Ray Family Update from January/February 2021

Dear Praying Friends,

One of the most difficult things for us as Christians is to determine the specific details of God’s will for our lives. For those of us who are trying to serve the Lord, we spend much time doing good or even great things, but we may not always be quite sure that we are doing the specifics of what God wants from us. Ultimately, the Devil would love nothing more than to keep us from serving God altogether, but if that is not an option, he will be more than a little happy to get us distracted by things with which God never intended our time and strength to be occupied. I must confess that I struggle with this. I often find myself evaluating other ministers of the gospel and wishing that I had a gift, ability, or calling that they seem to possess. I wish that I had this man’s voice, spoke with that man’s eloquence, possessed that other man’s confidence in the pulpit, had the fire of this man or the calm of that man.

At the end of the day, wisdom and maturity would have me to accept the fact that God called me to be me, albeit the best me possible. To mimic this man or that man would be to fall way short, especially when one considers that Christlikeness is to be the aim of all of God’s servants. While all of the men I admire have strengths, they also have weaknesses. My heart grows envious of these men when I magnify their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. When I get disheartened concerning my own usefulness before God, it is because I magnify my weaknesses but fail to magnify God’s strengths. Apart from God, “every man at his best state is altogether vanity” (Psalm 39:5). My mentor once wrote, “All men have feet of clay. As such, they have faults, inconsistencies and failures. When you think you have found the exception, recognize that you have just never seen him with his socks off. His feet are still made of clay.”

As if it is not enough that there are external pressures upon the man of God (preaching well, having a good personality, demonstrating care and concern, faithfulness, having a godly home, etc.), we often compound the pressure by adding our own. Instead, we should learn to trust the Lord and His calling on our lives. Moses, Gideon, Jeremiah, Paul, and others had this same struggle and yet had to learn that God makes no mistakes in the calling and equipping for the ministry. If I can ever learn to trust God in this department, I am sure that I would find a level of peace that seems to consistently escape my reach.

Even in the midst of my doubts, the Lord seems to use our church and ministries. We have seen growth in many of our people. We have enjoyed great services with powerful singing. We have had great feedback from our Bible Institute students (both in-house and online) as to what God has done in their hearts in the present semester. We have heard from several who watch our services online who have said the preaching and singing has helped them. All of this is a shot in the arm, so to speak, that encourages us to keep on keeping on for the Lord. With all that lies in our path for the remainder of this year, we are going to need that encouragement. Along those lines, please pray with us about the following works/decisions that lie ahead in 2021:

* Rebuilding LearntheBible.org
* Annual Bible Conference (June 7-9, 2021)
* Completion of two printed books
* Completion of multiple e-books
* Choosing an orientation for our auditorium renovations