Bambi Lake Part 2
Where did we leave off? Oh yeah we were looking at how similar our experience
compared to the early Disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well let me back up a little to
fill in some blanks.
First: On Friday night we were treated to a great time of worship with singing and
praying with one another and simply praising God. Our first speaker was Pastor Charles
Roselle from Leesburg Florida. He was amazing. He spoke out of Matthew 14:25-33
and revealed three important things we need to understand about this particular text.
1. The impulse of Love
2. The insight of Faith
3. The importance of Focus
Pastor Roselle pointed out that Matthew left his lucrative career as a tax collector to
follow a penniless savior. Matthew 4:18-22 is an example of how easily the apostles
heard Jesus’ voice and immediately stopped what they were doing to follow Him. Pastor
Roselle pointed out also how faithfully (at first) Peter obeyed Jesus when he was told to
“come.” Pastor Roselle said that we should never complain about our service to the Lord
– he said that we have a “Get to, Got to” problem – we should be saying we “Get to” go
to church, instead of we “Got to” go to church. How many of us make obeying God a
chore? Instead of simply stopping what we are doing and faithfully following His voice,
we try to maintain control and only give Him a small fragment of our lives. We can see
by the way these apostles reacted to Jesus’ voice that they reacted with impulse of Love.
Pastor Roselle then pointed out the faith Peter had to have in Jesus by stepping out of the
boat. Now however short lived his faith may have been, it still took a great deal of faith
to step out of the boat and onto the water. I am reminded of times that I have had great
faith and stepped out of my comfort zone, but we also see how quickly Peter lost focus
when he took his eyes off of Jesus and began to sink. How quickly do we lose focus in
our everyday lives when the water begins to touch our ankles? How quickly do we allow
ourselves to sink into despair or depression forgetting that Jesus is right there to help pull
us back into the boat? So Pastor Roselle finished by explaining that we truly can do all
things with a heart that is ready to love the Lord, when our faith is in the promises that He
has made to us and when we allow ourselves to remain obedient to Him and maintain our
focus on Jesus to guide our everyday lives.
Saturday morning is kind of a blur for me. I was unable to attend the morning service
because I was throwing down for the upcoming fish fry and BBQ. But God’s sweet spirit
was there with me, Brian Bogi, Randy Trouten and Bill Goins. It’s amazing how God
new that the four of us just needed some time alone not only to get things ready for the
afternoon luncheon, but for us men to connect on a personal level and share things with
each other that we may not have had time to share otherwise.
Later that night: we were treated to a wonderful service of praise and worship music
along with a great time of prayer and a powerful message that was brought to us by Jeff
Totten, the chaplain for the Detroit Tigers.
Jeff spoke about impacting the world for Christ. In John 17:4 Jesus, in His prayer to God
for Himself, says that He brought glory to God by completing the work that He was sent
to do. Jeff pointed out that in order to impact the world for Christ we need to complete
the work that God has given us. Whatever service we are involved in, we must see it
through to completion. We can not be quitters; how easy would it have been for Jesus to
just give up and ask the Father to remove Him from His fate? He could have snapped His
fingers and been taken back into Heaven with out a hair on His head touched. But in that
verse we see that Jesus was telling the Father that it was a done deal. He was letting God
know that He could count on Him to follow through with what His task was, in fact, He
was telling God that in His mind it was already done.
So Jeff challenged us as men to be husbands and fathers that complete the task that God
has given us. Not to quit on our families and our children, but to be role models and men
of God that our spouses can be proud of.
Next Jeff said that if we want to impact the world for Christ we need to commit to others.
In John 17:6, Jesus continues on with His prayer and talks about the commitment that He
made to His Disciples. He is talking about how He poured His life into them by teaching
them about the Father. Jeff said that we needed to be more like that and commit ourselves
to helping and teaching others. He made reference to the fact that while the apostles had
issues with each other, they never quit on each other. He said to truly impact our world
we need to commit to getting out and reaching others. But more importantly we need to
remain connected to one another. He then treated us to a wonderful story of a lumberjack
that was taking down trees in California. He was actually cutting down Red woods and
was asked if it was a difficult job. The lumberjack explained that, although Red Woods
are very old and extremely tall, their root system is relatively shallow. He further
explained that, alone they would not be able to survive. That is how shallow their root
structure really is, but their roots attach to other Red Woods creating this elaborate
system that is interwoven together. He said that is where the trees get their true strength,
by being linked together. The bottom line here is that in order to impact our world for
Christ we need to remain committed to each other for the purpose of winning souls to
Christ.
Lastly, Jeff said that if we are to impact our world for Christ we need to change our ways.
In John 16:28 Jesus says that He came from the Father, entered the world; and now He
was going back to the Father. Well to enter the world He had to change Himself and was
now going to be changed again to go back to the Father. I am reminded of what I used to
be like before the Father changed me. Not to say that I am perfect now, but my goal is to
be as Christ like as I possibly can while I am here on earth. But in order to do that, there
is still much about myself that needs to change. Jeff said that until we are willing to
accept the fact that we need to change ourselves first, we will never be able to truly
impact the world for Christ.
10 p.m.: We decided to have our own after glow in the old chapel. This has been a
tradition that the men have carried on for many years. Some traditions are worth keeping
and this is one of them. We of course decided to BBQ……again. What can I say? We
are Baptist….and I don’t know one Baptist that would turn down a good BBQ. Besides
we had about 20 burgers and 40 hot dogs left that needed to get eaten!
Let me just say that the things that were shared down in that old chapel, were amazing.
The love that was poured out by all of the men was so sincere and by the time 4 a.m.
rolled around we were still ready to keep going.
So how does this compare to the legacy that the early Disciples left for us to follow
well…..we were able to fellowship, we broke bread together, we were dedicated to the
teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we were left with a sense of awe and wonder. For
me it’s pretty darn close to what they experienced. We went to the Mountain Top and
each one of us came back changed, with a deeper sense of the direction that God wants us
to go in.