Tag Archives: Bible study

Incredible Season Of Harvest

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Through my long years of Christian service I have learned that God generally speaking works seasonally in our lives. Ecclesiastes chapter 3:1 says, “For everything there is a season,    a time for every activity under heaven.”

This has been a season of great harvest and as I sit back this morning on the last day of my harvesting I can see that God has given me abundance through this time.

In September I was honored to lead worship and do personal care-giving at the Special Touch New England Getaway. I was honored with the privilege of baptizing six new converts into the faith!100_4726 Besides that incredible week we held our regular C.cada meeting and hosted the monthly communion meeting at the Gardner Visiting Nurses Center for a congregation of nearly forty people. The month culminated with the Winchendon Enhancement Committee’s Toy Town Fall Fest where almost two thousand people came to examine the site for a potential makerspace.

The pie-baking contest

The pie-baking contest

Four days after the Fall Fest my daughter Amanda and I departed for a two week stay in Ireland while our teams continued planning for the upcoming art show, Cloverton concert, Double service launch, oh yeah and Melanie’s wedding.

A Celtic Cross in the cemetery atop the Rock of Cashel

A Celtic Cross in the cemetery atop the Rock of Cashel

We touched down on American soil again on the 14th of  October and were back in office on the 15th catching up with all the plans. Cornerstone launched its double services on the 19th and as of this date it looks like the church has grown by about forty people!

C.cada’s fourth annual art show was the largest ever. We hung over 250 pieces and almost every artist sold at least one piece. To top it off connections were made with another area art association for a possible project collaboration.

Three concerts later I stood at an altar giving away my youngest daughter as a bride to my new son-in-law James Franklin II.

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Then last night just two days after my daughter’s wedding Cornerstone hosted Cloverton to a nearly packed house.

The band singing Patterns

The band singing Patterns

God has given me a season of much fruit! Now the harvest has been brought in. It is time for the land and this laborer to rest a bit and get back to a quieter schedule. Cornerstone isn’t stopping but the next big projects are not mine; They belong to other harvesters. Aside from a carolling event and Christmas Eve I have nothing to prepare for outside of my ordinary duties between now and Easter. While I am sure something is bound to pop up I think I am going to take a month or so and just try to be quiet(er).

Maybe now is a good time to hide myself away a bit and finish the new book!

Heaven Pt. 156: The Most Incredible Nobody Who Ever Lives

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

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For who in the heaven can be compared unto the LORD?who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the LORD? Psm 89:6

The world is full of great men, powerful men. The universe has many examples of incredible power both natural and spiritual. I have watched as men steer the nations  with their words saving or destroying the lives of countless individuals. I have seen the devastation of a tsunami and the world- stopping power of a blizzard. I have also been present at times when angels have ministered healing and grace while demons created discord and destruction. But all of these displays of power are small in comparison to the power of God. There is no one like Him. His greatness  dwarfs the  galaxies that dwarf the planets that dwarf the mountains that dwarf the people who live and walk among them.

In His greatness God is God and therefore the One being in all the universe who has no governing authority but His own character. He is the slave to no galaxy or planet or mountain or man; But we are all His. As this is true, it makes the Scripture in Philippians all that much more potent:

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:” Phil 2:5-7

The God, whose greatness made and one day will unmake the universe, became, in the course of time, the most incredible nobody who ever lives (I can’t say lived because He lives still). The Darling of Heaven was crucified  so that you and I might live.  Forget the dying part for a minute and just concentrate on what He gave up, even in coming to Earth, so that you might know how special you are to Him. He is so big and you are so little. He holds the span of the universe in His hand. You can hardly hold a basketball in yours. But He gave up that universe-sized hand for one like yours in the hopes that you would catch a glimpse of his dedication and love for you. He became nobody in time so that you could become somebody in eternity!

Now that is love! How could we not love Him back?

Driving Into the Light

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles, Travel

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This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. I John 1:5-7

When I get to Heaven I expect many surprises. I get more than most that there are things about Christianity that just don’t make sense within the current context of a fallen sinful world. We have never known anything but this so how could we expect ourselves to understand something that is totally other than this?

For instance: How do we work out the concept of eternity (the absence of time) in a universe that measures everything in time. How do we rationalize having complete free choice under the auspices of a completely sovereign God? How can innocence ever return when the knowledge of good and evil is so deeply ingrained within our race? AND how can  Something or Someone be entirely light in a universe that is only able to measure light by the amount of darkness it dispels?

We cannot fully explain these things now but we Christians must firmly hold to them because God has taught them in His Word.

As Amanda and I mosied from Moher along the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, we traveled into a place called the Burren.

The Bay Of Galway

A veritable moonscape splattered along the Western coast of Ireland, the Burren is the badlands between the green spaces of Kerry and Connemara. Amanda and I were struck to silent wonder as we twisted the corkscrew roads down into the nothingness and back up and out again towards the bay of Galway. Always in our travels there was this light in the midst of the lonely terrain that reminded us that magic and mystery can exist side by side with the natural man.

100_5388The sun was setting over the Bay of Galway as we pulled into the SaltHill Hotel along Ocean Dr. As it nestled itself to sleep under a haze of dark black cloud I was reminded that I may not know how time and eternity, sovereignty and free will, innocence and knowledge, or light and darkness can exist perfectly side by side, but there are a great many things I do not know or have not seen; My not knowing them or not seeing them does not make them any less so.

What parts of God’s Word do you struggle with because it doesn’t seem to match up with what you have experienced?

Heaven Pt. 155: Holding On For the Promise

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I will listen to what God the Lord says;
    he promises peace to his people, his faithful servants—
    but let them not turn to folly.
9 Surely his salvation is near those who fear him,
    that his glory may dwell in our land.

10 Love and faithfulness meet together;
    righteousness and peace kiss each other.
11 Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,
    and righteousness looks down from heaven.
12 The Lord will indeed give what is good,
    and our land will yield its harvest.
13 Righteousness goes before him
    and prepares the way for his steps” Psm 85: 8-13 NIV

The future of the Children of God is a glorious one indeed. Eternal life  in the light and presence of the One True God. John the Revelator when writing of it said,

“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Rev. 21:1-5

But in this world of toil and care it is sometimes easy to get our eyes off of the eternal promises and onto the trouble of the moment. It is for this reason the Psalmist felt the need to warn his readers “but let them not turn to folly.”  Folly is easy to fall into when spiritual myopia causes us to see too much of the trouble in the moment and not enough of the treasure in eternity. The cure is to hold on to the promises and to remember just what it is we are holding onto faith for. We need to keep the finish line (or the lack of one as this is eternity we are talking about) firmly fixed in mind as we face the troublesome bends in our current road.

Christian, just keep going. This momentary light affliction ( and it will seem just that when we see Jesus) will pass. You are a part of eternity. Hold on to that today!

Be A Champion

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 “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” MA. 9:37,38

Here in New England the harvest is apparent as well as abundant. With church attendance in the six state area hovering just over 2%,  just about everyone you meet on the sidewalk is part of the harvest and with a 98 to 2 ratio the Lord’s acknowledgement that the laborers are few is something of an understatement (granted the numbers are far better than when he walked the Earth… but still).

I find no lack of good ideas within the church walls as to how the church should reach the multitudes with the message of the gospel. But when it comes right down to it we don’t need more ideas we just need to take a couple of those good thoughts and perform them.

Here’s the thing; Suggesting an idea to the pastor of your church and then not being willing to participate in the carrying out of that idea is not helpful. Pastor’s do not need more ideas. Most of us are swimming in a sea of ideas which have no method of implementation. What ideas need are champions to carry them out. And if God gave you the idea then perhaps you are the champion of that idea. Yes you need pastoral support. Yes you need to be realistic about your own abilities and limitations;  But in the end if God is giving you an idea about how to work in the harvest field, that idea is your responsibility to carry out; Just giving it away to someone else and shrugging your shoulders when it doesn’t get done because “those other guys have no vision” does not release you from the responsibility of the idea. God gave it you! See it through! Be the champion of your harvest idea!

Here are some champions I currently see working in our church:

Deb Maciorowski, VP Special Touch REACH New England Chapter

Deb Maciorowski, VP Special Touch REACH New England Chapter

Amanda Lillie Buddy Barrel Coordinator kids church

Amanda Lillie Buddy Barrel Coordinator kids church

Ray Parker, Cornerstone Testimonial Newsletter

Ray Parker, Cornerstone Testimonial Newsletter

 

What do you need to do to champion your harvest cause?

Dust Kiddies Pt. 4

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles
Little Lamb! Little Lamb! Who hath made thee?

Little Lamb! Little Lamb! Who hath made thee?

 

Today’s post is 4th in a series on the frailty of man and the strength of God. If you missed any of the previous posts you can find them at:

https://josephelonlillie.com/2014/09/09/dust-kiddies-pt-1/

https://josephelonlillie.com/2014/09/10/dust-kiddies-pt-2/

https://josephelonlillie.com/2014/09/11/dust-kiddies-pt-3/

 

Yesterday we discussed how the Lord wants to help us overcome our weakness and proclivity towards sin. That is good news! But there is more besides. Not only does God want to help us overcome our weakness, He wants to fill us with power that is not ours to accomplish great things. We  were meant from something great but before we can do that great thing we must realize we cannot do it in our own strength.

Speaking through the apostle Paul God tells us,

6 For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.

7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.[a] This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. 2 Cor. 4:6, 

When I first became a Christian the church was singing this song,

 

 

 

 

 

 

We dust kiddies were meant to be the temples of the Holy Ghost ; And because we are the temples of the Holy Spirit we are “Filled with praise, with power and with glory.”

You are the temple of the Holy Ghost Dust Kiddie and you were meant to do something great.

You may say “I can’t do anything great.” 

But that is not true. Madeleine L’Engle writes,

“In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there’s no danger that we will confuse God’s work with our own, or God’s glory with our own.”

― Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

And that great missionary James Hudson Taylor said,

“All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on God being with them.”

― James Hudson Taylor

 

Listen! Our lives with God and our service to God should challenge us. Our Christianity should make us realize we are living out the impossible.

When was the last time your service to God drove you to your knees?

When was the last time you allowed  God to give you a task that was outside of your comfort zone?

Our work for God should drive us to our knees on a regular basis not because we are so righteous and godly we always pray but out of desperation because it is beyond us.Our work for God needs to be bigger than our own power to accomplish it. It needs to challenge us to a place beyond our own ability. It needs to drive us to prayer.

If you have gotten to a place where you have allowed ministry to become comfortable, if you have lost the challenge of ministry today or maybe you have never allowed the Lord to challenge you in ministry will you allow Him today to offer that challenge? Will you begin to ask Him to fill your earthen vessel with a light that will bring you into the challenge of changing the world?

 

 

Dust Kiddies Pt. 3

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles
Little Lamb! Little Lamb! Who hath made thee?

Little Lamb! Little Lamb! Who hath made thee?

This is part three of our sermon series Dust Kiddies. If you missed parts 1 and 2 they can be found at the links below.

https://josephelonlillie.com/2014/09/09/dust-kiddies-pt-1/

https://josephelonlillie.com/2014/09/10/dust-kiddies-pt-2/

Now let’s get on with today’s portion of the study:

We have established in the two previous posts that spiritually we are totally unable to help or save ourselves but that God wants to help us if we will just admit our need of Him.

God wants to help us in two ways. Today let’s discuss the first.

God  wants to help us overcome our weakness and our proclivity towards sin.

Dillon Burroughs writes, “The solution to our human frailty is not to try harder, but to turn Godward.”

― Dillon Burroughs, Hunger No More: A 1-Year Devotional Journey Through the Psalms

The truth is, that while your weakness may have defined who you are up to this present time it does not have to define you anymore.  The GOOD NEWS of Christianity is that we can be born again! We used to sing a song when I first became a Christian that went something like,

” There’s been a great great change since I’ve been born. There’s been a great great change since I’ve been born. There’s been a great great change since I’ve been born again.”

Jesus himself  said that the process of becoming a Christian is literally being “BORN AGAIN”

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again,[a] you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

4 “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”

5 Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.[b] 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.[c] 7 So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You[d] must be born again.’ John 3:3-7 NLT

In the end of the matter, we are set free from our lives of weakness not by trying harder but being born again and we are born again when the Spirit of God comes into our hearts by our prayerful invitation.

Let’s pray together now:

Father God I realize I cannot help myself or work my way out of a life of sin. Only you can help me. I admit that. So Lord come into my life right now. Cause me to be born again. Forgive all my sin and give me a new start a new life birthed by the Spirit of God. I believe it is possible through Jesus Christ, his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. Amen.

Hey if you prayed that prayer with me for the first time would you drop me a comment to let me know?

Dust Kiddies Pt. 2

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles
Little Lamb! Little Lamb! Who hath made thee?

Little Lamb! Little Lamb! Who hath made thee?

“Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.

 Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made…The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it.” Ge. 2:7,8,15

 

“The Lord is like a father to his children,
    tender and compassionate to those who fear him.

 For he knows how weak we are;
    he remembers we are only dust.” Psalm 103:13,14

 

“For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.

 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.” 2 Cor. 4:6,7

For all the posturing we have heard in the world about the greatness of the human race and the glorious future of mankind, the truths of Scripture listed above are echoed again and again throughout our history.

 Shakespeare said:

“We all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels.”
― William Shakespeare, Henry VIII

And Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe said

Some of our weakness is born in us, some of it comes through education; it is a big question as to which gives us the most trouble.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

 

The point is that the weakness of man is simply a truth. The sinfulness of man is simply a truth. Our culture may deny it and tell us we are good people who only sometimes do evil. Our culture may tell us that mankind is getting better and better under its own power but that is a lie the truth is spelled out by Paul quoting the prophet Isaiah to the Romans,

10 As the Scriptures say,

“No one is righteous—
    not even one.
11 No one is truly wise;
    no one is seeking God.
12 All have turned away;
    all have become useless.
No one does good,
    not a single one.” 

Romans 3:10-12

I am not strong I am weak. You are not strong you are weak. We are all of us dust kiddies and God knows it; The world around us knows it; The only ones who ever deny it are ourselves. We can easily admit that the person next to us is weak but to admit it to ourselves is another matter. 

Today it is time for us to pull back the veil on our vanity and simply admit we are weak. We were formed of dust. Our strength is dust and we shall return to dust in a very few short years. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot help ourselves. We cannot fix ourselves because there is nothing of strength in us. 

That is the beginning of the Gospel, the Good news. Now, if that is where the Good news ended I don’t think any of us would think it was very good news. The truth is though we cannot start out on the road to good news without at first acknowledging the bad news. The good news is, though we cannot help ourselves there is a God who wants to help us! And the better news is the only thing standing in the way of His helping us is our own foolish notion that we can help ourselves. Once we line ourselves up with the truth of Scripture that, we are in and of ourselves completely helpless, then God is able to come and give us the help we need! AND HE WANTS TO HELP US!

 

If you missed part one of this sermon go to:

https://josephelonlillie.com/2014/09/09/dust-kiddies-pt-1/

Dust Kiddies Pt. 1

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles
Little Lamb, Little Lamb Who hath made thee?

Little Lamb, Little Lamb Who hath made thee?

I was recently at a meeting in which someone had the gall to ask “who do you think you are? Why should I listen to you?”

My initial reaction was “Well let me tell you who I am. I am Pastor J. Lillie I’ve been….”

Then God asked me “Who do you think you are?”

And as He asked it these verses came to mind.

“Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.

 Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made…The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it.” Ge. 2:7,8,15

 

“The Lord is like a father to his children,
    tender and compassionate to those who fear him.

 For he knows how weak we are;
    he remembers we are only dust.” Psalm 103:13,14

 

“For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.

 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.[b] This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.” 2 Cor. 4:6,7

I am a created being made from the dust of the earth. From dust I come and to dust I will return. My life span in this body is 70 years and a few. I am a sinner saved by grace totally irredeemable apart from the miracle of the cross of Christ and the miracle of His resurrection. All my righteousness or good works is nothing more than filthy rags . I have no real glory apart from what He gives me.

Who am I?

I am nothing more than a dust kiddie, a child of dust roaming the earth looking for a place to land, an empty vessel with nothing inside but generations of dust and death to my credit. Under my own power I can never become anything more than dust and death and my friend neither can you. 

Do you ever feel like me, a dust kiddie? What do you do with those feelings?

Check in for the next portion of our study tomorrow!

Heaven Pt. 152: Inciting God

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

Therefore the LORD heard this, and was wroth: so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel;

Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in his salvation:

Though he had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven, Psm. 78:21-23 KJV

sodom

If faith is the currency of Heaven, then unbelief is the coinage of Hell.

If faith stirs pleasure within God’s bosom, then unbelief fills His heart with great sorrow.

Psalm 78 indicates His wrath is particularly stirred against nations who have seen God in action or who have a history with God’s miracles and yet refuse faith in their generation for one reason or another.

God has given us great revelation of Himself in our generation. The proliferation of the gospel today is greater than it has ever been in world history. Miracles and testimonies of  miracles abound. Yet still the mindset that was in the ancient  Israelites  tempts us.

Paul the apostle wrote this to the Corinthian Church:

I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. 2 In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. 3 All of them ate the same spiritual food,4 and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

6 These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, 7 or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, “The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.” 8 And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day.

9 Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites. 10 And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death. 11 These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.

12 If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall.  1 Cor. 10:1-12

We stand at a precipice of choice. We know what God has  said. We have heard what God has done and is doing. Our choice is to approach His word and the testimony we have heard with an attitude of faith or an attitude of unbelief. On the one hand we have an example of what happened to those who approached the choice in unbelief. On the other we have the example of the 120 who followed Jesus after His ascension.

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place.2 Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. 3 Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. 4 And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability…. All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.

43 A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. 44 And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. 45 They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. 46 They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—47 all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. Act 2:1-4, 43-47

I choose the latter and reject the former. How about you?