I laugh every time I watch this Pixar short film but it is a great illustration of the unintended consequences that come from the exclusion of people who aren’t exactly like us.   God loves ALL people and calls his children to include everyone in the saving gospel of Jesus Christ even if they don’t fit the mold we are used to.

“What the Old Man Does is Always Right” is a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen which tells of a peasant who trades his horse down to a sack of rotten apples, justifying his trades all the way down.  If you can ignore the original moral it can be repurposed as a powerful parable illustrating the sins of attrition, those sins that slowly result in a drift away from a strong relationship with God.  We can justify our actions all we want, but if in the end we are left with a rotten relationship our eternal reward is at risk.   In an interesting twist, the man’s wife agrees with his actions all the way – showing that our drift can influence others away from God as well.  Really, what the old man does isn’t always right.  Read the full parable below.

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He was so proud of it.  The lines were right, the joints fitted, the wood finished to a glow.  The boat drafted better than any other and its beauty inspired use.  He could remember it now looking at the vessel before him.  Where had the beauty gone?  The years had worn it so slowly he hadn’t even noticed.  Now weathered, dull and leaking, the boat’s original beauty was only a faint remembrance…

Growing up in the church a lot of time was spent on two categories of sin, namely sins of commission, those things God tells us not to do but we do anyway, and sins of omission or those things God tells us to do but we ignore.  These are important categories but with a warning:  if we focus on a checklist of things we should and should not do, we by our nature grow to rely on OUR goodness and not on God’s.  Jesus clearly stated over and over that his disciples would become children of God and be consumed with a relationship with God through him.

Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ Matthew 22:37(NIV)

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! John 3:1(NIV)

Over and over the Word of God explains Christians are about relationship not rules.  Our obedience (omitted and committed) is because we love God and value His presence in our lives.  We want to please Him.  Because of this, I believe there is a far more dangerous category of sin, attrition.  Attrition is any activity that causes a slow drift away from our relationship with God.  The dangerous thing is that it can take the form of just about anything, including religion.  Sometimes seemingly harmless activities over a lifetime (or less!) lead us to a point we are separated from God and don’t even recognize it until it’s too late.

We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. Hebrews 2:1 (NIV)

The book of Acts presents a beautiful picture of early Christian believers and their natural desire to be together.  The model then was clearly not just a Sunday morning assembly but a model of assembly together, focusing on each others needs and praising God as one.

All the believers were together and had everything in common.  Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:44-47 NIV)

I attended a small town congregation on Sunday and there was a good 20 feet between groupings of family and friends during worship, not as I imagine when reading Acts.  If you are a new Christian, seek out a church family who love one another and worship as one every chance they get.  If you are part of a congregation that on Sunday mornings resembles a doctor’s office waiting room during flu season, don’t leave – be the one to bring people together.   A healthy Christian community focuses on assembling together not just on the assembly.

I recently had a discussion with a congregational leader who was bemoaning the prevalence of sports in the lives of our church youth.  The leader believed our youth should spend more time in church than on the field.  It’s almost as if we must choose to be a Christian in the confines of an assembly building or not at all.  My response is a close look at the scriptures.  The truth is, Christ intended for his follower to be disciples and spread the gospel everywhere at all times.  A practical Christian will:

1.  Go into the world. To spread the gospel we must go.

2.  Serve as Christ’s ambassador.  Ambassadors serve in foreign lands

3.  Go where our gift influences the most.  Don’t compartmentalize your faith into church and world.

4.  Use every gift from God. What ‘s your gift?  Use it to spread the gospel.

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”  Matthew 22:37-40 (NLT)

I love this video and you’ve probably seen it many times.  As you watch it again consider if our culture has changed our self-image and devalued the love we have for ourselves.  If we don’t love ourselves how can we love our neighbor?

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Practical Christian application:

1.  We have confidence in an eternal reward through Christ
2.  It’s impossible for us to fully understand God’s will
3.  God wants us to have patience, know that evil will not prevail, and to fully place our trust in Him

Last week we lost a 15 year old family member after a lengthy battle with cancer.  Her struggle was featured in a post by her grandfather last month.   As I prepared to officiate over her funeral I thought it was appropriate to share on this blog the comfort our family found through God.

Over and over family members and friends in the community asked how God could let something so terrible happen to someone so young.  A close friend who had lost his wife in a tragic car accident years earlier had great counsel to me.  Part of his word he took from a message Billy Graham delivered on the National Day of Prayer, September 14, 2001

I’ve been asked hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept by faith that God is sovereign, and He’s a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering. Full message here

Our family found great comfort in suffering knowing that God is a loving God even though we may not know why such tragic things happen.  We choose to trust God.

Practical Christian application:

1. Rejoice in your Christian birth
2. Fix your eyes on Jesus and strive to steadily grow in him day by day
3. Be zealous, but avoid the emotional highs (peaks) and corresponding lows (valleys)
4. Don’t be embarrassed, but don’t be satisfied about where you are as a Christian,
5. More mature Christians should be patient and gently lead newer Christians to maturity. 

Early in my life I remember a friend of mine who was a recent Christian convert and “on fire” for the Lord.  He was constantly chiding me for not being a more overt Christian.  He was a cheerleader for Christ wearing the right symbols, saying the right words, carrying the right books and confronting others to hold them accountable.  I was crushed a few years later when I saw video evidence of this same person in a one of the most un-Christian like situations.

This memory came back in full force recently while reading Chapter 7 “Emotion is Your Enemy” in the book Wooden on Leadership by the legendary basketball coach John Wooden.  In the opening sentences of this chapter he describes the beautiful peaks and valleys of the Swiss Alps but explained peaks and valley belong in the Alps not in temperament.

Practical Christian wisdom is a combination of Spiritual will and Biblical skill. As Christians we must continue to study the scriptures and let the spirit of God take control of our lives. Choosing a life filled with the Spirit instead emptied by sets of rules

At work I am often urged to write policy letters to cover every possible contingency of human behavior.  These policy letters are reviewed by lawyers to ensure every lawsuit is avoided, operations officers look for the impetuous for action, the employees immediately look for a loop hole which, when found, prompts more policy letters.  ENOUGH! You can’t write a standard operating procedure for common sense.

A recent presentation by Barry Swartz at the TED conference struck a cord within me.  In it, Dr. Swartz describes practical wisdom as defined by Aristotle as the “combination of moral will and moral skill.”