ONE DAY AT A TIME

While I was a student at Johnson Bible College, I ministered week ends with Calfee’s
Chapel which was located on the old Bluefield road between Bluefield and Princeton, West Virginia. It was over 200 mile trip one way.  Rufus Peer, only boy who had a car, would load we preachers up and drop us off at preaching points along the way.  I was the last one to get off.  Rufus would unload me at the Trolley Station in Bluefield and I would ride the trolley to the Gap where there was the church building and a grocery store. I would stay with church people, preach morning and evening. Then, Monday start the trip back to college.  I did this for my last two years of college.

I want you to meet one of my church friends.  His name is Mark Saunders. He was an alcoholic.  He would drink anything that had the content of alcohol in it. We had lots of interesting conversations about his habit. I was with him when they carried him to a sanatorium in Virginia to be dried out. When he came home, he shared with me his terrible experience.  He told me that he could never touch another drop of alcohol.
Even when his cronies urged him to drink with them, he would tell them, “not today, maybe tomorrow.”  Each day he had to deny his cravings. He had to learn to “LIVE ONE DAY AT A TIME”

This statement, “one day at a time” is not simply the secret to Alcoholic Anonymous, IT IS THE TEACHING OF CHRIST..  Jesus said it like this, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Isn’t Jesus saying, “one day at a time?”

The two most difficult days for us are yesterday and tomorrow.  Yesterday because we keep dragging in the skeletons from the past.  Tomorrow because we try to cross bridges before we get there. We must learn from the past or we will relive it in the future. However, we can’t live in the past, it is gone.  Learn from it. We can’t live in the tomorrow, but we can live for tomorrow.  That is, we must have a tomorrow to live for today.  So the past has value and the future has promise.
We must learn to live in the present.  Dr. John Dorsey said, “We live in an explosion of now’s.”    Now is all we have.  Make it count.
Determine with the Apostle Paul, “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind me and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”   Philippians 3:13.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

It is Christmas Eve and I just wanted to send all my devotional readers a huge thanks for your encouragement. It is a joy to prepare and mail out to you each week the devotional.

I have been doing it for at least ten years. I’ll be 94 in February so I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I only know that I’ll keep doing.as long as I am able.

I am in my 4th year in Christian City Assisted Living, This is a good Christian home. They take good care of all we residents. It is s large community with around 1000 people, young and elderly,

It is my prayer for all of you that you will accept the true reason for Christmas, God came to earth in His son, Jesus to show His love and offer us forgiveness’ of our sins, “He became like us so we could become like Him. How are you doing, growing more like the Master?

I send my love, I pray for you. Max

“Christmas, I Love It”

Posted on December 17, 20081

     A deaf man looked through a window of a house and saw people dancing.  He thought that they were mad, jumping around like that.  The reason he didn’t understand was due to his handicap of not being able to hear the music.

     A lot of people will not get the most out of Christmas because they don’t understand what it is all about. Now, don’t misunderstand what I am saying when I say, “I love Christmas.” I deplore the abuse and misuse of Christmas. The thoughtlessness of a Christmas celebration which gives no thought of Him whose birthday we are suppose to be remembering. It is unthinkable for people to use Christmas, of all times, to be an excuse for selfish partying. The commercialization that takes advantage of the season to fleece the people from their money has nothing to do with the reason for the season.  How tragic to turn Christmas into a holiday with Santa Claus, lights, trees, presents, family gatherings, merriment with no thought of the birth of the Holy One.  Anything that detracts from Christmas being a holy time is objectionable.

      But, I refuse to be robbed or crowded out of enjoying Christmas by the hucksters and the party makers.  I am not going to give up something so sacred and beautiful, so full of meaning just because of the selfish detractors.  I won’t give in.  I love Christmas and the bright hope it brings to this dark world.

      Listen again to one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible which is John 1:14:
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  NIV    
When we really understand the reason for the season, we cannot help but love Christmas.                    
                 I love Christmas, I hope that you love it too.

SOMEONE WITH SKIN ON

 I want to share with you my favorite Christmas story. 

     A little girl had been tucked in bed one night after the family prayers.  It was a stormy night, the lightning flashed across the sky and thunder shook the house.  The youngster endured this as long as possible. Then, she scurried to the living room and threw herself into her mother’s arms exclaiming, “I am afraid.”  The mother quieted the child as she put her back to bed saying, “Remember, honey, God loves you and He will keep you safe.”
But, no sooner had the mother returned to the front room and seated herself comfortably, than the child appeared in the doorway crying, “Mommy, I’m still afraid.”  Mother put the child back to bed telling her, “Honey, you must stay in bed, you are perfectly safe, I told you that God loves you and He will take care of you.”  The little girl replied, “I know God loves me mommy, but, when it is thundering and lightning, I want someone with skin on to love me.”

      Jesus was God in human flesh.  He put skin on in order for us to know Him. 
What was God like as a baby?  Go to Bethlehem and stand by the cradle of the child, Jesus.   What was God like as a growing boy?  Go to the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth and see Jesus as He learns the carpenter’s trade from Joseph.   What was God like in temptation?  Go into the wilderness and share in the fierce attack of the devil upon Jesus.
What was God like in making decisions?  Go to Gethsemane and hear Him pray, “Not my will but your will be done.”    What was God like in suffering and dieing?  Go to Calvary and see Jesus hanging upon that cross, dying for sinful humanity.    What was God like in victory?  Go to the empty tomb and hear the angel declare, “He is not here, He is risen, even as He said.”
 
      We can know what God is like.  He is like Jesus.  Only Jesus could say, “The Father and I are one.”…”When you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”

     May Christmas mean this to us, that the coming of Jesus is God’s unmistakable revelation of Himself to us.

                    “He became like us, so we could become like Him.”

WHAT DO WE NEED?

  “It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas every where you go” so goes a familiar Christmas song.  Decorations are going up, lights turned on, greeting cards sent and received, gifts wrapped, lists made.  We often know what we want but do we really know what we need?
 
                              God Knew Our Greatest Need
“If I greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator.
If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist.
If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist.
If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer.
But, our greatest need was forgiveness, so God sent us a Savior.”

     The disciple, Philip, once asked Jesus, “Show us the Father and we will be satisfied.”   (John 14:8)   He is expressing the longing of every heart. There is an inner need within all of us to see God. Much of the frustration and failure in man is due to the fact that man has not found God.  God never intended to leave us in the dark about Himself.  God wanted us to know Him.  That’s what Christmas is all about.  It is all about God.  

     Christmas is the greatest story every told.  It is the story of God coming to earth in the form of the baby Jesus. Many do not understand the real meaning of Christmas, but it is still exciting to me to realize that a baby born in a feed trough two thousand years ago still impacts our world today.   Surely, every thinking person has to give some response to this Jesus, whose birthday we celebrate. In spite of all the glitter, tinsel, lights, gifts, there is a question which has to be dealt with and that is, “What do you think of Jesus. Whose Son is He?”

     May our response be: “He is the Messiah, the Son of God, my Lord and my Savior.”