The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

AllanStanglin.com

Author: Allan (Page 119 of 492)

Two Boats and a Helicopter

August 31, 2021 / / 0 Comments

You’ve heard the story. A man was trapped on his roof in the middle of a terrible storm while the flood waters rapidly rose around him. The man was in trouble and he cried out to God, “Lord, save me!” A neighbor paddled by in a canoe and called to the man, “Let me get you out of here!” But the man refused. “No, thank you,” he said. “My God will save me!” And the waters continued to rise.

An hour later a police rescue boat cruised down the man’s street. “Jump in!” the officer called. But the man replied, “I’m trusting in the Lord!” and stayed on his roof and prayed. And the waters continued to rise.

Another hour went by and a rescue helicopter arrived on the scene. A rope ladder was lowered to the man but he wouldn’t get on. “God is going to save me!” he said. “My faith is in God, not in man!” And he prayed. And the waters continued to rise.

An hour later the raging waters tore the man’s house apart, sweeping him under the river where he instantly drowned. Upon entering the afterlife, he complained to God, “Why didn’t you save me? I prayed to you, I begged you to rescue me, I confessed my faith in you, I publicly testified to your power! Why didn’t you save me?”

The Lord replied, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter. What more do you demand?”

It occurs to me that we spent the whole spring and summer of 2020 begging our God to take away the coronavirus. Heal us, we prayed. Father, remove the virus from our world. Intervene, Lord, and give us a cure. You are the Great Physician, God. Save us from COVID-19. We were all praying those prayers. All of us. We were all confessing our faith in God to provide the remedy, we were publicly testifying to his sovereignty over the disease and the terrible effects on our health and economy. God, please heal us of COVID-19.

In his great mercy, he gave us three vaccines.

Yet, many Christians are still sitting on their roofs, proclaiming their faith in God while refusing his good and gracious rescue.

Seriously. What more do you demand?

Peace,

Allan

Home in Midland

August 30, 2021 / / 0 Comments

We closed on the house here in Midland late Friday, a wonderfully beautiful home with a lot of personality and character in the Saddle Club subdivision on the northeast side of town. The timing was so perfect in acquiring this house – the previous owners had just been transferred to Houston when we saw it and their company had purchased it from them and was wanting to get it off their books quickly. We feel like if we had seen it just a day later it would have been gone. And it’s perfect for us! So perfect!

 

 

 

 

 

The layout allows for Whitney to have her own wing in the house with a bedroom, bathroom, den, and exterior access to a private patio. The rest of the house is an open plan with plenty of room for entertaining. The game room is big enough to handle the ping pong table and all our Dr Pepper stuff. And the lot is surrounded by older oak trees and massive pines.

What else comes with a house built in 1981 is the need for updating. I’ve spent several hours over the weekend scraping popcorn off the ceilings while Carrie-Anne and Whitney have been removing cabinet door handles and light switch plates for the texturing and painting that’s about to take place. Thanks to Mike Rupe who showed up unannounced yesterday to help scrape for three hours and to Gary Glasscock who’s helping us coordinate all the updating.

We feel very blessed by God and by this community of faith at GCR in Midland to be in possession of such a house. We feel very grateful. Once we get in for good, may the house be used to bless the church and for glorifying God. Until then, may we be blessed with resilient muscles, determined patience, and contractors who show up on time.

Peace,

Allan

Green Acres is the Place to Be

August 27, 2021 / / 1 Comment

Congratulations to Brandon Meeks who took the championship in our GCR staff miniature golf outing yesterday afternoon at newly-renovated Green Acres Mini Golf. I was fortunate enough to be playing in Brandon’s group and was able to witness first-hand his unique combination of athletic gift, exquisite skill, and gritty determination. And his ability to putt a golf ball up a metal ramp and through the swinging doors of a little windmill.

While Brandon was making noise with his scorecard, Tim Neale was making noise – literally – all over the course. He hit six holes-in-one throughout his round, prompting huge roars of approval from within his foursome and anyone else who happened to be near. The problem is that Tim also scored at least half a dozen “sixes,” the highest tally allowed on each hole. He’s like the baseball player who leads the division in both home runs and strikeouts. I reminded Tim that those are the guys who get traded to the Rangers.

 

Thanks to Jason Allen for organizing this quarterly staff get together and team building outing. I picked up some extra slang and learned a little more about what makes my co-workers tick. Putting Andrew, Cory, and Mauri in the same group guaranteed we’d all be finished a half hour before they were – that was a mistake. And somebody needs to explain to Jessie the difference between trash talk and godly encouragement.

Peace,

Allan

In Everything, By Prayer

August 25, 2021 / / 0 Comments

If we really believe that God is who the Bible says he is; if we really believe that he is the almighty true and living God, the powerful creator and sustainer of heaven and earth; if we really believe this God is personal with us and not only hears our prayers but faithfully answers them; if we really believe that, then our prayers will be continuous. And filled with passion.

Not eloquence. Not etiquette. Not posture and syntax and order. Our prayers will be characterized by passion.

Abraham pleading for Sodom. Jacob wrestling with God at midnight. Moses fasting and praying for God’s people in the wilderness. Hannah intoxicated with sorrow. David heartbroken with grief and remorse. Huge, passionate prayers. Jesus overcome with loud cries and tears in the garden. Elijah exploding with confidence on Mount Carmel. Paul courageously petitioning on behalf of the new churches.

Tonight at GCR, we’re going to pray some passionate prayers together. As a church family, we are going to pray for the people of Afghanistan. We’re going to beg our God to provide safety for that nation’s people, particularly the women and children. We’re going to ask God to bring an end to the violence there. We’re going to pray that God will protect the Christians in that country and give them the strength to remain faithful. And we’re going to pray for the safety and well-being of those in Afghanistan we might consider enemies.

We’re also going to pray for the COVID-19 situation in Midland and our West Texas region. We’ll ask God to heal the sick. We’ll pray that he give strength, encouragement, and endurance to the doctors, nurses, and health care providers who are in the thick of the battle. And we’ll ask God for his divine peace and patience as we resist the hostilities and division that seem to be related to the pandemic.

And we’re going to pray for our church family at GCR. We will lift the burdens of our brothers and sisters at GCR, we’ll request heavenly wisdom and guidance for our shepherds, and we’ll pray that God empowers us to fulfill his mission for this congregation of his people.

E.M. Bounds famously said, “Prayer does not prepare us for greater works; it is the greater work.” We’re taking that to heart at 7:00 this evening at GCR. If you live in Midland, I’m inviting you to join us.

Peace,

Allan

The Flesh and Blood Church

August 24, 2021 / / 0 Comments

You’ll hear people argue that when Jesus called people to follow him, he had something else in mind other than Church. Something spiritual and pure. Non-corporate. Non-institutional. Lofty. Divine. Not of this earth. The Church, as we experience her today, is not what Jesus intended. Christ’s salvation and transformation work is happening somewhere other than at Church.

No. Jesus is a flesh and blood person and his Church is a flesh and blood people.

That’s the beauty and the glory of our salvation: our God didn’t just come to us, he became one of us! That’s God’s salvation plan, that he would put on our flesh and blood. And when Jesus comes, it’s the messy flesh and blood part of it that’s so compelling.

As you read the Gospels, you can almost taste the dust. You can smell the animals. You can hear the people arguing. Jesus is not so much about inspiring concepts and uplifting ideals, he’s about fishing nets and mustard seeds and lost coins and lepers. Our Lord is more about tears and frustration and spit mixed with dirt and sheep and synagogues and sermons and suppers than he is about theological abstracts and disembodied ideas. Jesus is all about weddings and funerals, betrayal and forgiveness, thunderstorms and olive trees. The flesh and blood reality of Jesus as a real human person is in your face in the Bible.

And it’s beautiful! It’s magnificent! We praise God because he became one of us in Jesus Christ. Our eternal salvation is grounded in the fact that Jesus is a flesh and blood person, that he experienced everything you experience, that he knows you intimately and understands completely what you’re going through because he went through it, too. It’s awesome and mysterious and wonderfully glorious! What other God would do that?

Jesus the Christ, the Holy One of God, is a flesh and blood person. So, of course, his Church is a flesh and blood people.

I think churches long to throw off their flesh and blood nature and soar like Superman. Or supersaints. But that’s not going to happen. We’re a body. When people complain about the Church being too preoccupied with money or buildings or doctrine or prestige, when people gripe about the Church being closed-minded or boring, what they’re telling you is that they don’t like that the Church is a body. Bodies sweat. They get sick and require maintenance. Bodies produce weird smells.

But the Church is the Body of Christ. This is the flesh and blood form our risen and reigning Lord has chosen to be present in the world. It never fully meets our expectations; we can become disappointed in Church, or even embarrassed. But this is exactly how our God intends it.

Church is not another civic club or social organization, it’s not a non-profit charity or a spiritual retreat. We are a chosen people, a holy nation, chosen by a holy God to be the Body of Christ. Sometimes it may feel irrelevant or past its prime, but we are the very Body of Christ. This is how our God works for the sake of the world.

Peace,

Allan

Today We Pray

August 19, 2021 / / 1 Comment

What does a disciple of Jesus do about the violent chaos in Afghanistan? How does a church respond to the terror and desperation of so many thousands of people on the other side of the world? Well, today we pray. There may be an opportunity to do something else soon, but today we can pray.

This is a video we shot yesterday for our church family here at GCR. In it, I reference an email from Dan Bouchelle and Mission Resource Network containing texts messages and emails he’s received from those working with the Christians in Afghanistan. The messages contain specific prayer requests, which I share in the video.

There is also this line from one of the Afghan Christians: “We are confident that God is leading us forward and will triumph. We are committed to witness to the greatest movement of salvation among Muslims from the ashes of this catastrophe.”

That is our prayer. That is our hope. We belong to a God who is able to keep everything and everyone we have committed to him until that great day. I ask you to join me in holding the people of Afghanistan – all the men, women, and children of that country – before our Lord today in love and faith. And hope. May our God have mercy. And may his will be done in Afghanistan just as it is in heaven.

Peace,

Allan

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑