Couples: You Need A Weekend To Remember!

Hey Guys & Gals!

I have talked to many of you about attending a Weekend to Remember Conference.

What is Weekend To Remember?

Weekend to Remember is a weekend marriage conference that teaches God's design for marriage and family. The environment is fun, non-threatening, and sometimes hilarious. And it's a wonderful time for couples to refresh good marriages or heal troubled ones. There are over 150 conferences in cities all across the U.S. each year. Registration is open to individuals, couples, or groups. Whether you're engaged, newlywed, or remarried, enrich your marriage and begin a godly legacy for your family by attending a conference in a city near you. Or plan a memorable getaway to a destination of your choosing.

The link below gives you the opportunity to actually start doing something about it. Go ahead and register. Choose any weekend you'd like. Using my "Group Rate Code" will entitle you to have an $80 discount on registration. The code is: bracken

Click the link below to get the process started. A video about Weekend To Remember is on the right side of this web page.

http://www.familylife.com/groups/bracken

Brother John
(229-300-3205)

It is amazing what you can find when you get low enough…

It was a crisis. Not for me but for one of my children. The child had spent the weekend doing what was right, at a Christian Conference, hearing godly people teach about living for God.

Did we leave it in the hotel? I seemed to have remembered removing it from my car and bringing it into the house. Had I lost it? Prior to bed Monday night we diligently looked for it and we got up the next morning doing the same.

The child had met God in a real and powerful way at the conference and now one of his “important” things was gone, missing and we could not find it. How would this child react? When I realized that this thing was likely gone and lost, I remembered thinking that this might be a test or a teachable moment for my child. But as soon as that thought occurred the thought also came, “This may be as much for me as it is for the child”.

I arrived at Church intent on seeing if we had left it on the bus. I searched the bus, looked in the Church building, searched my office but could not find the lost item. The thought kept coming to me “Go back and look on the bus again”.

I went to Penny and asked her for the bus keys again. I told her that I was going to search the bus one more time and this time I was going to get down on my knees. Guess what? What was once lost is now found! It is amazing what you can find when you get low enough.

I asked, “Lord what lessons are there for me in this?”

1. Some things you will not find until you get down on your knees. I will never see and experience the will of God apart from humbling myself in dependence on God. This highlights the importance of getting down on my knees before God in prayer.

2. Some things you will not find until you are willing to loose some thing. I had to be willing to “ruin” my pants by getting them dirty. I had to be willing to get uncomfortable in bending down. Had I not done that I would have not found the lost item. Likewise, I’ve got to be willing to loose some things in my life, time, leisure, money and comfort to see and experience the will of God.

3. Some things you will not find until you get low enough. I soon realized that getting down on my knees was not enough in order to see things as I needed to. It was when I lowered myself nearly flat on my face that I discovered what I was looking for. Likewise, many times when we are finally at our lowest, it is then that we can see and experience the will of God.

Many of us can testify that the best things in life came to us only when we finally got low enough. That is exactly how many of us came to know the Lord; we were flat on our backs and we finally looked up and saw the Lord. The Bible says:

(James 4:10 NIV) Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

(1 Pet 5:5-6 NIV) "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." {6} Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.

Humility is the means to God’s greatest blessing - a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It is only when we humble ourselves and admit that we are a sinner in need of salvation will be able to receive the grace of salvation. Only the humble receive God’s supernatural grace. Humility is therefore a good thing for all of us and a necessary thing to experience God’s very best.

For His glory and our eternal joy in Christ,
Brother John

A Man Fell in a Hole

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:6-8 NIV)

Ryan Ferguson recites Psalm 25

Thanking God for Sports (from Don't Waste Your Sports)

Game Day and Judgment Day (from Don't Waste Your Sports)

When Grandma Goes To Court

Lawyers should never ask a Mississippi grandma a question if they aren't prepared for the answer.

In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grandmotherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know me?' She responded, 'Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you'll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you.'

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?'

She again replied, 'Why yes, I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.'

The defense attorney nearly died.

The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and, in a very quiet voice, said, 'If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I'll send you both to the electric chair.'

Living Life Off Of A Good Script

When we live life off of the worlds script... when we live life of the devils script... when we live life off of our own understanding and our best efforts, we just don't get it right. But when we live life off of God's Script, the Word of God, we get it right. This is one of the things I thought about when I saw this Hallmark commercial on TV recently.