Tag Archives: spiritual growth

Preparing For Thanksgiving

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

 

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

2 And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.

3 They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:

4 But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

5 While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

6 And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

7 Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

8 And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.

9 But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. Matthew 25:1-9

I love Thanksgiving. It is such a day of rejoicing, relaxation and rest…that is unless, of course, I don’t use the day before Thanksgiving properly. If I don’t use the day before  to bake pies and peel turnip, if I don’t mash the sweet potatoes and mix the green bean casserole or raise the rolls then Thanksgiving become a day of heavy labor, stress and freaking out.

In its own way Thanksgiving is an object lesson for Matthew 25.  The foolish virgins came to what was supposed to be their day of rejoicing but they had not made themselves ready for the day, or for the One whom the day was really about (the bridegroom); So they  found themselves racing around trying to fill their lamps only to discover on their return to the bridal chamber that they had missed much more than the day. They had missed their opportunity to travel with the bridegroom.

How many times do we turn away from the call of God telling ourselves there will be time “later”? How much stress do we create for ourselves because we put our obedience to the Lord second, or third, or….

As you prepare your Thanksgiving meal this day or tomorrow maybe just maybe it is an opportunity to take a look at bigger things than a twenty pound turkey and ask yourself, “Could I be preparing better?”

Open Books

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

In our denomination a normal church service will consist of: lots of prayers, at least a half hour of singing, a sermon, an altar call where people can approach for personal prayer and sometimes a spontaneous sharing from a member of the congregation called a word of prophecy.

The college plays host to The Book Of Kells, the world's most famous illuminated manuscripts.

This week one of our elders gave “a word” about how God was making our lives to be open books for the world to read. I got to thinking about what that means for us. Now, while I am sure I don’t have the full understanding of what it means to be an open book several things do come to mind.

First, all books whether open or closed, have authors. Books don’t write themselves. I know this because I have had occasion to leave empty notebooks on shelves for months  hoping that somehow they would spontaneously generate completed stories given enough time. Each time the results have been the same. Nothin’!

If we are to be proper stories we have to let the Author of Life write His words on our hearts. Otherwise all our life’s work will amount to nothing.

Second, books are written with a purpose in mind. The open book that you are has three eternal purposes: First to make famous the name of the God of Heaven; Second to strengthen the faith of those who have faith; Third to be a testimony to those who do not believe, that God is real!

Finally books, at least really good books, are filled with tension, conflict, successes and failures. This is an important point because so often we think that if the story of our lives is less than perfect, we are nothing more than damaged goods unable to be used by God. Listen! The chapter of your life which God is writing right now may be filled with sadness, madness or badness, but your life is more than a chapter; It’s a book and no one reads a book for chapter 10. They read a book to get to the end, to know the whole story. So don’t make too much of the chapter you are in right now whether it’s good or bad. Your life is a story God is still writing. You are a character in process. You are meant to be an open book whose Author intends to change the world. He will use you to do just that if only you surrender to Him and let Him keep writing.

Heaven Pt. 157: A Cry For the Persecuted

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

The “Heaven Posts” were originated as a word study through the Bible. The thought is  to bring a devotional thought from every section of the Bible that mentions the word “Heaven”.

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Here is today’s

Let this be written for a future generation,
    that a people not yet created may praise the Lord:
19 “The Lord looked down from his sanctuary on high,
    from heaven he viewed the earth,
20 to hear the groans of the prisoners
    and release those condemned to death.”
21 So the name of the Lord will be declared in Zion
    and his praise in Jerusalem
22 when the peoples and the kingdoms
    assemble to worship the Lord. Psm 102: 18-22 NIV

Many will deny it today but the truth is that the world at large is at war with Christianity. Here in the West we can easily hide from the fact that most of the Christian church across the planet faces hardship on levels that we would consider harsh persecution, but western denial does not change the fact that the gospel is now and has always been a message under siege.

Jesus said it would be so and truthfully none of the biblical writers ever had opportunity to consider an unpersecuted faith. The biblical text is proof positive that faith in the One True God has always attracted enemies. So what is the church to do in the face of persecution?

We are to pray and not give up! Where we can we are to comfort the hurting…And we are to continue to spread the Good news NO MATTER WHAT!

God will not forget us. Let us not forget Him!

Soaking In the Presence

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles, Uncategorized

 

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I am enjoying the slowing down thing a lot. In  the last two days I have rested, caught up on some TV shows, started to fix  some broken shingles on the house and I have washed my dogs (much to their chagrin).

My dogs really don’t like baths. It got me thinking of all those times I have been in services where the Holy Spirit of God has moved profoundly. In my circles we call that “soaking in the presence of God”.

Some people really seem to love it and others…well let’s just say they take to the Presence about as well as my pups take to water. I can’t help wondering if it’s  not for the same reason. Some folks consider the moving of the Presence of God just another opportunity to swim in the current of miracles. Others know only too well that when God puts in a powerful appearance at church they are about to be doused with the shampoo of conviction and confronted with the Scissors of the Holy Spirit to cut out some of the sin mats they have been carrying around.

Bath time is not fun for my dogs. It’s also not much fun for me. I usually come away covered in dog fur, soaked to the skin and needing to clean and mop the bathroom. I wonder sometimes if God doesn’t feel the same way in dealing with us. Do you think there might be times when God sighs and says to Himself before our church services, “Well this is not going to be pleasant.”?

Still He moves knowing in advance that what must be done must be done, just like I know that no matter what, my dogs must be washed.

It seems a silly analogy but I just wonder how much faster bath time with my dogs would go if there wasn’t as much splashing and jumping out of the tub and I wonder…well I guess you can imagine what I am wondering about us humans and church and such.

They are dogs. We are humans. I suppose there ought to be a difference in how we take a good soaking.

 

 

Incredible Season Of Harvest

Posted on by under For Family & Fun

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?

Skywatch Friday 10-31-14

Posted on by under Photography

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A storm is brewing! We can only run for cover. There is only one safe place!

Psalm 91:1-7King James Version (KJV)

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

4 He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

Many times over the past week’s I have felt to remind my readership of these facts. Cling to them people they are all that is unshakeable!