FromOurPastor - Brightwood Christian Church

Encouraging Word March

When I think of a magnifying glass, my mind goes back to my earliest memories and Saturday morning cartoons. There different characters like Huckle Berry Hound, Augie Doggie, Jinx the cat, Snaggle Puss, and a host of others would be detectives. As they were looking for clues, they would use a magnifying glass and walk the premise looking to solve a mystery.

The word "magnify" is used in scripture of both God and people. Psalm 34: 3 says "Magnify the LORD with me! Together let us lift his name up high!" Psalm 35: 26 says ""Let all those who magnify my misfortune be disgraced and put to shame!" Psalm 38: 16 says, "Because I prayed: 'Don't let them magnify over me or exalt themselves over me when my foot slips,'"

To magnify has two possibilities. It means "to enlarge." We can either enlarge something or we can see it as it really is. In the examples used above it has the idea of "celebrate." But celebration is not the only way that we magnify. Whenever we face trials and difficulties we can enlarge them so that they are bigger than life. Whenever we face the worst of life, dying, being diagnosed with cancer, having a spouse be unfaithful, having a child choose a different way, being dismissed from a job, being caught in great financial traps, or whatever, we can magnify these to the point that they suffocate us. These situations, and others like them, can become so large that they completely steal our joy from us and cause us to live with anxiety and worry. How will we ever manage?

But the Biblical response is to magnify God, which means, to see him as He really is. He is large. He is greater than our enemy and greater than anything that we will ever face. Scripture teaches that He who is within you is greater than he who is in the world. That means that God is not overwhelmed with our problems or by our problems. Further, when we live in right relationship with him we will not be overwhelmed or greatly alarmed by problems either. The joy of growing in Jesus is that as we learn firsthand how much he loves us and how near he is, we grow in contentment, peace and joy. The fruit of growing in the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. That means that as we live, grow and draw nearer to the Lord, we grow in all of these aspects. If we are walking with the Lord we gain security over problems, meaning that we learn how to face them with peace. We can actually face the worst that life has to offer us and say that we are quietly hopeful in any given circumstance. There is nothing more relaxing than to have peace, calm and self-assurance as others around us are panicking and helter skelter. We can major in self-restraint. The Apostle was able to say that "the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus."

The irony is that we can either magnify our problems, which at the same time diminishes our faith in God or we can magnify the Lord, which results in putting our problems in proper perspective, essentially diminishing them. How do we do this? We worship God. We worship him in corporate worship with the body of believers and we worship God with our families and individually daily. We pray, praise, wait on him, be silent before him, study the Bible, confess our faith and our inadequacies and sin, and we ask him what it is that He would have us do and be for that day.

Since we cannot serve two masters, Magnify the Lord.

Bob Jackson, Encourager

Final Word

One of the last times I completed a Beacon with “The Final Word” a good pastor friend of mine called me to make certain that I wasn’t leaving the church. I am trusting that eliminating the article “the” might alleviate any concerns.

My final word is a word of thanks. There have been so many kind acts directed towards us that I can’t possibly say everyone’s name, but so many of you have shown us kindness that I wanted to express thanks to some.

First, Edna and I want to thank you for the kind gift you gave us for Pastor’s Appreciation. The words you expressed in the newspaper were special. The financial gift was much appreciated. Additionally, you gave us a very generous Christmas bonus. Santa’s kind words were very much appreciated. And I want to thank the board for the recent pay raise that they gave me for the coming year. In these times of financial distress for the country and the church, these actions are very much appreciated.

December saw us have an excellent church Christmas party and dinner. The food, the singing and the entertainment were fun and appreciated. Thanks to Pat, Bonnie and Grace for setting this up as well as Bart and Kim for the delicious food. Everything was excellent. Additionally, we had a great Live Nativity once again. Those who volunteered their evenings to give this gift to the community are to be congratulated and thanked. Once again, those who delivered food and cookies were givers that we all appreciated.

Many of you bought flowers for the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day worship services. Thank you.

As we close out another year and begin a new one, I am reminded that Edna and I begin our eighth year of ministry with you. You have become family to us. You give us so much more than what we could ever offer you. Thank you for your love, hospitality and gratitude. We are honored to serve with you.

Blessings,

Bob and Edna

Your Money Matters

Jesus said that it was more blessed to give than to receive. Many of us discover this when we see the joy of loved ones opening gifts that we took great care to give. God demonstrated this in giving his Son Jesus to us so that we might have everlasting life. We are never more like God than when we give.

Many find that giving also takes a lot of courage. It is not easy to give a tithe. We decide that to give ten percent of our income is risky. It requires faith that God will see us through. It requires us to manage the remaining 90% effectively. It also symbolizes a giving up of some power and security that we “think” that we own.

But the goal is to be like God. We want to grow in our giving. In other parts of this newsletter I’ve suggested that we practice growing in incremental levels. I encourage you to set a goal for the New Year to become the best giver that you can be so that you may become the best person that you can be. First, I encourage you to make your giving a matter of your prayer concerns. Second, get a good perspective of what you actually gave the previous year. Many people analyze their taxes and learn that they gave a certain percentage of their giving. Most Christians are in the 2% level. We can do better than that if we make the effort. Let us suppose that we gave 2% of our income last year. Could we set a goal that within three months we could double that to 4%? If that is too difficult could we raise it to 3%? We could try, could we not? And then could we add another per cent within the next couple months? If we could do that we would be up to 5%, which would be half of a tithe within four to six months with six to eight months to go towards increasing our giving more percentage.

My point is that if we will attempt to have a giving mentality, we will be surprised at how God will guide us. God has laid a challenge before believers. Test me, he says, and see if I will not open the windows of Heaven and pour out a blessing upon you. The other time that God opened the windows of heaven the flood came crashing upon earth during Noah’s time. Can you imagine God crashing down a flood of blessing upon your life? What have you got to lose? It’s the most certain

gamble you’ll ever make.

Yours for being good stewards,