Chapters 13 through 17 make up a very significant portion of the book of John. It is the section of the book that is devoted to a record of the talk Jesus gave to His apostles the night before He died. Five chapters out of twenty-one make it a sizable and significant section of the book! However the subject of the discourse is the primary factor that gives it its importance.

A man pastors a church which is part of a Baptist Association. He involves himself in this organization until one day, he realizes that he has had an inappropriate motivation: a desire to become the president of the group. He also becomes increasingly aware of things in the organization he believes are wrong.

If you are a father with children at home, you are a blessed man. It seems just yesterday that I snapped the picture above. In reality, it was twenty years ago. When it comes to parenting, time flies. And I don’t regret a second of that fleeting time that I invested in my children.

Let’s do an acrostic with the word purpose. We are all busy, right? Our hospitality should be profitable and have a purpose. So P stands for:

The Apostle Paul wrote about dealing with great adversity in 2 Corinthians 1. In verse 8, he made this statement about his trouble, “For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life.”

As travelers through life, God never intended that we make our journey alone. There are simply too many obstacles and challenges to navigate without the help and assistance of others. Plus, life is simply too grand not to have someone to share the joy and wonder of it all with!

One of the most seductive traps into fleshly ministry is the belief that we must gain God’s acceptance by our accomplishments. The accomplishments might even be spiritual goals—winning souls, building a Sunday school class, raising godly children. But if we undertake them to gain the Father’s acceptance, we’re working in the flesh and missing the joy of the acceptance provided through Christ.

On a scorching hot Monday in July of 1958, Louis Johnson and his family arrived in Tucson, Arizona. By the following Sunday, Pastor Johnson had reserved a room for the first church service in the Pueblo Garden Elementary School. Pastor Johnson and his oldest son knocked on eight hundred doors the following week, inviting everyone that was home to attend a new church plant. Twenty-eight people attended the first service in 1958.

Who is God using to bring you low today? Perhaps it is a proud Peninnah to taunt you along the way. How about a jealous Haman plotting to hang you out to dry, Or a disloyal Absalom cursing you like a Shimei?

If you were choosing men to turn the world upside down, who would you pick? What vocation would you draw from? I might pick lawyers (they know how to press a point), political activists (they engage fully), writers (their pens triumph even the sword), investors (they understand that large undertakings require capital), or CEOs (they get the need for oversight and administration). But Jesus chose fishermen.