…bill’s front porch…

i was at starbucks today with one of my best friends.  he is successful as the world rates success…money…good looks…attractive wife.  he was telling me about another very wealthy guy and the major junk in his life and the junk that he is causing in his relationships.  and  i said, “people who are ’successful’ and hurting are hard to read because they aren’t honest about their hurts, their pain and so they cannot get real help.”

let me ask you since we are here on the front porch, are you honest in your hurts or do you just keep them to yourself?  is your pain pushed down where no one can get to it, not even GOD?  are you a hider?

we have just moved our church and our home to a totally new area.  it has been a great move.  the home we live in has a front porch but we have nothing on it yet.  we are looking for those just right chairs to put out there.  now we are all set up in the back but not the front.

now these chairs have to be just right….they have to look good because we have an imagine to project but they can’t be so good that they get stolen the first night they are out there. 

isn’t that sad.  the truth is, all we really want are some chairs that are comfortable so we can set out there and get to know our neighbors. the image we want to share is friendliness and who cares if they get stolen. 

i don’t want to live by fear…i want to live by friendliness.  i am so glad that i now have a front porch on my house. 

i have just gone through an experience where CHRIST’s church works. we have had an awesome family start coming to the church that i pastor who had some it seemed insurmountable needs.  i sent out an e-mail and GOD used it to make a difference in the now surmountable needs that they had.

that is what CHRIST’s church is all about and when it works it really is awesome.  of course because it is a church that is made up of humans it doesn’t always work but when it does it is awesome.

i am sure glad that i am human and not perfect.  that perfect stuff that some people have who are so critical of the church is really a burden isn’t it?  i mean you never can make a mistake and you can never be excited when GOD really does make a difference through you.

GOD’s plan works..it really does work and i am so fortunate to be a part of something that made a difference in some very special people.  thanks GOD for letting me feel so special myself today. thanks again for letting it work through me.

i love the fact that we can start over at 12:00am january 1,2007.  we did our best in 2006 and a lot of good came out of it but it’s a new day, a new opportunity.  i really am excited about the new year.  this is going to be a great one, i really believe it.  this is the year that some of the people in my life are going to let GOD into their lives.  this is the year that some marriages are going to be put back together.  this is the year that growth is going to happen at lvharvest church, people are going to move up spirtually, we are going to find that serving is better than being served.  some unbelieveable things are going to happen.  2007 is the year.  i really believe it and i am excited about it 

i like how one guy put it, CHRISTmas is GOD taking matters into HIS own hands. HE tried so many other things, all through the old testment and in the first chapter of the new testment, HE took matters into HIS own hands and came down and did the most radical action, HE became a human and i am so glad HE did.

CHRISTmas doesn’t mean counting your presents, i really like giving them better that getting them (it’s a father thing) but it does mean that not one of us is outside the circle of GOD’s love.  and love is what so many are looking for and it is right in front of their eyes.  it’s there in the nativity that some are wanting to hide, it’s in the luminaries that light the way, it is in the carols being sung, or in the CHRISTian asking their friend to come to a cantata, a children’s CHRISTmas program, a candlelight CHRISTmas eve service.

CHRISTmas is GOD taking matters into HIS own hands to show us what love is really, really, really like.  and i am so glad HE came.  i really, really, really need HIS love. 

it is so easy to look at the negative, isn’t it?  the family of the boy who committed suicide was ministered to in their darkest night by the church.  my son, a minister in a church, reached out and my son was there to reach out because of the church…a church was faithful in nurturing him, loving him, believing in him, sharing the good news with him, giving him a place to meet his wife, giving him an opportunity to receive and fulfill his call.

Yes we do fail but we also get it right sometimes, don’t we?

my son is a staff minister in the midwest and he had to deal yesterday with the suicide of a young man. the young man had grown up in the church but had taken another path that led him to such loss of hope that he turned to a gun instead of GOD or the church. do we take any responsibility as the church when something like that happens or is it all on the shoulders of the young man?

we live in a very evil town, las vegas, nevada and it is so easy not to see the evil anymore. it is so easy to become desynthisized to how it invades the norm of our life.

please LORD, keep me so close to you so that i will see the evil for what it is: a perversion of the good; a tool of satan to get back at YOU; a way to lessen my fear of YOU; a weakening of my devotion to YOU; an hardening of my heart towards YOU.

i don’t need to leave the place but to share YOUR grace in this place by staying as close to YOU as I possibly can. please GOD, may that be so today.

are you going through something that is really tough, some pain even and you are wondering that maybe you didn’t read the small print when you became a CHRIST follower? you thought that you would no longer have to go through the tough stuff, or pain in life so you signed up.

listen, you will experience pain in this life; there’s no way around that. but when the tough times come, we can depend on the protection of God to save us from the power of evil and give us the victory through the trial. whatever happens, HE is there.

what the small print says is, “I will be with you and I will bring you through it and I will make good stuff out of it. it is all in MY power. i like what bruce wilkinson says,“for the CHRISTian, dependence is just another word for power. if we trust, depend, HE give us the power to make it through and the power to make something good out of it.

we went with 2 of our kids to so cal for a little break. i am worn out. it was the disneyland that did it but it was fun. we made 15 different rides/shows. that was a lot of work.

we also made it to saddleback and mosaic for church. they both were great. rick and erwin were gone but tom and eric were great.

that is what vacation is to me. i preach 2 times every sunday, i love doing it, but i also love to go to other churches. saddleback and mosaic are my churches i go to at least once every year. i love them both. they are both different but the way they both do church speaks to me. they help to round me out in my perspective on this old world.

now i’m ready to come back to harvest and the harvest. God has given me a personal purpose that no disneyland or saddleback or mosaic can do. i am not built to be a vacationer, i built to be an harvester. i need the deviation because it helps me to do my purpose. now to me harvest is more exciting than anywhere else because harvest is the purpose and the dream that God has personally built for me. i am glad to be home and i am tired.