A NEW BEGINNING

Having a new beginning can be very exciting. Take weddings for example. I love weddings. Something about two people making a covenant before God and starting a new life together is very exciting to me. I imagine things that they have before them - children, jobs, making a home - basically their new life together like a blank slate. It's a new beginning.

However, not all new beginnings are exciting and fun. Some are difficult or even overwhelming - such as a new job or returning to 'life as normal' after a great loss or disappointment. I'm sure all of us, if we just take a moment, can reflect on some new beginnings.

In both situations, there must first be a start - a beginning. As simple as it may sound, a beginning requires action and action requires decision. And, for many of us, a new beginning - or trying again after we've failed or been hurt - can present a huge challenge for many of us.

Sometimes we are reminded by demons how we started something and failed. When we think of trying again, often times our internal "iPod" turns on -- rehearsing all the feelings from past. And more often than not, we replay the negative feelings and thoughts over and over again.

But this rehearsal can easily lead to deception. In focusing on the past, we get tunnel vision. We begin seeing a narrowed, splintered picture of what the Lord has been and is currently doing in our lives. Often what we think of as failures were actually the very thing that the Lord used to prepare us for promotion and increase.

In Romans 8:28, Paul writes,"and we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them." We are "those called (NLT)"! That's us. In other words, every step taken - no matter our perspective of it - is a step toward freshness in Jesus. His mercies are new EVERY morning! And if His mercies are new every morning, then we have plenty of "new beginnings"! What an exciting thought! He has something greater for you than you can imagine!! Think about Peter’s denial of the Christ or King David’s murder of Uriah. Consider Abraham. Remember Jacob - called the deceiver! These all men powerfully used of God! I have a feeling none of us have committed things as serious as these. How much more will God use you?

Friends, we are in the last days - the days the prophets of old foresaw. You are God’s jewel that He is shaping for this hour. Don’t let the enemy lie to you. The devil is an expert at making Jesus’ people feel discouraged, depressed and useless. But God is the expert on your destiny. He's been shaping you and preparing you for this moment, for this hour, for this time in history as a part of HIS-story. God's been precisely leading you to this moment, and you can rest assured that He has paid attention to every detail.

Has not God said in His Word that He who began a good work in you will complete it? He has promised that He will work all things together, successes and failures, for our good. He has a plan for your life, but it is your move. Whether or not you realize it, you've been waiting for this day.

Believe me when I say that there is a day coming that will be the greatest day you have ever experienced. Consider Israel. In Jeremiah 16:14, the Lord says, “A time is coming when people who are taking an oath will no longer say, 'As surely as the Lord lives, who rescued the people from Egypt.' Instead they will say, 'As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the people of Israel back into their own land from the land of the north and from all of the countries to which he had exiled them.'

This is an amazing thing to consider! There was no greater story than that of Israel passing through the Red Sea. It has been told from generation to generation. It is almost like the defining event for God’s chosen. Yet someday they will speak more of another event than of the Exodus - they will speak of the return of His Chosen People to the land of Israel. In fact, it's already happening.

In application, let me boldly say there is that kind of an eventful day ahead for you. It will be so powerful that it will overshadow every other thing - every lie, every fear, every wonderful thing up to this point. It may even be the most notable thing that has ever happened to you - with the exception of the day of your spiritual birth.

Whatever it is that you’ve wanted to do for the Lord, you must consider starting now. We are in the foothills of the great “last days” global harvest. We must move beyond the lies and discouragement of the enemy and step boldly into God's destiny for our lives. Let's shake of the dust of doubt and unbelief. Let's take a step up and begin again to pursue the dream that God put in our heart. Let’s get a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit. Let's go for it with great boldness!

Brag on Him a Bunch

The place… Admiral, Texas. Never heard of it? No wonder… It is a ghost town. Once a thriving West Texas community during the late 1800s to early 1900s, now all that is left is an old Baptist church building and a cemetery.

Around 1990, my father-n-law, Aaron Rose, was about eighty-five years young. Because of a yearning he felt, he asked me to take him back to Admiral for a visit. His mother was buried there and he wanted to visit her burial site. She passed away giving birth to her fourteenth child. They had four girls and ten boys.

His dad never remarried, and the whole family sacrificed so that all the children would thrive and receive care. How hard would that be? I don’t even want to try to imagine.

Syble, Aaron’s daughter, is quick to sing his praises, and rightfully so... He was a man’s man-- disciplined, loved his family, worked hard, paid his bills on time, and loved Jesus and His Church with his whole heart. I never heard him even come close to saying a negative thing about anyone.

While at the cemetery in Admiral that day I discovered how he became such a good husband, dad, and person. He learned it from his father and from Jesus. His was just like his dad… positive, loving, and accepting. His dad didn’t do a lot of teaching; he just lived it before the family and spoke encouragement to each one.

Aaron told me they had so little money that his dad could not afford a gravestone, so he went out and dug up a slab of sandstone and shaped it into one. For weeks every afternoon he would sit under a tree with that stone. With a nail in his hand, he would etch deep letters in that stone while he wept.

Now you know how Aaron became the man he was… because of the influence of his dad. He may not have always done things right, but he always fixed it as soon as possible… and he loved the song, “How Great Thou Art.”

My father was a wonderful dad, too. He had a work ethic that “spoke” without saying a word. He said to me, as he was dropping me off on the first day of my first job, “Son, remember you are to work for the Royal Crown Bottling Company as you would work for the Lord.”

He was one of eleven children… seven boys and four girls. Even though they lived out of town on a farm, they were always in church each Sunday. His father, my grandfather, could hardly carry on a conversation without telling of his love for Jesus or of the exploits of Paul the Apostle.

As a young man, he seemed to pick me out of the rest of the grandchildren to sing with him, “I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold; I’d rather be His than have riches untold; I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands; I’d rather be led by His nail-pierced hand; Than to be the king of a vast domain, Or be held in sin’s dread sway; I’d rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today.”

Oh… I saw their imperfections. I wasn’t so blinded by their wonderfulness that I didn’t see their clay feet. Sometimes I felt a little hurt by them, but I knew they had my best interests in mind though it didn’t seem like it at times.

Would you like to know what the Lord spoke to my heart when I was thirty-six years old? He said, “Are you the kind of father you wanted to be? Were you the kind of father you thought you would be when you had your first child?”

I told Him that I had failed being the father I had wanted to be, but I was the best father I knew how to be at the time. I heard my heavenly Father chuckle as He said, “They did the best they knew how at the time, also.” That statement changed my heart forever.

Please, honor your dad this Father’s Day. Tell him of your appreciation. Give him a huge “telephone hug” or better than that… take him to lunch and brag on him a bunch.

The Bent Fork

Getting a bent fork while dining out from time to time wasn't too bad
at first. However…time after time…got to be more than this man could
bear…

One evening Syble and I went out to eat with some friends. Without
looking, I unwrapped the napkin containing the silverware. The first
bite shocked me—have you ever watched a person pull a sucker out of
their mouth perpendicular? That's exactly what this was like! As I
pulled the fork from between my lips, I realized it had a prong bent
at about a forty-five degree angle.

Not all of my bent fork incidents have been that dramatic, yet it
became very annoying to get a twisted utensil every time I ate out--
breakfast, lunch or dinner. Often I would straighten it by angling the
knife between the crooked prong and the next one, applying pressure to
the bent one. This got old--fork after fork after fork--and I'm not
kidding!

It got to the point that I would get flustered, wave the fork at the
waitress, and demand a straight fork. I know they must have thought I
was eccentric as a square donut.

I had to get a handle on my attitude so I did a study on forks. My
research uncovered a three-pronged fork in 1Samuel 2:13 that was used
to get hot meat off the fire. My guess is that it did not have a bent
prong. Early Chinese forks had only two prongs or tines. That is what
qualified it to be called a fork…it had a "fork" in the prongs and
this would make it hard to tell which one was bent.

The fad of forks went from the Greeks, to the Spanish, to the French,
and finally to the English before coming to the New World. By the
early 1800s, forks slowly spread to America. Not one of these
countries took readily to them, especially the British and the
Americans. The English said, "Why should a person need a fork when God
has given him hands?" Think about it--your great great grandfather may
have eaten with his hands. The multi-tined fork really took off in
popularity, but with more prongs came the possibility of more angled
tines.

After my self-indulgent research, I finally turned to the Lord for the
answer to the plague of the bent fork syndrome. I discovered that each
time I got a bent fork, God wanted to use it to form Jesus' character
in me. (Not that He arranged for me to get the bent fork…but then
again, maybe He did.) Each time it became a signal to lean on God's
power and ability to enable me to develop patience, peace,
perseverance, hope and love.

Then I began to see more clearly God's eternal purpose in Jesus for my
life…that He has a goal, and everything that comes my way WILL work
together to bring that purpose to pass. If I will respond correctly,
each and every situation, including each bent fork, is helping me
reach my destiny.

So I purposed to changed my prospective. I stopped seeing bent forks
as a curse, and started to humbly receive them as an opportunity to re-
present Jesus. Is it my imagination, or in these last few years am I
getting fewer of these beautifully designed, crooked utensils? When I
get one now I just smile and say, "Thank you Jesus."

Have you ever wondered what your "bent fork" is?