Jeff Dowdy's Blog

I love this time of year and the fact that I can look back upon last year and see what I did well and what I want to do differently. I know some people do not like to participate in New Year's Resolutions, and I am one of them. I think resolutions fade too easily and give you no real target. You think you are going to lose 10 pounds, but how? You want to read the Bible more, but when? You want to exercise more, but what's the plan? I prefer goals to start the new year.

Goals leave a specific mark that you want to hit by the end of the year. Goals force you to plan for how you will achieve these goals. You will struggle and fight to reach the goals, if for nothing less than to avoid embarrassment. You want those goals passionately. This can be in any phase of life such as spiritually (I will read through the Bible in one year), physically (I will run a 5K this year), professionally (I will grow by a certain amount), mentally (I will read 5 books this year). Goals give us a target to shoot at while resolutions are simply trying to form a habit.

Every year, people crowd the gyms to start that new year's resolution to get fit. Too many times they fade away when their body is sore and hurting. However, if you set a goal of finishing a race or doing something in your physical fitness you will strive to get to the goal and not merely try to meet the resolution.

I encourage you this year to set some goals and leave the resolutions in the dust.

Lastly, remember to always have the Lord as the center of any of your goal setting. Establish him as the one who is setting the goals and you will win every time.

Here's to a better you in 2015 for God's glory!

The fate of MH370, the Malaysian airlines flight that is missing, is one that I am captivated by. I cannot imagine what the families of these missing passengers must be feeling. They must be questioning things like if their loved ones are still alive by some miracle, are they suffering, are they aware of what is going on, or are they in fact deceased? These questions must be heart wrenching and heart breaking.

From an outsiders perspective,the intrigue of this story reads like a mystery novel or a sci-fi movie. I want to know where this plane is at? I want to know what happened? This search probably will take weeks if not months. This search will be profound and could be catastrophic. Each day brings in new clues about this flight and about its passengers and crew. What will the end of this story be?

We are captivated by this story because we don't know the ending. We feel like we are a part of a real life drama that is unfolding before our eyes. We want to see what will happen next. In many ways this mirrors the story of Christ. Those who experienced this story first hand could not have known what was going to happen next. They only knew what was right in front of them at the time. They followed and they pursued Christ. We have the chance to look back over the 2,000 years since the dawn of Christianity and see what has happened. We can even look into the future and from a biblical standpoint know that Jesus is coming back soon. We know the end of the story and yet how it plays out is a great mystery.

I pray that I have the confidence in the Lord to know his plans are true (Jer. 29:11) even through difficult circumstances. That God's will is less about where I will be in 5 years and much more about what I do today. He wants to know how we loved people and how we loved him. There are mysteries we see every day and we do not know what the outcome will be, but we do know that God walks beside us each and every day. (Matthew 28:20)

I pray for the families of MH370 that God will give them peace in the here and now. I pray for a miracle that the passengers and crew will be found alive somewhere, if not I pray for God's care for the families. I pray that even when I am faced with mysteries of life, that I will trust God through it all.

We often look into our past or the past of the churches we belong to and long for the good old days. We believe that those times were easier, better, richer, fuller, more glorious, funner, happier, and overall just greater then anytime we are currently experiencing. We want to go back to those old days when things seemed better; however, if we are absolutely honest we will acknowledge that those times had there own difficulties.

In Exodus 16:3 (and other places) the people of Israel longed for the "good old days." They had been in the wilderness for some time and they began to complain. Notice in verse 3 what they complain about. They complain by saying "Would that we had died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought use out into this wilderness to kill the whole assembly with hunger." Notice what they are saying here. They are saying that we were better off in abject poverty and in brutal slavery then we are in this freedom in the wilderness. They began to look back and instead of seeing clearly, they were seeing through a fog. They long for the good old days of hard work and slavery?

This is how deluded we can become when things in front of us seem a bit unclear. We want there to be the clarity of knowing what is in front of us and how to deal with it. The people of Israel here did not know all that was before them. They had not seen the promised land. All they could see was the wilderness and the difficulty of the moment. Change is often like this. Whether we experience change in our personal lives or in our church, we want clarity. When we don't have that clarity we begin to long for the good old days that were so grand.

The people of Israel inflated the good things about those good old days and minimized the bad. We do this too. We inflate statistics about the attendance of a church or about the prosperity we had at the time. We minimize the conflict, spiritual doubt, personal crisis, and suffering of those days.

We may look into the future and only see dimly or not at all, but if we will trust the Lord he will take us to the promised land. We have all experienced some good old days, but we need to be honest with ourselves about how good they really were. We need to strive toward what God has for us in his plans. Let us not go back, but look forward to the days ahead.

Yesterday, as a part of our study on the book of Ephesians we came to chapter 4. We studied the first 6 verse which are all about being unified. In verse 4 we see that there is One Body. As I prepared for this sermon, God began to speak to me about the many Christians around the world that are in desperate need of Western support as they face persecution. I thought of Pastor Saeed Abedini who is in prison in Iran and Kenneth Bae who is in a work camp in North Korea. Lord, I pray for their freedom.

I communicated that my prayer was that we would not simply look at our community of Swannanoa as the only place that we should care about. We have Christian brothers and sisters in difficult areas like Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We have Christians being slaughtered in Nigeria and the Sudan. We have fellow believers who fear for their life in China and North Korea.

I pray that we would not become so isolated to think that because we are safe there is no persecution. I find it comical and sad when Christians are trying to figure out the end times. They say things like, "We are supposed to go through a great persecution, but I haven't seen it yet." Try telling that to some believers in other parts of the world. We mustn't bury our heads in the sand and think that someone else will handle it. We as believers must be alert to Christians around the world suffering.

What can we do? 1. We can pray for them. I read an article before Christmas that asked the question from Middle Eastern Christians "If they killed us all, would the Western Christian even care?" You can read it here. They need to know we care and that we need to pray for them. 2. Contact your representatives about Saeed and Kenneth Bae. 3. Use any social media that you can to make other believers aware.

We are One Body in Christ Jesus, no matter if we are from Swannanoa, North Carolina or anywhere else in the world.

How much credit should we take for the ministry we are in charge of? I heard Craig Groeschel tell of a time when he was down in his ministry because he was not getting the numbers of people to come. He tells of a woman explaining to him "If you take credit for when things are going badly, then you will take credit for when things go well." I have remembered this statement in my own ministry. I think too many pastors and ministers take too much credit for what is going on in their ministries and don't leave enough of it to God. This is not an excuse for laziness or a lack of zeal and purpose. This is an understanding that I am responsible for being faithful, working my hardest, doing my best, developing my skills, strategizing, and getting better at my craft, but the results are left to God.

In Genesis 41, Joseph is brought out of the bowels of the prison. He gets a shave, a bath, and some new clothes. He is then thrust in front of Pharaoh to interpret his latest dream. In verse 15, Pharaoh tells the dream to Joseph and then concludes with the statement "I have heard it said about you, that when you hear a dream YOU can interpret it." Joseph responds by saying "It is not me; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer." Joseph understood where his power came from, and it wasn't him. Joseph wanted God to be praised and honored and not himself.

I want to be a pastor that is known for giving 100% effort to the service that God has entrusted me to at FBC Swannanoa. I want to be obedient and trust God for everything. If someone wants to attribute any piece of the success of the church to me, I will respond with the words of Joseph "It is NOT me!" I will leave the results to God and take that pressure off of me. To God be the Glory!