The River Church is

• A nondenominational church called to serve people in the Fox Valley through worship, healing, and the progressive sharing of God’s Word.

• A church whose primary goal is to create an atmosphere of God’s Presence where you can experience God on a whole new level.

• A church where you can discover your utmost potential and God-given purpose.

• A church that is committed to seeing the Glory of the Lord made known in the Fox Valley.

 For more detailed info on The River Church,
please see our “About” section. 

For updates and encouraging words to help you grow in Christ, please see the posts below this one.

[Jesus] also said, “This is what the kingdom of Godis like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain — first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”  – Mark 4:26-29

If you garden, you know that the results are not instantaneous. Perhaps the growing stage that takes the most patience is waiting for the seeds to sprout and appear through the soil. Once the new plants have poked their heads into the light, we know our crop is on the way, and from that point on we can watch the daily progress toward our harvest. But while the seeds are still underground, faith is needed — because we can’t see anything yet. Because we know how seeds work, we leave them alone and patiently wait. We don’t dig them up every other day to see how they are doing. If we did, the seeds would be harmed and would never manage to grow as they should.

God’s personal promises to us are like those seeds.  He speaks a word, “planting” it in the soil of our heart, and it germinates there — but the fruit doesn’t immediately appear. In fact, the bigger the promise, the longer it usually takes to sprout through to where we can see the beginning stages. Unlike a gardener, many times we don’t have the sense to leave it alone and let it grow.  We like to dig it up frequently to see if there is any progress. This may not cause damage to our promise-seed, but it certainly takes our peace and joy away.

“Lord, I don’t see anything happening. Did I really hear You right? Are You sure You can really make this happen for me? How will it happen? What if it doesn’t happen?”

On and on we go with these doubtful thoughts, making ourselves very unhappy.  Sometimes we even damage the promise-seeds themselves, by taking them into our own hands and trying to force them open before their time.

The better way is to leave our seeds alone and stop digging them up. We can water them with our prayers, and God may also show us ways to prepare for when the little sprouts finally emerge, but beyond that, there is a waiting period of trusting God to do what He has said.

Eventually, the plants will be seen and progress will begin to be measurable.  But until then, don’t dig them up.  Let the seeds grow, so that in due time you will have your harvest.

My college roommate, many evenings after dinner, would pick up her guitar and sing this song:

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love
      — Peter Scholtes

At the time, I thought the song simplistic. Hadn’t the Beatles recently sung “All You Need is Love”? Hadn’t events like Woodstock shown us what most meant by “love”? Weren’t most people who talked about love high on something other than Jesus?

Lately, I can’t get the song out of my head.

One of my writing students, a well-meaning Christian, wrote a story in which a teenager speaks a line similar to the following: “I used to have fun with my friends, but now that I’m a Christian I make sure I criticize their bad behavior.”

We may laugh or shake our heads, but how often have we heard, said, taught, or done basically the same? In this, did we do as we’d seen our Lord doing?  No, Jesus came to save, not judge: “As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it” (John 12: 47).

Did we carry the aroma of Christ? No, Jesus loved the sinner and saved his criticism for the religious folk (Matthew 23). Did we accomplish anything? No, other than to make noise. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13: 1). Did we reap what we sowed? Yes! Sow contempt, reap contempt.

When it comes to spreading the Kingdom, if we don’t have love, we’re better off keeping quiet until we do. But when we do have love — when we’re faithful to the Name we bear — that’s when we open the door to the Kingdom to others.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, they who build it labor in vain….” — Psalm 127:1

Recently, God spoke to me through this familiar verse about the place I am in.  It’s a place many of you are in, too.  We’ve been faithful to the Lord and to the people around us.  We’ve done the best we could, we’ve taken the high road when no one else knew, and we’ve weathered many storms.  And still we wait to see the desired results.

At first glance, it may look as though the verse is speaking negatively: “Well, you’ve sweated your way through, but if God doesn’t lift a finger to help, it’s all for nothing.”  But what the Lord was whispering to me went something like this:

“You know what I’ve spoken to you.  And you’ve always known it couldn’t be accomplished unless I did it for you anyway.  The success of it has never rested on your ability.  When the Lord is the architect and project manager of your dreams, He will see to it that they happen.  You can rest in the security of knowing I will build it for you.”

The place of waiting on Him, helpless in His hands, yet knowing He is completely faithful and that He will act on our behalf, is the most secure place of all to be.  He has promised numerous times in His Word to never let us down.

So often, we hear God speak a plan or a promise into us, and then we start grunting and groaning to make it happen.  Sure, He expects us to take whatever steps are needed to cooperate with or to prepare for what He has said.   But most of us tend to go far beyond preparing or cooperating.  We strive, and we climb, and we fret.  We look for “progress” and when we don’t see it, we plummet into discouragement. 

All the while, He wants us to come to such a place of fearlessness and trust in Him that we can look squarely at the difficulties and say, “Ha! God, You’re the only way I will ever be able to see my dreams come true anyway!  I can’t do much about it without You.  Here, You build it for me.”

And then we rest, knowing with unshakable faith that He will do what He has said — because of Who He is.

“Open our eyes, Lord / We want to see Jesus / To reach out and touch Him” and “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord / I want to see You.” We sing of our desire to see Jesus in our contemporary worship music.

In Bible times, people longed to see Jesus. John 12:20, 21 tells us, “There were certain Greeks among them that … came therefore to Philip … and desired of him, ‘Sir, we would see Jesus.’”  A tax collector named Zaccheus had such a desire to see Jesus that he climbed a tree to get a good view as He passed by (Luke 19:2-4).

The ability to see Jesus has always held an attraction for people. But in our present day, many people think that Jesus isn’t available to be seen, or that He is somehow hidden from view. Is wanting to see Jesus just wishful thinking? No! Since we have this heart cry, let’s not shrink back and think that Jesus isn’t seeable. We can see Him.

One way we can see Jesus is in visions. Once, when we were having a home prayer meeting, I saw Jesus coming down a ladder into our living room. He proceeded to lay His hands on each one of us to anoint us to pray. Another time, I saw Him appear very tall in the room where we were praying. It was like He was revealing that He was bigger than any problem we were facing. I did not see these visions with my natural eyes; they appeared in my spirit. But they were just as real as if I had seen them with my eyes. At times people do not realize they are having a vision, because what they see may be just like a photo snapshot in their mind’s eye. It is still a message from heaven.

We see Jesus working behind the scenes in ways other than visions. Suppose you are looking for a job. You pray and then receive a job. Jesus can be “seen” in that answer to prayer. Or, maybe you are praying to be healed.  Once again, the answer is in “seeing” Jesus, by faith, as your healer.

John 3:3 says, “Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” If you are born again, you can see Jesus, the King of the Kingdom. Let’s leave our doubts behind and believe that Jesus is visible to Christians today. Usually when we see Him, it is a surprise to us. He breaks into our space and manifests Himself at unexpected moments.

It isn’t a strange thing after all to see Jesus. He wants to make Himself known to you. Be ready to see Him.

“I really messed up this time.  Now I will never be able to fulfill the calling God spoke upon my life.”

Have you ever had such a despairing thought?  Maybe you have even said it.  Such thoughts are exactly what the enemy of your soul wants you to think.

But the truth is, killing God’s desires and plans for your life is a whole lot harder than that.  God-given destiny is not as fragile as we may suppose.  The Bible tells us God “chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, {even} above reproach, before Him in love” (Ephesians 1:4, Amplified).

He also said, “In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son …. Those he called, he also justified …. Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? … Christ Jesus … is also interceding for us.” (Read all of Romans 8:28-34.)

Every one of us has erred along the path to what God has planned for us.  For some of us, our mistakes have been minor missteps (which we may even be convinced are major failures), while others of us have missed it by a wide margin.  But God, Who has foreknown you and chosen you before the world began, built into your life a margin for error.  He planned for your mistakes to be tools to train you, not to ruin you. Destiny bounces back, as long as you continue to stay teachable, as long as you continue yielding your heart to the Lord.

Has God spoken into you a calling, a purpose, which you hold dear?  Believe Him for it – even if it currently doesn’t look so good.  He is faithful, even when you have not been.  Jesus is in the business of restoring and resurrecting your dreams.  He is THE Resurrection (John 11:25).  He will see you through to the fulfillment of His plans for you.

You’ve done your best to hear God and carry out His plans.  But you’ve stepped out in one direction, and the door shut in your face.  Undaunted, you stepped out again, only to have the perceived opportunity fall through again.  Everything looked like a “go,” but each time you tried, you came smack up against a wall.

You are not alone.  Even the Apostle Paul encountered roadblocks, and it wasn’t always the devil getting in his way.  Sometimes it was God.

Now when [Paul and his companions] had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia, … they attempted to go into Bithynia — but the Spirit did not allow them to. And passing by Mysia, they came to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: there stood a man of Macedonia, and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over into Macedonia, and help us.” — Acts 16:6-9

Up until this time, Paul’s ministry had been confined to Asia, but suddenly he found himself in a place where no avenue he tried worked.  In fact, “closed door” circumstances, combined with the direct instruction of the Holy Spirit, indicated that the region of Asia Minor was off-limits for a while. Why?  Paul had been successful in preaching the gospel there in the past.  It may have been very frustrating to him to suddenly have nothing work for him as it ought to.

Finally, Paul, receiving specific instructions from God in a vision, ended up going to Philippi, a major city in what is now northern Greece.  It was his gateway into Europe.  Without the Lord hindering Paul’s plans for Asia, Paul would not have been launched into spreading the gospel of Jesus throughout Greece.

There are times when seemingly good opportunities present themselves before us, but we are unable to see that they are not the best God has for us, nor will they allow us to reach the most people with the highest good for their lives.  God has better plans for us, but this is not always evident until we have a “door” snap shut in our face.  When that happens, and we feel the disappointment and confusion over what is happening, we can be confident that God will speak His new direction.  For the man or woman whose desire is to live in the will of God, closed doors are a sign that the Lord is about to open a major gateway to us – launching us into something bigger and better than we could have thought of on our own.

Have your doors been closing?  Expect God to open a gateway to you.

If you’re like me, you have Scriptures you keep coming back to – maybe because they’re favorites, or they’re especially puzzling, or you keep seeing new things in them. I’ve often felt sorry for the prodigal son’s older brother, who toed the mark all his life and never received any special notice, while the prodigal left home, blew half his father’s estate, and came home to the mother of all parties, given in HIS honor. We realize that the prodigal is a picture of us as sinners: we go out and mess our lives up royally, even willfully at times, and God our Father welcomes us back, as His children, with great rejoicing.

But the Holy Spirit has a wonderful way of making new words and phrases jump out in even familiar passages, and the part of the story I want to stress today is written in Luke 15:31 — “My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.“

The prodigal is a picture of the saved sinner. His brother, though, is more than just another kid in the family. His brother is a picture of the Kingdom-dweller. Some members of God’s family are content just to be saved; in fact, too many do not know there is more to life with God than simply reaching heaven when they die. They may even backslide or grow lukewarm at times, returning to Christ after one or more periods of trying life on their own. And heaven will rejoice each time. But there are also Kingdom-dwellers, those who live with God presently and continually, and everything God has is theirs!

If this parable is showing us that God has two kinds of children, the saved and the Kingdom-dwellers, then I know what my choice is. I choose to be a Kingdom-dweller — always with the Lord and realizing that everything He has is mine.

The River Church

Living a successful Christian life is a bit of a balancing act.  The trick is to be ever growing upward, to never be satisfied with where we currently are, and yet at the same time to remain at rest in Jesus, content to let Him move us along in our destiny on His timetable.

Some of us, by our very temperament, tend to lean toward the complacent side.  It is easier not to change much, to float through life with as little pressure as possible, to never risk stepping out of the boat to walk on water.  Destiny?  Purpose?  It is safer not to think too much about it.

Others of us, however, are not wired to float along, taking life as it comes.  We have goals and desires for where our lives must go, and we have a certainty that God has spoken specific callings into us.  We want to steam ahead into those things, and when we don’t see it all  happening very quickly, we get so frustrated that our boiler feels like it is about ready to blow up!

The Apostle Paul understood the tension between striving to achieve and resting content.  On the one hand he said, “… reaching forth to those things which are before me, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13, 14), and on the other, he commented, “… for I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content therein” (Philippians 4:11).

If we really understood how faithful, just, and good Jesus is, we would not slip from the place of resting in Him to be troubled or fearful for our future.  Jesus never forgets what He has promised us, and He is committed to faithfully performing for us what He has spoken.  He sees the entire timeline of our lives from beginning to end, and if we will depend on Him instead of our own abilities, He will see to it that our destiny is accomplished to its fullest within the allotted years of our life.

It is all about trust and dependence on the One Who is “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).  Learning to trust and depend on Him is the fruit of a mature Christian life.  Some of us must consciously practice trust to get there.

How’s your balance?

During the American Civil War, one of the generals for the North was U. S. Grant. The U. S. stood for Ulysses Simpson, but through his war heroics his initials came to mean “unconditional surrender.”

Surrender is foundational in our Christian life.  Paul the apostle laid the surrender principle out in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Surrendering ourselves to Jesus means we let Him live His life through us, rather than living according to our selfish inclinations.

Jesus knew all about surrender. His surrender to His Father’s will began when He left His heavenly riches and glory in order to become a man.  Philippians 2: 7, 8 says He “made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

Because of Jesus’ finished work on the cross, we can freely partake of all that Jesus surrendered.  He became sin in our place, so that His eternal life, His righteousness, His health, His prosperity, and His authority could become ours. And He is our peace.

Sometimes it seems like we struggle to surrender to God, when all the time Jesus has done the surrendering for us. We need only to believe in Jesus’ perfect surrender and it becomes our surrender. As usual, it is all by faith.

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for all You’ve done for us. We gladly give You all the praise.