“I was the student minister in a fine church many years ago,” Will told me. “We had a wonderful ministry. The single negative about the entire experience was the pastor. You never knew what he would do next.”

“Case in point. One night in a church business meeting, the pastor announced that the property the church owned, including the former pastorium, was being offered for sale. At the time, my wife and I were living in that house! And now we learn they’re selling it. This was the first we had heard of it.

“That night, my wife was angry because she thought I had known about it and not told her. But that was the way this pastor worked.”

“Staff members were nothing to him. Just pawns to be manipulated.”

I sat there listening to my longtime friend Will tell of that experience some 20 years previously and thought once again that the number one trait a staff member is looking for in his new pastor–his employer, his supervisor, and hopefully his mentor, remember–is integrity.

Without integrity, nothing matters.

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“But there were standing by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” (John 19:25)

Why am I here? And why is He there?

There seem to be no answers other than “God knows and we trust Him.”

Thy will be done. “I am the bond-slave of the Lord. Be it done to me according to Thy word.”

Sometimes you cry and cry until there are no more tears.

Your heart aches until it no longer feels anything.

Your mind grows exhausted from events happening all around, none of which you were prepared for.

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“I will sing a new song to Thee, O God….” (Psalm 144:9)

The message from a friend raised a question I’d not thought of: “Can you tell me how to freshen up my prayer time? My prayers all sound the same after a while. I get tired of my own words, so I know the Lord must.”

How, he wanted to know, does one freshen up his prayers?

Herewith my thoughts on that subject. (I speak as an expert on absolutely nothing, but simply as one believer encouraging another.)

1. Freshness is overrated.

When my grandchild enters the room, I’m not listening for something new from her. She crawls into my lap, hugs my neck, and speaks the same words I have heard again and again, but which never grow old or stale: “I love you, grandpa.”

I love you, too, honey.

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A deacon is a servant, and a good deacon is a treasure.

The church with a healthy body of godly servants called deacons is a blessed congregation indeed.

Your church (and your pastor) needs deacons if….

1) Your church needs a standing team of godly men always ready to respond to needs in the church.

What is everyone’s responsibility turns out to be no one’s job. So, you organize a group of servant-minded Christians and put them in charge of any gap in the church’s ministries, anywhere the hardworking teachers and others are showing signs of fatigue, fear, or shorthandedness.

In Nehemiah’s day, when Israel was rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, the enemies were on the job. Night and day they taunted the Lord’s people who were laboring to complete the work and secure the city. “And it came about when the Jews who lived near (the enemies) came and told us ten times, ‘They will come up against us from every place where you may turn,’ then I stationed men in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the exposed places, and I stationed the people in families with their swords, spears, and bows….” (Neh. 4:12-13).

The men “stationed in the lowest parts” are  the most vulnerable, the fill-in-the-gap warriors. They are exposed, the risk-takers, the defenders. Think of them as deacons. “Whatever it takes” and “wherever you need us”–that’s a deacon.

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“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things I say?” (Luke 6:46)

It’s a fair question. The very word “Lord” means “master, owner,” and implies that one is subservient to Jesus Christ, willing to carry out His slightest command.

“Don’t call me that if you are not going to obey me,” Jesus said. It’s a simple enough request.

The Lord’s question was rhetorical.  He was not looking for an answer.  He knew the human heart as no one before or after Him. (Of course, there was no one before Jesus and there will be no one after Him. He is the Everlasting One.)

Our Lord needed no one to advise Him on the crooked way people’s minds work, of our tendency to pick and choose the commands we will obey and how we want the rewards before doing the work and paying the price.

“He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust” (Psalm 103:14).

However, I’d like to venture to pose an answer to His question. Several answers in fact on “Why we call Jesus ‘Lord’ and do not do what He commanded.”

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“….our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel….” (II Timothy 1:10)

Slam-dunk, this is as good as it gets.

Why do we owe so much to Jesus? Why has eternity changed for us? Why do we go forward with our heads held high, undaunted by the unknown?  Because Jesus Christ abolished death and brought to light life and immortality.

It makes a world of difference.

This is part of a larger sentence, one that starts with 1:8 and continues through verse 11. The larger thought–the full context–is much broader than that, even.

The entire thing is a mother lode of insight, inspiration, and instruction.

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