Pastor's Corner
August 2007
“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”
II Peter 3:18
Dear Church Family,
Well I did it again. I took on a home repair project! Now to those who know me, you know that this can be rather disastrous. You have heard me share how, what should be a rather simple job, turns into hours of work, many trips to the store and twice the money as planned!
Well, true to my pattern, that’s exactly what happened. The job was to replace the mesh on seven screens on our home windows. I got expert instructions on how to do this from my brother Nathan. He even loaned me the special tools needed to do the job. Well, several hours later the job was finished...and so was I! It took four trips to the local Lowes (wrong color of mesh from first trip, not enough spline and finally too little mesh!) and a lot of water to replace the sweat from working in the garage on one of the hottest days of the year! The job got done but it wasn’t easy for this “maintenance challenged” pastor!
You may wonder what this experience has to do with II Peter 3:18. Well, here is the connection I made. My spiritual life doesn’t always go according to plan. I have great aspirations of more prayer, deeper Bible study and just a better “walking in the Spirit”. Then I embark on the day and none of it goes according to plan. The busyness of life, the demands of others and the failures of my heart and attitude to be more Christ-like, all contribute to a less than sastisfying journey toward rightousness. So I need to grow more in “the grace and the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” That requires more “trips” back to God’s “store” of grace, patience and longsuffering. It requires learning from my mistakes, looking to do better next time and help from others working on the same “project” of being more like Jesus!
The “cost” will probably be more than I had planned on. Humility, conviction and challenge will be the needed investments for success before the Lord. The wonderful part of it all is that God is committed to helping me grow. Nudging, prodding, celebrating the progress and not “laughing” at the mistakes that need redone! Ultimately God always is encouraging us to grow spiritually! He is always committed to our good and His glory! Every event, encounter and experience is to be evidence of the Lord at work to make us more like Jesus. This no matter how long it takes and how much it “costs”!
I give myself little grace in my projects yet I keep trying and want to grow in knowledge to do it better, faster and more efficiently in the future. The Lord “giveth and giveth and giveth again”. His grace and as far as knowledge goes, He sees the “project” of our lives in Christ as ongoing daily and He knows someday we will “get it right”! Until then we “press on” (Philippians 3:14)!
So, like my home repairs, we keep at it. I’m so glad God’s work turns out better than mine! In the meantime, I’ll see you at Lowe’s!
Serving with you,
