New Blog

I interrupt my blog-abbitical to announce a wonderful new blogpost.

Click here to visit Terri Dodd.

By the way, she is my very sweet and beautiful wife.

Blog-abbatical

As you can tell- if you have checked in here lately- I have not been posting. I am taking what I call a little blog-abbatical.

It does have to do with current time and travel issues, but I can use this time away as a refreshment too. Call it my blog sabbath rest!

I will be back and I will let you know.

As always- thanks for stopping by.

Love the Brotherhood

1st Peter 2:17 is one dynamic, powerful little verse. Praise God that the Spirit included it in the Holy Scriptures!

Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.

Four sentences. Four points. Four challenges. Much could be written about each, but for now our focus is on but one.

Love the brotherhood. What a sweet, sweet sentence. I think it is time we took this to heart. Truly.

Too often I have noticed that we haven’t. Too often we have been unloving, unwilling to accept one another and unsympathetic. And our history is littered with the resulting damage.

I realize our brotherhood is imperfect. But imperfections do not somehow suspend our call to love and to treat one another as sons and daughters of the King.

Peter said love the brotherhood. He did not say always agree with everyone in it. He did not say force the brotherhood to hold your convictions.  He certainly did not say divide the brotherhood.

Loving the brotherhood is an amazing heavenly concept that will produce a people providing a powerful witness to the God who reigns in heaven.

A brotherhood where love rules will create an atmosphere where disagreements are properly handled (Matthew 18:15); where kindness and tender affection will define us (Romans 12:10); where the simple truth of God will always be presented as a gift of love (Ephesians 4:15); and where our love example will testify to the credibility of our Messiah (John 13:15).

Isn’t this what we should want?

The brotherhood, after all, belongs to Jesus. He is our head. (Ephesians 5:23) Why not allow him to protect it, guide it, and judge it. Our call is just to love it.

That sure has a sweet sound to it.

And a sweeter result.

Birthday Boy

Well, boy might not be the best word here, but today-October 1st- is my birthday.

Forty-nine years ago I came into this world on my father’s birthday in Greenville, MS and was not expected to live long.  But with God’s help I overcame those struggles and have been doing so ever since.

Back in the college day, a good brother who attended the tiny church where I did something loosely resembling  preaching, called up the college board chair and asked him to direct me to another life occupation. “He just ain’t got what it takes to be a preacher” were his words.

I must admit, there have been days when I thought that this brother might have had it right.  But I guess God has always had some kind of plan out there for me because my preaching adventure continues- and it is sweeter and more rewarding than ever at Gateway.

My dad adventures continue too. I would have never thunk it- that at my age- a five and a two year old would call me dad. And I would have never guessed that my other little girl would grow up to be such a radiant and independent woman seeing the country as a travel nurse. God does have a sense of humor!

He does have a great sense of grace too and I have basked in that over these years with one of his greatest grace gifts to me being my beautiful wife. I still cannot believe this old guy snagged such a young hot babe! lol

All-in-all my first forty-nine have been filled with wonderful blessings mingled in with some disappointments and failures, but through it all God has never failed me. Even without often realizing I have benefited from resting in the shelter of his wings.  

Thanks God from the birthday boy for the first 49. I am really, really going to need your strength to handle the next 49!