James and John#1

It has been a rough last few months for Christian workers as Easter Sunday another man of God passed away. Bill Walsworth of Shreveport preached the Easter Sunday morning sermon and retired to his home for lunch and then a few hours later suffered a massive heart attack. He and Barbara have been our friends for over 35 years as members of World Ministry Fellowship. God has received some great saints into His presence the last 12 months.

Sindy is doing better and will return this week although she will be having to return to the city 3 times a week for hemodialysis. The new furniture arrived last night for the dialysis unit and Carmella and Olga moved into the dorm as they will be the caretakers for Karen and the new Sindy. Dr Lou, the dialysis kid’s nephrologist, will visit us Thursday.

Dr. Don Hines, Telemedicine, arrived last night for a few days and will be working with Josue’, Tim, our nurses and Dr. Alfaro of Galileo University Medical school.

Our passports expire in October so we received our new ones yesterday and now have to go through the procedure to have the Permanent Resident status installed in the passports. This is a series of jumping through hoops in Guatemala Immigration Offices.

Mark 3:17 “James the son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them Jesus gave the name Boanerges which means Sons of Thunder). These two disciples were hot-tempered brothers who lived in Bethsaida in Galilee and tho was a fishing village. James is always mentioned first so he was the older of the two. On 4 occasions John is spoken of as “the brother of James”. In Luke 5:10 the writer refers to them as Simon’s partners. So they worked hand-in-hand with Andrew and Peter. It appears that they were called by Christ to follow him and the same time as Andrew and Peter.

We read also of how when a Samaritan village rejected Jesus they asked Jesus to call down fire from heaven and destroy them. I felt like that a few times when I was pastoring and fire seemed to the correct way to handle some of my church members. But I did not follow through. We also know that these two men had used their mother to ask Jesus if they could sit on His right and left hand. In other words, they were seeking to be promoted to leaders of the church. Jesus answered that they did not realize what they were asking. Were they willing to be baptized in the fire that Jesus would be baptized and they said “Yes, we are willing”.  James, indeed, would be the first disciple martyred.

We know there are other examples of their enthusiasm that they did these types of things often. But to do the wrong thing for the right motive does not bring blessings from God.

James would become the leading elder in Jerusalem. On