Photos Archives • Knowing God and His Ways

September 11, 2023September 10, 2023

Pictures

On a walk in my neighborhood yesterday, I took these pictures.

June 12, 2023June 10, 2023

Happenings

–In May I attended the Discipleship.org conference in Indianapolis. I heard several motivating and instructive messages and got some excellent books. Thanks to Tom McElroy from Navigators Church Ministry for making my attendance possible and for letting me ride with him there and back.

–I either got a new neighbor upstairs or my old neighbor recently got a big dog who likes to whoof and whoof and whoof. Pray for us.

–I’m spending many hours working on the technology of our church using Subsplash for our website, app, livestream, and online giving.

–My son Mark had a major healing from digestive troubles that he had suffered for several years. Thanks be to God, our healer!

–In our church I am preaching through the Gospel of Luke, now in chapter 7. Jesus is awesome!

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Most recent Bible memorization and meditation

Luke 6:46–49. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”

“Coincidentally” I saw this week that John Piper has a new book coming out titled All That Jesus Commanded. I think I’ll read that.

My next theme

Last week I finished the series on being “Tested by Truth and Error.” My next series is on “Understanding God’s Jealousy.” That is not exactly a warm and fuzzy topic, but it is must reading for those who want to know and love God as he truly is. He says numerous times that he is a jealous God, and he even says that his very name is Jealous (Exodus 34:14). That’s important. That is a truth with which we need to come to terms. So join me by reading here beginning next Monday. Your reward will be a deepened relationship with our greatest Treasure, the God of all things.

Recent reading

Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord? By L. Michael Morales. This is not light reading, but it is rich biblical theology on Leviticus. Yes, you read that right. I am reading a book on the theology of Leviticus. Why? Because Leviticus is concerned with God’s holiness, and that is a subject I want to understand as deeply as I can. When Jesus said that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves, do you know what Old Testament Book he was quoting from? You guessed it (19:18).

The Complete Book of Discipleship, by Bill Hull. I have heard of Bill Hull for a long time but never read anything by him, so I picked this up at the conference. I’m on page 35, and I now know why Bill Hull is an important writer on discipleship.

Prayer and Fasting, by Roadcup and Eagle.

Reading and rereading: Isaiah. 2 Corinthians.

Botany for Gardeners, by Brian Capon. I’m not a gardener, but this is extremely interesting. Each time I pick it up, I am left marveling at our Creator.

King Jesus and the Beauty of Obedience-Based Discipleship, by David Young. Why had I never heard of this book or this author?

December 20, 2021December 20, 2021

Newsletter for December, 2021

Merry Christmas! May this newsletter be my holy kiss to you (1 Thessalonians 5:26) for this happy season.

I’m looking forward to having all our family with us this year for a downtown Chicago Christmas.

Happenings

Since my last newsletter the biggest event for me and my family was the joyous marriage of my son Aaron to his fiancé Lucia. We will never forget how beautiful the wedding was and how blessed we were to have family, church members, and friends sharing this special time.

Aaron and Lucia have attended our church for years, but it was the virus lockdown that altered their schedules enough to where they got interested in each other and took time to do things together. In all things God works for the good!

The picture below is of my four sons, from the left: Brian, Aaron, Ben, and Mark (I do not yet have photos from the wedding of them with their wives and children).

Amplify Conference

Another important happening for me over the last six months was an evangelism conference I attended in October. It is an annual event sponsored by the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, called Amplify.

What made this important to me was its relationship

(a) to one of the driving passions in my life, which is leading others to faith in Christ,

(b) to the main thing for which I have been inquiring of the Lord for several years, which is how to do evangelism successfully, and

(c) to the topic I have been writing about on the blog since August: How to Get Wisdom for Everything That Matters to You.

Since finding wisdom for successful evangelism is a focus of my life, when I saw an ad for the conference, I said, I should go to that. Although I did not want to take two full days out of my schedule, it does not make sense to pray daily for wisdom on a subject and not pay attention to what others who have been successful at it are saying. God often answers our questions by speaking to us through other people and their content in books, videos, and so on.

The conference was outstanding, definitely worth my time. I came away with numerous resources that I am confident will help us. And I believe this was one piece of how God is answering my prayer for wisdom to successfully lead others to faith in Christ.

Fun stuff

We bought a bread machine, and I’m using it weekly. Cuisinart model CBK-110P1, where have you been all my life! I appreciate being able to control what ingredients are in my bread, the fresh-baked taste, and the smell of bread baking in the kitchen for hours.