About me

I was born and raised in Northern (Superior) Wisconsin about 80 miles from the Canadian border; and, yes it gets very cold there! At the young age of 32 I began to feel called into ministry. One night at a church dinner, my wife Judy and I sat at a table next to our district superintendent. In the course of our conversation, he said that he had a small church that needed someone to supply the pulpit until he could appoint a new pastor. My pastor suggested that maybe I could do that. I agreed, and two Sundays later, my wife and I drove to that small rural church. Little did we know that I would fill the pulpit in that church for thirteen years!

I have now been in the ministry for 35 years after also serving churches in Virginia and Maryland. I am currently retired...well, sort of. In my retirement, I am now serving as part-time Pastor of First Evangelical Covenant Church in Superior Wi. I began writing books about seven years ago, and still enjoy speaking and teaching when I can. My wife Judy passed away in 2021and I have since remarried to My wife Crystal.

I have a deep desire to help people grow in their faith and knowledge of God’s Word. My books are what I call a “Quest for Discipleship”. As I said, I am a published author and I have nineteen books which include my latest called "Tell Me, Show Me, Fill Me, Change Me"; "In It For Life"; “By His Hand”; “Show and Tell”; “The Promised Gift”; “Jars of Clay”; “The Kingdom of God”; “From the Pastor’s Desk”; “More From the Pastor’s Desk”; "T.E.A.M."; "Let Earth Receive Her King"; "Therefore" "Principles from Proverbs"; "God's Top ten"; "Prayer Changes Things", "5 R's of Revelation" and two "Renewed Faith" 90 day devotionals all by Life Ministries Publishing.

Thank you for checking out my blog and I hope that you will also check my website at;


😊! E-mail me a question on this link and I will try to answer it here.

Name

Email *

Message *

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

The Knowledge of God continued...


Here is probably the clearest and best example:
    The disciples walked and talked with Jesus for over three years. They were with Him constantly, listening to Him teach, seeing His miracles, asking Him questions, seeing Him in all the aspects and circumstances of life. But they did not understand. They did not perceive His purpose in coming, until after the resurrection...and even then, they continued to ask questions that exposed their ignorance. “We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel”… They asked him; “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”… It wasn’t until they were gathered in the upper room, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they stepped out onto the streets of Jerusalem...
    Now I want you to take notice here... they weren’t given a crash course in theology. They didn’t stay sequestered in the upper room for another 13 weeks while Jesus appeared to them with a dry erase board and a box of scrolls and taught them doctrine and homiletics and how to properly apply the scriptures…They had a certain knowledge, a learning that He had stored up in them while He was with them, but they had no revelation of the Spirit, until He came and filled them; and baptized them, there in that upper room.
    And when He did, these disciples who only days before stood gazing into the sky as He ascended...now stepped immediately out of the upper room and preached a Holy Spirit inspired sermons that had even those who crucified their Lord crying, “What must we do to be saved?”
    So you see, it is not enough to have just a head-knowledge of Jesus. To examine Him and scrutinize His word and His actions and think to understand Him that way. Our relationship to Him must be based on the revelation of Himself through His Spirit to our spirits; it will only be in the spirit and by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation…as Paul prays … that we will begin to understand His mission in the world, His purpose in us; and that we begin to know the Father.
    I want to finish today by sharing with you an excerpt from D. Martin Lloyd-Jones’ commentary on this verse. I enjoyed what he said, and I want to share it with you;

“We have been considering one of the most important doctrines of the Christian faith. The Protestant Reformers used to tell their hearers that there is a double action of the Holy Spirit. There is the ‘Testimonium Spiritus Externus’ - the Spirit that is in the Word, as it were, the Spirit that inspired the men who produced the Word. That is essential. But it is not enough. Before I know that this is God’s Word and God’s truth, before I can read the Bible and discover health and food for my soul, something additional is necessary - the ‘Testimonium Spiritus Internus’. The Spirit in the reader! And without the Spirit in him, no man will be able to understand the meaning of the Word. The two operations are absolutely essential."
    In other words we have seen that the Apostle Paul prays for the Ephesian believers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give them ‘the Spirit of wisdom (the Spirit in the Word) and ‘the Spirit of revelation’ The Spirit in the believer, taking the Word and from it revealing God in all His glory.




No comments: