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Have you ever seen the sea flee? Have you ever seen the mountains skip like rams or the hills run like lambs? That’s the vivid description the psalmist gives of the Exodus of Israel from Egypt. “The sea saw it and fled; Jordan turned back. The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs.... Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of waters” (Psalm 114:1-8)

The psalmist mentions the time God opened the Red Sea and the Israelites walked across on dry land. He talks about when the nation entered the Promised Land over the dry bed of the Jordan River. Then he refers to their experience in the wilderness, when they were thirsty and God turned the rock into a pool of water.

What are we to learn from all of these experiences? God helps us in the obstacles of life. When you turn your obstacles over to the Lord, He acts!

What will He do? Sometimes He overcomes the obstacles. God is with us in the hopeless places. How hopeless the Israelites were at the Red Sea! The enemy soldiers were behind them; the wilderness was around them; the sea was in front of them. But God opened a way to escape. Sometimes God removes the obstacles – the “hills” and the “mountains.” He just makes them skip and run away like animals. Sometimes He makes the mountains a way for us to escape. In Isaiah 49:11, the Lord says “I will make each of My mountains a road, and My highways shall be elevated”. Sometimes He also can turn the obstacles into blessings. He “turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of waters” (Isaiah 49:8).

If God doesn’t overcome or remove your obstacle, let Him turn it into a blessing. Trust God with your obstacles. He can help you in the hopeless places, the high places and the hard places!

Here is your copy of firstIMPRESSIONS, Volume 8.15. Live for God, on purpose, trusting Him in your seemingly impossible situations!

The Pathway of Participation

We are all called to walk down the Pathway of Pentecost – but not a single one of us is called to walk down it alone! Christianity... especially the Spirit-filled walk in Christianity, is neither a “spectator sport” nor a “solo activity!”

In our current Sunday morning preaching series, “Walking on Pentecostal Pathways,” we are learning from the experiences of those first believers, freshly filled with the Spirit of God on the day of Pentecost, and observing the pathways they travel in their everyday walk in the Lord. As we now come to the second half of chapter four, we find Peter and John released from their imprisonment, returning to the company of the other believers.

Here is something very important, yet easily overlooked in this passage. In Acts 4:23-37, referring to the believers, the word “they” is mentioned no fewer than eleven times. It talks about “all the believers.” In verse 24, it talks of them praising God and praying “together.”

Unity among these believers, and working together – all of them – was key to the powerful ministry of this first church! And, this is still true today. In fact, disunity in any church quickly leads to division, contention and confusion.

This Sunday, we continue our series with the message “The Pathway of Participation.” The first century church was a group of people who were not only filled with His Spirit – they were Pentecostal – but, they were also of one mind, with everyone participating in the ministry of winning their world for Jesus! May we learn from their example, and do what they did!

Not All Composers Make Good Conductors

The following story brings out the fact that we were all created to function in certain areas with gifts and talents, however, when we begin to move outside of that realm it sometimes leads to great difficulty for us... and others.

He wanted to conduct. His conducting style, however, was idiosyncratic. During soft passages he’d crouch extremely low. For loud sections, he’d often leap into the air, even shouting to the orchestra.

His memory was poor. Once he forgot that he had instructed the orchestra not to repeat a section of music. During the performance, when he went back to repeat that section, they went forward, so he stopped the piece, hollering, “Stop! Wrong! That will not do! Again! Again!”

For his own piano concerto, he tried conducting from the piano. At one point he jumped from the bench, bumping the candles off the piano. At another concert he knocked over a choir boy.

During one long, delicate passage, he jumped high to cue a loud entrance, but nothing happened because he had lost count and signaled the orchestra too soon.

As his hearing worsened, musicians tried to ignore his conducting and get their cues from the first violinist.

Finally the musicians pled with him to go home and give up conducting, which he did.

He was Ludwig van Beethoven.

As the man whom many consider to be the greatest composer of all time learned, no one is a genius of all trades.

as seen in Fresh Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching (Baker), by David Sacks, from the editors of Leadership.

How Much Do You Own in
That Direction?

by Alan Smith

George Washington Truett was a preacher in Dallas for 47 years. He once visited a wealthy West Texas rancher and had dinner in his huge ranch home. After dinner, the rancher took Dr. Truett up to a veranda on top of his house, and lit up a big cigar. The sun was setting, and if you’ve ever been to West Texas, you know you can see a long way out there. The man pointed to the south toward some oil rigs and said, “I own everything in that direction as far as you can see.” He pointed east toward some cotton fields and said, “And I own everything in that direction, too.” He pointed north toward a huge herd of cattle and bragged, “And, preacher, I own everything as far as you can see in that direction.” He turned to the west, and said, “And I own everything you can see in that direction, except the sun, of course.”

Dr. Truett turned to the man and pointed straight up the sky and said, “And how much do you own in that direction?”

It’s a sobering question for all of us. We are surrounded constantly by the “things” of this world, and it is so easy to think that these “things” are the things that matter most — a nice car, a nice home, nice clothes (and don’t forget all the necessary electronic gadgets!). And so, if we’re not careful, we may seek to accumulate more and more, without regard to our relationship with God. As the rich fool discovered in Luke 12, we will all one day be forced to recognize that the material things we have accumulated have no eternal value.

Jesus said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)

How much do you own in that direction?

This article by Alan Smith, Senior Pastor of the Helen Street Church of Christ in Fayetteville, North Carolina. You can visit his site at http://www.TFTD-online.com

The Sculptor’s Attitude

I woke up early today, excited over all I get to do before the clock strikes midnight. I have responsibilities to fulfill today. I am important. My job is to choose what kind of day I am going to have.

Today I can complain because the weather is rainy or...
I can be thankful that the grass is getting
watered for free.

Today I can feel sad that I don’t have more money or...
I can be glad that my finances encourage me
to plan my purchases wisely and guide me away from waste.

Today I can grumble about my health or...
I can rejoice that I am alive.

Today I can lament over all that my parents didn’t give me when I was growing up or...
I can feel grateful that they allowed me to be born.

Today I can cry because roses have thorns or...
I can celebrate that thorns have roses.

Today I can mourn my lack of friends or...
I can excitedly embark upon a quest to discover new relationships.

Today I can whine because I have to go to work or...
I can shout for joy because I have a job to do.

Today I can complain because I have to go to school or...
eagerly open my mind and fill it with rich new tidbits of knowledge.

Today I can murmur dejectedly because I have to do housework or...
I can feel honored because the Lord has provided shelter for my mind,
body and soul.

Today stretches ahead of me, waiting to be shaped. And here I am, the sculptor who gets to do the shaping. What today will be like is up to me. I get to choose what kind of day I will have!

Lessons on Life

There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall.

When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted. The second son said no it was covered with green buds and full of promise. The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen. The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but only one season in the tree’s life.

He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up.

If you give up when it’s winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, fulfillment of your fall.

Don’t let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest. Don’t judge life by one difficult season. Persevere through the difficult patches and better times are sure to come sometime or later.

Always Look On The Inside

I remember reading a story once about a man who was exploring some caves by the seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled up some clay and left them out in the sun to bake. They didn’t look like much, but they intrigued the man so he took the bag out of the cave with him.

As he strolled along the beach, to pass the time, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could throw.

He thought little about it until he dropped one of the balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone. Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left, then it struck him.

He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have had tens of thousands, but he just threw it all away.

You know sometimes, it’s like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn’t look like much from the outside. It isn’t always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it; we see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy.

But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person. There is a treasure hidden in every one of us. We are wonderfully made. Not just our physical bodies, our spiritual selves, which are sometimes hidden from others by the “earthen vessel.”

But if you take the time to get to know that person, and if you ask the Spirit to show you that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friendship.

The Last Impression

Two old friends met one day after many years. One attended college and now was very successful. The other had not attended college and never had much ambition, yet he still seemed to be doing well.

Curious as to why, the college graduate asked his friend, “How has everything been going with you?”

The less-educated, less ambitious man replied, “Well, one day, I opened my Bible at random, and dropped my finger on a page. The word under my finger was oil. So, I invested in oil, and boy, did the oil wells gush. Then I tried the same method again, and my finger stopped on the word gold. So, I invested in gold, and those mines really produced. Now, I’m as rich as Rockefeller.”

The successful friend was so impressed that he rushed to his hotel, grabbed a Gideon Bible, flipped it open, and dropped his finger on a page. When he opened his eyes, he saw that his finger rested on the words, “Chapter Eleven.”

God continues to do a great work in our midst here at Wilmington First Assembly! Each week, numbers of guests tell me following our service that they have found our worship exciting, our people friendly, and our message relevant! Bring your friends with you this week, and allow them to discover what everyone else is talking about! Looking forward to seeing you and worshiping together here at WFA this Lord’s Day! See you then!