With one weekend down on the road to the Final Four, how is your bracket looking? I have a hard time believing very many of you had those vaunted juggernauts from George Mason and Wichita State meeting in the Sweet Sixteen (although I am absolutely positive that Jeanne, Myron, Dan and Jana all had the Shockers there!). If Rick Barnes's Longhorns can't win it all, then count me on the Wheatshocker bandwagon!
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One of the four regionals in the women's NCAA Tournament is slated for San Antonio. It just happens to be the region where Oklahoma has been placed. Oklahoma, the #2 seed in the San Antonio region, is coached by Sherri Coale, who's gotten a lot of ink in the Christian Chronicle as of late. Should the Sooners and the #1 seed LSU Tigers meet in the final, it would be an ideal opportunity for a daddy/daughter night since Trae seems to be developing a greater love for the game of basketball.
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Really great news from the U.S. Census Bureau, via the Austin American Statesman newspaper in last Thursday’s edition. The paper reported that Burnet County is the 11th fastest growing county of Texas’s 254 counties. Projections are for the population boom to continue over the next 10 years.
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During my time on the Jessieville School District Board of Directors, I had the privilege to attend several training sessions of the Arkansas School Boards Association. One of the overarching messages of ASBA to school board members was to be an “agenda-less” board member, i.e. do not allow a personal agenda to drive your service to the children of the school district.
During my time in ministry, I have defended the misguided charge that as a Preaching Minister, I have some sort of “hidden agenda” to advance and the local church is simply the pawn to advance it. Can I be so honest as to say that only one agenda drives my ministry and that is the transformation of men and women into the image of Jesus Christ? Through the taught Word, the convicting and empowering Holy Spirit of God, the realization of the redemptive spiritual blessings found in Christ, men and women can be recreated into the image for which mankind was originally created.
That is my only agenda. That is my sole aim.
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Why do some Christians allow fear to be the guiding force in their quest for Christlikeness? Why do some Christians allow fear to rule their spiritual roost?
Perhaps it was a sense of that very barrier to growth in the church at Ephesus that propelled the aged apostle John to write as he does in his first epistle. The first letter of John is chock-full of blessings available from living in a loving relationship with God and believers in a community of faith.
“If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4.15-18).
