The Pastor's Pocket

Some of life’s greatest disappointments stem from someone we know and trust leaving a wound in our soul.  All of us, at some time or another, have been seriously disappointed in other people by their behavior, their attitude, their words, or they responded to us in a way that we felt was inappropriate.   Knowing ahead of time that offences will come is a hard lesson, but it must be learned.   Someone said, “the best of men is a man at best”.   We must accept the reality that every person is a human being, subject to multiple failures and mistakes in their relationship with others.   If we are prepared for disappointment, it will lessen the level of pain we feel, or at least lessen the frustration and help us heal and overcome our attitude toward them.   Here are some things to consider: (1) Your immediate family is a “classroom”. They are often the last to understand what you’re all about. Don’t be surprised if they misinterpret your passion for God. (2) Disappointment in people makes

We learn two ways, by mentors or mistakes.  Think about that.  We can be instructed, coached, motivated, helped, or guided by someone with more wisdom, more knowledge, more skill, more talent or more strength than we have ourselves. Or we can do things our own way, in our own limited understanding, with our own limited skills or resources.  When we allow ourselves to be mentored, we can avoid many mistakes.   Over many years of pastoring, I’ve watched people make a lot of mistakes in their marriage, parenting, finances, and their health. They made poor decisions because they refused to learn from someone who could help them.  Did they learn from their mistakes? Probably so, but those are hard lessons that led to a lot of frustration and heartache.   I have preached a lot of sermons through the years that would have helped some people with problems they are facing, but they never attended church to hear those sermons.  I’m amazed at people who say they can’t afford to buy an audio sermo

Have you ever been to the ocean and taken the time to watch the waves crashing in on the shoreline? They just keep coming wave after wave. The process never ceases. That to me is a picture of God’s grace. His undeserved favor poured out upon our lives. Wave after wave, day by day, minute by minute.   In 2 Corinthians 12:9, God spoke to the Apostle Paul with these words, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Sufficient means, always enough. Just like the waves of the ocean, God’s grace keeps coming. It never runs out. It never ceases to flow into our lives, in our crisis moments, and the dark seasons of our lives.   Thank God for the waves of His sufficient grace in your life.   The Pastor’s Pocket Pastor Bruce Freeman  

You’ve never really given a problem over to God until you completely trust Him with the outcome. Too much of our faith in prayer is tied to getting God to do what we think is best. We rejoice if God does what we ask or if He responds as we think He should. What if God has other plans? Is He any less faithful?   The truth is, God sometimes does have plans that differ from our own agenda.   As we pray, we must be willing to accept whatever God determines best.   That’s never easy, but it’s a place we must come to in our understanding of the Holy One.   We all know the story of the three Hebrew young men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and the fiery furnace.   The story is found in Daniel chapter 3.   An order had gone out from the Babylonian king that everyone in the province was to bow down to the golden idol, and anyone who refused would be thrown into a fiery furnace. I love the approach of these three men in Daniel 3:17, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us

On our way to and from church, we drive through a construction zone where they are building a new highway. It’s a major project and at this point you can’t tell how and where it will one day reach completion. There are a lot of earth-moving bulldozers, dump trucks, and a lot of other machinery moving all over the place. At this point, only the architects and engineers really know how it will eventually come together to become a major highway.   It’s like that with our lives. Sometimes we go through trials, pass through the fires of hardship, and we wonder how it all fits together in God’s ultimate plan for us.   The Apostle John wrote in I John 3:2, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be”. In other words, right now, only the Divine Architect knows how it all fits together. But this much we do know, He does have a purpose and plan. John goes on to say in that same verse, “when He shall appear, we shall be like Him”. One day, we will come to the completion phase of His plan, and we wil

A lack of genuine holiness is the predominate reason God withholds His awesome power in our lives. When we pray and God does not respond, we need to consider the reason why. Psalm 66:18 says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:” Isaiah 59:1-2 says, Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” God has not gone deaf, but there may be an underlying problem and it’s not with Him, it is with you and me.   God is serious about how we deal with sin. If we fail to confess sin our prayer life will be hindered. I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” The word confess means that we agree with God about our sin and admit we have sinned. When we say to Him, we failed to obey and we are sorry, He w

“Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for Thee”. Psalm 25:21   Waiting seems difficult, useless, and even impossible to do, but it does have a significant role to play in our development and growth process.   This generation is one of rush, rush, hurry, hurry.  I believe one of Satan’s tactics is to speed us up, bypassing the blessing that comes with lingering in the presence of God.  We must learn to enjoy the now, to savor the present moment.  After all, it has taken us a lifetime to get here.   Yesterday is in the tomb, tomorrow is in the womb. Today, this moment, is all we have.  So why do we find it so hard to wait on the Lord if that’s what He instructs us to do?  I have made many a blunder by failing to wait on God.  Pushing through my agenda seldom works out.    Here are some tips to help you and I wait on the Lord: (1) Waiting is hurry’s enemy.  Patience brings power, vision, motivation, and perseverance (Isaiah 4:28-31).  (2) True change occurs in the presenc