How Churches Are Like Lemons

When I went to Sunday school as a kid I was graded every Sunday. I was also graded in what was called Training Union on Sunday nights. Each of us had to fill out a checklist indicating if we brought our Bible, read our lesson, did our daily Bible readings, brought an offering and a couple other requirements. Each item was worth points that when added up totaled 100% if all were checked. Sometimes we were divided into groups and after several weeks the group with the highest total won. I rarely was able to check off every item, and was usually one who brought my groups score down. Obviously, I was given a hard time for not doing better. I dreaded having to fill those dumb checklists out, and I hated them. I had problems with grades in school, and it was the same thing in church.

Something like that, I figure, soured many a youngster's hearts toward church. Don’t get me wrong, I love church, but churches do some dumb things that drive people away. I have served in churches all my life. I served in an association of about 73 churches, and I saw things happen in churches that made me shutter. I won’t go into any of those faux pas that pastors, deacons, elders and other church leaders and members committed, but it was no wonder that people left those churches. My parents made me go to church and endure those checklists, but adults don’t have to put up with those kinds of unnecessary mistakes, and I might add unfriendliness.

I have been a Southern Missionary Baptist all my life. Unfortunately, our denomination continues to do things that are causing members to leave. Many churches in our denomination continue to not make it easy for other races to attend and become part of the local church body. I think a large number of our churches have a very unloving attitude toward certain people that commit certain sins that we think are worse than others, and therefore, those people are not welcome. There is still too much politics in our churches, especially the smaller ones. I have pastored a couple of churches where a family or a deacon body controlled every decision made. I’m sure I made a lot of mistakes, but I made them honestly, not with hate or a desire to hurt someone.

My experience as a pastor has helped me see many of the things that drive people away. I learned not to put pressure on people. Some people leave church because they are worn out from doing too much. I used to do things because I felt I had to, was obligated or somehow made to feel like if I didn’t God would not be pleased.  Now I only do what I feel led to do. I don’t let anybody shame me into doing something, and neither should you. If someone does that they are dead wrong. I’m involved in about three ministries at our church, and I feel good about that. Sherri and I are committed to two nights, and we go Sunday for worship, choir and Sunday school. And Sherri and I help with a ministry to the elderly at a nursing home Alzheimer’s unit. We are just old, not elderly. I love my church because it is a place I can serve and feel good about serving. I love the people and our new friends. My church is a great place to worship our God. It’s not a perfect church. I see somethings I don’t like, but not many. So far I haven’t found any sour lemons that will drive me away.

The Five Dollar Jesus

Back in July a neighbor had a moving sale. I didn’t go to it because I figured I had enough junk without going to a yard sale and buying another person's junk. A couple of days after his sale I stopped by just to talk. We talked a while, and as I was getting ready to leave he mentioned an outdoor nativity that he didn’t sell. “I’ll take $10 for it if you want to buy it.”  He remembered that I had complimented it during the past Christmas. Actually I didn’t like it at all. I was just impressed that he displayed a nativity scene, something not seen very often in our subdivision.

I thought $10 was too much because I had no intention of putting it in my front yard. And it was about ninety five degrees, and decorating for Christmas was the last thing I wanted to think about. I said, “You’ll need it when you move to a Maryland, besides I’m not sure where I would put it in my little front yard.” He replied, “Tell you what, give me $5, and you can have it. We can’t use it where we are moving. I would really like you to have it.” That man drove a pretty hard bargain, and I agreed to give him $5.

You might say I bought a five dollar Jesus, and a Mary and a Joseph came with him. Sherri kind of liked it, and we never had an outside nativity. So Jesus, Mary and Joseph are now in the spotlight on our front porch. They look a lot better than I thought they would. I now feel badly that I didn’t give my neighbor the $10 he was asking. I think Jesus is worth at least $10. That sounds bad doesn’t it? There is a reason I put it that way.

Jesus is priceless. He is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. He is our salvation, our only hope. Because of what he did you, and I have an opportunity to be royalty and live forever in God’s heavenly Kingdom. There is no monetary value we can place on Jesus. Yet millions of people continue to treat him like he is worth no more than the $5 I paid for that nativity. Jesus means nothing to them. For some the only time they mention his name is when they swear. Comedians on TV make fun of him. Even people who claim to know him worship things like sports, the pleasures of this world  and their material possessions rather than worshiping him. For hundreds of thousands of people Jesus’ birthday is just a reason to buy and give gifts, greet friends with “Happy Holidays”, have days off from school and work, and get with family and friends to eat and drink. Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus for many people today.

What is Jesus worth to you? I hope he is worth a lot more than $5. I remember singing a song that said, “Jesus is so precious to me!” That baby in the manger of our nativities should remind us of how precious, and how valuable he really is. This Christmas think about how much Jesus means to you. The greatest bargain you and I will ever hope to get is that Jesus died and took away our sins so that we will not perish but have eternal life. Jesus certainly is precious!

Some Pieces Don’t Fit

Imagine your life being like a giant jigsaw puzzle. At first the pieces seem to fall into place rather easily because there are several people helping you. As you get older the task becomes a little more difficult as you are making more decisions on your own. You learn quickly that a lot of the pieces you place are chosen through trial and error. Frustration mounts as you find a piece that you know will work, but it doesn’t fit at all. So you begin searching for the right one. Those pieces involving school, vocations, love, marriage, children, finances and many other life decisions can be hard to fit where they belong.

When we begin to reach adulthood our vision of what our puzzle will look like is one of a beautiful screen like a majestic mountain, a lovely seascape, or perhaps that breathtaking sunrise peaking through the early morning clouds. However, as those needed pieces to our puzzle are buried in a heap of other pieces, and we try to squeeze the wrong piece into our puzzle we find that what we first envisioned becomes distorted looking nothing at all like the picture we had hoped to create. The more this happens the more disappointed we become. Depression sets in, life is hard, and many don’t want to work on that puzzle anymore. The frustration level becomes so great you want to simply destroy all the work with one sweep of the arm tossing the whole thing onto the floor.

There are probably pieces to most everyone’s life puzzle that have left ugly blemishes on what has been created. Bad pieces have been mixed in that should never have been used. They were wedged in because we didn’t want to take time to look for the correct piece. We became impatient and chose the easy piece even though it didn’t fit properly. Or maybe we fell in love with a piece that should never been used. Or perhaps we got tired of the correct piece, removed it and replaced it with one that seemed more attractive. That can be true of a marriage, a job, or some materialistic thing we just had to have. Some of the wrong pieces may have been innocent mistakes, while many of them are simply a result of sin.

What if, at this very moment, as you are looking at your life puzzle you are repulsed at what you see. You don’t like the scene in front of you. Can anything be done to make it look better? Who can deal with those mistake pieces, and those sin pieces? The One who overcame sin. The One who died to take away our sin. The One who makes all things new. Jesus is the one who can make our life puzzle a glorious piece of art. It can become more than just a gigsaw puzzle if we completely turn it over to him to restore it to what God intended it to be in the first place. Give your life to Jesus and let him finish what you started.

They Don’t Know

I was was having a conversation with a child and happened to mention Goliath being almost 10 feet tall. We had been talking about getting tall. She seemed a bit confused so I asked her if she knew who Goliath was. She said she had never heard anything about him. I was surprised that a kid 9 years old had never heard the story about David and Goliath. After thinking about this I realized that in our society today children don’t hear the Bible stories that folks my age grew up hearing every Sunday in Sunday school. Most children in our nation are not taken to church on Sunday. And I think that is very sad.

Children don’t hear about Moses seeing a burning bush that was not consumed by the flames, and how he obeyed God by going back to Egypt to confront Pharaoh, or Jonah being swallowed by the big fish, and how the walls of Jericho came tumbling down as Joshua led the Israelites around that wall. They haven’t heard about those friends of Daniel, with the weird names, being thrown into the fiery furnace, and they were not burned the least little bit. And of course how the youngster David killed the giant Goliath with a sling. They miss the story about Elijah praying to God to send down fire from heaven to burn up the wet sacrifice and how he killed those 400 pagan prophets, and how ravens fed him every day while he was hiding in the wilderness. They don’t hear the stories of Jesus feeding thousands of people with a few loaves of bread and just a few small fish, or how he healed people like the lepers, not leopards, and how he raised Lazarus from the dead.

But the saddest and most tragic thing about all of this is children are not hearing the wonderful story about Jesus dying on a cross, and how three days later he rose from the grave. No one tells them that Jesus died for them. Children have no idea that their only hope for eternal life is through Jesus who loves them so much that he died for them.

I heard two men about my age talking about a lady who had all the children in their neighborhood come to her house once a week to a Bible study. She had them memorize a Bible verse every week. These two men were children who were eventually saved because of this wonderful woman. I don’t know how this method of teaching children these great Bible stories about God’s hero would work today, but I do know there is an urgent need to reach children whose parents don’t take them to Sunday school. This is definitely something that should break our hearts. We need to pray for the children on our nation that somehow we can find some way to teach them these wonderful Bible stories, and about our God who loves them so much.

Trusting the Overcomer

Double, double, Toil and trouble.
“Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all…”

Not exactly uplifting words are they? I feel like this sometimes. I think there are a lot of people in the world today who feel as though they have been cursed by the witches spell or assume that they are doomed to experience nothing but bad luck. They live in a dark, miserable place where the sun never shines. They are depressed and see no hope for a bright future.

The truth is there are no witches’ curses, no hexes, no pin pierced voodoo dolls that doom you to a life of misery. Yes, life can be tough. Sometimes we are almost swept away by a flood of troubles. I have never known anyone who has not experienced problems. We live in a world of sin, so bad things are going to happen to us. God never promised us that we would be free from difficulties. He did promise us that he would always be with us. John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (NIV)

We will have trouble. Jesus told the disciple to take heart. Great advice! Are you experiencing trouble today? Listen to what Jesus said, “Take heart.” In other words, “Hang in there!” Jesus is in control. He has overcome the world and all of the darkness and gloom that you are facing. Are you a child of God? If you are you have a wonderful inheritance waiting for you. That inheritance comes with an eternity that is full of problem fee living. There is nothing that can take that away from you. God loves you and he wants you to be aware of his presence each day. He will give you joy and peace despite the despair that you are experiencing. This is a good day for you to take heart and look beyond your problems. Be thankful that you are not like those who have no hope. You belong to God and your future is brighter than the noon day sun.

The Day After

After a day of eating turkey, ham, many delicious vegetable selections, all kinds of salads, and cakes,and pies some may have decided that they don’t want to eat anything. The thought of having bacon, eggs or pancakes and such for breakfast is disgusting. How can anyone have anything to eat the day after Thanksgiving?

Here is something we gluttons might try. It’s sugar free, gluten free, no cholesterol, non fattening, very healthy, and the most delicious dish ever. I found this on a menu that perhaps you have seen. Here is how it is presented. “Taste and see that the Lord is good…”
This menu even gives a way in which a connoisseur of this wonderful delicacy will thrive, “blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”  Yummy! Tastes good, and good for you too.

Reference: Psalm 34:8

The Triple Crown of Holidays

Why did the Beatles stop inviting Ringo to their Thanksgiving  dinners?

The triple crown of holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. All three honor God, but for different reasons. It is really interesting how each of these fall on the calendar. Thanksgiving is always in November and on Thursday, but on different dates each year.. Christmas is always celebrated in December and always on the 25th, therefore, Christmas is on a different day of the week every year. Easter always occurs on Sunday, but not necessarily during the same month every year. In 325CE the Council of Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. So Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon that falls on or after March 21. It can be as early as March 22 and as late as April 25 depending on when the Paschal full moon is.

Thanksgiving is our national holiday set aside to thank our Heavenly Father for his provisions and his blessings which are many. We celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ our Savior, our Redeemer at Christmas. And on Easter we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, the One who died on the cross as the sacrificial Lamb for the forgiveness of our sins. In that Jesus became our only Hope for eternal life. The one thing that makes all of these holidays alike is that we remember God our Father’s acts of love and grace toward us, sinners, who don’t deserve anything for which we celebrate.

Today, Thanksgiving, don’t forget to praise God for what happened on the first Christmas and the first Easter. If not for Jesus birth and his death and resurrection we most likely would not have a Thanksgiving.

So why did the Beatles stop inviting Ringo to the Thanksgiving meal? Because he would not share the drumsticks.