Pride goeth before the fall” (Proverbs 16:18) and “those who walk in pride he is able to humble....
Perhaps the hardest thing for us as Christians is to remember that we serve a sovereign God. This is especially true when people or circumstances seem to us to be out of control. It is at these times that we tend to try seizing control, forget all of God’s promises and try to find reason where only chaos exists. We forget, or simply fail to call to mind, the reminder, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in...
Living in a valley, as we do here in Seeley Lake, one comes to appreciate both the beautiful scenery of the surrounding mountains and the shelter from the high winds that are so often a part of life on the plains. And as in life, the mountain top experiences (beautiful views and far off vistas) are often ones we would like to hold on to. Yet we are called to return to the valley floor to spend the bulk of our time and existence. God often gives his missions to his people during these “mountain top experiences.” Such was the case with Moses at...
In this current age we hear time and again a litany of rights. As individuals we sometimes insist on being right. We tell ourselves that others agree with us and therefore we are in the right and thus justified in our actions. But where does right begin and where does it end? In Matthew Chapter 5, Jesus draws a distinction between man’s law and God’s law. He points out that though we may be right in man’s eyes we may be wrong in God’s eyes. He points out, “Verily I say to thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the...
As I watch the news in these troubled times, I realize just how confused our nation has become. Many, for instance, mistake the right or left of political issues with the right or wrong of moral issues. Moral issues like abortion and homosexuality, which are individual moral choices, have become political issues. The result has been to further add to the divisions that exist in our country today. I doubt that our country has been this divided since the Civil War. I am by no means suggesting that we should ignore moral issues but rather that...
I recently relearned a lesson I thought I had already learned and thought I understood...words are like birds, once they’re out of the cage, they’re often hard to recapture. Why is it so easy to find fault in others and so difficult to see it in ourselves? As I was reading a story recently regarding a married couple, I was reminded of the saying, “Women’s faults are many, men have only two, everything they say and everything they do.” The story was written by a gentleman by the name of Carl Windsor. He told of an elderly woman giving advice to...
Most, if not all, of us have at one time or another said, “I can’t.” Whenever I uttered those words as a young boy, my Dad would always remind me that, “Can’t never accomplished anything.” In like manner, one of my business partners would always tell our sales people, “If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you can’t. Either way you are right.” Both were expressions of positive thinking and reminders to not limit ourselves. Yet the reality of life is that there are some things that are too big (even for a positive thinker)....
The new 2016 Lions Club Directory is now available. This year there is an added benefit for local residents found in the Yellow Page portion of the directory. This year the business listings section of the directory has been expanded and features Missoula area businesses which are non-competitive with local business interests, yet have been requested by area residents. This year, for example, listings can be found under: truck dealerships, automobile dealerships, satellite TV, water softeners, steel building materials, hearing aids,...
While reading a recent article in the New York Daily News, I was once again reminded that we often miss the point of prayer. This article criticized Republican presidential candidates for tweeting that they were praying for those affected by the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. This same article praised Democratic candidates for tweeting their support for greater gun control laws. The cover of the tabloid screamed, “God Isn’t Fixing This,” followed by, “As the latest batch of innocent Americans are left lying in pools of blood, cowards w...
Recent years have seen increasing attacks on Christianity, one of which has been an attempt to remove Christ from Christmas. Many department stores and retailers have gone to stressing “Happy Holidays” in an attempt to not offend non-Christians. Apparently they are not concerned with offending Christians. Christmas has long been both a sacred religious holiday and a worldwide cultural and commercial phenomenon. For two millennia, people have been observing it with traditions and practices that are both religious and secular in nature. Chr...
It would be a mistake for us, as Christians, to imagine that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do. The only perfect person was Jesus Christ. And while it is true that we will one day become perfect, that will not be true this side of heaven. God’s purpose is to make us one with Himself. Yet most of us spend more time asking God for things than we do actually seeking God. The more time we spend thinking about ourselves, the greater we hinder God’s work in, and through us. The Apostle Paul touched on this when he wrote to the...
