“Boys! Settle down! Come over here. Stop bothering your brother and listen.”
“Yes father,” they replied in unison jostling each other as they sit at his feet.
“Remember the stories I’ve been telling you?” The father replied.
“Yes, father”
“Boys it’s so important that you remember. Carry these stories with you and remember them always. You will tell your children these stories so that our identity as a people will never be forgotten.”
“Father, tell us about the animals” one replied.
“No. NO! I want to hear about the fruit and flowers in the garden.” The other one yelled.
“Okay boys settle down” the man chuckled, “I will tell you both, because it was a wonderful time, a time that will live in my mind as both joy and deep sorrow.
Everything was perfect. Your mother and I would awaken every morning with an incomparable joy, we loved each other, and we loved our home. It was a time of peace and happiness, we had no worry and everything we needed was provided without work or effort.
Once upon a time a man lived in a little village that was overrun with skunks. This man was a good hunter and trapper and knew how to entice the skunks into cages. People would ask him to come and remove the skunks that denned up under their houses. He became known as the “SKUNKMAN”! He eventually charged a small fee for his services and most people were happy to pay him to take away the odorous little creatures.
One day, after removing the fifth skunk from a home, the homeowner asked what would happen if he didn’t pay. The SKUNKMAN said he put captured skunks into little cages and gave his clients thirty days to pay. If on the thirty- first day he had not received his money, all the skunks he had collected from under the non-payers home would be returned to the front porch. Needless to say, this policy was seldom enforced.
Our sins are like skunks, they seem to hang around and stink. Satan likes to bring them back to our door, over and over and over. He wants to shove our faces into our mistakes and shortcomings. He wants to keep us captive, ruminating over old failures. It is one of Satan’s biggest tricks, to get people to despair and think there is no way they can be “good enough” to be acceptable to God. The good news is that the price of our “skunkey” sins are paid for by the blood of the Son of God, Jesus Christ! Satan cannot bring back our sins for payment, they have been paid, in full!
“ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
“…and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” I John. 1:7
I grew up in a time when church frequently included special gospel meetings that featured a guest preacher imploring over the course of a week to get right and reap the rewards of heaven or certainly go to hell. Night after night the message and volume would escalate until a satisfactory number had responded to avoid the punishment of hell.
As a result, my upbringing most of my Christian life has been spent figuring out what “get right” means. My relationship with God was shallowly based on a set of rules based more in the tradition of my recent ancestors than the Word and Spirit. It took a couple of family tragedies and a tour to combat for me to reevaluate and search for a deeper foundation [Christ] for my relationship.
The struggles of my God relationship search came flooding back as I read Daniel Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us in which he presents a compelling case for a deeper method of personal, peer, and subordinate motivation. I was struck with how closely the history of motivation parallels the Bible story and my story.
H. Belloc, in his essay, “The Little Old Man”, said, “ that of everything which runs or creeps upon earth, man is the fullest of sorrow”. Sometimes, the events of life send Belloc’s observation about sorrow cascading deep into our psyches. We may feel overcome, even overwhelmed by the loss of loved ones that seem almost impossible to bear. But, over time, great sorrow is replaced by joyful confidence that God is with us and all is well.
Jesus was described once by the prophet Isaiah as “a man of sorrows”. A being that could have had anything He wanted, and died on a cross, how strange that would seem to a person who didn’t know the greatest story ever told! But, now, He does have everything, eternity in heaven with His loving Father! From Calvary’s misery to heaven’s glory . He’s home, home at last. And He calls us home too. Little sheep, come home to Me, and be safe at last, safe at last.
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed, but not in despair…, struck down, but not destroyed… For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. Selections from I Corinthians Chapter 4 (NIV)
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2 (NIV)
Have you ever been on the “outside” of things? Remember when certain ones were chosen last to be on teams in their childhood? It was usually the same person all the time. We all want to belong, sometimes desperately. How sad it is for those who want to be on the “inside” and are held on the “outside”. Wouldn’t it be grand if there were a place where who you were didn’t make a bit of difference to those who were there, and there you would be accepted, loved and even adored? There is!
It’s the family of God, a community of believers, who because of what was done for them, would do anything for you. People want to be valued – to know they were here for a reason – that is what fellowship is all about – to bestow honor upon those who expect it the least – a community where one is treated and treats others better than any place on earth.
“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” I John 4:11 (NIV).
A Child of the King
By Lou David Allen
I stumbled and fell right down,
Silly me, I hate to be a clown.
I was hurt, I knew, really bad,
They all laughed and I was sad.
Mocking, “ You can stand if you try!”
But, all I could do was sit and cry.
So completely embarrassed by it all,
Why did I have to go and fall?
I hung my head in shame,
And thought, “It’s all me to blame.”
Then I heard someone sweetly say,
“Have you hurt yourself, are you O.K.?”
No, it couldn’t possibly be true!
The most popular girl in my school,
Sitting here, by my side,
Unwounding my broken pride.
Afterwards, all agreed she had done me a kindly thing.
But I think more.
I think they had seen a child of the King.
I’ve been to war.
Not a figurative war, which many people have experienced within their unique circumstance, but a real war where bullets fly both ways and mortars and rockets explode with the intent of ending lives. My war experience, of course, is no longer unusual as the United States continues adding to the longest period of conflict in our history. I understand the damage a war can do.
Private, figurative wars, the ones without bullets, have been raging for centuries and are just as spiritually damaging as the real wars are physically damaging. Spiritual wars are waged in our minds as we deal with the loss of loved ones, the breaking of a heart through shattered marriages, the breaking of promises and vows, the loss of stability financial or emotional. The lists go on and undoubtedly will touch everyone who will read this paragraph. The private wars have touched my family and me through suicide, cancer, divorce, death…
Once, when I was a little boy, something happened to me that was way beyond my control. I had sustained a dangerous head wound and was helpless. My father took me in his arms and carried me to the hospital which was very near to where we lived. I’m sure my dad lived the event over and over in his mind all the days of his life, even though he rarely mentioned it. My mom and dad were not young when I was born and our age difference could have made him my grandfather. He had lost my sister only five years before and must have died figuratively many times as he carried me to medical help. My father did not cause the accident, would never had let it happen if he had been there. I don’t know what went through his mind as carried me in his arms; perhaps this, “ I would never dream of letting something like this happen to you, but if you will let me, I will love you through this, help you through this, and show you how it will work eventually for your own good.”
In this world bad things happen. When they do, God is there and He, like my dad, says, “ I did not cause this, I would never plan this horrific thing that has happened to you, but know this, if you let Me, I will love you through this, help you through this, and show you how it will work eventually for you own good.”
Surely God is my salvation,
I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my defense,
He has become my salvation. Isaiah 12:2 (NIV)
I can still jump as high as I always could, I just can’t stay up as long, my cousin once said. He was making humorous commentary on the fact that he was getting older, and knew it. That little funny statement has a great truth embedded. That is, facts are often overrun by fiction. Coming from emotional sources rather than logical ones, fictional, emotional ones sometimes seem logical. I once worked with a man who would hold his hand over his heart and say, “Dave, if it feels good in your heart, it must be right.” Really? If that were true, the rich young ruler that Jesus interviewed would have been completely O.K. because he “felt” he was O.K. But the one thing he lacked and needed to do, was not in his mindset to do.
Some people today have a great feeling about their acceptance of Jesus, but little regard for what He commanded for full obedience, baptism. Like the rich young ruler, they refuse to finish their acceptance. Movie stars desire to be described as famous, not nearly famous. People should desire to be described as saved, not nearly saved.
“ I tell you the truth no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” John 3:3 (NIV)
“ I tell you the truth, no on can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of the water and of the Spirit.” John 3:5 (NIV)
“ Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38 (NIV)
“ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Romans 6:3-4 (NIV)
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step”, according to a Chinese proverb. How true! People sometimes hesitate to start long journeys of all kinds because they perceive the difficulties they may encounter along the way. I have also noticed that people who do make journeys love to tell of their experiences and may have some photos to enhance their story. Some of my friends have visited many countries, I have only been to one other than my own. Some of my friend’s trips have cost them quite a bit of money. There is a journey that all will make and that is the one into eternity. No one will be able to say that journey is one they won’t make. We all will, unless Jesus returns first. If one believes God’s Word, the journey will end in heaven or hell. The price of the ticket is vastly different for each destination. The price to hell costs nothing and a person can purchase the ticket by doing absolutely nothing. Satan will take care of the ticket and be one’s personal conductor. The price of the heavenly ticket is awesome. That ticket cost God His only begotten Son. Your ticket is paid in full – the blood of Jesus on a Roman cross.
“Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” Matthew 20:28
A Glimpse of Eternity
By Lou David Allen
Stars floating on an endless celestial sea,
A glimpse of eternity.
Arching rainbows in the clouds, gifts from Divinity,
A glimpse of eternity.
Mary, bouncing her baby on a knee,
A glimpse of eternity.
Romans planting crosses high on a hill for all to see,
A glimpse of eternity.
“Christians are horrible, they are so mean.”
Not only is this sentiment too common today, but these were the words I heard from one of our varsity basketball players this morning. We had just finished a win over a Christian school who’s crowd began a personal verbal attack on the player over perceived rough defense. The 15 year-old player was left reeling from a crowd of adults screaming at her. As I overheard her talking to her mother on the phone, the words of dissappointment stung with each syllable.
“Christians are supposed to be the best, but they are the worse.”
Unfortunately this was the second Christian school in as many days who had behaved in a similar manner. I must confess my own behavior has not always been exemplary during close and heated games. The words this morning stung because it brought home how much my behavior represents Christ, too often in a negative way.
The United States went through a phase of t-shirts, bracelets, and other Christian merchandise that challenged us to ask”What Would Jesus Do?” or “WWJD?” when confronted with a decision. Apart from the superficial nature of t-shirt Christianity, I wonder if we would have been better served challenging believers to “LLJD” or “live like Jesus did.” I’m sure there was no room in Jesus’ life for screaming at a 15 year-old basketball player no matter how hard the foul.
