Connected

Posted on September 1, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading today’s Catch.)

Diverse group of casual people with arms around each other.

Diverse group of casual people with arms around each other.

I woke up this morning feeling a really strong connection to my bed. We had a hold on each other that didn’t want to let go. My bed really wanted me, and I must say it was nice to be so desired, but God and you want me too, and that’s not a statement of arrogance. I’m not talking about the fact that you couldn’t wait to read my Catch this morning. I’m talking about the fact that we are connected far more than we realize. We are all a part of each other. Remember the Bible calls us a “body.” Someone is an eye, someone is a foot, someone else is a little finger, but we are all connected and we all need each other. The same blood flows through us all. When we move, we move together. Where I go, you go too. Where you go, you bring me.

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Posted in body life, church | Tagged , | 1 Comment

‘Relationships, relationships, relationships’

Posted on August 31, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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In the real estate world it’s known as “location, location, location.” Where a property is located determines its value more than anything else. In the church and in all types of ministry today, it keeps on coming up as “relationships, relationships, relationships.” Here at the Catch we have discipleship ministries going on, we have evangelism, we have counseling, prayer and Bible studies, but in reality they all boil down to one thing: relationships.

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Posted in discipleship, relationships | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Honoring women

Posted on August 30, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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Ruth, Rahab, Deborah, Jael, Esther, Abigail … We have a tendency to think of these women of the Bible as exceptions to the rule. They are not. Many of you might have a wife like mine who is actually a composite of all of them. She is loyal like Ruth, cunning like Rahab, wise like Deborah, opportunistic like Jael, influential like Esther, but I would say that she is mostly like Abigail. 

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Posted in Beauty, relationships, women | Tagged , , , | 70 Comments

Death to life

Posted on August 25, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading tis Catch.)

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“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.” John 12:24

It’s a spiritual principle that God has built into the fabric of the universe. One dies so that many might live.

It happens on many different levels. On a human level, it can mean a death that raises consciousness to some danger that could take the lives of others if something isn’t done. Someone dies on a rollercoaster drawing attention to a flaw in the design or execution that is corrected so that no one else will have that tragic fate.

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Posted in Depressionj, Facing death | Tagged , | 1 Comment

‘They went thataway’

Posted on August 24, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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Rahab the prostitute … was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. James 2:25

Rahab was a woman who heard from God. Not too terribly different than Mary, or Tamar, or my wife, or any other woman for that matter, because women hear from God just as easily as men. The thing that set Rahab apart was that she not only heard from God, she acted on what she heard. That’s what got her into not only the Hall of Faith in Hebrews and the lineage of Jesus in Matthew 1, it got her into the Book of James where faith without works is dead. She had heard that God was with these people. She knew about the miracle crossing of the Red Sea, and their defeat of two Amorite kings, Sihon and Og, and she had an idea her town of Jericho was next. So when she ran into the two spies who were checking out the city, she hid them and then, when the authorities came looking, she told them they had been there but they had left by another way. In other words, “They went thataway!”

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Guess who’s (not) coming to dinner

Posted on August 23, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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One final word about our dear friend and sister, Roberta Stephens, who passed away suddenly from cancer last week. Her Memorial this weekend was a tribute to a life well-served. (For a video of the service, click on her name.)

The Memorial service was a great triumph and I especially appreciated what one pastor said in his remarks about how we have come to commonly say, “So-and-so lost their battle with cancer.” His answer to that was a resounding, “No!” Roberta didn’t lose her battle with cancer; she won it. Cancer and Satan no longer have any hold on her. Cancer only got her body; it could not touch her soul. She has broken free from the grip of this life into her glorious eternal body in the heavens. Cancer didn’t win. God did. He conquered sin, death and disease on the cross and claimed the ultimate victory for all of us who place our faith in Him. 

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Posted in Grieving | Tagged | 3 Comments

‘Sensei’ Roberta

Posted on August 19, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading today’s Catch.)

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A servant of the Lord and dear friend of the Catch is now in the arms of Jesus. I am sure God had a grand welcome for Roberta Stevens, one of His prized disciples. And she was truly a servant — a servant’s servant. Roberta was quiet, and her actions spoke louder than her words, although her words were sometimes loud enough. She was quiet unless you asked her her opinion, at which point, you would always hear it.

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Posted in discipleship, service, spiritual gifts | Tagged , | 2 Comments

A God like us

Posted on August 18, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

OIP

Here are a few things Chandler and I found on the road during our recent trip through the southwestern United States.

Small towns are dying. We came upon town after town where more than half of the buildings were dilapidated and boarded up. It seems like an awfully long way back for some of these places and you really wonder if they can recover at all. A coffee shop in Blythe, California, that had been the center of activity in that town for over 70 years was boarded up and for sale. These were most likely businesses that were operating on a shoestring before Covid, and the closures killed them. We need to pray for small town America and the people whose lives depend on it.

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Posted in image of God, Marketplace Christian | Tagged | 4 Comments

Listen to your life

Posted on August 16, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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One of my favorite writers passed away yesterday at 96. Frederick Buechner was the author of 30 books all of which championed in some way the themes we have adopted here at the Catch around connecting life to faith. Real life to real faith.

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Posted in spiritual gifts, walk by faith | Tagged | 1 Comment

With God in charge

Posted on August 15, 2022 by jwfisch

(Click here for a video of John reading this Catch.)

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Returning from our fact-finding trip to Colorado, Chandler and I did something we like to do frequently on these trips together, we visited a national park in southern Arizona named Chiricahua (pronounced cheery-cowa) National Monument, after the Chiricahua Apache whose revered leader, Cochise, waged a long war with the U.S. government in the late 1800s. Chandler was excited about this visit for a couple of reasons: the beauty and power of the many natural rock formations, and the opportunity to “bomb” a long hill on his downhill skateboard. It turned out to be a perfect place for it. This park has a 7-mile paved road running through it that was uphill most of the way in, and then you turned around at the top and went back down. It was that downhill return Chandler was interested in. 

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