Strong To The Finish

Robert S. Smith doesn't like to finish what he starts. He figures that is very, very good for his business.

You see, Mr. Smith is the owner of a company that sells unfinished church furniture: altars, communion tables, those sort of things (No seats, though; Mr. Smith doesn't do pews). Why unfinished furniture? Because the items will typically cost about 50% less that way. That works out very well for most churches, which do not have a lot of money to start with, but do have many skilled people willing to seal, stain, varnish, and paint. There is also much more involved here than money. It seems somehow that many people really enjoy having a hand in preparing God's house for worship (See Exodus 35:30-36:2).

Now, I have never met Mr. Robert S. Smith, but he reminds me a lot of God; they are both in the business of filling His churches with unfinished products.

Ephesians 2:10 tells us that we are God's "workmanship." Each one of us Christians are an item created by the Master Carpenter to assist His church in serving Him (Pslam 100:2). But Paul teaches that we are somewhat like unfinished furniture, "created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." In other words, God roughs us out, giving us the privilege of taking part in the final smoothing and shaping of our lives as we lovingly obey His Word and humbly submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

So, if some of your fellow church furnishings have some rough edges and leave an occasional splinter in your Sunday spirituality, don't condemn the church or even foolishly decide that God isn't taking very good care of His business. God is showing us our true business, to be a great advertisement to the lost for God's goodness and love and to be a finishing craftsman in His kingdom. while you are at it, don't forget that you and I could use a little varnish ourselves!

Strong To The Finish,
Pastor David Blevins

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling

Who was St. Patrick of Ireland?

Patrick (his real name was Succat) was born in Dumbarton, Scotland and moved to Wales (on the west coast of England). He was not a very good student in school and was severely ridiculed because of his lack of scholastic ability. When Patrick was 16 years old, he was captured by Irish pirates and taken into slavery. Patrick was forced to take care of a herd of sheep and goats by himself. This often caused him to stay out all night alone in the mountains. This solitude turned out to be a great blessing in disguise as Patrick had plenty of time to do some very serious thinking about his life and eternal soul's destiny. As the Lord dealt with Patrick, he repented and was gloriously saved!

Two very lonely years passed and during his prayer time as he guarded sheep in the desolate mountains, Patrick felt impressed by the Lord to escape his captors. Patrick did escape, found a ship going to France and was able to make his way back home to Wales.

A number of years passed and while attending a Bible institute, Patrick felt God calling him to be a missionary to Ireland at 40 years of age! In 432 A.D. Patrick returned to Ireland as a Baptist Missionary! He was supported on a monthly basis by Baptist churches in Wales.

Patrick started over 300 Independent Baptist churches in Ireland and baptized over 100,000 adults during his 30+ years of gospel ministry there. There is no legitimate record that Patrick ever prayed the Rosary, prayed to saints or prayed to the Virgin Mary. Patrick, the Baptist preacher, so evangelized Ireland that after his death, Ireland sent out missionaries all over England and Europe.

In 664 A.D. the Roman Catholic Church instigated a debate in Whitney, England. The king decided to become a Roman Catholic and brought the English churches under the rule of Catholicism. So, to get all those Irish Baptist churches to join the Roman Catholic Church, the Council of Whitney made a saint out of Patrick (although he was long dead and did not have any say in the matter!).

Well, it sure is good to know that Patrick really isn't a cause for the unsaved, worldly crowd to don their green apparel, visit the local pubs and drink green beer with their corned beef and cabbage! Patrick of Ireland is certainly worth talking about and spiritually appreciating what he did for the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ!

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,
Pastor David Blevins

Mary Had A Little Lamb

March, a month that, according to the old wives' tale, "comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb." Well, it doesn't take a meteorologist to see that those old wives knew their stuff, at least when it came to weather reports and some old home remedies for illness. While the beginning of the month kind of roared about us with some chilly temperatures and gusty wind, hopefully the final days of the month will bring a pleasant change. Perhaps the roaring lion will yield to the suckling lamb.

The Lord Jesus Christ reverses this process. He came into this world as a Lamb; He will return as a Lion (Revelation 5:5). The Old Testament teaches this dichotomy. Isaiah saw a suffering servant who would not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street (Isaiah 42:1-7; Isaiah 53). Malachi, on the other hand, beheld a Righteous Judge, blazing like a refiner's fire (Malachi 3:2).

Skeptics see these diverse pictures as a contradiction: the spiritually discerning man views them as a completion. Jesus Christ came into this world the first time as the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). If we refuse him entry into our heart in this guise, the Bible promises that He will return as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Who judges iniquity without respect to persons.

The choice is yours; which Christ do you choose to meet? Jesus Christ, He came in like a Lamb, He will return like a Lion.

Mary Had A Little Lamb,
Pastor David Blevins

Whistle While You Work

"...gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not" (Hosea 7:9).

I guess gray hair has always been the quintessential warning that youth is fleeting. I know that I will never forget the day a number of years ago when my wife, after staring intently at my temples, announced, "Look, there are several gray hairs!" That really threw me, and I worried about those gray hairs for awhile, that is until they started falling out! These days, after seeing what I look like on camera by watching the Thursday evening telecast of our church service, I am like the man who said, "I don't mind my hairs turning gray, I just don't want them to turn loose!"

The prophet Hosea wrote well before the days of Grecian Formula, Just For Men, or even Miss Clairol. Today, statistics reveal that two out of every four women in America spend billions dollars on hair dye to cover up the aging process. While I certainly have nothing against dyes, wigs, wrinkle creams, etc., that we Americans use to disguise the inevitable, let's be honest; the whole purpose of these items is to make us have a younger appearance before others.

In Hosea, however, we have the picture of a man who is fooling himself. In my mind's eye, I see a man with the cocky swagger of youth who fails to realize that age is taking its toll. "Gray hairs are here and there..." means that his time is beginning to run out. He is closer to death and judgment than he thinks. He is numb to the realization that his opportunities are slipping away.

Friend, if you are not saved, if you do not know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, your opportunities to come to Him for salvation and the complete forgiveness of all your sins are quickly slipping away! That is exactly why the Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 6:2 "...now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Dear lost sinner friend, come to Jesus today and trust Him as your Savior today!

Christian friend, if you are not serving Jesus Christ, your opportunities for service and rewards are quickly slipping away as well! That is why the Lord Jesus Christ said in John 9:4, "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: for the night cometh, when no man can work." Psalm 100:2 tells us, "Serve the LORD with gladness..."

It is a wonderful joy and privilege to know Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and to work for Him, wouldn't you agree? My question today is...if Jesus could love us so much that He could die for us, why can't we love Him so much that we will live whole-heartedly for Him?

Whistle While You Work,
Pastor David Blevins

Ant It The Truth

I read a very interesting article today about caterpillars. It is absolutely amazing how much research you can accomplish while waiting a torturous amount of time to see a doctor! Anyway, it seems that a caterpillar's natural enemy is the wasp (which in summers past we have had flying around our house like an Air Force squadron) and the little woolly worms have no natural means of defence. So what do they do? They sing the blues to their friends, the ants.

Really!

Scientists have long noticed that caterpillars tend to attract gangs of ants who will, if their amigo is attacked, defend him! At first these scientists figured that the caterpillars must be feeding their bodyguards, but that didn't seem quite right. As soon as an ant got his portion of chow, he would head back for the anthill, while the other ants followed their caterpillar around like a faithful puppy dog. then someone finally hit upon the real key: sweet talk. The caterpillars, those silver-tongued devils, produce some kind of sound that attracts the ants. That is a nice piece of information to have if you are a caterpillar; or a Christian! Please consider a couple of life lessons from this...

First: if you have to buy friends with food (or anything else for that matter), you will only have friends as long as they are eating (or having some other desire met). Personal relationships that are built upon good communication always outlast those that rely on gifts.

Second: sweetness of speech builds a protective bond between people. The book of James warns all of us about the destructive powers of the tongue (James 1:26; James 3:1-10), and the caterpillar parable shows us its positive qualities.

So, as you crawl through life this week, speak as kindly as possible to everyone (Proverbs 12:25; 25:11; Colossians 4:6). In the never-ending battle to be promoted to a butterfly first-class, you will find that building deep bonds of Christian friendship is a key factor (Proverbs 18:24).

Ant It The Truth,
Pastor David Blevins

Reach Out And Touch...Someone

I have lost my notepad-the notepad on which I write down all the things that I must do on a given day! (Question: How do you remember to buy a new notepad when you can't write down on the front of your old notepad, "Buy a new notepad?" The irony is staggering!) It did get me to thinking, though, about the various records that we, and others, keep of our lives.

My little book/notepad was good for my life only and, thus, practically useless to anyone else. But please carefully consider the following....

Verizon recently belched forth their new phone books for New York City. There were literally millions of copies (over 5,000 tons of paper worth) and if you laid them all end to end, you could walk from here to Knoxville, Tennessee, on a pavement of phone books, provided that you had some strange desire to do so. If you stacked them all one on top of the other...well, that would be an indication that you had way too much time on your hands. And for all of this, the books are incomplete since 30% of New Yorkers paid a fee for an unlisted number and hundreds of thousands more only use their cell phone, having done away with the old dinosauer landline.

That is just New York City. When the Kuwaitis bailed out just ahead of the Iraqi invasion almost 20 years ago, they took along a floppy disc containing a complete register of the nation's citizenry.

Those are just lists of names. When William of Normandy conqured England, he compiled a two-volume set listing not only each citizen's name, but his possessions as well. This was, of course, for tax purposes and was appropriately dubbed "The Dooms Day Book."

Revelation 20:12-15 tells us that God keeps a set of books of His own. One volume, like the Kuwaiti microchip, lists every single citizen of Heaven. The other-a multi-volume set, records the name of every single person who has ever lived, along with an account of the debt of sin that is owed to the King of kings and Lord of lords. Unlike the phone book, no one can remain unlisted. One way or another, God has your number!

So, how about it? Are you in the Dooms Day Book or are you in the registry of the citizens of Heaven? The choice is yours and it totally depends upon what you do with God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Will you trust Him as your personal Savior today?

Reach Out And Touch...Someone,
Pastor David Blevins

Break A Leg

In Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie, the main characters represent his family.

On opening night at the Chicago Civic Theatre in 1944, after the final curtain, Edwina Williams went backstage to congratulate her son and the actors. Laurette Taylor, who had played the mother, spotted her and quipped, "How did you like you'self, Miz Williams?" The playwright's mother registered shock; she had no idea that Amanda Wingfield was supposed to be her.

Worse yet was the alcoholic Mr. Williams. He snorted that he failed to see how the character of the father, who had abandoned the family years before the action of the play begins, was supposed to represent him. After all, he had not run off; he was still around. He, of course, missed the whole point: physically present but emotionally absent, he had sorely wounded the entire family.

Yet, let us not be too hard on Mr. and Mrs. Williams.

I sometimes wonder what God, the Master Playwright of the Universe, thinks when we read His "script", or, more accurately, "Scripture". He puts us in every line, exposing our faults, revealing our sin, all in His desire to make us recognize our sinful portrait (Ecc. 7:20; Rom. 3:10,23) and to serve as a catalyst to get us to turn to Him for forgiveness and redemption. And what do we do? We see our neighbors, our friends, our co-workers, or our enemies on every page; we see everyone but ourselves (2 Cor. 10:12).

Let me ask you, have you been doing some accusing lately? I have a suggestion; write down everything that you have against any one else, spare no feelings and pour on the adjectives. Then read it through, standing in front of the nearest mirror, and very carefully listen as the Holy Spirit asks, "How did you like you'self?" (John 16:8).  Then plead the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse the record before the final curtain falls (I John 1:7,9).

Break A Leg,
Pastor David Blevins

Carpe Diem

It is quite possible that down through the years the institutionalized church has become so much like its counterparts in the secular world that we have over-programmed and over-managed a very simple process. After carefully reading Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger's clarion call to get "back to the basics" in their book Simple Church one of the commitments that I have made for 2012 is to give leadership toward the involvement of our lay people here at CHBC. This church belongs to Jesus Christ; He is to be the head, not anyone else (Eph. 5:32). We are the Body of Christ which is made up of individual members; all of us are given spiritual gifts and opportunities to exercise those gifts within the Body (I Cor. 12).

I am committed to the reality that the Pastor does not solely exist for the purpose of organizing new programs and then attempting to breathe new life into them (Acts 6:4; Eph. 4:11,12; 2 Tim. 4: 2-5). But rather I am committed to the spiritual truths that all of us in this church are members of the body of Jesus Christ and that all of us need to be working together to reach people with the Gospel, to minister to people, and to impact the lives of people for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ! If some structure and organization can be a help and assistance in helping us to achieve those things, then we must organize and develop the necessary structures. However, the structure and organization should never come between ourselves and the ministry to which God has called us. Wasn't it Nike that had the advertising slogan a few years ago, "Just Do It"?

Success, victory, and conquest is, in this life, tentative at best. Future developments always have the potential to mangle our greatest triumphs. So I thank you now for being part of the victory in 2011 and for being part of the opportunity for victory in 2012, BUT STAY ON DUTY! I think that it was C.S. Lewis, or perhaps Yogi Berra, who said, "It ain't over till it's over."

In fact, learning to give genuine, heart-felt thanks to God during our entire Christian walk is so important. As the rest of this new year hunkers menacingly on the horizon, we do well to remember that the Apostle Paul, who wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, tells us to give thanks "for all things" (Eph.5:20; I Thess. 5:18). Why is that? Well, if we waited until the circumstances warrant a full confidence and thanks, it would seem (at least in this life) that we would always be waiting for things to work out and never get around to praising God! Worship is a little like housework: the laundry "is never finished" and our adoring hearts' praise to the Lord God Almighty should never finish either!

Carpe Diem,
Pastor David Blevins

Check It Out

January is usually inventory month in the business world. Just as taking inventory in the business world is an absolute necessity, it is also needful and essential in the spiritual realm!

Let me share with you some questions that you and I need to ask ourselves frequently, and honestly answer them so that we can make a good spiritual inventory of our Christian lives.
1. Am I known as a Christian where I work and live?
2. Is Jesus Christ loved and respected or despised and rejected because of the way that I live in front of others?
3. Do those who know me best believe in me the most?
4. Do people know me as a person whose salvation experience made a change for the better in my life?
5. Is it possible that I claim to be a Christian but I harbor an unforgiving spirit toward others and I nurse a grudge toward someone else?
6. Do I try to find time every day for Bible study and unhurried prayer?
7. Am I able to work with other people? Can other people work with me? Am I hard to get along with?
8. Do I criticize the Pastor, the church and other Christians in front of my children, spouse, and my friends?
9. Do I have a secret longing to be the first to be recognized and praised? Or can I truly say that it does not matter who is second, third or fourth, so long as Jesus Christ is always first and gets all the glory, honor and praise?
10. What can I do now that I could not accomplish two or three years ago? Am I able to lead another person to Christ? Am I able to distinguish Holy Spirit guidence from my own desires? Am I consistently using opportunities to excerise my spiritual gifts for the glory of God?
11. Do I really enjoy an extended time of prayer and Bible study or do I resent the extra time it takes away from other things?

Dear friend, stop and prayerfully take time right now to do a Holy Spirit led, soul-searching spiritual inventory.

Now, as we look forward to 2012, I pray and trust the Lord that it will be a great year for us invidually and for us as a church body! We have many things that we want to accomplish in 2012 and we invite you to get involved and be a part of this work, for the glory of God!

We would like to win more souls to Christ than last year, we would like to baptize more people than last year, we want to increase our prayer and financial support to missions, we want to see all of our people enjoy a closer walk with the Lord and, among other things, we have several projects we need to do to improve our church facilities. Let's all do more for the Lord, grow more in the Lord and make this the greatest year in our lives so far for the Lord's Kingdom work!

Check It Out,
Pastor David Blevins

Pressed By The Mark

Welcome to 2012! While the New Year is fresh, we need to hear the testimony of the psalmist who said,"One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after..." (Psalm 27:4). There are way too many Christians whom are like the cowboy that was described by his five-year-old son this way, "He jumped on his horse and rode off in all directions!"

We need to focus in one direction for the new year! Hugh Allen of the Knoxville News Sentinel once stated, "The man who doesn't know where he is going can look forward to a long, exhausting trip." Sound, godly advice from the Apostle Paul will help us to determine our direction for this new year, if we will heed what he said in Philippians 3:13,14, "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind , and reaching forth unto those things which are before. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." The J.B. Phillips New Testament translation of Philippians 3:12-14 states," Yet, my brothers, I do not consider myself to have "arrived", spiritually, nor do I consider myself already perfect. But I keep going on, grasping ever more firmly that purpose for which Christ grasped me. My brothers, I do not consider myself to have fully grasped it even now. But I do concentrate on this: I leave the past behind and with hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead I go straight for the goal-my reward the honour of being called by God in Christ."

The "one thing" that we all need for 2012 is for us to all grow to be more like Jesus Christ!

Praise God for the Apostle Paul's honesty and spiritual transparency! Paul is telling us, "I am not where I want to be in my spiritual life. I have not yet obtained the goal. But I refuse to let the past drag me down, and I am straining to reach my goal of knowing...really knowing Jesus Christ through His power, suffering, and His death" (Blevins paraphrase).

Will you join me in being a "one-thinger" in 2012 and dedicate the 527,040 minutes of 2012 (it is a leap year, so don't forget we will have 366 days instead of 365) to really knowing Jesus Christ and becoming more like Him?!

Pressed By The Mark,
Pastor David Blevins