Pastor Davis' Weblog
SPIRITUAL DEER CAMP
SPIRITUAL DEER CAMP
I was away last week for a couple days on a retreat with four other pastors. We were all together at college, now a long time ago. One of them described our time together as a spiritual deer camp. We do some reading together, some praying together and then a fair amount of horsing around and just a little golf.
Our friendship has been a gift of God.
But it hasn’t come without some work. We have had to work at our relationships. We have had to make time for each other, make a commitment to be together. Sometimes we get mad or frustrated with each other, but our friendship transcends our differences.
Building strong friendships requires the same things that strong family and congregational relationships require!
The topic this year was Organic Community. We read and talked about keeping the church focused on Jesus, people and relationship—not programs and activities. Programs and activities are means; Jesus, people and relationship are the ends.
Think that through in your family, in your friendships and your congregational involvement. Are you consumed with agendas and programs and tasks? Or do you see those things as servants to making stronger relationships with Jesus and his people?
Make sure you take time this week to intentionally grow in friendship with Jesus, your family and others God has placed in your life.
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WORRIED ABOUT THE INCREASE IN GAS PRICES?
The price of gas has gone up. With it we are seeing and will see increases in food prices, especially with the diversion of corn from the food chain to the gas line. With price increases in these two key areas, can other increases be far behind? (I’m no economist, but even I understand how this works!)
It doesn’t help that many, many people are already on the edge financially. Mortgage foreclosures run rampant. Credit card debt crushes the future.
What to do?
Here’s how you can be set free from worry about money. Here’s what you can do to get a financial sense of security that is recession proof, depression proof and even goof proof.
I don’t bring this up lightly. In fact the thing that has pushed me over the edge is a chance encounter I had with a fella who was a member of the congregation I served fourteen years ago. Actually it was the second such encounter I have had in the last year or so of this nature. Twice now, absolutely unsolicited, two different regular men with regular families came up to me and said that something I had encouraged them to do years ago changed their lives… for the better.
What I had encouraged them to do and what can give you a lifetime of worry free fill-ups at the gas station is simple: entrust yourself financially to God by giving him ten percent of all that he gives to you. (tithe)
No fooling.
No fooling. I cannot give you better spiritual, financial advice for troubled economic times than to grow into a tithe.
Here’s the thing. Tithing will make two differences in your life:
· It will break materialism and greed in your life. You will be set free from wanting what others want. The act of freely giving away money reduces the power that money itself has over you. It is kicking the False God in the shin. Contentment will follow.
· It will force you to trust God to be God in your life. And he is up to the job! You cannot afford to live on less, especially not ten percent less. You cannot make it doing such a non-rational thing. But God can. God is able. God is able to do far more than we ask or imagine. And he has specifically invited us to trust him in this way. He says in Malachi 3:10, “Test me in this and see.” No fooling, there is a God in heaven who is better able to care for you than you can care for yourself. He invites you to trust him. But it does take a step of faith!
Both of these men remembered me telling them:
· figure out what percentage of their income they were already giving,
· increase it by one percent of their total income, and then
· increase it another one percent every year thereafter until they were at a tithe.
Friends, we have a God who is mightier that the price of oil. We have a God who is better able to provide for us than the steepest corporate ladder. We have a God who is able to make something out of nothing. We have a God who has promised his children great things in the here and now and greater things in the hereafter.
Do we believe him? Let’s quit worrying like the unbelieving world and its commentators do. Let’s not get caught up in all the hand wringing. Our God is God. He loves you. As Paul said, “If God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)
Feel free to keep trying the world’s solutions. But when you are ready for peace at the pump, trust God’s way.
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HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY
To all the moms out there: God bless you in your crucial ministry!
To all those who have not gotten your Mother something for Mother’s Day yet, get at it!