So often we pray for years for something and never see results.  We become tempted to believe that God isn’t listening or doesn’t care or that He is not going to answer.  Sometimes we have to wait.  His timing and ways are not always ours.

Sonya and I have been praying for her brother for over 18 years.  We have prayed for his salvation and deliverance from alcohol.  He was hard-core for all these years.  There were times we thought he would never change.  We continued to believe that,  until about a month ago, when Sonya got a call from him.  He gave his heart to Christ.  Circumstances in his life caused him to turn to Christ.  He is now serving the Lord and is completely delivered from alcohol.  In fact, Friday, he told me  that he has been dry for exactly 30 days. 

Yesterday, Brock was baptized at New Vision Church of the Nazarene in San Antonio.  You can see the video here.  Watch the one from June 14th “Godly Living”.  His baptism is about 4 to 5 minutes in.  What an awesome God we serve!

There is hope for your lost loved ones.  They can come home.  Do not quit praying!  The answer may be just around the corner.

I always look forward to Sunday so we can see what God does.  It was a busy morning nonetheless.  I taught Youth Sunday School this morning.  Their teacher wasn’t able to make it so I pulled something together to talk about.  I enjoyed our conversation and getting to know our young people a little better.

We continued our Hostage series.  We talked about being held captive by worry and how to overcome worry.  We identified four major causes of anxiety in our society today.

1.  Rush Sickness – trying to cram 30 hours of activities in 24 hours.
2.  Straining – trying to make it ahead in this world and straining to find acceptance and success in life.
3.  Change – changing jobs, homes and other things that are tough changes.
4.  World Instability – all the issues of living in a sin-filled world.

To overcome worry we find the remedy in Philippians 4:6-7.
1. Prayer and Supplication – supplication literally means taking our burdens to God and leaving them there.
2.  Thanksgiving – Focusing on what He has already done, rather than on what He hasn’t done yet.
3.  Let your requests be made known to God – Be specific with your needs.

These are good remedies for worry.  They are sure to work because the Bible tells us to take this road.  Paul said to be anxious for nothing and then gives us these steps to be without anxiety.

After service we had our first newcomers luncheon to get to know some of our newest people.  We were joined by several new families and singles as well as a couple of our long-time members.  It was a great time of connecting with some  of our newest attenders.

I have been working the last couple of days on changing our church website.  I was able to upload the new version this afternoon.  Now, there are still a few things to be done like adding sermon audio and pictures of our leadership.  But for the most part, it is complete.  Check it out and let me know what you think.  www.rogersag.com 

Also, be sure to check back over the next several weeks as we continue to enhance the website.

I have been re-adjusting my Scripture reading time and I am taking a new approach to maximize my daily intake of the Word of God.  It takes me a little longer but it enables me to glean from more sections of the Bible daily.

I have broken down the sections of the Bible and now read one chapter a day from each section.

1 chapter from the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy – The Law)

1 chapter from the History Books (Joshua through Esther)

1 chapter from the Poetic Books (Job through Song of Solomon)

1 chapter from the Prophets (Isaiah through Malachi)

1 chapter from the Gospels and Acts (Matthew through Acts)

1 chapter from the Epistles (Romans through Revelation)

Doing this has helped me digest more Scripture daily and read through the Bible a little quicker.

You can download a copy of the reading plan here.  Just check of the box of the chapters you read when you get done.  This chart helps you keep up with your progress.

If ye keep watch over your hearts, and listen for the Voice of God and learn of Him, in one short hour ye can learn more from Him than ye could learn from Man in a thousand years.

-Johannes Tauler-

Every night, I have a ritual.  I iron my clothes for the next day.  This allows me to get ready in a hurry and not have to worry about it in the morning. 

There is something I have found interesting in the clothing world.  Wrinkle Free Clothes.  Seems to me like that is false advertising.  Every evening, I iron my wrinkle free khakis and my wrinkle free shirt.  If it is wrinkle-free, why am I having to iron it?  Does anyone else have this problem?  Wrinkle-free is a slight oversight in advertising.  Wrinkle-less, maybe.  But not wrinkle free.  In defense of Dockers and Hagar, I did buy some khakis that weren’t advertised as wrinkle free and I couldn’t even iron out the wrinkles. 

My point to all of this is, we don’t always get exactly what is advertised.  Wrinkle-free means wrinkle-less.  Lower calorie diet food actually means smaller portions.  Diet Coke is truly a diet because it tastes so bad, who wants to drink it?  In our world, advertisement often triumphs over the total truth of the advertisement.

With the Word of God, however, it is not so.  Whatever is written in the pages of Scripture is the truth.  We can rely on it.  There is no false advertising.  It has all the answers we need and we can rely on God’s promises.  II Corinthians 1:20, “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.”

Father’s day came early for me.  Sonya bought me a new grill.  I love grilling food and my other grill was shot.  We went to pick  it up at lunch and fired it up for dinner.  My other grill had been out for a couple of months so tonight I was excited to cook. 

Even though it was a quick dinner it turned out good.  Grilled BBQ chicken…Simple recipe: Tex Joy BBQ Seasoning and then about ten minutes before you are done, baste it with BBQ sauce (My choice is Sweet Baby Ray’s).

"Somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them."

-G.K. Chesterton

HT: the bob blog feed