Continuing To Develop Faith

Posted By Dan Presgrave | September 16, 2013

Good Day, My Friends:  Pam and I had a great end to last week by spending Saturday with two friends, Candy and Andy, on their boat at Lake St. Louis.  Then I had a great beginning to this week by spending it with The Saint Louis Wind Symphony as we prepared the opening concert for our 16th season next Sunday, September, 22; 3:00 p.m. at Chaminade College Prep School, 425 S.  Lindbergh Blvd.  Everyone is invited to come as my guest. Just go to the ticket table and tell them you are a friend of Pastor Dan and your admission will be free.  See, the blessings I am about to write about are already coming to pass.

Last week when I wrote about developing faith, I referred to a specific kind of  faith: evidential faith as opposed to blind faith.  Blind faith is accepting something at surface level; perhaps it “seems to make sense to you” or perhaps someone told you “it was so”.  In other words you accept information without testing its validity (or experiencing its truth).   Evidential faith is based on our experience with the object of our faith.

I ended last week’s message by presenting a life situation involving a burglar alarm.  The story began with the realization of increased burglaries in your neighborhood; then a decision to take action; and finally the feeling of security with the implementation of a security product.  At this point you believed you had taken the appropriate steps to increase your security, and you had hope that the product would work.  The only thing standing between you and evidential faith was experiencing the product in action, (i.e. doing what the advertisement claimed it would do)!

The same is true when it comes to developing faith in God.   To repeat again Neil Anderson’s insightful statement found in “Victory Over the Darkness”; You cannot have faith in something you do not know anything about”, he surmises you cannot have faith in God  if you do not know God.  Therefore, to come to know God and to develop a relationship with him, we have to spend time and effort learning what he says; what he says about us; what his standards are; what his promises are; how we can achieve his promises, AND we have to learn about his nature –  God is love. (1John 4:8) Knowing his nature is vitally important because if God is love, he can only beget good (1John 1:5…God is light [goodness] and there is no darkness [evil] in Him at all).  

Since God is love; and since he wants a relationship with us; and since he has chosen a way to reveal himself to us so we can enter into that relationship, his desire is for us to experience His truth.  That’s what the Word of God is…God’s Truth.  (the term “word” comes from the original Greek word, “logos”,  meaning logic, rational thinking or “the truth”.) Romans 10:17 says, “faith comes by hearing, and  hearing by the word of God”.  The source of everything we need to know about God is found in The Holy Bible, or the “living word” as it is sometimes called.  Every word spoken by the prophets or written by scribes was inspired by God.  2 Peter 1:21-22 states “…you must understand that no prophecy or scripture ever came about from the prophets themselves or because they wanted to prophesy.  It was the Holy Spirit who moved the prophets to speak the word of God.”  2  Timothy 3:16 says,  “ All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.”

1 Chronicles 28:9 states: “And Solomon, my son, learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Worship and serve him with your whole heart and a willing mind. For the LORD sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek him, you will find him.”  The highlighted part of that verse is a promise from God, and like almost all promises it begins with the first two words, “if you”. (Sidebar:  I will refer back to an earlier message, “Does God Have a Plan for My Life?”  August 26th.  In that message we learned that at creation Man (mankind) was spiritually connected to God.  That connection was severed by Man’s act of disobedience and sin entering the world.  Remember…God gave us free-will; He does not impose his will on us.  Therefore it is up to Man to restore that original spiritual connection with God by choosing to enter into the process of restoration by seeking Him.  God’s promise to us is, “if we seek Him, we will find Him”

The Bible meets us wherever we are in our spiritual journey.  If you are a newcomer, you reap what you are ready to reap from the initial experience.  But the more we grow in our knowledge of God through our effort to seek Him, the more spiritual truths are revealed to us.  It is through that process of revelation that we can start connecting the spiritual dots that opens the door to God’s plan for our life.

Now we can begin building our faith.  Through the study of His Word, prayer and meditation we have built a foundation of God’s truth on which we know we can stand!  Now the Bible has become the “living Word” because we are standing on the scriptural principles (truths) that are positively affecting our life.  Just like the story of the burglar alarm last week, when we experience the truth coming alive in our life, our faith grows.

The 12 Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous states this principle in a very user-friendly and succinct statement:  Step III: “We became willing to turn our will and our life over to the care of God, as we understand Him.”  Notice this statement also  begins with willingness (or choice) on the part of the participant.  But the part I find appealing is the key word “care” of God.  Not control but care!!  When someone has a caregiver, what does the caregiver do?… they look out for their clients best interest; they keep them safe; they make sure their needs are met.  This is what God wants for us!  We are his proudest creation.  He wants to care for us; to meet our needs just like in the Garden of Eden, which, by the way, was paradise.

And what is God’s will for our life?  It is for us to have an eternal relationship with Him in paradise.  But as you know from previous messages, the only stumbling block for mankind since creation has been the issue of SIN!  The good news is…that problem was solved 2000 years ago by a loving God who was willing to sacrifice his son, Jesus Christ, for the sin of all mankind.  Now we can come boldly before God with no fear of condemnation, (Romans 8:1) because when we have accepted God’s gift of Grace (the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.)  God said “I will remember their sins no more!” (Hebrew 8:12).

Everything I have written about in this message is available to anyone who accepts Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  When we accept His sacrifice for our sin, we are a new creation in Christ.  We are filled with the Holy Spirit (more on that later) and we are now a Child of God.  What’s more…we inherit all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realm AND we are heir to all the promises in the Bible.  That, my Friends, is good news!   This was all made possible because we chose to grow in the truth of God’s word. As a result of our willingness to participate in this growth process, our faith also grew.

I would like to leave you today with three promises from God.  I will encourage you to pray and meditate about these truths throughout this coming week.   Ask yourself, “How will this affect the way I live  my life?”

“Anything we ask for, that is in line with God’s will for our life, will be given to us.” 1John 5:14-15

“God works for the good in all things for those who love Him and are called to his purpose.” Rom. 8:28

“The Spirit in us (Holy Spirit) is God’s guarantee he will give us everything he promised long ago.”

Ephesians 1:14

May God bless ya…and HE WILL!

Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)

How Do I Develop Faith?

Posted By Dan Presgrave | September 9, 2013

Good morning, My Friends.  This is a bit later than my usual post because when I went to bed last night, in my quali-sleep-awake state instead of setting the alarm I changed the time on the clock.  Consequently  I’m a couple hours behind schedule, so I’m going to skip the rest of the morning ritual and get started writing…but not without my coffee and Respighi (Roman Festivals) in the background.

As I mentioned in a previous message, the uniqueness of Christianity is found in the Gospel of Grace.  It is the cornerstone, the very essence of Christianity.  Every other religion in the world is about man earning favor with God through his own effort and through his works.  Christianity is about  a loving God reaching down to  a fallen man and offering to each of us His plan for our salvation, not based on our effort or our works, but based on our faith in Him and in the fulfillment of His plan through Jesus Christ.  The Christian belief is based on faith.  Not blind faith (because someone told me it was so), but because of evidential faith (we have experienced the manifestation of  God’s truth in our own life, so our faith grows.)

To be a Christian means to be a believer in, and a follower of Jesus Christ.  What that means is that we have heard the “Good News” that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; that he came as the sacrificial lamb to pay the price for the sin of all mankind, past, present, and future, and through Him we have eternal life.  In last week’s message we learned that “when we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time to die for us sinners.” (Romans 5:6)   That action on God’s part is his ultimate show of love for us. When we accept that gift it is our ultimate show of faith in Him.  This was always God’s plan for our salvation.

When we make the decision to accept His gift, we are grafted into His family.  Now when God looks at us he no longer sees a sinner, but he sees his child, washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ.  We are now in Christ; our old self is gone (our sin nature), we are a new creation (filled with the Holy Spirit.  Much more about this later.)  Because we are in Christ, we are heir to all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realm. (Ephesians 1:3 and Romans 8:17)  That last statement should get your attention!

But why would I accept the Gospel of Grace as truth?   The two most common skeptical comments are “why would someone die for my sins?” and “I know I’m not worthy of such a gift.”   It’s a challenge to accept, especially if one has not grasped the two fundamental truths I have referenced in each of the previous messages:  God is love and God wants a relationship with us… an eternal relationship with us.  One of my favorite Christian authors, Neil T. Anderson makes this statement in his book, “Victory over the Darkness”: you cannot have faith in something you do not know anything about.  But if we put forth the effort to learn about God (to seek him), his promise to us is…we will surely find Him. (Jeremiah 29:13)  The good news about that statement is once we put forth the effort to find Him, He meets us in our brokenness (our sinful state).  Then through revelation of truth contained in His Word, we begin to grow in our knowledge of Him and our relationship with Him deepens.  First comes belief (revelation of the truth), then hope (confident trust with the expectation of fulfillment) and finally faith (the truth manifested in our own life).  The more we experience the truth of God’s word coming alive in our own life, the more our faith grows.  Why?  Because we know we can trust His word.  We know we can stake our life on it!!

With the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins, God’s plan for our salvation was revealed to mankind.  It has been referred to as the Gospel of Grace or the New Covenant.  God’s first covenant with man was the 10 Commandments (or The Law).  The problem presented by The Law was that man proved that he was incapable of adhering to God’s standard based on his (our) own effort.” As mentioned in the previous two messages, the only obstacle standing between us and an eternal relationship with God is SIN.  If we are not free from the stain of sin, we cannot come into the presence of God.  As stated in Hebrews, 8:7, “If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it.”  But the old covenant, while clearly representing God’s moral standard, became an obstacle in itself. Man’s precarious situation is revealed in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned, all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”  But the good news is in the following verse (24), “Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty.”

God knows the only way we can enter into a relationship with him and spend eternity with him is by coming to know who he is.  That is why he chose to reveal himself to us through his word, The Holy Bible. (For clarity on this statement, refer back to the message dated August 19th paragraphs 6-8)  In this book He tells us who he is, what he thinks, what he thinks about us, what his standards are, what his promises are, and how we can reap the benefit of his promises.  (Remember, His promises are available only to those who have chosen to accept His Gift of Grace.)  The more time we spend with God in his Word, in prayer and in meditation, the more truth is revealed to us.  John 15, 4-5 states: “abide (remain) in me and I will remain in you. Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit.  Apart from me you can do nothing.”  Our strength comes not from our own effort but from our faith in the truth of God’s word and the finished work of Jesus Christ.

In John 8:32, Jesus said, “if you follow my teachings you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” It is clear from that scripture that the truth is found in Jesus teachings.  And what did Jesus teach?  The truth of God’s Word.  Jesus was the Word ( John 1;1 “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God.)  When He was on this earth, he not only taught the word but modeled the word through his behavior.  John 1:14 tells us “…the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.  And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.” 

The answer to how we develop faith is found in the truth of the first sentence in the paragraph above.  And make no mistake, it all begins with the first two words… “if you”.   If you are willing to become involved in the process of abiding with God, He will reveal his truths to you.  Why?  Because he wants to spend eternity with each one of us – “no matter who we are or what we have done.” (Romans 3:22)  As hard as that may be for us to understand, God loves us unconditionally and thinks we’re worth it. After all we’re his proudest creation.  But it gets even better.  Once we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are elevated to a new position.  We become his masterpiece. (Ephesians 2:10)  Because we are in Christ, we are now capable of becoming the person God created us to be.

Let me close with a life situation.  Suppose you are outside watering your grass and you hear one neighbor tell another neighbor, “The burglaries are getting out of control in our neighborhood.  Thieves are boldly breaking into people’s homes and robbing them at gun point.”  You think, “Wow, I’d better do something to protect me and my family.”  So you go home, sit down at your computer and look up burglar alarms.  You find one that has impressive credentials and you deem it to be the best, so you make a purchase.  You go get it, bring it home, get it installed, and right away you feel safer.  The only thing you don’t know for sure is…“does it really do what it says it will do.”  Hmmmm…  A week goes by, all is well, but one evening when you are watching your favorite show on TV, the lights and whistles on the control panel go off.  A person is entering your property from the east side of your house.  But before the intruder can get to your porch, a police car shows up and they arrest the culprit. WOW!  Now you’re really excited about this new purchase. Two weeks later that same scenario repeats itself.  WOWzer! Now you’re even more excited about this system because you know it works.  What’s more, you have just become the latest volunteer salesman for that product.  Why?  Because you know it works.  The truth of the purchase has been  manifested in your life, so now you have faith in it.

So my question to you:  How is your personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ??  Is your faith becoming stronger?  Feel free to chime in below.

May God Bless ya,

Dan Presgrave, (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)

GODS PLAN FOR OUR LIFE

Posted By Dan Presgrave | September 2, 2013

Happy Labor Day, Everybody.  Pam and I returned yesterday from a few days in Indianapolis visiting with  childhood friends, John and Diane Rodgers,  from Crooksville, Ohio.  Indy is the half way point between Crooksville and St. Louis,  so we have been carrying on that tradition for the past forty plus  years.   Opportunities like this reveal how absolutely  important friendships are…especially  life-long friendships.  Our time together was a “hoot”, as always, but now we’re home and back in the saddle.  The morning routine, which I have shared for the past few weeks,  is behind us now (and it’s San Diego weather in St. Louie – mid-70’s, a wonderful breeze blowing and virtually NO HUMIDITY), I have a cup of coffee in front of me, Percy Grainger is playing not-so-softly in the background, so it’s time to start writing.

If you remember last week’s blog, it was titled, “Does God Have A Plan for My Life.”  The answer to that frequently asked question is inherent in the two fundamental principles I have been hammering home for the last month. The first principle, God is love, reveals his unchanging , unending, unconditional and unfathomable nature.  The second principle, God wants a relationship with us (an eternal relationship) reveals God’s plan that, as we discovered last week, existed even before creation.  Those two Biblical truths (or as Watchman Nee prefers to call them, “scriptural facts”) provide the springboard for everything else written in scripture or proclaimed by the prophets.  And how do we know these principles are true?  They are proclaimed by God himself throughout the Bible.  Again, remember from last week… God knew we would have to come to know Him before we could choose to enter into the relationship he wants with us, so He chose to reveal himself to mankind through His word (The Holy Bible) and through the prophets.  Every word written or spoken was inspired, not by man, but by the Holy Spirit, and reveals God’s nature and His truth. Titus 1:2 This truth gives them confidence that they have eternal life, which God—who does not lie—promised them before the world began.!  (my emphasis)

We also learned last week that in order to enter into an eternal relationship with God, we have to be without sin.  1 Peter, 1:16 states, …we have to be Holy because God is Holy, meaning… we have to be without sin.  Sin in this case represents a state of being, that is, living separated from God.  The only thing standing between us and a relationship with God is SIN.   Therefore, the issue of sin has been mankind’s greatest dilemma, and that issue  started at creation and continues until this very moment.

When God chose Moses to lead the nation Israel out of  Egypt, through the Red Sea and into the desert, he freed his chosen people who had been in bondage to Egypt for 400 years.  But once the Israelites experienced freedom, they were faced with a whole new set of problems,  (ie. how to live together  in a God-loving, peaceful, non-chaotic manner).  400 years of slavery didn’t provide many opportunities for thinking “outside the box”.  To provide a solution to that problem, God gave to Moses his 10 Commandments (know as “The Law.”)  He did this for two reasons.  One very practical reason was to give His people civil law – ten laws outlining how to live together as a  civilized community.  But the second, and most important  reason for The Law, was to give them His moral standard – how He expected them to live to be pleasing to Him.  While The Law itself is good, it continues to present an insurmountable challenge to mankind.  Why?…because it’s contrary to our human nature, or as the Bible calls it, our sin nature.

At this point you may be asking yourself, “Why would God give us a standard that presents an insurmountable challenge?  That doesn’t sound very loving.”   Remember a few weeks ago when we looked at a scripture that revealed an important key to such a paradox:  Isaiah 55:8-9 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.  For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”  There is no doubt God knows us even better than we know ourselves, and he certainly knows our weaknesses.  Therefore His plan was to reveal to us our inability to meet his standard based on our own effort, then to provide for us a Savior to do what we were, without a doubt,  incapable of doing for ourselves.

God’s plan is so beautifully and succinctly stated in Romans 3: 22-25  “We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins.  And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.  For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.  Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty.  He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins.  For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us.  We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us.” NLT (my emphasis.)   Now let me add Romans 5: 6,9 “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.” “And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s judgement.”

Wow!!  Those words should give anyone hope for a new beginning.  Regardless of who you are or what you have done, God wants to have an eternal relationship with YOU. And because of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, God in his gracious kindness declares you, NOT GUILTY!!  Why?  Because Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins.  Contained in those few words is the Gospel of Grace.  This revelation is the cornerstone,  the very essence of Christianity!  And the best news yet…it is all true, just as it is clearly stated in the first paragraph.   God cannot lie.

So as you can plainly see, God’s ultimate show of love for us is the gift of his Son Jesus Christ who died in our place to pay the price for our sins.  That is why we can look forward to an eternal relationship with God.  Not because of anything  we did, but because of what Jesus did for us 2000 years ago.  And it is important to understand that that sacrifice was for all mankind, and for all time (past, present and, to our good fortune…the future!)  I know this may be hard to grasp right now, but I will spend the next X number of weeks talking about what Grace means and, even more specifically…what it means to us.  For the moment I will again refer to Isaiah  55:8-9  found in paragraph four above.

As I said earlier in this message, the Gospel of Grace is the cornerstone, the very essence of Christianity.  Every other religion in the world is about man earning favor with God through his effort and through his works.  Christianity is different.  Christianity is about  a loving God reaching down to man and offering to each one of us His plan for our salvation, not based on our effort or our works, but based on our faith in Him and in the fulfillment of His plan through Jesus Christ.   As we begin to grasp the depth, the truth and the enormity of God’s plan for us, the more we realize that His plan is not only PERFECT, but the only way for us to enter into an eternal relationship with Him in Paradise!! 

In the first paragraph I mentioned God’s “promise” to us.  As we come to know God and the truth of his Word, we learn that the book (The Bible) is filled with God’s promises to us.  At this point let me point out very clearly what I mean in the first two sentences when I say, “to us”.  Knowledge of this truth is key to receiving the promises of God.  The “us” I am referring to is everyone who has chosen to accept God’s gift to us, and that gift is Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for our sins.  When we come to realize, accept and proclaim  that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came as the sacrificial lamb to die for our sins so we can experience eternity with God, we immediately become one of God’s children.  Only God’s children receive His promises.   This gift to us is not a result of anything we have done or because we are worthy of such a gift (remember, Christ came at just the right time and while we were still sinners.)  This gift is based entirely on our faith in the power of God and the work of Jesus Christ. 

As you can see, God certainly does have a plan for our life, and that plan is our solution to the sin issue that keeps us separated from Him.   Jesus Christ came as the sacrificial lamb to pay the price for our sins. When we accept Him as our Lord and Savior, His blood covers our sins.  Now when God looks at us, he no longer sees Dan (a sinner) or, Bob, Jane or Mary (a sinner).  The price for our sins was paid  at the cross and God now sees us as “a new creation  in Christ.”  2 Corinthians, 5:17  We NOW stand before Him sin-free!!

Well, my friends…this is much deeper into the subject of Grace than had I planned to go today when I first set down to write, but on the other hand I always ask God to guide my message.  In the future weeks we will talk about this awesome gift in great detail and what it means to us.  The truth of this gift is life-changing, and the best news yet…we don’t have to wait until we die to begin experiencing God’s blessings and his promises.    They are available right now to anyone who accepts the finished work of Jesus Christ.   So my question to you is… what is faith and how do we get it? (our topic for next week)  And have YOU accepted God’s gift of Grace?  Feel free to chime in on this discussion in the space provided below.

May God bless ya,

Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)

Does God Have A Plan for My Life?

Posted By Dan Presgrave | August 26, 2013

It’s a beautiful day in St. Louis, MO.  I finished my morning routine before the humidity started to climb, and I saw an awesome sunrise.  I’m  home now and  just came in from a cup of coffee on the deck, a bit of reading, and some precious moments giving thanks to God for his bountiful blessings. Now I’m totally pumped  and ready to start writing the Monday morning, “Thought for the Week.” I love this opportunity to share the good news of God’s love, mercy and redemptive grace, knowing full-well that this truth has the power to transform anyone’s life, regardless of “…who you are or what you have done..” (Romans 3:22)     It’s only 8:30, but this is already a Grrrreat day!!

As was stated in the previous two blogs, it sees there are two principles from which everything else in the Bible sprouts:  God is love, and God wants a relationship with each of us.  If we look in Genesis (chapter 1) and read the story of creation,  we learn that on the sixth day,  after He had created all the other birds, small animals and wildlife,  He produced his finest creation; MAN.  We were created in his image; we were created for his purpose; we were created for his pleasure, and we ARE his proudest creation!  We have that distinction because He gave us something quite different from all the other members of the animal kingdom… he gave us a brain capable of rational thinking.  By doing that God gave us the capacity to fulfill his purpose (to bring honor and glory to Him) and to fulfill his pleasure (to enter into a relationship with Him.)   So as you can see, even before creation itself (Eph. 1:4), God had a plan for our lives, and that plan was to have a relationship with each of us. 

As stated in last week’s blog, in order to enter into a relationship with God we had to have the capacity to make that choice. Why?…because a relationship is a choice between two people.  To accommodate that need, God gave us free will.   Wow!  Do you see the dilemma inherent in that decision?   If used as God intended, we could choose to love Him back, (ie. enter into a relationship with Him).  However, if we choose to use our  free will to accomplish other purposes, ( ie. to satisfy ourselves and our own desires, it could lead to quite a different outcome).   As we know from the story of Adam and Eve, the latter choice was made and we are still plagued with the consequences today.

The Garden of Eden was paradise.  Adam and Eve were connected spiritually with God and they wanted for nothing.  As we can clearly see from that relationship, from the outset God intended to be our caregiver…to meet all of our needs.  (sidebar:  Very important distinction to make here.  God is about taking care of, providing for us…not controlling us.  Remember, he gave us free will.  We are in charge of our choices.)

But as we learn from the story of man’s downfall, Eve fell for a lie perpetrated by the great deceiver himself, Satan.  In Genesis 3: 5, Satan tells Eve the same lie he still tells us today, “…God knows your eyes will be opened and you will become like God…”  In other words, you won’t need God; you can become your own god!  Through that one act of disobedience, sin entered the world and that spiritual connection between God and man was severed.  (Sin in this instance is defined as living separated from God, and that definition continues  throughout the Bible when the term is used as a noun and not as a verb.)  By taking the focus off God and putting it on themselves, Adam and Eve announced their self-sufficiency.   “I can do this thing called life all by myself…I don’t need any help, thank you.”  (Hummmm….sound familiar??)

The relationship God wants with us is more than a here and now relationship; it’s an eternal relationship. And since God is a God of love and because we are his proudest creation, he wants all of us to spend eternity with Him.  He doesn’t want to lose even one of us!   

Today I smile when I think that early  in my ministry I would say, “God always had a plan B in place”, meaning that even though man would make the wrong choice in the Garden of Eden, God still had a plan for our salvation.  Luckily for me, the light bulb finally went off in my head and I came to realize, the Garden was actually His plan B.  I say that because God, being God (omniscient), knew what choice would be made by man on that fateful day, and that choice would set off the whole drama of good vs. evil throughout this epic of time.  However,  the good news is….there was always a plan A in place, and that plan was to give us a Savior to do for us what we (mankind) would prove without a shadow of a doubt we  were  incapable of doing for our self.  And what is that??   Resist sin!

I want to quote a question asked of me by a young man at Sunshine Mission.  “So what’s the big deal with sin?” he asked.    The answer is simply… it’s the only deal!!!.  The only thing that stands between us and an eternal relationship with God is SIN!!   In short, SIN contaminates, spreads, kills and destroys!  If you doubt that look at the Garden of Eden before and after sin entered the world, then look at the world today.  Does this world look like Paradise to you????

1 Peter 1:16 states, “You must be holy because I am holy.” (Holy means to stand apart from sin and evil, or simply “to be without sin”.)  We cannot come into the presence of God if we are stained with sin.  Why….for the reasons listed in the previous paragraph.  Sin kills and destroys! Romans 6:23 tells us,”…the wages of sin is death…”  This is one of those passages that is hard to misread.  It very explicitly tells us… we cannot enter into an eternal life in Paradise with God if we have not been cleansed of our sin.  Remember, we’re talking about Paradise.  That’s what God promised his children and he is going to protect Paradise from the contamination of sin!  In other words…ya can’t get in with sin! I Corinthian 2:9 tells us, “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind can conceive the things God has planned for those who love Him.”

I will close today’s blog with the following questions:  How are YOU going to deal with the sin issue?  Do you have a sin issue or are you free of sin? (We ALL know the answer to that!)   Are you going to rely on your own effort?  (Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution?  How were you doing with the resolution on January 30)?   At some point in everyone’s life there comes that moment of decision when our choice will have eternal consequences.  The good news is….because God is a God of love and because He does want an eternal relationship with EACH ONE OF US, He has the PERFECT plan for your life that is the answer to the dilemma of mankind.   (Inherent in that statement is the answer to the title of this week’s blog).  Check back next week for (not the question but the answer)…“God’s Plan for our Life.”   Feel free to chime in with your thoughts at drpresgr@gmail.com

God bless Y’all,

Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)

God’s Plan for Our Relationship

Posted By Dan Presgrave | August 19, 2013

Good Morning, my Friends.  I have two walks and a trip to the gym behind me, and a hot cup of coffee in front of me, the sun is shining and the birds are chirping, Mahler 2 playing softly in the background… so already this is a Grrrrreat Day!  Now I’m settled in to start writing about my favorite subject… the manifestations of God’s love!  Gotta tell ya…it doesn’t get any better than this!

I closed last week’s blog stating what I believe are two fundamental Biblical truths that provide the basis for virtually everything  spoken by the Prophets or written in scripture.    Those two truths are:  God is love ( 1John 4:8, 16) and God wants a relationship with us (Genesis 1:27).  You will find those two truths innerwoven in scripture throughout the Bible.   God created us for his purpose (to carry out his good, pleasing and perfect will) and for his pleasure (a relationship…not just a “here and now” relationship, but an eternal relationship).

Think about this.  When God was creating, he could have created us to behave as perfect boys and girls.  He was in charge; he was the architect!  But he didn’t do that.  Instead he did something that at first glance can appear to be quite unusual.  He gave us free will.  He put OUR choices in OUR hands! (We were given charge of our own destiny, so to speak.)  He didn’t have to do that.  He could have programed us to be perfect and this would still be the perfect world He created, ie. no wars, no poverty, no famine, no suffering, no disease…no death!  Wow! We would be living in paradise…just like the Garden of Eden .

But because God wanted a relationship with us, both parties have to choose to participate in that relationship before love can flow in both directions.  No one can command and receive true love and respect; that only comes from the condition of our heart.   Therefore, God gave us free will so we could choose to  love him back.  1 John 4:19 says, “we love because He first loved us.”  Again, God wanted us  to make the choice to love Him as he loves us.

As we all know, before any relationship can develop, two people have to spend time together getting acquainted, ie. what and how does the other person think;  what do they believe; what is their temperament; are they trustworthy, etc .  The same is true for developing a relationship with God.  We have to devote time getting to know him, and we have to find answers to the same questions listed above before we can comfortably enter into a relationship   How do we do that…. How do we get to know God?

The good news is… God is love and God wants a relationship with each one of us!  God knows something about relationships, and he also knows what we need to know about Him before that relationship can take root. Therefore He chose to reveal himself to us through his chosen Prophets and through His Word – the Holy Bible. Using those sources, he tells us who he is; what he thinks; what he thinks about us; he gave us his standards; he gave us his promises, then he tells us how we can reap the benefit of those promises!   Contained in His Word is everything we need for developing a relationship with him build on a solid foundation of truth, and from that foundation  of truth we develop our faith.   2 Peter 1:21-22 says “…you must understand that no prophecy or scripture ever came about from the prophets themselves or because they wanted to prophesy.  It was the Holy Spirit who moved the prophets to speak the word of God.”  2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture is inspired by God…”

One of my favorite Christian authors, Neil Anderson , makes this statement in his  book, Victory Over the Darkness:  “You can’t have faith in something you don’t know about or understand”.  No doubt that statement is true.  So if we want to have a relationship with God, we have to spend time getting to know God, and the source book containing  all the answers to our questions is the Holy Bible; The Word of God, or just The Bible.  (sidebar: as  pastor of a nondenominational church, I believe the Bible to be the inerrant word of God.  Not the literal word because the Bible is written in prose, poetry, parable, metaphor and allegory.  But I believe every word is there for a purpose, written to a specific people at a specific time, but the principle of truth contained in the message is absolute and timeless.  It’s on that revelation of truth we can build (or rebuild) our lives.

When a book makes such a hefty claim as to be the Word of God (or the Holy Bible), it immediately sets itself up for challenge and criticism.  Such has been the case with the Bible!  It has been challenged by the greatest minds in history: philosophers, scientists, scholars, academics, atheists, agnostics, and a plethora of those just like the “old me”: those ignorant of the truth.  To my knowledge no one has disproven the truth found in the Bible.  I make that statement because had anyone been able to disprove it, I believe we all would have heard about it!  Think about this…suppose today someone made a discovery that could prove the bible was not what it claims to be.  Every TV show, every radio show would be interrupted with that  all-important  announcement; every headline in our newspapers and our news magazines would be ablaze with the bold-faced, all caps proclamation: “THE BIBLE IS A FRAUD!”  To my knowledge, that has never happened.

What has happened, however, is people will read the Bible then make a choice to close the covers and decide that is not the way they want to live.  (without a doubt, the truth can be inconvenient to the lifestyle many of us have chosen!  Believe me…I can relate to that.)   Therefore  they exercise their God-given free will and make a choice to turn away from the light.  John 3: 19-21 says, “God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.  All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.”   (But there is also good news: the opposite has also happened.  There are many cases when people have set out to disprove the Bible only to be converted when they began to connect the unmistakable dots of truth they find throughout the scriptures.)

I know from my own experience, if anyone opens the book with an open mind and a desire to find God,  He will meet you right where you are.  Jeremiah 29: 13 says “he who seeks me wholeheartedly will find me”.  God does not want to be a distant God or an unknown God, that’s why he chose to reveal himself to all of us through his word, the Holy Bible.  (FYI: the root word from which comes our term “word”, is the Greek word “logos”, meaning logic, rational thinking or the truth”  The Holy Bible, or The Word of God  IS God’s logic, his rational thinking and the truth.)

I’ll look forward meeting you with you again next Monday.  The question to ponder for this week is…Have you been exposed to the truth of the Bible?  Have you experienced the transforming power of The Word?  Drop me a note and tell me about your experience.  drpresgr@gmail.com

God bless Ya…

Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)

What is Truth, part II

Posted By Dan Presgrave | August 12, 2013

Good morning, my Friends.  By the time Cliff, Glenn and I – then Pam and I – returned from our morning walk, one thing was undeniable….summer is back in the heartland of America.  Temp is in the mid 70s already, and the dreaded HUMIDITY has returned.  Yuck!  We were all panting and looking for the water dish when we walked through the door!  And wouldn’t ya know it…school is starting this week!!!  I couldn’t believe it….where did the summer go?   Wait a minute…what am I saying…. I’m retired.  It’s really  Saturday… albeit a hot and humid Saturday.

I want to take a minute and lay out my game plan for the weekly blog (or Thought for the Week).  First of all let me say I’m thrilled to have this platform.  When I think of myself and the crazy misconceptions I espoused; my out and out erroneous thinking; my belief in my own self-sufficiency, ie. my faith was in the gospel of Presgrave…”if it didn’t make sense to me, it must be wrong”…after all, I’m a “smart guy”!  That whole arrogant attitude was grounded in ignorance…not ignorance in terms of stupidity, but ignorance of  not being exposed to “the truth.”  Oh I had ideas; I had theories; I had answers that suited me… but the fact is, I hadn’t come face to face with Isaiah 55:8-9 “   “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.  “And my ways are far beyond anything you can imagine.  9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” NLT

I know there are many people reading this blog who are plagued with the same attitude I had before I was exposed to “the truth”. (to review what I’m referring to when I speak of “the truth”…it is  found in the gospel of John 8:32 when Jesus told his apostles, “if you follow my teachings you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”  I am referring to the teachings of Jesus.  And what did Jesus teach?…the Word of God.   He WAS the word incarnate.  In John 1:14 it says, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”

 I am a firm believer that many people will not hear the truth of the Word of God unless they are ready (prepared) to hear it.  I was one of those people.   Consequently that is my game plan with this blog.  I want to prepare listeners with a foundation of scriptural  truths… or as Watchman Nee puts it, “scriptural facts!” I am headed toward a clear, concise presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a complete presentation of the Gospel of Grace. That is the cornerstone of Christianity  – that IS Christianity!   But based on my own experience and the myriad of questions I had – and the same questions I know many others have had  – there is a need  for answers in order to prepare our minds to hear the gospel truth.  (It’s like tilling a field before planting the seeds.) That is my plan for this blog.   Each week is intended to set-up the next week as we explore and answer questions that will lead us to Jesus Christ: who he is; why he came; and what it means to us.

Since I am writing this as a “thought for the week”, I am intentionally presenting bite-size morsels with the hope it will prompt you (or challenge you)  to open the source book (The Holy Bible) and read for your own enlightenment. (Or maybe you just want to check me out and see if I’m on target.  Either way works for me).  The point is… I’m going to tackle some big questions and intentionally give clear, concise answers based on principles of truth rather than a dissertation-type response.  There are libraries filled with those books and they are great resources for in-depth study.   But my plan is to keep this blog simple; easy to understand, and always based on the truth of the Word of God!

OK…my blogging plan has been revealed.  Let’s get on with it.  Ta-Da!!

Some questions I have always found to be a sure conversation stopper are:  “tell me what you believe?” or “what is the source of that belief?” or, my personal favorite, “tell me about your God”?  At some point in everyone’s life I think we have to (or should) come grips with those questions in order to have security, peace and serenity in our life.  Usually we have to come to grips with my favorite question first.  “Tell me about your God or Who is God”?

I John 4:8 describes God very succinctly.  God is love.  Not only is God a God of love, but His love is unconditional, unending, unfailing…absolutely unfathomable!   In Romans 8:38, Paul states: “nothing can separate us from the love of God.”   He meets and accepts us right where we are.  He’s been waiting for our plea:  “I can’t do this any longer without you. I want to come home.”  (Ref. the parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15: 11-32)

Now let’s look at some of God’s Majestic qualities.  He is omnipotent (all- powerful); omniscient (all-knowing); omnipresent (everywhere at once); alpha and omega (the beginning and the end, ie. timeless),  sovereign (nothing greater than…in complete control),  immutable (never changes; always the same); part of the Trinity (the Father, the Godhead) the Creator of everything…and more!!   Now let’s be honest here…..can anyone reading this really wrap your head around these concepts?  Of course not!  And God knew these qualities, and many other qualities about Him, would be stumbling blocks for our finite way of thinking.  That is why he spoke through the Prophet Isaiah, 55:8-9 (referenced above) “my ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts…” and in Psalm 46 “just be still and know that I am God.”  To me he is stating very clearly … folks, don’t try to figure me out.  You’ll never do it.  I’m God….you’re not!!  But let me ask you this….would you want to worship a lesser God??

The best we can do in expressing our thoughts about God is to try to describe him in words we can relate to in our realm of thinking.   God is love; God is merciful; God is forgiving;  God is full of grace.  Nothing wrong with that….we all need love, mercy, forgiveness and we certainly need grace.  These are qualities of God that are innerwoven in scripture throughout  the Bible.  Once you open the book and start reading, you can’t miss  seeing this for yourself.

Let me close with this statement.  The more time I spend in the Word of God, the more I am convinced there are two fundamental truths that form the foundation of everything else either written in the Bible or spoken by the Prophets.    These two truths are:  God is love and God wants a relationship with us – each and every one of us.  Not just a relationship here and now, but an eternal relationship with Him.  Next week I will write about how God prepared for us to enter into that relationship.

This blog is a bit longer than most will be, but I thought it was important to lay out the game plan so you will know where we’re going.  And, I’ll always end with a question, so…  how would you answer the three conversation-stopper questions?

May God bless you and I’ll see ya next Monday.

What is Truth?

Posted By Dan Presgrave | August 5, 2013

Good morning, my Friends.  Same scenario as last week…. I just got in from both my dog walk and then my walk with Pam, its 6:40 am; its 68 degrees in St. Louis ON AUGUST 5TH; there is virtually NO HUMIDITY.  What a treat.  Thank you God!

As Pam and I were driving back from Lake of the Ozarks yesterday, I couldn’t get this topic out of my mind.  It was probably sparked by a recent conversation I had, but the question lingered and wouldn’t go away.  “What is truth?”  What I find interesting is… that’s the same question Pilate asked Jesus, and it is the same question I get many times when I speak of the truth of scripture.  I frequently hear “what truth are you talking about…there are many truths”.  Humm…as I recall Oprah said that too.

I will concede that there are many truths.  There are the truths (or laws) of mathematics, of physics, of aerodynamics, there are laws of nature, there are truths of life (ie. if you place your hand on a hot surface, you will get burned;  if you disturb a hornet’s nest, you’d better run).  But the truth I am talking about is the truth Jesus was talking about when he told his apostles in the Gospel of John, 8:32: “…if you hold to my teachings you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” 

As I see that verse there are three distinct sections.  From the back to the front, the nugget of truth is, “the truth will set you free”.  But not just any truth; Jesus is VERY specific.  The truth he is talking about is found in “MY teachings.”   In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life….”  Jesus was the Word incarnate; he was the Word of God in the flesh.   That was one purpose for which he came; so we could not only hear the truth but to see it in action.  Jesus modeled God’s truth in everything he said and in everything he did.  Oh yes, FYI… Jesus response to Pilate’s questions was… “I was born for this purpose.  And I came to bring truth to the world.”  John 19:37

The unfortunate truth about the truth listed above is this truth:  it is all predicated on the first two words:  “IF YOU…”  In order to reap the blessings of the truth of God’s word, one first has to participate in the process of being exposed to Jesus’ teachings.  It all begins with a willingness on the part of the “newcomer” to put forth an effort….to explore the possibility of “what if”; to be willing to open their eyes, their minds and their hearts to the transforming power of Jesus’ teaching, ie. the truth of God’s Word.   This is the only way faith can develop.

Only when we begin to see and experience the truth of the scriptures can we begin to grow our faith and build our new life on that solid rock known as The Word of God!

I hope you all have a great week, and I’ll see you next Monday.

God Bless ya…

Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)

Today is a new beginning

Posted By Dan Presgrave | July 29, 2013

Well, my friends….today is already a glorious day and its only 6:30 am!  I just walked into the house from my morning walk(s); first through beautiful Laurel Park with Glenn (a handsome golden retriever/chow mix) and Cliff (an adorable, ornery sheltie); then a longer excursion through our neighborhood with the love and joy of my life, Miss Pam (my wife).  That is the entire Presgrave family and I thank God each day for blessing me so richly.  But today is uniquely different in another way; it is 69 degrees right now IN ST. LOUIS on JULY 29, 2013.  Wow!  That indeed is a treat!!

But as I sit down in front of my computer with a fresh cup of hot coffee, I am well aware that the new activity that really makes this a special day is me preparing to write my first blog.  I am really looking forward to these postings each Monday because I love sharing messages that are positive, up-lifting and encouraging.  Today I am able to share messages of that nature, but that was not always the case (as you will see if you peruse my website, www.meetpastordan.com).  Because of the journey I have been on for the past decade and my willingness  to embrace change,  I  have  been blessed today with a life that is happy, joyous and free.  Since I have been given a “second chance at life”, I CANNOT help but share the good news  I have learned about me and about life with anyone who wants to hear it.  That’s the way it works….we get fixed then we reach out to help others.

Today my focus, and the focus of this website, is about enhancing the quality of people’s lives.  I am both thrilled and privileged to be a “hope dealer.”  As the psalmist David proclaimed in Psalm 92, vs.4 “you thrill me Lord, with all you have done for me!  I sing for joy because of what you have done for me”   The truth is….that freedom and joy is available to anyone who has the courage to “go for it”!

If there is anything that is keeping you from living life to the fullest….take the plunge! 

I’m already looking forward to next Monday when I can post my next blog!!

God bless ya,

Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)

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