GOD STILL LOVES US EVEN ON OUR BAD DAYS

All of us have bad days. It is a part of life. None of us are immune. Nor do I know anyone who has ever gotten out of bed and said, "I hope I have a bad day today!" Yet bad days happen from time to time to all of us.

Yesterday was one of those days for me. It began with my Sunday School class. I teach a young adult class. I love the class and its students. I look forward to our time together each week. Most of them are twenty five years my junior. I look back and see myself and my wife and I appreciate the struggles they go through. I am eager to share what I have learned in life with them. I also look forward to sharing with them what God has shown me to be true in His Word.

Yesterday's Sunday School text was a tough one. It was taken from Matthew 1: 18-25. The text is a great text but we had already discussed some of its merits last week as we studied Mary's visit from the angel preparing her for the birth of Jesus. To be blunt I stumbled and bumbled my way through the whole lesson. I am sure there are hours worth of points to discuss from the text but for some reason it did not click with me and I felt I failed my class miserably!

Upon leaving class I thought the morning sermon has to be better than the class lesson. Once our service started I was pleasantly surprised at our attendance. We normally would have about 190 in attendance for the Sunday morning service before Christmas but our area had been pummeled by a bad snow storm on Friday night and Saturday morning. My wife asked me on Saturday night what I thought our attendance would be and I told her I expected somewhere between eighty and one hundred people to be in attendance. Much to my surprise we had one hundred thirty people for morning worship. The music was great. Our choir did a super job on two songs. Reba Manning's special was outstanding. There was a great spirit in the service but, you guessed it, I bombed on my sermon.

The thought I shared was one our State Chairman had shared with us in a meeting I was in a couple of weeks ago. It was a great thought yet a simple thought. I felt it was very timely for the Sunday before Christmas. I had typed myself a few notes to keep me on track. The problem was I never felt I got on track. My stumbling and bumbling from the Sunday School hour carried over into the morning service. No one was more happy to see the close of the service than I was!!!!

I left dejected and ashamed. I have been preaching since August, 1978. I have been pastoring since July 1980. I have preached somewhere in the neighborhood of four thousand five hundred sermons in the past thirty one years. I know when I have preached a decent sermon , and occasionally a good sermon, and when I have preached a bad sermon. Yesterday was as bad a sermon, from a delivery stand point, as I have preached in some years.

I reflected on the sermon all the way home. I continued to mull it over and over in my mind once I got home. I determined that the Sunday night sermon was not going to bomb. I looked over my notes and I prayed and asked God to help me do better. Sunday night's sermon was good. I communicated my thought in a clear and understandable way with a good degree of enthusiasm.

My wife and I stopped for a sandwich after church and then made our way home. I could not get the two failures of Sunday morning out of my head. And then the truth of God's love came to me. I began to realize that I might have been an utter failure Sunday morning but God still loved me. That is a lesson we all need to learn and accept. There was a time I would have beat myself up for days over my failure. I thought the better I did the more God would love me. I have learned in the last several years that is not true at all. There is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us any less. Nor is there anything we can do to make God love us more. His love is at the maximum level at all times. It never wavers one degree, up or down. I made up my mind right then and there that I was going to get a good night's sleep and Monday was going to be a good day! And I did get a good night's sleep and today has been a good day. And God loves me just as much today as He has every other day of my life including yesterday.

So the next time you mess up or have a bad day always remember this; God still loves you. Learn from your mistakes. Put them behind you. Put a smile back on your face and get on with life. And be sure of this; God is right there with you!!!

Just something to think about.

Pastor Jordan

TIME OR WANT TO?

This past weekend I logged onto our church's website and looked at my blog space. I couldn't believe it had been four months since I had posted something. It is not that I don't enjoy writing, I do. As I matter of fact I have always dreamed of writing a novel and hopefully more than one. Some people who know my dream ask why I haven't done so. The answer is simple: TIME . I know everyone has the same number of minutes in a day to work with so I have concluded I am lousy at time management.

It seems I used to have more time especially for personal things. For instance a passion of mine for many years was to bow hunt for deer. I would spend several hours before season came in scouting different areas and hanging tree stands. I would then hunt at least one day a week and often times more, hunting my day off and then trying to get in one or two evenings as well. This was always great mental and emotional respite for me. It gave me time to think with no phone ringing in my ear or being interrupted by an unexpected visitor. I have bow hunted less than twenty times in the past seven seasons. The problem: TIME.

As I become older I am more and more time conscious. For instance I am keenly aware that what I hope to accomplish for God in the remaining years of my life and ministry is being cramped more and more by time. The things my wife and I have talked about doing together such as revisiting the Adirondack mountains in western New York or taking a long trip to Alaska are getting squeezed more and more by time.

For all my life time has been a more precious commodity to me than money. As long as I have enough money to pay my bills I am content. But time is another matter altogether. If I only had time I could be with those I love more, I could read more, fish and hunt more and yes, even write more.

I will soon be 56 years old. My father died at the age of 72. Four of his siblings never reached 70. Two died after passing 70 and two are still living well past that age. Statistically speaking one would conclude I won't live to be 80. I do not fear that nor do I dread that. I am ready to go. But there are things I hope to do before I leave this world. People I hope to impact for Christ. Life long lessons I hope to impress upon my children and grandchildren. But all of that requires time.

Erzie Lavender used to say, "Brother Rob, people are going to do what they want to do when they want to do it." With that thought in mind maybe time is not my problem after all. Maybe it is my "want to". Maybe time is only a convenient excuse for me and my actions.If Erzie is correct I don't need more minutes in the day. What I need is more "want to" in my heart and spirit!!!

Perhaps that is why you are not accomplishing the things in life you want to do. It may not have anything to do with time, money or opportunity. Rather your "want to" might not be in the right place. Before time does run out search yourself and ask the hard question, "What is my real "want to" in life and then get on with making that "want to" a reality.

Just something to think about.

Pastor Jordan