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Articles to challenge us..- How to get your husband to stop going to church! - You can't take it with you...but you can send it on ahead! - Ten Qualities that are most useful in Missions. - Ten Steps in decision making for missions. - Just Wait Until Your Father Gets Home - Sharper Than Any Two Edged Sword
Who are you anyways? Often I have people who will ask me, “Who are you?”. My response is often things like, “ I am a businessman” or “I am a Christian” or “I am a member of……..”. Thinking about this, I could come up with many things that “I AM”. But having said this, I was drawn to the gospel of John and the statements made by Jesus Christ of who He said He was. Following are the “I AM” statements made by Christ. I could elaborate on each of these, however, I think they speak for themselves and they tell us exactly who Jesus Christ is. I AM the bread of
life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never
thirst. I AM the light of
the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light
of life. Before Abraham was, I
AM. I AM the door of
the sheep. I AM the good
shepherd. I AM the resurrection
and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and
whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. I AM the way, and
the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by
me. I AM the true vine,
and my Father is the vinedresser. Need I say more?
There is bound to be a revival in Alaska this year! Why? Because all the dynamic Christian leaders are flocking there this summer on cruise ships. Chuck Swindoll is going with an entourage including several singers and even a ventriloquist. John MacArthur is going. Dr. David Jeremiah is going, James Kennedy is going and even some major Christian schools like Biola University are going. Bill and Gloria Gaither will be there with lots of other singers and musicians. All of them are taking lots of Christians with them. Radio stations like KCIS out of Seattle are taking a group and so as not to neglect the children, even AWANA Clubs is sponsoring a cruise. These are just a few of the ministries that are headed for Alaska and beyond. Some I personally have never heard of like New Life Ministries. Also, small revivals are bound to break out in other places like the Holy Land, the Caribbean, Hawaii, Mexico, etc. Because Chuck Swindoll is going there as well and so are others like Zola Levitt, Moody Bible and many others, to be followed by KTIS out of Minneapolis a year later. Brio (a ministry of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family) will be taking a group of girls to the Caribbean. These are but a few of the ones I know about and I have only begun my research. The way I figure it, if each of these takes a group of 50 or more, it could easily add up to millions of dollars to bring forth this revival. If there is no revival then I think God will either have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah or condemn the practices of these great leaders. You see, in Ezekiel 16: 49-50 the Lord God was comparing the house of Israel, his people, to Sodom and Gomorrah. He said that they had “pride, surfeit of food (that means too much food), and prosperous ease (have you ever been on a cruise), but did not aid the poor and the needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me…” So often when I think of Sodom and Gomorrah, I think of the “abominable things”, but to God the other things mentioned before that were what made Israel worse in His sight than “her sister Sodom”. Don't get me wrong. I love to listen to most of these godly men and women sing and preach, but maybe, just maybe we have gone overboard (pun intended) in our approach to revival. My prayer is that there will be revival in Alaska or God may have to “remove them” when he sees them, because I know of many places around the world where even $10,000 is desperately needed and could produce tremendous results, perhaps even leading to revival. My phone has a DND button on it. When I don’t want to be disturbed, I just hit the button. You probably figured it out that DND stands for DO NOT DISTURB! My problem is that I all too often have a sign around my neck that indicates the same thing. “Please don’t disturb me…I am too important for you.” To illustrate, let me tell you about Dave and Sally. Dave and Sally live down the street from our office and everyday they walk to the bus stop outside our door, but before they sit down to wait for the bus they come into the office to say “Hi” or to use or restroom. Often we wish they would not stop in because we are busy, important people and do not want to be disturbed. You see, Dave and Sally are mentally handicapped, often difficult to understand and just not one of “beautiful people” of the world that we necessarily want to keep company with. Sometimes (usually when it is bitterly cold outside) they will ring our doorbell and ask if my wife could drive them home, which is about two blocks down the street. My wife, who seldom has here DND button on, will bundle up and get into the cold car to drive them home. Not me! When the doorbell rings, I look out the window and make sure it is someone important! If not, I quickly close the curtains to make it looks like we are not at home. Besides I was in the middle of something important. I was watching the news, or listening to a Christian minister preach on our local Christian ministry station, or just doing something important like taking a nap after a hard days work. Could it be that the Dave’s and Sally’s of life are “angels unaware” and that the Lord is using them to make sure our DND button is on “off”. So, unless you need my full attention right now, please excuse me while I go and read Isaiah 58:6-12 again. Maybe even Matthew 25:34-40. I need it! How to get your husband to stop coming to church It’s so simple. It doesn’t take a 10 step plan or even a 2 step plan. It can easily be accomplished in one simple step. Here is the secret. Come in closely ladies and I will whisper it in your ear. TAKE AWAY HIS LEADERSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES. If you still don’t understand then listen closer. Take away his responsibility to teach your children about the Lord in your home. Start to teach the Sunday School class or the weekly Bible study. Be the teacher of the New Testament class in your church or Christian school. Be a deacon, an elder or better yet become the pastor of the church. You see, we men are a lazy lot. We always take the path of least resistance when it comes to the responsibilities God has given us. We will relinquish them in a minute and will go and buy a boat and go fishing instead. We will find reasons why we “can worship God in nature”. So we go golfing, hunting, boating and do a hundred other things that “draw us closer to God” on Sunday morning. To me, as a man, it is no wonder that God has always ordained that men are to be the leaders in the church. Not because we are superior but because we are lazier. “Here honey, you take the kids to church, as for me (but not my house)…I’m going fishing. Have fun at your ladies aid club. Everything is ONLINE today! Recently, a mission’s pastor, while giving a seminar on missions encouraged participants to use the internet to shop for great fares to their mission destinations. In the audience was a young Christian lady who made her living as a travel agent. Travel agents make their living on commissions. When you book online for your travel needs, the airline, cruise company, or tour operator does not give you a discount by booking directly with them. Instead they take the commission that would have been paid to the travel agent and keep it. Greedy capitalists! And here, all along, you thought they really cared about you. In fact most of the time that nice young Christian lady can find you a better fare by going to a wholesaler of airline tickets or negotiate with the airlines group department and can actually save you money. So what is my point? Galatians 6:9-10 says that we are to “do good to all men and especially those of the household of faith”. So when you buy something from the nice young Christian lady mentioned above, she actually can save you money, she makes a few dollars, and she in turn puts part of it back in the collection plate (or do they call it an offering plate) and she then blesses many more with it, including paying the pastors salary and paying for the heating bills of the church. When is the last time Northwest Airlines or United Airlines donated something to your church or Christian organization? When did they care about whether the pastor got paid or not? So the next time a minister, missions pastor, or leader in the Christian community encourages you to shop online, tell him that you plan on attending church “online” next Sunday and then you can save the 10% “commission” to pay for his salary! Or do they still call it a “tithe” and if so are we to pay that to the cable company? Or
does what it takes have you! There is nothing quite
so disheartening as seeing a missionary not being able to go to the field
or to return to the field due to lack of funds or to see a
young missionary so discouraged because he can’t raise the funds in order to
get there. Francis Schaeffer, the
modern day evangelical theologian, says that the thing that characterizes this
generation is PERSONAL PEACE and AFFLUENCE.
Personal peace because we just want to be left alone. We don’t want anything to disturb our “hard earned” comfortable lifestyle. Affluence because we have so much yet share so little of what we have. Regardless of what the
economy is doing or how bad the recession is, we are still the most affluent
nation on earth. There is no reason on
earth why every church in the United States could not support just one more
missionary. Why every Christian in
the United States couldn’t give just a little more to support missions.
You know, God judged Sodom and Gommorah on the basis far different from
what we think. He didn’t judge
them solely for their immorality. In
Ezekial 16:47-52 we read that he pronounced judgment on them because:
1. They
had pride.
2. They
had surfeit of food (or overabundance) of food, which they did not share.
3. They lived in prosperous ease. 4. They were haughty. 5.
They did not aid the poor and
needy. Based on this, I am
quite certain that if God doesn’t judge us for the same thing, He will have to
apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. I
say this not in jest, but in awesome respect for who He, the Almighty God, is. I recently read a
quote that went like this, “If you
are living the same life or better than those around you, you are probably not
giving enough”. As we look
around, it becomes quite obvious that we have far more than we need.
Everything from the new vehicles we could probably do without to the
deepfreeze that is so full that we have to get a second one.
Come on, are we really any different than Sodom and Gomorrah.
You can't take it with you...but you can send it on ahead! Since we all know that we can’t
take our junk with us when we go, there are really only two alternatives:
1. We
can send it on ahead. 2. We
can leave it behind where either the moth, rust
or the thief will get it.
Wologoho, Inc. is praying
for and planning to hold a “flea market” once a month and an auction
once a year in order to raise funds for missions.
This is in addition to the Missions Store which they hope will open shortly. It is amazing how much
“stuff” we can accumulate over the years. Stuff we never will use but is to
good to discard. Rather than letting
it lie around accumulating dust or rust, why not let us sell it at auction and
give the proceeds to missions. So, bring your used stuff, which is presently collecting dust in the attic or is rusting in the garage, to our office and we will sell and give the proceeds to mission projects. Ten Qualities that are most useful in Missions. HAVE YOU GOT THEM? 1. A love for God Is your number one goal in life to become more like Jesus by obeying His Word? Is He your first love? 2. A burden for lost people Do you have a definite conviction of the lostness of people without Christ? Does it bother you that they are lost? 3. Willingness to give of yourself Are you willing to do for others even if it will cost? Do you have a servant's heart? 4. A love for people Do you like being with people and sharing ideas with them? 5. Adaptability Can you try new foods? Change plans quickly without getting frustrated? 6. Sensitivity to others' needs Can you put yourself in someone else's place and sense what they are feeling? 7. Team spirit Are you a good sport? Can you work well with others even if it means give and take? 8. Creativity Do you enjoy thinking up new ways of doing things or trying new things others suggest? 9. Sense of responsibility Do you see tasks through to completion? 10. Sense of humor Can you laugh at your own mistakes? Statistics are strange things. They tell us a lot about things that are happening around us. Often they can be abused. As someone once said, "76.54 percent of statistics are made up on the spot". However, even if we were to divide all of the statistics by half, they are startling. Here are some we should consider. WORLD STATISTICS
133 people every minute 8,000 people every hour 190,000 every day 72,000,000 every year
19 die every minute 1,140 die every hour 28,000 die every day 10,220,000 die every year
55,000 died in Viet Nam = 2 days 292,000 died in WWII = 10 days
God has always called
some to go to do battle. To be
on the front lines. To be the
soldiers. To be the “full time”
worker. To be the “GOER”.
But He has also called each of us to be the one who stays back in
support. To be the watchman.
To be the “full time” prayer person.
To be the “SENDER. To some
He says, “GO, but STAY there”. To
others He says, “STAY, but GO and send.”
Some of us are called to be GOER’s and others are called to be
SENDER’s. In Isaiah 52:7 we
read, “How beautiful upon
the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings,
that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that
publisheth salvation”. But
in verse 8 it says, “Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together
shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye”.
So both the MESSENGER and the WATCHMEN
have an important part to play. One of the greatest
illustrations I have seen of this partnership of front line soldier (the
messenger) and the supply soldier (the watchmen) working together is in I Samuel
30:21-25 where we are presented with the story of David going to battle against
the Amalekites. There were six
hundred of them, but two hundred were tired and they stayed behind at the brook
Besor and took care of the supplies. When
the four hundred won the battle and returned to the brook Besor, some of them
didn’t want to share the spoil or bounty with the two hundred who stayed
behind. Then David said, “Ye
shall not do so, my brethren...For who will hearken unto you in this matter? But
as his part is that goeth down to battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by
the stuff; they shall part alike”. The problem is that the GOERS wanted to keep the “STUFF” and not share it with the “STAYERS”. But in God’s economy it has always been that if you share in the RESPONSIBILITY with your RESOURCES, you also have the right to the “STUFF”. How often the reverse of this is true as well. So many time the STAYERS have so much “STUFF”, but we don’t want to share it with the GOERS. Ten Steps to help you make an intelligent decision regarding your role in missions. 1. Listen to missions speakers Get as much input as you can from a variety of missionary speakers. 2. Talk to your pastor Ask how you can get involved in missions in your local church. Ask if you can help with outreach. 3. Witness right now In fact, get some evangelism training that will help you where you are right now. 4. Write to missions boards Ask about opportunities for short-term service. Ask about requirements. Write ACTION! We'll help! 5. Write to missionaries Start corresponding with several missionaries that you know. Ask questions! 6. Make friends with internationals Find some foreign students or new immigrants and help them in their adjustment. You will learn a great deal. 7. Read missions books Check your church library for mission biographies and current, thought-provoking missions literature. 8. Pray for people Pray for non-Christian family/friends. Pray for specific missionaries. ACTION can provide a monthly prayer guide you would enjoy using. 9. Study God's Word Learn the Scripture so you can share it. 10. Live a life of holiness Don't wait till you become a missionary to live the Christian life. You will
never make it if you don't start practicing obedience to God now. We are a fat people...a people living off of the overflowing trough. We need to be driven from the trough and into the pastures of the world. In Matthew 9:37 Jesus said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” The words to send out should more correctly be to drive out. It is the same verb used in John 2:15 where Jesus used a whip to drive out the money changers in the temple. If you have ever been on a farm and around pigs, you will soon understand that they love feeding time and love to come to the trough and literally “pig out”. They don’t like going out to the fields where they have to forage for food. What a great picture for us. We love to go to “church” and listen to great worship music and hear a great “feel good” sermon. But when it comes time to go to the uttermost parts of the world where the fields are ripe with harvest, oh how we resist. My prayer is this. I am praying that the Lord will once again use his whip to “drive” us out into his harvest. If he can’t plead with us to “GO”, then maybe he can get us to go through adversity. If you doubt that he uses adversity to get people to “GO”, then you don’t understand history. Sometimes he uses Roman soldiers and sometimes a potato famine. It’s our choice. Jonah and I are so much alike. No, we’re not related. We may not have the same personality or the same skin color or even national background, but we certainly have the same attitude. So often God has called me to do something and I balk at it and instead of going to Ninevah, I chose Tarshish. Then God has to get my attention and put me through a time of trial and testing and finally I say, “Okay God, I’ll go!” But even then, many times I get mad at God for dealing justly with those He sent me to. He may choose to draw them to Himself, but I was hoping He would punish them, “because they deserved it”. I have such a hard time with “God’s mercy and His grace.” So I am beginning to learn at the age of 60 that when God calls me to a task, not to question it but to obey it. I am learning that it is far better to be obedient to His call and to ride in the “belly of a airplane” to the place He wants me to go then to be tossed overboard and have to ride in the “belly of a whale”, because He will get me there one way or another. We
are getting older. The truth is that you and I are older than we have ever been
and younger than we'll ever be again! ·
A 30-year old has only 2300 weeks left to live. ·
A 40-year-old has 1800 weeks left on earth. ·
A 50-year old is down to 1300 weeks. ·
A 60-year old has only 790 weeks. Another
way to look at time is: the average life lasts only 683,280 hours or 2.4 billion
seconds. You and I are speeding toward death at the rate of 60 minutes per hour
and 60 seconds per minute. In
a short time, we will be gone.
What a difference two bags of groceries can make in a child's life. Mom used to do miracles with a little bit of flour, salt, oil and a few eggs. The canisters were usually closer to empty than full, but she could stretch it like few people I ever knew. All of her recipes had the same ingredients, yet they all had different names. Dumplings, knapfle, kuchle, spaetzle, and the recipe list goes on. But there should have been an accompaniment with them. Chicken, cheese, hamburger, a roast would have made the meal complete. But seldom did she have the opportunity to add those to the basics, because we lived on the "wrong side of the tracks". So as a young lad I so vividly remember the day in the cold of winter, just before Christmas when we opened the door one morning and there at the door step were two bags of groceries. Real groceries! Two big bags of groceries! Meat, cottage cheese, hard cheeses, vegetables, fruit...those two bags held so much promise for Christmas. Today, my family and I go out to eat, order in pizza, Oriental meals, take home anything we want from hamburgers and chicken from Hardees to schwarmes from Abu Naders. But there are so many who are still where I was when I was a child and it is so difficult for me to see dollars being spent and weight being gained when they may not even have flour, salt, oil and eggs like we had. WOLOgoHO has started a fund called "The Harold and Olinda Auch - You Gave Me Food Fund." Through this fund people in Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe are provided with farm animals that will provide food for Christians who have so little. Go to "PROJECTS" to learn more.
Feed the Hungry at www.feedthehungry.com is another of many organizations that can take a $14 gift from us and turn it into 100 pounds of groceries which will end up on the door steps of some young child who will never forget. Neither will the Lord. If you doubt my words check out His and please read Matthew 25:35-40.
Just Wait Until Your Father Gets Home When I was a young lad, my two brothers and I would get into some situations which would demand corporal punishment. It usually happened while dad was at work, so mom would have to do the disciplining. But we were faster than she was and we would usually climb the nearest tree. We may have been faster but she was wiser. She would say, “Just wait until your father gets home”. We knew that dad’s punishment was far more severe than hers, so we would climb down and take our well deserved punishment. Someday, we will have to face our heavenly Father’s punishment against our sin. I have come to realize that it would be far wiser to deal with the sin in my life now, here on Earth, than to stand before Him someday never having dealt with that sin. In Romans 14:10 we have the assurance that someday we will have to face the Father in Heaven, because it says, “Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God." So then, each of us will be accountable to God.” And again in II Corinthians 5:10 we read, “For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil. Sharper Than Any Two Edged Sword I’m tired of defending God! I think He can defend Himself! In fact His own words say in Hebrews 4:12, “ Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” So why should I try to convince someone else about my beliefs, when the word of God is so clear on such subjects as murder, covetousness, stealing, lying, marriage, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, bestiality, etc. I don’t need to defend His word….I only need to proclaim it! So instead of defending the Ten Commandments, I only need to say, “God’s words says…..” This is true of the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount and the entire Scriptures. If I were to defend Darwin, I would say, “Darwin says…..” Or if it were Plato, Socrates, Shakespeare, or whomever, I would quote them using their words. So all I need to do is to say, “God says in His Word……” It is now no longer “my opinion…but God’s” It is up to you to chose whether to believe it or not. “Some businessmen are saying that this could be the greatest
Christmas ever. I always thought that the first one was.” We Go Around in Circles - Don't We? Life is a cycle. We go from birth to death. We go around in circles. Even nations don't last forever and history teaches us that a nation such as the United States has it's cycle. Rise and Fall of a Nation Goes from a Period of ______ to a Period of______: SPIRITUALITY - COURAGE COURAGE - LIBERTY LIBERTY - ABUNDANCE ABUNDANCE - GREAT SELFISHNESS GREAT SELFISHNESS - COMPLACENCY COMPLACENCY - APATHY APATHY - DEEP DEPENDANCY DEEP DEPENDENCY - BONDAGE I decided to change jobs. I am going back into the ministry. Why? Because all of the ministries I know of are going into my business, i.e. the travel business. For example, there is a local radio station that now promotes tours and cruises at the expense of my contributions to that station. They take my money, advertise a cruise or tour with it and I have just paid for the promotion of a cruise or tour whereby some executive gets to go free. I know this is repeated throughout the United States by numerous Christian radio stations and Christian ministries. They can do so because they ask you and me for money to support their ministry and then have free advertising to promote their tours and cruises. In my business I have to pay for that. It is an expense to me. But it is not unique to them. Dobson, Kennedy, Swindoll, Levitt, McDonald, MacArthur and on and on have the ability to use your dollars to promote their tours to the Holy Land and to cruises to the Caribbean and Alaska. They go free….you pay their fare…they have free advertising….I have to pay for the advertising. I went into the travel business so that I could travel around the world because travel is in my blood. I am a born traveler because I have been called by the Lord to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. So now I am going to go into the ministry….maybe then I can go on a tour or cruise for free and “spread the gospel” with the best of them…something that now even as a travel agency owner, I have to pay for.
There are so many things that happen in life that just don’t make us happy. For example, you put your house on the market for sale and the day before your first showing the roof leaks after a downpour. I have always wanted to write a book on these types of events. You know, things like when the toilet paper runs out just as you are about to use it and there is no reserve. But, regardless, the Bible tells us in Habakkuk 3:17-19:
“Though the fig tree do not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flocks be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls.
(Here fill in all of the other disappointments in life)
Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet He makes me tread upon high places.
In our home and office we have this verse posted everywhere. However, we have put a big space between the above so that we can add things like; “though the roof leaks….. though there is not enough money to pay the bills…. though no one returns my phone calls……though the toilet paper runs out while in use…..or whatever, we can add those to the list.
The main thing is that we can and should “rejoice in the Lord” and “joy in the God of our salvation.” So, our hope is that we can keep things in perspective and no matter what happens in our life, we will always keep the later part of the above verses in proper order. Galatians 6:9-10, says "And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith." As Christians we are commended to do good to our brothers and sisters in Christ. One of the ways we can do that is to patronize businesses that are operated by Christians. On our website at www.wologoho.org, we have started a growing list of Christian businesses that use their financial resources to support Christian ministries under the DO GOOD column. We would like to encourage you to patronize them. For those that have a website, please click on their site for information. For the rest, we have tried to provide at least a phone number where they can be reached. Should you know of others that should or would like to be included, please contact us. As a Christian businessman I am always amazed at how many Christians avoid using the services of their brothers and sisters in Christ. I see Jewish businesses and Hmong businesses using the services of their own people. I have therefore begun a campaign to urge these businessmen and women to only support those ministries that in turn support them. In other words, you patronize my business and I will be happy to support your ministry. Otherwise we will also begin going to church “online” and save our tithes and gifts. You may want to check out another article on our website under “Articles” called SAVE 10% - SHOP ONLINE!
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