Bible

[excel]

The below is from my favorite Pastor Steve Farnworth. You'll understand a bit why he was my favorite as God gave him a way to look at his word and see what so many others miss when teaching .............


The Pastor’s Pen

I have a confession to make. I am a country boy at heart. Ages three through six I lived on a farm on a dirt road that was miles from the nearest pavement. The closest grocery store was more than thirty minutes from our house. It required a forty-five minute drive to find a department store or a movie theater. If you were one of the few families in the area to own a TV set, you would have a major challenge attempting to get reception.

My little brother, Greg, and I found many ways to delight ourselves in that pre-media, pre-computer, pre-society-gone-nuts era of the 1950s. We loved feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs; we tried milking the cow. Dad would let us try, then shoo us away with a squirt of milk to our faces!

We loved to swim in the ditch and throw rocks at the cattle (that got us in trouble!). I remember one day we got the bright idea to undo a few bales of hay and form it into a soft pile under the drip line of the roof to the equipment shed. Then we “borrowed” the box of wax paper from our mom’s kitchen. From it we tore off large pieces of wax paper, and then climbed up a ladder onto the metal roof of the shed. We slowly and carefully climbed to the ridge of the roof, then, while I held onto my brother’s waist, he sat down on his wax paper. I let go and off he sped down that metal roof that ended with a nine-foot drop to the ground (and hopefully the soft pile of hay) below. As he cleared the roof’s edge and disappeared from sight, I had this uneasy thought cross my mind, “What if he doesn’t land on the hay?”

But land on it he did! So down that roof and onto that hay I flew to join him, then quickly back up the ladder and to the top of the roof we sped, just to do it all over again and again and again! We were so thrilled with our new game; we screamed and shouted and laughed! Then mom came out to check on us. No, we didn’t get in trouble with her, but she did make us stop. She had some crazy notion that we might hurt ourselves if we kept playing our new game.

I am a lot older now and find it hard to believe that I actually did all of that as a six-year-old child. Today I would look at that nine-foot drop, shake my head and say, “A guy would be out of his mind to slide down that roof on wax paper and fly onto some hay!” But, you know what, had that been my opinion back then, I would have forfeited the thrill of the ride! Never would have I experienced the utter fright of that first flight, nor the rush of wind in my face and the freefall through space.

You know, ministry is a lot like that. True ministry is filled with one thrill after another, complete with fright, flight, the wind of the Spirit in your face and seeming freefall through space. Many Christ followers never experience the thrill of true ministry. To them, it looks scary; it feels too threatening, so they watch from a safe distance.

Eleven of Christ’s disciples were like that. Remember, they sat in the boat in the middle of the violent storm, as Peter climbed over the gunwales and onto the raging sea. But Jesus had called to him, so out he stepped. Can you imagine what the other eleven dudes in the boat were saying to Peter? All they could see was the waves; all they heard was the violence of the wind. You know what Peter heard? The voice of Jesus. You know what he saw? The face and hands of Jesus. Everyone else saw waves and heard wind; Peter saw Jesus and heard His voice calling Him into the deepest of all trust relationships.

All my life I have heard sermons on this passage about Peter’s lack of faith. All the while I’m thinking, “Wait a minute! Everyone else is huddled in the boat; he’s walking on water! Who lacks faith here?”

God is faithfully calling us out of the boat we know as modern day Christianity. I am convinced that He is calling us into true ministry, ministry that is outside the safety of the boat. He wants us engaging our culture where the storms are brewing, the waves are raging, and the winds are billowing. He has prepared a place of ministry for us that will require that we keep our eyes and our ears on Him, not on the religious opinions that seem to dominate Christendom.

I promise, I will not invite you to join me on that old shed roof (if it is even still standing) for the ride of your life. But I do invite you to join me in stepping out of the boat of religious comfort and into the storm of true ministry. I do encourage you to learn to hear the voice of Jesus, seek His face, and respond joyfully to genuine opportunities to serve others who are being overcome by the storms of life. I know that we will never experience the amazing things that God has planned for us while we huddle comfortably in the bow of the boat of mediocrity!