Rep. Frank Hoffman, Rodney, and
Rep. Chuck Kleckley, Speaker of the House of Representatives, 2014
Rep. Frank Hoffman and Rodney, 2014
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Friday, May 30, 2014
The
Mission Foundation
Dear friends,
I
give thanks to our Lord for His great Hand of blessing on the weekly Louisiana Louisiana State
On
May 20th, we held our annual reunion breakfast, and we were very
happy that several of our former representatives and senators were able to be
with us. What a great morning! The room was so full that the staff had to
open the doors and set up extra tables in the adjacent area, and we were
blessed by our Lord to experience wonderful warmth and fervency in our
fellowship, our meditation on the Word, and our prayers. Again, we give thanks to our Savior!
I
would like to include a few notes (with slight modifications) from my reunion
morning message: “Living in Preparation to Say My Last Prayer.”
“God, don’t let me die. I have so
much to do.” September
10, 1935 , 4:10 a.m.
These were the very last words that came from his lips. – Governor Huey P. Long, age 42.
“I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the
work that you gave Me to do.” – These words were included in His prayer on the
night before His death. – Jesus our Lord, age 33.
It
is quite possible that you will know when you are saying your last prayer to
God. If so, what will it be?
God has given you a work to
accomplish: He has
given you a purpose. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first
commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39 ESV ) Love God! And love every
man, woman, and child around you!
God has perfectly designed you to carry out this great purpose in a
manner that is unique to you. “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good
works that He prepared beforehand so that we should walk in them.” (Eph. 2:10) You are His “workmanship,” His poiema – His personal work of art! The
Apostle Paul says that God hand-made you for certain works that He prepared for
you before the foundation of the world. David prays, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made, . . . in your book
were written . . . the days that were ordained for me.” (Ps. 139:14, 16)
– “I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature
that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God’s thought,
and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, and most precious thing in all
thinking.” – George McDonald
You will accomplish
your work by following the example of Jesus who lived every day for the purpose
to which His Father had called Him.
- Each
day do only those things that you know are pleasing to your Father: “And He who sent me is with Me.
He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to
Him.” (John 8:29)
- Each
day seek to know and do your Father’s will: “For I have come down from heaven, not
to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 6:38)
- Each
day observe what God
is doing so that you
might participate with Him: Jesus said that He as the Son of God does “only what
He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does,
that the Son does likewise. For
the Father loves the Son and shows him all that He Himself is doing.”
(John 5:19)
- Each
day maintain a sense
of urgency, knowing that your days are limited: “We must work the works of Him Who sent me while
it is day; night is coming when no man can work.” (John 9:4)
Every
day you are making decisions. Let every
decision you make be guided by the purpose for which Jesus lived, the same purpose for which He has
called you to live: Love God! Love people! Do this, my friend, and you will be prepared
to say your last prayer to God! Though
you cannot live perfectly, as Jesus did, you will be able to say, “By Your grace, I sought to honor You by
accomplishing all that You gave me to do.”
Thank
you for your prayers and your financial support of us in
our work. We are truly grateful.
Your brother and sister in the Savior,
Rod and Bec
Thursday, May 8, 2014
The Mission Foundation
Dear friends,
Some
of you may have wondered what happened with regard to our April letter. I am sorry that, in the midst of an extremely
demanding season of ministry, my monthly correspondence with you has been
delayed.
April
and early May have been blessed days of labor.
Bec and I give thanks to God for His workings through The Gathering of
Men and Monday Morning for Men (Ruston Calvary Baptist Church
Yesterday
the Senate held their annual “Military
Family Day” in remembrance of eleven of our soldiers who have died during
the past year. It was a beautiful
ceremony that included presentations by the Baton Rouge Bagpipes and Drums and
the LA National Guard Color Guard. Very
meaningful words of remembrance were given for each fallen soldier, and there
were times of silent prayer and moments of comfort for the families. It was very moving to see every member of the
Senate coming to the front to offer personal words to the members of each
family. I must emphasize that there were
words of reflection on the life of each soldier
as his picture was shown before us, and expressions of comfort were offered to each family. It was a lovingly and appropriately extended
time of communicating respectful gratitude and of coming alongside the
grieving.
It
was my honor to have been invited to present the opening prayer. Before the ceremony began, I spent a brief
moment with each of the family members.
As I moved from one to the next there in the Senate gallery, their eyes
and their voices disclosed the greatness of the sorrow they carried in their
hearts. Their loved ones had paid the
ultimate price for our freedom and for the freedom of others in this
world. As I write, I am remembering the
weighty grief in the eye of a young widow; I am hearing a father’s voice muted
by sadness as he spoke to me; and I am seeing the mourning on a mother’s face
as she reached out to shake my hand. What
great loss.
But
at the end of the “Military Family Day,” recognition was also given to a living
heroin! – WWII U.S. Navy Wave, Mrs. Dorothy Bauer, mother of Mr. Keith Bauer,
one of our Senate guards. Mrs. Bauer,
who was a nurse and one of only 300 women trained to be a part of a flight
crew, flew over 100 hours a month,
often flying great distances over the Atlantic and Pacific
with our wounded soldiers. As Mrs.
Bauer, who had her 90th birthday in April, stood with her son Keith
at the front of the chamber, and the words of her commendation were ended, the
members of the Senate, and all others present, stood in applause!
May
God help us to continually and gratefully remember our fallen soldiers and
their families. And may God remind us to
regularly express our sincere appreciation to those who have served in our
military in any capacity.
Also,
may God enable us to be faithful in prayer.
Please pray for the grieving families not only here in Louisiana
In
closing, we want to say again that we give thanks to God for you. Thank you for all of your prayers, your
words of encouragement, and your support of us in our work.
In
the love of our Savior,
Rod
and Bec
Friday, March 28, 2014
The Mission Foundation
Our
dear friends, we’re off to a
great start in my 21st year at the Louisiana State Capitol! I give thanks to our Lord that I was asked to
lead in a prayer for unity at the Louisiana Black Caucus Prayer Breakfast. There was a great crowd and a wonderful spirit
at that prayer breakfast. This Monday,
March 31st, I will be opening the House of Representatives in prayer.
Also, the weekly LA Legislators’
Bible Study Prayer Breakfast (which I have led since 2000) has been very
well attended by both the House and Senate.
Here are some notes from our last two meetings:
“How Can We Who Are So Diverse Be Truly
Unified?”
“In our diversity, let there be unity!” That was last week’s theme. We focused on the reasons for which our unity
is of paramount importance to all of us.
Often it is said that we must be unified in order to accomplish greater
things. However, as we have seen, there
are much more important reasons:
- We were made in the image of
the Holy Three-In-One. God, the Eternal Community,
who lives in the perfect unity of love within Himself, said, “Let Us make
man in our own image, after our own likeness” (Genesis
- But we foolishly broke our
bond of love with God and with one another and chose to go our own
self-focused way (Genesis
3; Isaiah 53:6). In His unconditional love, our Lord
Jesus died to restore our unity with God and with one another forever. (Romans
5:8, 18; Eph. 4:15)
- On the night before He was
crucified, Jesus prayed for our unity, saying that our oneness would be
our testimony to the world that God actually sent Him and that God truly
does love us in the same way that He loves His own Son. Jesus prayed, “I do not ask for these (disciples) only, but
also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may
all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they
also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that you have sent Me. The glory that You have given to Me I
have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in
them and You in Me, that they may be perfectly one, so that the
world may know that You sent me and loved them even as You have loved Me.” (John 17:20-22)
- Our Christ, Whom we all follow, has blessed us with the privilege of sharing in a beautiful seven-fold oneness: “There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6)
But now we must ask, “How do we do this? How can we who are so diverse be truly
unified?
I. We must be HUMBLE
LISTENERS: We must listen to one another
with the ears of humility that Christ will give us.
o
James 1:19 “Know
this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak,
slow to anger.”
o
Proverbs 12:15 “The way of a fool is right in his own
eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.”
o
Proverbs 18:13 “If one gives an answer before he
hears, it is his folly and shame.”
By listening we not only learn; we not only become aware of our
blind-spots; we also are communicating loving respect for one another.
II. We
must be MERCIFUL: We must extend the same mercy to one another that we have received from
our Lord.
o
Matthew 5:7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they
shall receive mercy.”
o
Luke 6:36
“Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”
o
James 2:13 “For judgment is without mercy to one
who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”
o
Ephesians 4:32 “Be
kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God in
Christ also has forgiven you.”
Please pray for an ever-growing unity
among our legislators and in our churches and in The Church (even as our Lord
Jesus prayed). Please pray against any influences that would cause
division. Thank you again for making
it possible for Bec and me to do the work to which He has called us.
In the Savior,
Rod and Bec
In the Savior,
Rod and Bec
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Monday, December 9, 2013
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