The Pastor's Pocket

  A Father to the Fatherless (Psalm 68:5a) Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads! As a father myself, having raised two daughters, I am reminded today of the blessing it is from God to be a Dad. Every person on earth had a man who fathered them (two female lovers still cannot pro-create! Just thought I’d throw that in). Fatherhood is about relationship. There is a biological connection for every person and the man who fathered them. It is sad today, but the statistics are real. Seventy five percent of all incarcerated men (and boys) declare they never had a good or “normal” relationship with their father. Was he absent? Did he care? Did he take the time to love, instruct, or discipline? Was he too busy to have a relationship with his son? Every child suffers when their relationship with their father is skewed in some way. Psalm 68:5 reminds us that God (Heavenly Father) will be there for the abandoned. Put your trust in the “Father” who will never disappoint you! Dads – let’s work at it!

  Have you ever stopped to consider this truth?  God gave us our voices to communicate – to praise our Creator.  We are to sing unto God, to pray and call out to Him in prayer, to witness for Him and to proclaim the Gospel.  Of course, with our voices we communicate with other human beings and God tells us how we are to do that.  It’s unfortunate that we slander, criticize, gossip and lie with our voices.  We need to remember that God could take our voices away from us as He did with Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father (Luke 1:20, 22, 64). Imagine how it would be if you were mute!  What if your voice was useless or somehow rendered inoperative? Imagine how different your life would be if you had no voice! My friends, if we have the gift of a voice, let’s use it to call out to God!  Let’s learn to cry out to God (Psalm 27:7), “Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice: have mercy on me and answer me.” In Psalm 28:2 we read, “Hear the voice of my supplication when I cry unto Thee…”  Let’s

  If God leads us in a matter, He is, by necessity, going to help us. When God saved me and called me to preach, 40 years ago now, I was overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do next. A man, a total stranger, knelt to pray with me that day.  He gave me words of wisdom that I’ve never forgotten.  He said, “Wherever God leads you, He feeds you”. This is true for me, for you, for anybody!  If God gives you an instruction, He will supply whatever you need to successfully carry out His will.  It’s like a divine umbrella that provides wisdom, grace, finances and protection.  As long as we do HIS will, He will provide. The Lord told a blind man in John chapter 9, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam.”  The man did as he was told, and he received his sight. A genuine miracle followed his obedience to an instruction. God gave instructions to Joshua after Moses had died, to lead the people into the promise land. In Joshua chapter 1, the Lord promised him that He would be with him. He said, “I will not f

  When we are young, we think very little about eternity.  Heaven just doesn’t hold much appeal for us when we have love, marriage, and careers on our mind.  But as we get older, we begin to ask more questions like, “what will my life AFTER death be like?” The truth is, Christians don’t get buried, they get planted. Paul writes of our bodies in I Corinthians 15:42b, “it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption”, and in verse 43a, “it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.” God has placed just enough discomfort in our lives to make us long for heaven.  If we are saved, heaven is where we are headed after we die. So don’t get too attached to the things of this world.  Sooner or later we’ll all be leaving. Philippians 3:20 says, “For our conversation (citizenship) is in heaven…”  That is our GPS address already typed in by God Himself. As we age, deal with a deteriorating body, more troubles, trials, and heartaches, we long more and more for our eternal home where we will

  Psalm 23 In reading Psalm 23, have you ever considered the meaning of the words, “Thou anointest my head with oil”, found in verse 5?  Remember;  David was a shepherd.  He knew well how to care for sheep. So as he writes these words, he draws upon his own experiences to relate the good care of the Lord (our Shepherd) for His people. A shepherd would anoint, or rub oil on the sheep for two primary reasons:   1. To repel annoying insects.  If certain insects were allowed to deposit their eggs into the soft membrane of a sheep’s nose, they would drive the animal crazy.  The ewes would stop producing milk and the lambs would be hindered in their growth. So, the shepherd applied oil like repellent that kept the insects off of the sheep and kept the flock happy and at peace. 2. To heal wounds. A wound today could become tomorrow’s infection.  So oil would be applied to scratches and cuts to fight disease and infection from spreading to other members of the flock. Interestingly enough,

 Romans 8:28b, “…called according to his purpose” .   Do you know your purpose in life?  Everyone should know the answer to this question.  How do you discover your purpose? Here are a few helpful hints: Look within yourself. What moves you? What stirs you up inside? What excites you?  We know from reading Paul’s letters to the churches that it was the gospel that moved him to live as he did.  He said once to the Corinthians, “Woe is me if I preach not the gospel” (I Corinthians 9:16). Look behind yourself. What has life taught you? What experiences have you had that lead you in the decisions you are making now? Look around yourself. God always uses people around us to influence us.  Interact with the right people – it will lead you to the right destiny. Look ahead of yourself. Do you have the faith to trust God with your future?  Helen Keller said, “The only thing that’s worse than being blind, is having sight but no vision.”  What can you “see” through the eye of faith? Look beside y

  I have a riddle for you…   People worry about me; get twisted up in knots over me; stay awake at night thinking about me; wish they had more of me; never have enough of me; trade away their integrity to get me; stew, scheme and steal to get me; envy those who have more of me than they do; seldom just give me away; trade me for the strangest things; and then, just leave me behind when they die.  Who am I? MONEY.  “But godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we brought nothing unto this  world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” (I Timothy 6:6-7) Our attitude about money says volumes about us.  It must not rule our lives.  Paul says, “ godliness with contentment is great gain”.  How many contented people do you know? I would venture to guess very few.  We live in a very materialistic culture which pressures us to pursue more stuff, but money never satisfies.  No matter how much of it we attain, we always want more of it.  If we give our lives to it, we will come up emp