Dead

 

I grew up in a family of four boys and I was the oldest.  My dear sister was born when I was sixteen years old.  In the summers, us boys lived outdoors.  We went out in the morning and didn’t come home until dark.  We were afraid to come inside because mom might have work for us to do.  So, at lunchtime, we ate a tomato out of the garden or sliced a cucumber … with the same pocketknife that we skinned squirrels with.  I loved climbing trees and would try to go from one tree to another without going back to the ground.  If I would go high enough, where the tree was thin and limber, I could swing out and cause the tree to lean over to a nearby one and transfer from one tree to another.  The old Tarzan movies might have had something to do with my tree-climbing interests.  So, one day we were enjoying our creative tree climbing when my brother, two years younger than me, attempted a risky move.  He lost his grip, fell about twenty feet, and landed squarely on his back.  Phillip didn’t move, and I thought he was dead!  I shinnied down the tree as fast as I could.  But then I heard him gasp.  He had the wind knocked out of his lungs, and he was gasping to get his breath.  He was shaken, but otherwise, just fine.  After sixty years, I still have that moment burned into my memory.  Hey, we all fear death.  That is because death is so final.  We can’t make amends or ask forgiveness of anyone after death.  The mind shuts down, the soul leaves the body, and nothing matters.  But, if we have trusted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we will live again!  Oh, we still fear death, but death, for the Christian, is not final.  Death is only the door that opens into eternity.  Paul said in I Corinthians 15:55, :O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”  We mourn at funerals, but we do not mourn as those who have no hope.  Our hope is in Jesus Christ and in the coming resurrection told of in I Corinthians 15 and I Thessalonians 4.  Hey, read about it and decide for Christ.  Decide before it’s too late.

Reynolds Wrap

 

My dad’s older brother, Uncle Glen, worked at Reynold’s Aluminum in Richmond, Virginia.  He came up a time or two each year to visit his mother (my paternal grandmother) who lived next door to us.  Uncle Glen always brought my mother a heavy roll of aluminum foil.  It was an end-of-the-roll discard from the factory that weighed two or three pounds and seemed to last forever.  Uncle Glen only had one stipulation: we had to call in “Reynold’s Wrap.”  (He was a good company man.)  I still call the rolls of aluminum foil that I buy at Walmart “Reynold’s Wrap” whether they are or not.  Hey, names are important, not just for Uncle Glen.  Dr. Luke said in Acts 11:26, “… And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”  I am glad to be called a Christian, but often, I am not the best example of a follower of Jesus Christ.  So, what about you?  Are you a good example of a Christian?  If someone were to watch you for a day, would your life remind others of Jesus Christ?  Think about it.

Screw in the Tire

 

Wednesday, as my wife was getting into our car, she said, “Is that a nail in our tire?”  I looked and replied, “No, that’s a tiny rock stuck in the tread.”  And I pulled out my pocketknife and picked out the rock.  But another place on the tire caught my eye.  I said, “But this is not a rock.  It’s a screw.”  And so it was.  I didn’t attempt to pull it out because we had two more stops to make before we were home.  But when we got home, I parked the car in front of the garage and turned the steering wheel to expose the tread on the passenger side tire.  Then I rolled the car backward until the screw was just at “2 o’clock” on the tire where I could work on it.  I turned on the air compressor, got out the air hose and air chuck, and found my tire-plugging supplies.  I was ready.  But when I removed the screw, it was only a half inch long and had not pierced the tire; it was just stuck in the rubber tread.  I sprayed the area with 409 soap, but couldn’t detect any leak.  My careful precautions and preparations were unnecessary.  But I didn’t know that until I pulled out the screw.  Hey, in life, we “prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”  But what if there isn’t an after-life?  What if the Bible isn’t true?  What if I have wasted my life serving Jesus Christ?  What if the atheist IS right?  Well, let me turn the question around: what if the Bible IS true, and heaven IS real, and Jesus IS the only way to heaven?  Hey, if I am wrong, at least I have lived a clean life.  And I have lived a happy life.  But what if the atheist is wrong?  He has much more to lose … an eternity to lose!  Mark 8:36, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”  I’ll take my chances on Jesus.  So … what about you?