For how great is his goodness, and how great his beauty! Grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the young women.  – Zechariah 9:17

Spring is in the air! Autumn has always been my favorite season of the year, but spring is making a hard charge at displacing it as I grow older (especially this year with winter hanging with us through April!). There is something almost “biblical” in the air at this time of the year. In spring we see the promise of new life. It reminds us that death (winter) is not the end, and that life will spring forth again. This is expressed beautifully in a stanza from a poem I love, written by Dave Eden (The 80’s Christian Rock group Petra covered this poem as a ballad):

Brown is the color of the autumn leaves

When the winter comes to the barren trees

There is birth, there is death, there is a plan

And there’s just one God, and there’s just one Man

That can give us life, that can make us grow

That can make our sins as white as snow.

God is a good God, as the prophet Zechariah declared. When the granaries were full and the new wine was filling the vats, the people of Israel rejoiced in the providence of God. Rejoice in what God has done for you this spring. Although those of us who know Christ may experience the cold winter of death briefly, it will give way to the spring of resurrection and new life. This is our hope in Christ. Without it, as the apostle Paul so poignantly put it, we are to be pitied more than all men (1 Cor.15:19).

Most spring/summers since I arrived at LifePoint I have taken a month or so to do a summer book study. So far those who have attended have studied J.I. Packer's Knowing God, C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity, Dorothy Sayer’s Creed or Chaos, A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God, G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship with me, to name a few. This June we will tackle John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. We studied Bunyan’s classic the very first book study I offered in 2010. I want to offer it again for two reasons: First, it is the classic of Western Christian literature, having sold more copies in English than any book outside the Bible. Second, it is a book that should be read more than once by every English speaking Christian (in my humble opinion). I’m looking forward to walking through it again. I hope many of you will join me.

More information will follow in May. This study is not for the faint of heart. We will gather each Tuesday morning in June at 6:30 a.m. and meet for one hour. The purpose for this schedule is so that those who choose to attend and who work can attend the study and still make it (we hope) to their place of employment.

Enjoy spring, my friends. Enjoy good books! Enjoy new life!

Grace and peace,

Pastor Jym

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