Author Archives: Steve

How God helps us in life’s difficulties…

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Think about all the things you get ready for.

When you are a child, you get ready for school. Maybe you remember going shopping with your mother to get a book-bag or a lunch pail. As you grew up, you got ready for many other things. A date. A test at school. College.  And as time went on, you got ready for other things. Ready to get married. Ready for children. We’re told we need to be ready for those things. They are exciting things. Most of them are good things.

But who readies us for the things that aren’t exciting? Who helps us get ready for old age? For sickness? For heartache? For loneliness? For death? Those unpleasant things aren’t addressed by our society with the same energy as the pleasant things.

God addresses them. In Matthew 17:22-23, Jesus is addressing something that will be very difficult for his followers.  He’s addressed it before. And he keeps on addressing it.

Because it’s essential that you are ready for life’s difficulties.

This message speaks about how we can be more prepared for life’s difficulties.

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A Picture Dying to be Taken…

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Sitting on the curb, waiting for others to arrive for Bible Study, I looked at my Honda and realized, “This is a picture begging to be taken.”

2007 Honda 750 Shadow

I used Gimp to enhance this image that I shot with my cell phone (SCH-i760 — a great pda phone with a trashy camera).

Click on the image for an image suitable to use as desktop wallpaper or background.

The bike is a 2007 Honda 750 Shadow.

How to be Used by God…

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I’d like my life to have some meaning. More meaning than pleasing myself and the people I love. Even pleasing the people I love is pretty selfish, if you think about it.

Years ago Christians used to speak of being “vessels” for God. The idea was that Christians carried God’s love, grace, healing, and message to the world. Vessels carry things. In this podcast, I propose a different word: faucets.

Occasionally, when one is emphasizing the power of God and his sovereignty, you can get the impression that people are not important to God at all. But that’s not the case. People are very important to God. He honors and finds pleasure in it when they serve him. No one can count the amount of work God’s had done through people like you and me. God uses faucets. And some of the vessels he’s used weren’t exactly gold-plated faucets. He doesn’t always use Herbeau fixtures.

You know what Herbeau faucets are, right? Looking online, I learned that the least expensive faucet Herbeau makes is 3001 Royale, priced at $1,349. The Herbeau 3405 Royale Deck Mounted Exposed Thermostatic Tub & Shower Faucet goes for $8,987. Their most expensive one goes for only $9,106. God isn’t looking for Herbeau faucets. The vessel conveying the blessing of God is important, but it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Mark Dricsoll, a fairly radical, but extremely biblical pastor in the northwest notes that God uses some vessels – some faucets – that almost anyone else would disqualify. You can read a quote from him in this post.

This sermon podcast talks about having the faith to trust God to use you to deliver his message to a needy world.

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