Friends, how many of us have them?

Today I want to talk to you briefly about the people you surround yourself with and those you may even call close or "best" friends.

One thing I learned quickly in the corporate world is that you surround yourself with the people that you along most with in terms of goals and aspirations.  In other words, if they are goal oriented, leaders with a passion and zeal for similar things that you also have a passion for, then I would surround myself with those people.  I found there are plenty of "Eeyore" types, who are happy only when there are trying to tear down another person, through things like gossip or by stealing credit for their accomplishments.  I am sure you have met this type of person.  The eternal pessimist, who can't stand working where they do, and is always happy to complain about something and to try to get you involved in that gossip or complaining.  What I also learned is that it can be very hard to trust people who you think are your friends, because in business, it would seem that everyone is looking out for themselves to get the next promotion and if you get in their way, sometimes people overlook their morals or trade them for "perceived" success and prestige.

When I left the corporate world and moved into ministry I though that things would be different, and they were, but human sinfulness stayed basically the same.  Why do I bring all of this up?  I bring it up because I have found that it is crucially important to continue to trust in The Lord that He will surround you with amazing and upright people in your life, who will uplift, edify and also hold you accountable when you backslide (and we will all backslide).

I first found an amazing group of people by joining a small group.  I was deeply entrenched in my corporate world, filled with stress and accomplishing the newest "title" and pay promotion and would often show up to the group with all of this stuff showing all over my face and general countenance.  I thought I was doing a great job hiding it from this amazing group of people, but after a period of time, it was apparent to some of them and they began to ask me very pointed and powerful questions.  It seemed like the particular individual was delving deep into my innermost thoughts.  How is this even possible?  As I stayed in the group, I found that my entire personality changed when I was around the group.  I could be free to be myself.  I could share what was really on my mind and had been troubling me.  I still have many of these same people involved in my daily life and I am happy to call many of them my close personal friends.  It was also during my time with that group that I made an extremely difficult decision to leave my corporate life and nice paycheck to pursue a life of ministry on a full-time basis.  I am deeply grateful to this powerful group of people that God placed in my life and I am certain that without the leanings of the Holy Spirit and a few amazing people calling me in ways I was too scared or stubborn to challenge myself, I may have never taken this path.

Do you have a group of like-minded Christian friends that you meet with on a regular basis?  It can be youth ministry groups, adult singles, young married couples with or without kids, older small groups, a mixture of ages doing life together, you name it.  Most churches offer small groups to the attendees and if you have been holding off or are just not sure because you feel like you may be judged or you don't feel like you have anything to contribute, let those concerns go.  Lift them up in prayer to God.  Ask Him to help provide you with guidance and patience to step out of your comfort zone and to join in the spiritual life journey together with a group of strangers, who by the way, will not be strangers to you for very long.

What about other friends that you hang around with?  Do they all have to be Christian?  Do they all have to share your same views or doctrine?  Of course not, in fact that is what makes it possible to expand our diversity and have potential opportunities to be open-minded and experience other cultures and religions.  My wife's best friend for years (and still is) at work is a Jewish woman who is twenty some years older than her.  We have had amazing conversations with her over the years and forged a powerful friendship that will last forever.

In closing, I would just want you to think about the people that Jesus surrounded himself with.  Look up the background of the disciples as homework.  It will truly open your eyes. Who did He regularly see when he traveled to the various cities on His journeys?  Was it the people who were strong in their faith or those who others would have ignored as not important enough to preach to?

I look forward to any comments or feedback you may have on this entry - Blessings.

Daily recharging my Spirit,

Pastor Bill Blanck

Devo - and I don't mean the pop group :)

I mentioned that being in God's Word on a regular basis will help with your spiritual formation on a previous post.  There are many ways to accomplish this.  You can pick up the Bible and just start reading (although I don't recommend this because many have tried this method and lost interest quickly); you can read the Bible from front to back (that is an even faster way to become daunted and overwhelmed - in fact most people don't make it bast the book of Leviticus); but then you can choose a reading plan or a daily devotional to help assist you in your daily time reading God's Word and meditating on what you just read.

You may be asking:  but how do I know where to find a reading plan or a daily devotional and even if I do, I can't afford one?  Well you may be happy to know that there are plenty of websites and apps that are offered free of charge that are a simple Google or Bing search away from your fingertips.  I use several each day, depending on which device I happen to have with me at any given moment.  I have the YouVersion Bible app on my phone and it has the option to select a reading plan from tons of options (things like: reading the Bible chronologically; reading the Bible in one year; men's devotional; women's devotional; teen devotional; you name it - the topic is most likely offered to read in a daily format).  On my Ipad I have several options that I can choose from to read in a devotional format.  I have a Bible version through a Pastoral software company called Logos called the Faithlife Bible and it allows me to access a plethora of devotionals which connect to the study Bible and it all connects to the Scriptures and commentaries electronically (NOTE:  Logos is a subscription based software and is note Free - in fact it is quite costly); I will state that the apple marketplace does have tons of free apps available in terms of devotionals offered to download that are very good to utilize in conjunction with your daily reading.

What does a typical devotional offer to you?  It typically is written by a pastor or theologian of some sort and they start off with a set of Scripture and then write a short synopsis that connects to the Scripture and may even have an illustration that adds to the Scriptures from modern day.  The devotional will typically also have a thought or question at the end to provoke you to think about or ponder throughout your day.  It may even give you additional Scripture to look at for the remainder of your day.

When should you do a devotional and for how long?  This is asked of me all the time.  I would say that if you are currently not doing a daily devotional reading, you should find one that interests you and spend between ten to fifteen minutes each MORNING to start off your day in God's Word.  Why the morning?  Because when we begin each day worshiping and honoring our Lord and Savior, it has been my experience that the remainder of our day tends to go better than if we leave the devotional to the end of the day when we are tired and stressed out and don't have the focus of attention to give to Him.  It shows Him that He is The most important thing and that we are offering the first portion of our morning to Him as a sacrifice.

We also have tiny daily calendars in our house that have Scripture verses on them and often I will take some time and look them up and do a little bit of research on them to see what was going on in the times, why the person was saying what they were saying and who they were saying it to.  Knowing the background behind the Scriptural verse can help you to be a whole lot less confused and more interested in wanting to investigate God's Word deeper.

I hope this entry has deepened your interest in wanting to go deeper into the Scriptures and to research his Words more and on a daily basis.  Get creative!  Ask your friends what they are doing for their quiet time with the Lord.  How are they staying actively interested and engaged with the Word?  What will keep your mind active?

As always, I welcome your thoughts to this entry and look forward to hearing from anyone about their own spiritual journey.

Recharging my Spirit daily,

Pastor Bill Blanck

Memories ... In the Corners of our Minds !

In the news of the last several weeks have been a couple incidents with Carnival cruise ships and how they have left their passengers on board without power or amenities like cell-phones or activities to distract or "entertain" them.  While I was recovering from my recent knee surgery on the couch, I saw a family being interviewed after the cruise ship was being disembarked.  What struck me was the little girl in the family that spoke to the CNN correspondent and told him about how she was able to stay at peace during the troubling times by reciting the over two-hundred Bible verses that she had committed to memory.

This same little girl went on to tell the reporter her favorite verse, and that she was able to hold Bible study time for several other family groups on the ship during the stressful ordeal.  I watched many other people being interviewed and most of them were not upset with the Cruise ship staff and were grateful to be on solid ground, but I just kept seeing multiple networks interviewing this family with the little girl.  I felt as if God was using this little girl for a greater purpose and in that moment it occurred to me that (if I am being honest) I don't know 200 Bible verses by memory and I have two Masters degrees from seminary.

I know that one of the main purposes of this blog website is to educate and inform you about spiritual formation and I feel that this topic is one where spiritual formation can be hugely impacted.  Let me give you an example that I have used in youth ministry before and I hope that it impacts you and moves you to want to build up your Scripture memory.

Imagine a scenario where you have a group of people (can be any group - in this scenario it was a group of high school students) and they are suddenly rushed into a room by a group of people dressed like soldiers.  They are told to remain silent and to sit down and review their Bible until told otherwise.  If they do not have a Bible, they are told to sit quietly and think about the Bible as much as they can.  After a time period of about ten to fifteen minutes, the soldiers return back into the room and then instruct the students to give them their Bibles and they are each given a piece of paper and a pencil.  They are told to write down as many Scripture verses - including the Chapter and verse reference by the quoted verse and the soldiers will be returning in ten minutes.  They are also told that this is not a group exercise and talking is not tolerated.  The verse must be exact and the reference must be correct.  After ten minutes, the soldiers return and check what the students had written down on their sheet of paper.  They erase anything that is not 100% correct and re-write only what is accurate and give each paper back to each student.  Upon each paper being reviewed, THEN the students are told WHY all of this has been done.  They are told that this will be their Bible that they can use for the next ten years of their captivity and they are each sent to a cell to reflect upon that Bible for the next hour.

What type of Bible would you have?  How many verses do you think you would have down on the paper?  Would that Bible serve you well over the course of a ten year time period? These are tough questions, and most of us are not likely to be taken prisoner any time soon.  But what about being stuck on a cruise ship with no power or phone and not really being sure if you are going to make it home?  What about being in an enclosed MRI chamber for an hour and having to sit very still and needing something to provide you some peace?  

American Prisoners of War in Vietnam kept their faith, their sanity and their hope alive by sharing the Scriptures, prayers and sacred songs they had long ago stored up in their hearts. And thus even though they were deprived of the printed word, the Word was yet able to sustain them. Memorization takes effort and time, but the rewards are worth it all.

There may be many areas that you may find yourself alone for short or long periods of time and having Scripture memorized to rest into and reflect upon will be a source of great peace and spiritual formation in your life.

You may be saying, but I am getting older and I find it much harder to memorize things.  I know I have that same issue.  If you are younger, I implore you to read God's Word daily and make it a practice to memorize a verse or multiple verses each day.  How should you do this?  That is a deeply personal thing and every person will have vastly different ways they can relate to memorizing things.  I recently found an App for my Ipad called Scripture Typer and it is a program that allows you to first type the verse (it shows the verse in light grey and you type the first letter of each word - including the verse references).  Then it allows you to move onto Memorizing the verse (when you are ready) by typing the first letter of the verse again (but only every other word appears).  Finally, the program allows me to "Master" the verse - where none of the verse appears and I still have to type the first letter of each word, including the reference.  There are a lot more options to the app like - recording your voice reading the verse, drawing an illustration of the verse, flashcards, etc. and I think that is helpful since people learn in lots of different ways.  I have only been using the app for about a week and have already memorized six verses - so it gets my two thumbs up.

Straight memorization is one thing, but being in God's Word daily will help to bolster and familiarize you with the verses that you are attempting to memorize.  In the app I mentioned, I am attempting a collection called "top 100" and I was surprised how many of that collection that I actually did already know, but just needed to "brush up" on the references and I also like the face that I could adjust the translation of the Bible to fit the way I had learned the verses over my lifetime (instead of trying to teach an old dog a new verse ;)

God taught Israel to memorize His message, "⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." (Deuteronomy 6:6-7) 

Spiritual growth depends on knowing God's Word. "² Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, (1 Peter 2:2).  Food must be taken into the system and digested before it benefits the body, so must the Scriptures to strengthen the soul. 

The Word of God stored in the mind provides powerful assistance in soul-winning. From infancy, Timothy had, "¹⁵ known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 3:15).  When memorized, the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation is instantly available for every need (Romans 1:16). Whether you meet someone at the gym, in the coffee shop, at your place of work, or on a blog about spiritual formation, you can teach them. 

My prayer is that He has used these words to inspire you to seek out more knowledge about Him and His Word by reading the Bible daily and by looking for ways to commit these powerful verses into your heart and into your memory to provide you peace during times when you are away from your printed Bible.

I welcome your thoughts to this entry and look forward to hearing from anyone about their own spiritual journey.

Recharging my Spirit daily,

Pastor Bill Blanck

Update to readers

Open Note to all readers:  
My deepest apologies for not having posts on here on a daily (or semi-daily basis).  I had surgery on my knee and I have been focused on recovery and rehabilitation of my knee.  I have spent a lot of time on my back doing some reading and I also realized that updating the blog from my Ipad has lots of "glitches" - but fear not - I am up and about and I will be making frequent updates to this blog on a go-forward basis.

Pastor Bill Blanck