World Renewal International
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Loving, Steel Blue Eyes
Tonight at 6:30 pm I preach at the 1st Wednesday Service at Brandywine Community Church, Greenfield, Indiana, where my brother Mark is the senior pastor. 1st Wednesday is a "Believers Service." However, someone usually accepts Christ for the first time in this service. Part of the legacy of Brandywine is the fact that every week someone comes to Christ. They have about 1500 people on Sunday mornings. It is a wonderful Great Commission church. It is a church that strives for excellence in all it does.
I am always a little nervous when I do this, even after 37 years of preaching. I always want to do my best in sharing what the Lord has asked me to do. I trust Him but I don't always trust me. I share that same desire for excellence. Excellence of this sort can only be measured by the Lord. I really want to be my best for Him.
I will preach a message that has been a yearly event at this church. I have preached it many times. It looks at the spiritual lives of three generations starting with Joshua. It shows a steady and awful decline between the life of Joshua and the lives of the generation of his grandchildren. It shows how easy it is to compromise and drift as the generation after Joshua died. The result was their children "neither knew the Lord nor the things he had done for His people." How quick the human condition can fall when we take God for granted and do not pass on a faith that is passionate and full of the life giving miracles of God.
It makes me so grateful for may family. Pictured today is my grandfather, Paul Milner. In the picture h-e is handing out Christmas presents and I am helping him. I grew up next door to him the first 14 years of my life. He was a wonderful, unselfish man of God. Like my dad, he was passionate about the Lord Jesus. He was a first generation Christian and he greatly influenced my dad. He used to tell me stories about God, Christians, himself and our family. He challenged me as well as the rest of the family to be Godly. He was a wonderful role model.
He was also a revival or evangelistic singer, worship leader. I have here in my office his song books that he sang from. He had such a strong voice, no microphone needed for him! He was such a student of the Bible, music and the ministry. When he talked you listened, because what you heard was the truth.
He sometimes made up stories for me I think. He once told me. "God and his son Jesus were talking one day. The Father said, 'Son, I know what we had planned. We planned that you would go to earth and become one of them and lead them to be like us. But if you go they will not treat you nice. They will whip you, spit on you, beat you and crucify you. Son, I know what we had planned but, maybe there is another way.'
Then my grandfather looked at me and said, "But Jesus, God's Son, turned to his Father and said, 'Father, if I don't go, there is a little boy named Gary Wright who lives in Wilkinson, Indiana, who will be lost. I want to go so Gary can come to know us." Then my grandfather looked at me with those loving, steel blue eyes and said, "So Jesus came and died so that you Gary could invite Christ into your heart. Live for Jesus, Gary."
It is hard to go wrong with that sort of thing going on next door. I want to be that kind of Christian, father, grandfather. He changed me. I think of him and something he did or said every day I think. He had to retire early because of a lingering injury he suffered when someone struck the car he was riding in on his way to work. He lost the opportunity to do physical things and he was a doer. He had to spend thousands of days in a recliner chair or bed. He handled it well, but he had to have been frustrated by what he lost. He lost, but it was my gain. He was there everyday, I am different because of my access to him. He seemed to know what I was to do with my life . Makes me look forward to the other side.
Thanks for stopping by.
:: posted by Gary Wright, 3:31 PM
1 Comments:
I read the article. It does make your point a bit more clear. Thanks for taking the time for that. Love you. Also, I think I want to support your orphanage in Hati. Remind me when I come home for break about that.
