Greater Love Has No Man

My seminary professor once told me about a father whose young son was constantly in trouble. He was continuously getting in trouble…so one day, the father went upstairs to find his son getting into things that he was told not to mess with.  When the boy saw his father, he instantly knew that he was in trouble.  Slowly the father took off his belt.  He took his shirt off and then ask the boy to give him 10 lashes with the belt.  The boy started crying and said he couldn’t do it.  The father said that this was part of his discipline. Grudgingly the boy gave his father 10 lashes of his belt and the boy was crying vehemently when it was over.  The father said, “Son, do you know why I did this?  I did this to show you that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins.  He was beaten even though He was innocent.“  From that day, the boy understood and his behavior changed dramatically.  All because of a lesson of love about Jesus. 

February is the month of love for many.  It is the month when we celebrate Valentine’s Day and show those we love special affection and attention.  We may shower them with flowers, candies, or gifts but the gift that has the most meaning is love.  Love is the only thing that you can give away that you will never run out of.  Ironically, the more you give away, the more you have to give.  Love is like the famous Australian boomerang.  It goes out to those for whom it is intended and then returns to the sender.  Love is not just in words but in deeds. The very fact that Jesus died for us while we were still sinner’s shows that love is a verb.  It is what you do….not so much what you say.

God is the author of life but He is also the author and originator of love.  Jesus tells us all what love truly is in John 15:9-17:  “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.  If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.  My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.  This is my command: Love each other.”  A friend lays down his life for another, even if it is his time spent in life.  Jesus paid a penalty that for a debt that He did not owe so that we could be forgiven for a penalty we could not pay.

Dying for Company

Nursing homes are one of the fastest growing populations in the United States.  There are literally thousands of people today living in nursing homes who have never had anyone visit them once.  A great number of them never receive visitors.  And many of these residents will die within the first two years of living there.  Are these two facts related?  Are people literally dying for company?  I believe there is strong correlation that this is true.

Today, there are over 1.5 million residents in the U.S. in Nursing Homes.   Of these residents, 60% receive no visitors at all if they have no relatives living nearby.  According to the National Center for Health Statistics, when a person moves into a nursing home, their number of visits declined by half, regardless of their age. What do all these numbers mean?  It means that when people are forced to enter a nursing home due to declining age, inability to care for oneself, by disease, or by accident, they are often forgotten by society. 

Another sad statistic is that people do not live very long after they enter a nursing home.  Research indicates that between 50%-60% of people admitted to care homes die within the first 2 years. Even worse, the mortality rates are highest in the first 6 months of entering into a nursing home.
  
The church I am pastor of has a deacon’s mother living in one and recently, one of our members has had to enter such a facility.  One of my favorite things to do is to visit these residents there.   I read out the Bible to them or I just sit and listen to them and help them catch up on what’s happening in the church or in their community.  I sometimes have dinner with them.  However I don’t restrict my visits to only those residents whom I know.  Many of these men and women are literally dying to have someone to talk to.  They thrill to have someone to just sit and listen to what they want to say.  They love to have someone hear them speak of their lives when they were active in the community, working, or raising their children. 

I write letters to prisoners in state prisons and in Death Row but I truly believe a large part of the forgotten ones are those who are confined, by no choice of their own, to nursing homes.  Being out of sight, they are frequently out of mind.  I feel it is one of the most enjoyable experiences that I have.  To have these people share their life with you is so enriching to me.  I urge you to visit someone in a nearby nursing home, an assisted living center, or a facility such as these, because many of them are dying - dying for company.  I believe it is what Christ would have us do and if He were here, He Himself would be doing.

Timeless Security in a New Year

With all of the uncertainty of today, there is security in placing your faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone.  God desires that all of His children prosper and be in good health, but He never promises that we will be rich or will never get sick.  Happiness is based on happenings.  God never promises happiness.  The fact is that God will even use things that go badly in this life for our best (Rom 8:28).  He can not make that promise to those who are not calling Jesus Lord and Savior.  They are on their own.  Joy, on the other hand, is a promise to all believers.  They can know joy even during trials and troubles as James 1:2-4, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”  If you truly don’t have a relationship with God today, you can do that now and have the only eternal security there is in this world.  That security is in having Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior (John 6:37, 10:28-29). 

January is named after the Roman god Janus.   This is the time of year when most people look back at the past year.  Still, others are eagerly looking forward to what’s ahead.  Replaying the past contributes perspective. The past is tied to the present but can sometimes put a drag on the future.  Janus is named the god of beginnings and is where the month of January gets its name from.  But I must tell you that Janus should be more concerned about looking forward than looking back for there is another God of beginnings but this God is the One and Only True God.  Many people make New Year’s resolutions only to find that they fade into the days, weeks, and months.  

The Apostle Paul stressed looking forward and pressing on to the high prize of our calling.  If you’re driving down a highway, it can be highly distracting if you continually look back.  It can even be fatal.  In Colossians 1:28-29, Paul uses the verb form of the noun race which translates “agonizomai” from which agonize comes from.  This is a God-given race, one that’s designed specifically for you and for me.  We do agonize but we never give up.  There is not another minute your money can buy so I pray you can redeem the time well and spend it for God’s purposes.  So shall family, friends, and acquaintances not soon be forgotten.  Happy New Year.  Now, if I can just remember to write 2012 when writing checks!

The Ministry of Martha

My beloved wife’s name is Martha.  She would be upset with me if she knew I wrote this about her.  Her ministry is more than a pastor’s wife. It is truly the work of the Lord, Jesus Christ.  My wife’s name not only means “a lady”, it is a reflection of Jesus’ heart.  She is indeed the hands and feet of Christ.  Not only does she help abandoned animals, donates to the poor, gives extra time for struggling students, but she helps those abandoned by society.  For the last year or more she has taken care of a Para from the elementary school who may be living in her last days.  She has worked for over 30 years as a 4th grade teacher and she has prolonged this Para’s life or perhaps even saved it.  Let me explain.

A friend of hers, I will call her Julie, has been a Para at the elementary school where she has worked for many years.  This lady was diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer.  She had taken so many sick days to care for this lady, to run her to doctors’ appointments, to take her to chemotherapy treatments that she is about out of sick days and personal days with only half the school year gone.  Today she is sitting beside her bed in the ICU of St. Francis Hospital in Wichita, Kansas helping her with chipped ice, rearranging her pillows, finding nurses to aid her with her pain medicine.  She is exhausted yet she has sat in doctors offices, in ICU surgery waiting rooms, and in the ICU Surgery Recovery Units for hours upon hours - sometimes not arriving home till late.   And she has papers waiting for her in her classroom to grade.  She had Parent-Teacher Conference packets to make.  She had grades to enter into the computer,.  She has lesson plans for her and for the sub.   And she has work awaiting her at home.

This wife of mine is more than a friend…she is a saint of God who has missed church services to be with her friend who had no one else.  Even though about half of the teachers have promised to help escort her to the doctor and hospitals for about 48 visits this year, only one time did another teacher help her.  She alone has answered calls past midnight to console and comfort this woman.  She has left in the middle of the night to help feed her, bring her meals, pay some of her bills, buy her gift certificates, and has been the difference of life or death to her. 

A friend is as a friend does.  Many of Julie’s teacher friends and personal friends have offered help but none have actually done so.  Even her own minister has not even visited her at her home.  This fact makes me made, but not Martha.  She simply fills in the gaps.  This gift from God to me has been more than a wife.  She has been a friend, a nurse, an advisor, a counselor, and friend to the end - whenever that may be.  Stored up for her is a crown that the Lord has reserved for such woman of faith.  She has been at the same elementary, working in the same classroom of 4th grade, and worked tirelessly for any who need it, since she graduated from college.  Perhaps the greatest wife any husband could ever have - and more than I deserve - my beloved wife has been criticized for not attending the church I pastor at.  So I am preparing to tell the congregation how unfair they have been when they ask, “Where is your wife?”  I would hope they would now give her the benefit of the doubt.  What she has done in secret has done in plain sight in heaven.  I do not deserve such a woman as this but the Lord was gracious to me anyway. 

The ministry of Martha is more precious than rubies, more important than medicine, more saintly than most will ever know.  I am proud to call her my wife.  I know she would be embarrassed to know that I wrote this about her.  What husband is more proud, what spouse is more inspired, what work is more important? I can not compare my ministry with hers.  She far exceeds me by light years. Yet it pleased the Lord to have her be my wife.  My beloved Martha.  Did I mention that she is the most beautiful woman in the world to me?  What is more precious to the Lord than this labor of love than the Ministry of Martha?

The Origins of Christmas

Christmas is a special time of year and one of the greatest of the Christian Holidays.  In fact, the word holiday originally comes from the word Holy Day.  It seems to be politically incorrect for many to say "Merry Christmas" because of the myth that this nation was founded on the separation of church and state.  In reality, the term "separation of church and state" is not found in the U.S. Constitution, in the Bill of Rights, or in any U.S. Civil Laws.  This was a statement coming from Thomas Jefferson when he wrote this in a personal memoir due to the fear of the nation having a state-sanctioned religion which was the very reason that many came to this nation in the first place. 

The word Christmas is from the Old English words "Cristes Measse" which essentially means a "Christ Mass".  This was a holy convocation that celebrated the arrival of the "Christ" or Messiah.  Christ means "the anointed" in Greek (Christos).  Today we celebrate Christmas on December 25th, the Winter Solstice.  This day is the day which has the longest period of darkness in the Northern Hemisphere - the day when the sun ends its southward retreat and begins to move northward and the daylight portion begins to increase.  Many of the early Christians thought that since the Pagans celebrated the "rebirth" of the sun on December 25th, the perfect parallel is that this pictured the birth of the "Son of God." No specific date for the birth of Christ is known although scholars believe it was in the late autumn.  Regardless, the birth of Christ is a day in which Christians celebrate the earthly arrival of the Son of God in human flesh.  Without this arrival of Immanuel (or "God with us"), humans would have no way in which to be reconciled to God since our sins had separated us from Him since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden.

Immanuel - God With Us

One of the Old Testament names for Jesus Christ is Immanuel which means "God with us."  The coming of Jesus Christ was foretold hundreds of years before Jesus was born.  The Old Testament prophet Micah was very specific about where Jesus would be born and for what purpose, writing, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans (or rulers) of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times" Him (Micah 5:1-2).    Another Old Testament prophet pointed to the miraculous conception or immaculate conception to come, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you (plural, meaning you all) a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel (literally, God with us)” (Isaiah 7:14).

Joseph, who was betrothed to Mary, was told to "not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,(means "Savior") because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: (Micah) “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”(Matt 1:20b-23).  The Father of Jesus was God the Father, He was conceived by God the Holy Spirit, and was born of a virgin to become the only begotten Son of God who was to die for the sins of those who would come to believe in Him.  This fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy from Psalms 2:7, "You are my Son, Today I have begotten You."  This is mentioned in Hebrews 1:5-7 "You are my Son; today I have become your Father"...“I will be his Father, and he will be my Son” And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says “Let all God’s angels worship him.” In speaking of the angels he says, "He makes his angels spirits, and his servants flames of fire." 

So celebrate this Christmas that Jesus came to save those that were lost - to dwell as "God with us" and to rescue us from the sins that had separated us from Him.  We therefore wish you a Merry Christmas...made merry be His coming to earth, being born of a virgin, living a sinless life as the only Son of God, and rescuing us from our sins.  A Savior has been born to us and we thank God for Him.  The greatest gift of all came at Christmas.  It is a mass - a holy convocation.  A mass for Christ Who came to give His life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).  There is no greater gift that has ever been given to humans.  Merry Christmas to each and every one of you.

What Christians Believe

Christians want to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.   Christians may vary about smaller issues but  generally agree with the below statements about God and the Bible.  Christians may disagree but not be disagreeable.   As Philip Schaff once wrote, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.“   Here are the essentials:

Christians believe that Jesus was literally conceived and born of a virgin named Mary (Isaiah 7:14; Luke 1:26-33).

Christians believe that Jesus lived a sinless life (1 Pet. 2:22; 1 Jn. 3:5).

Christians believe that salvation is in none other than through the name, person, work, and grace of Jesus Christ (Jn. 14:6; Jn. 3:16; Rom.5:8).

Christians believe that all 66 books of the Bible are the “only” inspired word of God to the world.  Christians do not acknowledge the Apocrypha, Psuedopigrapha, or the Gnostic Gospels, to be “inspired scripture” (Tim. 3:16).

Christians believe that God is the creator of all things, is all-powerful, all-knowing, and in control to do as He wills (14:15; Jer. 32:17; Eph. 3:20; Psa.139:1-4; 1 Sam.2:6-9; Psa. 24:1).

Christians believe that all of humanity has fallen short of God’s glory and is in need of salvation; hence the reason Jesus came to the earth (Rom. 3:23; Rom. 6:23;  Rom. 5:8; Jn. 14:6).

Christians believe that God is one, but reveals Himself thorough the persons of the Trinity as The Father, The Son as Jesus, and The Holy Spirit.  Furthermore, Christians believe that each Person of this Trinity is God (1 Cor. 8:6 6:44; Rom. 1:7; Isa. 9:6;  Jn. 1:1 Acts 5:3; Heb 9:14; John. 4:24).

Christians believe that those who die without salvation go to a literal place called hell (Psalm. 9:17; Psa.73:12-19; Luke 16:23.26; John. 12:48).

Christians believe that those who belong to Christ will inherit eternal life in a literal Kingdom of Heaven (Isaiah 65; Zech. 14).

Christians believe that Jesus will return to gather His people, as well as the resurrection of the dead in Christ at His return (1 Cor. 15:21-23).

Christians believe in the water baptism of believers in Christ (Acts 2:38-41; Acts 22:16).

Christians believe that Christ is the Head of the church, which should be governed by Him  and that ministers are simply under-shepherds (Eph.5:23).

Christians value growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord (2 Pet. 3:18).

Christians value learning from each other as iron sharpens iron so Christians sharpen one another (Prov. 27:17).

Christians value God’s calling of those ministry (Mat. 28:18-20; Acts 2:17; Gal. 3:28).

Christians value the advancement of the Gospel of Christ for the establishment of salvation, forgiveness, and the perpetuation of Christianity (Mat. 28:18-20).

Christians value the pursuit of unity (at the foot of the cross) among brothers and sisters in the Christian faith (Eph. 4:13).

Christians value the independence of ministers so that they may follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in the direction and government of their ministries (Act. 8:29; 10:19; 11:12; 13:2-4; 16:6-7; 20:22, 21:4).

Christians value as our only creed, the inerrancy of scripture as being perfect and the guidance of the Holy Spirit (Psalm 19:7).

Christians value leadership that duplicates our Lord’s servant heart (Mat. 20:27; John 13:14).

Christians value fellowship among  for the sake of strength, encouragement, edification, exhortation, prayer, and support (Rom.14:19; 1 Thes. 5:11; Eph. 2:21-22; Php. 4:8).

“Christ is the head of the church. It is his body, and he is its Savior” (Eph 5:23).

Christians pledge to correct our beliefs when they find error in order to be aligned with theologically sound doctrine and biblical truth (John 4:24).

That’s what Christians believe.

To read more about what Christians believe, read What We Believe

Black and Bruised Friday

The recent Black Friday is one of the main reasons that I do not go shopping on that day. It is much too dangerous. It reminds me of one of the food chains famous slogan but please allow me to change it slightly: “31 Million Served - 57 Injured”. Reports of people getting pepper sprayed but hostile customers, a grandpa getting run over, hundreds suffering injuries, people getting robbed, stun-gunning of customers, shop lifting reports by the hundreds, store security personnel being overwhelmed. It is just not worth it to me. All of this just to save some money. People have died from shopping on this day. It is like they are saying, “release the hounds. “

It is ironic that one day after a holiday geared toward being thankful, holiday shoppers are people you want to stay out of the way of for fear of being trampled under foot. Why do we seem to be so desperate to save money at the expense of the considerations of others? Do we really need this day anymore? I know it is traditional but it is like a veritable running of the bulls. Some traditions are just not worth it. I choose to stay home and shop online. It is much safer and certainly more peaceful. Statistically, there is more shoplifting on this day than on any other day of the year. We are stealing, bullying people, shoving and pushing, and doing anything we can to save a few dollars. Some of the stores this year opened at midnight on Black Friday. A few even opened at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving evening - all for the sake of saving some money. It seems to me that the stores are just as responsible for this as some of the customers.

Why do they insist on opening a literal floodgate for a select, lucky few while the vast majority will arrive too late to claim any real savings? Are stores that desperate to make money that they endanger the safety and welfare of their customers? The Los Angles Fire Department had to respond on Thursday night to at least 10 people being injured in a line of people waiting for a Wal-Mart store to open up at 10 p.m. Millions of shoppers go from a day of giving thanks to a day of wanton greed. It saddens me to see the thankfulness on Thanksgiving Day turn into a war zone where older people and children are at most risk. No wonder Santa delivers gifts in the middle of the night. He fears for his life.

Jesus said that the two greatest commandments are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul and to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus was asked in Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” How terrible that many make a mad dash for the stores to buy gifts at all costs while missing the true reason for this season. The greatest gift ever given was something that no one could afford to buy yet it was completely free (John 3:16). Read this for more about the Christian Walk