How to tell if you are growing in Christ

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Early coal miners carried canaries into the deep pits with them as indicators of the presence of methane gas. The bird would die long before the gas posed a problem for the miners. If the bird died, they ran for their lives.

We could all use a few canaries in our spiritual lives, to warn us when we were on dangerous ground as well as to assure us when we were doing well.

Here are four harbingers–four canaries, four indicators–that inform the believer that he actually is growing in the Lord. 

1. We will grow increasingly disgusted with the old life we left behind, and less attracted by it.

Consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry (Colossians 3:5).

But now, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another…. (Colossians 3:8-9).

2. We will be more and more Christlike but the last to know it.

And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another…just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you (Colossians 3:12-13).

There’s a fascinating irony that goes on here. As you grow in the Lord, eventually someone will say that you are the most Christlike person they know. You will laugh at the very idea. No one knows better than you how far you still have to go.

Actually, they’re right. You are becoming more and more like Jesus. But you are the last to know. Why? The closer we get to the light, the more imperfections we see.

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When the salt of the earth needs sweetening

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While researching a subject on-line, I found myself reading some attacks on ministers from fellow ministers. These men of God, assuming that’s what they are and I’m not saying one way or the other, were taking no prisoners.

“That pastor is a liar!” “Preachers lie to you when they say….” “Ten lies preachers tell you.” “That preacher is an agent of hell!”

It was painful.

When those sent by the Father as shepherds of His sheep use such blistering rhetoric, we fail our assignments in numerous ways: we dishonor the Lord, shame the church, needlessly slander our brethren, set poor examples for the people in the pew, and we hold the gospel up to ridicule by the world.

How about a little sweetening, I wonder. And then I remember something.

A friend says there are two kinds of preachers: those who enter the ministry whole and those who enter in order to become whole.

Give me the first kind any day of the week. The second group can be scary and dangerous.

The second group, I believe, is composed largely of ministers with bad mental health.

Here is what bad mental health looks like in the pulpit on a Sunday morning—

1) It’s mean-spirited.

One text you will never hear such a preacher proclaiming is Colossians 3:12: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly beloved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”

Somewhere along the way these caustic preachers became convinced that their task on Sundays is to “open the wound and pour on the salt.” They are harsh, unloving, unkind, loud, and uncharitable. And they do it all in the name of the Lord.

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First two chapters of our book “Help! I’m a Pastor!”

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We are posting here the opening two chapters in our book “Help! I’m a Pastor!”  At the conclusion, we’ll tell how to order it. 

Chapter One:  Be a Pastor, Change the World.

A preacher I know was on the plane trying to complete the manuscript for a series of Sunday School lessons he had been asked to write.  His seatmate wanted to talk.  Stuart kept fending her off with short responses.

At one point she noticed his name on his briefcase.  He was ‘Doctor.”  That intrigued her. “You’re a doctor?” she asked.

“Um huh,” my friend said, not looking up from his work.  “What kind of doctor are you?” she said.

Stuart said, “A Doctor of Theology.  I’m a preacher.”  “Oh,” she said, “I thought you were a real doctor.”

That did it.  My friend laid his books aside and looked at her. “Madam,” he said, “If I were a doctor of medicine and did my work well, I might be able to add a few years to someone’s life.”

“But as a Doctor of Theology–a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ–when I do my work well, people live forever.”

It’s a powerful thing this Christian ministry.

It is surely the quickest way to change the world.  And the best.

A fellow named Martin Luther went into the same work as you and I and saw the world change right before his eyes.  The same can be said about John Wesley. John Wycliffe. Dwight L. Moody. Jim Elliot. Peter Marshall. Billy Graham.

And you.

Recently I came across a book called Give Your Speech, Change the World.  Author Nick Morgan teaches public speaking in numerous formats (universities, as the editor of several publications, and consultant to executives) and has been speechwriter for a governor.  Morgan said an old friend of his, another speechwriter, used to say, “The only reason to give a speech is to change the world.”  Morgan agrees and adds, “Otherwise, why bother?” He answers, “We still need speeches.  We need them to move audiences to action… And lest you think that when I say ‘changing the world’ I’m only talking about the big speeches (the ones that CEOs give to shareholders, for example) understand that I’m talking about every speech ever given.”

Every sermon you ever deliver, pastor.

Every public presentation you make of any kind.  It’s that potent.

I’m remembering one Easter morning when I did nothing more than lead in prayer at a community-wide sunrise service and it changed the world.  Two families who heard that prayer began attending my church, joined it, and became excellent servants of the Savior.  Our church became stronger, their families flourished, and lives were changed.  The world changed.

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First two chapters of our book “A Healthy Church”

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(We are posting the first two chapters of our book A Healthy Church.  At the conclusion, we’ll tell how to order the book.)

CHAPTER ONE:  HOW TO SPOT A HEALTHY CHURCH IN 30 SECONDS 

Something about those children intrigued me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

For several weeks during my daily walk on the Mississippi River levee, I had been noticing three small children playing in their yard which joined the green expanse of the levee.

They seemed unusually happy and physically active, which the pastor/grandfather in me found charming.

The oldest child might have been seven or eight. There was a younger brother and a little sister.  The yard held all kinds of play equipment.

No matter how cold it was, they were out there laughing and running, jumping and hiding, having a big time.

You could hear them a block away.  They were always enjoying themselves and seemed to love one another.

“Whatever the parents are doing,” I thought, “it’s working.”

Then one day I noticed something different.  Another kid had joined them, and they had several large-wheel vehicles on top of the levee which they were riding down into the yard.  Two women sat near the house keeping an eye on them.  One was the mother, I assumed.

As I drew closer, the children coasted off the levee, all except the oldest boy.  He looked up at me and said, “Hi.  I’m Harley.”  I was so taken aback, I had to ask, “That’s your name?” It was.

I said, “Hi Harley.  My name is Mister Joe.”  He gave a big grin and said, “Hi, Mister Joe!” Then, off the levee he went.

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“Grief Recovery 101” (The first chapter)

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(Following is the first chapter of Bertha’s and my book Grief Recovery 101: How to Get Back Up When Blindsided by the Death of Someone You Love.  At the conclusion, we will tell how to order the book.)

CHAPTER ONE:  THE GRIEF ARRIVES

Grief happens when you least expect it and are completely unprepared for it.

How I became so knowledgeable about grief.  (I sure didn’t volunteer!)

My wife died suddenly.

On a Friday morning in January of 2015, Margaret and I had spent an hour at the breakfast table as we usually did.

After breakfast, she went back to bed.  Her physical ailments were always warring against her, the pain was constant, and her energy level was never very high.  Even walking into the kitchen was an ordeal for her.

Shortly after finishing my blog, I closed the laptop, took my morning shower and got dressed.  Sometime around 10 o’clock, I was lying on the bed in the back bedroom reading a novel when Margaret called down the hall.  “I’m going to drive myself to the nail salon and get a pedicure.  I’ll be back in a little while.”

My last word to my wife of 52-plus years was, “Okay!”

Sometime around noon, Ochsner Hospital called.  “Sir, you need to come to the emergency room now.  We have your mother.”

I said, “My wife.”

“Sir, we have your wife.  You need to come to the emergency room now.”

That’s all they would say.

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The constant struggle to remain humble

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I know precious little about humility. However I know one big thing: God requires it in His people.

Scripture is filled with teachings, examples, violations, commands, and encouragements regarding humility. Even our Lord Jesus Christ was humble and became our example. (Try these passages for starters: Matthew 11:29; John 13:14-15; Philippians 2:5-8.)

Scripture tells believers to put on humility (Colossians 3:12), be clothed with humility (I Peter 5:5), and to walk with humility (Ephesians 4:1-2).

The Lord wants His children to be humble so badly that He has given us seven aids to accomplish this and to keep us that way.

1. Common sense.

Look around at the billions of people. You’re just one of them. Look above at the zillions of stars. You’re sitting on one small planet circling one humble star. They’ve been around for eons, while you have only a few more years of life here. If that doesn’t humble you, you’re not paying attention.  (See Psalm 8)

2. The Holy Spirit.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, humility…. (Galatians 5:22-23).

3. Our family.

I heard the wife of a well-known preacher say on television once–and probably shocking her audience–“I tell my husband, ‘Don’t start that big shot thing with me. I saw you in your shorts this morning.’”  (My wife thought the woman spoke out of turn, that she should not have said that publicly.)

The old adage says, “No man is a hero to his valet.” To the President’s children, the commander-in-chief is simply “Daddy.” To the superstar’s children, he is daddy.

4. Our friends.

Our closest friends are not in awe of us. They will tell us our breath smells bad, that we need to use a hankie, or if we have a stain on our clothing. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy (Proverbs 27:6).

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Pastor, when something doesn’t sound right…

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This has happened to me again and again. I’m sitting in some huge meeting with hundreds of the Lord’s people representing churches across our state or country. A large number of preachers are in the audience. The speaker is sounding forth on some subject of importance to us all.

Suddenly, the speaker comes out with a statement that gets a hearty “amen,” something that sounds profound and undergirds the point he is making. He goes on in the message and everyone in the room but one person stays with him. Me, I’m stuck at that statement. Where did he get that, I wonder. Is it true? How can we know?

If Facebook, that wonderful and exasperating social networking machine, has taught us anything, it’s to distrust percentages and question quotations.

A friend’s profile contained a quote from President Kennedy. I’m acquainted with the quote and while I cannot prove JFK never uttered those words–how could we prove that about anything–I know how the line got attached to the Kennedys. It’s a quotation from a George Bernard Shaw play.

Some see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’ I see things that never were and ask ‘Why not?’

In 1968, at the funeral of his brother Robert F. Kennedy, Senator Ted Kennedy applied that line to him. It’s a terrific statement of vision. I expect for most of us, that was our first time to hear the quote. In the oration, Senator Kennedy did not give the source, which may have led some to believe he made it up.

One thing we know, however, is President John F. Kennedy is not its source. Nor is any Kennedy. And yet, keep your eye out for that quotation. Half the time, it will be attributed to one of the Kennedys.

Accuracy is important for everyone, but particularly those of us called to preach the Truth that gets people to Heaven.

Unfortunately, because we speak so often–many pastors deliver three or more sermons per week, fifty weeks of the year–our sermon machines go through a lot of material. It figures that sometimes we are going to get our stories wrong.

That’s why a statement from a preacher hit me so hard and drove me to do a little research.

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The Lord told you church would have its hardships. What–you didn’t believe Him?

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“In the world you will have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

We were expecting hostility from the world.  But certainly not from the Lord’s people.

Church is where we get blindsided.

The Lord wanted His people to know what to expect.  The road ahead would be rough.  They should prepare for turbulence.

The Lord would not be bringing His children around the storms but through them.  We will not miss out on the tempest, but will ride it out with Jesus in our boat, sometimes standing at the helm and at other times, seemingly asleep and unconcerned.

The lengthy passage of Matthew 10:16-42 is the holy grail on this subject, as the Lord instructs His children on what lies ahead and what to expect.  His disciples should expect to encounter opposition, persecution, slander, defamation, and for some, even death.  So, when it comes–as it does daily to millions of His children throughout the world–no one can say they weren’t warned.

But what about the church?  Should we expect opposition and persecution there also?

Jesus said, “they will scourge you in their synagogues” (10:17), which is where the faithful were meeting to worship.

He said members of our own households–parents, siblings, offspring–would lead the opposition at times. They will “cause them to be put to death” (10:21).

He doesn’t specifically say “the church,” but surely all of the above includes it.  And that’s where the typical believer runs into a buzzsaw.

Church is where we get blindsided.

We knew opposition would come from the world.  Scripture makes this plain.  But in the church?

A pastor told me his daughter no longer goes to a church of his denomination. After seeing how leaders of his congregation treated her father and then lied about it, she wants no part of this any longer.  The wonder is that she goes to church at all.  Many PKs grow up and write the church off.  “I love Jesus,” they will tell you, “but not the church.”

I grieve at this.  But I understand it.

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Family Reunions: My 2004 article about our first one

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The following piece was posted on my website exactly 20 years ago, in May of 2004.  Since we’ve just returned from our 2025 reunion–in the same location and with many of the same family members!–I thought it would be fun to repost it.  I’ll call my “Kilgore cousins” attention to it.  

Nearly twenty years ago, some of my siblings started worrying about our larger family. “The old folks are leaving,” they said, “and pretty soon, there will be no one left except our generation—the ‘cousins.’” Our mother came from a family of nine brothers and sisters, while our dad had eleven, so we were blessed with plenty of fun cousins and doting uncles and aunts. It was a great situation with all of us kids growing up together, visiting one another in the summers, and getting into trouble together. Now, with our parent’s generation aging, we all decided we needed to see each other on a regular basis. (Note:  This was in 2004.  Dad died in 2007 and Mom in 2012.  None of their generation is still living.  My brother Ron is the eldest of the clan as he turns 90 in August.)

Family reunion. The very term conjures up all kinds of crazy images-weird uncles, rambunctious kids, silly cousins. We sent out letters to everyone and for a couple of years tried holding reunions at various city parks and lake homes. Nothing really ‘took’, however, until we got smart and decided to hold the get-together at the only logical site-the old family homeplace. That was the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, 1994.

Our maternal grandparents,Virge and Sarah Kilgore, bought several hundreds of acres of woodland and farmland just inside Winston County, Alabama, right after the turn of the 20th century and cleared land for a house. It was an old-fashioned breezeway-down-the-center home, unpainted, with two bedrooms on each side and a kitchen in the back. Most of their children were born there, including my mother Lois in 1916. Grandpa built a barn and a blacksmith shop and later a garage to house his car, a 1948 Packard. He died in 1949, Granny died in 1963, and no one has lived there since. But all the buildings still stand just as they left them. So, every two years, my Uncle Cecil-who owns the property now-and some of the men get out the tractors and bush-hog the surrounding fields and open up the house and we have a reunion on the Saturday before Memorial Day. (Cousin Johnny Kilgore, age 80, owns the place now and takes the lead in the reunion planning.)

I will never forget the first reunion, that Memorial Day weekend of 1994, because my wife almost did not let me come. Our daughter-in-law Julie–she and Neil live a mile from us in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie–was due to give birth to their first-born at that very time. I assured Margaret I would make the reunion and not miss the birth. On Friday, I made the seven-hour drive northward and on Saturday we held the reunion. They had brought in tables and chairs from the church and union hall so we could spread lunch together and get reacquainted with each other. That night, we built a bonfire and pulled the chairs into a circle and reminisced and sang and got silly.

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The one question we have for Jesus

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Now when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceedingly glad; for he had desired for a long time to see Him, because he had heard many things about Him…. And he questioned Him with many words…. (Luke 23:8-9).

Someone asked Larry King, the legendary television interviewer, if he could sit across the table and interview one person in all of history, who would it be.

“Jesus Christ,” answered this man who is Jewish.

“And what would you ask him?”

“I would like to ask Him if He was indeed virgin-born.  The answer to that question would define history for me.”

To be sure. That answer could change everything.  As it has for many a person.

So with the resurrection.  Answer that in the affirmative and everything else falls into place.

Many people asked questions of Jesus…

In the Gospels, we find people asking one question of the Lord Jesus, then going their way.  We have to wonder if through the years, as they reflected on their single moment with Destiny, this one touch with the Divine, they didn’t regret the shallowness or superficiality of their request.  Here are some…

–The disciples of John asked why they had to fast, but Jesus’ disciples were not required to.  Matthew 9:14.

–The tricksters asked Him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” that they might accuse Him.  Matthew 12:10. It’s not a bad question, although they didn’t care for the Lord’s answer.

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