Daddy’s Empty Chair

  A man’s daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father.  When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows.  An empty chair sat beside his bed.  The minister asked about the empty chair.  “Oh yeah, the chair,” said the bedridden man. “Would you mind closing the door?”  Puzzled,the minister shut the door.  “I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter,”  said the man.  “But all of my life I have never known how to pray.  At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head.  I abandoned any attempt at prayer,”  the old man continued, “until one day four years ago, my best friend said to me, :Johnny, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus. Here is what I suggest.  Sit down in a chair, place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It’s not spooky because he promised, ‘I will be with you always’.  “Then just speak to him in the same way you’re doing with me right now.  So, I tried it and I’ve liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day.  I am careful though if my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she’d either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm.”  

  The minister was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old man to continue on the journey.

  Two nights later, the daughter called to tell the minister that her daddy had died that afternoon.  The minister asked, “did he die in peace?”  “Yes, but there was something strange about his death. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?”  The minister wiped a tear from his eye and said, “I wish we could all go like that.”    Selected

“The Simplicity of Prayer”
“Prayer is so simple, it is like quietly opening the door
And slipping into the very presence of God;
There in the stillness to listen to His voice;
Perhaps to petition or only to listen,
It matters not,  Just to be there in His presence
Is prayer.”                         Author Unknown 

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”  I John 5:14

Speak to Him often.

Wonderful

What one word would you use to describe Jesus?  Oh, there would be lots of adjectives to speak of Him.
The one I would use would be what Isaiah wrote:  “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given: and the government will be on his shoulders: and his name shall be called WONDERFUL Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  Isaiah 9:6   Let’s think about how wonderful Jesus is.

Jesus is wonderful in His birth.  He was born of a virgin.  The miracle of Christmas is not the natural birth of Jesus through Mary, but of the conception of the child in Mary by the Holy Spirit of God.  How else could this be, but that it is of God?

Jesus is wonderful in His life.  It was said of Jesus, “never a man so lived as He did.” Read the accounts of Jesus again and again and you will see that His enemies turned the fiercest searchlights of their hostile criticism upon Jesus.  Yet, “they found no fault in Him.”  They could not detect one flaw in His character.  The man, Jesus lived a perfect, flawless life.

Jesus is wonderful in His words.  “Never a man so spoke.”  He came with words to live by.  He is the authoritative voice of God.  God  said, “Listen to Him.” 

Jesus is wonderful in His unselfishness.  He bore our sins.  He went to His death because of us.  Isaiah said it, “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him. and by his wounds we are healed.”  Isaiah 53:5
Innocent, He went to His death on a cross. He died because He claimed to be God’s Son, sent to save mankind from their sins.

Jesus is wonderful in His resurrection.  He said, “Because I live, you can live also.”  The power of God that lifted Jesus from the grave, lifts us to new life.

Jesus is wonderful in His promise to return.  Jesus is coming back to receive us, the Christians, to Himself. He said, “I go and prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”  John 14:3

Perhaps, you have sung this chorus: “Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful…Isn’t Jesus, my Lord, wonderful…Eyes have seen, ears have heard, it’s recorded in God’s Word…Isn’t Jesus, my Lord, wonderful.”

Love Is A Verb

On many occasions I have listened to an eloquent speaker and heard him rise to the heights of oratory and have thought, “How I wish I could preach like that man.”  How often I have listened to a learned man and said, “I wish I were that well educated.”  How often I have seen heroic missionaries go out to lands of  darkness and danger and said, “I wish I had that kind of faith.” 
But, have I ever asked as I looked at Jesus, “I wish I could love like that man.”

Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will obey what I command.”  John 14:15

Love is a verb; it has to act, to express itself.  We must accept God’s love for us in Christ.  We must communicate such love to God and one another.  “We love because He first loved us.” I John 4:19
Also, we must love what God loves and that is people.   Jesus said, “My command is this: love each other as I have loved you.”  John 15:12 

Oscar Hammerstein wrote in the “Sound of Music”:
“A bell is no bell til you ring it.
A song is no song til you sing it.
And love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay.
Love isn’t love til you give it away.”

The masterpiece on love is found in the Bible in I Corinthians chapter 13.  We call this the ‘Love Chapter’.
This chapter on love does not stand alone.  It links together chapters 12 and 14.  Chapter 12 deals with the division that is caused over speaking in tongues.  Some of the people who had such gifts were haughty, puffed up, thought themselves superior because of their supernatural gifts.  The 14th chapter explains how such gifts were to be used; to edify, build up, the church.  Such gifts were never given to disrupt the family of God, to cause division.  Now, right in the middle of this difficulty in the Church at Corinth, Paul writes concerning the only thing that will unite and that is LOVE.

“And now I will show you the most excellent way.  If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong, or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  LOVE NEVER FAILS.”        I Corinthians 13: 1-8a     

May we love like Jesus loved.  God loves you.  Respond to His love with your love.

“Why Are You Running?”

  This Biblical story concerning King David and his son, Absalom, is recorded in 2 Samuel the 18th chapter.  Absalom warred against his father trying to take the Kingdom.  A showdown came between the army of King David and Absalom’s forces in the forest of Ephraim.  Absalom realized that he will be defeated and tries to escape.  His long flowing locks of hair caught in a low hanging branch of an oak tree leaving him hanging between heaven and earth.  Joab learns of this and kills the enemy of his King by thrusting three darts through Absalom’s heart.  Who will break the news of the death of his son to King David?  There are two runners to bear the news: Ahimaaz and a Cushite.  Both runners wanted to take the news to the King.  General Joab wants the news broken to David in a very sensitive way, so chooses the Cushite.  But, Ahimaaz was determined to bear the news, so pleads with Joab to allow him to run.  Joab gives in and sends him to run to the King with the news.  Ahimaaz is a swift runner and overtakes the Cushite arriving in the presence of King David.
King David is anxious for news concerning his son and asks, “Is the young man Absalom safe?”  But, Ahimaaz is unwilling to tell the truth and simply says, “I saw great confusion..but I don’t know what it was.”  David tells him to stand aside.  This was the reason why Joab had hesitated to trust Ahimaaz with the message.  Now, the Cushite stands before King David. David asks the all important question, “Is the young man Absalom safe?”  The Cushite answered, “May the enemies of my lord the King and all who rise up to harm you be like that young man.”  It was hard news to tell but it couldn’t have been broken more delicately.
Joab had been right in his judgment of the men. This runner proved himself responsible to speak the truth in a beautiful manner.

  I am sure that each of us can identify with either Ahimaaz or the Cushite in how we are running the race of life. Is there a purpose for our running or do we just run to be running?  Do we have a message to deliver?

  A cartoon in the Saturday Review offers a real truth to us.  The cartoon was published the week of the annual Marathon Race in Boston.  It was based on the historical race that was first run in Greece in 490 B.C.  The Greek army defeated a large Persian army at Marathon, about 25 miles from Athens.  A runner ran all the way to Athens carrying the news. He gasped out the one word, “Victory,” and then dropped dead.
Now, the carton in the “Saturday Review” showed a runner with a torch coming swiftly to a group of anxious Athenians and the caption read: “I forgot the message.”   How frustrating and bewildering this would be,  Here these anxious Athenians wait to hear the words that mean life or death and then they hear the confession of the stupid runner, “I forgot the message.”

  Some might say, how ridiculous that the runner would forget the all important message.  Yet, what about the work of the Church?  Christians are busy with all kinds of meetings, programs, social functions, but for what purpose?  Have we forgotten, why we meet?  Are we bogged down in activity for activities sake?
Do we run, just to be running, with no understanding as to why we run?  This whole tumult of church work is to further the message.  We must not get bogged down in the mechanics.  We run to bear the Good News of God.  The task of the Church, unique from all other institutions, is to point all people to God through the preaching/teaching of His divine revelation.  The message is the story of God going down into the valley of death, to suffer, die, in order to give life to those who believe in His resurrected Son, Jesus.  It is this message, that God so loved mankind that He gave His only begotten Son to save us from our sins, that must be told again and again.  We must declare and demonstrate the love of God by lifting up Jesus.
This is the purpose for which we run (live) in order to show Jesus. 

                          Why do you run?  Run to tell others of Jesus.