There are a few perks to being a pastor.  I was working late last night when Sonya got a text message from one of our church members.  It said, “Warm Chocolate cake right out of oven, can you come pick it up?”  At 8:30 last night we took a drive for the cake.  It pays to be a pastor.  The only bad part is, I have been on a DIEt.  Oh Well, I ate it.  After all I would hate to hurt feelings:)

We arrived back home about 3:15 this afternoon.  What a welcome sight!  We had a good visit with Sonya’s family and we enjoyed much rest while we were gone.  It is always good to get back home and back to work. 

We come back to a busy week at RFA.  This is Holy Week!  We are leading up to Easter next Sunday.  All week, we will be meeting together with the Rogers Ministerial Alliance from 12:15-12:45 for joint services at Oakley Chapel United Methodist Church.  I encourage you to take your lunch hour, if possible, and visit these services.  They will be serving a light lunch daily.

RFA will be conducting the service on Wednesday.  We will be providing for the lunch that day as well.  If you would like to help prepare the food, call the office on Monday and let us know.  The food will need to be at our church by 11:00am and we will take it to Oakley Chapel before the service.

We are glad to be back to Rogers.  We love Northwest Arkansas and often thank God for allowing us to serve in ministry here.  We love our church family and missed you very much while we were away.

The government takeover of healthcare, what next?  I am not going to say much here but this is only the beginning.  The cartoon below may be where we are headed.

On the second day of Spring, it was cold and snowy.  Since yesterday we have received about ten inches of snow.  It is beautiful outside but it did affect our crowd today.  Although we had a third of our people, the presence of the Lord was in our service.  If you were not able to make it today, the message is posted on our website.

This week we were able to take advantage of the warm weather and the time change (Longer days) and took a short hike at Hobbs Conservation Area.  The Van Winkle Trail is a short trail that features the old home site of Peter Van Winkle.  It is a neat bit of history as well as beautiful scenery.

This morning I began reading Wesley Duewel’s, Ablaze For God, again, for the third time.  If there is a book that stirs my heart it is this one.  It rekindles the fire within my soul like few books can do. 

In the first chapter, Duewel quotes Spurgeon, “Spurgeon spoke of the need of leaders “who live only for Christ, and desire nothing but opportunities for promoting His glory, for spreading His truth, for winning by power those whom Jesus has redeemed by His precious blood…We need red-hot, white-hot men, who glow with intense heat; growing warmer; who burn their way in all positions straight on to the desired work; men like thunderbolts flung from Jehovah’s hand, crashing through every opposing thing, till they have reached the target aimed at; men impelled by Omnipotence.”

Then the author writes a convicting thought, “Every Christian leader should be an exemplar, should be a demonstration of Christ’s visible standard of Spirit-filled living.  You as a leader should maintain your spiritual stature, fervency and consistency, and be so marked by the seal of God’s Spirit that those you lead thank God for your leadership.  They should be motivated to accept and follow your leadership wholeheartedly, and both consciously and unconsciously, be drawn nearer to God under your leadership.”

I am challenged to pursue God so that I may be totally consumed by Him and my heart will be so ablaze for Him that the fire spreads.

Today in honor of St. Patrick’s Day I decided not to wear green.  I wanted to be different and not live up to the status quo.  I did think it good to share what St. Pat’s Day means.  I found the history of it on Mark Batterson’s blog:

“In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here is a little backstory on Saint Patrick himself.

At the age of 16, Saint Patrick was captured by Irish raiders and taken to Ireland where he became a slave to the chieftain of Ulster. One night, after six years of slavery, Saint Patrick heard a voice, "Behold, thy ship is ready." He traveled two hundred miles on foot to a place where he knew no one and had never been. He wrote in his autobiographical account, "After this I took flight, and left the man with whom I had been six years; and I came in the strength of the Lord, who directed my way for good; and I feared nothing till I arrived at the ship. And on that same day on which I arrived, the ship moved out of its place."

Patrick made his way back to Britain, found his family, and could have lived out the rest of his life in relative comfort in the land of freedom. But in 432 AD, he had another vision. He saw a man coming to him from Ireland carrying innumerable letters. "And I read the beginning of the letter containing ‘The voice of the Irish.’ And while I was reading aloud the beginning of the letters, I myself thought indeed in my mind that I heard the voice of those who were near the wood of Foclut, which is close by the Western Sea. And they cried out thus as if with one voice, "We entreat thee, holy youth, that thou come, and henceforth walk among us." And I was deeply moved in my heart, and could read no further; and so I woke."

Saint Patrick went back to Ireland as a missionary. No outside religion had penetrated Ireland in a thousand years. Saint Patrick founded more than 300 churches and baptized more than 120,000 people. His ministry was so influential that he came to be known as the one who "found Ireland all heathen and left it all Christian."