How Great is our God!

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. Apparently it takes me some time to have a good thought. Seriously, God has been doing some amazing things in our church and I have been struggling with how to put that into words. Here is my best effort. You see it in the title. "How Great is our God!"

That is more of a statement than a question at least for me. There is a song out there with that title. My wife uses it for her ringtone. Every time her phone rings, we are reminded of the Greatness of our God.

I think that is good to be reminded of the greatness of God. My question, though, is this: Why do we need to be reminded that God is great? The honest truth is that we simply forget. Don't' we? We get caught up in our living, we get consumed by the daily grind of life. We get too busy trying to fix our problems rather that doing as scripture says and start casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. (I Peter 5:7 NKJV)

I don't know why we (I) think we can handle our lives problems better than God can. I am just trying to be honest here. The truth is (and none of us will admit this out loud) we sometimes think God doesn't know what He is doing. Sure we trust Him with everybody else's problems, but "Hey I can handle my own problems"

Scripture is full of reminders of the Greatness of our God. Turn to any of the 66 books of Scripture and you can find a reminder of the greatness of God!

But let's just look to one example: He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; he was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:3-6 NKJV Emphasis Added)

I know you are thinking it so let me just say it WOW! How Great is our God! He has already borne our griefs and sorrows. He was Crucified not for his sin, but for ours (Mine). God himself paid the price that each of us rightfully owe for our sin. What more do we need to convince us of God's greatness.

I know that is an "Easter" verse and this is Christmas time, but maybe we need to be reminded that Christ, that precious little baby we celebrate at Christmas, was born to do what Isaiah prophesied 700 years earlier in the above text.

Before the creation of the World (hey there is another example!) God provided for us the plan through which we can be restored to Him. HE PROVIDED! HE PROVIDED! HE PROVIDED! Just say it over and over again. God Provided what we need most. Let's trust Him with the rest.

How Great is Our God!

By His Grace and For His Glory,

Bro. Chad

You Shall be Whole!

Wow, time flies when your having fun! I have now been on field at First Baptist Church for just over 6 weeks now. God is so good!

Today I want to talk about Holiness. It seems to be something I keep "bumping" into in my own study.

Holiness is such a scary word for us. It brings to mind images of sour faces and stern looks. It makes us think of people who don't look like they enjoy life. At least that is how I used to view it, until I really understood it, well at least understood it better.

You see there is a passage of scripture in Psalm 29:2 that describes the "beauty of holiness" Now the truth is I never really thought of holiness as beautiful. How could sour faces be beautiful? We try all types of ways to define holiness. We define it as "separate" or "different" "being set apart" and all of those are fine, but I think there is a better way to understand holiness.

Ray Steadman suggests to find the real meaning of holiness one must return to the original root of the word. Well when you do that you find that holiness is a word derived from the same root word from which we get a wonderful English word "wholeness"

So let me suggest that Holiness means "wholeness". At least I think that gets us a lot closer to what the Biblical writers meant. We all know what "wholeness" is. It is to have all the parts together as they were intended to be, and to have them functioning as they were intended to function.

In Leviticus 20:26 The LORD says to His people: "You shall be Holy to me; for I the Lord am Holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine."

If we dare, substitute the word "whole" for Holy, here is what we find: "You shall be "WHOLE" because I am "WHOLE"

You see there is nothing lacking in God. He is all together and functions perfectly. God is complete; he is Perfect. There is no blemish in Him. He lives in perfect harmony with Himself. He is absolutely what a person ought to be. He is WHOLE! And that is what He demands and desires for us. To have all the parts of our lives together as they were intended to be and to have them/us functioning perfectly. He looks at us in our broken state (and make no mistake about it we are "broken") and He says to us, I want you to be "WHOLE"

That is what we desire. To be whole. To be what God made us to be, with all the parts working in harmony. "COMPLETE, not lacking anything..."

When we view Holiness this way, at least when I began to view holiness this way. Holiness became precious and "beautiful" and something to be desired and not scared of.

Let me challenge you to be WHOLE, to be HOLY! It is God's command and His desire!!!


By His Grace and For His Glory,

Bro. Chad

It's All About Ability

These last few months have been a whirlwind. My family is now on field at our new Ministry in a new town. God has really done some amazing things in working out these details. We sure miss the folks we have been with for the last 8 years. They have really been a blessing to us.

But we are making new relationships at our new church. It is really interesting though, that even though the faces have changed and the church building has changed, nothing really changes. Church work is still church work. Preaching is still preaching and soul winning is still soul winning.

I have challenged our church in the last few weeks to consider how and why we do the work we do. There is a Scripture verse that I want to commend to you all today and it is simply this:

Ephesians 3:20 "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever ask or think..."

I have found that far to often, I try to make things up as I go along. I have an idea and I try to implement this profound idea. Very rarely have those plans succeeded. I have known this for a long time, but sometimes I forget what I know, you know what I mean?

We cannot do this work alone. Jesus himself said, "without me you can do nothing" I am not sure why I/we continue to try to do things on our own. But when we remember, that without him we can do nothing and begin to allow Him, beg Him, desire Him to empower us to do the work He has called us to, and allow Him to be the source of our "Ability" it is then and ONLY then that what we call success begins to happen.

And it happens in floods. Because we serve a big God who has a BIG plan and when we allow Him to accomplish his plan the results are so much bigger than we could have ever imagined.

So my encouragement to US today is to remember that we are "disabled" but HE, Our God, is Able and He will do what we cannot!!!

By His Grace and For His Glory,

Bro. Chad
By His

Changes, Changes and More Changes!

WOW! Life is full of changes! These last few months for me have been truly hectic. Our family has been dealing with the possibility of changes. I have come to discover that although I always said I like change, I had no idea what I was talking about. Change is scary. There are a lot of unknowns. I guess that is why they call it change.

God has been dealing with me and my family about a ministry change. He has been calling us to a new ministry field. I think He has been trying to wake me up for some time now, but because I like the status quo, I wasn't listening.

He finally got my attention. An old college professor of mine used to say, "You can do things in life 1 of 2 ways: (1) You can do things God's Way or (2) You can do things God's Way." The truth is God's Will is going to be accomplished. Our choice really is the easy way or the hard way. Unfortunately I usually choose the hard way. You might think I would get smarter with time, but I don't and the truth is, if you are honest with yourself, neither do you.

Anyway, at the beginning of this month we were called to a new pastorate. In a new town, in a new county, a little bit further from where my wife and I have grown up. CHANGE!!!

It was difficult to tell the church I now serve that I was leaving. We have been with them for 8 years. But as I was preaching a message I thought was for them on Sunday, I realized it was for me and my family. Let me share the text with you: Isaiah 55:4-5. I want to point you to verse 5 , this is the part that really spoke to me, because we have been really scared and nervous.

Verse 5 of Isaiah 55 says: "Surely you shall call a nation you do not know, and nations who do not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, And the Holy One of Israel; For He has glorified you." (NKJV)

Let me just share how the Lord spoke to me and maybe he will speak to you. This verse comes just after the invitation to come to the Lord to find satisfaction. I believe this is the great commission of the Old Testament. Not only is this invitation to Come, buy an eat for us here in America or for the children of the nation of Israel (in proper context) but it is for an entire world totally unknown to the people of Israel at that time.

Isaiah 55 comes after Isaiah 53, God's great revelation of His redemptive plan in Christ. Given some 700 years before hand. God's plan for world wide missions will be accomplished in/by/through Jesus.

Now that is the proper context, this is how I related it to me. My family is being asked to go to a "a nation we do not know" to a people "we do not know". This is a new town in a new county. Now for many of you that is no big deal, but for my wife and I we grew up and have lived in the same county in Missouri our whole lives. This is a big deal for us.

It was as if God said to me, I am sending you here to these people and even though you have no idea about them or the city, I am sending you and these people whom you don't know and don't know me will come to me, because of me (the Lord your God)!

Now change is not so bad. It is still scary, but God has confirmed this is His plan. And do you know what I have found out? God's plan ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS is best!

So what Change is God calling you to make? Don't be afraid! Change, it will be OK.

By His Grace and For His Glory,

Bro. Chad

What's In A Name?

What kind of thought do you give to your name? Does your name say anything about you? My wife and I gave a lot of thought to the names of our children. We didn't just pick names that sounded good together, or names that you couldn't make a silly nickname from, but we thought about the names we gave to each of our 4 children.

For example, our firstborn, Nathaniel, was given his name because Nathaniel means in Hebrew "Gift from God". We had been trying for nearly 3 years to get pregnant and it seemed impossible and then God gave us a gift. Our Son! Our 1st Daughter, Abigail, was name after Abigail the Carmelitess, King David's Wife. Scripture describes her as very beautiful and describes the great risk she took to save the life of her family. We have a son named Noah, Scripture says of Noah that he was the only righteous man on earth at the time. We have a 2nd daughter whose name is Rebekah, she is named for the wife of Isaac, Scripture describes here as very beautiful and describes her servants heart in Genesis 24.

I say all that to say there is value to our names. In the New Testament, the name of the Son of God was not left to chance. Mary was told to call Him Jesus because He would save people from their sins. I could go on.

This all leads me to our verse for today Psalm 9:10 says "And those who know your Name will put their trust in you; for you, LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you."

Those who Know His name will trust in Him. Let me ask you this, do you know God's name? When people think of the names of God almost always we think of: Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah Nissi, and a few others. But you know none of those are really the name OF God, they are merely names FOR God.

God gives us his name in Exodus 3:13-15 "Then Moses said to God, 'Indeed when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, "The God of your fathers, has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'what is His name?' what shall I say to them?" And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. And He said, Thus you shall say to the Children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. Moreover God said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the Children of Israel, the LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations."

We have a slight problem in our understanding here. You see God gives us His name here, but it is not translated into English. It is simply translated LORD. What God reveals to us here is His personal name.

You see the Hebrews felt this name far to holy to mention, so when God's name was written in Scripture they would pronounce the word Adonai, which means "My Lord" for fear that they would take God's name in vain somehow.

We have carried on this tradition. I believe we do ourselves a great disservice. You see God revealed His name to us for a purpose, because it reveals a great deal about Him. Let me retype this text again, this time using the Name God Gives Himself beginning in verse 14:

"And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM" And He said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. Moreover God said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, YAHWEH, God of your Fathers.....This is My name forever..."

His name is Yahweh. I wish I could take time to reveal all that this means. Let me just say this. This is important because it is how God chose to reveal Himself. He has a name. He is not just a God, He is not Just God, He is Yahweh (I AM WHO I AM). This name is used more than 6800 times in the Old Testament, more than 3 times as often as the generic word of God Elohim.

This says very plainly to us that God wants to be known...not as a generic, run of the mill, deity, but as a specific person with a name that carries His unique character and mission.

So here is my challenge, when you find the word LORD in all capital letters in the Old Testament, use God's name and see if that doesn't change how you read that text.

There is so much value to a name. Let's not forget that God gave us His.


By His Grace and For His Glory,

Bro. Chad