Welcome

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Monday, May 18, 2015

For a VIDEO of this devotion go HERE

Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.  Galatians 6:10 (NLT)

As Paul finishes his pastoral letter to the church at Galatia he carefully lays out some pretty important guidelines for the young believers in their work of being God’s people.

In the first 9 verses we find:

         ·        How to restore sinful or fallen believers to fellowship

         ·        The importance of sharing one another’s burdens

         ·        The case for Biblical humility

         ·        How (and why) we ought to mind our own business

         ·        Living responsibly as Christ lived

         ·        Care and feeding by the church for its ministers

         ·        The principles of sowing and reaping

         ·        An encouragement to persevere in all Christian living

In our verse this morning Paul puts a ribbon bow on these and sums it up with an underlined reminder to be gracious to all, but particularly other believers.

Elizabeth and I experienced that yesterday.

We went to worship with our Daughter and Son-in-law at a local Presbyterian church.  As we walked in the foyer of the building we were greeted to a noisy group of believers who really seemed to enjoy each other’s company. 

Now, that isn’t a new concept for a lot of churches; what warmed this preacher’s heart was the fact that more than a few of the several hundred people there stopped what they were doing when they realized we were new; they welcomed us.

One lady in particular was so welcoming she wanted to know all about us.  I smiled and leaned in and whispered, we’re Methodists; we’re playing hooky today.  She looked so seriously at me, slowly shaking her head and said, ooohhhh, Methodists…..GOOD – we’ll roll out the red carpet!

I truly had a Laugh-Out-Loud moment.

Then we walked inside and I read the mission statement of the church sprawled all across the front walls; it said:

The Mission of Our Church is to savor the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and to be servants of that grace locally and globally.[2]

The greeting in the hallway was simply a manifestation of a church truly living –out that mission in simple relational ways to a local  stranger they’d never met before.

And with all the other welcoming and kind greetings we were able to enjoy a most memorable worship experience.  I felt like I landed in the middle of family.

And that’s the way it is so often. 

Wherever I go, whether I know nobody or everybody in the building, the Spirit of God is there, inhabiting people we meet, and it’s like we’ve known each other all our lives.

It’s called the Spirit bearing witness.

For You Today

So…do you sit with the same people every week?

How about sitting next to someone else this weekend at church?

Roll out the red carpet – you might make a new Presbyterian friend.

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[1] Title image:  By Themanfrom4g at en.wikipedia, from Wikimedia Commons

[2] Mission Statement of The Meadowview Reformed Presbyterian Church, Lexington, NC

Getting Dressed - Part 5

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Friday, May 8, 2015

Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives.  Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives.  Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.  And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.  Colossians 3:16-18 (NLT)

This week we have thought about Paul’s list of those characteristics with which a well-dressed follower of Jesus Christ gets dressed every day – peace, thankfulness and gratitude, love – all part of a Christ-like character.

This morning we connect the dots of that string of character traits.

Paul said we should let the Word of Christ fill us.  The KJV says Christ’s word should dwell in us richly; the picture is that of setting up residence.  This means we should allow the Word of God free reign in addressing every aspect of the way we live our lives. 

Bible study is so important – the Bible is the Owner’s Manual of human existence. 

Having that Word “dwell richly” is to take it in, study, meditate on it and then put it into practice in our lives.  The Psalmist put it this way

Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.  Psalm 119:11 (KJV)

Now, those are the foundational garments, love, peace, gratitude and wisdom.  Those are the transformational basic characteristics of the Christian life.  When you have those they will create the…

The Outer Garments

The outer garments of life are what others see and experience.  When the inner garments are love, peace, gratitude and wisdom they will make the outer garments particularly attractive.  What are they?

There is EMPATHY – so you can feel what your brother feels.

There is HARMONY – so you can strengthen your brother or sister, while she strengthens you.

There is MINISTRY so you can glorify God with all of your life.

This is the Christian version of “Dress for Success”.  Success in the world is measured by how you look; it is “the look” or styles that people see which really counts – look good at any cost!

The Lord measures success by what He sees on the inside…the inner garments of character

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  1 Samuel 16:7 (NLT)

For You Today

What does the Lord see when he looks at YOUR heart? 

Does he see compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, mercy?  Does he see all these foundational garments held together neatly by the character girdle of love? 

If so, you’ve chosen to lay aside the world’s rags and you’re ready for a robe!

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[1] Title image:  By Paramount Pictures. Photographer not credited (ebay), via Wikimedia Commons

Getting Dressed - Part 4

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Thursday, May 7, 2015

And always be thankful.  Colossians 3:15b (NLT)

Paul said, be thankful. 

Yesterday we shared thoughts of Elizabeth’s collision with the drunk driver’s vehicle several years ago.  When her poor Buick had to be towed away to the junkyard, we were thankful; we were so very grateful that she wasn’t towed along with her car!

With the peace of God ruling in our hearts, it is simple to be grateful when life has been preserved and you are face to face with a crumpled-up Buick in the harsh December night…and you are struck with the cold reality that your wife of 40 years could have been just as crumpled up as her car.

Thankfulness, or gratitude, is the natural bubbling-up of praise when things are in proper perspective. 

We managed to buy a used pickup truck for our son about 25 years ago.  It wasn’t a big prize, but it was the first one he would own that didn’t need an act of Congress to start. 

To say he was grateful is an understatement.  I can still see the tears welling-up in his eyes and feel his bear hug.  It just comes out of you when you have been blessed! 

When you look at all the circumstances of life, and realize that Jesus has gone through the worst of it, and has made the offer to go with you through any stuff you’ve got on your plate…well, there are just some times you need to lift up a grateful voice and sing!

For You Today

Are you a follower of Jesus Christ?

If so, that means at some point you realized that Christ took on a whole lot more for you when He went to the cross than our Buick received that night on the dark country road; Jesus took on every one of your sins for all eternity, and washed you white as snow.

Can you be thankful today?

Think about that out on your rocky road today, and have a great day.

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[1] Title image:  By Paramount Pictures. Photographer not credited (ebay), via Wikimedia Commons

Getting Dressed - Part 3

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Wednesday, May 6, 2015

And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts.  For as members of one body you are called to live in peace.    Colossians 3:15 (NLT)

This week we are exploring the kinds of spiritual garments a well-dressed follower of Jesus Christ will wear each day.

This one is my personal favorite.

Paul said to let peace rule our hearts.  If there is a missing element in our culture, peace is my first nominee.  We live in a “noisy-in-your-face-grab-mine-while-I-steal-yours-if-I-can” kind of world.  Our TV screens are filled with violence and chaos.  The online community is what a friend of mine termed “dark and monstrous” in a blog post the other day.

So it is!

There was a haunting song on the Southern-Gospel charts a few years back.  The song’s title was “Peace”.  It tells the story of folks who are doing what we all do, trying to get through the day – and they’ve about given up.  The repeated lyric is:

Don’t need your love, or your sympathy,

But I cannot go on living without peace…

Our existence is filled with what the great old hymn states as fightings and fears within, [and] without[2].  There is precious little peace to be offered by the circumstances of life.

But Paul never said “let the circumstances of life rule in your hearts”; he said to let peace rule there.  

I took a picture several years ago at an accident scene; it’s a bit of a strange scene. 

My bride, Elizabeth, had been driving home from a Christmas concert in which she was part of the church orchestra.  As she rounded a long curving turn she noticed the oncoming car was still several hundred yards ahead, but weaving erratically.  In the split-second that seems to take forever, that oncoming car veered off the road, and then swerved back across the road and right in front of Elizabeth’s Buick.  The head-on impact destroyed her car and brought months of therapy for Elizabeth; the other driver, somewhat fortified with a different kind of Christmas “spirits” didn’t get a scratch. 

The reason I took the picture was that it was a group of the church family that had quickly learned about the accident and come to comfort Elizabeth.  They were standing around waiting for the police to finish reporting, and for the tow truck to finish preparing our beloved Buick for the junkyard.  They, including Elizabeth, seemed so very different from a typical collision scene; they were loose and laughing, and thankful. That’s not “normal” when your automobile has just been folded-up like a wad of loose-leaf paper after a head-on collision with a drunk driver. 

Reality check:  “Normal” for a believer is that God’s peace can sort out the priority of people over things.  A Buick can be replaced and we all knew it; we were thankful my bride was alive and the young man driving the other car would have a chance to live past his early twenties. 

That’s peace ruling in a heart! 

For You Today

Have you got anything that’s making threats against your peace today? 

Remember that God said we are to let His peace rule; that sounds an awful lot like the choice is up to you.

Think about that out on your rocky road today, and have a great day!

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[1] Title image:  By Paramount Pictures. Photographer not credited (ebay), via Wikimedia Commons

[2] Just as I Am, Without One Plea, Elliott, Bradbury, The United Methodist Hymnal, p.357

Getting Dressed - Part 2

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Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.   Colossians 3:14 (NLT)

Paul gave us a whole list of great qualities:  compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience.  Then he told us that these are the symptoms of one who possesses love.  It isn’t the kind of romantic mush or lust you see on Desperate Housewives; it’s agape’ love, unselfish. 

It’s a God-kind of love which does whatever is best for others. 

This kind of love is only available in Christ.  Only God changing you on the inside can give you this.  Many human qualities can be faked; you can pretend to be humble or compassionate sometimes…but genuine Godliness, doing anything truly motivated by love requires God on the inside.

Paul said it was like the garment they called a girdle, a binding that held everything together.  When you have love, genuine love, it holds all sorts of blessings in their places.

I am a “fashion-challenged person”.  I used to put together some pretty interesting outfits.  My ties never matched my shirts or socks; sometimes I got dressed in the dark and I’d wear a brown sock with a black one. 

Friends and family used to ask if I bought stuff at the Ugly Store.

Then love changed everything.  Elizabeth picks out my clothes.  I look better; I offend less. 

Love will make you do strange and wonderful things!

And it’s that way with God’s kind of love on the inside…strange and wonderfully-blessed things will happen, and you will hardly have time to figure out where it’s coming from; you only know it wasn’t you doing it – God showed up and brought harmony.

For You Today

How do you feel about your relationships with other people?  Is there a sense of harmony?  Is it a blessing to know those around you, or is it a weight you carry?

The foundational garment of love is truly “one-size-fits-all”.  And it will make all the difference when it comes to how you get along with other people.

Here’s a picture for you to carry in your mind today:  God is your heavenly Father; you are the child; let him dress you up with love.

Think about that out on your rocky road today, and have a great day!

[1] Title image:  By Paramount Pictures. Photographer not credited (ebay), via Wikimedia Commons

Getting Dressed - Part 1

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Monday, May 4, 2015

Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.  Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you.  Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.  Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.  And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts.  For as members of one body you are called to live in peace.  And always be thankful.  Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives.  Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives.  Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.  And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.  Colossians 3:12-17 (NLT)

This week we are going to take a close look at what a well-dressed follower of Jesus Christ wears to church, work, school, on errands, and most importantly…at home, the place where you can’t fake it because your family already knows you.

When our girls were little they had “Dressy Bessy” dolls.  Besides the fact that your children considered it a legal right under the Constitution to have a Dressy Bessy, they were good teaching tools.  Little ones learned how to put an arm in a sleeve, or button a shirt.  You dressed Bessy and in the doing you learned how to dress yourself.

Paul was writing to some Christians who had a reputation of being strong believers, well-clothed you might say, but they had a little problem understanding why they were to act differently than the world.  Don’t we all have that little problem? 

In his letter Paul suggests that the Christian’s attitude wardrobe should reflect being chosen, which means being different from the world.  These attitudes and actions are what make us clothed as followers of Jesus.  In short that means two things:

They were changed. 

The early Christians were baptized as a sign of their willingness to change, be different.  Men and women were baptized in different rooms, because the ceremony included stripping-off all clothing, and entering the pool naked.  It was a signal that the old life had been stripped-away like a ragged garment.  They were changed.

A story is told of a denomination that believed in baptismal sanctification (the moment you are baptized, you are sanctified, and therefore perfect -- you won't ever sin again).  An older man got convicted, and decided to join the group.  It was winter time and he wanted to be baptized right away; but the creek was frozen over.  However, he had a great desire to be pure, so he convinced the deacons to baptize him.  They cut a hole in the ice, took the old fellow out and dunked him in the hole, all the way – twice for good measure.  As he came out the old man exclaimed, Oh, it's so wonderful.  I'm sanctified.  It's so wonderful; I don't even feel the cold.  The head deacon said, Let's dunk him again,boys; he's still lyin'![2]  The new believers were really changed, and…

They were clothed. 

Once baptized the new convert was given a new robe to put on; it was a white robe, symbolizing the new relationship of purity in Christ, and it was a new robe, which made a stark comparison with the old which had been discarded.

There is a connection here that is hard to miss unless you’re living on another planet.  Every day each and every one of us puts on our clothing.  And we all have something in common about the way we do it.  Without fail we put on our undergarments first, then our outer clothing…

(except Madonna, of  course, who is goofy enough to wear her “unmentionables” where they get mentioned). 

They call ‘em “foundational” garments, because they are the first things to go on the bare ground.

For You Today

As we study the foundational garments of Christian living this week we need to keep in mind that Paul used the putting-on-your-clothes object lesson to teach some very important principles about living the Christian life.  And we must remember that important principles never come cheaply!

Think about that out on your rocky road today, and have a great day!

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[1] Title image:  By Paramount Pictures. Photographer not credited (ebay), via Wikimedia Commons

[2] From a sermon by Russell Brownworth, The One Anothers of the Bible; Part 5 Teach One Another

Compassionate Riots

Rescuers pulled a teenager out of the rubble in Nepal's capital today, five days after an earthquake struck. CreditNavesh Chitrakar/Reuters[1]   

Friday, May 1, 2015

One who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and one whose temper is controlled than one who captures a city.  Proverbs 16:32 (NLT)

Workers are fighting around the clock in Nepal to extract trapped people from collapsed buildings.  A teenage boy was pulled from the rubble Wednesday and the watching crowd broke out in cheers and applause.  It was a compassionate riot!

The Nepalese people are thankful amidst tragedy.

Meanwhile different riots breaking-out in Baltimore, marches and demonstrations in Washington and New York are a spectacle of quite another tone….there is anger.

In the middle of an American tragedy – the death of persons in the custody of police – American forbearance is all but forgotten.

What is the difference between what is happening in Nepal, and what is going on in America from Ferguson to Washington?  It is the distance between anger and compassion. 

Both anger and compassion are strong emotions, and they are separated by light years in cause and effect. Anger tends to destroy when unchecked (as in the street rioting and looting we saw on Baltimore streets this week.)

But sometimes they are connected.  Sometimes anger is driven by compassion, as in the national response in America after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Compassion for lost souls always evokes anger, and rightfully, when it is caused by power grabs and oppression.

But there is almost nothing more obscene than rioting and looting when the (supposed) provocation is righteous anger over oppression.  This goes far beyond two wrongs not making a right; there’s nothing noble or epically-righteous about breaking into a mall to steal toilet paper or a TV. 

It’s simply the release of emotion over pent-up frustration.  It’s making somebody…anybody pay for the hurt we feel over injustice.

In our culture American anger comes too quickly these days.  We are becoming the new caricature of people who claim to be peace-loving, and can’t wait to provoke a good riot.

Whatever happened to the virtues of patience and due process?  A mob can be mighty, but uncontrolled temper can destroy quicker than most anything.

Here’s a bit of advice for all of us from the old Preacher, Solomon (a pretty smart guy) who said:

Control your temper, for anger labels you a fool.  Ecclesiastes 7:9 (NLT)

For You Today

If you’re itching to join in the fight against something, let me suggest fighting the terrible losses in Nepal.  They could use a hand.

You might want to check out resources before you send a check to help in Nepal.  Here is the United Methodist website with information on what we’re doing, and what we’ve already sent to help.

If you already know that and are ready to donate, go here; join a compassionate riot!

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[1] Title image:  Reuters