GOD'S ETERNAL CONDUIT OF GRACE

                                                     By definition, a conduit serves as a pipe, passage, or conveyance, for some kind of material being conveyed from one place to another. The ministry Paul “received from the Lord Jesus” testified to God’s eternal conduit of grace. God’s grace filled Paul with joy and inspired him to press forward with the challenge God laid upon his heart (Acts 20:22-24; Philippians 3:12, NASV). 

(Picture shows Pastor Ralph Winans standing on right, with congregants at South Haven, MI 1946, including members of this writer's immediate family).

Bonds and afflictions neither deterred Paul nor dampened his enthusiasm. God’s blessings upon Paul’s life robustly exercised his growing faith and excised his assaulting doubts that would otherwise destroy him. Paul blessed the Lord with vigor, in spite of the potholes that pitted the highway he traveled. His daily experiences provided him assurance of God’s faithful and fortifying friendship (2 Timothy 4:17).

Thus, Paul assured fellow believers, “You know how I was with you the whole time serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials” (Acts 20:18-20 NASV).

 “Bound in spirit” wrote Paul, “I am on my way to Jerusalem.” He did not know what would happen in Jerusalem, but he knew he was God’s messenger. He knew that he was on God’s call list and that his life revealed an extension of God‘s grace. Paul also knew he carried a significant offering for impoverished Saints in Jerusalem.

When I read how Paul carried good news everywhere he went, I sense his hopeful anticipation. In my mind, I hear Paul softly humming a familiar melody that renuinds me, “I’m going higher, yes, higher someday …”¹ His encounter with Christ while en route to Damascus had revealed a Savior who never encountered a sin he could not forgive, a guide that accompanied him everywhere he went.

Paul’s example helps us assimilate others into God’s fellowship as our brothers and sisters in the his Family of Faith. When our leaps of faith stretch our abilities, as often times happens, we know we need not fail, for his Spirit reveals the way to us.

Paul modeled an informed life that reminds us that living for Jesus means more than simply singing the joyful music of happy hymns. Paul’s life revealed a God that personally fortifies individual lives and enables us to press forward on the high road of faithful service, while still trudging along faithfully in the worst of circumstances.

By following Paul’s example, we can face our own contemporary encounters victoriously and keep our relational channels free of extenuating hindrances. When faced with his most challenging circumstances, Paul nevertheless experienced the warmth of God’s presence and never lost hope.

 “Bound in the Spirit,” describes more than a new doctrine, or a strange teaching; it reveals God’s Holy Spirit residing as an internal presence--a Comforter –a daily companion fortifying and affirming Paul’s daily witness.

After Paul discovered Jesus as the only ONE who never met a sinner from whom he willfully withheld grace, Paul spent his remaining days sharing Jesus as God’s eternal conduit. In Jesus, Paul had discovered God’s “only begotten” ONE OF A KIND—God’s eternal conduit of divine grace.

This is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com
calling all of us to follow the example of Paul's life and ministry and invest our own lives in others by serving as extensions of God’s conduit of divine grace.
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     1 Herbert Buffum, “I’m Going Higher,” Al Smith Collection of Best Loved Solos from Singspiration, Inc.  (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1956). 
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WALKING THE HIGHWAY OF HOLINESS

The Psalmist David practiced a diligent devotional life that provides us one of life’s greatest lessons for restoring the church. He pursed personal holiness by regularly measuring his life against the ruler of God’s Word: I have hidden your Word in my heart that I might not sin against you (Psalm 119:10,11).

On left are worshipping Khasi Christians meeting at their Assembly Ground near Shillong, Meghalaya, NE India.

When you get as close to God as you can get, you are as far away from sin as you can get.  Remember the childhood story of the Ginger-bread Man? He met a hungry woman whom he easily outran. A very determined man could not catch him. A hungry boy, a bear, a pig, and a ravenous wolf all failed to catch him.

Consequently, the Gingerbread Man felt quite confident when he met old Sly Fox. I fact, he bragged, “I have already run away from a woman, a man, a boy, a bear, and a wolf. I can run away from you, too!

“Eh?” mumbled old Sly Fox. “I don’t hear well; come just a little closer so I can hear you.”

The confident little Gingerbread Man edged a step closer, trying to be kind to the sly old Fox, and he repeated his story. However, he had to move still closer to make himself heard: “I have already run away,” he said, “from a woman, a man, a boy, a bear, a pig and a wolf; and I can... “

With one snap of his still strong jaws, old Sly Fox clamped his jaws together on another tasty meal, and the Gingerbread Man was no more.

If you want to get as close as you can get to God, you will get as far from sin as you can possibly get (Picture shows a group of pastors
and leaders at FCG Conv. on Luzon in the Philippines).

Seek the Lord with your whole heart. Store His Word in your heart. It will tide the best of us through the worst of times; but know for certain, testing will come.

This, then, is our Lord’s idea of a holy religion. Or, as Mark Guy Pierce, once said: ”It is to make men like God, corresponding to Him, answering to Him. This is the aim and end of every part of it—to make men will as God wills; to make men do as God commands. To think as God thinks—that is, to

love God with all the mind. To will as God wills—that is to love God with all the heart. To do what God commands—that is, to love God with all the strength.”

At left is 1920 scene from Oklahoma Chog Camp Meeting … and this is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com,
believing that through God's Word, our hills and valleys will be levelled into an Interstate called the Highway of Holiness. Once we walk therein, we will experience strength for each today and hope for every tomorrow. Be blessed, friend.
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A THOUGHT ABOUT CHURCH PLANTING

In the early 1880s American Methodists were planting  one or two churches every day that rolled around. Dur-ing this time, C. C McCabe headed the UMC’s Church Extension Board. While McCabe rode the rails. he read his newspaper. One day, McCabe read his Chicago newspaper and found a story that greatly interested him.

A Reporter had picked up on a meeting in Chicago of the Free Thinkers Association. Attending that Free Thinkers Association in Chicago was the noted Orator-Agnostic, Robert Ingersol who was bragging about the fact that “the churches are dying out all over the earth; they are struck with death.”

This struck a chord with McCabe and at the very next rail stop, McCabe sent a wire cabling Ingersol, saying, “Dear Robert: All hail the power of Jesus name! We’re building one church for every day of the year, and propose to make it two.”

Some of the singing Methodists got together and wrote a song that went something like this:

              “The infidels a motley band,
              In counsel met and said:

              The churches are dying throughout the land

              And soon they’ll all be dead.

              When suddenly a message came
              That put them to dismay,
              All hail the power of Jesus’ name
              We’re building two a day.

              We’re building two a day, dear Bob.

              We’re building two a day.

              All hail the power of Jesus’ name.

              We’re building two a day.”   

It was sixty years later when Herman Thomas found himself pastoring one of those two-a-day churches in Wisconsin—1941. While out calling one evening, Pastor Thomas met a young engineer, recently moved into his city. The newcomer met the pastor at the front door, saying, “I have some questions you may be able to answer.”

The young engineer listened intently, but briefly; then interrupted his visitor with this question: “Pastor Thomas, can you tell me how I can become a follower of Jesus Christ.”

The following Sunday, that new convert walked forward to profess his new-found faith in Christ. The next week he received baptism. His name was Robert Ingersol III. In 1942 Robert Ingersol IV was baptized in that same church.

This prompts me to imagine that I once again hear the refrain of those early Methodists as they lustily burst forth in song with that earlier refrain,

              “We’ve building two a day, dear Bob.

              We’re building two a day.

              All hail the power of Jesus Name

              We’re building two a day.

I heard Dr Charles Chaney tell this story in Chicago one year as he recalled his challenge to Southern Baptists to increase their three-a-day church plants to four-a-day, or 1,460 x 10. They rounded off Chaney’s number as SBC’s “15,000 Campaign.”

At the time I did my Church Growth study, the Church of God was proposing to plant 750 churches. I don’t remember if we made our goal or not, but this is what I believe, after being in ordained ministry for sixty-eight years: faithfulness to the biblical agenda of church planting will vitalize the church at large as nothing else can!

New church-plants will achieve two purposes:

(1) Fulfill our part of the Great Commission of evangel-izing and congregationalizing our Global Community;
and
(2) Do our part in reversing today’s moral decline by multiplying colonies of righteousness all across our Global Community.   
This is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com
Reminding church folk that
Church Planting will renew a luke-warm church as nothing else will.

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?

What difference does it make, anyway; if any? 

In my case, I was like most people; overstressed about too many things to do and not enough time to get them all done yesterday. Yes, I was in a hurry! 

Consequently I pulled into my driveway, slammed the gearshift into Parking Gear and hurried in the house – only to discover later that my parked car coasted down the street backwards, ricocheted off the curb and finally planted its solid frame tight against the neighbor’s cement block retaining wall.

My parked car had rolled down the street, crossed a T-intersection, and parked itself while in neutral gear with all four doors locked. My hurried exit and harried behavior could have resulted in a devastating expense, created bad relations with an unknown neighbor, or proved injurious to a pedestrian or a moving vehicle.

Damages, however, proved slight. I had a slightly-damaged fender, but no damages otherwise. I sighed with relief but still—it was terribly depressing.

This was more stress than I needed when I was already in a work overload. Yet, I had to face it; this could have been much worse. Consequently, when I began counting my blessings, my day brightened considerably.

The Apostle Paul recognized our need to look beyond days partly-cloudy interspersed with misty circumstances that often accompany partly-sunny days. He declared, “Be joyful always, pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (I Thessalonians 5:16-7 NIV).

Sadie Smithson remains little known, but she illustrates Paul’s wisdom.  This humble seamstress existed entirely outside the socially elite inner circles of the Laurel Literary Society, and she wanted in more than anything in life. Driven by this single overwhelming desire, she scrimped and scraped until she accumulated enough cash savings to take a European tour—only to be caught in Belgium by World War One.

Sadie attempted to escape by hiring an Army Officer to drive her to Paris. While en route, she discovered she was trapped on a battlefield. As she continued her attempts to escape, she saw a shadowy figure crying out into the darkness, “Water, for God’s sake, water!”

Scarcely realizing the enormity of her actions, she stopped. Helping the wounded soldier resulted in spending the rest of the night ripping bandages from her skirt helping whoever she could find.

With the rising of the dawn, a Medical Officer found Sadie and demanded, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I am Sadie Virginia Smithson,” she announced, “and I have been holding Hell back all night.”

Only later, and safely onboard ship and bound for home, did Sadie recount her harrowing adventure. On hearing her story, one of Sadie’s friends casually remarked, “Well. The Laurel Society will surely be glad enough now to have you belong.”

To this, the greatly matured young woman, replied, “But you don’t understand; I’ve been born again. Do you reckon any of those things matter now?”

So, I ask again; what do you think? “What difference does it really make, anyway?”