pastor’s column pg. 1

bible camp pics pg. 2

book review pg. 3

calendar pg. 3

editor’s desk pg. 4

And Asa did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, as David his father had done. (1 Kings 15:11 ESV)

How many of the kings of Israel and Judah lived righteously before God? If you were to keep score, not one out of 19 of the

kings of Israel did right in the eyes of God. Out of the kings of Judah there were six of 21 who did right in the eyes of the Lord. If you were to make the percentage of good kings from both Israel and Judah you would have six out of 40 which is 15 percent. Let’s just say that if you played professional baseball and batted .150, you would not be there for long - unless you were a better-than-average defensive middle-infielder for the Minnesota Twins.

One of those good kings was Asa. He paved the way for the rest to follow but many got caught up in themselves and truly lost sight of God.

Why is it that when we are left to our own devices we look out for our own good rather than the good of others and especially God? WE ARE SINFUL! God desires for us to call upon Him in all that we do. So many of the kings in that day chose the things of this world over God. When Solomon began he asked for wisdom and He received it like no other before or after him. Soon after though, he lost sight of God because he was filled with the ideas and beliefs of his 700 wives and princesses and 300 concubines. Solomon fell into the worship of all of the other gods that his many wives believed in. What hap-pened? Solomon lost sight of God amidst the many things of this world and so did many of the kings after him.

The godly kings all came from Judah, they were: Asa, Jehoshaphat, Uzziah, Jotham, Hezekiah, and

Josiah. These kings feared the Lord rather than man and ruled justly. Their vision was not locked up in themselves but rather it was in God. In II Kings 18:5-6 it says that Hezekiah, “...trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the LORD. He did not depart from following Him, but kept the commandments that the LORD commanded Moses.” These kings didn’t allow the people and things of this world to rule them but rather they listened to God.

The many Kings who did not fear the Lord ruled with themselves in mind rather than God. For example look at Rehoboam – he sought the wisdom of the elders and the wisdom of the young men and guess who he listened to? (Read I Kings 12:6-15). Rehoboam was not a wise man for he forsook the wise consul of his elders for the greedy consul of his peers. How often in life do we find ourselves living or acting apart from God? Looking through the Word of God we find many who lived separate from God but now we have hope and forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Today is the day to put aside all the people and things that cause us to lose sight of God. We have a Savior who has won the victory over all our sin completely. Jesus has restored us back into the capable hands of God. Kings and people will rule and many will lose sight of God. We need to never forget who rules us. We need to take JOY, Jesus has overcome Satan, this world and our sin. Power often leads us into selfish acts but true power comes when we help assist our neighbor in love.

God Bless You All,Pastor Charles Bergstedt

kings of israel and judah

3

sunday mornings9:15 a.m. - Prayer time; 9:30 a.m. - Wor-ship Service; 10:30 a.m. - Coffee/Fel-lowship

first Sunday of the month - Healing Prayer Service, 10:30 a.m. (if desired)third Sunday of the month - Worship Service with Holy Communion

thursday, july 19Senior outing to Clemens Gardens in St. Cloud. Meet at the church at 9:30 am and bring a bag lunch. Contact Lulu with questions. Maps are available on the narthex desk.

saturday, july 21Outreach in the Outfield, 7-8 pm. Join us as we hand out water bottles and snacks in the park below the church.

sunday, july 22The Tapiola Apostolic Lutheran Church in Michigan will host Stig-Erik Enkvist from Finland for two services: 10 am and 1:30 pm. A meal will be served between services.

monday-wednesday, july 23-252012 Girls Get-Away at Camp Lahti. Cost is $40. Registration and more details are available on the narthex desk.

tuesday, july 31-sunday, august 5Lake Ellen Bible Camp in Michigan. Visit lbfbiblecamp.org for more info.

wednesday, august 1Senior Men’s Breakfast. Please contact Floyd Niskanen if you need more information.

thursday-saturday, august 16-18Annual Adult Retreat Seminar at Camp Lahti with Pastor Jay Weidner. Visit www.zionhancock.org/camplahti for more information.

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series on a biography of Oswald Chambers, as reviewed by Susan Baker. The PALC library does have a copy of My Utmost for His Highest and the Oswald Chambers bi-ography Abandoned to God.

When World War I began on August 5, 1914, several Bible school students left for the war. Oswald prayed and struggled with

how to handle responsibilities to his family, his coun-try, and to the college. After this time of prayer, Os-wald decided to join the war effort as a chaplain in the Y.M.C.A., which supported the British army. Since Egypt wasn’t in the combat zone, the Y.M.C.A. gave permission for his family to come to Egypt too.

As a Y.M.C.A. chaplain, Oswald served the soldiers and strove to bring men to Christ, knowing that half of them would be killed when they shipped out to battle. They were ripe for hearing God’s truth. So, Os-wald started a nightly prayer meeting, which grew from just a couple men. Then he added a midweek service, a Sunday service, and 45-minute nightly talks or lectures on Biblical topics that related to the issues that were on men’s minds. “Soldiers whom no one could accuse of being religious turned out night after night to study the Bible.”

Oswald and Biddy worked tirelessly for God among the soldiers for two years. Oswald became ill with appendicitis in October 1917, developed a ruptured appendix, had surgery, and developed blood clots in the lung and died at age 43. It was a huge loss. In our day of modern medicine and in our practical mind-set, it seems to be such a tragic waste. But, this too was in God’s hands and was used for His glory. His sermons and lectures were transcribed by Biddy into written format, and books were published. For three years, Biddy labored on the daily devotional that she titled using one of Oswald’s often-used phrases: “My Utmost for His Highest.”

The lives of Oswald and Biddy as Christians have inspired and encouraged me to try, with God’s help, to live more as they did. Their lives had no contra-diction between what they believed and how they lived. When Oswald and Biddy were faced with the unknown future, they would pray and wonder what God was going to do.

Oswald had a deep, settled peace in his soul. He felt the purpose of prayer was to get in step with God. He would ask Him and then wait. In a letter to Florence,

one of his sisters (1907), he wrote: “I feel unspeak-ably at home among men now [that] I know God.” And “One of the blessed things about this life is that a man carries his kingdom on the inside, and that makes the outside lovely.”

From a letter to Biddy after their engagement, Os-wald wrote: “Be patient and so utterly confident in God that you never question His ways or your waiting time.” “I am so amazed that God has altered me that I can never despair of anybody.” “Criticism of others kills spirituality every time.”

To a friend, often he would write: “Be absolutely His!”

The author wrote, “Chambers had a rare capacity to trust matters to God in prayer and wait for Him to move.”

When Oswald got to Egypt in October, 1915, in his diary he wrote, “I am watching with interest the new things God will do and engineer.”

From his diary in 1916: “In any dilemma produced by providential circumstances, the temptation is to yield to ordinary common sense rather than wait for God to fulfill His purpose. God’s order comes to us through the haphazard.”

Chambers emphasized “discovering God’s will through what he called ‘the haphazard circumstanc-es of life’ ”. He also said, “The one right thing is to be a believer in Jesus Christ”. “To me (Biddy), he is always that preeminently.”

Biddy, upon leaving Egypt 19 months after Oswald’s death, wrote, “We thanked Him, for the abiding fel-lowship with the one who had lived before us the Great Life of believing in Jesus Christ”.

From Oswald Chambers’ book, Shade of His Hand: “There will come one day a personal and direct touch from God when every tear and perplexity, every op-pression and distress, every suffering and pain, and wrong and injustice will have a complete and ample and overwhelming explanation.”

I hope these excerpts give you a better understand-ing of what kind of Christian man Oswald Chambers was. I thank the Lord for him and his wife Biddy and all they did for their fellow man on behalf of Jesus Christ. May they encourage us all to live for Him and serve Him in whatever we do for the glory of God.

–Susan Baker

abandoned to godThe Life Story of the Author of My Utmost for His Highest

Non-profit Organization

U.S. Postage PaidTwin Cities, MN

Permit 2754

plymouth apostolic lutheran church11015 old county road 15plymouth, mn 55441

There is something almost magical about planting a garden. You take some wrinkled seeds out of packets, place

them into tilled-up earth and a week later (if you’ve been diligent about watering) little shoots start to appear.

Well, let’s be clear here - if you’re a gardener like me, you wait until the last day you can get the 50 percent discount to order your seeds. After they arrive, you stash the box somewhere out of sight and then remem-ber that you had planned to attempt indoor seedlings - only it’s about a month too late at this point, but you don’t want to waste four varieties of tomatoes and five kinds of pep-pers, so you plant them anyway. Then, after making a mini-greenhouse in an unused bedroom and barely remembering to water anything, you realize it’s about time to be planting a garden outdoors. Only, then you decide it’s imperative to make yourself some cute little raised beds out of cedar. So you

spend a few days building them. And they are cute.

But then it rains. And it rains. And your (well-intentioned) plans of getting a garden plant-ed at any time close to what a Minnesota summer will allow for are pretty much gone

Come June 1st and it’s still not done. Procras-tinators do not make good gardeners. But, I digress - back to the magical part of having a vegetable garden. I would love to set up a time-lapse camera for how quickly plants like squash (that were only planted at a cer-tain someone’s request - certainly not mine) will burst up and how slowly my precious cilantro grows. It’s really rather unfair that produce that has little-to-no flavor without adding brown sugar and butter can double its size in a day while this savory herb takes FOREVER.

What is less magical and certainly less charming are the six different kinds of weeds

that sprout up right alongside what I’ve cultivated. They have no sense of personal space and just pop in uninvited. Although, I do have to admit that pulling weeds is a bit of a cathartic process - “take that you little water-hogging parasite!”

Gardening is also teaching me patience and helping me to remember the tenth com-mandment as I see the fruit coming from my parents’ and inlaws’ abundant garden. I look at my beans that have just started to blossom and marvel (okay, I cringe) that they have already harvested a five-gallon bucket.

Thankfully they are blessed with the gift of generosity because they both have shared their produce with us since my paltry efforts at gardening aren’t producing yet. There’s probably a lesson there somewhere, but I’m too busy scarfing down fresh cucumbers and new potatoes to think about it.

planting for procrastinatorschurch contacts

Senior Pastor Charles Bergstedt prbergstedt@plymouthapostolic.com

Associate Pastor Joel Baker shalom2u@usfamily.net

Board Chair Larry Walters lewalt38@hotmail.com

Secretary Lisa Dahlmeier secretary@plymouthapostolic.com

Rise & Shine Editor Kara Larson finngal@usfamily.net

Church office: 763-544-7248www.plymouthapostolic.org

To submit photos or articles to an upcoming issue of rise & shine, please bring them to the church office or email the editor at the address above.