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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

Watch This Guy!

August 18, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Next to insuring all three of our vehicles were outfitted with GCR’s Love Like Jesus stickers, my priority this week has been to finally replace the Amarillo Sod Poodles sticker on the back of my truck with a sticker proclaiming my allegiance to our new city and our new team, the Midland RockHounds. I certainly needed to take care of this chore before last night’s series opener between the RockHounds and Sod Poodles here in Midland. And I did.

 

 

 

 

 

Then we drove to Momentum Bank Ballpark and watched young Drey Jameson dominate our local nine. Sod Poodles fans in Amarillo, y’all need to watch this guy! Wow!

Drey is the number one draft pick of the Arizona Diamondbacks out of Ball State and was only called up to AA Amarillo less than three weeks ago. And he celebrated his 24th birthday last night here in Midland by paralyzing the RockHounds. He pitched 7-1/3 innings of five-hit shutout baseball with no walks and twelve strikeouts in a crisply played 1-0 game. I’m a RockHounds fan now, but I caught myself rooting for this Amarillo pitcher. His fast ball was consistently 96-97mph – his 12th strikeout in the 7th inning was clocked at 96 – and his curve came in at 76-77mph, with almost nothing anywhere in between. He occasionally brought an 85mph slider, but it was the other two pitches, dramatically different in speed, that kept the RockHounds off balance all night. And Jameson’s pin point accuracy. The kid was just ON last night. And nobody in a Midland uniform had a chance.

If you’re in Amarillo, I’m urging you to watch this kid pitch before the season’s over. Don’t let him get away because he won’t be a Sod Poodle for long. I’m guessing he’ll be pitching for the Diamondbacks in less than two years. He’s got 31-strikeouts now in his three AA starts. And he’s electric.

Peace,

Allan

Get Your Shots. Please.

August 17, 2021 / / 1 Comment

 

Dear Unvaccinated Person,

Cold hard facts don’t seem to work. Indisputable science isn’t getting through. The COVID-19 vaccines are the most highly-scrutinized, heavily-tested, globally-verified, statistically-proven vaccines in the history of the world, but evidently that’s not enough for you. I don’t understand your logic. I don’t know what you’re reading or who’s talking to you.

But we know this: Since the vaccines became available in February, 94% of all new COVID cases in the U.S. have been contracted by the unvaccinated. Over the past six months, 97% of all COVID hospitalizations in this country have been for the unvaccinated. And, here in the great Republic of Texas, 99.5% of all COVID deaths during this time frame have tragically been unvaccinated people. In our state, there have been almost 9,000 COVID deaths since February. Only 43 of them were vaccinated Texans.

What we’re experiencing now is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. At this point, the only ones to blame for the overcrowded hospitals, the overworked doctors and nurses, the rising numbers of cases, the masks, the restrictions, the shutdowns, and the fear are the unvaccinated. Not the politicians, not the parties, not the scientists, not the news, not social media, not the internet – the fault lies with those refusing to get the vaccine.

The shots are free. There are no excuses. No reasons. All we can do at this point is to beg.

Please, get your shots. Please.

Peace,

Allan

God is Love

August 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments

“Let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” ~1 John 4:7-8

God is love and we are not. We are selfish creatures. We think first and most about ourselves. It’s wired into us to behave like this. We’re human. It’s natural. We’re born this way. Think about it. You never have to teach a young child how to be selfish or greedy or to want his own way.

Our God knows this about us. He knows our tendencies as humans to look out first for our own needs and desires. That’s why God commands us to love.

Our God is not shy about demanding that we love. He’s not subtle, either. Scripture never one time backs down anywhere from the insistence that we love Because it is grounded in the very nature of our God who IS love.

God is love. That means God’s will is love. His character is love. His motivation for every action is love. His very names as he reveals it to us throughout the Bible is abounding love.

To do something other than love is to do something other than God’s will. And against God’s name. To say or do something unloving, to write or forward anything that’s unloving, about anybody in any context in any format, is ungodly.

Because God is love.

Peace,

Allan

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