The Kiss

I am moved by this story as told by Richard Selzer.

I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face post operative, her mouth twisted in palsy; clownish.  A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that.  Nevertheless, to remove the tumor from her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve.  Her young husband is in the room.  He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private.  Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry-mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily?
  “Will my mouth alway be like this?” she asks.
  “Yes,” I say, “it will be.  It is because the nerve was cut.”
  She nods and is silent.  But the young man smiles.  “I like it,” he says, “It is kind of cute.”
Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate her, to show her that their kiss still works.  

Did not God, our Heavenly Father, accommodate Himself to us?  God saw mankind scarred with sin. He didn’t turn away in disgust, leaving us in our misery. Rather, He bent down and kissed us with love and forgiveness.

Isn’t that what John 3:16 and 17 are all about?  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”    NIV

Love Him who first loved you.

Don’t Rob Yourself of Struggle

    A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole.  Then, it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had got as far as it could and it could go no farther.  Then, the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily, but it had a swollen body and small shrivelled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any  moment the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of his life crawling around with a swollen body and shrivelled wings.  It was never able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. 
    Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If God allowed us to go through our life without obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been, and we could never fly.                Selected

    It takes real effort to get through this wilderness, this vale of tears, which is what our world is.  We are not worldly beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a worldly experience. This world is not our home. We are just passing through on our way to our true home in heaven.

    Listen to God’s Word in 2 Corinthians the 4th chapter beginning with verse 16: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  Now we know that if the earthly  tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, and eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”    NIV

    It is no wonder that Jesus said, “We live by faith, not by sight.”  2 Corinthians 5:7  NIV
His promises, through His Word in the Bible, are what keeps us keeping on.  Hope, based on God’s Word, is the anchor of the soul.  The best thing I can say to you in the midst of your struggle is: Draw nearer to Jesus for He can turn darkness into light.  Jesus can turn sorrow into joy. But, most all, Jesus, and only Jesus, can turn death into life.  Don’t give up, don’t quit, don’t rob yourself of struggle.  

I Was Caught Speeding

    I was caught speeding.  The date was August 22nd, 1956.  It was a Saturday, when two car loads of our church people were leaving Jackson, Michigan going to a baseball game in Detroit. I was driving the lead car.  As we were leaving town, the police pulled me over.  They had caught me in a radar going over the speed limit.  I received a ticket.  How embarrassing.

    Interesting were the comments, from our church people, when they heard about this and they soon knew that the preacher had been caught speeding. Some of them said, “You are the preacher, they shouldn’t give you a ticket.”  Another said, “Radar is a sneaky way to catch you speeding, it should not be allowed.” Still another said, “You weren’t driving very much over the speed limit, they ought to allow you a little leeway.”  Some one else spoke up saying, “You didn’t know that you were speeding so they should have just warned you and not have given you a ticket.” 

    All this rationalization could not excuse that fact that I had broken the law therefore, I deserved to pay the consequences.  

    The truth of the matter is that God has established government to enable people to live together peaceably, which demands law.  Government is divine. There are three divine institutions: home, church and government.  God set apart the home by instituting marriage.  Husband and wife committed to each other and the means of propagating the human race through children. God set apart the Church to be God’s means of offering salvation to all mankind.  God set up government to protect the rights of individuals. There must be law (government) or you have anarchy. 

Romans 13:1-2 “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.  The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”

    Only one exception to all this and that is found in Acts 5:29 “Peter and the other Apostles replied: we must obey God rather than men.” NIV   Our first obligation is to God.  The law of God is the highest law of all. There can be no conflict, no interference with God’s clear teaching found in the Bible.  Yet, God has delegated His authority for governing people to man so we must be subject to any and all laws not contrary to the laws of God.  Christians are citizens of two worlds.  Jesus said, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”  Matthew 22: 21    NIV

Ten Cannots

    Think through these “Ten Cannots” by Abraham Lincoln.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot further brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative  and  independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

    When Abraham Lincoln was born, his cousin, Dennis Hanks, 9 years old, was visiting.  Nancy let Dennis hold the baby and Abraham just cried and cried.  Dennis handed the crying baby back and he said, “Aunt, take him, he’ll never come to much.”  How wrong could a person be?

    The next best thing to being great is to walk with the great.  This month we celebrate the birthday of one of the giants of greatness. He was born in a one room cabin in Hodgenville, Kentucky on February 12, 1809 and died, as the victim of an assassin’s bullet, on April 15, 1865.  200 years later, this man, Abraham Lincoln influences our lives.  He was the first to establish a Federal Thanksgiving Day. The phrase, “Under God” which Lincoln spoke in his Gettysburg address in November of 1863, has now become an official part of our salute to the flag. “In God We Trust” first used in Lincoln’s administration, still adorns our coinage and is engraved on the wall of both houses of Congress.  We owe a great debt to this man. 

    One of the amazing things about Lincoln was his willingness to grow, to change, to become. In October of 1863, less than 18 months before his death, he wrote: “I have often wished that I was a more devout man than I am.”           We can learn great lessons from this giant in the faith.

Melted Saints

     George Sweeting, in his book, “The No-Guilt Guide to Witnessing,” tells that during a serious shortage of currency in Great Britain, Oliver Cromwell selected a group of men to search for silver to meet the need.  Several months later they filed this report: “We have searched the empire in vain to find silver.  To our dismay, we found none except in the great cathedrals, where the saints are constructed of choice silver.”

     When they heard that discouraging report, Cromwell issued this order: “Let’s melt down the saints and put them into circulation.”  Sweeting concludes, “That’s our need today.”

     How great is the need for a ‘meltdown’ of Christians to make a real impact in our world.  It has been said of we Christians for us not to be so heavenly that we are no earthly good.  We must let our light shine so the world can see Christ. 

     Jesus said, “…let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”  Matthew 5:16  NIV

     The great proof of Christianity is the Christian.  The drawing power of Christ is not in programs and buildings, it is through the life of the Believer.   We need to do what comes naturally and that is to show and tell people about Jesus who lives in us.  So often, we are afraid to do this because of our own imperfection.  Of course, we are sinners but in Jesus, forgiven sinners, and that is the Good News to share with others.  They can be forgiven too.

     As we begin a New Year, may we take seriously our responsibility to be an influence for Christ. Nitzschke said, “Show me that you have been redeemed and I will believe in your Redeemer.”

                                       Happy New Year