The View From My Window Pastor's Weekly Blog

Can you even imagine what it would be like to be the first two people on the planet? No parents around to emulate, no one with prior experience to talk to, nobody to vent to about that funny quirk your mate has… And the first birth?! No midwife, OBGYN, or anyone who’s been through it before to coach you through! Our original mother, Eve, must have some great stories to tell. I can hardly wait to meet her and hear about what her journey on earth was like.

No Walmart, not even a Dollar General to run to. No plumbers, carpenters, electricians… No mom and dad to run home to whenever Adam was in one of his moods. Even with all these conveniences, today’s moms are facing unprecedented challenges. Autism and other disorders are on the rise. The insane acceleration of technology; who can keep up with what their kids are learning? Their bodies are maturing at a younger age but their minds are adulting at later and later ages. Eve never had to compete with social media for her children’s attention. Mom, we salute you! May God grant you great grace to fulfill all your roles.

-Pastor Joel Everhart

The dog and I go to bed early. Sometimes I ask her if she’s ready for bed & at other times she starts hinting to me that’s its time. As I laid there the other night, I looked at this lump of fir that took up the space between where I was and where my wife would later be. “Who ever thought of bringing animals into the house?” was the thought that ran through my head. Then I started thinking about the vet bills, the special food we buy for her, the expensive treats we feed her because they contain stuff that’s supposed to help her aging joints… She often snores. If you move around too much in the middle of the night, she’ll growl to express her annoyance. We annoy her. Sometime between 10:30 p.m. and 2:30 a.m. she’ll want to go out to take a leak. We have a doggie door and a string of lights that stay on all night for this very purpose but she doesn’t like to go alone. She’ll wake me up to walk her to the door unless my wife is still up. I love my dog, I don’t know why, but I do. I’d have more money and sleep if I didn’t have a dog but what can I say, we’re dog people.

That must be at least a little bit of what it’s like for God to love people. He’d have a lot less grief without us. He wouldn’t have had to come and suffer such a tremendous price to redeem us if we didn’t exist. Yet He did it & would do it again if it was necessary. All because He just can’t get enough of us. “I don’t know why Jesus loved me…ah, but I’m glad, so glad He did.”

-Pastor Joel Everhart

I can’t help it, whenever my grandkids come over for a visit, I feed them. I always have a stash of their favorites on hand with a heavy emphasis on candy, cookies, and ice cream. While I man the kitchen, my wife pulls out games, toys, and activities. Why? We enjoy making them happy. Their joy brings us a lot of pleasure. A bonus is that they end up thinking that Grandpa & Memaw are wonderful.

This is the essence of today’s text. God lavishes on us wonderful expressions of His grace because making us happy, fulfilled, and purposeful makes Him happy. As a bonus we live in the realization that He is awesome and that our lives would be trashed without Him. Its all to the Praise of His Glory.

-Pastor Joel Everhart

One morning I carried my running shoes in from the garage and set them down on the mat just inside our front door. I sat down, picked up the right shoe and proceeded to put it on my foot but there was obviously something in it. I pulled my foot out, held it up so I could look inside and out jumped a cricket! Apparently, crickets can’t smell else he’d have never taken up residence in one of my running shoes. Or, could it be that this particular cricket had been bad and the others had sentenced him to a night in the shoe?

However it was that he ended up in my shoe, his sudden evacuation of the same gave me quite a start. The unexpected will do that to you. Jesus’ disciples did not expect Him to rise from the dead. They had trouble believing it was true. Seeing Him again was shocking, delightful, intriguing, freaky and marvelous. His sudden aliveness brought fear, joy and a tremendous change of plans. Indeed, this changes everything.

-Pastor Joel Everhart

Because I now attend a number of Zoom meetings from behind my desk, I’ve been working on the wall behind me. I started out with just a blank white wall. That lacked depth, perspective, warmth; it oozed blankness. I’ve experimented with different pictures but haven’t yet found the right combination. Staging matters, it sets a tone, it sends a message. Jesus walked for many miles to get to Jerusalem, then when He’s within sight of the city He asks for a donkey to ride. This is staging at its finest; Jesus is sending a message. It’s not that He’s tired and needs help finishing the journey. If He were entering Jerusalem today to do now what He did then, what kind of a vehicle do you think He’d choose? Why?

-Pastor Joel Everhart

As we approach Palm Sunday and Easter, I’d like us to consider the power of a crowd. Numbers of people matter. Crowds can get out of control or be a force for good. Crowds can get it wrong. Crowds can get it right. The message of a crowd can get hijacked. Individuals can suddenly feel out of place in a crowd they willingly joined. Crowds can inspire persons within its circumference to do things they normally wouldn’t do.

We will be rewarded for being members of the right crowd and punished for being members of the wrong crowd. Being in a crowd does not excuse ill behavior. Not joining a good crowd can also be a crying shame; it is to miss out on being a force for good. There’s a big crowd of people going to hell but there’s also quite a few who are going to heaven. To choose not to belong to either is to waste your influence. Be wary of crowds but when you find a good one, get onboard.

-Pastor Joel Everhart

We were hoping that when the new year came it would bring a change of “luck”. The books would close on a troubled 2020 and a fresh new page would appear where we could write a series of joyful testimonies birthed out of last year’s trials. Yet, some of the old troubles linger while new ones appear on the horizon. History has taught us that some periods are better than others. What if we’re in the middle or even at the beginning of a prolonged time of distress? What if our area is affected by a disaster like the one that recently swept across the country causing blackouts and severe shortages of basic necessities? Please be sure to have at least a small supply of food and water on hand as well as an alternative source of heat but beyond that there is help for every believer.

Jesus warned us of troubled times ahead and He helps us to mentally prepare to endure them. We need to stop feeling like victims of a cruel joke and understand that whatever we face, we are promised to have all that we need to triumph. Lift up your eyes! Not only is our redemption drawing near, we are never left hopeless or helpless in the meantime. I’ve got some bad news for you today that should help us switch our thinking from exhausted misery to determined overcomer.

-Pastor Joel Everhart

We once had a cute little dog that loved to sit in my lap or against my hip, and who would sometimes bite me. I was never really sure whether I was going to get kissed or bitten. She always looked sad after nailing me and would lick the wound she inflicted. She died young.

Talk about Jekyll & Hyde, we’re moving on from studying the dysfunctional church in Corinth to the dedicated believers in Ephesus. The church in Ephesus was forged in the fires of persecution and came out stronger than the forces of paganism, idolatry and social pushback. If II Corinthians serves as a warning to churches not to backslide into fleshly thinking, Ephesians helps us understand how valued we are by God and reveals His great plans for our future. Paul says such audacious things in this book about us in our relationship to the Lord that if it wasn’t written in Scripture, I wouldn’t believe it and it’s all good.

-Pastor Joel Everhart