As I was driving down the road today, I was reminiscing about my 6th grade year.  It was my passage from elementary to junior high and I was on the road to having become a man.  Sixth grade was the year that I had to make a crucial decision in my life.  Band or Wood Shop.  A sixth grader should never have to make a decision like that.  Does band nerd mean anything to you?  Wood shop was more manly but I had this dream of being a drummer.  I wanted to play drums.  It was a passion.  I decided on band, and I would become a band nerd.

You see, the only cool people in the band were the percussionists and maybe the saxophonists.  So I thought I would be at least one of the cool ones.  My dreams were dashed on the rocks when my dad and I met with the band director.  It seems that every sixth grade boy wanted to play the drums.  It was too late to back out and my dad was there to help me make the decision. Well, actually it was all his decision.  The band director, Mr. Dempsey, had an opening for me to play the bass clarinet.  He might as well have said tuba.  This was a massive instrument.  The price was right, free, and that was music to my dad’s ears.  “My son, will play the bass clarinet.”  Oh thanks dad!  Yes, I still bear a small grudge over having to become a band nerd and never being able to learn to play drums. 

For my sixth grade year I bore the pain of this let-down.  Every day I was reminded of the decision that I had to play this ridiculous instrument.  I was out of place…it was not my pursuit and passion.  Is any one felling sorry for me yet?  I have scars over this.  Actually, the reason I hated the bass clarinet was because I had to carry it home every day.  A mile and a half…lugging a 4 foot case that weighed 25 pounds.  My hands hurt, I had blisters from carrying this every day.  It was a burden I had to bear.  I whined, I cried and no one cared!

Until one day, my dad, came home with a luggage dolly and a couple of bungee cords.  He showed me how to load the dolly and now all I had to do was pull the dolly to and from school.  My burden was lifted!  Thanks dad, I do remember your gesture to make things right,  From then on, it was easier to tote that old bass clarinet…my burden was lifted.

In life we have similar burdens.  It might not be a bass clarinet but it could be wounds from the past.  Broken marriages, abuses and hurts.  Maybe your burden is financial woes, or a sickness.  Maybe it is a wayward child or spouse that you worry about.  You can carry that load and let it be a grudge for you to bear.  You can hold the weight of the world on your shoulder and be shackled day after day.  But there is a Father who has provided for you a “luggage dolly” to help carry your baggage.  Peter said, “Cast your cares on him for He cares for you.”  Jesus said, “Come unto me, all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

Jesus is our luggage dolly and I encourage you to cast your cares on Him.  He will help lighten your load!

Many may already know that Steven Curtis Chapman, the award winning Christian artist, lost his youngest daughter in a tragic accident.  You can read about it here. 

Here is a quote about the accident, “Steven Curtis Chapman’s youngest child died Wednesday afternoon after being struck by a car driven by her teenage brother in the driveway of the family’s Williamson County home.”

Please pray for this family that God’s comfort might be extended to them. Pray especially for the teenage brother. I can’t even imagine what he is going through.

“Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying.  Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day.  Do it, I say!  Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.”  -Pope Paul VI-

In the book of Hosea we see that God is trying to bring His people back to Him.  They have been living in idolatry or what God called Harlotry, and He was judging them in order to turn them back to Him.  He begins to speak of a day when they will move from serving Him out of duty to serving Him out of relationship.

Hosea 2:16, “And it shall be, in that day, says the Lord, that you will call Me ‘My Husband’ and no longer call Me, ‘My Master’.”

Too often our life in Christ looks more like a duty instead of a relationship.  We often serve God legalistically with no hope for grace or mercy when we fall short.  We tend to portray ourselves as perfect people, we look the part of Christians who have “fulfilled their call of duty”, but on the inside, we have no joy because we fall short miserably.

Here is the power of relationship.  In a relationship, we do our best to please our friend/partner, but when we fail, it is not the end of the world because of our relationship.  If we got divorced over every argument in a marriage relationship, there would be no one married.  That is the power of relationship.  We serve one another in love and when we mess up, love covers a multitude of sins.

Too many Christians, live with too little grace.  Not enough grace for others and certainly not enough for themselves.  God wants a relationship with us.  It is His priority.  He wants to be known more as Husband than Master.  When we look at God only as a Master, we tend to serve Him with the wrong motives.  When we enter a relationship with our Husbandman, we find that because we love Him, we serve Him.  In every loving marriage there is submission.

Jesus said it this way, “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15)

How are you serving God? Serve God out of love, not duty.

In the book Jesus-Driven Ministry, by Ajith Fernando, the author challenges the conventional thinking of the American Pastor.  Fernando is from Sri Lanka and has a different perspective on ministry.  This book has been one of the most impacting books I have ever read on pastoral ministry.  It is a must read for every minister. 

In his chapter on praying, Fernando makes a statement that rocked me to the core.  Let it challenge you also, “One who is not in intimate personal contact with God, cannot lead God’s people into His presence.”

As pastors we cannot neglect the most important element of our ministry, our time with God. 

I admire anybody who can rap…I don’t know how they can say so many words and flow.  I can’t even clap on time; much less clap and sing.  I am not a big fan of rap, although I have this secret dream of being able to rap.  I think it would be fun!  At the Convoy of Hope Outreach Phil and I took a promo shot with Rapper DPB.  He was phenomenal.  I think it would be perfect if Phil and I teamed up with DPB.  The name already fits. 

D – Danny
P – Phil
B – Bobby (I guess the DPB would have to change his name to fit)

Convoy of Hope Outreach was awesome today.  We had a great time blessing the community of Port Arthur.  The power of an outreach like this is found in the vast number of volunteers it takes to pull it off.  Thanks to all of those from our church who helped out this week. 

The most important part of the outreach is the number of salvations, 154.  That’s what it is all about! 

Here are the stats for the day:

40 churches represented
14 organizations involved
2,479 guests
154 salvations
4,000 bags of groceries served

What a great day!

Yesterday Evening, Josh and I worked with a group of people for the Convoy of Hope outreach, which is this Saturday.  Our objective last night was to bag over 4,000 bags of groceries.  That’s alot of groceries.

As we began the process, over a hundred people pitched in to get the bagging done in an hour and forty-five minutes.  That’s pretty impressive.  That equals approximately 38 bags a minute.  Not bad considering each bag has quite a bit of food.  Everything went smoothly because we all had a goal and purpose in mind and we worked to get it done.

In the church, it is amazing what we can do if we all have the same goal and purpose in mind.  What Could We Do if we all worked together like this every week?  If our goal was to win one person to Christ a year, our church would double every year.  If our goal was to plant new churches, we could see the Kingdom of God expanded like never before.  We must work together and follow God’s plan for His church.

The early church started with 120 people in one mind and one accord and in no time they were running in the thousands.  Yes it was a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit works through unified people.  It was not long in the book of Acts before Luke changed the church growth terminology from “they added” to “they MULTIPLIED”

What Could Nederland First Assembly of God do if we all worked together to build our church?  What could the American church do if every church did the same?