Shadow

Have you ever done something in your past that you are not very proud of?  Something that you regret and wish that you could go back and change?  Maybe something others keep bringing up time and time again?  Maybe people treat you different since they heard about it?  Well, I think you get the point, it might be something that you feel follows you everywhere you go.  You may find yourself not wanting to go around people that have heard about that incidence or know about your past.  It is like the dark shadow that follows you everywhere!

Well, I am not perfect!  Shocker I know!!!    None of us are perfect!  We all have made like a bazillion mistakes.  And I think that we all are in the same boat in that we have all thought about those questions above or at one time or another felt the way I was describing. 

This year is a very unique year in that it is my 20^th high school reunion and I would like to attend.  I would be around people that I haven’t seen in a long time.  People that might remember me from a time when maybe I wasn’t living the way I should.  I remember a time when I took a strong stand for Jesus in high school and a friend of mine asked me how long I had been a Christian.  I told him that I had always been a Christian and he was very surprised by that and said “I never knew that.”  What does that say about my testimony back then?  I know-I know I am ashamed of that.  We haven’t always done right, we haven’t always lived right, but if you are reading this it is not too late to start.

God has promised in His Word that “if we will confess our sins, He is faithful and just AND WILL forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).  How great of a promise is that?  He gives us a new life and we become a new creation in Him.  He will always be with us through the mountains and valleys of life and will never leave us nor forsake us.  Instead of having a dark shadow that follows you around everywhere, God will be your “shade at your right hand” to protect you and watch over you (Psalm 121:5).

The Bible tells a story of a man named Abraham who experienced a lot of change in his life; from God changing his name from Abram to Abraham and his wife’s name from Sarai to Sarah, from God telling Abraham to leave his home and his land to go to a place where God would show him, from Abraham not having any kids until the very old age of 100, to then God asking him some time later to sacrifice him, Isaac his only son, as a burnt offering only to be stopped by God later, after he passed his test and then God provided a ram for the sacrifice, from marrying a wife who was unable to conceive to later being known as the “father of many nations” and so on.  The thing that made Abraham the “father of many nations” and so blessed by God was that in all that change Abraham “believed God” (Genesis 15:6) he trusted God, he obeyed God, and he put his hope in God.

I sometimes feel like Abraham in that there is so much change in my life and change in the lives of those around me.  I mean just look at some of the places that I have lived since I was born; from Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico, to Navojoa, to Ciudad Juarez, to Canby, MN, to El Paso, TX, to Waxahachie, TX, to Springfield, MO and probably more than 20 different homes in all those moves.  There has been so much change in my life!  I have experienced a lot of change since moving to Missouri, and here recently there has been a lot of change in my life, my job, and some of my decisions for the future.  I don’t have time in this post to write about all that change, but I thank God that I too have learned to trust God, obey God, believe God, and to put my hope in God as Abraham did.  That is called “Faith.”  Our hope in God, who is the eternal, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, who is the author and perfecter of our faith, who gave us his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him will have eternal life, who made us in his image and likeness, who chose us before the creation of the world, our hope in Him does not disappoint!

I want to encourage you and challenge you to trust in God today!  Make him Lord of your life and of all that change that is going on in your life.  Trust him to get you through it all and listen to his guidance and obey his word.  Believe that he has a purpose for everything in your life and give him full control of it all.  Put your hope in him knowing that he loves you and that nothing can separate us from his love.  Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways (and in all the change) acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-6).

One More Stroke

The Masters Championship golf tournament in Augusta, GA is the first major golf tournament of the year.  This year’s Masters Championship was this past weekend.  On Sunday, the last day of the tournament, CBS had a program leading up to the tournament in which they showcased Phil Mickelson, last year’s winner.  For many years Phil Mickelson had been know as “the best golfer never to win a major.”  Phil had done great in majors with 6 second-place or third-place finishes, but had never won a major prior to 2004.  At some of those majors that he lost and came in second, he lost by one stroke.  He knew that if he could just improve his game by 1 stroke during a four-day tournament, that he would have enough to tie or win a major.  He trained to make one great shot, to avoid making a huge mistake, and to tweak his game just enough to gain that stroke needed to win a major tournament.  That hard work and dedication paid off at the 2004 Masters Championship when he won by 1 stroke over Ernie Ells by making an 18-foot birdie putt.  The following year Phil won his second major tournament by winning the PGA Championship again by 1 stroke over his opponents.  The following year he won the 2006 Masters Championship and he wins that tournament by 2 strokes.

It is hard to think that 1 little stroke or one little mistake can cause us to lose so much.  If we stop to look around us we can see many examples of how one little mistake can cause huge consequences; one little lie can destroy someones character and integrity, one small glance off to one side of the road while driving can be catastrophic, one little moment of weakness in temptation could destroy an entire family, one little spark can destroy a mountainside, or if a hunter has aimed his weapon wrong by a hair to one side it could miss the target by several feet.  How important is it for us to trust and obey God completely?

The results of making our own interpretation of God’s Word or by adding or taking a little something away from it, could have huge consequences.  Success, on the other hand, is measured by how close we walk in accordance to God’s Word; our trust and complete obedience to His Word and to Him.  God told Joshua as they were about to enter the promise land “be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you, do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go” (Joshua 1:7).  As we read further we know that the Jewish nation had great success and prospered everywhere they went.  Too often we want to do things our way, with our understanding, and in a way that suites our best interest.  We change God’s Word a little to make it fit our selfish desires and to excuse our sinful lifestyle.  It is in little things, things that we never would have attempted before, we now do without giving it a second thought or feeling any convictions about it.

I want to finish this post with a challenge and encouragement with a couple verses from God’s Word; In Proverbs 3:5-6 we read that if we will trust God and obey Him, He will make our paths straight, and in Joshua 1:8, “keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.  Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

In all those detours of life, it is real easy to get frustrated and angry and lose heart.  Feel that you are the only one going through these things.  Feel that somehow God must be taking a nap and can’t hear your prayers or that he has abandoned you.  The worst thing that can happen to an individual is to lose hope, to lose faith.  Romans chapter five states that difficulties and trials, maybe we could plug-in detours, produce perseverance, and perseverance brings forth character, and character produces hope!  It goes on to say that hope in Jesus Christ does not disappoint!  I think that some could easily see a detour in life as something negative that only takes you off your charted course and is a waste of time.  I realize now that the detours that we took were there to keep us from harm.  We didn’t know what was ahead, or why we had to take that detour, we just trusted that it was the better road.  We may not see or know all the reasons as to why we have taken different roads in our life, but we should trust in God and know that he is in control and will never abandon us nor forsake us.  He is teaching us new things, character traits, that we would have never learned if we had never persevered through our detours.  After the detours of life we will have more hope in him, and for all who put their trust and hope in him will not be disappointed.

Potter & Clay

During the first month or so after I was hired at Gospel Publishing House, I was invited along with other new hires to have breakfast with the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God, Dr. George O. Wood.  I felt very honored and privileged to meet, talk, and eat with the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God.  Unrelated to that first meeting, some weeks later I had the opportunity again to go eat and fellowship with Dr. Wood, this time for lunch, and this time it would just be him and I.  Prior to that luncheon I wondered what we would talk about, what I would say, and how nervous I would be around the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God.  Within two months of that luncheon I was able to go and have dinner with him, his wife, and my family.  Two months after that I had the privilege of interpreting for Dr. Wood as he spoke at a Conference of the Midwest Latin American District churches from the whole state of Missouri.  I am extremely honored and blessed to have had those opportunities; to have been in the company of such an influential leader and a great man of God. 

What I haven’t shared yet is how the conversations went as we ate, and how much my ideas of how things would go, truly went.  As we ate breakfast with Dr. Wood, he shared personal information about himself, about his life, and how he got to serve in the office of General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God.  He wanted to know about us, where we came from, and how we got to work at the Assemblies of God Headquarters.  As we ate lunch he shared about his own family; he shared about his parents and his children, his new-born grandson, and he asked me about my family and my upbringing.  See, going into those meetings with him, I was nervous and felt that maybe there wouldn’t be much that we could talk about.  But in reality, we both enjoyed the conversation, the food, and became friends because of it. 

As we deal with intentional mentoring relationships, we sometimes think that mentoring relationships with people in offices of great influence and leadership cannot take place because of the distance between the high importance that we place on their position and the low value that we place on ours.  In reality, that is where some of the best mentoring takes place.  We don’t doubt their leadership skills, their experience, their maturity, and their influence and it makes it easier to see them as someone who we can learn from.  There are so many examples in Scripture where people of great influence became just that to those who were willing to follow them and learn from them.  I think of the Prophet Elijah and the great influence that he became to Elisha, Moses to Joshua, Eli to Samuel, Naomi to Ruth, Jesus to his apostles, Paul to Timothy and so many others.  John 1:14 states “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  The creator living among his creation.  All powerful and omnipotent God became approachable to his own creation out of love for us. 

Along with the great men of God who he has brought into my life to help mold and shape me, is the Gulf Latin American District Superintendent Rev. Gary Jones.  Rev. Gary Jones was a missionary to Nicaragua and Costa Rica for ten years, he pastored in Waxahachie and San Antonio Texas, and has served as District Vice Superintendent and District Superintendent for over eight years.  Rev. Jones learned the importance of intentional mentoring relationships from a very young age through his pastor, and he continually pursues those kinds of relationships through his positions as pastor, as missionary, and as a district officer.  Again I come back to how people of great influence and leadership are the best for those mentoring relationships, Rev. Jones makes himself accessible, and like Dr. Wood, he is down to earth and approachable.  I have called Rev. Jones during some very difficult times in my life and the first thing out of his mouth was encouragement and he assured me that he would pray with me and be at my side, and always gave me great advice and wisdom.  He has been to my house to eat and he knows my wife and family.  I can share things with him that I couldn’t share with others, I trust him, I learn from him, he is my mentor and great friend.  Whether by phone, text messages, or emails he will give me words of encouragement and share passages of Scripture that have challenged him and he hopes that they will encourage and challenge me. 

Jesus Christ was and is the best mentor of all time, the greatest and most influential leader, and he was approachable by all including the leprous, the blind, and the poor.  I challenge you to make yourself available to anyone and don’t be afraid to seek out men and women of God of great leadership and influence, after all, you will follow them as they follow Christ.  Seek someone who can mentor you, and someone who you can become a mentor to today.

Potter & Clay

There are people that God brings into our lives for different seasons of growth.  We often wonder why we couldn’t have remained with that one person that we really liked, that we learned a lot from, or those friends who we really enjoyed friendship with.  Why we had to go our separate ways, or why things just weren’t the same anymore.  I don’t know all the answers those questions, but I do know that I have learned so much from all different type of people and friends that have come and gone in my life.  I learned a lot from best friends who I rarely speak to or don’t even speak to anymore, I learned a lot from all my previous pastors, I learned a lot from my dad when I was a young boy, and at different times in my life I have spent some time around some people who aren’t there anymore, but I am glad that they were there when I was there so that I could have learned from them.  There is a danger that can come from only following only one mentor (with the exception of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior).  General Superintendent George O Wood once stated “if we just attach exclusively to one person, we may become more of a devotee than a productive leader.  In a multitude of counselors there is safety.”  When we hear different mentors say different things, we should be mature enough to weigh those conflicting ways with the Word of God and separate the wheat from the chaff.

Just like a carpenter uses different tools for different projects, so God uses different people as instruments to create a masterpiece.  God uses people to hammer in truth into our lives that holds us together throughout our life, and he will remove people as to saw and cut things away that are not needed to fulfill his purpose.  I have learned from some people that God brought into my life even though they were not trainers or saw themselves as tutors or mentors, but I knew there was something I wanted to learn from them.  An intentional mentoring relationship where both parties covenant to learn and teach each other are the most effective.  It is impossible to have the success that God intended if we leave out the Holy Spirit from that covenant.  An intentional mentoring relationship should be one where God is the center of it, and then the others are guided by the Spirit of God.

Practical ideas for an intentional mentoring relationship may be: a local church pastor, a youth leader or children’s leader, an elder of a church or mature spiritual leader in your church, a spiritual friend, a godly spouse, a teacher or professor, a godly co-worker or boss, godly parents or grandparents, and other mature people that will come into your life.  Find someone that you can open yourself up to, and the things that you share with them will remain confidential and trust can be established.  It won’t necessarily just happen, it is something that you have to discuss and covenant to work towards.

Potter & Clay

By the time that the apostle Paul writes the book of 2 Timothy, he is ready for his departure; he has fought the good fight, he has finished the race, and he has kept the faith.  Paul instructs Timothy to pass on what he heard from him (2:2), reminds Timothy of his example that he fully knows and that he has followed (3:10), and then gives him the charge to “Preach the Word” (4:2).  God uses mentors to encourage us and to stretch us.  Or like he stated in 1 Corinthians 11:1 “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”  As we develop intentional relationships with other believers we will see progress in our Christian walk.

Doyle Jones is another one of my mentors who has helped to shape me into the man of God that I am today.  I met Doyle Jones in 1991, when I attended Southwestern Assemblies of God University.  He was the Missions Director at the time.  He taught for 14 years at Southwestern while he himself completed his Doctor of Ministry Degree.  Doyle Jones is a church planter who travels during the summers to plant new churches around the world.  He plants a new church every year and mentors students in the process.  Doyle Jones has been a great friend and one of my best friends since 1991.  I took short term missions trips every year that I was at Southwestern, and I learned a lot from him in preparation for the trips, ministry during the trips, and ministry and experience after the trips.  He asked me to lead a trip to Guadalajara Mexico one year during the week of Spring Break.  I also was able to go with him to the country of Russia in 1994 with a group of 18.  Just as mentioned above, I too fully know Doyle’s example and follow it, I too share what I have heard from him, and I preach the Word of God like I have seen Doyle preach.  God has used Doyle Jones to encourage me, challenge me, and stretch me.  During the time that I pastored a church in Texas, I frequently had him come to our church and minister, he guest spoke more than any other guest speaker who came to our church.  Doyle would preach the Word for what it said, not his agenda, but the Word.  Miracles happened in our church while he ministered and many received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit as he taught about it.  I continue to learn from him to this very day.  I have learned from the way that he is devoted to his family, his wife and his two sons and their families, the way that he is devoted to conducting a proper exegetical study of the Word of God and preaching it, and the way that he is devoted to God and to serving him through the calling on his life of planting churches, and teaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Doyle is a man of prayer.  Wednesday chapels at Southwestern were mission chapels and I would always see him in the chapel an hour before school in prayer, and to this day I know that he gets up early in the morning to walk and pray.

I don’t write these things about Doyle Jones, or anyone else that I have wrote about, to put them on a pedestal to be praised or worshiped, but I write about them so that we can grow in Christ and in the knowledge of Christ through their example and teaching.  This generation more than any other needs men and women of integrity and godly character who can disciple, mentor, train and instruct others in the Word and in Christian living.  An intentional mentoring relationship is when we grow in our lives through what we hear and share with others, see the example of godly men and godly women of integrity and follow their example, and when we devote ourselves to the Word of God and not false teachings or myths and meaningless talk.  I encourage you to grow and help others grow as you develop intentional relationships with other believers.

For more on Doyle Jones’ Ministries, see www.doylejonesministries.org

Potter & Clay

In the book of Exodus, Jochebed gave birth to Moses during a time when Pharaoh ordered “every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile” (Exodus 1:22),  referring to the Israelite boys.  Jochebed “hid him for three months.  But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch.  Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.  His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him” (Exodus 2:2-4).  Whether it was Jochebed who told Moses’ sister Miriam to stand at a distance to watch over him, or if it was Miriam’s desire to take care of her little brother, the truth remains that she watched over him.  Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe and she noticed the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it.  She opened it and saw the baby and felt sorry for him.  Immediately Miriam asked Pharaoh’s daughter “shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?  ‘Yes, go,’ she answered.  And the girl went and got the baby’s mother” (Exodus 2:5-8).  Miriam loved her brother so much and was able to get Pharaoh’s daughter to pay for Jochebed to take care of her own son.  Amazing!

There is an amazing woman in my life who is one of my mentors and has been for many years, her name is Jocabed, also known as Jochebed.  Jocabed is my sister.  The very same person who I wrote about earlier when I wrote about how we followed her around as kids, my brothers and I.  I guess I have never stopped following her, for she follows Christ.  I also wrote about her and her husband a while back on April 16, when I was blogging on the topic of “FINGERPRINTS” that people leave on our lives, and I mentioned that they were my mentors.  My sister has been an encourager and a mentor to me, one of my best friends, one who I trust with my life and who I go to for advice.  She is a woman of God that knows how to talk to God, knows how to pray, and intercede for people.  There have been times when I have called her when I was hurting and she would cry with me and pray with me.  I have called her when I have needed advice about a choice I was getting ready to make or had just made and needed a godly word of wisdom and knowledge.  I have always seen her reading and studying God’s Word.  She loves and is devoted to God, her husband, and her kids with all her heart.  She is a hard worker and when she makes up her mind about something, she goes right after it and completes it.  She is so talented, gifted, and anointed and uses her talents for the Lord and for serving others.  I AM ENCOURAGED TO WANT TO BE BETTER.

I think that there are only a few people in our lifetime that can actually make us think that way, they make us want to be better.  I don’t live close to her, and we don’t talk every day.  See, even though it is good for a mentor and protégé to walk and work along side each other, an intentional mentoring relationship can take place when both are hundreds of miles apart.  The relationship has to be intentional learning and intentional teaching.  An intentional mentoring relationship is where the people involved “connect” with each other, long distance or not.  Respect and trust are vital in a mentoring relationship.  Accountability will not come naturally as you enter intentional relationships, nor is it guaranteed, since the relationship itself doesn’t have the power to hold us accountable.  We must make ourselves accountable by having honesty, openness, submitting to one another, and having a transparency that comes from a fear of the Lord.  Pray and ask the Lord to lead you to someone of great influence who can and will have a great impact on your life, and covenant with them to have an intentional mentoring relationship.

Potter & Clay

During my years at Southwestern Assemblies of God University, I had a mentor by the name of Tom Hill.  Tom was the Dorm Pastor/Director of Davis Hall and one of my best friends.  He had been a general contractor in Louisiana for many years.  On one trip to Shreveport, Louisiana with him, he pointed out building after building that he had built.  God called him to Southwestern and he accepted the calling of God in his life to mentor young men for Christ.  Before I began my first day of bible school, he called a dorm meeting where he made it very clear to us that he wanted to get to know us, he wanted to help us become great leaders and great men of God, and that we could go to him for anything.  Right from the beginning this was an intentional mentoring relationship.  As the semester went on he always made it a point to meet with every young man in his dorm, and take time from his busy schedule and talk with us and visit with us.  We never felt that it was a mask or a persona that he put on around us.  He didn’t just talk to us, he listened to us (that is a rarity now-a-days).  He shared from his personal experiences and encouraged us in our schooling and in our relationship with God.  He talked about leadership skills and godly character, and he spoke to us about relationships with each other and relationships with the opposite sex.  He would lend us books from his personal library that he thought would be a benefit for us, as it had been for him.  He would pray with us, cry with us, and laugh with us. He didn’t live off campus or far away, his house was in the dorm, his family was our family, and our problems were his problems.  He said that he had always wanted a son and that now God had given him all of us.    Some of the best services that I have ever been a part of were right in the lobby of Davis Hall, when we had our dorm devotions.  As the years went by I got closer to him and his wonderful family.  Tom poured himself more intimately into the young men that would serve as R.A.’s.  I got to serve one year as a resident assistant.  Tom took me fishing more times than I can remember, I ate in his house more times than I can remember, and we prayed together in his office for each other and for the other men in the dorm more than I can remember.  Family was important to him, God was important to him, being a man of integrity was important to him, leadership and self-discipline were important to him, and sharing Christ with us and others was important for him, and he taught all that to me.  He always pointed me to God and never himself, it was never about what he did, but what God was doing and what God’s Word taught.  I learned those things from him; The way he treated his wife as a queen, the way he always made time for his daughters, the way he always worked hard, and the way that he loved God.

You can learn some things from a book, but an intentional mentoring relationship is needed if you are going to learn all that God has for you.  General Superintendent Dr. George O. Wood once stated “mentoring has to involve a personal relationship–otherwise Jesus would have just sent a book.”  There are certain things that can only be learned through a mentoring relationship.  Jesus knew this all too well as a carpenter’s son, watching Joseph at work and learning the trade.  A mentoring relationship will take time and commitment, and is dependent upon a covenant relationship between the mentor and protegé.  Several people in the Old Testament modeled mentoring relationships, Jesus modeled it for us, and the apostles modeled it for us.  We don’t mentor just because I have time for it or because it is a popular topic at conferences, we do it because Jesus did it, he commanded it, and because it is vital in training and discipling our churches and in reaching our world for Christ.  The apostle Paul and Titus had such a mentoring relationship, and Paul writes to Titus about the teaching that should take place between older men to younger men and between older women and younger women.  I want to encourage and challenge you today to pursue a Paul and train a Timothy.  Get involved in an intentional mentoring relationship.

Potter & Clay

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” and “like father like son,” are expressions that are used to describe many characteristics relating to how we are a lot like our family or our upbringing.  Acts 16:31 reads “believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”  The first forms of mentoring are found in our early childhood from the teaching and learning that takes place at home.  Regardless who  the people are that raise us; a parent, grandparent, uncle or aunt, whatever mannerisms, principles, and ideas they share, become part of the foundation of our lives.  Often when people ask why we are like we are, their response is “that’s the way I was brought up.”  I find this true in my life, whether the things were good or bad, I am who I am because of it.  I heard it said that it is easier to learn the correct thing or way first, than to have to go back and retrain to fix something.  Through the Spirit of God and good training and mentoring, new foundations can be established and new roads taken.  We might have learned one thing as a child, but the way we are living today may be the result of present day mentoring or the lack of it.

Since the earliest that I can remember, I remember my parents taking us to church, asking us to pray and read our bible, and having nightly devotions where we read our bibles for fifteen minutes, and then prayed for fifteen minutes while kneeling at my mom’s bed.  My mother used to bake all sorts of desserts like cookies, cakes, cinnamon rolls, pies, apple crisp, and she would prepare things like rice crispy bars, graham cracker bars, homemade maple syrup, and the pancake and biscuit mix from scratch.  We took family vacations and trips to go visit family.  We would take evening walks around our neighborhood to exercise and talk.  We would go to the ice cream parlor or a neighborhood McDonald’s and have ice cream or soft frozen yogurt.  We would take drives out to a city park, or a city lake, or just a drive out to the country to sight-see.  My parents taught me to pray and to fast, to seek God until he would speak to me, told me to be filled with the Spirit of God and to be guided by him.  They taught me that true ministry is serving others, along with so many other life principles.

To this day I do these things, and now I teach them to my daughters.  During my life I have done some things that I did not learn from my parents, things that I am not proud of, but I am so thankful for God’s grace and forgiveness.  But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what God has ahead for me.  In Joshua 24:15, Joshua asks the Israelites to chose whom they will serve, “but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord,” he said.  That is intentional, and as intentional mentoring relationships take place at home, our home will also serve the Lord.  I too make that same choice today, “as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”  What will you chose today?