Month: September 2019

One of my parents’ favorite expressions was, “Actions speak louder than words.” When I got married, although we spoke loving words, we found that just being there for each other was a stronger expression of our love than words could possibly express. I’ve mentioned before that there were times when quietly holding her hand while she slept was worth more to Carol than telling her “I love you” a thousand times. The older I get the more attention I pay to the actions of people, especially politicians who often use words to distract us from what they are actually doing. Jesus put it this way, “Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” (Matthew 7:20)  

The New Testament has a lot to say about doing good works. Paul often reminds us in his letters to the churches that salvation cannot be earned by doing good works; it is a free gift from God’s mercy and grace about which we cannot boast or take credit. James emphasizes the strong connection between our faith in Christ and our good works; even going as far as to say, “Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.” (James 2:26) In his three letters, John shows us the connection between God’s love for us and in us and sharing that love with others by our kind acts toward them.

One of my favorite expressions is, “Kindness is just love with work boots on.” Ever since I became a Christian all those years ago, I have tried to share God’s love through kind acts toward others. These last five years, with the loss of Carol and my increased physical limitations, I have been on the receiving end of more acts of kindness than I can possibly count and believe me when I tell you I can still feel the love behind each of those kind acts.

As Christians, we must seek salvation and the love of God first and then let that faith and love express themselves in our actions. The writer of Hebrews tells us not only to believe, love and act, but to encourage other Christians to do the same. “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.” (Hebrews 10:24) There is no better way to improve the world in which we live and to share our faith.

I have been reading a lot about “safe spaces” on college campuses for students who feel threatened, but it wasn’t until I read the Miriam Webster definition that I got a shocking revelation about them. “A place (as on a college campus) intended to be free of bias, conflict, criticism, or potentially threatening actions, ideas, or conversations.” In other words, it is an isolation chamber away from anyone who looks acts or even thinks differently than you. Ironically, the first thought that came to my mind was the “Whites Only” signs on businesses in my early childhood. That too was an effort to isolate from those who were different. College campus used to be the very place to encounter the criticism, bias, actions and ideas of others and engage them in conversation and debate after which we could simply agree to disagree and maintain a friendly relationship. Our credo was, “I may disagree with what you say, but I will fight to my death to defend your right to say it.” Have we raised a generation who now find such things threatening and even frightening?

I am opposed to the terms “hate crime” and “hate speech”. A criminal should be punished to the full extent of the law no matter what motivated them to commit a crime. Any expression of an idea that does not agree with your beliefs can now be labeled hate speech even though there is no hatred involved. One example I saw on Face Book recently was when a Christian friend simply posted that he believes in the Biblical definition of marriage. He did not condemn or even mention those with different beliefs. He was attacked for that positive affirmation of his own faith as if he had hatefully attacked the entire LGBTQ community with threats and vitriol. The only true hate speech came from the woman who was triggered by his faith. 

As followers of Jesus Christ, we will face opposition and ridicule just as He did. That opposition is one of the ways you can tell if you are following God’s plan for your life and making progress. The enemy will do everything he can to distract us and get us off track from doing God’s work. I want to share with you three important points about facing opposition.

First, we must not run from it and seek isolation ourselves, trembling in fear. “Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the Lord means safety.” (Proverbs 29:25) “This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God and I trust him.” (Psalms 91:2)

Second, we must realize the people who attack us are not our enemy. “For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12) Going after people with a counter attack is exactly what our real enemy wants us to do;  be distracted by their taunts and then become just like them.

Finally, we don’t have to react to them at all. The most recent sermon series at CLC has been about Nehemiah doing the good work of rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem. When he faced criticism and ridicule from others he didn’t let it distract him. He just ignored them, prayed about it and went right back to doing God’s work.     

God created us, male and female (Genesis 5:2 and Matthew 19:4) and there are still only those two genders despite what you may have heard. Scientifically, we are born with an x or y chromosome determining our gender and physical characteristics. (Those other “genders” are a topic for another day.) God then created the institution of marriage between one man and one woman. (Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:5-6) Since marriage is God’s creation, it only works the way it is designed if He is directly involved and if the love described in the 13^th chapter of 1 Corinthians is mutually present as well.

You have heard the old saying, “Opposites attract”. That statement applies to more than opposite sexes or physical attraction. However, it is not two opposing forces drawn into combat with each other, even though that sadly applies to some marriages I have witnessed. Perhaps it would be better stated as two complimentary individuals uniting to form one complete entity. Carol and I both had a personal relationship with God and a desire to make Him a vital part of our marriage, but we had very different abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Those differences allowed us to use our abilities and strengths in our marriage, while leaning on each other for help with our weaknesses. A married couple who have the same abilities, strengths and weaknesses would be stepping all over each other’s toes while their common weaknesses would also weaken the marriage.

You have also heard the false statement that marriage is a 50/50 proposition. That, my friends, is the definition of divorce. Marriage is a 100/100 proposition with each person giving their all to make it work. The amazing thing is, when you give all of yourself to your spouse and your marriage, you get so much back in return that you could never experience on your own.

Did 50 years of marriage make me an expert on the subject? No! Not even close!

Was our marriage perfect? No! It was not! The only perfect marriage is the one between Christ and His Church. All others are imperfect copies.

Would I go through those 50 years of joy and sorrow; pleasure and grief; blessings and trials; agreement and conflict; comfort and pain with Carol again? Yes! In a heartbeat! Our mutual faith, love and trust would bring us through it once again. My only regret would be living through her death and trying to learn again to live without her.

Back in ancient times when I was a high school senior, I decided to take a typing class because I wanted to find a faster, less tedious way to record information than handwriting (cursive). I took a lot of teasing from my male friends until I pointed out to them, “Where else could I find a class that is more than 90% females?” That immediately got their minds on something other than my course choice.

It was in that typing class that I learned the importance of positioning and orientation. You must have your fingers in proper position on the keys. Then you can learn the orientation of the other keys from that position. For example, your right index finger is above the j but if you want to type an h you move that finger one key to your left. When we love God with our entire heart, soul and mind (Matthew 22:37 and Mark 12:30) we are in the correct position to learn our orientation to others in order to reach out and touch them.  

By the time I graduated, I could type 35 to 40 words a minute. The Air Force decided to make use of that ability by sending me to a six month Morse Intercept Operator training course. It was there I learned about involuntary reflex. Once my mind connected the sound patterns of Morse Code to the letters, I could position my hands on the keys and then automatically type the letters as quickly as the sound patterns reached my ears, up to 30 words per minute, without any thought of what I was typing. Once we have developed a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ and have learned to recognize the promptings of His Holy Spirit within us, we can automatically respond to those promptings without thought or question.

Today we no longer use the manual or electric typewriters I used, so we now call it data entry instead of typing, but the keyboard is exactly the same as the ones on those outdated machines. Using the keyboard on my laptop to write emails or blog posts, especially late at night, I sometimes inadvertently position my fingers in the wrong position and type a sentence or two without paying attention only to find unintelligible garbage on the screen forcing me to erase and reenter the information. If what we are doing in life doesn’t make any sense, maybe we need to correct our positioning with God’s help. There have also been times when I am working on a blog post when my fingers seem to have a mind of their own as I enter what the Holy Spirit prompts me to share. When I read the words on the screen I am amazed at what my involuntary reflex has entered. It is at times like that we find those promptings are as much for us as they are for the others we reach out to touch.     

As far back as I can remember I have known God exists and created everything including me. I think I mentioned before that the first two things my parents taught me were; there is a God and you’re not him. Even before I began my personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, I learned about His word and His love in Sunday school and church services at a small, non-denominational country church in southern Indiana.

It was God’s love not fear that drew me into a personal relationship with Him. But if there was a little fear in the back of my mind, it wasn’t fear of fire and brimstone; it was fear of eternal separation from God. I can’t remember a time when God wasn’t watching over me with His protective hand; pulling me through serious illnesses and getting my mom and me safely out of our burning home. I cannot even imagine a life without God.

What does scripture say about living with or without God? “Unless the LORD builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Unless the LORD protects a city, guarding it with sentries will do no good” (Psalms 127:1) “Jesus looked at them intently and said, ‘Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.’” (Mark 10:27) “I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.” (Psalms 16:8)

Cody Johnson and his family found themselves in a severe crisis. Seeing no way out, they knelt together and asked God for help, guidance and protection. When their prayer was finished, Cody took pen in hand and prayerfully wrote these words. “I thought number one would surely be me. I thought I could be what I wanted to be. I thought I could build on life’s sinking sand. But now I can’t even walk without you holding my hand. I thought I could do a lot on my own. I thought I could make it all day long. I thought of myself as a mighty big man. Lord, I can’t even walk without you holding my hand. I can’t even walk without you holding my hand. The mountain’s too high and the valley’s too wide. Down on my knees I learned how to stand, because I can’t even walk without you holding my hand.” I have mentioned before how much that song means to me personally, but I wanted to share it again because it is such a good description of living with or without God.

My prayer for you as you read this is that you will stand on God’s promises and lean on His everlasting arms in good times and bad – in sunshine and in the storms of life.

I read a story recently about a woman who read Malachi 3:3, “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.” She wanted to find out more about the meaning of that verse, so she made arrangements to watch a silversmith at work refining silver. He sat beside a very hot fire and held the silver over the center of the flames where it was hottest. He told her he had to sit there and carefully keep his eyes on the silver as the impurities were burned away, because if he continued to hold it there even a moment too long, the silver would be damaged. She asked, “How do you know when the purification is complete?” He answered, “That’s easy. It is complete when I can see my image in it.” It was then she got the full picture of God refining His people like a silversmith until our impurities are burned away and He can see His image in us.

I can tell you from experience, that purification process is not comfortable. The heat is intense from the flames of testing and trial. Some of the impurities in our life have been there so long that they seem to have become a part of who we are. Seeing them turn to ashes and disappear is traumatic, although a necessary part of our purification. Through it all, we can be confident that the Great Silversmith has His eyes on us the entire time and will never allow us to be harmed during the process. When it is finished, not only will God see His image in us, but everyone around us will see it too.

Whether you are in the fire now, or have been refined, I hope you find encouragement from this brief blog post.

I want to lighten things up a little with this rather long post. I enjoy word games and puzzles, like scrabble and crosswords, to keep my vocabulary intact and my mind active. I learned to spell phonetically, so there are a whole lot of exceptions in English to remember. One of the things I found interesting when I studied German was that if you can correctly pronounce a German word, you can spell it correctly too. At any rate, the older I get, the more I thank God for spell check. Although, there have been times recently when I have stumped spell check because I couldn’t get close enough to the correct spelling. Some of the suggestions I got were hilarious.

My father-in-law used to make up words. I never did figure out if he was playing around or when he couldn’t remember or pronounce a word he would just insert one that sounded OK to him. Carol would come up with a word once in a while you couldn’t find in a dictionary, but she always did it with purpose. My favorite was the word she used for hors d’oeuvres. Her father would have called them horse divers, but Carol called them appeteasers. I always thought that was such a good name for those little tidbits. I tried it once myself recently. Going to the noon service on Sunday, I normally have a late lunch/early dinner. I figured if a late breakfast/early lunch was called brunch, my Sunday meal must be linner. Sadly, that has not caught on, but it draws some weird looks when I use it.

In addition to the names we give things, sometimes the names we call each other can also be interesting. The King James translators Anglicized the names of New Testament characters, including the Son of God, who was not called Jesus during his physical lifetime on earth. I was talking to a dear friend recently about baptism of the Holy Spirit and prayer language. She told me that for the longest time she was only given one word. She had no idea of its meaning, but she felt God’s presence when she used it in prayer. One day she heard someone at church say it and she learned that Yeshua is the Hebrew name given to Christ at birth. She also told me how she received the rest of her prayer language, but that is a story I will share at another time, with her permission.

A purist will tell you that Instead of Mary, Joseph and Jesus in the Nativity of Bethlehem; they were actually Miriam, Yoseph and Yeshua. Does that matter? Have we been worshiping and praying using the wrong name since the year 1611? Of course not! Jesus is just as much the name of God’s Son as Jim is my name, even though it doesn’t appear on my birth certificate. As a man, He understood and spoke the language of those around him. As the Son of God, He understands and speaks the language of every person on earth (even my version of English). The proof is found in the countless changed lives, answered prayers and miracles that have occurred in Jesus’ name. I love these words of a song, “If you feel that no one loves you and your life is out of hand, I know a man who can. Some call him Savior, the redeemer of all men. I call him Jesus because he’s my dearest friend.” His Holy Spirit has never corrected me when I pray in the name of Jesus and there has always been a response to my prayer. It hasn’t always been the answer I was hoping for, but my Abba (Heavenly Daddy) always responds to a prayer in the name of Jesus, His Son and my Savior.            

Growing up in southern Indiana in the 1950s, I would hear my older friends and relatives sigh, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”. I’m not sure they even knew they were quoting Jesus (Matthew 26:41 KJV). It was simply a truth they encountered as their bodies got older and weaker.

After their Passover dinner, the disciples followed Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane for prayer. He knew it was nearly time for him to suffer and die an excruciating death on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of the world and he also knew his disciples were about to face the greatest challenge to their faith in him. He told them to watch and pray, while he went off to pray privately. When he returned, the meal they had just consumed and the night air had them all sound asleep. Jesus woke them and told them, “Keep watch and pray so that you don’t give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing but the body is weak!”

My spirit was very willing as I rushed forward and knelt at that church altar those many years ago. It has remained willing to serve God all of these years, but as he warned his disciples, my body has led me into temptation more times than I want to count. I am so thankful that he has always been there to wake me from my slumber and put my willing spirit back on the path to following him.

Now that I’m old and dealing with physical limitations, I know exactly what my friends and relatives meant back then. Unlike our body, our spirit doesn’t age. I still have that young, willing spirit within me that was there when I took those first bold, eager strides at the beginning of my journey with the Holy Spirit. There are so many things my spirit still longs to do, but my body taunts me and says, “Dream on old fella those days are long gone”. It is so frustrating at times, but I am not complaining because the Holy Spirit has redirected my spiritual energy now to different means for me to serve and encourage others. In some ways, I am more blessed now than ever before. When your wiling spirit is teamed up with God’s Holy Spirit within you, all things are possible and there will always be opportunities to be useful to God in spite of physical limitations. God is good – all the time!

Have you ever grown so close to someone that you could finish each other’s sentences? My wife and I became that close to each other. That kind of relationship doesn’t happen overnight. It requires love and paying close attention to each other. It also requires a trust strong enough for us to drop our defenses and become totally vulnerable. When someone knows you that well, they also know all of your hot buttons, sensitivities and weaknesses. You don’t ever want to get into a serious argument with someone who is that well-armed.

When you are that close to someone you have a lot of shared experiences. Just a word or phrase can have you both smiling and even roaring with laughter at that private joke, as it brings back a shared memory. Because of that, you may no longer have the long conversations you used to have, but being together speaks more to each of you than a thousand words. Every time one of my friends has a wedding anniversary I congratulate them and remind them to cherish every precious moment together. They all know me well enough to understand my reason for that reminder.

I have had a 65 year relationship with God through His Son and His Holy Spirit. Without realizing it our relationship has become even closer than the one Carol and I shared. I have noticed that my prayers have gotten shorter and shorter over the years. No need to repeat what we already know about each other. Just a word or phrase will bring back a shared experience; a blessing or miracle that brings a smile or even a joyful laugh. Even without a lot of words, I continue to cherish every precious moment we have together, even though I know that those moments will now continue for eternity. 

Those of you who have that kind of personal relationship with God know exactly what I mean. The rest of you now know it is possible to achieve that relationship and you can start working on it today. God has loved you before your birth (John 3:16) and He knows you better than you know yourself (Jeremiah 1:5); so all you have to do is love Him in return and pay close attention to His word and His Holy Spirit within you. Jesus teaches us, “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!” (Matthew 6:7-8) He always knows what we mean.