MY SPIRITUAL JOURNEY

Christmas Gifts

2011-12-17T13:00:00.000-08:00

As Christmas approaches one of the things that most people focus on is gift giving. We spend a lot of money and time finding the right gifts for people that are important in our life. Sometimes we fail in our gift giving.

One Christmas when my son was a young boy, we nearly ruined his Christmas with one particular gift. One of the jobs that he was given around the house was sweeping the kitchen floor. That Christmas we bought a stick vacuum cleaner and thought it would be funny to give to him as a gift. When it was wrapped, the vacuum was the largest gift under the tree. When my son saw that the largest gift had his name on it he was very excited. His imagination went wild. What could that present be? His whole Christmas revolved around the largest gift under the tree. When Christmas morning arrived, all he could think about was that gift. When he opened it, he was so disappointing that the rest of his Christmas presents couldn't make up for the vacuum cleaner fiasco.

Have you ever been disappointed by a gift? Has someone been disappointed by the gift you gave them? What about great gifts? What is the best gift you have ever received? What made it so special? Was it the value of the gift? Was it the person who gave it to you? Was it because it was so unexpected?

As I think about this question I find it hard to narrow down one particular gift as the best. There is one gift that I received that was very special for a number of reasons. One of the reasons this particular gift was special is that I still don’t know who gave me the gift. Let me tell you the story.

In February 2004, 17 members of my church raised 20,000 dollars and went to San Pedro, Belize in Central America to build a church. While we were there we made lots of friends. We were only in San Pedro for a short time, but by the time we left the walls of the church were finished. During the following months, the church members in San Pedro finished the church building. Plans were made for a church dedication service to be held in February 2005. I was invited to come to the dedication service. I really wanted to go. This church building project had been very important to me, and I had made many friends in San Pedro that I wanted to see again. There was just one problem. I couldn’t afford the trip.

One day I received a letter in the mail from Fare Finders Travel. Why were they sending me a letter? When I opened the letter I was surprised by what it said. Please come in to Fare Finders to make arrangements for a round trip ticket to Belize. Someone has paid for the ticket, but they want to remain anonymous. I couldn’t believe it. My wife immediately tried to figure out who the anonymous donor was. She still hasn’t cracked the case. It is still an unsolved mystery. The mysterious ticket has to be one of the best gifts I have ever received.

We made plans to go back to San Pedro. As we packed and attended to all the details of the trip, the mystery giver was in our thoughts. Who was this person who had given such a meaningful and valuable gift? How could we thank the giver?

Our trip to Belize was wonderful. It was very special to me to see the completed church building. The dedication service was beautiful and moving with people from several different countries participating. We got reacquainted with friends that we had made the year before, and made many new friends the 10 days that we were there. Many times friends would stop by our room with gifts such as fresh coconut water, papaya, or some small trinket. On the last day we were in San Pedro, there was a steady stream of visitors at our room. They wanted to tell us goodbye. Most of them brought a gift.

We received one gift that was very special to me. My wife made a special friendship with a little 2 year old boy who spoke only Spanish. Whenever he would see her his face would light up. He didn’t understand English, but he understood the language of love. The day we were leaving he and his 4 year old sister came to our door with a gift. They gave us a well worn 1941 Walking Liberty half dollar. I have no idea how this little family had come into possession of this coin, or why they gave it to me. Even though the monetary value of the coin is only a few dollars it is one of the most precious gifts I have ever received.

I learned an important spiritual lesson on my trip to Belize. I learned it from the people that I met. They had such a desire to do something for us. Even though they had only meager possessions, they had such a desire to please. They wanted to see us before we left. They had to bring us a gift. It was very important to them. To me that showed how I should relate to God. God, I don’t have anything but I want to give you something. God let me know what I can do to please you. God I want to be with you.

In Romans 6:23 the Bible tells us “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord”. God has given you the best gift ever, what will you give God this Christmas?

Thank God For Grace

2011-11-25T20:52:00.001-08:00

We recently celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday. In the U.S. there has been an annualThanksgiving observed since 1863. Inthat year, with the county involved in a horrific Civil War, President Lincolnissued a proclamation declaring a day of Thanksgiving.

One of the traditions of Thanksgiving is talking about thethings we are thankful for. There aremany things, but I am truly thankful for my family.

The Greek word translated thanksgiving is eucharista. The English spelling is Eucharist. My dictionary gives the followingdefinitions. 1. The sacrament of Holy Communion; thesacrifice of the Mass; the Lord's Supper. 2. The giving of thanks;thanksgiving.

The word that most people use to describe the Lord’s Suppermeans thanksgiving. What a greatthought. The Lord’s Supper is a ceremonyin which we give thanks for what Jesus has done for us. The root word in Eucharist is charis. Charis is normally translated as grace. That makes sense. Think with me for a moment. What happens at the beginning of yourThanksgiving meal? Someone says “grace”. Why do we say that they say grace? Saying grace is giving thanks.

At a British conference on religions, experts from aroundthe world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. Theybegan eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had differentversions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religionshad accounts of return from death. The debate went on for some time until C.S.Lewis wandered into the room. “What’sthe rumpus about?” he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues werediscussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. Lewisresponded, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”

After some discussion, the conferees had to agree. Thenotion of God’s love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, issingularly Christian. Of all the world’sreligions, only Christianity dares to make God’s love unconditional.

In 2 Timothy 1:9, the Bible says, “He has saved us andcalled us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to Hisown purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began”.

Before you were born there was grace for you. Thank God for grace! As wonderful as it is, grace is not wellunderstood and often not really believed. We use the word a lot but rarelythink about what it means. It's probably true that most of us thinkinfrequently about God's grace.

Part of our problem is in the nature of grace itself. Graceis scandalous. It’s hard to accept. It’s hard to believe. It’s hard to receive.We are skeptical when a telemarketer tells us, "I'm not trying to sell youanything. I just want to offer you a free trip to Hawaii." Automaticallywe wonder, "What's the catch?" because we have all been taught that"there's no free lunch."

Grace shocks us in what it offers. It frightens us with whatit does for sinners. Grace teaches us that God does for others what we wouldnever do for them. We would save the not-so-bad. God starts with prostitutesand then works downward from there. Grace is a gift that costs everything tothe giver and nothing to the receiver. It is given to those who don't deserveit, barely recognize it, and hardly appreciate it.

Grace means that no one is too bad to be saved. The Bible isfull of examples; Liars, cheaters, murderers, adulterers, prostitutes. God specializes in saving really bad people.

Grace also means that some people may be too good to besaved. That is, they may have such a high opinion of themselves that they thinkthey don't need God's grace. They may admit they are sinners but they don'tadmit they are spiritually dead.

This view of grace is hard for good people to accept becauseit means we must give up our "goodness" in order to be saved. We mustadmit that nothing we have done matters in the least when it comes to beingforgiven by God. God has designed our salvation so that he alone gets theglory!

Ephesians 2:8,9 tells us, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not ofyourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast”.

Imagine what heaven would be like if you had to earn your waythere. "I was a preacher." "I built churches across theworld." "I gave a million dollars to world missions." "Ihad hundreds of baptisms at my meetings." "I volunteered at thehospital." “I baked cookies for the school kids.” As good as those thingsare they will not help forgive even one sin. They will not save you or helpsave you.

Can you just imagine someone putting his arm around Jesusand saying, "You and me, Jesus, we did it: You died on the cross and Ibaked the cookies”? I am so thankful that it's not like that. When Jesus diedon the cross, he paid the full price for your salvation. Jesus paid the priceall by himself.

Grace is never cheap. Grace costs the ultimate. It isjust that you and I aren’t the ones paying. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, thatwhosever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life”. John 3:16

Thank God for grace! Look for grace in unexpected places. I know that you will find it. Paultells us in 1 Timothy 1:14, "the grace of our Lord is exceedinglyabundant".

The Verdict

2011-07-15T13:46:00.000-07:00

I was reading Shawn Boonstra's blog and read his comments concerning the Casey Anthony verdict. I was so in agreement with his thoughts as he expressed them in his blog that I adapted them for use here at My
Spiritual Journey. I usually only present my original thoughts on this blog, but Shawn's ideas were so powerful that I decided to present them here in modified form.

The most talked about news story of the week was that Casey Anthony was acquitted of killing her 2-year-old daughter Caylee in 2008. One thing is clear: someone is guilty. Little girls don’t end up duct-taped and garbage-bagged in the woods all by themselves. Collective public outrage has been building in the days since the “not guilty” verdicts left the American public speechless.

I struggled with the verdict myself. As a grandfather of young girls, my blood almost literally boils over when I hear about people mistreating them. And the fact that the most likely perpetrator was acquitted is hard to take. She just looked so guilty. Her stories didn’t add up. In the hours since the verdict was read by a court clerk who appeared as visibly troubled as the rest of us, I have begun to consider the possibilities.

One possibility, I don’t want to admit. Twelve jurors might, maybe, somehow, be right. It’s possible that the rest of us have been drawn by the scent of blood into a public feeding frenzy. Like most people, I honestly don’t think so, but I have no choice but to admit that it’s a possibility.

The more comforting thought is that Someone knows every last detail of the case. The Bible reminds us that real justice will have to wait for the final judgement. We can rest in the knowledge that God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:14) He is particularly attentive to the needs and rights of children.

I don’t like it, but the jury has spoken; the judge has agreed. I will make every effort to keep it from happening to someone else, and will guard my neighbor’s children like my own. I will also, to the best of my ability, share the only thing that can bring genuine hope in a cruelly twisted world – the redeeming, converting love of Jesus.

Someone is guilty of something: little girls don’t end up stashed in the woods by accident. If Caylee’s cruel death has stirred such emotion in our own sin-stained hearts, imagine the way it hurts the heart of Christ. I imagine myself to be incapable of such horrific sins, but I have caused my share of pain, for I am a sinner. I have never had to hide a body, but I am painfully aware that Jesus equates hatred with murder. By Jesus’ standards, I have murdered, stolen, failed to honor my parents, taken the Lord’s name in vain, broken the Sabbath. So have you. More times that any of us would care to admit.

Now here’s what is really unfair. I am going to be acquitted. I’m going to be released from the wages of sin, (death), even though I certainly do not deserve it. My sins killed the Son of God, but I won’t receive the ultimate wages of sin because Jesus was condemned for our sins, in which He had no part, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no part. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His.

Now I’m not at all happy with the Casey Anthony verdict. It seems like somebody ought to pay for such a horrible atrocity. But I am also keenly aware that I myself am standing in heaven’s courtroom, with angels marveling at the fact that Jesus plans to take me into the kingdom after all the times I’ve broken God’s law. “He has not dealt with us according to our sins,” the Psalmist reminds us, “nor punished us according to our iniquities.” (Psalm 103:10)

Was Casey Anthony undeserving of her verdict? Quite possibly. Maybe even probably. I know for a fact that I don’t deserve mine.

Higher and Higher

2011-06-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

When I was attending grade school during the 1960’s I had two passions that consumed me. I loved baseball. I chewed lots of really bad gum to collect baseball cards. As much as I loved baseball, what really intrigued me was space exploration.

My heroes were the astronauts in NASA’s space program. I read everything about them that I could get my hands on. In 1969 my interest in space was at a fever pitch. Everyone was talking about the race to land on the moon. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, the entire world was captivated. Every newspaper covered the story. I soaked it all in. I couldn’t believe what a marvelous world I was living in. The moonwalk was a part of pop culture. After watching the moonwalk on TV, the Moody Blues drummer, Graham Edge, penned the poem "Higher and Higher", which was used to open their next album.

"Blasting, billowing, bursting forth
with the power of ten billion butterfly sneezes.
Man, with his flaming pyre
has conquered the wayward breezes.

Climbing to tranquility,
far above the clouds,
conceiving the heavens,
clear of misty shroud.

Vast vision must improve our sight.
Perhaps at last we'll see an end
to our own endless blight,
and the beginning of the free.

Climb to tranquility,
finding its real worth,
conceiving the heavens,
flourishing on earth".

As I listened to these words I realized even as a boy that this optimism that space exploration would make the world a better place wasn’t the way things would be. I read in my Bible in Obadiah 1:4, “Though you ascend as high as the eagle, and though you set your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, says the Lord”.

As a Christian I had always looked at space exploration as a way to learn more about the awesome things God had made. I was excited by the new discoveries and what they could show me about how awesome God is. As I studied science and read about space I always kept God in the picture.

While I went through High School I stayed interested in space, but there were many other things to interest me and take up my time. I realized that as interesting as space exploration was it wasn’t changing things here on earth. By now there had been 6 moon landings and moon walks. In just a few years astronauts on the moon had gone from the most exciting and talked about thing on the planet to ho hum, so you can drive a vehicle on the moon. The space race was over and pop culture had found other interests.

NASA didn’t recapture the interest of most Americans until 1981, when the Space Shuttle Columbia made the first flight of a space vehicle that returned to earth and was reusable. Once again man seemed on the verge of conquering the heavens. One of the exciting new directions in space exploration was the Hubble Space Telescope. In 1979 work was started on this new project. After many delays it was finally launched in 1990. Nothing NASA had done since landing on the moon captured the interest of the American public as much as the Hubble Telescope.

The images that the Hubble produced were breathtaking. When I first saw the images I thought of the words of David found in Psalms 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork”.

One Hubble photo in particular fascinates me. It is called The Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Astronomers picked a seemingly empty spot in the sky. Staring at the spot in the sky for ten days, Hubble kept taking pictures one after another for the entire exposure time, accumulating data. Astronomers put the exposures together into one final picture. Each time they added an exposure, the view got deeper, revealing fainter objects. When they were done they had the deepest picture ever taken of the heavens.

The image is of a small region in the constellation Ursa Major. It covers an area 2.5 arcminutes across, one part in a million of the whole sky. The image contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies. That would mean that the whole universe contains a million times 10,000 galaxies. Astronomers estimate that our home galaxy, the Milky Way, contains between 200 and 400 billion stars. How many stars are in the universe? I will let you do the math.

Isaiah 40:26 tells us “Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out one after another, calling each by its name. And He counts them to see that none are lost or have strayed away”.

The universe staggers our imagination. It is humbling to realize that our planet earth is simply a speck of cosmic dust in the great universe that God has created. David was amazed by God’s love for us. In Psalms 8:3,4 he wrote, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him And the son of man that You visit him?

Go outside tonight, take a look at the sky and know that there is a Creator who cares for you, who died for you and wants to bring you home to live with him.

Let Me Count The Ways

2011-04-02T07:17:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school my least favorite class was English. I just couldn’t get into the poetry we were studying. Even though I didn’t enjoy the class, I still remember a few of the poems we studied.

I was recently reading an article that brought a poem from that class back to mind. In a Valentine’s Day survey, a poem written in 1850 was voted the most romantic. I remembered the poem from my high school class.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach”. The poem was written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She was born in Durham, England in 1806, the oldest of 12 children. She began writing poetry when she was 8 years old. When she was 15, Elizabeth injured her spine as a result of a fall. Because of the accident she became an invalid. She spent the majority of her time in her room writing poetry. In 1844, Robert Browning wrote to Elizabeth admiring her poems. He continued to write to her and they were engaged in 1845.

Elizabeth's father disapproved of the courtship and engagement. In 1846, Elizabeth and Robert were secretly wed and moved to Italy where Elizabeth's health improved. She continued to live in Italy with her husband Robert for the rest of her life.

In 1850, Elizabeth's best known book of poems was published, titled Sonnets from the Portugese. They are a sequence of 44 sonnets recording the growth of her love for Robert. He often called her "my little Portuguese" because of her dark complexion. Of all the sonnets, the most famous is #43, which begins "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Even if you do not appreciate 19th century poetry you can tell that these poems were written from the heart.

As great a poem as Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, I don’t think it is the greatest love poem of all time. The greatest love poem is found in the Bible in John 3:16,17. “ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved”.

What beautiful words. We need to keep in mind that it is the world that God loves, not a single nation, not a single race. Not just the “good” people, not just the people who love God back. “God so loved the world.” This includes the lovable and the unlovable; those who are popular, and those who have no one else to love them; the ones who love God, and the ones who never think of God.

Some people find it hard to accept the fact that God’s love and grace are so freely given. They want to place limits on God’s love. They prefer to think that God only loves the same people they themselves love, and that God despises the same people that they despise; That God doesn’t love people who don’t think the same way they do.

To put it quite bluntly, these people are wrong. God loves the world, and that includes both those who are just like us and those who are totally different from us. If Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn people, why are we so quick to? Jesus came to lift up, not to put down. Jesus didn’t come to condemn us; Jesus came to offer us eternal life. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we should follow His example.

God has not only shown his love for us by giving us His son, God has written us a love letter. I was never much of a letter writer, but when my wife and I were dating, 500 miles separated us. I became a letter writer. Every day when I got home from work I wrote her a letter. Imagine how I would have felt if she didn’t read my letters. Imagine how God feels when we neglect to read the love letter he has written to us.

In that love letter God wrote to you it says, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through the one who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor anything above, nor anything below, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. Romans 8:37-39

How would you feel if you if you wrote these beautiful words to the love of your life and they were ignored. God says to us, “How do I love thee, Let me count the ways”. How has God shown His love to you? Can you count the ways? He will have to do the counting, because we will never know all the ways he shows his love to us. We so often completely miss the wonderful revelations of his love for us as we go about our daily lives.

There is a sad but poignant story from the life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Her father disapproved of her courtship with Robert Browning. When they became engaged her father forbid Elizabeth to marry. When she secretly married Robert her father disowned her, but that didn’t stop her from keeping in touch. Almost weekly she wrote him a letter. Not once did he reply. After ten years she received a large box in the mail. Inside she found all of her letters. Not one had been opened! Today those letters are among the most beautiful in classical English literature, yet her father never read the first one.

God's Word is His love letter to us. The love of Jesus waits in each page! Don’t leave your love letters unopened and unread. God loves you and he wants to tell you just how much. Open his love letter to you and listen to what he has to say to you.

Follow Me

2011-02-06T07:56:00.000-08:00

Saturday October 22, 2005 was a blustery day in Placencia, Belize. Although the sea was fairly rough, at approximately ten that morning ten tourists left for South Silk Caye which is located some twenty miles east. About an hour and a half later the boat arrived at the caye. Owner of Advance Diving, Vance Cabral, stayed on the island with six snorkelers while dive master Henry “Bee Bee” Tucker left with four scuba divers for Gladden Spit.

When the time came for the boat to return to South Silk Caye and pick up the snorkelers, the boat wasn’t there. With the help of binoculars, Vance Cabral the snorkel guide noticed that the boat appeared to be having engine problems and had started to drift out to the open sea.

Dive master Henry "Bee Bee" Tucker was to take the four Scuba divers to a site near Gladden Spit. But halfway to the site, the boat experienced engine problems. As Tucker tried to repair the engine, the boat began to drift. The anchor was thrown overboard, but was either faulty, or broken. The on board radio was tried, but it wasn’t working. Tucker’s asked his passengers to stay on board, but they decided to leave their scuba gear on and attempt to swim toward Silk Caye which was still visible from the boat about for miles away. Dive master Tucker told the divers that the authorities would come looking for them. Although the dive master strongly advised against it, the divers decided to try to swim to shore instead. The four divers jumped into the water dressed in their Scuba gear and started swimming for South Silk Caye.

The divers were American tourists twenty-eight year old Abigail Brinkman, thirty-eight year old Nancy Masters, fifty year old John Bain, and thirty-four year old Yutaka Mayeda, a visitor from Japan.

Around three in the afternoon, Vance Cabral, who was in charge of the snorkelers left them on South Silk Caye and swam the four miles to Little Water Caye to call the police. By the time a rescue effort could be started it was night. At daybreak Sunday morning planes started searching for the missing boat and divers. By the time the boat was found there was no sign of the divers.

It was late Monday afternoon before a rescue plane spotted Nancy Masters, and within the hour all four Scuba divers were pulled from the water. Unfortunately twenty-eight year old Abigail Brinkman wasn’t alive when she was found. Those who survived were suffering from dehydration, salt water intake, and severe sunburn. It is a sad story with such an unpleasant ending.

How is your Christian experience? Are you a do it yourself kind of Christian? Are you ever tempted to swim for safety? We know we are in trouble. Just like the divers on the boat we see ourselves in a bad situation. Often we feel that we have the ability to overcome the situation on our own.

What does the Bible say is the only way we can reach safety? Psalms 4:8 tells us, “ I fall asleep in peace the moment I lie down because you alone, O LORD, enable me to live in safety”. Acts 4:11-12 says, “ For Jesus is the one referred to in the Scriptures, where it says, ‘The stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.’ There is salvation in no one else! There is no other name in all of heaven for people to call on to save them.”

There is only safety, that is salvation, in Jesus. Many people look to other places for salvation such as their church, their pastor, a TV evangelist, an author, their own knowledge of the Bible, or their own morality; but the Bible says that only Jesus can save us.

The question “What must I do to be saved” is a very important question. If you get the wrong answer you will be lost. The divers in Belize decided that what they had to do to be saved was swim for it instead of listening to their dive master.

In Matthew 19 we have the story of someone who asked this important question. Someone came to Jesus and asked, “Teacher what good things must I do to have eternal life”. Jesus answered, “You can receive eternal life if you keep the commandments”. “I’ve obeyed all these commandments,” the young man replied. “What else must I do?” Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But when the young man heard this, he went sadly away because he had many possessions.

Like the divers in the boat, this man decided to do things his own way. He didn’t have enough confidence in Jesus to follow him. All Jesus asked of his disciples was that they follow him. When he met Peter and Andrew, James and John he said “follow me”. When Jesus met Matthew he said” follow me”. When Jesus met Phillip he said “follow me”.

Jesus is calling to you today. In Luke 9:23 He says, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me”.

Body Armor

2011-01-28T19:36:00.000-08:00

How many Bibles do you own? I did a quick inventory at my house and counted over 50. I love to collect Bibles.

There are eight billion Bibles in the world. That's more than one for each person on the earth. This does not include digital versions of the Bible on computers, ebook readers and iPhones. Over 190,000 Bibles are sold or given away every day. But despite all that, according to a Christianity Today survey, less than 10% of professed Christians regularly read their Bible. What that basically means is that we as Christians are biblically illiterate.

In Ephesians 6:11-13 Paul writes, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

If we are in a battle like this armor is important. No soldier would want to go into battle without armor. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the body armor provided to U.S. troops. A January 3, 2011 Inspector General Report is the fourth report in less than three years criticizing the body armor program. It is an important issue because we want out troops to have the best armor available. We as Christians also need to make sure that we have the best armor available when we go into battle against the Devil. What armor is available to us?

Ephesians 6:14-17 tells us, “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

Notice that there are five defensive items listed, but also listed as armor is an offensive weapon; The Sword of the Spirit. A soldier might rely on his body armor, but he must have a weapon to do battle.

Jesus is our example when it comes to Christian Warfare. I’m sure you remember the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan in the wilderness.

We read the story in Luke 4:3-8 “And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’” Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’

Jesus used the sword by saying “It is written”. This is our example of how to use the offensive weapon, the Word of God, in battle. To be able to use this weapon, we must place it in our memory. I can’t use the physical book as a weapon; I can only use the wisdom it contains.

The Bible is the only weapon that a Christian has at his disposal, and yet ninety percent of Christians don’t regularly read it. Can you imagine an army going into battle with only ten percent of the soldiers carrying a weapon? Can you imagine the outcome?

The Bible contains God's living water and we live in a world that is dehydrated. We need to keep ourselves hydrated and you can't get a drink just once a week and stay hydrated.

I hope you will join with me in resolving to spend more time with the Word of God. Don’t go into battle without your weapon.

Orphans

2010-11-08T09:28:00.000-08:00

It is amazing how many official days there are. Every day seems to be the official day of something. Nov 8th is World Orphans Day, it is also Aid and Abet Punsters Day and Cook Something Bold and Pungent Day, but World Orphans Day is much more important.

The purpose of World Orphan’s Day is to facilitate public awareness of social issues surrounding orphans and displaced children’s social issues, and to engage community support for the causes.

Here are some facts about orphans.

1. It would take 80,000 orphanages with 500 children each to house all the orphans in Sub Sahara Africa left behind by the pandemic of AIDS.

2. Over 60 million orphans go to bed hungry every night.

3. 143 million children are suffering from malnutrition, and 400 thousand of those will die this year.

4. HIV and AIDS is devastating global communities, and millions are facing the horror of war and abuse EVERY day.

5. Nearly 144 million children across the world are orphans.

6. Every 2 seconds, another child becomes an orphan.

7. 6,000 children are orphaned by AIDS every day. That is a newly orphaned child every 14 seconds.

8. Malnutrition plays a part in more than half of all child deaths worldwide. Every year, malnutrition is associated with the deaths of five million children under the age of five.

In our comfy little corner of America it is hard for us to realize what these facts really tell us. Why should I as a Christian worry about these problems that have been brought on by the sinful behavior of others? Are orphans any of my concern?

God’s word tells us in James 1:27 “Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us”.

How can we help? Pray! Pray specifically for those organizations whose mission it is to help the orphans. Trust God to impress upon your heart what you might do or give.

Take, for instance, George Müller, who was born in Prussia in 1805. He didn’t care about anything other than pursuing his own pleasures. His future looked bleak, but God was working in George’s life. In 1825, he became a Christian and changed from a drunken con man to a humble man who depended on God for everything.

In 1832 he became the pastor of a Brethren congregation in Bristol, England. Bristol would be the center of his ministry for the next sixty-six years. As his work among the poor in Bristol grew, Mueller saw the need for an orphanage. He read the scripture in Psalms 68:5 that says “God is a father of the fatherless”. He believed that if God was truly the father to orphans, all he had to do was to make himself available to care for the orphans and God would supply every need. So that’s what he did.

As God increased his faith Mr. Mueller built homes and cared for more and more children. The orphanage he operated had five mammoth buildings, and over the years took care of the needs of over 10,000 orphans. At his death, he was caring for over 2,000 children everyday!

Mr. Mueller never told anyone of his needs for his orphanage, his church, or his own personal needs. During his ministry he took in the equivalent of 250 million dollars for the support of the orphanages without ever asking for a dime.

Do you think that God cares about the orphans? What has he asked us as Christians to do about it? The Bible tells us in Isaiah 1:17 “Learn to do good. Seek justice. Rebuke the oppressor. Help the orphans. Stand up for the rights of widows.”

I think that the Bible makes it clear that we as Christians have a duty to help. We need to take the focus off of ourselves and become more concerned for all of those who need our help like the 143 million children who are suffering from malnutrition. A child under the age of 5 dies every 3 seconds from neglect, starvation, or exposure. That is 30 thousand every day, 11 million every year.

With the economic downturn here in America a lot of Christians, myself included, expend a lot of emotional energy worrying about conditions and how they will affect us. We need to take our focus off of ourselves and focus on the task that God has given those of us who have more than enough to sustain us.

1 John 3:17 tells us “If anyone has enough money to live well, and sees someone in need and refuses to help—how can God's love be in that person?

Is God’s love in you? We certainly don’t want to hear the words that Jesus spoke in Matthew 25:45,46 “I assure you, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers, you were refusing to help me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.”

My friend Richie Owens has written a song that addresses this issue

Somewhere In Time
By Richie Owens

A newborn baby cries as
Tears filled his mother’s eyes
Her joy is eclipsed by her fear as
Men on drugs with guns and knives
Run up and down the streets outside
And there’s no future for this baby here

Somewhere a child is safely playing
Somewhere there’s plenty all the time
Somewhere life is pure and perfect
She cries why can’t that somewhere be mine

Are we not called to lend a hand
Glad to do all we can
To save the drowning in the sea of life

We cannot win this world by might
By corporate power or legal fight
But by His spirit reaching out
And turning on the light

Somewhere a little girl is hurting
Somewhere a mans crossed the line
Somewhere hopes and dreams are shattered
And we need to find somewhere in time

We claim to love Jesus
Live our lives at his feet
While he scours the dump
In search of something to eat

Somewhere there’s no help or guidance
Somewhere no one sees the signs
Somewhere lifes just too busy
And we need to find somewhere in time.

Your Kindness

2010-09-04T12:41:00.001-07:00

Music has always been very important in my spiritual life. An uplifting song can be very meaningful. The message in a song can leave a lasting impression. One song that has left an impression on me is titled “Your Kindness”. I first heard the song in 1985 when it was written and recorded by Leslie Phillips. It is one of those songs that stays with me. The lyrics still speak to me.

“Waiting for angry words to sear my soul.
Knowing I don't deserve another chance.
Suddenly the kindest words I've ever heard
come flooding from God's heart.
It's your kindness that leads us
to repentance, Oh Lord.
Knowing that You love us
no matter what we do,
makes us want to love You too.”

The idea for the song comes from a Bible verse that we can find in Romans 2:4, “Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”

What leads us to repentance? Is it anger? Is it fear? Is it God’s law? Is it your Pastor? No, the Bible says it is the kindness of God. Paul puts in another way in 2 Corinthians 7:10. “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation.” I like the way God inspired Paul to put that. Not just sorrow, but godly sorrow.

I remember as a child being told to tell my sister that I was sorry. Did that make me sorry? Did it bring about repentance? No, it was more likely to make me plan my revenge. Being sorry seldom brings about change. We are usually just sorry we got caught. True godly sorrow brings about repentance, and true repentance brings about change.

What is it that brings us to Godly Sorrow? What causes us to be truly sorry for our sins, to bring us to repentance? It is when we realize how much God loves us and when we see the kindness that he has shown to us and to everyone.

Romans 11:22 shows us a little different viewpoint on God’s kindness. “Consider, then, the kindness and severity of God: his severity toward those who fell, but God’s kindness toward you—if you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off.” Paul here is talking about his Jewish countrymen who had not accepted Jesus as the Messiah. Because of their unbelief God had to cut them off, just as he will cut us off if we don’t accept Jesus as our Savior.

Knowing that God has a severe side along with his kindness brings us to an interesting question. Should the severity of God bring us to repentance? Should the fear of punishment be the catalyst that makes us repent? I think that our criminal justice system should make us realize that fear of punishment does not bring about repentance.

For many years I helped with the Pathfinder Club in my church. A couple of times a year we would take the kids camping. When you take kids camping, you can get into some very interesting discussions. On one trip I had a Pathfinder ask me a question. They wanted to know, why does God torture people in hellfire for all of eternity for bad things they do in just a few years of life? How do you answer such a question to some kids sitting around a campfire?

It's no wonder that so many people find it difficult to reconcile a God who is perfectly just with a punishment that is clearly unjust. Fortunately, the Bible is very clear on this teaching.

First, we must remember that God is love (1John 4:8). The Bible says as much as we love our children, God loves His even more. And you are His child!

Second, the Bible does indicate there is a hell. Jesus says there is (Matthew 10:28). But here is what Jesus says about hell in Matthew 13:40: “As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world.” What can we learn from this verse?

First, hell won't exist until “the end of this world.” Wouldn't that mean nobody today is burning in hell? Second, it says the tares (in this case, it means the wicked) are burned. It is a real place where the wicked will be burned.

But the Bible doesn't say hell will last forever. It teaches that hell destroys the wicked, once and for all. It makes it clear that hell is a place where the wicked perish in fire. They will burn up as “stubble” and will “become ashes” (Malachi 4:1, 3). Psalm 68:2 says, “as wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.”

Even the most popular verse of the Bible supports this position. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” Notice that the wicked “perish.” They die. They cease to exist. Only the righteous have everlasting life.

The purpose of hell, according to the Bible, is to destroy sinners forever and create a universe without sin. That's going to be a great place to live, don't you think?

The Bridegroom

2010-07-03T12:43:00.001-07:00

Recently my son got married in a beautiful church wedding. It was a lovely ceremony and we had a wonderful time visiting with friends and family. It was especially nice to see two people so excited and happy to be getting married.

Weddings are wonderful joyous events. There is a lot of time and expense involved in preparing for a wedding, because it is such an important symbol of a loving relationship. Marriage is the most intimate of all relationships on earth. When God wanted to express the love He has for His people He could not have chosen a more powerful image than the church as His bride.

In Ephesians 5:25 the Bible tells us, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her”. When a bride and groom are in love, they can think of nothing else but each other. That is the kind of love God has for His church, His people.

The symbol of marriage between God and his people occurs in the Old Testament. In Isaiah 54:4 the Bible says, “For your Maker is your husband, The Lord of hosts is His name”. And in Isaiah 62:5 it says, “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, So shall your God rejoice over you”.

In the New Testament the symbol of the bridegroom is used in the parable of the ten virgins found in Matthew 25. I’m sure you are familiar with the story. The parable says that God’s kingdom is like ten young virgins who took oil lamps and went out to greet the bridegroom. Five were silly and five were smart. The silly virgins took lamps, but no extra oil. The smart virgins took jars of oil to feed their lamps.

The bridegroom didn’t show up when they expected him, and they all fell asleep. In the middle of the night someone yelled out, He’s here! The ten virgins got up and got their lamps ready. The silly virgins said to the smart ones, our lamps are going out; lend us some of your oil. They answered, there might not be enough to go around; go buy your own. They did, but while they were out buying oil, the bridegroom arrived. When everyone who was there to greet him had gone into the wedding feast, the door was locked.

Who does the bridegroom represent in this parable? Jesus is the bridegroom, and the parable refers to his second coming. The point Jesus wanted to make is that He will return at an unexpected time. The bridesmaids knew the wedding was near; they could read the signs, but five of them wasted their opportunity to be prepared. When the bridegroom came, they weren’t ready. One of the most fearful teachings in the Bible is there is coming a day when it will be too late for those who do not know Jesus to be rescued.

We want to be ready don’t we? We want to be in the group that says, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. We want to be the bride waiting for the bridegroom to come. We want to attend the great marriage feast. God’s people in the last days are referred to as the bride of Jesus.

Revelation 19:7,8 says, “For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints”. The King of the universe came into the world to find a bride at the price of his own life, and He will come a second time to marry his bride and take her into the infinitely beautiful chambers and gardens of his love and joy forever. No earthly honeymoon can be even remotely close to what Jesus has in store for his bride.

In 1 Corinthians 2:9 we learn, “Eye has not seen, or ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him”. During the time that Jesus lived here on the earth, a man would never consider getting married unless he had a house for his new bride to live in. Jesus has promised us that he will prepare a place for his bride. We can find His promise in John 14:2,3 where it says, “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also”.

Jesus has promised to prepare a place for you. It will be more awesome than anything you can possibly imagine. The most beautiful places on Earth will be nothing compared to what Jesus is preparing for you. No earthly honeymoon can be even remotely close to what Jesus has in store for his bride.

No relationship on earth is more fundamental than the marriage relationship. The very core of our culture and civilization rests on this basic institution. When a bride and groom are passionately in love, they can think of nothing else but each other, it is an obsession! This is the kind of love God has for His bride, and what He desires us to have for Him.

Today Jesus is asking for your hand in marriage. What will your answer be?

Unforgiven

2010-04-04T14:08:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up in Colorado, my pastor was Pastor George. I can still remember him teaching on the scripture 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. 1 John 1:9 became a favorite verse.

Over the years I have come to realize that there is a problem with this verse. The problem is not actually with the verse, but that many Christians don’t believe it. They say they believe, but their actions show they don’t feel forgiven. This idea isn’t new. Jesus addressed it in a parable found in Matthew 18.

While settling his account with his servants, a man was brought before the king. He owed the king 10,000 talents. When it was decreed that he and his wife and children were to be sold for the debt, he begged for patience and promised to pay the debt. The king forgave his debt and released him.

The servant then went out and found a fellow servant who owed him 100 denarii and demanded payment. The man begged for patience and promised to pay the debt, but the servant had him thrown in prison. When the king found out what the servant had done he told him, “shouldn’t you have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you”?

When this story is told, the point that is usually brought out is “You can’t be forgiven unless you forgive.” It is a very valid point. The idea is found in the Lord’s Prayer found in Matthew 6:12, “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”.

As important as this idea is, I want to look at this story from a different angle than you may have before. The first thing we are made aware of is that the man in the parable has a large debt of 10,000 talents. Just how much is 10,000 talents? A Greek talent was 82 pounds or 1,312 ounces of silver. A denarii was a workers daily wage and was about 1/10 an ounce of silver in weight.

Let’s do the math. One talent equals 13,120 denarius. The man owed 10,000 talents. The man’s debt was 131,200,000 days wages. It would take 360,000 years to pay off. Are you getting the idea that this is a LARGE debt?

An entry wage worker in the United States makes approximately 16,000 dollars a year. 16,000 times 360,000 is approximately 6,000,000,000. The man owed 6 billion dollars. There was absolutely no way this debt could be paid. The people listening to Jesus tell this story knew that this was an impossible debt to repay. You would never know that to listen to the man.

In Matthew 18:26, he says, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’

What was the man thinking? Unless his name was Bill Gates, there was no way he could ever repay 6 billion dollars. There are only about 100 people in the world that have those kinds of assets. Fortunately the king was compassionate. But very soon after having his debt forgiven the servant goes and finds someone who owes him a few dollars and demands payment. How much was the servant owed? The Bible tells us that the debt was 100 denarii. A denarii was a day’s wages. If we use 60 dollars as a day’s wages, the debt was 6,000 dollars.

I want to introduce another concept. Forgiveness is two way street. Not only do we have to forgive others to receive forgiveness, to be forgiven we have to accept forgiveness. There have been cases in the United States where people have rejected pardons. According to the law a pardon can be rejected, and must be affirmatively accepted to be officially recognized by the courts.

George Wilson was pardoned by President Andrew Jackson. Strangely, Wilson refused to accept the pardon. The case went before the Supreme Court in which the court stated: "A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered; and if it is rejected, we have discovered no power in this court to force it upon him."

I don’t think that the man in the parable accepted the pardon. Even though he was forgiven a 6 billion dollar debt, as far as we know he never said thank you, he just walked away. The first thing he does instead of falling at the feet of the king in gratitude, was to go out and try to collect a debt owed him.

Why do you think he did that? Maybe he was simply greedy. His huge debt had been forgiven, but he wanted the money that was rightfully his. I think there is another possibility.

What if he hadn’t really accepted the king’s offer of pardon? Maybe he was intending to pay the money to the king on his debt. He had pleaded with the king to have patience and he would repay the 6 billion dollars. Maybe he didn’t like charity. Maybe he didn’t want to live with the sense of obligation that the forgiveness might give him.

He had a hard road ahead of him if he was going to pay off 6 billion dollars, 6,000 dollars at a time. Just 999,999 more payments like that and the debt would be gone.

As ridiculous as that seems, there are many Christians who have the same attitude as the man in the parable. They have a terrible debt of sin. It is even more than 6 billion dollars. Paul tells us in Romans 6:23, ‘For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord’.

Even though the amount of the debt is so clearly stated, some Christians feel that they can repay the debt by their works. Jesus has promised to forgive our sin debt. 1 John 1:9 tells us, ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’.

It is my job to install windshields. One day a customer was watching while I was installing his windshield. The urethane that I was using seemed irresistible. He just had to touch it. He got urethane on his hand. He didn’t want me to know he had touched it. I noticed he was quietly rubbing on his hand with a shop towel. If you try to wipe urethane off, all it does is smear and make a bigger mess. When I noticed his problem, I offered him some solvent that helps clean the urethane up. He said that he didn’t need any. As I worked I noticed him continuing to try to clean up. By this time he has it on both hands and has gotten it on his coat. Urethane doesn’t come out of clothes. Finally I just got a shop towel and soaked it in solvent and gave it to him. By trying to clean it up himself he had made a monumental mess. Have you ever made a big mess of your life by trying to clean things up yourself? I know I have.

Jesus has offered to forgive us of our sin debt, no matter how ridiculously large the debt is, and he has promised to clean us up. Let’s take him at his word. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”.

Character Assassination

2009-09-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

Character assassination is an attempt to tarnish a person's reputation. It may involve exaggeration or manipulation of facts to present an untrue picture of the person.

Such acts are often difficult to reverse or rectify, and the process is likened to a literal assassination. The damage can last a lifetime or, for historical figures, for many centuries after their death.

In practice, character assassination may involve double speak, spreading of rumors, innuendo or deliberate misinformation on topics relating to the subject's morals, integrity, and reputation. It may involve spinning information that is technically true, but that is presented in a misleading manner or is presented without the necessary context.

It seems like character assassination has become commonplace. Politics seems like nothing but character assassination. Each political candidate or pundit tries to smear the opposing side.

In Leviticus 19:16 God tells his people “Do not spread slanderous gossip among your people”.

Although gossip and character assassination are commonplace, they are not something a Christian should be involved in.

A number of years ago George Harrison wrote a song about gossip titled The Devil’s Radio. Here are some of the lyrics of the song.

Gossip
I heard it in the night
Words that thoughtless speak
Like vultures swooping down below
On the devil's radio
It's all across our lives
Like a weed it's spread
'till nothing else has space to grow
The devil's radio
Gossip

In reality, gossip is telling and/or listening to something uncomplimentary about another with the wrong intent or purpose. It can be true or it can be false, but the intent is the same.

Obviously this is a serious issue; but there is a type of character assassination that is even more serious; the assassination of God’s character.

The first time we find character assassination in the Bible is in Genesis Chapter 3. There Satan, disguised as beautiful serpent, tells Eve half truths and lies and gets her to believe them instead of what God has told her.

Satan invented character assassination. We know that he used it in heaven. He was so good at it that he convinced one third of the angels to believe him instead of God. It is the method that he uses to separate people from God. We want to make sure that we aren’t working for him by giving people the wrong idea about God’s character. It can happen to even the best Christians.

Even the great prophet Moses fell into this trap of Satan’s. We find the story in Numbers chapter 20. For many years God has been providing water to the Children of Israel. Can you imagine that many people basically camping in a dry wilderness? The only way for them to have water would be by the miraculous grace of God. One day there was no water for the congregation. The Bible tells us they gathered together against Moses and Aaron. The people contended with Moses and spoke, saying: “If only we had died when our brethren died before the Lord! Why have you brought up the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our animals should die here?

Moses and Aaron prayed to God and asked Him for guidance. God told them, “Take the rod; you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together. Speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will yield its water; thus you shall bring water for them out of the rock, and give drink to the congregation and their animals.”

So Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?” Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank.

It looks like the story has a happy ending. I’m sure that Moses and Aaron were pleased. Even though they had to endure a bit of a tongue lashing, so were the Children of Israel. They now had plenty to drink. But God wasn’t happy.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”

That seems quite harsh. Moses and Aaron had given 40 years of their lives leading this ungrateful people to the Promised Land. The one thing they really wanted was to actually see the Children of Israel in the Promised Land. Why was God so upset?

In Psalms 106:32,33 the Bible says “The people also made the LORD angry at Meribah, and Moses was in trouble because of them. The people turned against the Spirit of God, so Moses spoke without stopping to think”.

Moses spoke without stopping to think. He spoke for God words that God had not asked Him to speak. He had followed his own course of action instead of what God had asked Him to do. He had misrepresented God’s character.

If we claim to speak for God, we must not misrepresent the kind of God he is. There is nothing more serious than to picture God as he does not wish to be seen. We must be careful with how we picture God to others.

Do you portray a harsh demanding God, or a loving God? Are you presenting a picture of God that will please Him? We want to make sure that we aren’t a part of the character assassination of God.

1 John 4:16-19 tells us, “And so we know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love. God is love. Those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. This is how love is made perfect in us: that we can be without fear on the day God judges us, because in this world we are like him. Where God's love is, there is no fear, because God's perfect love drives out fear. It is punishment that makes a person fear, so love is not made perfect in the person who fears. We love because God first loved us”.

Like A Child

2009-08-01T05:56:00.000-07:00

A few years ago my friend Richie Owens spent a year of his life writing and recording an album. I remember his enthusiasm as he would bring me new songs to listen to. Songs just seemed to pour out of him as he focused on this project. One of my favorite songs that he wrote was titled "Like A Child". Richie ended up choosing the song as the title track of the album. Here are the lyrics

I remember the story from when I was young
Where Jesus was teaching one day
And there were some little ones come to see Him
But the men tried to send then away
Little did they know this gentle young man
Was the one by whom all things were made
He decided to make an example of them
To explain something He had to say

Let them come unto Me
For such is the kingdom of God
Come ye also like them
For unless you do you'll be lost
We have to trust fully in Him, not ourselves
Rely on his word before anything else
We can grow great in stature
In wisdom and health, undefiled
But be like a child

These are hard words in the world which we live
When dog eat dog's putting it mild
'cause some of the things Jesus asked us to do
With this world just can't be reconciled
But we know he has made the way for us
And we know he has conquered the grave
And we know that His grace is sufficient
So that all who will can hear Him say

Children come unto Me
For yours is the kingdom of God
You have conquered the world
For you followed My staff and My rod
You trusted fully in Me not yourselves
You relied on My word before anything else
And you never grew to big to stay in My arms
All the while...Welcome home, child

The other day as I was listening to the album (it is still one of my favorites) I started thinking about what Jesus actually meant in Matthew 18:2 - "Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven".

That really is a blunt statement. If I don't become as a little child I will not be saved. It is very important that I understand what Jesus meant. My salvation depends on it. As I was considering this question, an important characteristic of little children came to mind.

One characteristic of little children is that they look up to the adults around them, especially parents. They don’t want to be left alone. They feel secure when they are with their parents. That is the way a Christian should feel about God. We should want to be with God.

In our relationship with God, we adults are in the same position as our children, except that we don’t know it. We sometimes behave as if we are running our lives, and that we are in control. We feel capable, and sometimes to such an extent that we feel we don’t really need God.

We need to know, that we are not in control. Like a child, we should always be looking up to someone for security and for help. We need to remind ourselves that we cannot handle life with our own wisdom or capabilities. In Proverbs 3:5,6 the Bible tells us "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.

This childlike quality was brought home to me recently by a story that my daughter told me about my granddaughter. While my granddaughter was attending Vacation Bible School, one of the activities that she was involved in was making a scroll like people used in Bible times. When she finished her scroll she told her teacher,"this is for Jesus. I'll give it to him when he comes to pick me up".

That is the kind of childlike faith that we all need to have. We are just waiting for Jesus to come pick us up so we can go home, and we have no doubts that he will be here soon.

God's Will

2009-07-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what God’s will was for your life? I know that I have. Is there any way to actually know what God’s will is? Let me tell you a story.

It is the story of George Mueller. He grew up in Prussia, which is now a part of Germany. He didn’t care about anything other than pursuing his own pleasures. When he was fourteen and his mother lay dying, he was out partying and getting drunk with his friends. By the time he was sixteen he was a thief, a swindler, a drunkard, and in jail. His future looked bleak, but God was working in George’s life. While he was attending the University of Halle in 1825, he became totally devoted to serving God. He changed from a drunken con man to a humble man who depended on God for everything.

In 1832 he became the pastor of a Brethren congregation in Bristol, England. Bristol would be the center of his ministry for the next sixty-six years. As his work among the poor in Bristol grew, Mueller saw the need for an orphanage. For a man who had no money to attempt to build such a house, depending only on God was a real exercise of faith. Within a year, one hundred orphans were being cared for. By 1870, the orphanages had multiplied and two thousand children were being cared for.

The history of the Bristol orphanages is page after page of answered prayer. In his prayers, Mueller would present his specific and immediate needs before God. It was this unshakable faith in God's providing hand that made the Bristol orphanages so unique. They never accumulated a surplus of funds, but daily relied on the Lord for their provisions.

George and his wife Mary decided not to accept a salary. They wanted to daily depend upon the Lord for their needs, and they accepted only unsolicited freewill offerings. Mueller's journal is full of the amazing ways the Lord provided money and supplies for them throughout his ministry. Many times, he received unsolicited food donations only hours before they were needed to feed the children, further strengthening his faith in God.

In the years that George Mueller spent ministering to others, he touched many lives. The 117 schools he established collectively had over 120,000 students. The orphanage he operated had five mammoth buildings, and over the years took care of the needs of over 10,000 orphans. Friends of the Mueller’s would ask, “How can you operate such a large operation without knowing where the money is going to come from?” George would reply, “It is God’s will”.

How can you know what is God’s will for your life. Is there any way to determine what you should do when decisions need to be made in your life? How was George Mueller sure that he was following God’s will? There must have been people that asked George that very question, because he came up with a method for determining God’s will.

George Mueller outlined 8 steps for knowing God’s will in your life. Step number one is “Have no will of your own on the given matter”. If we are serious about discovering God’s will, we have to surrender our own. Step number two is “Don’t simply go by feelings”. The idea that if it feels good we should do it doesn’t come from God. Step number three is “Study God’s Word”. Many times this step is all that is needed. The Bible provides answers to most of life’s questions. Step number four is “Consider providential circumstances”. In my life I have experienced this step many times. When my wife and I made the decision to move to Arkansas, our home in Colorado sold within 2 weeks. To me the quick sale was an affirmation that our plans were God’s will.

Step number five is “Consult with Godly friends”. Friends and family who are Christians can provide good advice. Proverbs 11:14 tells us “Where there is no counsel, the people fall; But in the multitude of counselors there is safety. Step number six is “Ask God in prayer to reveal his will”. Take everything to God in prayer, especially your decisions. Step number seven is “Make a decision”. Sometimes you have to make a decision to determine if it is the right one. Step number eight is “Proceed with your decision”. Move forward with your decision. Let God have the opportunity to affirm your decision, or shoot it down. Choose to say to God like Jesus did, “not my will, but yours, be done.”

Walking A Tightrope

2009-07-23T19:09:00.000-07:00

Jean Francois Gravelet is considered to be one of the greatest tightrope-walkers of all time. He was born in France in 1824. At age 9 he began performing professionally. When he was older he devised the show-name of Charles Blondin. He chose "Blondin" for the color of his hair.

Blondin became obsessed with the idea of crossing Niagara Falls the first time he saw them in 1858. A year after his initial visit, he returned to accomplish the feat. The stunt was not without controversy. Many people felt that a stunt like Blondin's would trivialize the falls, turning them into a backdrop for a circus act, and should not be allowed. Eventually, Blondin was allowed to string his wire across the falls and on June 30, 1859, he was the first man ever to cross Niagara Falls by tightrope. A large crowd of 100,000 people watched him walk on a single three-inch rope, 1,100 feet long and 160 feet above the falls at one side and 270 feet at the other.

Blondin made many more trips across the gorge during the next year. Each time, he thrilled larger crowds with more exciting acts. He balanced a chair on the rope and stood on it. He took pictures of the crowd while he balanced on the rope. He cooked a meal on a small portable cooker and lowered it to amazed passengers on the Maid of the Mist below. He crossed blindfolded, in a sack, on stilts, and pushing a wheel barrow.

In 1860 a Royal party from Britain that included the Prince of Wales saw Blondin cross the tightrope on stilts, and again blindfolded. After that he stopped halfway across and cooked and ate an omelet. Next he wheeled a wheelbarrow from one side to the other, and returned with a sack of potatoes in it. Then Blondin approached the Royal party. He asked the Prince of Wales, "Do you believe I could take a man across the tightrope in this wheelbarrow?" "Yes, I do", said the Prince. "Hop in, then", replied Blondin. Well, the Prince declined Blondin's challenge. He might have believed Blondin could do it, but he wasn't about to trust him with his life.

When it comes to our relationship with God, this kind of trust doesn't do much good. God doesn't want us to say "Yes Lord I believe in you, but not enough to put my life in your hands."

A friend of mine recently showed me what he thought was a contradiction in the Bible. He showed me two verses that he couldn't understand. The first one was in Acts 16:30,31 where it says He brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" So they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household." You probably remember the story of Paul and Silas in prison found in Acts chapter 16. There was a great earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off! The jailer woke up to see the prison doors wide open. He assumed the prisoners had escaped, so he drew his sword to kill himself. But Paul shouted to him, "Don't do it! We are all here!" Trembling with fear, the jailer called for lights and ran to the dungeon and fell down before Paul and Silas. He brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

Paul's answer is important. Don't we all want to know what we must do to be saved? Paul's answer was believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.

The second verse that my friend brought to my attention was James 2:19 , "You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!" My friend wanted to know, do these two verses tell us that even the demons will be saved? I don't think so. Belief has to come with trust. Proverbs 3:5,6 tells us to "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will direct your paths.

Is their a difference between trust and belief. The Prince of Wales believed that Blondin could walk a man across the rope in a wheelbarrow, but he didn't trust him enough to get in. Do you believe in God? Do you trust him with your life? Trust God with all your heart, and if he asks you to get in the wheelbarrow, do it!

Lasik

2009-07-23T19:02:00.000-07:00

Several years ago my wife Regina decided to have Lasik eye surgery. After doing a lot of research and talking to people who had the procedure done she was comfortable with the idea of someone cutting on her eyes to improve her vision.

LASIK is a surgical procedure that can reduce a person's dependency on glasses or contact lenses by permanently changing the shape of the cornea. For clear vision, the eye's cornea and lens must bend light rays properly, so that images are focused on the retina. If the light rays aren't clearly focused on the retina, the images you see are blurry.

During LASIK, a special knife (a microkeratome) is used to cut a hinged flap of corneal tissue off the outer layer of the eyeball. The flap is lifted out of the way and the laser is used to reshape the underlying corneal tissue.

Before the surgery, Gina had worn glasses since she was a teenager. She had to place her glasses in the same place every night, because she couldn't see well enough to find her glasses if they were misplaced. The LASIK surgery immediately improved her eyesight, and she was able to see without glasses the very next morning. What a wonderful blessing that was.

Her experience with LASIK eye surgery made me realize that most of us have a problem with our eyes. Most people suffer from "Impaired Spiritual Vision". Many cases are severe. Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet, talked about people who suffered from severe "Impaired Spiritual Vision" in his day. "Those people don't know what they are doing. They don't understand! It is as if their eyes are covered so they can't see. Their minds don't understand." (Isaiah 44:18)

Is "Impaired Spiritual Vision" a dangerous condition? Before my wife had LASIK eye surgery she would never have driven a car without her glasses. Why was that? It's because she would have endangered herself, her passengers, and you if you happened to be on the road at the same time. It is just as dangerous to drive through life with "Impaired Spiritual Vision". Where can I go to get proper treatment? Jesus tells us in Revelation 3:18, "I advise you to buy from me gold made pure in fire so you can be truly rich. Buy from me white clothes so you can be clothed and so you can cover your shameful nakedness. Buy from me medicine to put on your eyes so you can truly see".

The only qualified eye doctor is Jesus himself. We are often tempted to see if another human being can help us with our "Impaired Spiritual Vision". Jesus warns us about that in Matthew 15: 14, "They are blind leaders. If a blind person leads a blind person, both will fall into a ditch".

Spiritual leaders often have a hard time trying to help us. Even if they are sincerely trying to point us to Jesus, we often look only at them. Have you ever tried to show your dog something by pointing at it? The dog will look at your finger instead of what you are pointing at. It is often the same way with human beings. It is easier to look at people than to see the Jesus they are trying to point out to us.

How can we get Jesus to help correct our "Impaired Spiritual Vision"? I think that we find a clue in Psalms 119:16-18. "I will delight in your principles and not forget your word. Be good to your servant, that I may live and obey your word. Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your law."

Jesus is the finest eye surgeon in the world. Ask him today to correct your spiritual vision so that you can live and obey his word, and delight in his principles.

The List

2009-07-23T18:57:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up I loved to make lists. I kept a list of the books that I had read from the Longmont Public Library. I kept a list of baseball players and their statistics. Each week I would make my own Top 40 list.

Do you make lists? What kind of lists do you make? Today your lists may be on your computer or your phone, but I bet you make lists. Lists keep us organized.

I recently read a story written by Christian author Max Lucado. On a plane he was seated next to an attractive young woman. The young woman was very nervous about flying, so he took out his Bible and read some reassuring passages. As they talked she told him that she was a believer once when she was young. Max asked her, “Do you believe in heaven? "Yeah." "Do you think you’ll go there?"

She looked away for a minute and then turned and answered confidently, "Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be in heaven." How do you know?"

"How do I know I’m going to heaven?" She grew quiet as she formulated her response. "Well, I’m basically good. I smoke less than a pack a day. I exercise. I’m dependable at work and," she counted each achievement on a finger, "I made my boyfriend get tested for AIDS."

That was her list. By her way of thinking, heaven could be earned by smoking less and safe sex. Her line of logic was simple: I keep the list on earth and I get the place in heaven.

Most of us are a lot like the woman on the plane. We feel that we are basically good. We are decent hard working people. We have a list that we feel qualifies us for heaven. Your list may not include cigarettes or AIDS, but I know you have a list. There is a purpose for the list: to prove we are good.

In Romans 3:20-22 Paul tells us, “No one can ever be made right in God’s sight by doing what his law commands. For the more we know God’s law, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying it. But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight—not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago. We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.

Well, so much for lists. So much for being "basically good." If no one is good, if no list is sufficient, if no achievements are adequate, how can a person be saved? Wouldn’t you like to ask Jesus, “How can I be saved”? Jesus was asked that very question.

We find the story in Mark 10:17. “Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”

Isn’t that the question you would like to ask Jesus? It is very interesting that Jesus gave the man a list. In verse 19 Jesus answers, “You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Do not defraud,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’”

It seems that Jesus is saying that to have a list is OK. It seems like we should have a list. When the man told Jesus that he had done all of these things, Jesus said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.” The story has a sad ending. The man was OK with keeping his list, but he was not willing to follow Jesus.

No matter how long or complete your list, there is always one more thing you need to do.

I recently read a story of a woman who for years was married to a harsh husband. Each day he would leave her a list of chores to complete before he returned at the end of the day. Clean the yard. Stack the firewood. Wash the windows. Sweep the floor. Bake the bread.

If she didn’t complete the tasks, she would be greeted with his explosive anger. But even if she did complete the list, he was never satisfied; he would always find inadequacies in her work.

After several years, the husband passed away. Sometime later she remarried, this time to a man who lavished her with tenderness and adoration.

One day, while going through a box of old papers, the wife discovered one of her first husband’s lists. And as she read the list, a realization caused a tear of joy to splash on the paper. "I’m still doing all these things, and my husband doesn’t have to tell me. I do it because I love him."

You can’t make a list long enough and complete enough to satisfy the requirements for eternal life, but Jesus hasn’t asked you to. All he wants is you; All of you. He wants you to be madly in love with him. Head over heels, do anything for him, in love with him.

In John 14:15 he tells us, “If you love Me, keep My commandments”. Not because that will guarantee us salvation, but because we are so much in love that we want to please Jesus. If we truly love Jesus, doing the things that will please him will not be a burden. They will be a joy.

Jesus Wept

2009-07-23T18:55:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up I attended a small church with my family. The small church shared a pastor with another church. Sometimes when the pastor wasn’t there for the mid week prayer service those in attendance would recite a favorite text. Being somewhat of a smart alec, I thought it was amusing to say that my favorite verse was John 11:35 – “Jesus wept”.

As I have been studying recently, it has actually become a favorite verse of mine. I believe the simple words, “Jesus wept,” may reveal as much about Jesus as any other words ever said about him.

I’m sure that you remember the story of Lazarus. When he became ill, his sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, “Lord, the one you love is very sick.” Jesus chose to wait until Lazarus had died before he came. We read the story in John 11:33-35. “When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, he was moved with indignation and was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them. They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept”.

Let me ask you a question? Why did Jesus weep? Was it because of his love for Lazarus? He knew Lazarus would be alive in a few minutes. Jesus was crying because of the grief of his friends. He was moved by their sorrow. Jesus is painfully aware of your suffering. When you cry He is aware. Psalms 56:8 tells us, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.

There is one other place in the Bible where it tells us that Jesus cried. We find it in Luke 19:41 - “But as they came closer to Jerusalem and Jesus saw the city ahead, he began to cry”.

Why was Jesus crying? Was he crying for a city? At first glance it seems that he was crying because he knew that this city would be destroyed. I think that Luke 13:34 gives us some insight into this story. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!

Jesus was crying for the people of Jerusalem. He had come to save them, but so many were not willing to be saved. Even though they had rejected him and his salvation, he had compassion on them.

Should Jesus be our example? I hope that you want to follow Jesus, by following his example. If we are to follow the example of Jesus, how should we relate to sinners? We should have compassion. It seems to me that many Christians have lost their compassion. As I look around I don’t always see Christians dealing with others with compassion. I am more apt to see hate than compassion.

I don’t want to meddle, but maybe I will just a little bit. Just think about a few of the hot button topics of our day and see what your response is toward the following groups. Gays, Muslims, Adulterers, Abortionists, Thieves, Drug Dealers, Prostitutes, Atheists, etc.

Do you have compassion on them, or is your response something different? Can you hate someone when you are praying for their salvation?

Following the example of Jesus and having compassion on sinners is very liberating. It allows us to leave the judging up to God while we practice the self-sacrificing love He demonstrated on the cross. It allows us to hold ourselves to a high moral standard without feeling that we must hate those who do not see things the way we do.

We should love the "sinner" as Christ loved us sinners and, by our own conduct and communication, model a better way. When we uplift the right and the good, sin will appear in its true colors. However, if we do not model the love of Christ and give no evidence of His power in our lives, no amount of argument will induce the "sinner" to give up his sin. Holding a sign that says “God Hates You” is not an effective way to witness to sinners.

Let’s follow the example of Jesus and love sinners and hate the sin in our own lives. John, the disciple that Jesus loved, tells us in 1 John 4:8 “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love”.

Mowing

2009-07-23T18:54:00.000-07:00

Spring is a wonderful time of the year. One of the reasons that I moved to Arkansas is that I don’t like to be cold. Spring brings with it warmer weather and the end of winter, so I look forward to spring every year.

There are many things about spring that I enjoy. When the redbud and the dogwood bloom, they remind me how much I enjoy living in Arkansas. I love to take a ride on country roads just looking at the trees. The flowers blooming make spring a special time of the year. Driving through town when the azaleas are blooming is great. When spring comes each year there is something else that we can look forward to. The grass begins to grow.

The grass beginning to grow again is something about spring that I am not fond of. It seems to be difficult to keep the lawn mowed. This year it has been hard to mow because of the rain. We have had over 17 inches of rain in May so far.

In the past it has been my responsibility to keep the churchyard mowed at my church. We have a large churchyard, so it takes quite a while to mow. I had to mow during the evenings after I get off work. It took two or three evenings a week to keep the churchyard looking good.

The reason that I’m not that happy when the grass begins to grow in the spring isn’t because I don’t like to mow. I actually enjoy mowing with the riding mower. It’s because of the difficulty in finding the time. Finding several evenings a week to mow is never easy.

Riding on a mower gave me time to think. What else would I do while riding back and forth across the churchyard. One evening while I was mowing, my mind started thinking about how my devotional time with God, and my mowing time were similar. In my busy life it is difficult to find the time to spend with God, just like it is difficult to find the time to get the mowing done.

The Apostle Paul knew that it could be difficult to find the time to spend with God. When he was writing to Timothy he warned him about becoming so busy that he didn’t have time for spiritual exercise. In 1 Timothy 4:7,8 he gave Timothy this inspired advice. "Spend your time and energy in training yourself for spiritual fitness. Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is much more important, for it promises a reward in both this life and the next".

Just like it is important for me to find the time to get the yard mowed, it is also important for me to find the time for what Paul calls spiritual exercise. What was Paul talking about when he said that spiritual exercise was important? I feel that spiritual exercise is Bible reading and study along with prayer. That is talking to God through prayer, and listening to him through reading and studying the Bible.

Have you noticed what happens when a yard misses a mowing or two? It begins to look bad. The same thing can happen to our spiritual life. If we miss our spiritual exercise we begin to get flabby and out of shape. Like a yard that hasn’t been mowed our life begins to look out of control. The longer we let it go the worse it gets. For a neat and trim life, regular devotional time spent with God is a must.

The next time you are mowing your yard, (I know it will be soon), think about your spiritual life. Are you spending enough time with God to keep your life neatly trimmed?

What A Friend

2009-07-23T18:51:00.000-07:00

Joseph Scriven is not a household name. Chances are you have never heard of him. He was born on September 10, 1819, in Ireland. When he was 24 years old he had an experience that changed his life. The night before he was to be married, his fiance drowned while he watched helplessly.

He decided to move far away from the place that claimed the life of his fiance. He came to Canada where he went to work for the Lord. He eventually settled around Port Hope on the north shore of Lake Ontario. He used his time to preach the gospel and to care for the poor and the widows. The local people referred to him as the man who saws wood and carries water for sick people and widows who are unable to pay.

He gave freely of his limited possessions, and never once refused to help anyone who needed it. His faith led him to do menial tasks for poor widows and the sick. He often worked for no wages and was regarded by the people of the community as a kind man, but a bit odd.

Joseph made a humble living as a country tutor who worked for a number of families in the Rice Lake area of Ontario. Joseph met Eliza Roche while he was tutoring for some of her relatives. He asked Eliza to marry him and she agreed. Shortly after their engagement Eliza fell ill with tuberculosis. She died in 1857, a few days before the date she and Joseph had set for their wedding. Fate had dealt Joseph Scriven another broken heart.

Around this time, Joseph learned that his mother was seriously ill. He didn't have the money to visit her back home in Ireland. When he wrote to her, he sent her a poem he had written as an encouragement. He called it "Pray Without Ceasing."

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do no carry everything to God in prayer.

Are his words familiar to you? You probably have heard them before.
Some time later when he himself was ill, a friend who came to call on him chanced to see the poem scribbled on scratch paper near the bed. The friend read it and asked Joseph if he had written the words. He replied, "The Lord and I did it between us."

Joseph never intended for the poem to be published, but it made its rounds as he gave copies to friends. One of the people he gave a copy to was a friend of his by the name of George Wilson, who published the local newspaper in the town of Port Hope, Ontario. Wilson was deeply impressed and was convinced he should print it in the paper so the whole town could enjoy it.

The people of Port Hope enjoyed the poem but quickly forgot it. And that would have been the last anyone ever heard of it except for the fact that somebody in Port Hope sent a parcel to New York City and wrapped it in the very newspaper that had Joseph’s poem in it. When the parcel arrived in New York , the recipient unwrapped it and saved the newspaper because she wanted to read it. She smoothed it out and began to read, and Joseph’s poem caught her attention. She read the poem several times and it moved her so much that she came to the conclusion that everybody in town should read it. She took it to a local New York newspaper, showed it to them and asked if they would be interested in printing it. They looked at it, and deciding that the readers would enjoy the piece, printed it under the title “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”. A copy of the newspaper made its way to composer Charles Converse who composed music to go with Joseph Scriven’s words.

Ira D. Sankey discovered the hymn in 1875, just in time to include it in his well-known collection, Sankey's Gospel Hymns Number One. Later Sankey wrote, "The last hymn which went into the book became one of the first in favor."

“What a Friend We Have in Jesus” is a song that reminds us, as the Bible puts it in Proverbs 18:24 , A man who has friends must himself be friendly, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. No matter what we have to face in life, no matter how hard things get, we have a God who is always there for us. What a friend we have in Jesus!

Spice

2009-07-23T18:46:00.000-07:00

Have you ever tried to lower your sodium intake? Things just don’t taste the same with low sodium. As bad as it may be for our blood-pressure, salt does make things taste good. When Jesus said that we are the salt of this earth, Jesus meant that we are the spice of this world. We’re here to add flavor, in other words; we are here to make things taste good.

The purpose of salt, the purpose of spice, is to add flavor. Job 6:6 asks “Can flavorless food be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?”

I love good flavorful food. We use lots of spice at our house. If you don’t like garlic you would have a hard time at our house. We grow our own basil and rosemary so that we have fresh flavorful spices that are much tastier than the dried spices you can buy in the store. Take a quick look at our spice rack and you will find thyme, sage, paprika, oregano, curry, bay leaves, chili powder, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, cumin, onion, coriander, turmeric, mustard, saffron, and pepper. The purpose of each of these spices is to add flavor.

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus said. “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its salty taste, it cannot be made salty again. It is good for nothing, except to be thrown out and walked on”.

Without salt or spice, many foods are very bland and tasteless. Jesus isn’t looking for bland followers. If you aren’t salty, if you aren’t spicy, if you have no flavor you aren’t good for anything.

In verses 14 and 15 Jesus continues, “You are the light that gives light to the world. A city that is built on a hill cannot be hidden. And people don’t hide a light under a bowl. They put it on a lampstand so the light shines for all the people in the house. In the same way, you should be a light for other people. Live so that they will see the good things you do and will praise your Father in heaven”.

Light has amazing qualities. One of my favorite qualities is when it passes through a prism and breaks up into the colors of the rainbow. We are to be the light that gives light to the world, but we each one are a different color. We each have different qualities, different flavors, and different spices.

God hasn’t asked us to be cookie cutter copies of each other. He has asked each one of us to spice up our corner of the world. Each one of us has a sphere of influence that no one else has. God has asked us to be a light in our sphere of influence.

When it’s dark, people notice the light. Have you ever seen a searchlight? When I was a kid growing up it seemed like we saw them quite often. Whenever I would see one it was very intriguing.

I haven’t seen a searchlight in years, but I can still vividly remember seeing them. I grew up out in the country where there were no streetlights. When I could see a searchlight it looked like it was the only thing in the sky.

Is there any way someone could hide a light like that? No way. There are some lights that just cannot be hid. So if that light is on, then we are going to see it; and if we can’t see it, there’s something wrong!

If salt is there, then we’re going to taste it; and if we can’t taste it, there’s something wrong!

If there are spices, then we’re going to taste them; and if we can’t taste them, there’s something wrong!

In just the same way, Christians should make a difference in this world; we should be just as noticeable as salt and light. We should be the spice of the world, and the world needs more spice.

Are You Experienced?

2009-07-23T18:44:00.000-07:00

James Marshal Hendrix was born in Seattle, Washington, on November 27, 1942; an American of African, European, Cherokee Indian and Mexican descent. An unsettled home environment made Jimi spend much of his early years living with his grandmother, a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, in Canada.

His mother died when Jimi was 15, about the same time that Jimi began to take a serious interest in music and playing the guitar. When he was 12 he got his first electric guitar - the instrument which shaped the rest of his life.

Jimi Hendrix is considered by many to be the most influential and talented electric guitarist in history. He achieved worldwide fame in 1967 playing at the Monterey Pop Festival, then headlined at Woodstock in 1969. Hendrix is widely known for and associated with the use of hallucinogenic drugs, most notably LSD. Various forms of sleeping pills and speed fueled his "stop and go" lifestyle throughout his career.

The most controversial topic however, concerns his alleged abuse of heroin. The Hendrix family, along with a portion of his friends and biographers, emphatically maintains that Jimi was never a heroin user. An equally strong number of associates and writers, including former band mate Noel Redding, insist that he did use heroin.

Jimi's life was cut short at the age of 27. In the days that lead up to his death witnesses said that he was obviously high on drugs and he had a lot of cannabis on him. He was in a terrible state, highly nervous. He spent Wednesday, September 17, 1970 looking for drugs, while visiting houses around London.

In the early morning hours of Thursday, September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix was found dead in the basement flat of the Samarkand Hotel in London. Hendrix died amid circumstances which have never been fully explained, and the exact details of his death will probably never be confirmed. He had spent the night with his German girlfriend, Monika Dannemann, and likely died in bed after drinking wine and taking nine Vesperax sleeping pills, then drowning in his own vomit.

What a sad story. What a terrible waste of a young mans life. He had rocketed to stardom in 1967 with the release of his first album "Are You Experienced". In the title song he sang “Are You Experienced”? “Ah! Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have”. Young hip listeners at that time new what he was asking when he sang “Are you experienced. Ah! Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have”. They knew that he was asking if the had used drugs.

I am asking you today, Are you experienced? You don't have to answer that. But really I want to ask you are you experienced? I'm not Jimi Hendrix. So I'm not asking about drugs. But I do want to ask you are you experienced? Have you experienced the grace and love of God? I can only hope that you have.

I know that I have received one gracious blessing after another. The greatest blessing is found in Romans 5:8, "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us". What a blessing. I know that God loves me because while I was still a sinner Jesus died for me.

In Ephesians 1:7,8 Paul writes "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and understanding.”

God's grace is a wonderful gift to humankind. Grace is God's love freely offered to us. We do not do anything to "earn" it. I hope that you take time each day to reflect upon how you have experienced God's grace in your life.

I have experienced so much of God's love and grace in my life. I have so many things to be thankful for. I am thankful that Jesus died for me, and that he has promised in 1 John 1:9 that if I confess my sins he is faithful to forgive my sins. I am thankful that I have such easy access to God’s word, The Bible. I am thankful that I was born into a Christian family. I am thankful that I live in the USA; that I have a wonderful spouse who loves God, and that I have been blessed with loving children and grandchildren. I am thankful that I am able to live in a rural area. What a blessing it is to live in Mena, Arkansas. You can see that from God’s abundance I have received one gracious blessing after another.

What about you? Have you experienced God's love and Grace? Are you experienced?

Comfort Zone

2009-07-23T18:41:00.000-07:00

I have been sick for almost a week now. I'm starting to feel some better, but I'm not back to normal yet. (I know many will say I have never been normal.) I started coming down with a cold and a terrible cough last Friday, and by Sunday morning I was running a fever and aching all over. Gina has been sick a couple of times recently, but I though I had bit the bullet and made it through cold and flu season without getting sick. Boy was I wrong. As the old saying goes, At first I was afraid I was going to die, and then I was afraid I wasn't.

The last couple of days Gina has finally gotten back to feeling like herself again after her bouts with the flu. I hope I get to feeling like a new man soon. I'm sure tired of feeling like this old man who is sick. Here's to becoming a new man. I'm sure Gina is tired of this old whiny one.

Being sick got me to thinking about how illness parallels our human nature. We are sick spiritually, and God wants to heal us so we won't be sick with sin. The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that "anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" We have all heard the term “Born Again” to describe the new life. It is probably one of the most common phrases in the Christian vocabulary. What is a "Born Again" Christian?

In 1 Peter 1:23, the Bible tells us, "you have been born again. This new life did not come from something that dies, but from something that cannot die. You were born again through God’s living message that continues forever". To be "Born Again" means to have a new life.

There is a law of life that states, "everything that is new eventually becomes old". That law has been painfully brought to my attention over the last couple of weeks as I have been going through lots of old pictures to post on my Facebook page. I recently read an appropriate quote, "youth is a disease from which we all recover". I am recovering nicely, thank you very much.

The next time you are in a big parking lot such as at the mall or at Wal-Mart take a look at the cars. There are some nice new cars. There are some that are in need of some body work. There are a number of old work vehicles. Here in rural Arkansas, there are lots of beat up pick up trucks in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Every car in the parking lot was once a new car. My Daddy has lots of antique cars. They all have something in common. Whether they are nicely restored or are nothing but a rusted out hulk, they were all once new.

What happens when the new wears off of our "Born Again" experience? What happens when our new life isn’t so new anymore? We get in a rut. When we are in a rut, and are just going through the motions, don’t you think God notices?

All of us have a comfort zone in our life. To get out of the rut, we have to move outside of our comfort zone.

How do we get outside of our comfort zone? Here is a list of ideas that I came up with. Everything on the list may not be for you, but maybe it will help you get some ideas how to get out of your comfort zone, and get out of the rut. Maybe they will help your new life to actually be new again.

1. Expand your circle of friends
2. Study a subject you haven’t studied
3. Examine your core beliefs
4. Listen more and talk less
5. Try doing something that you have been afraid to do
6. Eat between meals - spiritually - don’t let religion be rote
7. Make your own list
8. Don’t be afraid of other religious viewpoints – truth withstands
9. Don't worry about what other Christians are doing
10. Hug somebody
11. Go on a mission trip
12. Don’t be afraid to express yourself
13. Be very gentle when you express yourself
14. Tell people you love them
15. Loosen up, don’t be rigid
16. Affirm a leader
17. Smile, be happy
18. Read a version of the Bible you haven’t read before
19. Visit another country or culture
20. Change the order you do things
21. Help somebody who isn’t expecting it
22. Don’t be afraid of change – it isn’t inherently evil
23. Call someone you haven’t called for a long time
24. If someone invites you to their church--- GO
25. Learn a new song. Buy a new CD
26. Be more gracious
27. Visit someone you have never visited before
28. Read a Christian book you haven’t read before
29. Take time to do something you really enjoy
30. Give a totally unexpected gift to someone
31. Ask for other peoples opinions
32. Volunteer to tell the childrens story
33. Pray instead of being critical
34. Let go of resentment
35. Shake up your prayer life. Pray at different times or ways
36. Say thank you more often
37. If you see your devotions are in a rut shake them up
38. Sit somewhere different in church
39. Intentionally use different phrases when you pray
40. Never forget what Jesus has done for you

Let’s resolve to get out of our comfort zone. Ask God every day for a new life.

Old Friends

2009-07-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I received a call from my friend Neal. His wife Tillie has had heart surgery, and Neal had decided that he should move from the ends of the earth in eastern Oklahoma to a retirement community near Oklahoma City. He felt that they needed to be nearer their doctors, and emergency medical care. He had made arrangements for his son to come and help them move.

I have known Neal for 10 years. He moved to this area after he retired. He bought acreage in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma where he and his family built a house. Neal would have been a great homesteader, as he is very self sufficient. He actually went to New Mexico as a young man to try and claim a homestead. He didn't get the homestead, but he did find Tillie. He and Tillie were instrumental in starting La Vida Mission for the Navajo people of northwestern New Mexico.

The property of La Vida Mission was once an abandoned trading post. In this one-room trading post, the little mission was born. School was held for six students in the crumbling, mice-infested building by Neal and Tillie Scott, who lived in the school building with their two tiny sons, Steven and Tom. Each day Tillie drove the rutted reservation roads to pick up her students, then returned them to their hogans at the end of the day.

Neal and Tillie started their married life with a passion for missions and decided that they would follow wherever God led them. During over 30 years of ministry they worked in many places including Jamaica, Mexico and Africa. Neal was a printer by trade, and he managed printing presses in many places. Tillie was a school teacher and always found ways to help others wherever they were. She always had a special place in her heart for kids, from those Navajo Indians at La Vida Mission where her mission work started to the kids of Africa. Her and Neal adopted two children from Africa and brought them back to the U.S. when they retired.

Even in retirement Neal still had a passion for missions and helping others. He was a local volunteer fireman and helped those in his community however he could. He spent several months after Hurricane Katrina helping in a relief distribution warehouse in south Louisiana.

When Neal called me that Thursday, there was a sense of urgency in his voice. He said, "I hate to ask you this, but I didn't know who else to ask. I feel strongly that I need to get Tillie to the retirement village this weekend. She has had a small stroke, and the doctors say you never know if there will be another one. My son won't be able to come for few weeks. Would you be able to help us move this weekend."

I told Neal that we would be over Sunday morning to help them move. Daddy and I got up early Sunday morning and were at Neal's place before 8 o'clock. When we looked at what needed to be moved and then looked at my pickup we began to wonder if we could get it all on. I knew that if anyone could it would be my Daddy.

We were able to put in my little S-10 pickup, 2 beds, a large dresser, bedding, chairs, clothes, kitchen appliances, and a microwave. We were also able to find places for a number of cases of canned food they had. We definitely looked like Okie's and Arkie's. It made me think of the Grapes of Wrath or maybe the Beverly Hillbillies. As we left for the 200 mile trip to the retirement village, we had to stop at the first gas station with air to pump up the tires on my little truck. There was way more weight on the truck than it was designed for. We took it easy on the trip over, because the 4 cylinder engine had a hard time going more that 55 mph. As we drove, Neal kept me entertained with the story of how he and Tillie met, and the early years at La Vida Mission.

After about 4 hours we pulled into the Summit Ridge Retirement Village. Neal and Tillie were moving into a small but nice 1 bedroom apartment. Even though they won't have the room they are used to and the wide open spaces, they will be so much safer with people nearby to help if there is a medical emergency. There is a beautiful church right across the street from their apartment.

While we were unloading the pickup and moving things into the house, I called the Summit Ridge Retirement Village office to find out where an old friend lived. I knew that Norma Wolters was living there and wanted to visit with her while were were there. I was surprised to find out that she lived in the duplex next door to where Neal's apartment was. Daddy and I were able to spend a few minutes with her before we had to make the long trip back home.

I first met Norma when she was teaching school at the B.J. Rowland Adventist School in Mena. When the school opened in the late 70's she was the first teacher. The school was a one room schoolhouse with grades 1-8. My brother and sisters were students of Norma's. She retired the year my daughter Cynda started school at that little school. It was great to see Norma and do a little reminiscing.

The next morning, Neal and Tillie were going to drive into town to get some things at the grocery store. Before they had gone two miles they turned around and went back to the apartment because the roads were icing up. Before long they were completely iced in.

I was so thankful that Neal and Tillie were in a safe place where help was available if they needed it. Their place out in the woods was completely iced in, and there would have been no way to get help if they needed it. I think that God nudged Neal that Thursday and impressed him that he needed to be in a safe place before the ice storm hit. I believe that God is concerned with every detail of our lives, and that if we listen he will guide us.

It was great to be able to help an old friend and to feel that he had the security of being in a safe place. It was also nice to visit an old friend that I hadn't seen for a number of years.

I like the lyrics of the Chris Eaton song "Old Friends".

Old Friends -- we'll always be
And Heaven is a perfect place
At the journey's end
And I'm looking forward to that day
Cause we're old friends

My Resolution

2009-07-23T18:36:00.001-07:00

My favorite cartoon when I was a kid was Peanuts. I remember one comic strip in particular. It is January 1st, and Charlie Brown tells anyone who will listen, “The best way to keep New Year’s Resolutions is in a sealed envelope in a bottom desk drawer.

Charlie Brown knew what every person who has ever made a resolution knows. Making and keeping resolutions is a troublesome business, usually filled with failure and shame.

How have your 2009 resolutions worked out for you? I don't even want to talk about mine. If you have made and broken resolutions on many previous New Year's days, you may feel that you might as well seal them in a bottom desk drawer and forget them. That is the experience I have had.

If there is anything to which Christians should be committed to, it is that people can change for the better and that there is every reason to hope for such a change in our lives and in the lives of others.

If you ask the average person about the resolutions they made for the New Year, they will tell you that they are going to cut down on their eating, they are going to exercise more, stop doing unhealthy things, and start doing healthy things, etc.

While these things are good, they all focus on self and rely on self. These kinds of things are in fact self-serving and look to the power of one’s self to accomplish them. Self-improvement for most people means making themselves more attractive, healthier and happier. They depend on the power of the human will to bring about the changes.

Look at how different our typical resolutions are from the words of Paul in Colossians 3:12-14. “God has chosen you and made you his holy people. He loves you. So always do these things: Show mercy to others, be kind, humble, gentle, and patient. Get along with each other, and forgive each other. If someone does wrong to you, forgive that person because the Lord forgave you. Do all these things; but most important, love each other. Love is what holds you all together in perfect unity."

Notice how Paul’s words are focused on others. If we are to use resolutions wisely, we need to turn our attention away from ourselves and toward others. We need to get the focus off of ourselves, and on to God and the strength that comes only from him. What kind of resolutions should we make?

John was called the disciple that Jesus loved. It appears that Jesus had a best friend. I want my resolution to be the words that the best friend of Jesus wrote in 1 John 4:7,8 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love”.

I don’t know of a better resolution that you could make. If we would all make the resolution to love one another imagine how different the world would be.

My wife's cousin Jerry Patton spent 37 years as the second tenor of The King's Heralds Quartet, the oldest continuous gospel quartet in America.

One of my favorite songs that he sang was titled One Little Candle. The lyrics are great.

It's better to light just one little candle
Than to stumble in the dark
Better far that you light just one little candle
All you need's a tiny spark

If we'd all say a prayer that the world would be free
The wonderful dawn of the new day we'll see
And if everyone lit just one little candle
What a bright world this would be

My resolution is to light one little candle, will you join me?

Imagination

2009-07-23T18:34:00.000-07:00

How is your imagination? Do you ever daydream? What do you imagine?

Former Beatle John Lennon wrote a song titled Imagine in the early 70's. The melody is beautiful, and it is one of the most popular songs he ever wrote. But while the melody may be beautiful, the lyrics paint a different picture. Listen to what Lennon had to say.

Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try;
No hell below us; above us only sky.
Imagine all the people, living for today.
Imagine there's no country. It isn't hard to do;
Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion, too.
Imagine all the people living life in peace.

One of Lennon's ideas was that the concept of God, Jesus, and religion got in the way of world peace; and in the final analysis, caused more bad than good. Karl Marx thought this very same way, and so have many other so-called brilliant philosophers over the centuries. Their idea was that if you rid the world of its ideas about God, Jesus, and religion, then the world would become a utopia. People working together in peace and perfect harmony would soon solve the world's problems.

When I put my imagination to work, I see something different. When I imagine no heaven it is a scary scene. As bad as things are in this world, imagine what it would be like if there was no God. If you spend much time imagining these kinds of things, it's frightening. I can't imagine peace without God. Imagining the world without God is depressing. Let's imagine something different.

I like to imagine the future. Growing up I liked reading popular science magazines. I also liked reading books by Isaac Asimov. His vision of what the future would be like intrigued me. One of my favorite things to imagine is what heaven will be like. Put your imagination to work. What do you imagine heaven is like?

Does the Bible have anything to say about our imagination? The Bible tells us in Ephesians 3:20 , "Glory belongs to God, whose power is at work in us. By this power he can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine". I can imagine a lot of great things, but God can do infinitely more. Put your imagination to work. Whatever you imagined, God can do infinitely more.

I like to think about God. I study the Bible to learn more about him. Can I really understand him? In Isaiah 55:8,9 it reads "My thoughts are completely different from yours, says the LORD. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts".

God's ways are far beyond anything we can imagine. It seems my imagination is useless when it comes to God. One of my favorite texts is 1 Corinthians 2:9 where is says "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him".

Do you love God? God has prepared something so incredible that no human has ever even imagined it. There are people on this planet that have great imaginations. Look at some of the wonders of this world. The imaginations of artists, writers, architects are often spectacular, but they cannot imagine anything like heaven. Have you ever imagined what heaven will be like? Whatever you imagined doesn't even come close to what God has actually prepared for you.

Do you want to go to heaven? Why do you want to go there? I will tell you why I want to go. In John 14:1-3 Jesus tells us "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also".

Jesus had prepared a place for me, and he wants me to be there with him. That is why I want to go to heaven. I want to be where Jesus is. Jesus has also prepared a place for you. Do you want to be there with him? What will it be like when we see the place that Jesus has prepared for us? I can only imagine!

The Wisdom Of Teeth

2009-07-23T18:31:00.000-07:00

"The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil." That quote has been attributed to Cicero, a Roman statesman and philosopher. Cicero is widely considered to be one of Rome's greatest orators. I had an experience this week that made me start thinking about wisdom.

For the past few weeks I have had a very painful toothache. I went to the dentist on Tuesday. After taking x-rays, he told me that second molar on the lower left was in bad shape. One of the reasons that it had deteriorated was because it was up against my "wisdom tooth". He recommended that I have both teeth pulled.

Having the teeth pulled was quite an ordeal. The wisdom tooth was laying sideways, and the root had a hook that was in the bone. The procedure wasn't that painful, but the pulling, pushing, cutting, tugging and prying made it very uncomfortable. When the anesthetic wore off I was in a lot of pain.

While I was at home nursing a very sore mouth I started wondering why the third molars are called wisdom teeth, and why we have them. I found out that they are called wisdom teeth because usually they come in when a person is between age 17 and 21 or older; old enough to have supposedly gained some "wisdom". Wisdom teeth are the third and final set of molars. Sometimes these teeth can be a valuable asset to the mouth when healthy and properly aligned, but more often they are misaligned and cause trouble.

I found the explanation of the term "wisdom teeth" to be somewhat amusing. 17 to 21 year olds aren't the first age group that I think of when I think of wisdom. Wisdom comes with experience. The dictionary definition of wisdom is "the quality or state of being wise; knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; discernment, or insight.

We to often aren't sure of the difference between wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. There is some overlapping of the definitions. Wisdom is knowledge with understanding. Anyone can get knowledge, but understanding is another thing. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 3:13, "Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding".

I crave knowledge. I am curious about so many different things, and want to learn about them. It is interesting to me to see all the different "facts" that you can find on a given topic. Sorting through the "facts" can make understanding an almost impossible task.

1 Corinthians 1:19-20 tells us "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world"?

I want to make sure that in my quest for knowledge that I look to God for understanding.

Taste And See

2009-07-23T18:30:00.001-07:00

During our recent cruise, one of the highlights of the day was dining in the elegant Monet Dining Room each evening. It was like going to the kind of upscale restaurant that we never would go to under normal circumstances. There were beautifully set tables, and waiters hovering over you. The meal would begin with the waiter asking you which of the starters you would like. I enjoyed getting to try new things. Sometimes I couldn't make up my mind and I would order two. Every night there were new tastes awaiting to be tried. Whether it was the Asparagus Veloute, the Tropical Fruits, the Bing Cherry Soup, Roasted Eggplant on Puff Pastry, or the Gazpacho Andalouse, I was never disappointed. I enjoyed getting to taste and see what these dishes actually tasted like.

After the starters, the waiters would clear away the dishes and reset the table for the entree. Tommy and Anna took such good care of us. Tommy's real name is Tomislav, but when he is working he goes by Tommy. He is from Croatia, as he says, from the crazy Balkans. Anna is from the Philippines. She had to leave her son at home with her mother to be able to work on the cruise ship. She gets to go home every 8 months. Tommy offered us many different entree options each night. Once again it was great to be able to taste new things that are never available in my hometown.

When time came for the desserts, there were always many yummy options. One of my favorites was the Warm Chocolate Melting Cake. Other great desserts were Black and White Bread Pudding, Peach Grand Mariner Mousse and Baked Alaska.

My Daddy wasn't quite as impressed by the gourmet food. He would much rather eat in the buffet. He seemed to be quite suspicious of the food. Each time he was served he would carefully look his plate over as if trying to determine what it was. His favorite dish was the self serve soft ice cream that was available 24 hours a day.

I really enjoyed the food on the cruise ship, but I would never have known if I hadn't tasted it. God offers us the marvelous menu of life, and asks us to taste and see if it is good. In Psalms 34:8 the Bible tells us, "taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him". I really like this verse. God doesn't ask us to blindly follow him, he says taste and see that I am good.

Some people think that Christians blindly follow God, and that faith means believing with no evidence. God provides us with evidence and then asks us to trust him. When Paul and Barnabas were speaking to the people of Lystra they said, "God never left them without evidence of Himself and His goodness". (Acts 14:7)

God has given me lots of evidence that he exists and that he is good. With that evidence it isn't hard for me to have faith in Him even though I can't see him.

In Hebrews 11:1 it says "faith is being sure of what we hope for. It is being certain of what we do not see". God tells us to taste and see that he is good so that we can be sure of what we hope for and certain of what we can't see.

There is a Petra song from the 70's titled Taste and See. I haven't heard it for a long time, but the words go like this.

Taste and see that the Lord is good
He's got milk and honey for you
Come and dine at the Master's table,
He'll serve bread and wine to you

Well you tasted this and you tasted that
But you still ain't satisfied
You'll never find any peace of mind
In those empty things you tried

Don't be afraid of tasting something new
Your soul is hungry, nothing else will do
The bread of life will keep you satisfied
You won't go hungry or ever be denied

Taste and see that the Lord is good
He's got milk and honey for you
Come and dine at the Master's table,
He'll serve bread and wine to you

I challenge you to taste and see that the Lord is good.

The Legend Of The Candy Cane

2009-07-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

This week my wife Gina came across the legend of the candy cane. Legend is an old English word meaning "probably not true". Even so I enjoyed reading about the legend.

The legend says that there was a time in Europe when any public display of Christianity was forbidden. No crosses or Bibles were allowed. One old man, a candy maker by profession, was very upset by this. He loved God and couldn't stand to not share that love with others. He prayed for God to show him some way to make Christmas gifts for the children which would teach them the story of Christ.

His answer was the candy cane. The candy cane was in the shape of a shepherd’s staff to show them that Jesus is our Shepherd and we are His flock. Upside down the candy cane was a "J", the first letter of Jesus' name. It was made of hard candy to remind us that Christ is the rock of our salvation. The wide red stripes on the candy cane were to represent the blood He shed on the cross for each one of us so that we can have eternal life through Him. The three narrow red stripes on the candy canes symbolized that by His stripes, or wounds, we are healed.

The flavoring in the candy cane was peppermint, which is similar to hyssop. Hyssop is of the mint family and was used in Old Testament times for purification and sacrifice just as Jesus sacrificed His life for ours. The old candy maker told the children that when we break our candy cane it reminds us that Jesus' body was broken for us. If we share our candy cane and give some to someone else in love, it represents the love of Jesus. God gave Himself to us when He sent Jesus. He loved us so much He wants us to spend eternity with Him.

This story of the candy cane is just a legend. We do not know for sure exactly how the candy cane was invented, but it is an excellent picture of Christ and His love for you. Think about it the next time you enjoy a candy cane. And who doesn't enjoy a good candy cane?

Doom And Gloom

2009-07-23T18:22:00.000-07:00

It seems like a day doesn't go by that someone doesn't talk to me about the condition that the world finds itself in. With the recent presidential election, and the financial meltdown on Wall Street, people seem very nervous. I have to admit that I have my concerns. My business has been slower the last few weeks. There have been some financial setbacks that I wasn't planning for.

What I have noticed in the past few months, is that it seems like the people I have talked to who have been the most worried are Christians. I have gotten numerous e-mails from Christian people who are sure that doom and gloom are right around the corner. I can't believe that God wants us to live that way. 2 Thessalonians 3:16 says "may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always in every way".

I do believe that we are living in the last chapter of Earth's history, but I am puzzled by many of my fellow Christians. Does God want us to worry?

I saw something the other day that really puzzled me. I was in a Christian bookstore, and I saw that they had Christian worry stones for sale. According to tradition a worry stone is a smooth, polished stone that when rubbed is believed to reduce one's worries and add a sense of calmness. When the stone is rubbed, the negative energy and worries are supposedly transferred into the stone and you are left calm and peaceful. I don't think worry stones are compatible with Christianity.

In Matthew 6:31 Jesus tells us "Do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?" He goes on to say "do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own".

Christianity is supposed to be built on faith and trust. There is a story told about Blondin, who is considered to be one of the greatest tightrope-walkers of all time. Blondin became obsessed with the idea of crossing Niagara Falls the first time he saw them in 1858. A year after his initial visit, he returned to accomplish the feat. The stunt was not without controversy. Many people felt that a stunt like Blondin's would trivialize the falls, turning them into a backdrop for a circus act, and should not be allowed.

Eventually, Blondin was allowed to string his wire across the falls and on June 30, 1859, he was the first man ever to cross Niagara Falls by tightrope. A large crowd of 100,000 people watched him walk on a single three-inch rope, 1,100 feet long and 160 feet above the falls at one side and 270 feet at the other.

Blondin made many more trips across the gorge during the next year. Each time, he thrilled larger crowds with more exciting acts. He balanced a chair on the rope and stood on it. He took pictures of the crowd while he balanced on the rope. He cooked a meal on a small portable cooker and lowered it to amazed passengers on the Maid of the Mist below. He crossed blindfolded, in a sack, on stilts, and pushing a wheel barrow.

In 1860 a Royal party from Britain that included the Prince of Wales saw Blondin cross the tightrope on stilts, and again blindfolded. After that he stopped halfway across and cooked and ate an omelet. Next he wheeled a wheelbarrow from one side to the other, and returned with a sack of potatoes in it. Then Blondin approached the Royal party. He asked the Prince of Wales, "Do you believe I could take a man across the tightrope in this wheelbarrow?" "Yes, I do", said the Prince. "Hop in, then", replied Blondin. Well, the Prince declined Blondin's challenge. He might have believed Blondin could do it, but he wasn't about to trust him with his life.

When it comes to our relationship with God, this kind of trust doesn't do much good. God doesn't want us to say "Yes Lord I believe in you, but not enough to put my life in your hands." Belief has to come with trust. Proverbs 3:5,6 tells us to "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.

Is their a difference between trust and belief. The Prince of Wales believed that Blondin could walk a man across the rope in a wheelbarrow, but he didn't trust him enough to get in. Do you believe in God? Do you trust him with your life? Trust God with all your heart, and if he asks you to get in the wheelbarrow, do it!

Any Road

2009-07-23T18:16:00.000-07:00

I love driving on the back roads in western Arkansas. I love the scenery. I love the adventure. I love to just take off and explore new roads. When I see a road I always wonder where it goes.

Sometimes exploring a new road can be quite an adventure. When you are traveling a rural Arkansas road you just don’t know where you will end up.

In the fall of 2006 America was transfixed with the story of James Kim. He was traveling home from Portland, Oregon to San Francisco, California with his wife and 2 children. They took a wrong turn onto a logging road in bad weather. The snow became too deep to travel, and they became stranded.

After several days Mr. Kim set out on foot to look for help. He believed the nearest town was located four miles away. The distance to the town was actually 13 miles. He promised his family that he would turn back at 1 p.m. if he failed to find anyone, but he did not. Kati Kim and her two children were found alive when a search helicopter was led to the scene after seeing human footprints in the snow. The three were then rescued, and airlifted out of the area.

Soon after the rescue of Kati Kim and her children, search and rescue teams followed James Kim's footprints back along the road for about 10 miles where his footprints left the road and led into the heavily wooded Big Windy Creek drainage area. James Kim's body was found in Big Windy Creek. He had walked 16 miles looking for help.

Although Mr. Kim had walked 16 miles, he was found about four miles from his vehicle, and about one mile from Black Bar Lodge, a boating outpost. Though it was vacant at the time, it was stocked with food items. What a tragic story!

In Proverbs 14:12 the Bible tells us “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death”. When the Kim family decided to go down that logging road, they had no idea that the road was impassable. Had they known about it, I’m sure they wouldn’t have taken that path. It was supposed be a short cut, but only led them to tragedy.

What about the road you are on in your life? Have you taken any wrong turns in your life? Have you been on any wrong roads? How do you know which road to take?

In Psalms 25:4,8-10 the Bible tells us” Show me the path where I should walk, O LORD; point out the right road for me to follow. The LORD is good and does what is right; he shows the proper path to those who go astray. He leads the humble in what is right, teaching them his way. The LORD leads with unfailing love and faithfulness all those who keep his covenant and obey his decrees.

God has promised to be our guide. He will point out the right road for us to follow. As I have discussed spiritual things with people I have heard the following analogy several times. “You see it your way I see it my way, but there are many roads all going to the same place.”

Jesus has an answer for that way of thinking. We find his words in Matthew 7:13,14. “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway that leads to destruction is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose the easy way. But the gateway to life is narrow, and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it”. You know from experience that all roads don’t lead to your destination. I’m sure that you have been on a road that didn’t take you where you thought it would. James Kim found out this truth in a tragic way.

One of the last songs that George Harrison recorded was a song titled “Any Road”. The chorus of the song says “If you don't know where you're going any road will take you there”. His words are very true. They describe the kind of roads that I like to explore. I like to drive on them because I don’t know where I’m going. I like to just take off and explore new roads. When I see a road I always wonder where it goes. A number of times I have been completely lost, but eventually I made it home. It can be fun not knowing where you are going.

While it can be fun to explore unknown roads on a Sunday afternoon drive, it’s not a good plan in our spiritual lives. We should know where we are going. We should all have the same destination in mind.

I hope that you know where you are going. Jesus told us that not just any road would take us there. Have you found the road that leads to life? Have you studied the map?

I hope that you and I will be able to say what David said in Psalms 73:23-26. “Yet I still belong to you; you are holding my right hand. You will keep on guiding me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny. I have no one in heaven but you; I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever”.

Five Kernels Of Corn

2009-07-23T18:13:00.000-07:00

Last week in church, Pastor Dan gave each person in the audience five kernels of corn. The story behind the five kernels of corn goes back to the Pilgrims.

While they were waiting for the harvest of 1623, they lived four or five days at a time on a few grains of corn. From their experience came the legend of the five kernels of corn. Their hopes rested on a good fall harvest, but the harvest of 1623 was almost wiped out. A six week drought began in June and the crops turned brown and were slowly withering away. They turned to the only hope they had – intervention by God, and appointed a solemn day of humiliation and prayer.

The Pilgrims assembled one July morning under a hot, clear sky and for nine hours prayed. Their prayers were answered the next morning, wrote Edward Winslow, and for the next two weeks distilled such soft, sweet and moderate showers that it was hard to say whether our withered corn or drooping affections were most quickened and revived. Governor Bradford ordered that July 30,1623 be set aside as a day of public thankfulness.

Pastor Dan encouraged us to put five kernels of corn next to each plate on Thanksgiving Day. Each person is to take each kernel and tell something they are thankful for. We are going to take his advice at our Thanksgiving meal.

I thought I would get a head start and tell you five things I am thankful for.

I am so thankful for my family. My parents, sisters, kids, grandkids and extended family. I feel sorry for people who do not have good family ties.

I love the little corner of the world that I live in. I'm thankful that I can live in a small town surrounded by such beauty.

I'm so lucky to have so many friends. I am amazed when I realize that I have friends around the world. I'm thankful for friendship. It makes life so interesting and meaningful.

I'm thankful for the beauty that God shows us in nature. I see beauty every day, and I am reminded that God is the creator.

I am thankful for my church family. The warmth and love that I feel each week when I attend church is so special. I feel spiritually blessed, and emotionally fulfilled being apart of this church.

Now it's your turn. What are you thankful for? Remember the story of the five kernels of corn

A Little Thanksgiving History

2009-07-23T18:10:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and I am getting excited. Yesterday Gina and I went shopping for Thanksgiving dinner and spend an amazing amount of money. We tried to do our part to jump start the economy. Gavin will be here Tuesday night, and Cynda, Dave, and the girls will be here Wednesday night. I can hardly wait for us to all be together. It is always blissful bedlam. Thanksgiving is such an amazing holiday. To me, even more than Christmas, Thanksgiving is the holiday that focuses on family. I know that family is something I am very thankful for.

I learned in school that the first Thanksgiving was held by the Pilgrims in 1621. I have later found out that it wasn’t quite true.

The Pilgrims did set apart a day to celebrate at Plymouth immediately after their first harvest, in 1621. At the time, this was not regarded as a Thanksgiving observance, but a harvest festival. Harvest Festivals were existing parts of English and Indian tradition alike. The Pilgrims did not hold a true Thanksgiving until 1623. The 1623 celebration followed a severe drought. After the entire group spent days praying for rain, they held a solemn Thanksgiving ceremony and followed that with a feast when the drought was over. Irregular Thanksgivings continued after favorable events and days of fasting after unfavorable ones.

The Pilgrims were not the first Europeans to have a Thanksgiving celebration in America. The first recorded Thanksgiving ceremony took place on September 8, 1565, when 600 Spanish settlers, under the leadership of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, landed at what is now St. Augustine, Florida, and immediately held a Thanksgiving ceremony for their safe delivery to the New World; there followed a feast and celebration. As far as we know this was the first Thanksgiving celebration held in America.

Canadians also celebrate Thanksgiving. The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This is how a Canadian explained it to me. "We did actually have the FIRST Thanksgiving, a full 43 years before the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, but, in true Canadian fashion, there was something wrong with it. That first North American Thanksgiving would have been "celebrated" in sub-zero temperatures on a barren, windswept moonscape by a muttering, mutinous crowd wondering whether "the chief" had all his marbles".

Sir Martin Frobisher set out to find the Spice Islands through the Northwest Passage. He landed instead on Baffin Island. The complete absence of trees and a pitiless terrain of unrelieved rock and permafrost barely dampened his determination to establish the first English settlement in North America. Ever the optimist, he spent two years mining "gold ore". When it was shipped back to England, it was found to be iron pyrite. Fool's Gold.

Throughout the history of the U.S. and Canada, Thanksgiving has been observed. In the U.S. there has been an annual Thanksgiving observed since 1863. In Canada it has been observed since 1879 although on different dates.

I hope your Thanksgiving Day will be awesome!

Justice Mercy Grace

2009-07-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

Last year Gina and I drove to Baton Rouge for the birth of our second granddaughter Rebekah. Gina had taken a week off of work so that she could stay with Cynda and help her with Autumn and the new baby. That meant that I had to drive back home alone.

On my way out of Baton Rouge, I took Highway 190 to Interstate 49. I have traveled Highway 190 quite a bit, and I know that you just don't speed on it. It is heavily patrolled. The speed limit was 65 mph, so I set the cruise control on the MINI at 67 mph. I traveled along with the flow of traffic listening to a book on CD about Benjamin Franklin.

As I came into the town of Point Barre, the speed limit dropped from 65 mph to 45 mph. I tapped the cruise control and traveled along with several other cars as we slowed down. The next thing I knew, there were blue lights in my rear view mirror. The patrolman must have been shooting his radar right at the 45 mph sign, and he had to pick me out of 4 or 5 cars to stop, as we were all traveling the same speed. The ticket cost me 160 dollars. To say the least, I was not happy. I felt that the ticket was unfair. I had been trying to obey the law and yet I got a ticket.

My situation reminded me of an illustration that I have heard explaining God's grace. Imagine yourself driving down the road, doing 100 mph in a 55 mph zone. A police officer stops you. If he gives you a ticket--that is justice--for you got what you deserve. If he lets you off with just a warning--that is grace--for though you deserved a ticket, he did not give you one.

I have thought about that illustration and realized that it doesn't quite fit. If he lets you off with just a warning--that isn't grace, it is mercy--for though you deserved a ticket, he did not give you one. However, if, instead of charging you, he personally escorts you to your destination-- that is grace--for he gave you more than mercy, more than pardon, more than you ever expected, more than you could ever deserve.

There are many Christians who like me in Point Barre feel that they aren’t really doing anything all that bad. They are trying to obey the speed limit, which should count for something. They don't see grace being all that great. They are trying to live right. God should realize that.

The “I surrender all” Christian realizes that the law has been broken whether he was going 5 miles over the limit or 55. He realizes that he deserves the ticket, and he is overwhelmed by the unexpected grace.

Romans 5:17 tells us that "if, through one man, death ruled because of that man’s offense, how much more will those who receive such overflowing grace and the gift of righteousness rule in life because of one man, Jesus Christ!

I wish for you overflowing grace!

The Hammered Dulcimer

2009-07-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

It seems like every day we hear more bad economic news. I can't help but worry about what the future holds. This last week has been a slow week at my business. It is not unusual for there to be a slow week, but when I hear nothing but bad economic news, it makes me wonder. As I have been praying about the financial situation. I have been reminded of the way God has taken care of me in the past. One particular instance came to mind, and I thought I would share it with you.

Several years ago our family made a trip to Branson Missouri to meet my sister and her family. We had a delightful weekend, enjoying everything except the Branson traffic. We especially enjoyed going to Silver Dollar City.

While we were at Silver Dollar City we listened to traditional mountain music. I like to listen to mountain instruments, especially the hammered dulcimer. There were vendors there selling instruments, and I stopped at one of the booths to look at the hammered dulcimers. The salesman showed me the different dulcimers that he had, and assured me that with the materials he had I would be able to learn to play. In the excitement of the moment, I purchased the hammered dulcimer.

When I returned home, I got the new hammered dulcimer out and tried to play it. Somehow I just couldn't get the hang of it. I watched the video that the salesman had included. I still couldn't make music. All I could make was horrendous noise. I read the book that came with the instrument but it didn't seem to help. I came to realize that I just wasn't musically talented. I would probably never be a hammered dulcimer player. The brand new hammered dulcimer with its zippered case and its wooden stand were put in the closet. The only time I thought about them was when they got in my way as I was trying to get something out of the closet.

Like many other families in the Mena area, our family didn't have a great year financially. Among other things, our heat pump was struck by lightening and the compressor had to be replaced. As I was thinking about how I was going to pay for the new heat pump, that hammered dulcimer came to mind. I wondered if I could sell it. I thought about selling it on ebay, but I never got around to it.

One day on an impulse I called the swap shop at noon on KENA radio and listed the hammered dulcimer. I had heard a lot of unusual things for sale on the swap shop, but never a hammered dulcimer. The day went by and I did not receive any calls about the dulcimer. I thought to myself, I didn't really think anyone would call.

That night there was another small crisis at home. The washing machine wasn't working properly. I don't know about your house, but at my house that was a crisis. Where were we going to get the money to pay for the repairs? We hadn't recovered from replacing the heat pump. Call a repairman I told my wife, we have to get the washing machine fixed. That night we prayed that God would help us out of this financial problem.

The next day about noon I received a call from Waldron. The caller asked, "Do you have a hammered dulcimer for sale? I have been looking for one for my daughter and a friend told me they had heard one for sale on the radio." I assured her that I did, and made arrangements to meet her to show her the dulcimer. When she saw the instrument she gave me my asking price immediately. It was almost exactly the amount that the repairman needed for fixing the washing machine.

As the buyer was leaving I told her, "I don't know if you are a Christian or not, but I have to tell you something." I was so excited by how God was taking care of my financial problem that I had to tell her the whole story of the dulcimer and the washing machine. After I had told her the story, she replied, "I am a Christian, and I have to tell you a story. My daughter has wanted a hammered dulcimer for some time. I have been to several music stores, but the cost of a hammered dulcimer is more than we can afford. My daughter has been praying that God would help her find a dulcimer she could afford. I told her that used ones were very hard to find, but she continued to pray. Finding this dulcimer at a reasonable price is an answer to our prayers."

I stood there stunned as I realized that the great God that we serve had answered the prayers of two families that day. In Philippians 4:6 it says "Do not worry about anything, but pray and ask God for everything you need, always giving thanks."

Hallowen Grace

2009-07-23T18:03:00.000-07:00

Grace seems to often pop up in places that I never expect it. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that simply stated "Grace Happens". It is true. Grace happens. It happens all around us. Often we are too busy to notice.

Yesterday was Halloween. My wife had bought lots of candy in preparation for the kids she was expecting to come to our door. She was prepared to give candy, and lots of it, to anyone who rang her doorbell. She waited with anticipation, because she loves to see the kids in their costumes. The doorbell rang for the first time. She went to the door and opened it with a bowl of candy in her hand. There stood two kids, but they didn't have anything to put candy in. They didn't say trick or treat. They stood there with a long stemmed rose in their hand. "We are not asking for candy", they said. "We want to give you a rose".

Unexpected grace. Out of the blue. I never thought that on Halloween someone would come to my door and give me something. I think that is a key to understanding grace. We Christians often focus on the fact that grace is undeserved. That is true, it is undeserved. If you deserved it, it wouldn't be grace. But not only is it undeserved, it is unexpected.

I think that is what Paul is trying to get us to see when he wrote in Ephesians 3:8, "to me, who am less than the least deserving of all the saints, this grace was given". He seems to be almost unable to believe that grace was offered to him. It was unexpected. Maybe that is why he talks about grace more than any other Bible writer.

Look for the unexpected today. Look for grace in unexpected places. I know that you will find it. Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 1:14, "the grace of our Lord is exceedingly abundant".

Moses

2009-07-23T17:59:00.000-07:00

Now that the nights are cooler, our cat Moses has been wanting to spend the night in the house. When the weather is nice, he won't come in the house for the night. but if it is cold or wet, he wants in. We call him our foul weather friend.

We never intended to have a cat, but sometimes things happen that you just aren't planning for. My daughter Cynda helped me write this story of how Moses became our cat.

Meow, Meow, Meoooooooow, "Do you hear that"my wife asked. Yes, it sounds like a cat.Meow, Meooooow, Meooooooooow. Richard, you better go check it out. It sounds like it is in trouble.

We walked down the hill to the creek behind our house. The pitiful cries grew louder and louder. They were coming from a small gray kitten. He was caught in a tangle of roots on the creek bank. The kitten was on the far side of the creek. This meant that I had to walk down the creek to a place narrow enough to cross. I found a place where I could wade across the creek, then I fought my way through a mass of bushes and briars. When I finally reached the drenched kitten, he frantically held on to the roots. I had to pull with all of my strength to get him out.

I was afraid that the kitten would fight like a little tiger because of how fiercely he had struggled; however when I held him close, he melted into my chest. Almost immediately I heard a soft, gentle purring. Hello, Moses I said, Your name will have to be Moses because I drew you out of the water.

What were we going to do with a kitten? Our family had never owned a cat. We had always been dog people. Our dogs have always been pampered pets. Some people have even said that our dogs are the masters of the house. Now we had a tiny helpless kitten. What was to be done with it? I guess it was ours.

We carried Moses to our back porch. My wife Regina brought towels and an old pet taxi. We dried him off and made him a soft bed in the pet taxi. I put Moses down and he immediately climbed up my leg and perched on my shoulder.

Our back porch became Moses home. He was firmly attached to it. The world beyond the back porch was a strange and scary place that he would not venture into. He would not leave the back porch. If I carried him into the front yard, he would begin desperately clawing, fighting, and basically freaking out. He wanted down so that he could get back to the safety of the back porch.

As I remember how Moses came into our lives, it reminds me of how my relationship with God developed. I remember being in the creek. In Psalms 69:1-3 David wrote about his experience in the creek. "Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the deep mire, where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary with my crying; my throat is dry."

When Moses cried out someone came to rescue him. God has made a promise to us. "Call to Me, and I will answer you".(Jeremiah 33:3) When God answers our call he will bring us to a place of safety.

Moses found a place of peace and safety on the back porch. He knew that as long as he was on the back porch nothing bad was going to happen to him. God has provided a place of peace and safety for us. "Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble." (Psalms 119:165) We need to look at God's law the way that Moses looked at the back porch. He realized that it was his place of peace and safety and he wanted to be there. Anyplace else made him very uncomfortable.

Many times we look at God's law as a jail. We feel that it creates uncomfortable restrictions. We need to ask God to give us a love for his commandments, to instill in us a desire for the peace and safety of His law. No one forced Moses to stay on our back porch; he stayed because he loved the feeling of security. That is how we should view God's law.

"For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome." (1 John 5:3)

Stop To Think!!

2009-07-23T17:55:00.000-07:00

This week I have been getting ready to paint a Bandit Wood Chipper for my cousin LeRoy. Wood chippers have powerful feed systems with large chipper openings that allow you to break down limbs and branches. One of the things that had to be done was the removal of all of the decals and stickers before painting. So that we would know where to put the new decals when we finished painting, I took pictures of all the decals and locations for reference.

Wood chippers are very dangerous machines. I have never used one, but after reading all of the warning decals I have new found respect for the dangers involved.

One reads DANGER! STOP TO THINK!! Reaching or kicking into the infeed spout can cause serious injury or death! DO NOT reach with your hand or kick with your foot inside the feed spout. The feedrolls are very powerful. Once your hand or foot is grabbed by the feedrolls, you can be pulled into the chipper. Do not think you will be able to pull yourself out of the feedrolls. They will not let go!

Another one reads DANGER! SEVERE INJURY OR DEATH CAN OCCUR! UNLESS THESE INSTRUCTIONS ARE FOLLOWED.

Do you think Bandit Industries Inc. is serious about their warning? Are they plain enough for you to understand? The wood chipper I am working on is literally covered with these warnings. I took 30 pictures of warning labels. The manufacturer wants to make sure that you understand the dangers of working with this machine.

This one is very serious. BRUSH CHIPPERS ARE VERY DANGEROUS MACHINES TO OPERATE! READ AND BELIEVE THIS WARNING DECAL!

One line on this warning decal reads "There have been MANY ACCIDENTS involving the feed rolls, resulting in the amputation of hands, arms, feet, legs and DEATH. DO NOT let this happen to you!

All of these warnings made me think of the Bible, and all of the directions and warnings that God has placed in it.

In Jeremiah 6:10 the Bible says, "Who will listen to me? The people of Israel have closed ears, so they cannot hear my warnings. They don't like the word of the LORD; they don't want to listen to it!"

Why is it that we don't want to listen to the word of the Lord? When I read the warnings on a piece of machinery I take them seriously, but if I read it in the Bible I don't want to listen.

In Romans 6:23 there is a clear warning. As clear as the warning decals on a wood chipper. It says "The wages of sin is death". That is clear. Thankfully the verse doesn't end there. It also says "But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord".

The warnings on the wood chipper were not placed there because Bandit Industries Inc. doesn't want you to have any fun. They were not placed there just to restrict the user. They were placed there for the benefit of the user.

God's commandments are like the warnings on the wood chipper. They are not to restrict us, they are for our benefit.

Many times we look at God's law as a jail. We feel that it creates uncomfortable restrictions. We need to ask God to give us a love for his commandments, to instill in us a desire for the peace and safety of His law.

1 John 5:3 tells us "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome".

The Best Gift

2009-07-23T17:50:00.000-07:00

What is the best gift you have ever received? What made it so special? Was it the value of the gift? Was it the person who gave it to you? Was it because it was so unexpected?

As I think about this question I find it hard to narrow down one particular gift as the best. There is one gift that I received that was very special for a number of reasons. One of the reasons this particular gift was special is that I still don’t know who gave me the gift. Let me tell you the story.

In February 2004, 17 members of my church raised 20,000 dollars and went to San Pedro, Belize in Central America to build a church. While we were there we made lots of friends. We were only in San Pedro for a short time, but by the time we left the walls of the church were finished. During the following months, the church members in San Pedro finished the church building. Plans were made for a church dedication service to be held in February 2005. I was invited to come to the dedication service. I really wanted to go. This church building project had been very important to me, and I had made many friends in San Pedro that I wanted to see again. There was just one problem. I couldn’t afford the trip.

One day I received a letter in the mail from Fare Finders Travel. Why were they sending me a letter? When I opened the letter I was surprised by what it said. Please come in to Fare Finders to make arrangements for a round trip ticket to Belize. Someone has paid for the ticket, but they want to remain anonymous. I couldn’t believe it. My wife immediately tried to figure out who the anonymous donor was. She still hasn’t cracked the case. It is still an unsolved mystery. The mysterious ticket has to be one of the best gifts I have ever received.

We made plans to go back to San Pedro. As we packed and attended to all the details of the trip, the mystery giver was in our thoughts. Who was this person who had given such a meaningful and valuable gift? How could we thank the giver?

Our trip to Belize was wonderful. It was very special to me to see the completed church building. The dedication service was beautiful and moving with people from several different countries participating. We got reacquainted with friends that we had made the year before, and made many knew friends the 10 days that we were there. Many times friends would stop by our room with gifts such as fresh coconut water, papaya, or some small trinket. On the last day we were in San Pedro, there was a steady stream of visitors at our room. They wanted to tell us goodbye. Most of them brought a gift.

We received one gift that was very special to me. My wife made a special friendship with a little 2 year old boy who spoke only Spanish. Whenever he would see her his face would light up. He didn’t understand English, but he understood the language of love. The day we were leaving he and his 4 year old sister came to our door with a gift. They gave us a well worn 1941 Walking Liberty half dollar. I have no idea how this little family had come into possession of this coin, or why they gave it to me. Even though the monetary value of the coin is only a little more than 4 dollars it is one of the most precious gifts I have ever received.

I learned an important spiritual lesson on my trip to Belize. I learned it from the people that I met. They had such a desire to do something for us. Even though they had only meager possessions, they had such a desire to please. They wanted to see us before we left. They had to bring us a gift. It was very important to them. To me that showed how I should relate to God. God, I don’t have anything but I want to give you something. God let me know what I can do to please you. God I want to be with you.

In Romans 6:23 the Bible tells us “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord”. God has given you the best gift ever, what will you give God?

Sludge

2009-07-23T17:44:00.000-07:00

I was reading from the Max Lucado book, "The Applause Of Heaven", and the following passage really captured my attention.

Grudge is one of those words that defines itself. Its very sound betrays its meaning.

Say it slowly: “Grr-uuuud-ge.”

It starts with a growl. “Grr …” Like a bear with bad breath coming out of hibernation or a mangy mongrel defending his bone in an alley. “Grrr …”

Remove a GR from the word grudge and replace it with SL and you have the junk that grudge bearers trudge through. Sludge. Black, thick, ankle-deep resentment that steals the bounce from the step. No joyful skips through the meadows. No healthy hikes up the mountain. Just day after day of walking into the storm, shoulders bent against the wind, and feet dragging through all the muck life has delivered.

Is this the way you are coping with your hurts? Are you allowing your hurts to turn into hates? If so, ask yourself: Is it working? Has your hatred done you any good? Has your resentment brought you any relief, any peace? Has it granted you any joy?

Let’s say you get even. Let’s say you get him back. Let’s say she gets what she deserves. Let’s say your fantasy of fury runs its ferocious course and you return all your pain with interest. Imagine yourself standing over the corpse of the one you have hated. Will you now be free?

Max's words made me think of the time that I was going Geocaching in Tyler, Texas. If you are not familiar with Geocaching, It is a modern day treasure hunt powered by a GPS. I had found the geocache that I was searching for, and was finding my way back to my car when I got a bit lost. I had forgotten to put the coordinates of my cars location in the GPS, so I was just trying to remember my way back through the woods. I came into a brushy clearing and was trying to decide which way to go. There was an area that looked a bit wet and muddy, so I stepped carefully across it to avoid getting my shoes dirty. Imagine my surprise when the "solid" ground gave way, and I sank up to my armpits in stinky mucky quicksand. At first I was just angry that I was filthy, but then I started trying to get out and realized that I was in a serious predicament. Fortunately I was able to reach a small shrub than was strong enough for me to pull myself out.

I was now on the opposite side of the quicksand from where I needed to be and was trying to decide how to proceed. I layed out spread eagle and "swam" to the other side. It wasn't until I thought back on the experience as I was driving back to the condo that it dawned on me how much trouble I had actually been in. I was by myself, and my wife had no idea where I was. I never saw another person while I was out in the woods. As I was driving back I gave a special prayer of thanks to God for keeping me safe.

Holding a grudge is a lot like being in quicksand. When we hold a grudge, we just can't seem to get out of it's grasp. The more we think about it and struggle with it the more we sink, and the deeper we go. I really think that the only way we can get ourselves of the quicksand of holding a grudge is through the power of God. Paul writes in Ephesians 4:26,27 "don’t sin by letting anger gain control over you. Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil.

Don't give the Devil a mighty foothold by holding a grudge.

Rebekah's First Steps

2009-07-23T17:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Cynda told us that Rebekah had taken her first steps. I had selfishly hoped that she would take her first steps this weekend while she was here visiting us. I wanted to be there for that moment. It is still very exciting. I can hardly wait to see her, and see those steps for myself.

I remember when Autumn took her first steps. Gina and I were visiting in Baton Rouge. While we were there I had a very special time. Even though Autumn could take a few steps, what she really wanted to do was to hold my hand and walk.

She wanted to go outside and walk up and down the sidewalk holding on to one finger. Holding on to my finger she had all the confidence in the world and could walk for hours. One afternoon we spent an hour walking outside as fast as her little legs could go. I kept expecting her to get tired of it, but she wanted to keep going. If I even tried to walk toward the door of the house she wouldn’t go that way.

When we went inside after more than an hour of walking, she kept going to the door and pounding on it. She wanted to go back outside and walk some more. Because I was the one who would take her walking she wanted to spend a lot of her time with me.

I have always loved my granddaughter, but getting to spend so much time with her made me love her even more. Walking together made us both closer to each other. I think that there are a lot of parallels between her experience learning to walk, and our experience being born again. When we are born again we are baby Christians and we have to learn to walk spiritually.

God used that illustration in Hosea 11:3 where it says: I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms.

In many places in the Bible the idea of God helping us walk with Him are brought out. In Psalms 37:23,24 the Bible says: “ The steps of the godly are directed by the LORD. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will not fall, for the LORD holds them by the hand.” What a beautiful illustration of the Christian life. We are to walk with God and he has promised to hold our hand.

Do we learn to walk with God in the same way that we learned to walk as babies, by trial and error, standing across the room from our Father and taking wobbly footsteps towards Him as he calls to us from a distance "Come to Daddy," and falling down repeatedly as we try to get it right? God has a different plan for us.

Psalms 56:13 says “You have delivered my soul from death. You have kept my feet from falling, so I will walk with you in light among the living”. God doesn’t want you to fall. He wants you to hold his hand.

As parents we want our children to learn to take care of themselves; to stand on their own two feet, right? After all, you won't be there for them forever. They need to learn to take care of themselves. So from babyhood to adulthood we are continually learning how to take care of ourselves.

God's goals for us are very different. He is our Eternal father; He is always available to us. Instead of wanting us to become increasingly independent, He wants us to learn to be increasingly dependent on Him. He wants us to walk with Him, our hand in His. He doesn't want us taking off on our own two feet. I believe that as human beings this is one of our hardest lessons. Have you ever taken a walk on a busy street with a two year old? You point out to him the pretty gardens you are walking past; the beautiful flowers, the scampering squirrel, the pretty song bird; but he's not interested. He's too busy trying to pry free from your hold. He can't stand holding your hand. He's a big boy now. He wants to walk on his own.

We as Christians are often like that. Instead of clinging to our Father's hand, we have this tendency to take off on our own two feet. There are so many charming things that take our attention from Him. Sometimes we don't like the restrictions that holding His hand puts on our life. Some of those Bible principles cramp our style. Sometimes we let the cares of this world pull us away from Him, and instead of holding tighter to His hand, we let go.

Whenever we let go we inevitably fall down and hurt ourselves and then we sink into discouragement and we look to God and we say "Father, what's this all about? You know I love you and I don't want to disappoint you. How could you let this happen to me?" And He looks at us sadly and says "Child, you let go of my hand. You took off on your own. I am able to keep you from falling. Keep your hand in mine."

We don’t know what is before us. Our only safety is in walking with Christ, our hand in His.

Why?

2009-07-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the 7th anniversary of 9/11. It was an emotional day for many people. Most Americans can remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the awful news that airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center. I was at work when Gina called me to tell me what she was seeing on TV. I turned my radio on, and listened all day as the news reports came in. I think that most people wonder why God allowed something so terrible to happen.

Yesterday, I didn't think about that horrible day until I first wrote out the date. We never refer to that day as September 11, it is always 9/11. What struck me about yesterday was not so much remembering 9/11, as how many times someone talked to me about bad news in their life.

Wednesday evening we got a call from Adam and Felicia who live in San Pedro, Belize. Felicia has been very sick, and the local doctors have not been able to find out what is wrong. Yesterday they were traveling to Chetumal, Mexico to see a doctor there. Felicia is very frightened. She has been too sick to work, so has lost her job. The loss of income has put them in a financial bind. Gina prayed with Felicia over the phone. We hope to hear from them soon to find out what the doctor in Mexico said.

Yesterday my Fed-Ex driver shared with me the situation that his family is going through. Wednesday evening his brother in law was involved in a fatal one vehicle accident. He left behind a wife and 2 children. Now the wife is going to have to find a way to make a living and support herself and her children.

A small business owner that I deal with called me yesterday to let me know that he had to take a couple of days off to go to Little Rock for tests. His heart is giving him problems, and the doctors are talking about bypass surgery. His business is operated by just his wife and himself. He is afraid that he will lose his business.

A friend stopped by my shop to visit. He has gotten himself into some financial trouble. He had a signed contract on his house, and on the strength of that contract started building a new house. The contract fell through at the last minute, and now he fears that he will lose his house if he can't sell it soon.

All of these individuals are good Christian people. Why does God allow these things to happen. I think that is one of the biggest questions in Christianity.

There are many events that have caused people to ask, "why". I don't have the answers as to why so many tragedies happen. I do know that ever since sin came into this world through Satan there have been terrible tragedies. I suppose that Adam and Eve asked "why" when Cain killed his brother Abel.

The only promise that a Christian has in this life is that there will be trouble. Our trouble free existence will be in Heaven where God will wipe away all tears.

When a tragedy happens, God says ask your questions, but don't stop there. God has given a much greater opportunity. God challenges us to turn to Him for answers. God challenges us to argue with Him. God challenges us to trust Him explicitly.

Bad things happen in this world, to good people, and to bad people, although it seems like the good people get the worst. Murphy's law seems to be all too true. Why do bad things happen to good people? More specifically, why do bad things happen to me? God rarely answers that question. He would pour out only goodness on us all the
time, if He could, but because we live in a sinful world, He can't. Men have free will, and God will not override it.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Because we live in a sinful world. I know that's not the kind of answer we like, but there is no better answer available.

Once you have learned this and deepened your faith that God has everything under control, then maybe there is a better way to approach the bad things that happen. Don't ask "Why Me, Lord?" when something bad happens. Ask God how He wants you to respond, and then leave the consequences in His hands.

It is all in the response. God can always bring good out of bad, but He needs us to cooperate with Him to bring out the greatest good. This is why Paul can say "Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice." Rejoice when good things happen, rejoice when bad things happen, because we can trust God to do what is for our
eternal best.

What Matters Most

2009-07-23T17:32:00.000-07:00

What matters most to you? On the surface, this would seem an easy question. To some of us it is whether our favorite sports team does well. That the political candidate we favor will win. That our children do well in school and make us proud--and are happy. Whether God is pleased with us. Whether we have left our mark, however small or subtle, upon the human race.

As a Christian, I knew that for me what matters most is “God”, or at least it should be. But “God” is such a big subject, that surely there is a way to be more concise.

One day an expert in time management was speaking to a group of business students and to drive home a point he used an illustration those students will never forget. As he stood in front of high-powered over-achievers he said, “Okay, time for a quiz.” He picked up a one gallon, wide mouth Mason jar and set it on the table in front of him. Then he took some fist-sized rocks and placed them one by one in the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and he could fit in no more rocks he asked, “Is this jar full?” Everyone in the class said “yes.” He said, “Really?”

He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in, shook the jar, causing the pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. Then he asked them once more, “Is this jar full?” By this time, the class was on to him. “Probably not.” one of the students said.

He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar and it went into all the spaces that were left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, “Is this jar full?” “No.” the class shouted and he said, “Good.”

Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was full to the brim. Then the expert in time management looked at the class and asked, “What’s the point of this illustration?” One eager beaver raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule is if you try really hard you can always fit more things in to it.”

“No.” said the speaker. “That is not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is this—If you don’t put the big rocks in first you will never get them in at all.”

What are the big rocks in your life? Your children, your religion, your loved ones, your education, your dreams, a worthy cause, teaching or mentoring others, doing things that you love, your health, your spouse?

Remember to put these big rocks in first or you will never get them in at all. If you sweat the little stuff, the gravel, the sand, you will fill your life with little worries that don’t really matter. You will never have the real quality time that you need to spend on the big stuff.

What is the biggest rock of all? What matters most? In Matthew 22:36-38 we read, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

What matters most in life is love. The Apostle John tells us in 1John 4:16 “We have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

Love should be your top priority, primary objective, and greatest ambition. Love is not just something good in your life; it’s the most important part. Love should be what matters most.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 14:1 To let love be your highest goal. It’s not enough to say “One of the things I want in life is to be loving” as if it’s in your top ten list. Loving relationships must have priority in your life above everything else. Let love be your highest goal. Why? Because life without love is really worthless.

Paul makes this point in Corinthians 13:2,3 “I may have the gift of prophecy. I may understand all the secret things of God and have all knowledge, and I may have faith so great I can move mountains. But even with all these things, if I do not have love, then I am nothing. I may give away everything I have to the poor, and I may even give my body as an offering to be burned. But if I didn’t love others, I would be of no value whatsoever.”

Mother Teresa said, “It’s not what you do, but how much love you put into it that matters.”

Barbara Bush said, “What matters most is how you treat others and not what you have done”.

It is not enough just to say that love is important, we must prove it by investing time in our relationships with God and people.

Shelter From The Storm

2009-07-23T17:29:00.000-07:00

Labor Day weekend my wife and I spent visiting our daughter in Baton Rouge. We had a wonderful time with our granddaughters. Unfortunately we had to cut our visit short because of Hurricane Gustav. As we made plans for the trip we were keeping an eye on the weather reports. At first it looked like we would be fine if we left Monday morning, but Gustav sped up, and we had to leave Sunday morning instead.

As we made our way home we were caught up in heavy traffic as 2 million people were evacuating South Louisiana. Why were so many people leaving? Today with satellites and television we have warning when a hurricane is coming. It wasn't always that way. Years ago weather forecasters had no way of knowing what was happening out in the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico, unless a ship captain relayed storm information. Many hurricanes caught people completely unprepared.

With the information that is available today, people have several days to prepare for a storm. When people receive warning of a storm they have two options. They can evacuate, or they can prepare. The reason that there were so many people on the crowded roads of Louisiana was that they had chosen to evacuate ahead of Gustav. They were looking for shelter from the storm.

There are storms in life that we should run from. About 2 million people ran from Hurricane Gustav when authorities asked people to evacuate. There are times in life when we can take ourselves out of harm's way. But sometimes we can't. There are those storms that we have no control over.

Take the case of Chippie the Parakeet. The problems began when Chippie's owner decided to clean Chippie's cage with a vacuum cleaner. She removed the attachment from the end of the hose and stuck it in the cage. The phone rang, and she turned to pick it up. She'd barely said "hello" when "ssssopp!" Chippie got sucked in.

The bird owner gasped, put down the phone, turned off the vacuum cleaner, and opened the bag. There was Chippie - still alive, but stunned.

Since the bird was covered with dust, hair and all the stuff you find in a dust bag, she grabbed him and raced to the bathroom, turned on the tap, and held Chippie under the running water. Then, realizing that Chippie was soaked and shivering, she did what any compassionate bird owner would do . . . she reached for the hair dryer and blasted the pet with hot air. Poor Chippie never knew what hit him.

A few days after the trauma, a friend who had heard about Chippie's troubles contacted his owner to see how the bird was recovering. "Well," she replied, "Chippie doesn't sing much anymore - he just sits and stares."

Who can blame him? Sucked in, washed up, and blown over . . . That's enough to steal the song from the strongest heart. Things happen in our lives that come along unexpectedly and we end up feeling a bit like Chippie - sucked in, washed up, and blown over – the song stolen from the stongest of hearts.

How can you deal with those kinds of storms? You can't evacuate. You can't run away from them. But you can prepare for them. How can we prepare for the storms of life? First thing to do is to look for shelter. Many homes in Arkansas have a tornado shelter. Our home doesn't, but we have a downstairs hallway with no windows that we use as a shelter in bad weather.

Where can we find shelter when the storms of life overwhelm us? In Psalms 46:1-3,11 the Bible tells us "God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear, even if earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. Let the oceans roar and foam. Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge! The LORD Almighty is here among us; the God of Israel is our fortress.

What a beautiful promise. God is our refuge. God is our shelter. He hasn't promised to shield us from every storm. But he tells us that he will always be with us so we don't have to fear.

The 3-year old felt secure in his father's arms as Daddy stood in the middle of the pool. But Daddy, for fun, began walking slowly toward the deep end. As the water rose higher and higher on the child, the boy's face registered increasing degrees of panic, as he held all the more tightly to his father, who, of course, easily touched the bottom. Had the little boy been able to analyze his situation, he'd have realized there was no reason for increased anxiety. The water's depth in any part of the pool was over his head. Even in the shallowest part, had he not been held up, he'd have drowned. His safety anywhere in that pool depended on his Daddy. At various points in our lives, all of us feel we're getting "out of our depth" -- problems abound, a job is lost, someone dies. Our temptation is to panic, for we feel we've lost control. Yet, as with the boy in the pool, the truth is we've never been in control. We've always been held up by the grace of God, our Daddy, and that does not change. God is never out of his depth, and therefore we're safe when we're "going deeper" than we've ever been.

Remember that there is no storm that is too big for our Father. Psalms 18:2 tells us "The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust"