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April 6, 2018

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Attitudes & Behavior, Challenges & Difficulty, Church & Worship, Family, Friends & Fellowship, Nature, Sharing Our Faith, Wisdom & Guidance

DOWN BUT NOT OUT

Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. … Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith. [Galatians 6:2,10 (NLT)]

damaged cypress trees - corkscrew swampHurricane Irma did quite a number on our southwest Florida bird sanctuary. Unfortunately, much of the boardwalk was damaged (some of it beyond repair) and there were several casualties among the trees, including two 100-foot cypress trees that proudly stood for over 400 years. Like them, many smaller trees were uprooted and now lie dead on the forest floor. Irma’s high winds did some violent and cruel pruning as it stripped bark, tore off branches, and splintered mature trees as if they were mere matchsticks. Cypress trees that were over 40-feet tall are now little more than stumps. Nevertheless, trees I thought were goners are recovering and greening up; new foliage is emerging out of their fractured tops and sides. In spite of the incredible damage they suffered, their roots still support and feed them with life giving water and they’re surviving. They may be down but they’re certainly not out.

I thought of the storms we endure in our lives; while some may be no worse than a noisy thunderstorm, others can be as devastating as a hurricane. Age and size certainly can’t keep us from falling. Nevertheless, the storm couldn’t defeat all of the trees and the setbacks and storms of life don’t have to defeat us. Like the damaged cypress trees with their new growth, we can stay rooted, survive and even thrive.

We do that through the church. Just as roots aren’t optional for trees, the church really isn’t an option for the Christian. I’m not talking about a building or a specific denomination; I’m speaking of a community of believers who belong to Christ and are bound together by both the gospel and the presence of the Holy Spirit. The church is what supports us when we start to fall, grounds us when we falter, and nurtures us with living water when we’ve been weakened.

God revealed himself to mankind when he became incarnate as Jesus Christ. As Christ’s followers, we reveal Him to mankind through the church—the church actually is Christ incarnate. As His hands and feet, heart and voice, we are the ones who keep, support, encourage, lift and comfort the broken and bruised. We are the ones who provide the nourishment and water that allow the damaged to grow and blossom once again. Like a tree that supports another one or the roots that ground and nourish it, the living breathing church is what makes it possible for our brothers and sisters to say, “I may be down, but I’m not out!”

 

All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it. [1 Corinthians 12:27 (NLT)]

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April 5, 2018

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Bible Stories, Forgiveness, Nature, Obedience, Sorrow, Grief & Regrets, Temptation & Sin, Today: Make it Count, Wisdom & Guidance

PAYING THE PRICE

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. [Galatians 6:7 (NLT)]

osprey“It wasn’t worth it!” I grumbled while applying cortisone over four painful red bumps on my foot. When walking around the lake at the botanic gardens, I’d spotted an osprey in a nearby tree. To get a good shot, I had to step off the paved trail into what I knew to be fire ant territory. Having had previous encounters with these stinging insects, I knew better than to stand there in sandals, but I did it anyway; the picture wasn’t worth the price I was paying for my poor decision.

It’s not just fire ants that cause us to regret our poor choices. Wanting to sow his wild oats, the prodigal son enjoyed himself while recklessly spending his inheritance but, when the hungry young man was slopping pigs, he knew his wild living hadn’t been worth it. Adam and Eve (and the rest of mankind) paid a hefty price for a bite of an apple: banishment from Eden, painful childbirth, marital discord, toil and death. I wonder if David thought adultery worth the price he paid: his first son by Bathsheba died, he was humiliated when Absalom publicly took his wives, and violence and rebellion plagued his family. King Manasseh knew better than to build pagan shrines, sacrifice his own children, and place a carved idol in the temple. The price he paid was being led away to Babylon in bronze chains with a ring in his nose. Fortunately for him, Manasseh was given a second chance by God; not everyone is so lucky. Lot’s wife had been warned; was that last look at Sodom worth the price she paid? Then again, as a pillar of salt, she could gaze at the city’s ruins forever.

After nearly 3000 prescription pills were found in her possession, a sheriff’s deputy in a northern community pled guilty to “attempted possession of a controlled substance.” Punishable by up to a year in prison, she was sentenced to seven days in jail and a year of “conditional discharge.” Less restrictive than probation, conditional discharge means the court retains jurisdiction over her with several provisions including drug and alcohol evaluations, no employment where she might have access to drugs, and no use or possession of a firearm. Since the original charge was negotiated down from felony possession (meaning four to fifteen years in prison), most of us would think she got off easy. Apparently expecting probation with no jail or restrictions, the defendant was shocked by what she considered a harsh sentence. As a deputy, she couldn’t plead ignorance of the law or its consequences; nevertheless, she thought the price she paid too high. My study Bible speculated that had David known the cost of his sin, he might not have bedded another man’s wife. I disagree. As a king, David knew the law given in Leviticus: the punishment for adultery was death for both he and Bathsheba! Like the deputy, he knew the consequences and like her, he got off easy.

Stepping onto an ant hill has painful consequences but so does sin. The penalty I paid for that photo was negligible compared to the cost of many of our poor decisions. When choosing between right and wrong, the price we pay can be far greater and longer lasting than a few insect bites. Although Jesus paid the price for our sins on the cross and God promises forgiveness when we repent, we still have to face the consequences of our sins here on earth. We, however, are not the ones who get to pick and choose what those consequences will be nor do we get to complain and say, “But God, it wasn’t worth it!”

Temptation can be tormenting, but remember: The torment of temptation to sin is nothing to compare with the torment of the consequences of sin. Remorse and regret cannot compensate for sin….though sins can be forgiven immediately – the consequences can last a lifetime. [Edwin Louis Cole]

No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong. [Hebrews 12:11-13 (NLT]

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April 3, 2018

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Bible Stories, Faith & Hope, God's Grace & Love, God's Plan, God's Promises, Holidays & Holy Days, Miracles

THE EMPTY TOMB

You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! [Mark 16:6 (NLT)]

empty tomb - north naples churchYesterday I mentioned the wooden cross and rustic nail on my desk that serve as reminders of the terrible price Jesus paid for our salvation. Although early Christian symbols included a dove, ship, lyre, anchor, and fish, the cross has become the universal symbol for Christianity. While Coca-Cola’s logo, Nike’s swish and McDonald’s golden arches may come close, I doubt there is any so recognizable sign in the world. Nevertheless, a gruesome instrument of Roman torture seems an odd symbol for a faith that preaches such things as reconciliation, sacrifice, forgiveness, hope, love, and peace. While I’d never wear a miniature gallows, guillotine, or electric chair on a chain around my neck, I do wear a cross. Although it symbolizes everything that happened to Jesus on that dark Friday two thousand years ago, the cross would be meaningless if the tomb had not been empty Sunday morning.

As we walked out of worship service on Easter morning, we came upon a large replica of a stone tomb. The boulder that had covered its opening since Friday was rolled away and it was empty except for some linen cloth resting on a ledge. Like the women who came early that first Easter morning (and Peter and John who arrived later), a few curious children entered the tomb. No angel was there to reassure them, but they didn’t need one. They’d come from Sunday school and know the Easter story well. At worship services, they’ve joined their parents in saying: “Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.” Rather than frighten them, that dark empty tomb reassured them of Jesus’s continual presence in their lives.

Jesus’s death upon the cross is important but it is His rising from the dead that demonstrates triumph over evil, sin, hate, and death. It is the empty tomb that allows us to say these words in the Apostle’s Creed: “I believe in Jesus Christ…[who] was crucified, died and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again… I believe in…the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”

Out of curiosity, I searched the stock of several Christian supply stores using the word “tomb.” There were plenty of books, choral collections, CDs, and songs with “tomb” in the title, some Easter stickers depicting an empty tomb, and even a “Raiders of the Empty Tomb” kit, but there were no empty tomb t-shirts, paper weights, jewelry, or wall décor. Apparently, there is no danger of an empty tomb replacing the cross as the universal symbol of Christianity. Nevertheless, when we see a cross, let us never forget that the story of God’s love for us did not end at Golgotha. It didn’t even end with the empty tomb three days later. The story of God’s presence, grace and love continues today.

Christians do not believe in the empty tomb, but in the living Christ. [Karl Barth]

So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back. [1 Corinthians 15:21-23 (NLT)]

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April 2, 2018

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Church & Worship, Faith & Hope, Forgiveness, God's Grace & Love, God's Plan, Holidays & Holy Days, Miracles, Salvation: A New You

GONE IN A FLASH – EASTER MONDAY

And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him. [Hebrews 9:27-28 (NLT)]

Zermatt - Switzerland - crossAfter warning us not to put them in our pockets and accidentally take them home (or put them in the dryer if we did), small pieces of paper were given to everyone in attendance at last week’s Good Friday service. Following the sermon, we were asked to write a sin (or sins) for which we repent on the papers, come forward, and nail them to a cross resting on the steps before the altar. Listening to the hammering echoing in the sanctuary, I thought of what it must have sounded like two thousand years ago when Jesus and the others were hammered to their crosses: the loud pounding of the hammers, the commotion of the crowd, the mockery of the soldiers, and the cries of agony from the men as those blunt tipped nails pierced their bodies.

Those slips of paper were made of nitrocellulose; often used by magicians, they are commonly known as flash papers. Once we’d nailed our papers to the cross, the pastor ignited them and they instantly disappeared in a brilliant display of fire. Nothing, neither smoke nor ash, was left of them. What a powerful illustration of the way Jesus’s blood, shed on the cross as those nails were hammered into Him, made our sins disappear forever.

Next to the small olive wood cross on my desk, I now have a three-inch square-cut nail, a souvenir from Good Friday’s service. The cross, with its distinctive grain, artistic shape, and smooth finish, is so beautiful that it’s easy to forget it represents an instrument of torture. The dark rustic nail beside it will better remind me of the sacrifice Jesus made for all of us. Paying the price for our sins, His death brought us back into fellowship with God the Father. After the joy of Resurrection Sunday, however, it’s easy to forget the magnitude of that sacrifice until Lent rolls around next year. Let us never forget the miracle of forgiveness that occurred when a suffering bleeding and totally sinless Jesus endured torture and death for the forgiveness of our sins.

He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned human being. He has purchased and freed me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. [Martin Luther]

Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit. [1 Peter 3:18 (NLT)]

Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us. [Ephesians 2:18 (NLT)]

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March 26, 2018

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, Church & Worship, Family, Friends & Fellowship, Love & Works, Obedience

HONOR THY FAMILY

mute swans and cygnetsThey [the Pharisees] asked him, “Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat.” Jesus replied, “And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God?” [Matthew 15:1b-3 (NLT)]

When the Pharisees asked Jesus why his disciples ignored tradition and didn’t wash their hands before eating, theirs was not a sanitation or health question. Rather than dirt, they were concerned about defilement. More interested in washing their hands than purifying their hearts, they believed hands could become ritually unclean even by touching someone as “unclean” as a Gentile or tax collector. Eating with unwashed hands meant that the sinner’s impurity was passed to the food which would defile the person eating it. Some Pharisees even considered eating with unwashed hands as sinful as sex with a prostitute. Although Salmonella and E. coli can be passed along on someone’s hands to their food, someone’s sins certainly can’t.

Jesus responded to their question with one of His own when He asked the Pharisees why they violated God’s commandments. After all, breaking a man-made tradition is hardly the same as breaking one of God’s direct commands. The Pharisees had a tradition called korban (meaning “a gift” or “offering”).  When a korban vow was made, the Pharisee transferred all of his assets to the temple but retained the use of them until his death (sort of a “life estate”). Those assets could not be transferred or used to benefit anyone else. As a result, while the Pharisee could live quite comfortably, he could not help the poor, disadvantaged or even his parents. The commandment they were neglecting was the fifth one—that of honoring one’s father and mother. A wealthy Pharisee’s parents could be in dire financial straits and yet he could self-righteously ignore their pleas for help. As so often happened with the Pharisees, they supplanted God’s command of honoring parents with a law that gave them prestige and honored only them!

Willing to neglect their family responsibilities in the name of religion, the Pharisees had misplaced priorities. I thought of them when one of our pastors proposed we ask ourselves what things we value the most, in what order we put them, and how we allot our resources to them. He then shared his experience of being called into a council meeting at another church several years ago. When questioned about the amount of time he gave the church, his response was that he lost one family when he put the church first and he was not about to lose his new one the same way. Family would always come before the church. Note—he didn’t say God but “the church” and there can be a big difference between the two.

In effect, the Pharisees put the church or religion before both God and family. If we look at those Ten Commandments, the first four have to do with our relationship with God; the rest have to do with our relationship to other people and parents are at the top of that list. It would seem that, after God, our next priority should be family; after all, once done with creation, God created the family unit (and not the church).

While we probably won’t pledge our entire estate to the church while watching our parents lose their homes or beg on the street, I wonder if, as our pastor once did, we occasionally misplace our priorities. Do we allow our church responsibilities to overshadow our family ones? There are lots of worthy causes and, sometimes, we’re torn as to where to put our resources. While we’re never too busy for God, God work and church work aren’t always the same; there is a fine line between the two. Although I don’t pretend to know where it is, I think the Holy Spirit will let us know when we’ve crossed it. The Pharisees turned a deaf ear to the needs of their families; we must never do the same.

If God cared only about religious activities, then the Pharisees would have been heroes of the faith. [Francis Chan]

But those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers. [1 Timothy 5:8 (NLT)]

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March 22, 2018

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Bible Stories, God's Grace & Love, God's Plan, God's Word: The Bible, Knowing Him, Trusting God

GOD’S GOVERNMENT

Mt. RushmoreThe Lord does whatever pleases him throughout all heaven and earth, and on the seas and in their depths. [Psalm 135:6 (NLT)]

You will be secure under a government that is just and fair. Your enemies will stay far away. You will live in peace, and terror will not come near. [Isaiah 54:14 (NLT)]

Every nation has some system of government and I wonder what system is used in God’s Kingdom. Since He doesn’t govern by committee or with a privileged ruling class, it isn’t an oligarchy or an aristocracy. He is a King, has a Kingdom, and can exercise absolute power, yet His is not a monarchy. His power didn’t come from conquest or birthright, no one gave Him the crown, and no royal scion will follow Him; His reign always has been and forever will be. With all those Old Testament rules, perhaps His is a dictatorship, albeit a benevolent one, in which God exercises absolute power for the good of the population as a whole. That sort of rule, however, would be a one-size-fits-all government. A God who has numbered the hairs on our heads and written our names on his hand knows that one size can never fit all of his unique children.

God’s Kingdom isn’t like our nation, a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” with its three branches of government and the checks and balances that come with it. In God’s government, all three branches are rolled into one; He makes the rules, implements them, and decides how they are to be interpreted. There’s no need for checks and balances; God can’t step over the boundaries because He has none. His reign is not dependent upon re-election or approval rating, the majority does not rule, His word is law, and the only being God needs to please is Himself. He didn’t consult with Adam and Eve about the forbidden fruit rule nor with Sodom and Gomorrah about their destruction. The Ten Commandments were not created in committee, voted on by the Israelites, ratified by Moses or tested by an Israelite court. God doesn’t need our advice, consent, or support to make the sun rise or set. Clearly, He runs neither democracy nor republic.

With any sort of earthly government, the ruler’s power is limited to his life span and his nation’s border. God’s power, however, is unlimited. He is the eternal Sovereign God over the entire universe. His is a never-ending government of love, forgiveness, righteousness, peace and justice. Unlike other forms of government, His is truthful, dependable, and free of any corruption or bureaucracy. I don’t think there is a word that describes God’s reign except, perhaps, “perfect.” After all, God is God and we are not.

For the Lord is our judge, our lawgiver, and our king. He will care for us and save us. [Isaiah 33:22 (NL)]

May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. [Matthew 6:9 NLT)]

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