For Lord’s Day, February 10, 2013

Dear Saints,

Before this week’s e-devotion, I’d like to let you know about something I hope as many of you as possible can participate with me and my family in on Saturday, March 9.  I am on the Steering Committee looking to bring a satellite clinic of the East County Pregnancy Care Center to the South Bay, likely very close to our church.  We’re actually having the next S. Bay Satellite Clinic Steering Committee Meeting at PECA on March 11.  To help show we’re serious about working with the ECPCC’s vision to bring a satellite office to our area and save babies and have a connections to save souls, the Steering Committee members involved know we need to show up with our churches at their annual Walk for Life at Chollas Lake Park at 9:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m. registration) on Saturday, March 9 to show the board there is a core group here ready to respond to their vision.  Tomorrow, during announcements, I’ll explain how you can participate as a sponsor (watch for Rachel with her sponsor form!) and/or walker.  Even if you don’t raise money, your presence at the walk would be really important if you can make it with us all wearing our PECA T-Shirts and have a picnic together there afterward.  I’ll explain more tomorrow, but please go to this link to learn more in the mean time:  http://www.ecpcc.org/events.php.

In this Monday’s issue of a weekly marketing email I still get (by Roy Williams, a Christian with a lot of great wisdom to share not only on communication, but on life), I read this excerpt I thought was worth our own self-meditation.  Mr. William’s comments are in brown text introducing Mr. Metzger’s illustration in blue text:

“Mike Metzger once told me that we meet the same 4 people again and again on the ocean of life.”

“Drifters just go with the flow,” he said, “pushed this way and that by the wind and waves of circumstances. They look around and say, ‘Whatever. It’s all good.’ Surfers ride the waves, always looking for the next big thing. Drowners stay in the center of a storm. Rescue them and they’ll find another crisis and cry, ‘Help me, save me, I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ But Sailors counteract the winds and waves of circumstance by rigging sails and twisting rudders. But the sailor cannot navigate without an immovable object, a fixed point, a non-negotiable that is unaffected by circumstances. Without this guiding light there is nothing for us on life’s ocean but to drift, surf, or drown.”

“I don’t want to speak harshly or be overly dramatic, but if you have nothing for which you would be willing to suffer, you have little for which to live.”

So, which person are you on the ocean of life?  Look at your life’s choices on a daily basis and answer honestly.  God knows, and you know.  Sometimes looking at an illustration like this helps us talk straight with ourselves so we begin to talk differently (or as I recently heard it put in a lecture, “Stop the Stinking Thinking”).  Are you a Drifter?  Are you a Surfer?  Are you a Drowner?  Or, are you a Sailor?  Only the sailor really lives and is most likely to get anywhere in life (and is the least likely to wash up on the shore).

James gave us a similar (and inspired) concept:
“But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” (James 1:4-8)

I also think of one of Jesus’ parables, and I think it applies not only to our salvation, but our sanctification:
“And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:  And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.  And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.  Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” (Matthew 13:3-9)

Be sure you don’t throw your seed overboard.  Grab hold of your life and set your sails on God’s gracious winds to make it across the waves of life, with your soul’s compass set on the Light of the World.

Consider also our Shorter Catechism 90 for memory verse Proverbs 8:34 during tomorrow evening’s teaching time after the service:
“That the word may become effectual to salvation, we must attend thereunto with diligence, preparation, and prayer; receive it with faith and love, lay it up in our hearts, and practice it in our lives.”

Don’t just drift.  Don’t just ride for short spurts.  Don’t just tread water.  Sail!

Semper Reformanda,

Pastor Grant