Coffee With The Lord

I was privileged to have parents that considered my birth a “gift from God” and a divine stewardship! They formally offered me to God in dedication at our little church in Ronan, Montana before I was 8 days old. Their highest goal for my life was to see me serve the Lord, however and wherever He led me, through the years.

At 4 years of age I bowed my knees and invited Christ Jesus to be my Savior and Lord! Then I began my life of following Jesus by being baptized in water. A few years later I was “Baptized in the Holy Spirit” in our little Pentecostal church. At the age of 10 the Lord powerfully called me into the ministry in the prayer room at Glacier Bible Camp during a camping experience designed specifically for children (a “Kid’s Camp”). I said “Yes!” to God’s call that night and have never abandoned it – a call to teach and preach God’s word.

I drifted from my commitment in High School, but the Lord drew me back to Himself. A Christian high school teacher, Dean Shenaman, was powerfully used of the Lord to challenge me to read, study, and LOVE God’s word (and his challenge led to the most powerful personal “revival” I have ever experienced)! Later I met and married the most wonderful partner in ministry anyone could ever have, Sharon Barnett Bartel!

The rest is history… A wonderful family, rich and rewarding pastoral ministry, 35 years of service as a professor in a Christian University training thousands of leaders for Christian service, then serving the Assemblies of God (my denomination) as a national leader, and countless opportunities to invest in the lives of others and home and abroad personally, and in conferences and seminars.

Here’s my commitment after looking back on 72 years of life… “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may FINISH MY COURSE and THE MINISTRY that I received from the Lord Jesus!” (Acts 20:24) I just want to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:21, 23)

I have some friends facing desperate situations with important needs that may have fallen into a trap… They think that there are other people with needs much more desperate than theirs so they won’t trouble the Lord with theirs. Or they think their need is so great – so beyond help – that they’ll just not bother the Lord and live with it… They’ve lost hope.

There’s an account – no, really two accounts – in the Bible that addresses both issues…

First of all, the account of the little lady who had a chronic hemorrhage for twelve long years, had visited a host of physicians, had suffered much from ancient medical methods, and was not better – in fact, worse! The crowd of needy people around Jesus, clamoring for His attention was enormous! She felt like she didn’t have a chance to get His attention and help, but thought, “maybe if I can just touch the edge of His garment…” She didn’t really expect, or want, to stop the Lord and trouble Him with her problem! He was so busy with the big crowd! But Jesus did notice her effort! He felt the impact of her touch of faith! And she was instantly healed!

Then there was the “ruler of the synagogue,” – Jairus. He was desperate! He fell before Jesus, “and implored him, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death! Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live!” Jesus went with him, but on the way the interruption of the woman with the hemorrhage, and then the death of his daughter! His friends came from his house and reported, “Your daughter is dead, why trouble the teacher any further,” – and the implied message… “Let’s just go ahead and plan the funeral, now she’s dead!” But not Jesus! His message? “Do not fear! Only believe!” Jesus went on to Jairus’ house and the atmosphere of hopelessness got worse… Jesus said to the mourners, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping!” Their response? They laughed at him! But Jesus went in to where the little girl’s lifeless body was laying, took her by the hand and said, “Talitha cumi” (“Little girl, I say to you arise!”) And life came back into her little body, she got up, and they gave her something to eat!” The situation wasn’t hopeless – Jesus, “the resurrection and the life,” had time for a little girl!

Listen, someone today needs to hear this… “Nothing is too hard for the Lord! He has time for you! He’ll respond as your reach out to Him! He’ll honor your faith! And even if the situation seems completely hopeless and you fear you’ll “just have to live with it!” – Hear His words to a grieving dad, “Do not fear, only believe!”

Oh, you want to know where the passage is in your Bible? Read it for yourself! Mark 5:21-43 I read it just yesterday during “coffee with the Lord” and I thought of YOU!

Here’s some things that Christians (regardless of their “label”) tend to forget…

• Everyone who claims to be a devoted follower of Jesus does NOT have to be just like us!
• It is wrong to think that because you are not like another very visible, popular and gifted Christian you are not important in the Lord’s work.
• No one who claims to be a Christian has the right to say to another person who claims to follow Jesus, “I don’t need you!”

Want it straight out of the Bible? Here goes…

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? BUT AS IT IS, GOD ARRANGED THE MEMBERS IN THE BODY, EACH ONE OF THEM, AS HE CHOSE! If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ ON THE CONTRARY, THE PARTS OF THE BODY THAT SEEM TO BE WEAKER ARE INDISPENSABLE! … But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. NOW YOU ARE THE BODY OF CHRIST AND INDIVIDUALLY MEMBERS OF IT.” (from 1 Corinthians 12:12–27 ESV)

Good medicine it seems to me for those with “Spiritual inferiority complexes” and those with “Spiritual superiority complexes!” Both are wrong! We need each other! Oh Lord help me to remember (and never forget) the truth of this passage and the importance of EVERY MEMBER in “the body of Christ!”