The Good Shepherd

I try to have a good attitude.  But often I drift to the negative side.  You know what I mean: the cup is half full or the cup is half empty.  But often, to explain what something IS, it is easier to explain what it ISN’T.  Peter knew this and explained our salvation in Jesus Christ as a before/after illustration.  He said in I Peter 2:25, “For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.”  What a beautiful word picture!  Can you picture a sheep that is lost and in distress?  And then picture the same sheep that is rescued by the Good Shepherd?  What a beautiful picture of our salvation!  The contrast between the darkness of being lost and the joy of being found is profound!  Hey, are you in a dark place today?  Do you long for the comfort of the Shepherd of your soul?  Jesus stands ready to forgive and ready to rescue you from your dark place.  Return to the Good Shepherd right now.  He will rescue you and bring you back to where you belong.  Yes, He will!

 

Adam and Eve

I had a dear friend say to me, “It isn’t fair that God should condemn the entire human race because of one man’s mistake.  Just because Adam sinned, why are we all guilty before God?!”  That’s a fair question.  But given human nature, if any of us would have been in Adam … or Eve’s position, we would have made the same mistake.  You see, we are all made of the same stuff.  Adam was the federal head of the human race.  Let me explain.  When I voted for our senator, I sent him to Washington to represent me.  But when he votes, he does not always vote the way that I want him to vote every time.  That’s because he doesn’t just represent me; he represents a couple of million other constituents.  He votes for all of us, just like Adam represents all of us as a human race.  We are all flawed, and we are all in need of a Savior.  The bad news is found in Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”  We are all in the same leaky boat.  We desperately need help.  But God already knew that and made a way for our redemption.  I Corinthians 15:45 says, “… The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.”  Jesus Christ, our deliverer, is that second Adam.  And we have been released from sin’s shackles by the work of Jesus on Calvary!  If we accept the free gift of salvation, Jesus Christ gives us back what we lost in the Garden of Eden through Adam.  Praise the Lord for Jesus Christ … the second Adam!  In Him we have redemption and in Him we are restored to our loving Creator.

Clean up after Yourself!

My wife and I went to Costco this afternoon to get some candy for the church kids.  While there I took advantage of their snack shop.  I bought my wife a foot-long hotdog and a drink, and for me, a slice of cheese pizza and a drink.  The total was $4.37!  I am the king of the cheap date!  I had to get one of those sanitizing wipes out of the dispenser to wipe off the table.  The cleaning staff generally does a good of keeping the tables and floor clean, but they were particularly busy today (holiday season).  And then I saw something unusual … something that I have not seen before.  I saw a man cleaning off his table AFTER he ate.  And I know exactly why.  If I don’t pick up my trash and wipe the table with the leftover napkins, I can hear my mother’s voice ringing in my head, “Clean up that mess!  I’m your mother, not your maid.”  And I’m sure the man that I saw today probably heard his mother in his head as well.  Hey, we should teach our children so that they can contribute to society ... like the old man that I saw today.  Our children need to learn to clean up the table so that the next guest will have a clean table when they sit down.  Solomon said in Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  I don’t think that this verse is necessarily an iron-clad promise from the Lord; I think this verse is a verse of wisdom.  Generally speaking, if you train your children, they will learn and when they are old, they will become as you have taught them.  There are some exceptions to the rule, but they are only exceptions.  Hey, do your children close the outside door behind them?  Do your children turn off the lights when they leave?  Do your boys put down the toilet seat to be polite for the girls who might follow?  If they do, chances are you do too.  and if you don’t … well maybe it’s not only your children that need training.