... Most of the Time

 

Pretend you are on an airplane getting ready to take off.  The pilot speaks over the intercom, “We are getting ready to take off, and I just wanted to inform you that my goal is to fly this airplane so that we will never crash … most of the time.”  Would you stay on that airplane, or get off (with all of the other passengers)?  But why is it that we are satisfied with living a clean life … most of the time?  We only sin just a little - not too much.  Peter said it best in I Peter 1:16, “… Be ye holy; for I am holy.”  We should be as holy as the Lord is holy.  But the problem is, we can’t.  It is only through the power of Jesus Christ that we can even begin to live a victorious Christian life.  James 4:8, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.”  So, we are hopeless sinners.  Our only hope is in Jesus Christ, and in Him alone!

Tender Spot

 

I had knee surgery four years ago this past February.  After a month of rest, I began physical therapy.  My knee movement improved but seemed to plateau by mid-summer.  After consulting with my primary care doctor, I went back to physical therapy for a second round.  On the first day back, my physical therapist was working on a muscle in the back of my knee when I protested.  He asked, “Does that hurt?”  I made the mistake of saying that it did, so he bore down right on that spot.  Again, I said, “Hey, that really hurts!”  Chris said, “There seems to be a knot here, and I need to work it out.”  Over the next ten minutes, I came close to crying a couple of times.  Then he instructed his assistant to take me through some exercises to work on that particular muscle.  At home that afternoon, my leg hurt and hurt, but with Tylenol, I was able to get to sleep that night.  The next day, I did some physical work in the morning.  Around noon, I realized that I had been working all morning without any pain!  That physical therapy session the day before had really worked!  It had accomplished what needed to be done - although with considerable pain on my part.  Hey, that’s exactly what the Holy Spirit does in my spiritual life!  He presses down upon sinful areas that need to be cleaned out.  The Holy Spirit does not give up until I come clean with Him.  He patiently loves me back into fellowship, even when it seems painful for me.  The Apostle Paul said it best, in II Corinthians 4:17, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”  Hey, what about you?  Do you have some tender spots in your secret life that God needs to work on?  Let the dear Lord do His work on your soul.  You’ll be glad that you did.

Clean

 

When Kathy and I were first married (1971), I worked at a seat belt company in Michigan.  We moved back to Chattanooga for me to finish college.  I worked for a warehousing company, an insurance company (printing), and then an iron foundry.  Each job was a move up (or so I thought), but I had to work afternoons and nights so that I could go to school during the daytime.  When I worked nights, I would shower at work and go straight to college in the mornings.  When I worked in the afternoons, I would come home at midnight and shower at home.  But the foundry grime was hard to wash off.  I used plenty of soap and used a dark colored washcloth because that was the color it would turn out to be anyway.  I shampooed my hair three times just to get it clean.  My dear wife had to wash my work clothes separately, often putting them through two cycles in the washing machine.  The difficulty getting my clothes and hair clean is a picture of how difficult our sins are to clean.  The only way to remove sin-stains is to wash them with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ!  And Jesus told his disciples that His Words do the work.  Jesus said in John 15:3, “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.”  Hey, 2,000 years later, we can read the precious Word of Godin the Bible, trust in the substitutional death of Jesus Christ on the cross, and be cleansed of our sins!  Praise the Lord!

Life's a Puzzle

 

When I was a kid, I had three brothers.  My sweet sister was not born until I was sixteen years old.  And my childhood was before cell phones and the internet and x-boxes and … well you get the picture.  We had four Norman Rockwell puzzles that we worked over and over again.  The odd thing was that all four puzzles were cut from the same die: all of the pieces were interchangeable.  The first couple of times, we looked at the picture on the box lid to figure out which pieces went where.  But soon, we didn’t even need the lid.  We even knew which of the four puzzles each piece went to, and we stored all four puzzles in the same box.  Hey, is your life like one of those puzzles?  So often we think our lives should turn out perfect, just like the beautiful picture on the front of the puzzle box.  But when we begin to go through life, it doesn’t turn out the way that we thought it should.  We make mistakes, and then worse mistakes, and then irreversible mistakes.  What we fail to realize early in life is that the dear Lord has a plan for our lives, just like the picture on the box lid.  We fail to realize that our picture, our life, and God’s picture of our life aren’t the same.  Hey, the dear Lord knows what is best for us; He knows how our picture should turn out.  And we would do well to let the Lord pick out the picture for us.  Then all of the pieces will come together much better.  “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5,6

Clever

 

A man built a small grocery store in a small town and they both began to grow.  He put in a line of hardware to meet the needs of the growing community.  Years went by and the town prospered along with the little store.  A big grocery chain looked at locating in the growing town and offered to buy the man’s property.  But he wouldn’t sell.  So, they built a huge grocery store right beside the little store.  A large hardware chain approached the man to buy his property, but again, he wouldn’t sell.  So, they built a huge hardware store right on the other side of the little store.  Soon the man’s business began to dry up.  With a huge grocery store on one side and a huge hardware store on the other side, he became desperate.  But he had an idea.  He pulled the last of his money together and put a huge neon sign above his door which said, “Main Entrance Here”.  This cute story reminds me of the dishonest steward in Luke 16:1-13.  When the steward was caught embezzling, he quickly made a few last crooked deals before he was fired.  Jesus said in Luke 16:8, “… the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely …”  Sometimes clever trumps hard work.  Hey, work smarter, not harder.

Love

 

Hollywood says that you should find your soulmate and then you fall in love.  There are websites that ask twenty compatibility questions, and based on your answers, connect you with ten potential matches.  But the Bible teaches a totally different plan.  When you marry, you make a commitment.  You are commanded in Ephesians 5 to love your wife … for life.  Love isn’t an ushy-gushy feeling; love is a commitment.  We are to love our wife as Christ loved us.  And Jesus Christ loved us while we were sinners - while we were unlovely.  We don’t fall in love; we grow in love.  Hollywood says that when your love dies, it is the other one’s fault.  They didn’t meet your needs.  You are justified to ditch the old one and find a new soulmate.  But God commands us to love, honor, and cherish till death do us part.  For better or for worse.  Love is not a noun; it is not a thing that we have.  Love is a verb; it is a thing that we do.  We must work on our love and nurture it.  True love grows because of the time that we put into it to make it thrive.  Love is meeting the other person’s needs.  Love is growing old together. Which brings me to my second point: today is my anniversary.  And don’t congratulate me on 52 years of marriage, congratulate my dear wife for putting up with me for 52 years!  Hey, love your wife, today and every day!

Virtual Reality

 

Have you seen the virtual reality headsets?  They can effectively train welders, doctors, and pilots with real-life simulation.  And while they are not the real thing, they are the next best thing to reality.  Hey, that’s exactly what this life is.  We need to be reminded every day that there is an alternate universe, the spiritual world, that is around us all the time. And while we can’t actually see this alternate universe, the Bible gives us the VR headset to see that spiritual world.  But actually, it’s reversed!  This life that we are living is the virtual reality world, and the spiritual world is the real world!  Mind boggling, isn’t it?  And I know that the spiritual world is the real world because the spiritual world is eternal, and this life is only temporary.  Yes, it is!  And Paul knew it, because he said in II Corinthians 4:18, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”  Hey, today, get out your Bible and read it.  And when you do, you are taking off your VR headset that you live with, and with God’s Word, you can see the real world!