One of 1500 hymns written by Alfred Henry Ackley, who had worked with Billy Sunday's evangelism team and Homer Rodeheaver's publishing company, is "I am Happy in the Service of the King."  Since July 3, 1960, the date of Ackley's death, one can sense a shift in the degree of happiness written on the faces of the King's servants.  As creation marches downhill toward the end of the age, the reasons to despair seem to abound.  However, God's Word gives us so many reasons, Spirit-inspired reasons, to rejoice.  Let's review a few of them together - and as we do, we are not looking for a superficial rah-rah session.  It's helpful to take several moments or even days and meditate on each one of these.

In one of those chats where you sit and talk with your wife about your day, my wife and I were discussing a common phenomenon in every church - namely, that people vote with their checkbook, their money.  You and I would readily agree that legalism hurts and kills a church.  But something that had never before occurred to me was this particular connection between legalism and the church's cash flow and what that connection means for leading a church.