Prayer changes things ... literally!

Do you believe that prayer can change things? I mean, do you REALLY believe it?

In my Bible reading this morning, I came across the story of Abraham when he was pleading with the Lord (Genesis 18:16-33). God was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah but Abraham knew that his nephew, Lot, and his family resided there. So, Abraham proceeded to ask the Lord to spare the cities.

Abraham asked if the Lord would destroy the cities if there were 50 righteous folks living there. The Lord said, "No."
Abraham asked if there were 45 ... "No."
"40" ... "No."
"30" ... "No."
"20" ... "No."
"10" ... "No."
The Lord didn't end this conversation. Abraham was the one who stopped asking. I am convinced that if he had gotten the number low enough, the cities would have been spared.

You cannot help but realize as this dialogue is taking place that the Lord was taking Abraham's requests seriously and was willing to change His course of action. That's incredible when you think about it! The very God of all Creation who reigns supreme upon Heaven's throne listens to our requests ... prayers that may cause Him to change His course of action and do what we request! Incredible!

"If we were really convinced that prayer changes the way God acts, and that God does bring about remarkable changes in the world in response to prayer, as Scripture repeatedly teaches that he does, then we would pray much more than we do. If we pray little, it is probably because we do not really believe that prayer accomplishes much at all." (Wayne Grudem's "Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine")

Sermon (video): "How to Make the Most of 2014" (Joshua 14:6-15)

One of the many fascinating characters in the Old Testament is a man named Caleb. He was one of the 12 spies sent by Moses to report about the Promised Land and only one of 2 who gave a good report. Against his wishes, the people of Israel ...rejected God's plan for them and they had to roam the wilderness for 40 years.

This sermon takes a look at Caleb's conversation with Israel's new leader, Joshua. As we listen to Caleb, we pick up on 5 specific qualities that enabled him to be the man that God used in big ways.

The great news is that these 5 qualities are transferrable. You can emulate them, too! Maybe God's been waiting on you to do just that so He can use you!

 

To view the sermon, click here.

Selling our Florida house

January 4, 2014
I'm sharing the following for two reasons:
1) It may help followers of Jesus to develop a little more understanding of what following Him looks like. It won't always be easy and there may be very tough questions/decisions along the way.
2) It may lead folks to join us in praying for this matter. We are praying for a miracle (and I use that term in the strictest of senses).

___________

Since arriving at our new ministry assignment, Kim and I have freely talked about her health concerns and how we are faring. We have not talked about our house predicament because, honestly, it's a little embarrassing. Kim and I have prided ourselves in our credibility and our credit rating. (When we bought our car earlier last year, they ran both of our credit reports and we both had scores of over 800!). We have always been intentional in making good financial decisions and have faithfully paid off debts and honored contracts we've made.

Yet, when we sensed God's calling upon our lives to leave Florida and begin ministering in Kentucky, we knew that being relieved of our Florida house would take a miracle of God. I'm no Moses but I suspect my thoughts and feelings were akin to Moses' when he led the Israelites out of Egypt and into a wilderness where there was no guarantee of food or water. It would have been sheer madness to do such a thing if he were not thoroughly convinced that God had led him to do so.

Sandhill cranes in our front yard

When we purchased our house in Florida at the beginning of the summer of 2006, the housing market immediately tanked. Houses lost enormous value and ours was not an exception. It wasn't until we moved to Kentucky and our bank assessed our home's value that we realized it was worth half of what we owe.

To keep the house wasn't an option. When we moved and Kim quit her job, we lost quite a bit of income. Paying rent and a mortgage each month long-term was impossible. Further, renting the house would mean that we would have to add hundreds of dollars to what we received in rent just to make the monthly payment. That, too, was a financial impossibility. All of this was compounded by the fact that we ran up a lot of medical debt within the last 6 months to take care of Kim's health concerns. So, to honor the agreement we had with our bank as long as possible, we paid the mortgage payments as long as we could. We had also asked the bank to allow a short sale. They agreed.

Essentially, a short sale means that the bank comes back to the table to discuss the sale of a house below the amount that is owed. They agree to sell the house at market value and write off the balance. The bank certainly doesn't have to participate if they don't want to. There is no coercion involved.

An orange tree in our side yard

In our case, USBank agreed to a short sale with us. A buyer was found this past summer and he submitted his offer to the bank. After waiting for about 2 months, the bank finally counter-offered and set the value of the house at a price at which they were willing to sell. The buyer backed out even though he had previously said he was willing to go up to the amount the bank asked for.

Our house quickly went back on the market and another buyer was found. This time, the buyer made a cash offer for the exact amount the bank had previously set. We waited and waited, and waited without hearing anything from the bank. Finally, we heard that we had to restart the short sale process since the time limit (whatever the bank had set) had expired. No kidding! The bank had drug their feet!

So, we resubmitted everything and restarted the process. The cash buyer was patient and willing to wait out the process. Yet, once again, the bank drug their feet. Correspondence with the bank only found that the bank was taking their time and would get with us when they were ready.

As I was out running today, I received an e-mail from our realtor. She said that the cash-offer buyer wanted out. She was tired of waiting. No wonder! It's been about 3 months since she put her bid in with no word from the bank.

So, we're back to square one but this time, we've not been able to make our mortgage payments for 4 months so it may not end pretty. We may have to restart the process all over again and the bank may decide they are no longer willing to participate in a short sale. Not good!

I have been praying for a miracle but as of yet, nothing has happened. God has been so gracious to us in regard to Kim's health but our house in Florida is proving to be a severe thorn in the flesh. We would love for this to end quickly and in a way that is amicable to all parties involved. Apparently, only time will tell.

_______________________________

March 12, 2015

Ok. My God is in the miracle working business and I just have to praise Him!

For the last year and a half, God has allowed my family to go through some tremendous trials (some are still ongoing but most are in our rear-view mirror). The sale of our Florida house was near the top of the list.

Well, last year (June 2014), God moved on our behalf and the bank took our house back - instead of us going into foreclosure. They allowed us to do a Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure. That simply means that they took the house back but acknowledged that we worked with them through the process. 

While the bank could have held us responsible for the difference between what we owed and what the house sold for/appraised for, they didn't. They forgave us of a massive amount of money! They turned around and sold the house for about $90,000 less than what we owed so that gives you an idea of what we were forgiven.

Yet, we weren't out of the woods ... not by a long shot. Uncle Sam still had a say. Why? Because that $90,000(+/-) was considered capital gains and he would naturally want his fair share. That would have been an ENORMOUS tax burden.

Well, God worked on our behalf again! We heard from our CPA yesterday who said that Congress retroactively reinstated a Mortgage Relief Act for tax year 2014. That means that we owe absolutely nothing in taxes on our house!

So, we were forgiven the balance of our debt AND the corresponding taxes - an amount that would have totaled around $100,000 or more!!! When we got this news yesterday, I immediately dropped to my knees and prayed with Kim a prayer of praise and thanksgiving to my incredible God!

I would love to say that Kim and I trusted God through this long, tedious process but that would be a lie. The truth is that our faith was like a roller-coaster throughout this ordeal. There were times that we prayed and knew our God could resolve the problem but then there were other times that we wondered if He was even listening to our cries.

We don't have any equity with which to purchase a new house and we're also paying a small amount each month for the new roof we put on our (former) Florida home in 2012. Yet, that's nothing compared to the incredible miracle that God worked on our behalf. We'll take that deal any day of the week! And we know that the same God who took care of our Florida house reserves the right to do anything He pleases as we move into the future.

God is awesome!

How to be victorious in times of temptation

Temptation is a problem for everyone of us. Because of our sinful desires and areas of weakness, we often stumble into sin when a sinful opportunity comes along to satisfy that desire. Then, we end up dealing with guilt (once again!) and going through the whole process of confession, repentance and restoration.

As I read through the account of Jesus' temptation (Matthew 4:1-11), I was reminded th...at a knowledge of God's Word is absolutely essential to combat temptation. For every sinful opportunity that Satan verbally threw at Jesus, Jesus deflected the poisonous dart by saying, "It is written..." and then quoting Scripture.

Internalizing (reading / meditating on / memorizing) God's Word so that we have immediate access to it when tempted is vital! It is the weapon we've been given to fight off the enemy in the face of immediate temptation. We are engaged in spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6:10-18) so we must arm ourselves with "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Ephesians 6:17).

It is a foolish Christian indeed who fails to arm himself/herself with a growing knowledge of God's Word. By failing to take the time to internalize God's Word, they will be forced to take the time to spend in guilt, confession and repentance.

Cro-Magnon man, Creation and Evolution

As I am reading through Genesis and seeing how long the folks lived before the flood, I can't help but realize that there may be some very interesting things embedded in those verses that many Christians haven't thought about.

For instance, we've seen pictures of Cro-Magnon folks and noticed how different they look from us. Evolutionists believe that they are part of the long chain of links betwe...en the muck in the water that eventually became a human being.

As a Christian who believes in a literal, 7 day Creation as described in Genesis 1, I can't help but wonder (if so called "Cro-Magnon" man actually existed) if those were folks who were hundreds of years old. We've all seen age progression technology where we can snap a picture of ourselves and see what we would look like in a few decades. Yet, those pictures fail to take into consideration how our skeletal structure will change. We'll eventually hunch over, certain parts of our body will grow, sag, etc. Hair will recede in certain areas and grow in others (I got nose clippers two Christmases ago from one of my boys. lol). Etc., etc., etc.,

I wonder what Methuselah looked like at 969 years of age (Genesis 5:27)? Could he have been a so called "Cro-Magnon" man (a.k.a. a really, really, really old guy!)?

Capital punishment and the value of human life

Why do so many Christians believe in capital punishment? Is it because of a disregard for human life?

Nope. It is quite to the contrary. It is precisely because we value human life that we hold to the death penalty.

When we as Christians view others, we acknowledge that not everyone is a child of God on their way to Heaven. Yet, at the same time, we look at others and see God's fingerprints all... over them. Thus, we should place immense value upon everyone we meet. They are God's handiwork!

Because we believe that each person has unimaginable value (regardless of gender, skin color, nationality, religious or non-religious preference, sinful propensities, or any other way that we could segment people), we believe murder is so serious an offense that in doing so the murderer forfeits their own life. Their life is taken not by an individual but by a society that places a high value upon each human life.

God: “And I will require the blood of anyone who takes another person’s life. If a wild animal kills a person, it must die. And anyone who murders a fellow human must die. If anyone takes a human life, that person’s life will also be taken by human hands. For God made human beings in his own image." (Genesis 9:5-6)

This is not cruel and unusual punishment. It is an equal punishment for the offense. In so doing, society makes it clear that life is valued and murder will not be tolerated. It will have dire, lasting consequences.

Can it truly be said that a society values life if murderers are given only a few years in jail before they are released often to kill again?

Sermon (video): In Pursuit of Holiness (Romans 12:1-2)

Becoming a child of God is not simply a one time event. It's the adventure of a lifetime. This sermon unpacks the exciting truths of Romans 12:1-2 where we are encouraged to live our lives for Jesus since He gave His life for us.

To view this sermon, click here.