HUMILITY

I have heard real-estate people say that successful sales has to do with three things which are:  location, location, location.  May I say that the three things which are necessary for a successful Christian life are: humility, humility, humility.  It seems to me that we in the church have said too little about this virtue.  It is a strange virtue in that if you think that you have got it, you don’t have it. You know that if someone is trying to sell you a book on “How I Became Humble,” you know that is a false book.

What is humility? The Latin word for earth or ground is “humus” from which we derive the word “humility.”  Indeed, to be a person of humility, we must be grounded.  Basically, to be transformed by God, we must first be brought down to earth.  We must lose our high opinion of ourselves and admit our worth comes directly from God (and only from) God.

Martin Luther said, “God created the world out of nothing and as long as we are nothing, He can make something out of us.”

God speaking through the Apostle Paul in the 2nd chapter of Philippians gives us the perfect example of humility. He is writing about Christ Jesus: “who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance of a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.”  Verses 6-8
The amazing thing about this is that God’s word declares that we followers of Jesus are to have the very same attitude, (disposition) as was Christ.

How unlike Jesus we are when we are touchy, impatient, defensive, self-assertive, unkind. I believe that PRIDE is the basis for all sin.  We are so prone to take a superior attitude – look at me, “I am not like other men.”  We feel good about ourselves when we compare ourselves with others, but how do we stack up when we compare ourselves with Christ?   He is our example.  There must be absolute surrender and dependence upon the Father’s Will.  Death to sin and self.  A vessel fit for God’s use.  A servant of God, through whom God does His work.

I like this bit of verse:  “Within my earthly temple, there’s a crowd; there’s one of me that’s humble and one that’s proud.
There is one of me that’s sorry for his sins and one that sits alone and grins.
From this earthly problem I would be free; if only I could determine which one of these is me.”

LOOKING FOR THE FATHER

There was a touching moment on television at the end of the 1980 Winter Olympic Games.  The U.S. hockey team beat the Russians. This was an incredible feat.  All through the hockey game the cameras focused on goalie Jim Craig and on his father in the stands. The reason being that Craig’s mother had recently died and he and his father had grown closer through the months of grief.
When the U.S. won the hockey game, a tremendous celebration erupted out on the ice.  Players embraced, people cheered, flags waved, music played.
All of a sudden the camera focused in on Jim Craig, skating alone up and down on the ice, scanning the stands.  You could read his lips: “Where is my dad? Where is my dad?”  It was the happiest moment of his life and he wanted to share it with his dad.  The last scene showed Jim Craig and his father embracing.

The human race should be looking for their Heavenly Father.  Our cry should be, “Where is my Father?”   The beautiful truth of the matter is that the Father wants to be found.  He wants to be known.  He wants to be loved by His creation.  The Hebrew writer wrote this: “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and various ways but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…”  Hebrews 1:1-2
Isaiah tells us in the 55th chapter, verse 6, “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.”
Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  This demands action on our part.  There is no time like the present.  “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”   2 Corinthians 6:2    God created everything and He did it all to be a blessing to His creation, mankind.  He makes Himself known through what He has made.  The Apostle Paul told the people in Athens: “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.”  Acts 17:27    We can know our Heavenly Father.  He has given us His love letter in the Scriptures.  The Bible is the adequate piece of the mind of God.

Our greatest joy is in the victory Christ won for us in His death, burial and resurrection. Through Jesus, we can know the Father, God.  And to know Him, is to love Him and to love Him is to obey Him.  Just realize that we can belong to God’s family.  We can be His children, not through natural birth but through the new birth.  Some of the greatest scripture is found in John 1:12-13: “Yet to all who receive him, to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”   

Are you looking for the Father?  He wants you to find Him.  When you do find Him, it will be the happiest day of your life.

 

MEET HUMAN NEEDS

A story is told of a man seated on a crowed bus.  Men and women were standing in the aisle.  This man seated has his head bowed and his eyes closed.  The person seated beside him is concerned.  So, he asked the man, “Sir, I see that your head is bowed and your eyes are closed, are you sick?”  The reply was “no.”  The passenger then asked, “are you in prayer?” Again the reply was “no.”  Well may I ask, “why do you keep your head bowed and your eyes closed?”  The man does not open his eyes nor lift his head.  He simply answered, “I can’t stand to see women standing.”

Now, we will have to keep our heads bowed and our eyes shut if we are going to fail to see human needs.  As Christians, we must reach out holy hands to do good unto all mankind.  We try to teach people on how to share their faith. This is getting  the cart before the horse. We must teach people how to love people.  If we are going to serve people, we must love people.  Someone said, “You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.”

Jesus taught that the greatest of all is the servant of all.  Now, that is contrary to our way of thinking.  Our worldly standard links greatness with authority.  We test greatness by the number of those who serve us.  We honor those who have accumulated great wealth.  Our hats are off to the go-getter, the achiever. We seek to be served rather than to serve. Yet, according to God, service is the way of greatness. Jesus came not to be served but to serve.

We must see our world through the eyes of Jesus.  People are hurting, sorrowing, hungering and it is evident that most people are sheep without a shepherd. The Christians have the God-given task of binding up the wounded, helping up the fallen, comforting those who are in sorrow, feeding the hungry, befriending the lonely and giving spiritual guidance to the confused.  This is all accomplished by exalting Jesus through word and deed.  People must see Jesus in us.  We dare not isolate or segregate ourselves from the world.  We must be in the world, but not of the world.  We must not be a part of the problem of our sin ridden world but we must be a part of the solution as we live Christ before them.

I learned this saying, “My walk talks and my talk walks but my walk talks further  than my talk walks.”
Christians are the salt of the earth but the salt must get out of the shaker. Love people as Jesus loves you.

ONE MORE MOVE

This story is about Faust who gambles for his soul.  An artist has painted a picture of a game of chest with Faust on one side and Satan on the other side.  The game in the picture is almost over and Faust has only a few pieces left; a king and a knight, one or two pawns. There is despair written all over his face while the devil looks on in anticipation of his coming triumph.  Many a chess-player has looked at the picture and agreed that the position for Faust is hopeless; it is checkmate.

But, one day in the picture gallery, a great master of the game stood gazing at the picture.  He was fascinated by the look of terrible despair on the face of Faust.  Then his gaze went to the pieces on the board.  He stared at them absorbed.  Other visitors in the gallery came and went, and still he studied the board, lost in contemplation.  And then suddenly the gallery was startled by a ringing shout:  “It is a lie. The king and the knight have another move.”  ONE MORE MOVE.

This is how it is in the human struggle.  No matter how hopeless seems our lot in this world, we have another move.  That move is made possible by forgiveness.  We come to the end of our rope.  We just can’t go on.  We are broken, shattered in our relationship with others and God. The only possible move for reconciliation and restoration is forgiveness.  It is our final and greatest move, to be forgiven and to forgive.

Jesus said to that helpless, hopeless paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven you, take up your bed and walk.”  His sins had paralyzed him just as our sins paralyze us.  Only forgiveness could enable him to be healed, made whole, to start really living again.  Jesus is saying to us, “our sins are forgiven, Christ paid for our sins on Calvary, accept that forgiveness and be healed, make whole.  Take up your bed of responsibilities and walk in newness of life.”

Place your self on the cot and accept what Christ is ready and able to give. What Jesus did for the paralytic He longs to do for us and the people we love and need to learn to love.  We can be forgiven. That is our final and most important move.  There is healing for us in God’s forgiveness.   MAKE THAT ONE MORE MOVE.

INTERFERENCE

Let us suppose that we are watching a hockey game and a giant comes along and asks what the struggle is all about. We tell this giant that the object is to get that little black puck into the net at either end. So, the giant thinking to please us, walks on the field, knocks men right and left, picks up the puck, brushes off the goal keeper and puts the puck in the net. What a riot he would create if this happened. All of us would cry, “Interference. You can’t play the game that way. The game is ruined.”

For God to interfere with our choices would make the game of life meaningless.

Choice is what makes man unique. If we didn’t have choice we would be puppets. Choice makes us accountable and responsible for our actions. God has blessed us with free will.

There are three crucial questions for life: “Where Did I Come From?” “Who Am I?” and “Where Am I Going?” A study in the Bible  helps us answer these questions. First, I am a creation of God because He made me. Secondly, I am an adopted child of God through His Son, Jesus. He gave me the ‘right’ to become a child of His.  John 1:12 “Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name.  He gave the right to become children of God.”  Thirdly, He promises His adopted children His kind of life now and forever more. In Christ Jesus, God has provided for my salvation. Man must accept His gift.

In Genesis, we learn the origin of sin. Adam and Eve knew God’s conditions for Life and they disobeyed Him. Therefore, by their own choice they lost Paradise and eternal life. What God promised to man in the beginning, perfect harmony with Him, man can have back by man’s deliberate choice of faith in Jesus Christ.

CHOOSE CHRIST AND LIFE, NOT SIN AND DEATH.   I am told that on the desk of the late President,  Harry S Truman  “The buck stops here.”  It is up to you as to what choice you make.

 

OUR AFFLUENT SOCIETY

Ruth Marcus wrote in the Washington Post an article that captured my attention.  It is about our ‘rich’ affluent society.   She writes concerning Ethan Couch, the Texas teenager whose drunken driving killed four people in 2013.  Couch was 16 years of age. Three hours after the grisly crash, his blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit for an adult.   The argument now is that he should be spared imprisonment because his over privileged upbringing had failed to teach him the difference between right and wrong.  His parents never set limits or imposed consequences on young Ethan.  His mother even fled with him to Mexico rather than allow him to face punishment.  He lived by the baby’s national anthem, “I want what I want when I want it.”  He believed that if you have the wealth, you make the rules.  Ethan’s parents are the enablers of this conduct.

Society seems to reward such behavior.  You can say and do anything you want as long as you are rich materially.  No limits on bad behavior nor any consequences on offensiveness, just do as you please, your money talks for you.

Jesus never taught such, in fact just the opposite.  Luke 12:15 “Then He said to them, Watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”  In fact in this same chapter, the 12th of Luke, Jesus tells the story of the Rich Man who had an abundance of crops. His wealth was great so that he was ready to take life easy. “But God said, to him, YOU FOOL”   The sin of this rich farmer was his selfishness, all he thought about was himself.

God teaches plainly that it is the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil. (I Timothy 6:10)     Our example is Jesus “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes, He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.”   2 Corinthians 8:9

As Christians. we are RICH because of the promises of God through Jesus.  The golden rule is not money but treating others as you would have them treat you.  Love God – love people.

DON’T GIVE UP

The swimmer, Florence Chadwick, on July 4, 1952, tried to swim 21 miles from Catalina Island to the coast of California. No woman had ever done it before. Visibility was poor and the water cold but she started out.  Millions watched on television.  Her mother and trainer were in a boat along side her giving her encouragement.  There were men in other boats with guns to shoot any sharks.  Fifteen hours and fifty five minutes later, after much begging and pleading on that foggy day, she gave up only a half mile from shore.  They helped her out of the water and asked her why she stopped. She said, “I didn’t stop because it was cold, even though it was.  I didn’t stop because I got tired, even though I was.”  She said, “I stopped because I grew weary of not being able to see the shore.”
Three months later on a clear day she came back and tried it again.  She swam it in two hours less than any man had done it.

I liked what she said that the reason she stopped was because she could not see the shore.

Listen to Hebrews 12:1-3  “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses; let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lost heart.”  

What if Jesus had given up, quit, stopped, refused to go to the cross?  There would have been no forgiveness of sins, no promise of eternal life with God, no hope whatsoever.  We would be miserable and yet in our sins.  Thank God, He did not stop but went all the way to Calvary to die for our sins.  Jesus knew why He came to this earth and that was “to seek and to save the lost.”

It is crucial that we keep our eyes on the goal of eternal life with God.  Fix your eyes on Jesus sitting at the right hand of God and don’t stop living for Him.  Don’t give up, don’t lose heart, it just may be that you are almost home.

“EXPLOSION OF NOWS”

It is that time…I have been working on my 2016 date book to try to keep track of all the activities of this brand new year.  It is bewildering to try to see all that is ahead of us. Don’t try,just take ONE DAY AT A TIME.

I want you to meet a good friend of mine.  His name is Mark Saunders. He learned about “living one day at a time” the hard way.  He was an alcoholic.  I ministered to him in Bluefield West Virginia when I ministered with Calfee’s Chapel Christian Church during my last two years in Johnson Bible College.  Mark would drink anything that had the content of alcohol in it.  I was with him when they carried him to a sanatorium in Virginia to be dried out.  When he came home, we talked about what he was going through. He told me that he could never touch another drop of alcohol.  When his cronies urged him to drink with them, he would tell them, “not today, maybe tomorrow.”  Each day, he would deny his cravings.  When he laid himself down to sleep, he would thank the higher powers that be for helping him get through another day without take a drink of alcohol.  He had to learn to “live one day at a time.”

That is not just the secret to alcoholic Anonymous, it is the teaching of Jesus.  Jesus said, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Matthew 6:34   In other words, we have all we can handle if we just deal with the issues of today.  Dr. John Dorsey said it this way, “We live in an explosion of nows.”  Now is all that we have.  We cannot crowd into our living one moment sooner than the moment we now possess.

Living has to be done on the installment plan.  No one has discovered how to live more than one moment at a time.  You don’t have to be a Christian a week, month or year in advance, just for today.  Can you be a devoted follower of Jesus for one day? That is all you are responsible for.  Try that and after that day is passed, try the next.

Determine with the apostle Paul.  “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind 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

 

“TURN YOUR EYES UPON JESUS”

A chorus we sing is, “turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His marvelous grace.”
How appropriate this is for Christmas. Jesus should be the center of our attention.  We must not allow anything or anyone to cause us to take our eyes off Christ and the real meaning of His birth, death and resurrection.

In 1495, Duke Ludovico of Milan asked the Florentine artist Leonardo Da Vinci to portray the dramatic scene of Jesus’ last supper with His disciples as they gathered in the upper room before His crucifixion.  The scene was to be painted upon a large wall of the dining hall at Santa Maria Delle Grazie monastery in Milan.  DaVinci, then 43 years old, agreed to take on the assignment.  Working slowly and with great care for detail, he spent three years completing the painting.  The disciples were grouped in threes, two groups on either side of the figure of Christ, who sat at the center of the table with His arms stretched before Him. In the right hand He held a wine cup, painted with marvelous realism.  At last, the painting was ready and DaVinci called in a friend to see it.
“Give me your honest opinion.” DaVinci said.
“It’s wonderful” the friend told him in open admiration.  “That cup is so real I cannot keep my eyes off it.”
DaVinci immediately took a brush and drew across the sparkling cup,  “If it affects you that way, it must not remain.” he exclaimed.  “Nothing shall distract attention from the figure of Christ.”

Christmas is here and we are in danger of losing Christ in the midst of all the celebration.  Jesus must be the center of our attention.  Jesus is the heart of our attraction.

Enjoy your Christmas but do not forget THE REASON FOR THE SEASON.  It is all about Jesus coming to earth in human flesh to seek and to save the lost..

Joann and I want to wish for you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS.  Celebrate all you want to but don’t forget the meaning of Christmas.  Don’t lose sight of the love of God that sent His Son to earth in order to reconcile us to Himself.  I love all the lights at Christmas but remember that we as Christians are the light of the world.  We need to turn on the light of the life of Jesus in us so the world will see Him. TURN YOUR EYES UPON JESUS AND CELEBRATE THE REAL CHRISTMAS.

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS

“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.  The way we celebrate Christmas is nothing like what it really was on that FIRST CHRISTMAS.

What was it like when Jesus first came?  The world into which Jesus came was cruel, crude and cocky.  The Romans ruled with force. Most of the people of the then known world were slaves.  Israel strained under the bondage.  The hopes that God had promised grew faint.  People lived in desperation.  400 years of silence between the old Testament and the New Testament. God had not spoken since the days of Malachi.  God broke that silence as He begins to speak as He announces through His man, John, of the coming of the Messiah (Christ).  The Messiah came and His name was JESUS.  Jesus was born in a feeding trough to a young girl by the name of Mary.

How unbelievable.  Not the birth of Jesus for He was born like any child.  God used Mary to deliver His Son. The amazing thing was that God impregnated Mary.  Mary had never known a man. The virgin conception was the miracle.  Mary was amazed and overwhelmed by God’s announcement to her that she was to bear God’s Son.  She was told clearly, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus.”  Luke 1:31   Mary could not help but ask the honest question of her heart, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”  Luke 1:34

The angel told her that the conception would be by the Holy Spirit.  With supreme loyalty, Mary submitted herself to be used by God. God used the miraculous conception and the natural birth process to bring His Son into the world.  Mary placed her whole womanhood at the disposal of her Creator and became the mother of the very Son of God.

The Son of God was born through Mary as God promised.  This Son of God must now be born in us.  Oh, let Him come in.