Hummingbirds regularly come to our feeder outside the window to partake of the “goodie juice” we provide.  The feeder can be seen by Rhoda and me from our respective vantage points.  We alert each other as visitors arrive, usually unexpectedly, and they leave almost the same way.  One must be on one’s toes to see them, for hummingbirds don’t stay long.

We have noticed an interesting thing about hummingbirds.  When they approach the feeder and if a wasp is there, they don’t land, or if they do and see a wasp they quickly fly away.  Wasps like hummingbird feeders too and apparently like to sting the hummingbirds, or at least the hummingbirds think they do.  When no wasps are at the feeder, the birds land and drink away.  At this very moment, a hummingbird has come for its morning refreshment and refreshed itself.  Why did it stay?  Because there was no wasp there, it had no fear at the feeder!  The hummingbirds have a rule – wasp at the feeder – fly away – wasp not at the feeder – stay and enjoy the gift of the feeder.

Why can’t people be as wise as the hummingbirds?  Some not only don’t fly , in our case, don’t run from an obvious danger.  They fall for Satan’s overtures and often do not see the spider until they’re caught firmly in the web.  Shakespeare said in his great play, The Merchant of Venice, “There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on its outward parts”.  If you have read my other works you know that I am a poet and like to use my poems to illustrate a point.  I would like to take that opportunity again in this essay and include a poem I wrote some time ago which I think is germane to today’s topic.

POKER MAN

Why do you condemn this, that’s in?

Why do you maintain it’s a sin?

Why do you stand so hard

Against a little game of cards?

You can’t prove it’s wrong to me

For I’ve closed my eyes and cannot see

That something is amiss

And I can’t hear the serpent’s hiss.

Truth is, humans have a heart of darkness.  Left to our own devices, or trusting in anything (idols) other than love from God will trap us there.   Jesus referred to this one time while he was in Jerusalem:

…from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.  All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean. Mark 7:21-23 (NIV)

Too many times we read these words and begin to pass judgment on a host of people who we just KNOW are living in darkness because they are not like us.  We are too good to live in darkness – and we must have missed it when Jesus chastised the Pharisees and teachers of the law just moments earlier.

…Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.”
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.  Mark 7:6-8 (NIV)

The Pharisees Jesus was talking to were considered the conservatives of Judaism. They held strictly to the Torah and the Talmud and were very outwardly moral. But because they trusted in the traditions of men (meaning adding to the law) they were far from him, they had hearts of darkness.

Bottom line up front: Darkness doesn’t mean the same thing today as it did 2000 years ago.  In the first century people understood and feared real darkness so they got it when Jesus told them, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” John8:12 (NIV).  If you’re not a Christian you’re walking in darkness, put your trust in Christ who is the light.

Darkness has lost its meaning to us.  Since the discovery of electricity and invention of the light bulb the world has been on a campaign to banish darkness.  Just look around you some night:  guard lights flood every house, street lights bathe our roads, office buildings shine through the night, spot lights sweep through the air, the rooms in our houses have lights on even if we are not in them, and our retinas burn as we stare for hours into the glare of our televisions.  If you don’t believe it, you will the first time the electricity fails and the night as you know it stops…dark, dark, dark and silent…very silent.

Have you wondered about the guy wandering the highways with the  backpack and run down shoes?  Where’s he going? Where’s he from? Where’s he spending the night,? Is it in a pasture under a  tree?  And how does he  keep warm in the winter? What does he eat and where does he get his water? Who would chose a life with such self imposed deprivation? Who would chose to be homeless?

But people who would never chose to live their physical lives like that make choices  putting them in the same situation spiritually. Jude, verse 13, refers to ungodly individuals who are described as “wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever”. The most tragic thing that can  happen to a human being is to disconnect from God, in computer terminology, “disconnected from the network”.

Several years ago I observed men traveling down the Interstate Highway that cuts through our little town and  wrote a poem about a fictitious man I called “Johnee”.  I hope you enjoy it and see how it describes  an absolute disconnect.

Johnee

by David Allen

They found him last night,
wrapped in his sleeping
blanket. Out on the Interstate,
dead as a hammer, stiff as
a  board.  Died sometime
in the night, all alone, all
by himself.

No I.D., only, “ My name
is Johnee”,  tattooed on his
chest.

Where was he from? Where
was he going?

Well, he’s not going anywhere,
anymore. And somewhere, long
ago, someone bounced him on
their knee
and said,
“ Oh, Johnee, you’ll
go far in this world”.

But, this, this was too far,
Way too far.

Johnee lost his way. The way home grew so dim he could no longer see it. The darkness overcame him and he died. Johnee disconnected. Are you connected?

Two lessons for Christians today:

1.  Jesus DID exactly what he said he would do

2.  Jesus WILL DO exactly what he said he will do

…but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”  At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”  Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” John 20:11-17 (NIV)

Mary should have known.  Jesus had driven out her demons and she was with him to the end and heard what he had said.  She was the first one at the tomb the morning Jesus arose and she didn’t even remember His words when the body wasn’t there, thinking instead someone must have moved his body.

A man had a great dream and he had the confidence of one who could visualize success.  He knew he would be successful so he left his job as a laborer and worked full-time on the endeavor of his dreams.

He chose his few employees carefully, their pay was meager.  He promised them that the number of helpers would grow and the rewards for their loyalty would be without equal.

For three years the man worked toward his vision.  Marketing surveys were done to the point he knew what the people were thinking.  He advertised throughout the area and held promotional stunts to set up for his grand opening.  He would pull into the area towns and know that people were expecting something unusual to happen.  He would do anything to advertise, he had the people’s attention.  While not everyone responded positively, people were lining up to be a part of his vision.

The day of the grand opening arrived.  In his moment of triumph he knew that years of toiling, late nights working, and the life of a traveling salesman were about to pay off.  He had truly set up the greatest business of all time.  This was the moment the people were waiting for.

“All the glory is due you! You are the Holy One! You’re the One, You’re the only One!”

I listen as my family and I sing these words. We sit together as one unit, one band of people suffering through a tragic loss; if you only knew what we had been through. You wouldn’t believe it if you could hear us singing these words with all of our hearts. You wouldn’t believe that just a little over a month ago, we lost one of our family members to cancer. A little girl, we loved her without measure and now she is gone. We are upset and we do struggle through life sometimes. However, you would never believe it if you could hear us now. We hold our heads high as we show God that we trust His judgment. “You’re the One, You’re the only One!” We know it, we believe it, and we sing it with pride… together.

Chelsea Chaney is a 17 year old Christian who loves God and Christ.  She is a leader and inspiration to her family and friends.  In addition to being active in the church, she is the captain of the high school varsity cheer squad, senior class president, student council president, book club president, and publicist for the Spanish club.

And my daughter…

“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)

Do you like to read?  I do and I know you probably like to also, most people do.  Also do you occasionally overhear a conversation about the latest best selling author’s current work?  Notice the adjective, current.  An author as well as anyone else’s fame is fleeting and only a few great names such as Shakespeare or Milton are generally known.The Greatest Author wrote the Greatest Book ever written. Sadly many have never read His book or even picked it up for a cursory examination.  In that book lie the secrets to mankind’s beginning, present and future. It describes the path from here to eternity.  Isn’t that exciting?  The Bible is the “code” from the Master of the Universe for a better life here and a far better one to come.

Can you imagine stumbling upon a great treasure of an ancient king?  And yet, here at our fingertips is a priceless gem, far more valuable than the riches of any king who ever lived. And it can be bought for a small price.  My favorite Bible is one I bought at a garage sale for twenty-five cents. Think of that! The priceless Word of God for twenty-five cents! You may have a favorite copy of the road map to Paradise, I pray so, and perhaps you paid more than twenty five cents for it. Whatever you paid, read it, love it, live it.

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

Lou David Allen graduated from Abilene Christian University with a BS in Physics in 1962 and a MBA in 1976.  He worked for NASA on the Apollo Moon Project in Houston, TX.  His area of expertise is heat transfer especially related to space simulation systems.  He was a junior college administrator and teacher for 21 years and was the mayor of Merkel, TX for eight.  He now works as a salesman for a company he and his wife Rhoda own.  Rhoda and David have been married forty-seven years.  They are happy.