Scars

 

I was about 14 years old and my brother Phillip was about 12.  It had snowed a damp snow - just the kind to make great snow forts and great snowballs.  We were making our forts and setting up strategic snowball stockpiles.  But we only had one snow shovel.  So an argument developed with Phillip and me tugging on the same snow shovel.  I was overpowering Phillip, and at the moment of my fiercest yank, he let go.  I ended up hitting myself in the head with the sharp edge of the snow shovel.  After a trip to the doctor, I had six stitches in my right eyebrow.  But I was happy.  Scars made me look more like a street fighter.  I am seventy-five years old next week, and I still have that scar in my right eyebrow.  When I comb my hair and I look in the mirror, I am reminded of the snow shovel fight over sixty years ago.  Hey, do you have a scar to remember a mishap in the past?  Do you have any spiritual scars to remember past failures?  It could be a divorce.  It could be time served in prison.  It could be a departed loved one that was never reconciled.  Whatever the scar, God’s grace is there as well.  God will forgive if we but ask.  John said in I Jn 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  God will forgive and forget, but we will remember because, the scar is always there.  But the scar is a good reminder - of our mistake AND of God’s forgiveness.

GMC Truck Engine

 

Years ago, there was a big stink about a General Motors decision.  It seems that GMC truck owners were furious to learn that GM had quietly closed their premium GMC truck engine plant and had begun to put Chevy engines into their GMC trucks.  You see, GMC is the expensive line of Chevy trucks, and the GMC truck owners expected to have better engines in their expensive trucks.  They felt that General Motors had deceived them using inferior engines.  Hey, often we are deceived.  We expect one thing, but we get an inferior thing instead.  But, could we be deceiving ourselves?  Paul said in Galatians 6:7&8, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”  If we want what is best for ourselves, we will invest in our spiritual lives.  Can I be brutally honest?  What’s in your heart?  Do you have a cheap, worldly heart?  Or do you have a Godly, spiritual heart that is in tune with heaven above?  Don’t be deceived.  Better yet, don’t deceive yourself.  Put God first, and you’ll never be sorry that you did.

The Cake or the Recipe?

 

Have you ever had a cake that was so good that you wanted the recipe?  I haven’t, but my wife has.  Ha, ha!  Therein lies the difference: you see, I like the cake, but my wife likes the cake recipe.  She likes to bake a cake, but I just like to eat a piece of the cake.  Hey, often we are the same way with the dear Lord above.  Do we like the things that God gives to us, or do we love the God who gives the good things to us?  God loves His dear children and delights in giving us good things.  But often we are distracted by the things, forgetting the One who gave them to us.  Will our heavenly Father give us good things?  Absolutely!  Jesus said in Matthew 7:11, “… how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"  Enjoy the good things that the Lord gives to us, but don’t forget to give thanks to the Giver.