Mon, Aug 27th - 1:46AM

We often hear people ask the question, "what do you want to do?" They might refer to one’s vocation in life. Perhaps it’s the question asked by the husband to the wife. Whatever the reason for the question, the desired goal is to understand the other person’s violation.

The word violation has its origin in Latin. It comes from the Latin word volo which means "I wish". Our English word volition, according to the dictionary, means "the faculty or power of using one’s will". So, one is asked "what do you want to do" in hopes of finding out what they is their wish. Personal volition is underscored in every decision us normal folk make in our lives. We wish for the best and make decisions accordingly. Those decisions are made in order for a desire to come to pass. Sometimes folk aren’t willing to follow through with the actions necessary to realize their desired goal. In those cases individuals who fail to follow through are losers.

The lesson for Christians here is the importance of realizing that God has left it up to each believer as to whether or not they are going to live faithful as born again believers.

Romans 12: is an example. There we find Paul the apostle encouraging believers to "present your bodies . . .". He goes on in verse 2 to tell them how it is done. The underlying message of Paul is that personal volition is involved in personal spiritual growth. Salvation is the work of the Lord Jesus through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual growth in the life of the believer is dependent upon the principles of nourishing, spiritual food for the spiritual body. Total faithfulness isn’t automatic with salvation.

Paul continued in 12:2 to admonish believers to move on forward from salvation into a life of faithful service. Too many folk in our churches try to short circuit this aspect of their Christian lives. They want to jump right in from salvation to exhortation. The records are staggering of the number of men called of God to preach the Word of God but failed to carry out that call because they tried to move too quickly. Even for individuals who have been in church, heard all the sermons preached, gained certain historical notes about the scriptures, the experience of salvation must be followed with spiritual growth. The best school teacher in the world isn’t qualified to teach a Bible class the week after they are saved. Spiritual growth is necessary but can’t be achieved simply by sitting during the Sunday morning worship service.

What does his Romans letter tell us to do? He wrote in verse 2, "Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . .". You must decide that you will grow in your spiritual life. You must decide that you are going to be a faithful member of a local church in which you have placed your membership. You must decide that you are going to get out of bed and join a Bible study class on Sunday mornings. Personal volition!

Something important will happen in your life when you decide to follow Jesus Christ. You will learn spiritual submission to the Lord Jesus. His will in your life shall become the most important aspect of your personal desire.

Then you will discover you can win over Satan’s attempts to destroy your witness. James wrote, "Therefore, submit to God. But resist the Devil, and he will flee from you" (4:7). Here is the secret, submission to God comes before resisting the Devil. Failure is for those who reverse the order.

It is your decision. Volition, which is the faculty or power of using one's will, anointed by God’s Holy Spirit, will guide to the correct decisions in a person’s life. "What do you want to do?"

Sun, Aug 19th - 11:32PM

Returning To The Pulpit Often Because The Holy Spirit Compels Me

While serving as pastor several years ago in Danville, Alabama, I went with a neighboring pastor to a Bible conference in Tennessee. I enjoyed the preaching during the afternoon session and then came time for supper. We ate at the church and one of the men at our table was in charge of the conference. Our conversation was centered around the churches where the different pastors were serving. Some 10 minutes before returning to the auditorium, this conference director looked across the table at me and said, "When we go back into the auditorium, you are going to preach. The fellow up next can’t be here, so your up!"

Paul silent cried out at me, "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season." (2 Tim. 4:2). When we got to the auditorium, I was ready!

A few years afterwards, basically the same thing happened again. A former pastor had returned to the nearby town to preach in an all night watch-night service in a storefront church. I attended so our members who would be present wouldn’t think bad of me. They had invited me and so I felt compelled to attend. The pastor came by, shook my hand, and said, "Got a message brother?" Not wanting to feel inferior to any of the other preachers he had lined up for the event, I boastfully responded, "Always brother, always!"

He went straight to the front, announced a hymn, then said, "Our dear brother Odus Jackson is going to come after this next song and preach to our hearts. Let’s stand and sing!"

Stunned by the moment, I looked over at my church members seating nearby and asked, "Can I borrow your Bible? I didn’t bring one with me." The lady from our church said, "I only have a New Testament" to which I responded, "Anything with a text in it will do".

Paul’s words to the young preacher Timothy are just as true for the preacher today as it was 2,000 years ago. I like the way the Holman Christian Standard Bible has translated the above text. It reads, "proclaim the message; persist in it whether convenient or not." The longer I live, the better prepared I try to be at any given moment. One never knows just when the Lord is going to open a door and I want to be ready to step through it in faithful service.

I’ve thought about preaching a lot of late. Sometimes preachers stand in the pulpit, open the precious Word of God, faithfully pour out the heart, emptying to the congregation what the Holy Spirit has plowed into the soul, and wonder if there is any fertile soul out there to receive it. We leave the church after the folk have all gone home, after the lights have been turned off, the doors are locked, sometimes with a empty feeling in the pit of the stomach because there seems to have been no one touched, no one changed, no one ready to walk a truly committed lifestyle for our Lord Jesus.

Then I ready Paul’s admonition and I remember once again just why I keep climbing the steeps up to the sacred desk. Because He has called me to that ministry. Because the Holy Spirit compels me to that place. I read Paul’s admonition and I go to my knees and thank Him over and over that He chose to put me into the preaching ministry.

Every sermon and every Bible study is precious to me. The older I become, the more I’m aware of the fact that one of these days I’ll walk behind the pulpit for the last time; I’ll preach my last sermon. I want that sermon to be well prepared and well delivered. And that is why I preach with such excitement. That’s why I want every service to be better than the one before. That’s why I go back again and again. Because in that old Sunday school room, at the age of seventeen, I heard Him call and I surrendered.

Mon, Aug 13th - 12:25AM

The Souther Herald recently carried an interesting article by Brother A. J. Ogden. He recalled from his past years an old plow mule he named Bill. He and Bill became close friends as they plowed the field in a long ago year. As Bill pulled the plow through "clods, stumps, and roots", Brother Ogden talked to him as though he were a human. It is a very interesting and thought provoking article which would do you well to find and read in its entirety.

As the story goes, the author went away to war after several years of plowing. By then Bill was getting along in years and beginning to get slower. He went by, as he was leaving for the war in Germany, to tell old Bill goodbye. He doubted he would ever see him again.

After the war was ended, a great deal of time having past, Brother Ogden returned home. Bill had indeed died. But there was the plow down at the end of the row, now resting in the midst of weeds in a once plowed field now all grown up.

Brother Ogden used his experience in that story to tell the story of faithfulness in ministry which ceases at the end of the row. The faithful servant of God plows a straight row, never stopping until he comes to the end.

There are scores and scores of men and women who have served God faithfully to the end of the row given to them. They have never wavered, they have never given in to the isms hurling their anti-god thrash at them. They have endured hardships, insults, rejections, imprisonments, and even death. But down at the end of the row, not in its middle, is their spiritual plow. Their reward awaits them in Heaven.

Brother Ogden is an example of that faithful spiritual workman in the field called the world. He has been having some physical difficulties of late, so I understand, and perhaps he is thinking about the end of his row. That, of course, remains in the hand of God. Perhaps his row is much longer than once thought it would be. And even perhaps his row will end only when the Lord returns to get His church.

His article hit home to me as it will to all faithful servants in the field. That includes every lay person, every man and woman claiming the name of Jesus. Because every believer is on the front lines in the battle against Satan. Everyone of us has a row to plow. And we must not leave our plow halfway down the row.

We’ve watched some giants of the faith ushered out into eternity in the past few months. With each one’s passing a hole in the hedge of spiritual protection is opened. God calls for new men and women to take their stand in righteous living, to plug in the holes left in the spiritual hedge. He calls for new men and women to take hold of their plow and get behind their spiritual Bill and plow straight through liberalism, modernism, atheism, and laziness — to finish their row.

At 71, like others my age and older, we want to be used by our Lord until our departure. I remember an old saint of God, Brother Howard Courtney in Louisiana, suffering a heart attack. I went to visit him after a doctor’s visit. He had left home that morning in hopes of hearing the doctor say he could return to preaching. Instead, he was told, "you’ve preached your last sermon". He said to me, "Brother, if that is the case, I’d rather die now than live and not be able to preach". In a matter of days, another attack brought him into the safe arms of the Lord. His plow was left at the end of his row. It will be well for all of us to strive toward that goal.

Mon, Aug 6th - 1:00AM

There’s No Place Like Home

Peggy and I stood at the front window of the duplex apartment on the campus of Clarke Junior College in Newton, Mississippi. We stared out at the cold, gloomy, overcast day. For two young married people living away from their families for the fist time in their lives, it was awesome lonely moment. Even our vibrant 7 month old daughter couldn’t brighten our day. We longed for home land back in southwest Mississippi.

For the first time we understood what the phrase "there’s no place like home" really meant. To put it simple, we were homesick. We could hardly wait until the Christmas holidays. Our trip home in our 1951 Ford was a bouncy ride. The shocks had long since worn out and the closer we got to Amite County, the faster the car wanted to roll.

We were no different from thousands who had preceded us in leaving home to begin a new life. God opened doors for me to transfer to Southwest in Summit and to also become the pastor of my first church — Ebenezer Baptist Church in Amite, County.

While pondering the upcoming Homecoming 2007 for Galilee in Gloster, I wondered about a theme for the occasion. It dawned upon me that many Galileans had come through the church and had moved to points unknown. That would be a good time for many of them to return for a few hours to the place of their youth or younger years. Our committee met and we settled upon a theme for the two-session homecoming. That theme is "There’s No Place Like Home".

Coming home reminds us of some events which were, perhaps, not as much a laughing matter then as they are now. Like the time when several of us boys had to spend some time at the mayor’s office on a Saturday morning. We had stopped off at the old gravel pit on 24 Highway to scare some boy scouts who were camping over on the far edge of the pit. We had to walk through a wooded area, entering where the washeteria is now located, and slip in behind them. We enjoyed the night and thought we had a lot of fun.

Next morning, one of the fellows was at my house telling me we were in a lot of trouble. One of the camping boys told his dad that we tore up a tent, ate all their food, and hung him with a rope by one leg over the cliff. The mayor sent us a letter to be at his office on a certain Saturday with reasons why he shouldn’t have us all sent either up or down the river (which ever direction it was didn’t sound good).

We, and I want mention names here because some of you would recognize some them, didn’t get into trouble over the deal and it is a good laugh today. Coming homes brings up a lot of such stories.

But, we can also remember the good times we had at church. We recount the revivals, the "singspirations" in the basement of the church, the cookouts at the old tin building where the brick educational building now stands, the fun days of just gathering at the church for prayer time during week days. Can you believe that there would be from 3 to 10 boys meet in front of the old Gloster High School at night before we went home solely for the purpose of prayer!

Come August 18^th and 19^th we at Galilee are hopeful many will come share in the memories. We’ll have singing, testimonials, sermons, special recognitions, memorial service, and yes! Great food and many good stories. We’ll remember the best days in Amite County’s history. Our county and towns were safe places to live and play. Homes were seldom locked. Folk shopped at home and Saturday night in Gloster was filled with people — the barber shop still cutting hair.

I look forward to reliving the past for a spring board of encouragement to the future.

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