Most of you know that I’ve been away visiting my parents – celebrating a significant birthday in my mom’s life. Mom and Dad have a “winter place” here in Largo, Florida in what is called a “manufactured home community”. In their recent newsletter, a columnist used the following words: our very lifestyle is being threatened.
Lifestyle. People have lifestyles – and most of them are more consistent with the sins of man than with the Gospel of Jesus. The task of Wellborn Baptist Church will be to help those who come our direction to evaluate their lifestyles with the biblical lifestyle, the Christian lifestyle.
Problem is, our own lifestyles require the same evaluation. The message of hope is both life giving and a threat. When we come to Jesus, He changes us. At the very same moment, we have a new life with Christ and at the same instant “our very lifestyle is being threatened”. Threatened because it is more consistent with the sins of man than with the Gospel. Maturity in Christ is the ever-changing movement away from our “lifestyle” and into conformity to His character; His love and His direction for our lives.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Feeling Pain
Florida State was knocked out of the NIT last night, falling at the hands of South Carolina’s Gamecocks. That’s right. Those same upstarts from the Palmetto State that took down the mighty Gators two out of three times this year! Do I expect Gator fans to “feel the pain” of FSU partisans? Yeah, right…
All teasing aside, God has called us to share the pain of those around us. Every pain we endure makes us more sensitive to the suffering of others. Within the church, God calls us to takes those painful experiences of life and “bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2).
Outside the church, we have been called to “love our neighbors as ourselves (Luke 10:27)”. This lesson is brought home by the example of a man -- a man whose whole life has seen him despised by another race. Going about his business, he encounters a man from that group – beaten and left for dead. He has the choice to just pass by. After all, a priest and a religious worker from the other group have already done so. But, this Good Samaritan stops and treats the man well.
The power of the gospel is the ability to see the whole world as we see ourselves. The old song says, “The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin; the light of the world is Jesus.” We know that we shared the darkness with every person. Our desire is that they now come to the light. God grant that every negative experience He allows in our lives might become fuel for impacting others.
All teasing aside, God has called us to share the pain of those around us. Every pain we endure makes us more sensitive to the suffering of others. Within the church, God calls us to takes those painful experiences of life and “bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2).
Outside the church, we have been called to “love our neighbors as ourselves (Luke 10:27)”. This lesson is brought home by the example of a man -- a man whose whole life has seen him despised by another race. Going about his business, he encounters a man from that group – beaten and left for dead. He has the choice to just pass by. After all, a priest and a religious worker from the other group have already done so. But, this Good Samaritan stops and treats the man well.
The power of the gospel is the ability to see the whole world as we see ourselves. The old song says, “The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin; the light of the world is Jesus.” We know that we shared the darkness with every person. Our desire is that they now come to the light. God grant that every negative experience He allows in our lives might become fuel for impacting others.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
How’s your water level?
Every day as I come to the office I pass by Lake Lona. I recently heard Dr. Fritz Fountain, who lives on the lakefront, talk about the eccentricities of this particular lake. It seems that Lake Lona is emptying again. There seems to be some flow into the Ichetucknee Basin so that, unless there is a constant flow of rainfall into Lake Lona, its level begins dropping. When it gets really dry, the level shrinks almost to nothing. Since we’ve had little rain lately, the level of Lake Lona is dropping.
Believers in Christ follow the same pattern as Lake Lona. We have been refreshed by the “fountain of living water” (Jeremiah 2). We were thirsty and we came to him and drank. As a result, He promises that streams of living water will flow from deep within us (John 7:37, Holman). To have that flow of life, however, we must continue to drink deeply from the fountain. Committed to His Word, we allow the inflow of truth to remain constant – even as we allow truth to flow out of us to a world parched by sin.
How’s your water level?
Believers in Christ follow the same pattern as Lake Lona. We have been refreshed by the “fountain of living water” (Jeremiah 2). We were thirsty and we came to him and drank. As a result, He promises that streams of living water will flow from deep within us (John 7:37, Holman). To have that flow of life, however, we must continue to drink deeply from the fountain. Committed to His Word, we allow the inflow of truth to remain constant – even as we allow truth to flow out of us to a world parched by sin.
How’s your water level?
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Get into the game
Consider the plight of the PK (preacher’s kid). Always around; constantly providing illustrations about life – positively and negatively. Wise preachers learn what this can do to his kids, if he talks about them too much and learn to back off. That said, there are times when the lesson is just too powerful….
Dennis is a pretty fair basketball player, for his age. Saturday was his last game of the season. Near the end of the second period, an opposing player crashed over the top of Dennis, hitting him pretty forcefully in the head. Dennis crashed to the floor and reacted to the pain. I went and got him at the appropriate time and let him sit with me until he was a little better. Then, I sent him back into the game – still hurting.
Later he came down on someone’s foot during a rebound and turned his ankle. This was real pain. One of the coaches brought some ice, we kept him iced until halftime and the coach carried him off to be with the team. I joined them and put his shoe back on, laced it tight and told him to get back in the game when he thought he could. He just sat on the bench. I went over to him shortly before the last period and asked him to run to the door for me. He didn’t really want to…but he did it for me and saw that he wasn’t hurting nearly as much as he had been. He played the last period with reckless abandon and ended this year having a great time.
What’s the lesson? When we get hurt in this game of life, the time to get back into the game – into serving the Lord – is not when we quit hurting. The time to get back into the game is as soon as we can get up and limp back down the court. When we play through the pain, we get back into the joy – and find that the joy was worth the pain. Are you in the game?
Dennis is a pretty fair basketball player, for his age. Saturday was his last game of the season. Near the end of the second period, an opposing player crashed over the top of Dennis, hitting him pretty forcefully in the head. Dennis crashed to the floor and reacted to the pain. I went and got him at the appropriate time and let him sit with me until he was a little better. Then, I sent him back into the game – still hurting.
Later he came down on someone’s foot during a rebound and turned his ankle. This was real pain. One of the coaches brought some ice, we kept him iced until halftime and the coach carried him off to be with the team. I joined them and put his shoe back on, laced it tight and told him to get back in the game when he thought he could. He just sat on the bench. I went over to him shortly before the last period and asked him to run to the door for me. He didn’t really want to…but he did it for me and saw that he wasn’t hurting nearly as much as he had been. He played the last period with reckless abandon and ended this year having a great time.
What’s the lesson? When we get hurt in this game of life, the time to get back into the game – into serving the Lord – is not when we quit hurting. The time to get back into the game is as soon as we can get up and limp back down the court. When we play through the pain, we get back into the joy – and find that the joy was worth the pain. Are you in the game?
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