Pastor’s Paragraphs: June 24, 2016

One of the highlights of our church through the years has been our students. Each year we look forward to their summer events, especially the choir tour. This year we have added a mission emphasis to the music and drama which is always top notch. They will be leaving on Wednesday morning and returning late next week. Please remember them in their witness this summer and to return home safely. We are always appreciative of the leadership Keith Pate and Mark McLendon give to our students in both music and other ministries.

Let me mention another matter relating to missions with more information to come in the next couple of weeks. Our church will have a mission team traveling to Haiti in October. This trip will have a medical component as well as an opportunity for others to be involved in prayer and sharing the Gospel. Even if you are not directly involved as a team member, you can be part of a support prayer team for this mission trip.

You have perhaps heard of unreached people groups. These are primarily people groups around the world who have not had any or very little witness in their language. Our churches are asked to adopt a group to pray for and learn about. Through genuine prayer, God may be able to open a door for the Gospel to be shared with them. More information about praying for unreached people groups will be coming to our church soon through the Missions Committee.

As you can tell, much of what I write this week relates to missions. What better thing could a Baptist Church be concerned about than evangelism and missions? When you look at the Bible it all comes down to this very simple fact, doesn’t it? God sent His Son to the whole world with equal love for every soul so that those who would put their faith in Him might be saved. I am grateful our church provides ways we can fulfil Acts 1:8 both locally and globally, whether by going, giving or praying.

I will be away Sunday preaching in a missions setting and looking at further involvement of our church in a potential partnership relationship which can benefit our church and others. I will share more with the Missions Committee and church soon.

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FOCUSED

One of the casualties of aging to which I find myself a victim is the dimming of the eyes.  Ecclesiastes 12 counsels the young person to remember God, their Creator, in their youth before the aging process takes over and various faculties, as listed in verses 1-7, are diminished.

Clear eyesight when we are young may be something we take for granted. However, as we age the realization that our vision is not as sharp as it once was takes hold. “Readers” become standard fare for all intricate tasks. Our once keen laser sharp focus is now blurry and in need of help to restore its youthfulness. That restoration is found through glasses or some sort of rejuvenating surgery. Especially in the early stages of this degenerative eye problem we may be able to fake it and get by, but eventually we must relent and do something to correct the problem.

There is a parallel between physical and spiritual vision. “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” was written in the early 20th century. The hymn writer, Helen Lemmel, was strongly influenced by the artist and later little-known missionary, Lilias Trotter. Miss Trotter started off as an aspiring artist but early on felt a call from God to reach the lost. She began her ministry by rescuing prostitutes from the streets of London. Later she went to Africa, without missionary funding, and served for over forty years. While there she penned a poem that would greatly influence the writing of the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”  The poem was entitled “Focused: A Story and Song.” 

The poem centers around focusing one’s attentions fully and completely upon God. She writes that Satan knows that if a person uses all their powers of concentration on being led by God’s Spirit, they will have a great intensity and impact upon those to whom they are called to minister. Lilias Trotter, writing in a more formal use of the English language than we are accustomed, shares some timeless insights which could very easily have been written today but with a different accent. She writes: “Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once—art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the ‘good’ hiding the ‘best’ even more effectually than it could be hidden downright frivolity with its smothered heartache at its own emptiness.”

The “good” hiding the “best” leads us to emptiness.  Could this be true of us today especially as American Christians? Have we sought the “good” while missing the “best”? The chorus of the hymn, which we will be singing in worship this Sunday, says it best.

                Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,                                                                                                                                        And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Keith Pate

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