Atlanta West Pentecostal Church–Doctrinal Conference–General Session 1–David Bernard

Several weeks ago at our Alabama District Family Camp, Pastor Darrell Johns of Atlanta West Pentecostal Church, mentioned to me a doctrinal conference that would be hosted at church he pastors the last weekend in June. Immediately when he invited, I felt like it would be beneficial for me. My only regret is that more of our Dothan folks could not make it. As it stands Brother Patterson along with Charlie and Patty Joyner made the trek with me.

On arrival we received a 1st class notebook of some 30 pages or so of very good notes that are going to be very useful in the future. The notes alone are worth the price of registration. From reading Brother Johns’ welcome in the notebook, this whole endeavor was apparently created by Jonathon and Missy Copeland who attend AWPC. Again, my hat is off to them for such an outstanding effort that is going to serve many very well.

After a brief time of good-spirited music, Brother Johns introduced Pastor David Bernard of New Life United Pentecostal Church. Brother Johns mentioned how their friendship went back to the early ‘80’s when he was on staff at the United Pentecostal Church in Jackson, Mississippi and Brother Bernard was on staff at Jackson College of Ministries. During that time, Brother Bernard wrote his first book on personal holiness which was the beginning of a very prolific writing career that now boasts of some 30 books or so, along with many articles and booklets. Brother Johns also mentioned how extremely disciplined that Brother Bernard was with his time. More and more I am coming to think that talent is not so much the key as is just raw discipline and a matching work ethic.

Brother Bernard opened up the General Session I by taking his text from Acts 2:42:

Acts 2:42 KJV And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

His assignment was “The Apostolic Faith.” What follows are my scribblings during this session:

-Doctrine is of crucial importance in our times. Doctrine can only come from the Word of God. This is where our authority comes from. The Word has to be our only authority.

-We cannot err from the Scriptures, they are timeless and without error. Creeds, councils, etc. hold no equivalent to the Scriptures.

-I have a personal responsibility to fulfill what the Bible commands. It cannot be a matter of preference but it solely rests on a matter of obedience.

-Apostolic (defined)—Like the apostles. Following their practices, teachings, and methods.

-The Gospels tells us who Jesus is. Acts gives the birth of the Church in a story form but it is more than just history. It serves as the game plan or blue print of an Apostolic church whether 1st century or 21st century.

-The Epistles are doctrinal in content yet practical for living for God.

-If you accept the Bible then one will have to take the Apostle’s doctrine as the supreme example.

-Jude 3 mandates that we contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. Faith is not a maturing thing. Faith defined for the 1st century will have the same definition for the our times. The “faith” is a once for all men. The creeds from the 4th century and the councils from the 7th century does not clarify or perfect what the Bible specifically states.

-What is the “faith”? The “faith” is what the Apostles taught. They followed through with Matthew 28:19-20 and made converts.

-No man has the right to create his own personal theology. From church history it is clear that Luther stood and fought against 1000 years of tradition and declared that our faith must come from Scripture alone (sola Scriptura).

-Throughout church history we find that there were those who spoke with tongues. However it was not until the early 1900’s that Pentecostalism arose as a whole. Charles Parham in Topeka, Kansas challenged his students to find out what the initial sign of being Spirit-filled was. When they returned, from the Scriptures their answer was that they spoke with tongues when they initially received the Spirit.

-The Pentecostal movement did not start with emotionalism, creeds, etc. it started with a look at the Scriptures.

-William Seymour, who had some association with Parham, continued this trend on Azusa Street in Los Angeles, California and experienced a vibrant revival also.

-One of the precedents that one finds in the Scriptures is the Apostles baptizing by immersion in the Name of Jesus (Acts 2, 8, 10, 19, & 22).

-Made reference to History of Christian Doctrine—Volume 2 where that it is documented that Luther actually defended those who baptized in this manner. (I got lost in this section trying to take notes and now my notes are so scrambled, I don’t know what Brother Bernard said nor what I wrote, but suffice it to say, he said something and I wrote something. We will cipher it out when I get the CDs!!!) Ulrich Zwingli, a contemporary of Luther, also knew of Jesus Name Baptism. John Calvin, the successor of Zwingli, fought it (he also fought and had Michael Servetus killed.) Karl Barth comes along and declares that in the interest of the ecumenical spirit that we should ignore this model of baptism and stay with tradition.

-What we do is always a matter of obedience. . . !!!!

-Brother Bernard concluded with a summation of “The Five Elements of The Apostolic Church.”

1. The Apostolic Experience—Acts 2:1-4—The Wind. It blows where it listeth. . . Jesus stated this to Nicodemus. The Cloven Tongues of Fire—It touched each of them. This is symbolic that this Holy Spirit experience was for each individual and not corporately for the Apostolic Church. Filled—They spoke with tongues. This was not gibberish because the multitude recognized languages. This continues today (Acts 10:46; 2:16; 2:33; 2:38; Titus 2:11).

2. The Apostolic Message—Acts 2:16—Peter is reaching back to Joel 2:28 and affirming this is a work of God.

3. Apostolic Fellowship/Unity—Acts 2:42, 44-45—Fellowship and unity promoted giving so that they were able to get involved in evangelism.

4. Apostolic Prayer/Praise—Acts 2:47—We are to love the Lord with everything (Deuteronomy 6:5). We are to have passion in our prayer and also in our praise.

5. Apostolic Miracles, Signs, and Wonders—Acts 2:43—Miracles can take place in this kind of setting. Go back to the apostles in all of these things and it will breathe life back into the Apostolic church.

I will try to continue to blog as time permits. . . . I have placed some pics on Flickr also. . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

A Culture in Limbo

On Tuesday morning I was out and about doing some errands that I had put off for longer than I should have. One of the things that I had sorely neglected was changing the oil in my little ’05 Honda Civic. In fact I am not even inclined to tell you how long it has been since my last oil change. So as I sat and waited in the large comfortable waiting area at one of our local Firestone stores, I was confronted by American culture. Head-on, in-your-face, unapologetic American culture. . . at least that is the impression I am getting from a lot of voices these days.

It was delivered to me in crisp-clear, digital, flat-screen TV. I had a comfortable chair in a comfortable room and yet my heart was very uncomfortable. I encourage you not to think of yourself as strange and “old-fashioned” if your heart is uncomfortable with a lot of what is going on in our society these days. There are a lot of unspiritual voices who think they are providing good spiritual advice to our world when it is nothing more than a lowering of the bar of what is really right.

So dealing with this uncomfortable feeling in my heart, I chose to over-ride it for two reasons. First, I did not want to go outside and wait. Secondly I thought that I would do what most Americans do, just sit and watch, don’t change the channel, don’t think, don’t do anything, just let Hollywood unscrew the cap on my head and pour the drivel right in on my brain. What is also interesting or alarming was that no one else in the room even remotely appeared to be uncomfortable with the plot that will describe for you. That just tells me how desensitized our culture has gotten to sin.

I also need to tell you that this was between 9:25—10:00 AM, not PM as in nighttime but broad daylight, apparently this was daytime television at its finest being broadcast in HD. It was on the FX Network and I have no idea what the name of the show (or movie) was. The plot which took about two minutes to figure out was very ignorant. Compare that to Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Christo and it is going to take you at least a couple of chapters to even begin to figure out what is in store for you in this great piece of literature (but that is for another day).

This young man was apparently involved in an extortion scheme that involved blackmail. He carefully had entered a plush 5-star hotel and through nefarious means breaks into one of the rooms on the umpteenth floor. He bursts into the room with a digital camera and begins yelling and snapping off pictures at a couple in a bed in the back of the suite. Just so happens that the couple is two men in an apparent homosexual tryst and while one might argue that nothing explicit was shown enough of the situation was shown to lead the thoughts into knowing exactly what was occurring.

This fellow doing the detective work continues to take pictures while one of the men is begging him to stop that it was all a mistake and so on and so forth. Suddenly the intruder makes a deal with the man about getting his girlfriend back to which he agrees to help if he will just delete the pictures and not tell anyone about the compromising place he has been found in. The rest of the time was given to this young man’s sexual pursuit of a quite immodestly dressed (and acting) young woman to which he accomplishes before the “show” was over.

I can already hear the shots being fired around the world about how I should have gotten up and said something or at least asked for the channel to be changed. Which I have done before, one time was in a packed out restaurant and suffice it to say I did not win friends and influence diners on that day. In fact quite a howl was raised by those at nearby tables. The reason that I asked for the channel to be changed is that I did not want my kids exposed to some soul-killing content.

However on this day, I over-rode that quiet, convicting voice of the Spirit within and found myself in the plight of a sinner simply because I chose to expose myself to something that America feeds on every day. For you see, I don’t have a television, never have had one and probably don’t foresee getting one anytime in the near or distant future. Furthermore, I grew up without one because my parents did not own one either (thanks Mom and Dad!!!). How deprived I have been not being exposed to that kind of fare! Or have I really been deprived? I shall do some writing on that at a later time.

One of the great challenges facing pastors in our times is contending with the voices of the world that feed people this kind of content every day. A pastor, if he is lucky, has the ability to preach to people about 30 minutes on Sunday morning, 50-60 minutes on Sunday night, and 60-75 minutes on Wednesday evenings which totals around 2 ½ hours a week out of a total of 168 hours. What is very sad is that I know men who can sit and watch a 3 hour ballgame but when a sermon starts hitting the 30 minute mark, they feel violated. It is all a matter of what you are feeding your soul!

Sadly spiritual life during the week is sorely neglected by the majority and only a very few spend time alone with the Bible and with the God of the Bible in a place of prayer. If you are going to make it through this world successfully, you must prayerfully ransack the Bible, it cannot be hit and miss! I have one more shot at 1st John which will be next Wednesday night and a lengthy series will be concluded. I have spent close to 60 sessions with our church and it has been soul impacting for me as I hope it has been for them. But in totaling the hours that I had a Word document open, I have spent 188 hours and 51 minutes working through this book. This total doesn’t include other time spent reading commentaries and scribbling notes on legal pads or times that I found myself either convicted and driven to prayer or exulting in the grace of God which also put me on my knees. I might add that 1st John 2:15-17 was clanging in my soul Tuesday morning when I took a little bit of American “life” in.

Many can help their pastors by getting rid of their TV and getting all the soul-numbing images and thoughts out of their minds so the Word can literally be grafted to the soul as a skin-graft would. Our hearts are worldly because of what we put into them. The bigger question for me is how can we “dine” on the same fare the world does and still be called saints? How can we watch shows that exalt sin, glorifies the creature more than the Creator, and drags our soul through violence, sex, and vulgarity and it not affect the spiritual life of a man? If I put the Philippians 4:8 test on this “show” how will it fare?

From the book by John Piper (which you can download free at the link), Don’t Waste Your Life, chapter 7:

Television is one of the greatest life-wasters of the modern age. And, of course, the Internet is running to catch up, and may have caught up. You can be more selective on the Internet, but you can also select worse things with only the Judge of the universe watching. TV still reigns as the great life-waster. The main problem with TV is not how much smut is available, though that is a problem. Just the ads are enough to sow fertile seeds of greed and lust, no matter what program you’re watching. The greater problem is banality. A mind fed daily on TV diminishes. Your mind was made to know and love God. Its facility for this great calling is ruined by excessive TV. The content is so trivial and so shallow that the capacity of the mind to think worthy thoughts withers, and the capacity of the heart to feel deep emotions shrivels. Neil Postman shows why.

What is happening in America is that television is transforming all serious public business into junk. . . . Television disdains exposition, which is serious, sequential, rational, and complex. It offers instead a mode of discourse in which everything is accessible, simplistic, concrete, and above all, entertaining. As a result, America is the world’s first culture in jeopardy of amusing itself to death. (Neil Postman, “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” (Spring 1985): 15, 18. See his book by the same title, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Viking, 1985).

Sobering thoughts for those who are alarmed about the spiritual state of our nation and its churches and there are more than just a few “redneck” preachers who are concerned about it.

So for those who will not hear my heart cry. . . .Go ahead. . . sit back. . . watch. . . waste your time. . . waste your mind. . . waste your life. . . waste your soul. . . but while you sit back and watch in the so-called stream of “entertainment” there are a few militants out there who are going to rage against the system and plead with you and beg you not to waste your soul on the ignorant, baneful, and trivial. . . I am going to be one of the few! By the way, I need some help. . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

A Culture in Limbo

On Tuesday morning I was out and about doing some errands that I had put off for longer than I should have. One of the things that I had sorely neglected was changing the oil in my little ’05 Honda Civic. In fact I am not even inclined to tell you how long it has been since my last oil change. So as I sat and waited in the large comfortable waiting area at one of our local Firestone stores, I was confronted by American culture. Head-on, in-your-face, unapologetic American culture. . . at least that is the impression I am getting from a lot of voices these days.

It was delivered to me in crisp-clear, digital, flat-screen TV. I had a comfortable chair in a comfortable room and yet my heart was very uncomfortable. I encourage you not to think of yourself as strange and “old-fashioned” if your heart is uncomfortable with a lot of what is going on in our society these days. There are a lot of unspiritual voices who think they are providing good spiritual advice to our world when it is nothing more than a lowering of the bar of what is really right.

So dealing with this uncomfortable feeling in my heart, I chose to over-ride it for two reasons. First, I did not want to go outside and wait. Secondly I thought that I would do what most Americans do, just sit and watch, don’t change the channel, don’t think, don’t do anything, just let Hollywood unscrew the cap on my head and pour the drivel right in on my brain. What is also interesting or alarming was that no one else in the room even remotely appeared to be uncomfortable with the plot that will describe for you. That just tells me how desensitized our culture has gotten to sin.

I also need to tell you that this was between 9:25—10:00 AM, not PM as in nighttime but broad daylight, apparently this was daytime television at its finest being broadcast in HD. It was on the FX Network and I have no idea what the name of the show (or movie) was. The plot which took about two minutes to figure out was very ignorant. Compare that to Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Christo and it is going to take you at least a couple of chapters to even begin to figure out what is in store for you in this great piece of literature (but that is for another day).

This young man was apparently involved in an extortion scheme that involved blackmail. He carefully had entered a plush 5-star hotel and through nefarious means breaks into one of the rooms on the umpteenth floor. He bursts into the room with a digital camera and begins yelling and snapping off pictures at a couple in a bed in the back of the suite. Just so happens that the couple is two men in an apparent homosexual tryst and while one might argue that nothing explicit was shown enough of the situation was shown to lead the thoughts into knowing exactly what was occurring.

This fellow doing the detective work continues to take pictures while one of the men is begging him to stop that it was all a mistake and so on and so forth. Suddenly the intruder makes a deal with the man about getting his girlfriend back to which he agrees to help if he will just delete the pictures and not tell anyone about the compromising place he has been found in. The rest of the time was given to this young man’s sexual pursuit of a quite immodestly dressed (and acting) young woman to which he accomplishes before the “show” was over.

I can already hear the shots being fired around the world about how I should have gotten up and said something or at least asked for the channel to be changed. Which I have done before, one time was in a packed out restaurant and suffice it to say I did not win friends and influence diners on that day. In fact quite a howl was raised by those at nearby tables. The reason that I asked for the channel to be changed is that I did not want my kids exposed to some soul-killing content.

However on this day, I over-rode that quiet, convicting voice of the Spirit within and found myself in the plight of a sinner simply because I chose to expose myself to something that America feeds on every day. For you see, I don’t have a television, never have had one and probably don’t foresee getting one anytime in the near or distant future. Furthermore, I grew up without one because my parents did not own one either (thanks Mom and Dad!!!). How deprived I have been not being exposed to that kind of fare! Or have I really been deprived? I shall do some writing on that at a later time.

One of the great challenges facing pastors in our times is contending with the voices of the world that feed people this kind of content every day. A pastor, if he is lucky, has the ability to preach to people about 30 minutes on Sunday morning, 50-60 minutes on Sunday night, and 60-75 minutes on Wednesday evenings which totals around 2 ½ hours a week out of a total of 168 hours. What is very sad is that I know men who can sit and watch a 3 hour ballgame but when a sermon starts hitting the 30 minute mark, they feel violated. It is all a matter of what you are feeding your soul!

Sadly spiritual life during the week is sorely neglected by the majority and only a very few spend time alone with the Bible and with the God of the Bible in a place of prayer. If you are going to make it through this world successfully, you must prayerfully ransack the Bible, it cannot be hit and miss! I have one more shot at 1st John which will be next Wednesday night and a lengthy series will be concluded. I have spent close to 60 sessions with our church and it has been soul impacting for me as I hope it has been for them. But in totaling the hours that I had a Word document open, I have spent 188 hours and 51 minutes working through this book. This total doesn’t include other time spent reading commentaries and scribbling notes on legal pads or times that I found myself either convicted and driven to prayer or exulting in the grace of God which also put me on my knees. I might add that 1st John 2:15-17 was clanging in my soul Tuesday morning when I took a little bit of American “life” in.

Many can help their pastors by getting rid of their TV and getting all the soul-numbing images and thoughts out of their minds so the Word can literally be grafted to the soul as a skin-graft would. Our hearts are worldly because of what we put into them. The bigger question for me is how can we “dine” on the same fare the world does and still be called saints? How can we watch shows that exalt sin, glorifies the creature more than the Creator, and drags our soul through violence, sex, and vulgarity and it not affect the spiritual life of a man? If I put the Philippians 4:8 test on this “show” how will it fare?

From the book by John Piper (which you can download free at the link), Don’t Waste Your Life, chapter 7:

Television is one of the greatest life-wasters of the modern age. And, of course, the Internet is running to catch up, and may have caught up. You can be more selective on the Internet, but you can also select worse things with only the Judge of the universe watching. TV still reigns as the great life-waster. The main problem with TV is not how much smut is available, though that is a problem. Just the ads are enough to sow fertile seeds of greed and lust, no matter what program you’re watching. The greater problem is banality. A mind fed daily on TV diminishes. Your mind was made to know and love God. Its facility for this great calling is ruined by excessive TV. The content is so trivial and so shallow that the capacity of the mind to think worthy thoughts withers, and the capacity of the heart to feel deep emotions shrivels. Neil Postman shows why.

What is happening in America is that television is transforming all serious public business into junk. . . . Television disdains exposition, which is serious, sequential, rational, and complex. It offers instead a mode of discourse in which everything is accessible, simplistic, concrete, and above all, entertaining. As a result, America is the world’s first culture in jeopardy of amusing itself to death. (Neil Postman, “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” (Spring 1985): 15, 18. See his book by the same title, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Viking, 1985).

Sobering thoughts for those who are alarmed about the spiritual state of our nation and its churches and there are more than just a few “redneck” preachers who are concerned about it.

So for those who will not hear my heart cry. . . .Go ahead. . . sit back. . . watch. . . waste your time. . . waste your mind. . . waste your life. . . waste your soul. . . but while you sit back and watch in the so-called stream of “entertainment” there are a few militants out there who are going to rage against the system and plead with you and beg you not to waste your soul on the ignorant, baneful, and trivial. . . I am going to be one of the few! By the way, I need some help. . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Book Recommendation — Horse Soldiers — Doug Stanton

If you enjoy summer reading, you are in for some good recommendations here in the next several days. Stories about the war on terror are beginning to surface by various soldiers who have been actively involved in the battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. A new book that has just come out is entitled Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton. It is a very, very interesting book about the role the Special Forces played in the very early days of the American attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Special Forces faced overwhelming odds in getting their high-tech equipment up and down the sides of the mountains on horseback. The word pictures that Stanton uses to describe the 6-foot, two-hundred pound plus warriors riding horses that were meant for 130 pounders, is almost hilarious. You will almost picture an adult trying to ride a three-year olds’ tricycle, knees to chin sort of thing. His account of the SF having to ride their horses on rain-soaked trails that had cavernous drop-offs of thousands of feet will make you consider the dangers they endured that were not combat related.

Finally, the description of the use of GPS to work with the jet bombers and missiles was quite intriguing. For those involved in ministry, you are going to find a number of illustrations to pull from these books and actively use them in sermons.

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Book Recommendation — Horse Soldiers — Doug Stanton

If you enjoy summer reading, you are in for some good recommendations here in the next several days. Stories about the war on terror are beginning to surface by various soldiers who have been actively involved in the battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. A new book that has just come out is entitled Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton. It is a very, very interesting book about the role the Special Forces played in the very early days of the American attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Special Forces faced overwhelming odds in getting their high-tech equipment up and down the sides of the mountains on horseback. The word pictures that Stanton uses to describe the 6-foot, two-hundred pound plus warriors riding horses that were meant for 130 pounders, is almost hilarious. You will almost picture an adult trying to ride a three-year olds’ tricycle, knees to chin sort of thing. His account of the SF having to ride their horses on rain-soaked trails that had cavernous drop-offs of thousands of feet will make you consider the dangers they endured that were not combat related.

Finally, the description of the use of GPS to work with the jet bombers and missiles was quite intriguing. For those involved in ministry, you are going to find a number of illustrations to pull from these books and actively use them in sermons.

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

The Powerful Pull of Perfection

If you have never known it, I pray that you will at some point find it or rather that it will find you. You must understand that the desire for perfection also has some ominous undercurrents because the demands it has are only embraced by a hearty few. It has collapsed many who could not withstand the gnawing, relentless passion that hunger for perfection created. But that noble few who believed it, sought it, pursued it, and disciplined themselves to it, perfection crowned them in the end.

Perfection presses and pushes to such an extent that it can cause great calamities of defeat and disappointment. But it is in those precious moments of calamity and disappointment that the great souls are born. It is bewildering and mysterious, to say the least, of how calamity and disappointment can crown the man who pursues perfection with all of his heart. The difference is that the great souls just keep on stretching toward that shining. They do so in spite of those who believe the worst of you and can never see you embracing the best.

Raymond Damadian is a name that few recognize and yet his story and his achievements changed the world. In the early 1970’s politicians started looking toward a problem that faced not just the American nation but the world at large. It was an ominous challenge called cancer. The money started flowing in the direction of companies involved in research that was searching for a cure. But Raymond Damadian was a man who had no funding, no support, but had an indomitable will to do something worthy of his calling in the field of medicine.

He gave himself to the task of finding a way to detect cancer in its earliest stages. He believed that one could see into the human body in a cross-sectional way (as one would slice a deli ham) with very fine detail. He believed that all of the internal organs could be seen in such a way. His real clincher was that it could be done without the use of x-rays. People laughed him out of town. It can’t be done, they said. Others mocked saying “You are a dreamer.” But he worked on deep into the long nights and would be back up again early in the mornings. Working on a shoe-string budget, he pushed himself and his students relentlessly to come up with a system that could do this.

He tinkered with magnetic fields because in his mind he thought that if a strong enough magnetic field was created it would make all the atoms in the body to line up like toy soldiers. He believed the atoms would respond and align themselves with the positive on one end and the negative on the other end. Through many flops and failures over time this is exactly what he did. He built a machine that created a magnetic force that would create data that could be fed into a computer to form an exact replica of what was inside the human body. The computer would take the data and form images that highly skilled radiologists could interpret and diagnose disease processes within the human body.

Because he was working basically as a solo inventor, he did not nearly have the resources that the huge corporations had in their coffers. Because he lacked financial backing, he had to resort to some unorthodox means to make money. So he ended up taking his invention to county and state fairs and would charge people to see the machine that would change the whole world of medicine. While you probably do not know Raymond Damadian, you do know about his machine called Magnetic Resonance Imaging or MRI. The MRI is one of the savviest tools that a physician has at his hands to make a diagnosis.

This is a great example of the pursuit of perfection. It is a pressing on despite the challenges, the hindrances, the ridicule, the weariness, and the set-backs. You do not become perfect simply because you want it but rather because you pursue it and never back away from the heights of the mountains that other think are un-scalable.

It takes remarkable courage to trudge on where no other person has ever been before. While most people applaud Dr. Damadian now, he had very, very few who were cheering him on during the times when he needed it the most. That is where the hunger for perfection or excellence keys into the equation. Every person that I have ever met who hungered for perfection or had a desire for excellence also had an accompanying passion for what they were doing. That passion fueled their dreams but it also drove them when they were weary and discouraged along the way. They simply trudged on regardless of what their critics told them or what their own mind told them. This is the reach for perfection. . . .

Matthew 5:48 KJV Be ye therefore perfect. . . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

The Powerful Pull of Perfection

If you have never known it, I pray that you will at some point find it or rather that it will find you. You must understand that the desire for perfection also has some ominous undercurrents because the demands it has are only embraced by a hearty few. It has collapsed many who could not withstand the gnawing, relentless passion that hunger for perfection created. But that noble few who believed it, sought it, pursued it, and disciplined themselves to it, perfection crowned them in the end.

Perfection presses and pushes to such an extent that it can cause great calamities of defeat and disappointment. But it is in those precious moments of calamity and disappointment that the great souls are born. It is bewildering and mysterious, to say the least, of how calamity and disappointment can crown the man who pursues perfection with all of his heart. The difference is that the great souls just keep on stretching toward that shining. They do so in spite of those who believe the worst of you and can never see you embracing the best.

Raymond Damadian is a name that few recognize and yet his story and his achievements changed the world. In the early 1970’s politicians started looking toward a problem that faced not just the American nation but the world at large. It was an ominous challenge called cancer. The money started flowing in the direction of companies involved in research that was searching for a cure. But Raymond Damadian was a man who had no funding, no support, but had an indomitable will to do something worthy of his calling in the field of medicine.

He gave himself to the task of finding a way to detect cancer in its earliest stages. He believed that one could see into the human body in a cross-sectional way (as one would slice a deli ham) with very fine detail. He believed that all of the internal organs could be seen in such a way. His real clincher was that it could be done without the use of x-rays. People laughed him out of town. It can’t be done, they said. Others mocked saying “You are a dreamer.” But he worked on deep into the long nights and would be back up again early in the mornings. Working on a shoe-string budget, he pushed himself and his students relentlessly to come up with a system that could do this.

He tinkered with magnetic fields because in his mind he thought that if a strong enough magnetic field was created it would make all the atoms in the body to line up like toy soldiers. He believed the atoms would respond and align themselves with the positive on one end and the negative on the other end. Through many flops and failures over time this is exactly what he did. He built a machine that created a magnetic force that would create data that could be fed into a computer to form an exact replica of what was inside the human body. The computer would take the data and form images that highly skilled radiologists could interpret and diagnose disease processes within the human body.

Because he was working basically as a solo inventor, he did not nearly have the resources that the huge corporations had in their coffers. Because he lacked financial backing, he had to resort to some unorthodox means to make money. So he ended up taking his invention to county and state fairs and would charge people to see the machine that would change the whole world of medicine. While you probably do not know Raymond Damadian, you do know about his machine called Magnetic Resonance Imaging or MRI. The MRI is one of the savviest tools that a physician has at his hands to make a diagnosis.

This is a great example of the pursuit of perfection. It is a pressing on despite the challenges, the hindrances, the ridicule, the weariness, and the set-backs. You do not become perfect simply because you want it but rather because you pursue it and never back away from the heights of the mountains that other think are un-scalable.

It takes remarkable courage to trudge on where no other person has ever been before. While most people applaud Dr. Damadian now, he had very, very few who were cheering him on during the times when he needed it the most. That is where the hunger for perfection or excellence keys into the equation. Every person that I have ever met who hungered for perfection or had a desire for excellence also had an accompanying passion for what they were doing. That passion fueled their dreams but it also drove them when they were weary and discouraged along the way. They simply trudged on regardless of what their critics told them or what their own mind told them. This is the reach for perfection. . . .

Matthew 5:48 KJV Be ye therefore perfect. . . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Insufficiently Prepared? ? ? . . . . Probably Not. . .

Yesterday spelled out another important lesson for me as I was riding my bike. It is amazing how many little lessons of life a man can get on the road particularly if you mix it with a bit of Scripture. With the time change allowing me a little more daylight and the weather change allowing me a reprieve from the cold grips of winter, I have gotten back into getting in shape again. One of the drawbacks with bike riding is that during the short days of winter, the bike is relegated to hanging from its ceiling hook in the garage. During this time of inactivity, the bike and the rider generally begin to deteriorate. The changes with the bike are far more subtle than the changes in the rider. The rider reflects the inactivity with slowly increasing weight and rapidly decreasing lung capacity so that when the bike is finally engaged again it takes a bit for the weight to come off and the breath to return.

Although a little weight is starting to drop and the breath is coming back, I am still not in the shape that I was at the end of the summer a couple of years ago. But in time, I have all intentions of being back at that weight and shape that I was a few summers ago.

Yesterday around mile 17 or so, I was pressing along at a pretty good pace through some of the rural farmland around Wicksburg when things got incredibly exciting. I had just climbed a long, long hill of at least ½ a mile and had leveled off and was just getting my speed up to around 19-20 mph on a flat when a large surprise came bounding out of a yard. I was just past a nice brick house that had a long driveway but to my great dismay, the gate was open. A large (as in huge) Doberman Pinscher was running that driveway for all he was worth and just about 5 yards behind him was a German Shepherd that was only a bit smaller than the Doberman. Both of them were barking and yowling and sincerely thought they were about to chew on some part of my soft anatomy.

My heart-rate went through the roof and adrenaline began to pour from everywhere as suddenly the threat of these dogs gripped me. I begin to try and get my foot out of the clip-in pedals that I use but I could not get my foot loose. With bike wobbling all over the road because I was jerking my foot to get it dislodged, the Doberman is gaining on me in all of his hideousness. I determine that I am not going to get my foot out so I reach down and pull my water bottle from its holder and squeeze off a jet of green Gatorade in the direction of this huge beast. I am utterly amazed at the results! The Doberman puts on his brakes and screeches to a stop because apparently he is afraid of my little water bottle filled with Gatorade.

With my overactive imagination, I had already seen the outcome of the matter. I was going to go down because I couldn’t get my feet out of the clip-ins and two dogs were going to devour me while I twitched in the road. They were going to tear me from stem to stern and all sorts of blood, bone, muscle, and gristle would be for their taking. That was what happened in my mind all in a racing stretch of about 25-30 yards that they chased me. However, my little water-bottle, a .99 cent job from Walmart kept the beast at bay furthermore it kept him off of me for the day. Amazing how such a simple solution was at my fingertips and I was trying my best to figure out how to defend against something that was threatening me.

Far too often both in physical and spiritual life, we are prone to look for the huge and complicated solutions to help us with our dilemmas when in actuality all it takes is a .99 cent water-bottle. Far too often men are constantly looking over the proverbial fences at the greener grass on the other side. It is a myth that the greener grass is always on the other side of the fence.

What happens is that a whole lot of life gets lost because of our belief that we are insufficiently prepared to do what God has called us to do. I have to confess that on yesterday I thought of several solutions for me and the dog for our next go around. Pepper spray or mace or a few other things that could be added to my arsenal to help me when the fact is that on yesterday I had exactly what I needed to get the job done.

I encourage you to believe that you are exactly where God wants you to be. If you weren’t then God is big enough to move us to where He wants us to be and He can get you “there” if He needs to. Otherwise, let the joy of contentment bring great blessing to your life and start believing that you are sufficiently prepared by the grace of God to fulfill exactly His will.

• If you don’t have much to spend, then spend well what you have.
• If you don’t have many books, read what you have and master them.
• If you aren’t where you want to be spiritually, physically, and so forth, spend a day writing down some goals of where you would like to be this time next year.
• Learn the value of borrowing (and returning) resources that will make you a better man.
• Re-read your books, your sermons, your Bible studies and take notes from them there is still much to harvest from them as they grow.
• Re-pray your prayers, your visions, your dreams, your desires, and let faith rise in your heart.
• Don’t let what you may not have ruin what you do have! Look for opportunities to be great in the challenges of life be they miserable conditions, resistant people, or rocky roads.
• Study your soul for it is the most difficult study you will ever undertake.
• For those in ministry, look for the older men to convey wisdom and experience to you. Just listen to them. Look for the younger men so you may add something to their experience with God.
• Don’t let the interruptions frustrate you, take them and use them to help your soul to grow. Far too many allow a “stepping-stone” mentality cause them to miss out on the day because they are so focused on the journey.
• Look for ways to express appreciation, to accomplish great things, and outrun the dogs that will do their best to bring you down.

Go ride and don’t let the Doberman’s of life fill you with fear that you are not sufficiently prepared to do the will of God.

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Insufficiently Prepared? ? ? . . . . Probably Not. . .

Yesterday spelled out another important lesson for me as I was riding my bike. It is amazing how many little lessons of life a man can get on the road particularly if you mix it with a bit of Scripture. With the time change allowing me a little more daylight and the weather change allowing me a reprieve from the cold grips of winter, I have gotten back into getting in shape again. One of the drawbacks with bike riding is that during the short days of winter, the bike is relegated to hanging from its ceiling hook in the garage. During this time of inactivity, the bike and the rider generally begin to deteriorate. The changes with the bike are far more subtle than the changes in the rider. The rider reflects the inactivity with slowly increasing weight and rapidly decreasing lung capacity so that when the bike is finally engaged again it takes a bit for the weight to come off and the breath to return.

Although a little weight is starting to drop and the breath is coming back, I am still not in the shape that I was at the end of the summer a couple of years ago. But in time, I have all intentions of being back at that weight and shape that I was a few summers ago.

Yesterday around mile 17 or so, I was pressing along at a pretty good pace through some of the rural farmland around Wicksburg when things got incredibly exciting. I had just climbed a long, long hill of at least ½ a mile and had leveled off and was just getting my speed up to around 19-20 mph on a flat when a large surprise came bounding out of a yard. I was just past a nice brick house that had a long driveway but to my great dismay, the gate was open. A large (as in huge) Doberman Pinscher was running that driveway for all he was worth and just about 5 yards behind him was a German Shepherd that was only a bit smaller than the Doberman. Both of them were barking and yowling and sincerely thought they were about to chew on some part of my soft anatomy.

My heart-rate went through the roof and adrenaline began to pour from everywhere as suddenly the threat of these dogs gripped me. I begin to try and get my foot out of the clip-in pedals that I use but I could not get my foot loose. With bike wobbling all over the road because I was jerking my foot to get it dislodged, the Doberman is gaining on me in all of his hideousness. I determine that I am not going to get my foot out so I reach down and pull my water bottle from its holder and squeeze off a jet of green Gatorade in the direction of this huge beast. I am utterly amazed at the results! The Doberman puts on his brakes and screeches to a stop because apparently he is afraid of my little water bottle filled with Gatorade.

With my overactive imagination, I had already seen the outcome of the matter. I was going to go down because I couldn’t get my feet out of the clip-ins and two dogs were going to devour me while I twitched in the road. They were going to tear me from stem to stern and all sorts of blood, bone, muscle, and gristle would be for their taking. That was what happened in my mind all in a racing stretch of about 25-30 yards that they chased me. However, my little water-bottle, a .99 cent job from Walmart kept the beast at bay furthermore it kept him off of me for the day. Amazing how such a simple solution was at my fingertips and I was trying my best to figure out how to defend against something that was threatening me.

Far too often both in physical and spiritual life, we are prone to look for the huge and complicated solutions to help us with our dilemmas when in actuality all it takes is a .99 cent water-bottle. Far too often men are constantly looking over the proverbial fences at the greener grass on the other side. It is a myth that the greener grass is always on the other side of the fence.

What happens is that a whole lot of life gets lost because of our belief that we are insufficiently prepared to do what God has called us to do. I have to confess that on yesterday I thought of several solutions for me and the dog for our next go around. Pepper spray or mace or a few other things that could be added to my arsenal to help me when the fact is that on yesterday I had exactly what I needed to get the job done.

I encourage you to believe that you are exactly where God wants you to be. If you weren’t then God is big enough to move us to where He wants us to be and He can get you “there” if He needs to. Otherwise, let the joy of contentment bring great blessing to your life and start believing that you are sufficiently prepared by the grace of God to fulfill exactly His will.

• If you don’t have much to spend, then spend well what you have.
• If you don’t have many books, read what you have and master them.
• If you aren’t where you want to be spiritually, physically, and so forth, spend a day writing down some goals of where you would like to be this time next year.
• Learn the value of borrowing (and returning) resources that will make you a better man.
• Re-read your books, your sermons, your Bible studies and take notes from them there is still much to harvest from them as they grow.
• Re-pray your prayers, your visions, your dreams, your desires, and let faith rise in your heart.
• Don’t let what you may not have ruin what you do have! Look for opportunities to be great in the challenges of life be they miserable conditions, resistant people, or rocky roads.
• Study your soul for it is the most difficult study you will ever undertake.
• For those in ministry, look for the older men to convey wisdom and experience to you. Just listen to them. Look for the younger men so you may add something to their experience with God.
• Don’t let the interruptions frustrate you, take them and use them to help your soul to grow. Far too many allow a “stepping-stone” mentality cause them to miss out on the day because they are so focused on the journey.
• Look for ways to express appreciation, to accomplish great things, and outrun the dogs that will do their best to bring you down.

Go ride and don’t let the Doberman’s of life fill you with fear that you are not sufficiently prepared to do the will of God.

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Book Recommendation — Chaim Potok, The Chosen

One of the marks of a great book is for the author to be able to reach out to the world beyond the pages and pull the reader into the pages of the tale he is telling. Louis L’Amour is one such writer that has the ability to put the reader on a horse with him or in the middle of a range war with bad hombres. A. J. Cronin is another such writer who with books such as The Citadel and The Keys of the Kingdom forces the reader to live out the depth of emotions of his main characters.

Another author whom I was only recently connected with is Chaim Potok. Both Jason Calhoun and Ben Weeks were flabbergasted that I had never read any of his books. I was encouraged to begin with The Chosen which actually was written in 1967. The actual setting of the book is Brooklyn, New York in a very highly concentrated neighborhood of Jews. It is here that the worlds of Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders collide. Reuven’s father is a Jewish scholar who is encouraging the Zionist movement to find a homeland and form a nation. Danny’s father is a very revered Hasidic rabbi who has a powerful devotion to extreme conservatism among the Jews. Although the story surrounds the boys, you should read this book simply to acquaint yourself with the rigors and disciplined training that the Jewish rabbis go through to be set aside in their calling. I was both amazed and motivated by the disciplines of mind and spirit that I found Chaim Potok describing in his narrative.

The book starts off with a bang with Reuven experiencing a very serious (nearly fatal?) injury at the hands of Danny. (I don’t want to spoil the details so I will be vague with the storyline.) As the book tracks their immense feelings of agitation between the two, they ultimately become the closest of friends and it is through this friendship that Potok gives us the ability to see the best of both worlds.

The book also brings the reader to taste events of world history as they were unfolding in the late 1940’s. Roosevelt’s death, the Holocaust, and the development of the nation of Israel all serve as a backdrop to this intensely emotional story. If you are given to thinking, there will be times that you will find yourself putting the book down and contemplating the varying themes that develop in the characters of this story. This book explores areas like commitment, honor, valor, suffering, and the dilemmas that involve the heart and the mind.

In addition, if you are a minister who is involved in the ministry of the Word, I have a feeling that when you read this book that you will discover that very little discipline is in your life concerning study. These Jewish rabbis and scholars are so entirely given to study and prayer it is remarkable. One the remarkable scenes that I really found very interesting was when Danny went on the initial visit to Reb Saunders study and the description that Potok gives to this. I found a lot of motivation to seek a greater depth of life through disciplined study as a I read this book.

I am thinking that if you start with this work of Potok’s, you will invest your time in reading all this author has written.

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul