Keith’s Blog

Well, in an ironic twist I am laid up for a couple of weeks with my foot propped up. Is this from God or the devil? The answer is from both. If you don’t understand see the first few chapters of the Book of Job.

Here I sit on the couch with my Bible, my phone, my laptop, the TV remote and a few movies. After watching a couple of action movies I picked up my computer and started you tubing Christian songs. After all it is Wednesday and I should be at church. Since I am a multi tasker I usually watch 2-4 movies at the same time to avoid commercials, or is it because I am a man?. I decided to mute the sound on Rambo, First Blood II and listen to Christian songs on my laptop. Of course I took the mute off for the classic scenes to hear the full affect of Rambo’s mission.

Ironically I was listening to the song “It is finished” at the end of the movie. This is the scene where Rambo lands the broken helicopter, full of the POW’s that he had found, at the American base, grabbed a machine gun and headed in the building after the politician, Murdoch. Had I not already seen the movie what seems like twenty times, I would have thought his intent was to kill Murdoch for leaving him stranded. After shooting up all the computers Rambo slammed Murdoch on the table, pulled out his knife and drove it into the table next to Murdoch’s head, then whispered the words, “Mission accomplished.” If you have had any exposure to the Koine Greek language of the New Testament you will know where my mind went.  

I had just been listening to the Christian group sing “It is Finished,” which is about Jesus beating Satan and reconciling mankind back to God on the cross. I muted the laptop playing “It is Finished” and un- muted the TV to hear an action hero say the same thing, “mission accomplished.” I love how God speaks through anything if you are listening. On the cross, Jesus’ mission was accomplished. The price was paid in full, and this was not some fictiona,l made up story. This is the supreme objective from my Commander in Chief, my King of Kings, my Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ.

Because He finished, I continue. Because He started, I can’t stop.  This is real. This is done. Our mission is to tell the world that we may be in a battle, but the victory was won a couple of millenniums ago. Scratch that, the victory was won before the world began. Revelation 13:8

I was awake for a while in the middle of the night last night and a line from a song kept running through my head. “Blessed be your name, when the world’s all as it should be, when there’s pain in the offering, blessed be your name.” Yesterday I had a lithotripsy procedure at Ft Sanders Hospital to speed up the process of passing a kidney stone. Needless to say there was pain both before and after the procedure that I am sure will continue for a few days. I don’t want to go into the gory details, but I now feel like I am mining for gold. If you have ever had this procedure, you know what I am talking about. While I was awake I spent a lot of time praying for our church and thought about how many people have influenced my life through the years and how many I have had an influence on.

I have witnessed a lot of pain through the years at the bedside of many saints. Many of them have already gone home to heaven. Many of them had to endure the horrific pain of cancer and other diseases. The ones who were Christians had an unspeakable joy even in the midst of their pain. This is a promise that Jesus made His followers. “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full” John 15:11. Real Christian joy cannot be taken away, even by excruciating pain.

All of these thoughts ultimately took me to the cross of Christ. Jesus not only took our sin upon Himself on the cross (Isaiah 53), He became our sin on the cross. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Usually when I think of the cross, I only think of the pain that was inflicted on my Savior by the beating, the crown of thorns, the gangrene, the nails, and the asphyxiation of the weight of the sin that was laid on His shoulders.  But last night I could not help but think that all sickness came after the fall of man. Before the fall, there was no sickness or disease in the garden. After the fall came death and disease. Although it is not a sin to be sick, sickness came about by sin. Therefore sickness is sin. Not sin that we commit, even though the Bible teaches that some sickness is the result of sin. “For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy mannereats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’sbody.  For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep” 1 Corinthians 11:29-30. But too many times good people become sick, even deathly sick simply because we live in a fallen, corrupt world. I am not going to get into why bad things happen to good people or vice versa. Many other people have already explained that. I do want us to understand the immense pain that Jesus was going through when He was on the cross.

The conditions of the cross were bad enough, but can you  imagine the pain of every migraine, broken bone, cancer, kidney stone, stomach ache and every other deathly pain added to what was already unbearable? Jesus took all of this on because He loved you. If that is not love, love does not exist. But it is love and He does exist. Hallelujah, what a SAVIOR!

I can’t bear the thought of putting the Lamb of God, the baby of the manger, the man of peace through this amount of pain, but I am so grateful that He did this for me without even telling me He was going to, or asking my permission. Tears well up when I think of what Jesus endured for me and you. “Blessed be your name, when there’s pain in the offering…blessed be your name, Jesus.

We recently got a new phone and used that phone as a GPS while we were visiting some newcomers. The phone has a text to speech app that allows us to speak the address, then navigate to that address. We used this for a house and wound up in front of a mansion. The picture of the front of the house showed up in color on the phone when we arrived. This was amazingly cool, but also somewhat alarming. It made me think about the movie Will Smith was in a few years back called “Enemy of the Sate.” In this movie the main character was being tracked and manipulated through every technology available. Imagine what that would be with the technology of today! This also made me keenly aware that God knows where we are, where we are going and where we have been. He also guides us when we are in His will.

In January 2010, our church was in the midst of praying and fasting for 21 days. We sensed God leading us to save money from three meals to send to Haiti for food. This was before the earthquake! God sent me there and we wound up riding street motorcycles up dirt trails to a village on the side of a mountain. We took several bags of rice and shared the gospel with three different communities. It was dark by the time we got there. I told the leader of the community that God knew where they were and knew each of their names. And God did not need a GPS. He just used one group of believers praying out of desperation in Haiti and another group of believers praying out of love in Tenness, and connected us both together with no cell phones, computers or technolgy. So I ask you, who has the coolest GPS? God or Google?

SUPERSTARS AND OUTGIVING GOD

This is going to be a great year!

The Miracles of Praying and Fasting

January 2011

I am sitting in a Holiday Inn Express in Trussville, Alabama. As I write this Coy is asleep and Arnold Solomon is in the room surfing the channels on television. This is a major miracle. This is a major miracle week.

This past Sunday we had three people give their lives to the Lord at Cades Cove Fellowship. One of the three was a man that was afraid to even walk into a church a little over a year ago. He was bound by a generational curse of alcohol and had found himself homeless and about as far in the valley as a person could go. He and his wife got radically saved last Sunday along with one of our church members that was struggling with a lot of issues!

Arnold Solomon

Arnold Solomon is one of our church members at Cades Cove Fellowship in Maryville, TN. He is originally from Egypt and came here a few years back as a Muslim. Not long ago he converted to Christianity and was saved and baptized at Watsons Chapel Baptist Church  in Madisonville. After a series of events he wound up in our church, signed a Membership Covenant, and became a regular member of our church. Since Arnold did not have any family or friends here he became very close to our family. In March of 2010 he was picked up by immigration because his Visa had expired. We did not find this out until two months later. For him to be deported to Egypt would have been catastrophic because of the religious persecution from the State Muslim religion of Egypt. It is illegal to convert from Islam  to Christianity in many parts of Egypt. Had Arnold been sent back, he would have been heavily persecuted and possibly killed.

We did everything we could to get Arnold out of the detention center with no success. While he was in the Federal detention Center in Louisiana, someone forged a deed to his house and stole much of his belongings. I spent a lot of time in court getting these people evicted they are out, but his house is in disrepair and we will probably have to try to find him another place to live.

This past Monday was Arnold’s final court date. He had an  immigration attorney that had agreed to help him pro bono. I have regularly been in touch with the attorney since May of 2010. The attorney asked me to testify at Arnold’s hearing on Monday. During our service Sunday morning, Coy and I both felt impressed that we should drive to Louisiana and testify in person.

We left Maryville around 5 PM Sunday evening and wound up right in the middle of one of the worst snow and ice storms this part of the county has seen in years. As we traveled south, we picked up snow in Gadsen, AL that was so heavy that we could only see about ten feet in front of the car. By the time we got to Birmingham, we were in a nasty mess with snow, ice and freezing rain. We traveled at 20 to 30 mph for over three hours. Should we go back? Should we pull off and stay in a motel? When God told the apostle Paul that he Paul was going to Rome, Paul braved death threats, ship wreck and even shook off a deadly snake because he was sure of God’s word. We could not pull off. We could not turn around and go back. We had to keep moving. There were wrecks everywhere and we slipped and slid all over the place. I decided to drive about an hour south of our route to try to get out of the band of weather. When we got far enough south, ice began to melt off of our car in sheets. Our car looked like it had been iced by a professional decorator, but not with cake frosting. There was probably an inch of ice entirely engulfing the car. This was a major miracle. We were literally riding in God’s hand, and we were in a Toyota Corolla because the transmission is still messed up in my four wheel drive truck!

The trip that should have taken less than twelve hours wound up taking almost fifteen hours. We drove all night, only stopping for gas. We arrived at the detention center with enough time to run into McDonalds and grab a bite to eat and try to get presentable for court.

Arnold was surpised to see us and thrilled that Coy and I were there for his hearing. I gave testimony that Arnold really had converted Christianity and had been baptized and was a regular church member. After all of the evidence was presented and both side of the hearing rested, the judge began to review the case. At first it sounded as though Arnold was going to be deported back to Egypt, but then it began to sound favorable. After a lengthy reading he granted Arnold withholding, which means he is now able to legally stay in the county. Most everyone I have talked to with any experience in these matters said that ninety percent of the time these folks get sent back to their original county. Another miracle!

Arnold has a job waiting for him, but needs many prayers, a place to live, and a vehicle to drive.  Please continue to pray for him. Arnold will be available to give his testimony at churches. If you want to schedule him to speak in your church let me know.

The weather is still bad tonight and it continues to snow at home. We drove about twenty miles north of here tonight, but turned around and came back because all of the bridges and overpasses were iced over, trucks were jack knifing and cars were wrecking. We got the very last room available here tonight.

This is going to be a great year! My eyes are pealed and my ears are open to see the next miracle God is going to bring. Are you watching? Do you believe?

    Therefore the LORD will wait, that He may be gracious to you;
      And therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you.
      For the LORD is a God of justice;
      Blessed are all those who wait for Him.
      For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem;
      You shall weep no more.
      He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry;
      When He hears it, He will answer you.
      And though the Lord gives you
      The bread of adversity and the water of affliction,
      Yet your teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore,
      But your eyes shall see your teachers.
      Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying,      “This is the way, walk in it,”
      Whenever you turn to the right hand
      Or whenever you turn to the left.

      Isaiah 30:18-21 NKJV

Why have we gotten so lazy that we think if we go to church once a week we have done God a favor? What if you had a pre-set meeting with Jesus Christ and you did not show up? How rude, inconsiderate and silly would that be? Definitely not a good idea to stand up the One who keeps all your molecules held together. Yet we leave Him standing alone in the sanctuary every week. To clarify what I am about to say, I need to quote an old preacher by the name of Garney Bell. He was a revivalist when I first started in the ministry. Brother Bell would say “Some people say they are saved but in reality they are only salved (He pronounced this saaved with a short a)-they just got a little rubbed on them in an emotional meeting. Saved people are going to heaven, Salved people are going to hell.” We have too many people in all of our churches today that can’t stick it out. Even Jesus said “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.” Why am I being so harsh? I am tired of people that want to play the game of Christianity that do not know the Lord of Christianity, that have selfish ambitions and agendas. I am also excited because God has brought some folks into our church that don’t see coming to church more than once a week as a negative and are committed to working until Jesus comes. Bottom line-go to church! As many times as you can, every week, even every day.

Hebrews 10:25 “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

I want to thank you for keeping our team in your prayers while we were in Nicaragua. Our journey was completely free of any problems, but definitely not uneventful. Our medical team set up a makeshift clinic on three different days in three different locations. There were times we had to use generators and we carried water to each location. The medical team treated close to 450 patients. Our team consisted of pediatricians, nurses, and dentists. While the clinics were being set up I would present the gospel to the people waiting in line to see the doctors. Since Coy is fluent in Spanish she took care of the registration table at each clinic and met every one of the people in the communities we served. We spent one afternoon in a hospital and presented the gospel to a few of the patients. I preached in four different churches. One of the churches has a school that is sponsored by Compassion International. It was interesting to see the focal point of Christian giving from around the world at this church. We spent one morning ministering to the children of parents that lived and worked in a dump. Some of these children are abandoned. We saw a total of 185 professions of faith as a result of all ministries! Two of the communities we served had no church and no pastor.  Seventy-Two people made professions of faith in a community called Paradise and fifty people made professions of faith in a community called Rota. Please continue to pray with us that God raises up a godly, evangelical pastor that can nurture these new believers in these communities. In Paradise we found a group of 20 young men ranging from sixteen to twenty years of age. We gave these young men Spanish New Testaments and they began reading them right away. We spent a lot of time with them playing soccer, kickball, arm wrestling and even wrestling with them. Two of them called me out to arm wrestle…and I beat them both! I am now a legend in Nicaragua-the undefeated pastor! Of course I left before their Dad’s showed up. When I left this community I was heartbroken. Even as I write this my heart is burdened for God to raise up a Nicaraguan pastor that can keep these boys on the right path.  

Our host was Cheryl Spence, the Nicaraguan director of Jesus Centered Ministries. You can find out about their ministry at www.jcmmissions.com. Cheryl has five children living with her that were abandoned by their parents. These children range in age from seven to eleven, so this presented some fun, yet very interesting circumstances in the home/school where we stayed. JCM has been given a seventy acre farm on which to build a children’s hospital just outside of Leon. They are going to need volunteers to keep clearing the land and eventually for construction. If you interested contact them through their web site.

There are many more details I would love to share with you about this trip, but time does not permit. Romans 1:12 really comes alive to me when I consider how we all worked together.  On our team we had people from the USA, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and all of you as prayer partners. Together with God there is nothing we cannot accomplish.

“That is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” Romans 1:12

In Christ,

Pastor Keith

www.cadescovefellowship.org

As I was reading this morning I came across a passage of Scripture that brought back some memories. In 2 Kings you will find the account of King Joash. He began to reign when he was seven years old as the king of Judah. He was kept in hiding for six years from his grandmother that had murdered all of his brothers and cousins. Sound like a soap opera? The grandmother was also the queen of Judah…not something God had set up. She killed off all of her relatives to take possession of the throne. She must have been one nasty woman. I would like to call her something else but decency will not allow me. Eventually the wicked, queen grandmother was assassinated and Joash took the throne that was rightfully his at the ripe old age of seven. The Bible says that Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the years that the priest Jehoiada instructed him. There are two events that we remember Joash for. One of them is the chest of Joash. This was a wooden chest with a hole bored in the top where people would bring their offerings for the repair of the temple. I remember the few times I went to the little Methodist Chapel with my grandparents as a small child there would be a time in the service when any child that had a birthday would come and place a token offering in a little bird house looking church model. As I read the story of Joash I see a seven year old king placing his pennies in a similar box. But apparently the people did this for a long time because the box would get full and they would have to empty it and start over. This struck a nerve with me because I once pastored a church where the very first time I met the treasurer he introduced himself to me as “the Judas of the bunch.” Whoa! Red Flag! And it was a self fulfilling prophecy. We later found out the man was hiding money. He would count the offerings, by himself, put it in the back of his car and drive around with it for a week or two before depositing it. Joash did not worry about the money in his chest because “They did not require an accounting from those to whom they gave the money to pay the workers, because they acted with complete honesty” 2 Kings 12:15. I was a young, stubborn pastor and it came down to a “him or me” ultimatum with my treasurer. The church chose him because of his seniority and I watched God take His hand off that church. We have a great system of checks and balances in our church at Cades Cove. I have never even been in our counting room nor do I intend to go. We have different teams assigned to counting, book keeping etc. An old preacher told me early on in ministry, “Son, if you will keep your hands off women and money you will be alright.” So far, so good. The other event Joash is known for is giving away the gold and silver of the temple to keep another king from attacking Judah. The king did not attack Judah, but a pattern was formed where foreign kings would come and the kings of Judah would use the furniture and jewels of the temple to barter freedom. Hello?! What happened to kings with backbone that would say “We bow to no one but God and He will fight for us!” Joash had plenty of accounts to refer to of how God delivered with the choir, with a broken lamp, with watery ditches, thunder, etc. I believe that honesty and faith are virtues that are extinct from many of the things we do “in the name of God” and under the umbrella of the church. Maybe honesty could be our first step back toward the holiness of God.

About a year and a half ago God spoke to me to build our church with the broken. I studied this thought intently and meditated profusely on God’s imperative command to me. His command was not a suggestion, nor was it the newest, greatest, latest method to do church. I have become more and more appalled at what we do in the name of church, then just for good measure tack the name of Jesus at the end of our self indulgent, pious, preposterous endeavors.  I have become increasingly aware of just how much we worship our “worship.” We worship the seat we sit in at church. We worship the song that speaks to us. For some of us that song is a chorus, for some of us that song is a hymn. It may even be a specific instrument that is played, or conspicuously absent from our services. Exactly two years ago I wrote a blog called “The Journey From Passion to Trust.” In that devotional I described how God had used dynamite to blow my entire world apart. I confess that I am a recovering Pharisee.  It was easier to stand in judgment than it is to hand out compassion. Judgment cost me nothing, compassion is expensive and messy. And I found that not many people fit into what used to be my preconceived notion of what was necessary to follow God. Broken people are dirty people. Broken people are broke people.  Broken people are damaged people. I am not the first leader to be aware of how difficult it is to minister to the broken, bruised, and damaged people of our community. Solomon had this down way before I did. Listen to what Solomon said: “Where no oxen are, the trough is clean; But much increase comes by the strength of an ox” Proverbs 14:4. I am not trying to say that any of you are oxen or cows, I just want you to know what Solomon and I have found out: when you deal with people it gets messy. Maybe a better way to say what I am trying to say is “No mess, no ministry.”

As the past two years have expired I have witnessed, with what feels like light speed, changes in my life, my family and our church that I did not perceive happening. Bottom line is that time changes things. Time changes people. Time changes churches. Time changes countries. Jesus never changes. Jesus never fails. As things become less and less familiar we have a tendency to grasp for the comfortable things of the past. Our past and even our memories become idols, stealing our passion away from the here and now. Sometimes we even allow the bad experiences to become idols. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of giving away my worship to perceptions, memories, successes and failures. About two months ago I made a commitment to Jesus Christ that I am starting over. I am taking His word and I am going to be as true to Him and His word as I possibly can. This time I am going to let Him judge the ones that need to be judged. I have heard about all I want to hear about what works and doesn’t work in church. I am through with people who are experts in religion and have no idea what an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ is all about. I have begun to listen to a lot of dead preachers. But ironically their messages are filled with more life and Holy Spirit than many of the people that are littering the airwaves and pulpits of today. These are men who are dead in the flesh and moved on to heaven. Please don’t mistake them with living dead preachers that occupy pulpits for money or fame. I was listening to Vance Havner the other night. He was a spirit filled mountain preacher from North Carolina that knew how to bring it. I chuckled as I heard him say “A person with a PhD that has never been born again is nothing more than a phenomenal dud.”

We have experts in about every area of the church today but how many of us our experts on what it means to be born again, to be securely positioned in Christ? Both by birth and by adoption. I am tired of people telling me how to be the next, best greatest _______. I am going back to what John the Baptist said “He (Jesus) must increase, but I must decrease” John 3:30.

In our broken, broke church we are seeing people’s lives radically changed. And they would not fit in most churches. I am a teetotaler because of generational, Biblical, and health reasons. But we have recently baptized bartenders, bargirls, people living together and many others that would not even be allowed to grace the doors of most churches. And I hang out with them. I play ball with them. But I don’t hold back from preaching the whole counsel of God and I let them know that up front. My job is to preach to them and love them.  It is the duty of the Holy Spirit to clean them up. If I try to clean them up I wind up messing them up worse than they were to begin with. It is really cool when we are patient with the Holy Spirit. We don’t get to see all of them transform, but there is always that one…Wow!

Can I invite you on a journey with me? You may already be there. But will you get on your knees and in His Word and follow this simple plan just for a little while? What is the plan? It is not a new one. And it has worked for a long time. Here it is: Jesus, plus nothing. Let me know what happens.

In Christ,

Keith Pierce, Pastor

Cades Cove Fellowship

Cadescovefellowship.org

PO Box 7237

Maryville, TN 37802