Forgiven

Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin. (Psalm 85:2)

Tonight we will gather at 6:30 for our bi-weekly Bible Study and Prayer Meeting. I hope you will join us. We will spend a few minutes studying what the Bible teaches about the word "forgiven." And then we'll pray for one another. These meetings are simple and unstructured. They are meant to encourage and strengthen us in our walk with God.

Have you considered that word, "forgiven?" The dictionary says it means "to refrain from imposing punishment on an offender or demanding satisfaction for an offense."

There’s a Spanish story of a father and son who had become estranged. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read: "Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father. On Saturday 800 Pacos showed up, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers. (from Bits & Pieces, October 15, 1992, p. 13)

All of us need forgiveness, don't we? And all of us need to learn to forgive one another. Join us tonight at 6:30, and let's see what God teaches about this wonderful word!

Busy Week!

Last week, the Lord gave us a wonderfully busy week at Randolph Christian Church, as a flooded basement along with the attendant cleanup activities occupied much of our time. Thanks be to God for all those who so faithfully gave of their time to help with the cleanup. It looks like we will very shortly now have our basement back, in better shape than before the flood. And for that we give thanks.

This week is busy too, so let me remind you of several key events:

• Tuesday evening - Ladies Bible study at 6:30 - Vi's home
• Tuesday evening - Men's Timothy Club at 6:30 - Pastor's home
• Wednesday evening - Midweek prayer meeting - 6:30 at the church
• Saturday morning - Service day at 10:00 at the Haven of Rest in Akron

There are several opportunities in that list for all of us to fellowship with one another, to study God's Word, to pray for one another, and to serve the Savior by serving those with greater needs than our own. So as you look at that list, may I ask you to do two things?

1. Consider being part of one or more of these activities. If you haven't before, try it and see if it's for you.
2. Invite somebody to join you. Some people avoid church services, but may enjoy a less formal Bible study or service opportunity.

What a privilege it is to serve our Lord in a place like this. And as the lazy days of summer wind to a close, and we head into the busy days of autumn, let us all look forward to serving together, faithfully and diligently. Let us throw ourselves into the work at RCC, for we have the wonderful promise of God to sustain us - "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:9)

The Secret of Success

For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. (Ezra 7:10)

No matter what we set out to do or be in life, success is what we crave. As fathers and mothers, our highest hope is to be successful and finish the course with children that live for God and serve both Him and others. As employees, we strive for success in our jobs. As followers of Jesus Christ, our greatest goal is to hear Him declare our success with those words, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Success is the goal. But how to achieve that goal is the question.

I came across this verse in Ezra today, and it tells us the secret. Ezra was a priest and scribe who was used of God in rebuilding Jerusalem, and restoring the worship of God to Jerusalem, after it had lain dormant for years with its people in captivity in another land.

His secret of success consisted of 3 things:

1. He sought the Word of God (i.e in His personal life, He strove to know and understand God's Word)
2. He did the Word of God (i.e. in His personal life, He didn't stop with knowing and understanding - he was careful to OBEY what He read.)
3. He taught the Word of God. (He understood that we are always teaching, if not in word, certainly by example.)
   

Here is how we will succeed at RCC, by implementing these 3 things. Here is how each of us succeed in raising our children to glorify God - by implementing these 3 things. Here we see that the Word of God is central to our success in everything - SEEK IT, DO IT, TEACH IT.

Flood

A prayer request for you today, as well as a request for help:

We suffered a pretty good flood at the church yesterday - at one time having 4 inches of water in the church basement. Praise God for Trustee Mike's efforts at getting things fixed up. He installed 2 new sump pumps (both had gone out!!), and hopefully we are protected from a similar fate for a while.

But the water remains. Dennis and Linda came and helped last evening with cleanup and using the wet vac on the carpet. Dennis and I will be back at it again this evening slurping water. If any of you have wet vacs and are able to invest a little time this evening, come help us clean up. We'll be at the church at 6:30.

Our Church Needs Failures

The great men and women in the Bible were all a bunch of failures. As a matter of fact, I can't think of a single Biblical personality who accomplished anything for God without falling flat on his or her face at least once.

Don't believe me? Your assignment for the day, then, is to read Hebrews 11 - often referred to as the "Role Call of the Heroes of the Faith." But most of the people cited in this chapter as role models for you and I to emulate, failed at least once in their walk with God. They fell flat on their faces. They screwed up. They choked, sometimes over and over.

The Lord is looking for people who are willing to fail. Can you do that? I'm pretty good at it myself. I'm reminded of a news story I heard years ago. A woman was despairing of life and determined to end it all. She climbed to the top of a multi-storied building, walked through a window and onto a ledge, summoned her courage and stepped off the ledge. However, a strong gust of wind hit her, so that rather than her falling to the ground many floors below, she was pushed back onto the ledge a couple of floors down where she was rescued. She sustained injuries, but was very much alive. Later in the hospital a reporter asked her what could possibly have been so very bad in her life that she would want to end it? The woman responded, "Because I've failed at everything I've ever tried to do."

I think that's hilarious.

Don't think that you need to be an expert to serve God in His church. He is looking for men and women who recognize He has gifted them, and who are willing to try new things. Are you willing to risk failing in serving the Lord? We need Sunday School teachers. Are you willing to risk trying something that you might succeed at and you might not? We need a man or men to help with media ministry - somebody to manage our sound system, and tapes, and other media. Are you willing to try, even if you fail?


Churches suffer when people think they must be an expert at something before they will try it. We need more pioneers! People who will trust God when they feel Him tugging at their heart about a ministry opportunity. David Livingstone was a missionary to Africa. A man wrote to him once saying he would come help if Livingstone could point him to a good road to where he was. Livingstone replied, "If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all. "

Risk takers - that's what we need. Willingness to fail. Go re-read Hebrews 11 again, and determine to try things - big things, for God.

The Best Job In The World!

The last thing I did before calling it a night was to log onto the internet and check the weather for tomorrow. Rats... it was supposed to be isolated thunderstorms - not a good day for riding my motorcycle.

The next morning I logged on and checked it again. Interestingly, it now said that it would be in the high 70's with partly cloudy sky - no rain. "I wonder why they can't get it right from one day to the next?" I thought, as I saddled up the bike and headed into work.

Now it's late afternoon and I'm thinking about my ride home. The skies are looking pretty gray, so I checked the weather again - RAIN!! All afternoon and turning into thunderstorms later this evening!

Weathermen have the best job in the world. They never have to be right. They don't even have to be close. And I'm guessing they get paid pretty well for such complete and total inaccuracy.

Imagine what it would be like if God applied that level of accuracy to those who spoke for Him. A prophet could be right once in a while, and that would be ok. The Bible could be filled with inaccuracies and errors, but that would be ok. We would have no standard of truth because who cares if it's accurate anyway?

But God said true prophets are ALWAYS accurate. One mistake and they are marked as fakes, God said. "If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him." (Deuteronomy 18:22 NIV) And the Bible, because "no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God" (2 Peter 1:21 NASB), is absolutely trustworthy - no matter what time of the day you decide to look at it. It will always be true.

I'd love to be a weatherman, but I'm sure glad God's standard of accuracy is higher.

What Are Your Qualifications?

The angry voice repeated it over and over - "What are your qualifications?" "What are your qualifications?"

Here was one of the more lovely aspects of ministry - an irate individual giving me a piece of his mind over the phone. And throughout his tirade, that question kept coming - a question which I couldn't help but ponder as his torrent of words poured from the telephone. Just what are my qualifications, anyway? Who am I to give advice or counsel to somebody else?

The fact is, no one of us is qualified to provide advice to another. We are all sinners, aren't we? "For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard." (Romans 3:23 NLT) Jesus gave some potent instruction about this very concept:

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:1-5 NIV)

We are all flawed. We are all struggling with sin. We are all in need of help and advice, but none of us are qualified to give it! What a mess we are in!

And that, my friend, is where God's Word comes into the picture. We can't trust the words of men, but we can trust the Word of God. It, and it alone, is our standard. When we base what we do, what we think, what we say, and what we tell others only on what the Bible teaches, we are on solid ground.

That is our goal at RCC. We don't want to share our opinions with you - only God's Word as revealed in the Bible. We have no qualification except that.