… But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”  ~ Joshua 24:15
 

            Every day we are faced with choices to make. Some of us like making decisions and some of us run from making decisions in our lives. We are faced with choices in how we are going to spend our time, money, educational goals, etc. that one day will make up the sum of our life. One day all of us will look back and see what kind of life we lived based on the culmination of choices we made throughout our lives. This is important to remember because it is in this thought that often forces us to reconsider what choices we are making. The choices we make today create the legacy we leave behind tomorrow.

            In Scripture, Joshua made a declaration that as for he and his household they were going to choose to serve the Lord. In the context of this verse he was giving the people an ultimatum of going back to their old ways and serving foreign deities or making a conscious decision to serve the only living God that brought them out of Egypt. So here is the question for us today? What god are you serving in your life? Is it the god of self or is it the only living God? I’ve noticed in my own life that when I choose to serve the living Lord that I am proud of the decisions that I make in doing so. Our choices are derivative of whom we serve in our hearts. May I encourage all of us to serve Jesus.

2 Co 5:6–9

⁶ So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord— ⁷ for we walk by faith, not by sight. ⁸ Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. ⁹ So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.^[1]

The great confidence we can have in and through our faith in Christ, should bring a level of peace and stability in unknowing times. When fears arise, faith should address it. When doubts arise, faith should ground us. Even when death shows up on our doorstep, we should celebrate amidst our grief because we have hope that we do not walk by sight, but by faith, and we know that when we are absent from our bodies, we are at home with the Lord.

            This kind of confidence is not in ourselves but in the One who made us this promise; that He will bring us to Himself because He has made a place for us with Him. (John 14) But notice how, in this confidence given by our faith, the Apostle Paul reveals what our aim should be. Whether in the body or away, our aim should be to please the Lord. Because we live in such a confidence of faith we should make our aim, our life’s goal, to be pleasing to the Lord, so that He is glorified by our life of faith; we exemplify in Him. Take courage believer, whether here or there, whether in the body or away, whether on Earth or in Heaven, God’s got this!

^[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (2 Co 5:6–9). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

6/2/22

The sadness of the Uvalde event last week prevails into this week regarding the catastrophic display of evil when innocent lives were lost to a senseless act. Many, particularly the politicians who seem to be in the hot seat of responsibility and decision-making, are scrambling to fix a problem that has been a long time coming in our culture. We can’t fix it overnight because the issues leading up to these events weren’t created overnight. Many want to point to this or to that as the issue or the real problem concerning it all, but the fruit of the problem doesn’t address the root of the problem. The root of the problem isn’t guns, knives, sticks or stones, but rather a condition of the heart of America. I’m stunned and shocked that we react the way we do, as these godless acts are happening more and more frequent in America when we, as a nation and as a culture, are moving more and more in the direction of a godless society. If we don’t like the fruits of what we harvest, we might reconsider the seeds we are sowing.

Consider TV in the last fifty years has gone from shows with a moral implication or story to them, such as the Andy Griffith show, to the circus displayed on TV called “Reality” TV. Well, if the clowns displayed on these Reality TV shows are in fact reality, don’t be shocked with the circus sets up. We are so hypocritical as a nation, because we continually feed the dog that is biting us while at the same time saying the problem is that the dog has teeth rather than consider it is the behavior the dog has grown to learn by how it was raised. Common sense must once again become common. If that is to be the case, we must stop calling good, evil, and calling evil, good. I leave you this week with a verse from the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans, “Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.” Romans 12:21 NLT Go plant some seeds of goodness so that in twenty years we as a nation will reap its fruit.

5/25/22

The events this week regarding the tragedy of the school shooting in Uvalde is beyond words. Hearts are broken. Dreams destroyed. We are all at a loss and mourn with the community. So what do we say or how do we respond to events such as these regarding violence and evil of any kind in our world? Sometimes we must recognize our words are not enough and only our presence can speak for us.

Too many times I’ve heard people want to respond with “It’s going to be alright…etc.” When it will never be alright having to deal with such a tragedy. So, how would Jesus respond? Well, in John 11 there is an account where Jesus lost a dear friend to death and the friend’s two sisters came and inquired of Jesus that if He had been there, it wouldn’t have happened. It was the age-old question of “If God, why evil.” Now in this short article I wouldn’t be able to give any sort of address to that part of the question for the sake of the size of this article, but I will share that Jesus responded to the two sisters differently. Martha needed an intellectual response and Jesus gave the famous verse which reads, “I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me they will live even though they die. Do you believe this?” But Mary, the second sister, wasn’t at the same place in her grief that Martha was, and Jesus must have perceived this within Mary. Instead of giving her an intellectual answer Jesus became Mary’s emotional companion and cried with her.

Later the Scripture reads that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead which Christ will do for all believers in the end. This give us hope for the future, but if Jesus is God then this passage reveals God will meet us where we are and give us the answers we need when we need them, either intellectual or simply be our emotional companion.

We live in a time of the outlandish. It seems society has turned into a total shock factor for the sake of grabbing attention. Manners and morals have been left and lost in Antique stores of the long distant past while emotional reactiveness from the White House to the doghouse wreaks havoc on the tempest of our day. The Andy Griffith days of TV with a purpose and principle, or moral to the story, have turned into drama shows we call reality TV which many in our country are adapting into their own lives played out on Tik-Tok. Society seems so loud these days and hate and division is everywhere one looks. Can we recover?

We must return to the reality of absolute truth. Truth is not perspective, not feeling, not an agenda, but simply the way reality works independent of ourselves. We must return to logic to help us navigate the way reality works rather than trying to manipulate reality though the emotional and delusional. We must return to a God-centered world and way of thinking instead of a Me-centered society that implodes further with each social media post.Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. ³² And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” ^[1]Truth is the key to freedom at any level, and as believers we must remain faithful to the teachings of Christ over and above what the world says is true. If we are ever to reclaim influence as Salt & Light (Mt 5) over our society we must keep the truth of Jesus and His teachings the center of our very existence, otherwise, we are only experiencing a suburb of Hell with more yet to come.

5/2/22

This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day. A time to celebrate the beautiful ladies that brought us into the world. Sadly, for many it is not a time of celebration but of heartache either because one’s mother is no longer with them, or the memories of childhood were not that great regarding their mother. So, Mother’s Day, like Father’s Day, can be a holiday of mixed feelings. If you did not by chance grow up with a healthy mother then know you are in my prayers this Sunday.

Whatever our background tends to be, I hope this Mother’s Day we can celebrate what God meant mothers to be in the first place, a place of love, nurture, and guidance. If Satan has done anything well in our culture, he has certainly been successful at undermining the family and the importance of parenthood. Both parents, not only mothers, need prayers from a community to help raise their children with Christ centered values and with a faith that is ever expanding as they see faith lived out in the home. Often people say that kids are different these days, but they aren’t. Kids are the same as they have always been, but the environment we raise our kids in from society to the home looks a whole lot different than it used to be. This Sunday my encouragement is to pray for all the mothers out there and celebrate the godly teaching your mother gave you or what you as a mother can give your children. I can honestly say my mother was the most instrumental person in my life in helping me come to faith. She planted the seed that lead to my conversion and has helped water my faith in its growth along the way.

Psalms 56:3-4

But when I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. I praise God for what he has promised. I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me?

Is it hard for you to trust? Trust can be very difficult for any of us especially if someone has abused our trust. Trust can be something that takes a while to build back up if someone has hurt us before. Yet, trust is an important part of any relationship because it allows us not to solely to depend on ourselves.

We have to admit we can’t do it all, therefore, whether we like it or not we need others in the experience of life. When we don’t trust those who can be trusted we teach ourselves to isolate and fear begins to dominate. We also cheat ourselves from what others can offer our lives. The building of any relationship depends on our willingness to trust another. So how do we learn to trust?

To learn to trust involves the character of those we wish to trust. Because trust involves dependence upon another we need to make sure they are trustworthy through the character they have. Inspecting a person’s character is like inspecting the legs of a chair. We do so to make sure it can be depended on when pressure is involved. Second, to build trust also involves forgiveness. We may need to forgive those who have broken our trust before to give them a second chance as God has given us a second chance. Third, trust depends on grace. God has given us grace when we broke His trust so we must give grace to others who may break our trust. Any person will fail you at some point. It is inevitable because we are humans who sin. It is not always the other persons intention to break our trust so we must also be willing to show grace as others have had to show with us. The safest One to trust is God because He has the safest character of all, gives grace when we fail, and He never sins against us. May we learn to repair trust in others as we learn to trust Him.

Do you ever think you get in the way of God’s work? Well, whether we think it or not, the answer is yes for all of us at times. We all get in the way of God and what His purposes are for our lives and the work He is doing around us.

Sunday, April 10^th, is what is known as Palm Sunday. It is when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey at the beginning of Passover week, and everyone came out to see the Lord Jesus and placed palm leaves and cloaks on the road as He rode by. They were crying “Hosanna” and singing His praises. After He rode into town, He went straight to the Temple complex, and it is then that the famous event of running folks out of the Temple came to be. Jesus saw the wickedness of the religious leaders as they distorted the mission of the Temple for their own personal game. Jesus infamously said after making a whip and running the people out, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it into a den of thieves.” What was happening was the religious leaders had placed their agendas over God’s agenda. They were making it about personal gain, and the Temple was a house of prayer, in other words a place of personal fellowship with God.

So the question for us today is when we gather as God’s community, do we gather for personal fellowship with God among His people, or do we gather, with ourselves in mind, looking for what we can get verses what we can give? This is an important question we all must answer, otherwise, we are like the religious leaders of Jesus day getting in the way of what God wants to with His people.

Matthew 28:18-20 (NLT)

Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations,^[a] baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

The Church, according to the Scripture, is a family of faith where forgiven sinners rejoice in the grace given them in Jesus, and who seek to follow Christ authentically in their daily lives. Now are all Christians living that way? No! But that is what the Church is designed to be. For those who maybe skeptics, as I have been, make sure you don’t confuse Christians for Christ. Christians may do you wrong because we are still a work in progress, but Christ is the One to seek because He can fill your hearts to overflowing.

            Jesus, before returning to Heaven, gave a very famous statement regarding what His church was to be about in the future. It is called the Great Commission. It is called The Great Commission because

            1) It is given to us by Jesus

            2) It is an invitation to work with Jesus not just for Jesus.

            Jesus is at work through the lives of obedient believers who are surrendered to Him. He wants us to be partners in His work. We are to be about telling others the Good News that is in Jesus such that in Jesus forgiveness of any and all sins can be obtained, that a new beginning for life can be received, and an eternal hope and future given by placing faith in the Risen Lord. Also, we are to be teaching, applying and implementing Christ’s teachings in our daily lives and decisions. We are to be lights of hope in a dark world, and messengers of grace so that as we await His return may His will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

James 4:14 NLT

How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow?
Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.

 Have you ever heard someone say, “Man, that hit me like a ton of bricks!”? The death of a loved one, someone prominent in the community, a public figure, etc. can hit us just in the same way. Death is the final absolute of this life that each of us must face. Death is a reminder, an awful reminder, of the brevity and mortality of life. As I write this article, I am also preparing a funeral message to be given tomorrow which makes my thoughts fresh on the subject. Here are few words that come to mind this morning.

 First of all, the word Brevity comes to mind. Life is short and the older we get the shorter life gets. As Gus McCrae once stated in Lonesome Dove, “Life is short. Shorter for some than others.” We never know how long or short our lives will be. We must live with contrasts everyday realizing that today can bring so much promise and adventure, but it also may be the last day you get out of your bed.

Second, the word Investment comes to mind. What are you investing your life in today? Do they have any ultimate value? Invest in eternal things where they may be enjoyed forever. Such things as relationship with God, family, your children, etc. not things that will pass away.

Finally, the word Reflection comes to mind. Each day it is a good idea to reflect over life and the day we just lived. In recovery circles Step 10 of the Twelve Steps is one of reflection and personal inventory. When is the last time you slowed down in your life to reflect. Reflect on the good things and let your mind ponder on the gifts God has given you such as the very last breath you just took. Tomorrow isn’t promised so thank God for the life he has given and the opportunity to live it.