Well I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I always enjoy the slower pace of the holidays, but it seems I’m so far behind when everything resumes. Tomorrow morning I will begin the first J-term class of my seminary career, Church Growth. It will run for five days 8am-5pm, please pray I can stay awake and alert. This is the beginning of the end, if all goes as plan I will walk on May 23rd. I will have been in Seminary five years and I’m looking forward to getting a piece of paper to prove it.
Before I get to the Monday quote I wanted to mention one thing. As of January 2nd I began a new diet plan called Body for Life. You can check it out at bodyforlife.com to obtain all the details. I only mention it here for accountability purposes. Please ask me how it is going in a few weeks. The first week (about half a week) was a success I lost weight and my muscles have never been more sore in my life. Right now it hurts to laugh, type, walk, and even sleep. I assuming that is normal if you haven’t worked out in about five years, but if it doesn’t go away in about two weeks I’ll see doctor. Let me know if you have any New Year’s Resolutions, I would be interested on other diet or health plans that you are attempting.
Today’s quote comes from the assigned reading for my J-term class, the book is Church Evangelism by John Mark Terry, but the quote is actually from Ken Hemphill. It comes from the second chapter, Lead the Church to Pray.
“We spend more time praying to keep dying saints who are prepared to die out of heaven than we do to keep sinners out of hell.”
As I read that quote I thought back to the prayer time at our church today and the prayer list in our bulletin. As we prepared to pray we mentioned the names of people who we know have a relationship with Jesus, but are having some sort of struggle with their physical body. In all our prayer time made no one mention of a lost friend or relative. I’m not trying to say that we ought to stop praying for dying or sick saints, but I’m saying that we ought to start praying for dying and healthy lost people.
Matt
