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“Devote yourselves to prayer-being watchful and thankful.” Colossians 4:2

*Be watchful*

Jesus asked His sleeping disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night His passion began “could you not watch with Me…?” How often have we fallen asleep on the watch. Our prayers grow lifeless and listless. We lose the urgency and fervency of the early moments of our prayers. It requires effort to continue to “watch and pray” -notice this- WITH Jesus!

Did you know that when YOU pray you are never praying alone?When you are watchful, you are watching WITH the One Who is our High Priest and Who “ever lives to make intercession for us!” I have walked into the Garden of Gethsemane, wondering “would I have fallen to sleep with the rest?”

We sleep on the watch because we don’t really believe we are fighting a battle as we pray… and indeed as we live each day. But as we sleep the bullets fly overhead, taking out fellow soldiers in the war. Watch and pray! You need this. Your fellow soldiers need this. And Jesus is calling you to this. Be watchful. Be vigilant. The enemy prowls like a hungry lion.

The antidote is spiritual watchfulness.

What would you do for $10 million? In a study, 25% of people said they would leave their family; 25% said they would leave their church and another 25% said they would deny their faith. Almost as many said they would become a prostitute for a week. Another 7% said they would kill a stranger. (Hope I don’t run into them!)

The truth is, money has a grip on us. It means something more than income to get us through the day or food and clothing and a home for our family. The “love of money is the root of all kinds of evil,” 1st Timothy chapter 6 tells us. Richard Foster said, “Money has a sense of omnipotence about it.”

In other words, money will eat your lunch if you don’t manage it according to the principles of God’s Word. Do you trust God enough to adjust your life to do what He says with it? And maybe an even bigger question is, “can God trust you?” This is the question of stewardship that we are considering in worship this month.

Will you take His Word about what we are to do with the resources we have been entrusted with and allowed to manage? Jesus said we lose what we keep… we gain what we release.

Don’t let money own you. Don’t let it buy and sell your soul. Use it for the purposes God intended, and in ways that He can be glorified.

Live so God can say, “Yes, I can trust you with money.” Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all of these other things will be added to you as well. God is looking for stewards that He can trust to faithfully handle the resources He graciously provides. Be sure to live so that you will hear,

“Well done, good and faithful servant.”

The Promises of God

We stand upon and live by promises made by God. Even if we are not inclined to acknowledge God’s faithfulness to us we are still dependent on them. Our salvation is dependent on God’s promises. Our provision is dependent on them. Our daily existence in fact, is dependent upon the promises of a God who is unalterably faithful.

So we know they are there; hundreds, like buried gold in a running stream. The “exceedingly great and precious promises of God.” (2 Peter 1:4). During my recent pilgrimage I stayed a week in Blue Ridge, GA, along the banks of the Toccoa River. Just a few yards uphill from where I stayed was a camp where you could pay a small fee and spend the day mining for gold. They virtually guaranteed you would find some. I never went. Gold was there for the taking… I just chose to pass.

We do that all the time. We read the Word, know it’s there, know it’s true. But some go to the trouble of “mining” it out, and find themselves much richer for the effort. I pray for us that we will not just know they are there, but will reach down and take them for ourselves.

A few things we need to do to make these promises the blessing God intends them to be:

REMEMBER them. We need to cling to these “exceedingly great” promises, but we sometimes (well, often) forget them. Meditate on a promise. Make one promise your promise this week. Don’t go wide in your hunt. Go deep.

SHARE them. It may be a helpful practice when you are working through a promise and seeking to really imbed it in your life, to tell someone about it. Put it on your Facebook page. Tweet it out. When somebody sends you theirs, share it with others in your network. Let’s rain the promises down through social media.

SPEAK them. Attempt to work them into your prayer life and in your conversations. Speaking them aloud gives your brain one more place to “hang” the memory of God’s precious promise to you.

REPEAT. Do it every week. How long? Until you have appropriated them all. Should keep most of us busy for the rest of our lives!

Stand on the promises of God. They are the rock that never shakes beneath you.

Since the week after Pam’s celebration of life at Fruit Cove, I have been on a journey; spiritual, physical, and emotional. I have driven almost 2,700 miles. It began with just revisiting areas of our life together… geographic touchpoints… that allowed me to remember, weep and give thanks for God’s goodness in allowing our lives to intersect.

Our first home site, the church where we grew up and later married, the places we worked, the places where we dated, and along the way I met with people who touched our lives and gave guidance, models and counsel to us. I was allowed to preach the homecoming for the church we served over ten years near Louisville, Ky. These have been rich days… necessary days actually… to allow me to fully enter grief and begin that experience.

I have also had the privilege in these days of spending time with Pam’s mother and sisters and her “side” of the family tree and to rest with them in God’s comfort. Their grief has been multiplied not only by Pam’s death but also by Pam’s father’s passing. In these days, I have lived with my brother and sister-in-law who have offered rich shelter and much grace to me. They are also caring for my mother as she has passed 90 years… her birthday was on the day of Pam’s homegoing. She is going through her own trials with breast cancer as well.

Along the way I spent a week in a cabin in Blue Ridge, NC, a retreat I hope to enjoy more often. Some new friends have offered me shelter there on their property overlooking the Toccoa River.

To be accountable to you, my church family and friends, I have also begun grief counseling and intend that to continue for this season. In all, it has been needed reflection, prayer, and opportunity to begin work on a book.

My plans at this time are to begin to enter back into “new” normal as I try to close doors on this chapter of my past. If you have been on this grief journey, you know how hard that is to do. I will not do it perfectly, of that I am certain.

I intend to return to “regular” preaching on October 15 and October 29. My duties as trustee for the Baptist College of Florida are also on my agenda as well as serving on the Executive Committee of the SBC. Both are tremendous privileges for which I am grateful to be asked to serve.

My office hours will be sporadic for a bit as I enter back in to “life” as it now is. We have tremendous challenges laid before our church body now with added efforts to assist the hurricane-ravaged Caribbean Islands as well as south Florida. And Advance 2020 is beginning its two-year countdown in January, as I celebrate my 25th anniversary with you.

“So is your journey done?” I was asked in earnest by a friend. My answer was, for now, my traveling is. Someone else asked me if I was running from something or running toward something. The answer is, “Yes. Both.” There are certainly things I am not looking forward to doing. But I am encouraged as clarity has begun to return.

Grief is not a “cycle” or a linear, stage-by-stage process. It is an experience that we endure. Along the way, you will meet denial and anger, depression and sorrow, regret and tears. I will carry this burden for some time I am sure.

So the best answer I can give to you as to “how are you doing” is “I am grieving well.” We don’t get to hide from it, avoid it or pretend it doesn’t bring crushing pain.

But as we have claimed, said and sung through this journey, we have a good, good Father. And no matter where your journey has taken you…

He is good all the time.