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)

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)

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.