,

Homework for Tomorrow

Good evening church family,

Lisa and I homeschool our three children. Every year we purchase a curriculum for each of them and the kids work their way through it from September to early June. All the traditional subjects are studied, with a course on the Bible added in. In our little one-room-schoolhouse, Lisa does the lion’s share of the educating; serving as both teacher and principal. But I help out some. I oversee the biblical instruction for all three and handle the language arts coursework for the two girls. Each night I grade the day’s work and then after breakfast the next morning, I sit with each of the kids individually and go over any corrections I happened to make the previous night. Before heading out the door, I also go over their lessons for the day and outline their homework and assignments. It’s a lot of fun for me and I truly enjoy it. When Bryn, Ingrid, and Brooks take their turns sitting next to me at my spot at the table, I delight in the precious time together. As they learn about the world, I get a chance to learn about each of them. I find that one is all business while another is all squirm. One takes each stroke of red ink personally while another only yawns. One dials it in when something is confusing and hard to understand while another fragments in despair. Some tolerate my classroom humor but, sadly, none laugh at it.

We just recently began a new unit in Ingrid’s language arts course and the introductory page explained that poetry would be the main focus of the lessons over the coming weeks. Upon learning this, Ingrid slumped back in her chair; letting her head hit the backrest. “Oh, no,” she groaned as sympathetic groans echoed from her schoolmates seated around the dining room table. From Bryn’s previous tangles with poetry, a prejudicial dislike for rhythm, meter, and verse has unfortunately corrupted our institution. Of course – truth be told – I’m probably not the most inspiring teacher on the subject. I’ve never had a fondness for poetry and have always preferred prose. You’ll never find me jumping up and standing on the table while giving an impassioned recitation of Thomas or Keats. But both of my parents tried to instill within me a love for poetry and much of God’s inspired Word is in verse and so I’ve tried hard to gain an appreciation.

Well, we’re a week-or-so into it now and it’s not going all that badly. One of Ingrid’s lessons last week had her studying the diamond or “diamante” style poem. For those not familiar with this type of poetry, a diamond poem consists of sixteen words written on the page in the shape of a diamond. A noun is written at the top and center of the sheet; serving as the subject of the poem. Under it – also centered – come two adjectives. Beneath them – again, everything centered – three verbs are spaced out. In the middle are four nouns and then, in descending order, come three more verbs, two more adjectives, and then a final noun – the finished composition appearing in the shape of a diamond; the sixteen words painting a picture of the subject at the top. Ingrid and I went over the style and talked through some of the examples that were given. She didn’t seem too frustrated with the lesson until we began going over the day’s assignments. When I noted that she’d be expected to write a diamond poem of her own, Ingrid’s little outboard motor hit a rocky ledge; bending her propellers.

“C’mon, Dad,” she said, burying her right palm into her right cheek. “You’re not going to make me write one of these are you?”

“Honey,” I reply shaking my head, frustrated by the bad rap poetry’s gotten in our school, “it says you can write it about anything you want. You can write it about your dance class, ice cream, or Dude Perfect (our kids love watching Dude Perfect videos for some reason) – anything you want.”

“Fine,” she replied with a punchy tone; gloomily resigned to her fate. “I’m going to write it about you!”

“Perfect,” I replied with a grin; getting a little grin in return. “But just remember, I’m going to be the one grading it.”

That night, after bedtime reading (The Sign of the Beaver for Brooks and Sense and Sensibility for the girls), Lisa and I poured a little iced coffee for ourselves and headed downstairs to let the day ebb away in conversation, television, and grading. I looked forward to reading Ingrid’s poem. She’s got a good sense of humor and I fully expected her to come after me. But what I read instead really blessed me. Here’s her poem:

John

pastor dad

mowing raking shoveling

loving kind annoying cooker

planning talking thinking

husband compassion

nice

Now, I might have fared a whole lot worse than that and, in fact, I might never fare much better! I read and reread Ingrid’s poem as I sipped iced coffee and listened to the pellet stove crackle and blow. I really reveled in it, to be honest. It proved an unexpected blessing to have my child attempt to capture me in sixteen words and to find that the nouns, adjectives and verbs she used were evidence of a love and respect she had for me. After going over it with Ingrid the next day, I secretly snuck the poem out of her notebook and tucked it into mine. It’s been sitting on my desk at the office ever since.

As I continued to reflect on the poem, the thought occurred to me that I ought to try and write one for the Lord. Maybe He’d enjoy it if one of His children tried to capture Him in sixteen words. And so, I did. Here’s what I came up with:

Him

quick keen

watching waiting willing

ears arms eyes voice

hoisting helping healing

knowing close

mine

I handed it in to my Father and I hope He’s tacked it up somewhere on the beaver board over His desk. I hope it blesses His heart to have an expression of how He’s blessed my heart over and over and over again. As you prepare for worship tonight and tomorrow – why not write a little diamond poem of your own. Take sixteen words to bless your Dad today. I think you’ll both be blessed by the homework!

We’re looking forward to gathering together in the morning to worship our God and King and to fellowship in our citizenship in the eternal Kingdom of our Lord! It stands to be a wonderful time in the Lord’s house. May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

  • Pastor Tate
/by
,

Operator

Good morning church family,

“I’m sorry,” the disembodied voice on the other end of the line begins, “but the person you are trying to reach has a voicemail box that has not been set up yet. Please try again later. Goodbye.”

When she’s done giving me the bad news – and it’s always a woman’s voice that’s dispatched to do such a thing – she calmly and dispassionately hangs up on me. I take the phone away from my ear and look dumbly at the screen, the way a child looks at his mommy when his balloon floats away or when his ice cream falls out of the cone and onto the pavement. But my phone, like my mommy, only looks back at me blankly.

“Well,” I console myself, “at least they can see that I called. And – like she said – I can always try again later.”

I decide to place another call to another person. It rings and rings.

“I’m sorry,” the same female cyborg answers, “but the person you are trying to reach has a voicemail box that is full and cannot receive any more messages. Please try again later. Goodbye.”

In olden days I would have just put the handset back into its cradle on the wall, watched the cord twirl up in a bunch underneath, and walked merrily away. But now I just stare into the backlit abyss that is my smartphone; waiting for some notification to give me direction.

“I suppose I could send a text message,” I suggest to myself – a grimace appearing on my face. “I mean, they’ll see that I called but because I didn’t leave a voicemail – they won’t think it’s important. They’ll never call back.”

With a sigh of resignation, I open the text messaging app on my phone. “What I wouldn’t give for a piece of parchment, a quill pen, and an ink well right now,” I say to myself. “I’d scratch out a neat and tidy note with as elegant a hand as possible, nobly review the composition as the ink dries, bend the correspondence into a trifold crease, pour a dollop of hot wax over the fold, and carefully affix my seal into the wax. I’d then ring for my manservant who would ably dispatch a courier to deliver the message. Then, with the happy sound of the courier’s horse galloping away from my courtyard, I would return to the silent reverie of my study.”

Putting fantasy aside, I begin writing out the first text message. I labor over the introduction. Should I use “hey”, “hello”, or some other greeting? Should I use the person’s name? Would an exclamation mark be over the top? A comma be too formal? What about a smiley face emoji? Ugh – I hate it. Then there’s the body of the message to fool with. I prefer complete sentences and a strict adherence to grammatical standards but in the texting medium this feels something like wearing a suit and tie to a barbecue. So, I settle on the grammatical equivalent of business-casual – the jeans and untucked collared shirt of contractions, colloquialisms, and fragments. Brutal. Finally, there’s the conclusion to write. My instinct is to always give a proper benediction at the end of any message but, because texting is more akin to conversation than correspondence, a grand goodbye could appear as though I’m stiff-arming any future reply – I just sat down to dinner and I’m already standing up and putting my coat on to leave. But despite all these tortured ruminations, I manage to muddle through and prepare something for the send button.

As my clumsy thumbs are busy tapping it all out, the Lord looks over my shoulder and shares a thought with me. What He has to say isn’t the type of thing that demands my full attention – He’s happy to have me multitask as we talk. “Have you checked your voicemail box recently?” He says, perhaps trying to check some of my frustration and bring in a little humility.

“Hmm,” I utter my acknowledgement with a slight nod of the head, “that’s a good thought, I don’t remember clearing out my box anytime recently. I should do that.”

“I’m not talking about your phone, John,” the Lord says with crisper tone.

I don’t know about you, but when I get alone with the Lord – when I’m intentionally setting aside some “face to face” time, as it were – both God and I seem to have an agenda. I have things I want to share, vent about, and fellowship in. I usually have requests to make and I often seek some guidance of some kind. Sometimes all I really want is to enjoy the Lord’s company and be blessed by some of His undivided attention. God is so loving and patient – He almost always allows me to go through my entire agenda with Him. But, as I said, He almost always has things He wants to do and accomplish as well. He often begins His portion of our meeting by reviewing old business – things that we’d discussed in previous meetings and which I’d promised to take care of. I know this is coming and I try to have taken action lest I spend the entire time squirming. There are usually some words of encouragement and some new business too – things He’d like for me to begin aligning my heart, mind, and energies with. But the agenda item that He’s most sure to cover is the one that deals with necessary areas of correction in my life. He’s faithful to point out for me things that He’s unhappy with and that I need to change.

I suddenly realize that this is what God is referring to when He asks about my “voicemail box”. It didn’t happen overnight and I wasn’t even entirely conscious of it at first; but I had begun managing my times alone with the Lord in such a way that He wasn’t afforded the opportunity to chasten and discipline me anymore. For instance, I adopted a blanket confession of sin that I would make at the beginning of each of our meetings. This was heartfelt actually and usually accompanied by a sincerely penitent bending of the knee. “That ought to cover it,” I’d assure myself. I also began only allowing a proxy to cover most of the Lord’s agenda – restricting His voice to Scriptures of my own choosing and readings of His saints that serve only to provide glancing blows here and there. But, as moderator, I was careful to make sure the meeting passed at such a pace that the Spirit was never allowed the floor. Awful. But perhaps the most underhanded of all my changes was the way I began scheduling our times together with a hard break at the end. I have a 9 o’clock appointment, let’s say, and so I begin my time with God at 8:45. There’s just enough time for my items and, “Oops, we’ll have to circle back on anything You might want to bring up later, Lord.”

But of course, “later” almost never comes. And now my voicemail box is full of important messages that I haven’t listened to and I’ve changed my quiet time in such a way so as to disable the function of Heavenly messaging altogether. This is how you end up having prophets coming to you with stories about pet lambs and such and how you end up with matted hair that looks like feathers, fingernails as long as claws, and grass stuck between your teeth.

So, I put my phone down and look God in the eye again. Thankfully – mercifully – the call comes through.

What a wonderful blessing from God is the family of God! God wouldn’t have any of His children be orphans in this world but ensures that each is given a home to belong to, to be nurtured in, and to blessed by. And what a wonderful home is ours! I look forward to a rollicking time in the living room tomorrow morning! Until then – may the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

  • Pastor Tate
/by
,

Cutting Back the Puckerbrush

Good morning church family,

Just shy of the turn that would take him up the Stage Road and past the church, Sandin heard sirens wailing from behind. Easing the right-side tires onto the soft shoulder, Sandin looked in the rearview mirror and saw a Bolton town cop car kicking up dust and closing fast on his position; its blue strobes flashing wildly. A Bolton fire truck was not far behind it, roaring and rumbling as it came. Coming to a complete stop, Sandin watched the emergency vehicles blitz by. The speed of the fire truck shook his sedan as it whooshed past; the sound of its big diesel engine reverberating in his chest. A quick check again in the rearview mirror revealed a second fire truck several hundred yards back and coming at a quick pace. Sandin kept his foot on the brake and looked distractedly out the passenger-side window. There, just inside the tree line and only a few paces from the shoulder, stood a road sign. Untrimmed tree limbs and unchecked sumac and puckerbrush had threatened to completely obscure the sign from passing motorists. Attempting to peer through the foliage, Sandin leaned across the armrest. The metal sign post stood about seven-feet-tall with a little sign bolted to the top of it. Looking intently at the weathered block letters spaced neatly in three careful rows, Sandin was able to make it out. “BOLTON BIBLE CHURCH,” the sign read. Below the message was an arrow directing traffic and at the top of the sign a simple, white cross blazed the blue background.

“Hmm,” Sandin thought to himself. “I’ve never noticed that sign before.”

Sandin wasn’t from Connecticut. He’d grown up in Southern California and gone to college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He met a girl from Vermont while studying there and the two fell in love and were married not long after graduation. After a successful internship at Raytheon, he was offered a job in aerospace technology at one of their offices in Connecticut. Sandin and his wife settled in the town of Bolton; eventually buying a house and starting a family. They’d been there almost nine years now and they loved it. Growing up in church and having been baptized at an early age, Sandin’s faith had always been an important part of his life. Upon moving to Bolton, he began looking for a church before he’d even begun trying to get the power and cable TV turned on at the house. He and his wife had worshipped around for a bit before settling in at Bolton Bible Church.

Bolton Bible was a non-denominational, very Evangelical fellowship of conservative Christians. It was not a large group – maybe sixty or seventy souls in attendance on a good Sunday. But they were a wonderful family of earnest and loving believers who cared for each other and maintained a steadfast commitment to the Gospel. Bolton Bible was led by a quiet, well-spoken, and sincere pastor who spent the lion’s share of his time in his well-appointed study. The pastor did almost all of his socializing, counseling, teaching, and connecting from the pulpit on Sunday and the lectern on Wednesday night. Consequently, he was not well-known to his people but they revered him and were genuinely grateful to God for the blessing of such a studious and scholarly shepherd to watch over them.

The town of Bolton was well-settled and home to a population of highly educated, upwardly mobile, affluent New Englanders. It was a pretty leafy little town – mostly homes and neighborhoods. There wasn’t much by way of commerce and industry aside from a couple of nondescript office buildings and a shopping center set well-off of the road. The church building, which was a neat and elegant construction in the classical colonial style, fit in well. The church people did a good job keeping up the building and grounds and most townspeople regarded the church as affectionately as they did the big red barn and silo belonging to the only remaining farm in town. But as far as the unbelieving public was concerned, the church’s building wasn’t much more than a bit of civic décor and its members nothing but harmless stewards of a sentimental heritage.

As the second firetruck thundered by, Sandin checked his mirrors before climbing back up onto the pavement and taking the turn onto the Stage Road. As he drove past the church building, the pastor’s pickup was the lone car in the lot. Sandin thought some more about that sign back on Hammonasset Avenue. “It must have been important enough to someone,” he thought to himself, “to go to all the trouble of having that sign made and approved by the town and installed and all.” He drove a few hundred yards in silence; the quiet humming of his Audi’s engine the only soundtrack. “And now,” the uncomfortable line of thinking continued, “that sign must not be important to anyone.”

That Sunday at church, Sandin asked around about the sign. Many, like him, were unaware of its existence.

Jacob Lohr, one of the elders, knew all about it. “Oh yeah,” he began, folding his arms and putting one hand under his chin, “there’s actually three of ‘em – maybe only two now. There’s the one down there on Hammonasset and I know there’s one over on Cranston where it connects to Stage. The one that was back off the bypass; I think that one got taken out by a plow years ago. But anyway – yeah, we had those put up years ago when miss Evelyn Sylvester was still with us. She insisted on it. ‘Maybe no one will ever come because of them,’ she used to say, ‘but they won’t forget we’re here and it never hurts to see the cross.’” Elder Lohr dropped his arms and put his hands back in his pockets. “We sure had a devil of a time getting those things approved by the Bolton Town Board.”

Over the next couple of weeks, the shrouded church sign continued to bother Sandin. He’d become determined to do something about it. It wouldn’t take more than an hour’s worth of work to cut back the encroaching woods but he wanted to check in with the pastor before doing anything; just in case the project was booby trapped in some way that he couldn’t see. That Sunday he waited to talk to the pastor after the service and filled him in on the situation.

“So,” Sandin said, holding a blueberry muffin in one hand; his Bible tucked under one arm and his one-year-old girl cradled in the other, “what do you think? Any reason I can’t go down there and cut all that back and make our sign visible again?”

“No,” the pastor said, a keen earnestness in his countenance, “you most certainly can. There’s one long easement running the length of Hammonasset. But I’m not sure why you’d want people to see that sign in the first place.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by that, Pastor,” Sandin said, a quizzical look on his face as he allowed his little girl to pick off another piece of muffin.

“Well, Sandin, all I mean to say is that I think we have some other trimming we ought to do first before we go directing anyone to come see any of us. I mean our witness and testimony as a people has gotten pretty overgrown with our own brush and weeds these days. That sign only directs people to a building and, as you know, buildings don’t say much.” The pastor looked out the window that offered a view out onto the Stage Road. “God’s made each and every one of us into a sign. And my goodness – we sure need to get our gospel showing again.”

We’re looking forward to gathering in God’s house tomorrow morning to share in fellowship with one another and in communion with Him. I’m so glad we’re all a part of the family of God and I’m so grateful for the blood of Jesus Christ that makes going home again possible. Praise the Lord for His goodness and mercy!!! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

  • Pastor Tate
/by
,

High Office

Good morning church family,

I wonder what would happen if all the woodland creatures who lived in the fields, forests, and meadows of New England got together to form a republic. What if way out in the Allagash they built for themselves a court, capitol building, and executive mansion? When they finally got around to having a vote; who do you imagine they’d elect to serve as wilderness president?

Well, if this woodland republic was democratic, I’d think a mouse would end up the chief executive, for surely mice would make up the largest voting bloc in the land. In fact, I’d think most of the animal’s congress would be populated by rodents; with chipmunks, squirrels, gophers, and voles filling the majority of the seats. I mean, there might be a valley or a glen here or there represented by a whitetail or a turtledove and a I suppose a number of wetlands might elect beavers to serve as legislators, but aside from a few of these outliers, this new republic of the woodlands would surely be run by little critters.

But if the animals decided to populate their government the way we populate ours, a trip to the Allagash would reveal a truly dumbfounding reality. For inside the animal’s capitol building you wouldn’t find a bunch of field mice and tree squirrels pontificating on the importance of deforestation control or wrestling over acorn subsidies and such. No, you’d find a bunch of coyotes there instead; raccoons, skunks and hawks all sitting back smoking cigars while they sell the future of the woods down the Kennebec. A big fat bear would be asleep in the Speaker’s chair and a little weasel would have his feet up on the desk, twirling a gavel in his hand. And there in the woodland White House, a sly fox would be holding forth in the oval office.

I never saw a single episode of the hit Netflix drama House of Cards, but I did read a good bit about it. I was fascinated by the popularity of a show that portrayed the people’s government in Washington as a hothouse for the flourishing of every kind of corruption, perversion, and degradation. What was particularly interesting to me was that no one saw the sad storylines in every episode as unrealistic. The nation just shrugged it all off; thinking to itself, “Yeah, I guess that’s about right.” Even though there was nothing ennobling or inspiring in either the plotlines or the characters that were being developed, our countrymen spent good money and precious time watching this stuff. America was entertained by the debasement of its own government.

What is wrong with us? Why, in a republic like ours where the people have a vote, do we have so many wolves, weasels, and thieving raccoons representing us in congress? Why is the White House so often a den for a fox? Why aren’t we represented and led by everyday critters like us – men and women who are simply looking to work hard and provide for kith and kin; all while pursuing happiness? I mean, most of us are pretty ordinary. We’re not a bunch of sophisticates and elites with nefarious agendas for the radical transformation of our country and world. The vast majority of Americans aren’t one-percenters who’ve made their millions and billions by using access to power to secure no-show consultation jobs and lofty positions on Fortune 500 boards. We’re not a nation of nihilists. And yet, if you look around the halls of government, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks or talks or lives like us. Why is that?

Well, I suppose it’s possible that power’s corrupting influence on people is entirely to blame – we keep sending good people to Washington, the thinking goes, but then something in the Potomac River water turns Mr. Smith into Mephisto. While there’s certainly something to this theory, it’s just a little too neat and tidy for me.

I think instead that we, the people, have allowed Washington to become the kind of place that attracts dodgers, scoundrels, and other bad hats. I think we’ve so demeaned politics at this point and become so accepting of a culture of corruption in elected office that robbers find license in our sighs of resignation and are emboldened by all our shrugging. When we rate candidates not by their character but by how artfully they lie and obfuscate, we unwittingly promote the wicked. When we award points for honey-tongued promises and applaud clever evasions, we’re courting partnerships with manipulators. I’m an adult and I recognize that when there happen to be a lot of weasels on the ballot that my obligation is to vote for the lesser of two weasels. And I’ll certainly continue trying to make those decisions in wisdom. But we must mourn over a ballot like that and pray earnestly for better ones.

My simple plea – which, admittedly, is but a voice crying out in the digital wilderness – is that we do everything we can to make character an issue in elective politics. As we continue to strive as Christians to live holy and upright lives, let our righteousness be reflected in our representative government – however small and insignificant that reflection might seem. Don’t allow the jadedness of Washington politics to dim our light or take the seasoning out of our salt. Let us remember what Solomon said in the twenty-eighth chapter of Proverbs, verse one, “The wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” When we give up on Washington or Concord as hopeless places, we give up an opportunity to allow God to use us in those places. When the light that God has kindled within us shines from atop the stand He’s placed us on – remember that it gives light to all that are in the house that they might see our good deeds and glorify their Father who is in heaven. What a ministry!

As we prepare to go to the polls this election season, don’t forget the high office that we’ve been elected to by Heaven. We daily serve as agents of salvation to a condemned world. And if the Spirit of God reside in little mice like you and me then we, the lowliest of critters, become kings of the jungle.

We’re looking forward to gathering in God’s house tomorrow and I pray that we’ll find that a ladder like the one Jacob saw years ago, has been set against the back wall. I pray that God will be bringing Heaven down to us and that we will be sending the concerns and praises of Earth back up to Him. It’s going to be a wonderful day! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

  • Pastor Tate
/by
,

The Castle Guard

Good morning church family,

Imagine that your body is a castle and your spirit the precious life within. Imagine your castle’s treasury to be so rich in peace and joy, that you must make a fortress of yourself lest the pillaging barbarians pour in. Now scan the perimeter of your castle walls. Where are its weakest points? Should you set a guard at your toes? Should ramparts be built at your elbows, marksmen positioned in turrets atop your knuckles, and a moat dug around your belly button? Could the strategy of the barbarians really be to launch their attack at your digits, bones, and joints? I suppose anything is possible but those parts of the wall are fairly impregnable. Access to the inner realm is simply not granted at those spots. Go ahead – let the enemy lay siege to your toes and amass their entire army there. Let them roll in the trebuchet and pile a mountain of stones beside. Let the archers make torches of their arrows and their cavalry ride in at a gallop. Your toes could be completely conquered, occupied, and even cut clean off and God’s image not be damaged a bit.

No – our enemy is not so benighted nor so dumb. He knows that the place to attack is at the gates.

Our castles all have three gateways; don’t you know. Of course you know this, for it’s obvious. Think of all the freight that’s daily admitted in through the large gateways at your eyes. Railway cars overflowing with images, barges carrying a hundred shipping containers all filled with words, and tractor-trailers loaded to the last bulwark with advertisements and seductions of every kind. And what of the gateways on either side of your head? In through your ears, a river of philosophy, thought, and argument – much of it set to music – flows down the canal day and night. Finally, there’s your mouth – that yawning, gaping vulnerability. There are fewer imports admitted at this gate than at the others but what the enemy is able to get past the guards there – whether it be narcotics, intoxicants, poisons, or other unhealthy things – can steal more treasure than anything else.

Eye gate, ear gate, and mouth gate; all three grant direct access to your castle’s inner realm where the heart, mind, and soul reside. You say you know this, but where is your security at these critical points? And don’t tell me about that Barney Fife character you have sitting on a stool between your two eyes; the one with the bullet in his breast pocket and the hat tipped down over sleepy eyes. And I’ve seen the mercenaries you’re counting on to keep the peace by each ear canal. They do okay when they’re getting paid a pretty penny but their heart’s not in the job. It doesn’t take an awful lot for them to be bribed into looking the other way at the importing of barrels and barrels of lies. And last of all, that new-fangled bit of technology you’ve got running the border at the back of your teeth – the one that scans bar codes and checks for government approvals – that thing does its job, I suppose. But it sure isn’t discerning. You must know it’s letting all manner of deadly things down the hatch.

No, this simply won’t do. You’re going to need to empower an entirely new security apparatus if your castle’s going to maintain its integrity and be spared a collapse at the hands of the enemy. Fire all your law enforcement. Ask for your chief’s badge and strip your commanders of their rank. Transfer all your agents to remote outposts. They’ve failed you and were never really up to the job anyway.

Turn all your security over to the Holy Spirit and allow Him, through the work of repentance and sanctification, to dispatch love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control to go stand guard at the gates. These are mighty guardians indeed! They are keen-eyed, lionhearted, and fierce. No enemy is any match for these defenses.

Don’t take your castle’s security lightly. Many a once sovereign heart has grown proud and cold. I’ve seen the flag of faith lowered from the castle spire and replaced with the pirate’s Jolly Roger. Remember what the Apostle John wrote to his fellow believers: “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever.” (1John 2:15-17)

What a wonderful blessing it is to have brothers and sisters in the Faith, to have an ordered home where the Word is loved and honored, and to have so many gatherings that stimulate us to love and good deeds. It’s grand to be a Christian! We’re looking forward to gathering together again in the morning to see what the Lord intends to do. May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

  • Pastor Tate
/by