Here's Your Sign
OK, friends, something new here. I seldom pass on email "fowards." I've never passed on a video. Until today, that is. Someone sent me a YouTube video. I watched it and I passed it on to a lot of folks on my various email lists. It's called "Cardboard Testimonies" and it is worth the time to watch it.
Please let me know what you think.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Christians in Community
At our church, we’ve been looking at the concept of Christian community. I’ve been preaching a brief series on the “one anothers.” You know,
Devotion, according to Paul is something that we owe one another. Devotion is made up, at least, of brotherly love and honor.
Brotherly love is protective and forgiving. It’s recognizing one another’s faults and accepting them. It’s being able to forgive and receive forgiveness.
Honor is a word often used in Scripture to refer to our attitude toward God. Here is one example: "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen." (1 Timothy 1:17). That is the same honor that Paul is telling us to extend to one another. We are to honor our brothers and sisters above ourselves.
Now I know that some of us make it hard to honor us. We’re ornery, stubborn, arrogant, inconsiderate – and several other categories of hard-to-put-up-with stuff. That’s why we have the second item on the list above: bear with one another. We need to put up with one another. Jesus once asked the question, "O unbelieving and perverse generation…how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?” (Matthew 17:17). He does put up with those of us who are His. And we should do the same.
Honor, respect, love, friendship. Those are the gifts we have for one another.
Let’s lavish one another with them.
At our church, we’ve been looking at the concept of Christian community. I’ve been preaching a brief series on the “one anothers.” You know,
- Serve one another
- Bear with one another
- Accept one another
- Admonish one another
- Be devoted to one another
- Be members of one another.
Devotion, according to Paul is something that we owe one another. Devotion is made up, at least, of brotherly love and honor.
Brotherly love is protective and forgiving. It’s recognizing one another’s faults and accepting them. It’s being able to forgive and receive forgiveness.
Honor is a word often used in Scripture to refer to our attitude toward God. Here is one example: "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen." (1 Timothy 1:17). That is the same honor that Paul is telling us to extend to one another. We are to honor our brothers and sisters above ourselves.
Now I know that some of us make it hard to honor us. We’re ornery, stubborn, arrogant, inconsiderate – and several other categories of hard-to-put-up-with stuff. That’s why we have the second item on the list above: bear with one another. We need to put up with one another. Jesus once asked the question, "O unbelieving and perverse generation…how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?” (Matthew 17:17). He does put up with those of us who are His. And we should do the same.
Honor, respect, love, friendship. Those are the gifts we have for one another.
Let’s lavish one another with them.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
The Good News Is...
They may be trying to kill me. I’m not paranoid. But sometimes they are out to get you.
Last Friday, my wife and I were out in my car and a strange noise started in one of the wheels. I stopped and took a quick look but saw nothing obvious. I got back in and headed for the garage, which was not too far away. I didn’t get there – at least not driving.
The right front tire just came off as I was driving! It took about a hundred yards to stop the vehicle. We came close to being stopped by a telephone pole. We tore a nice furrow in the soft part of the road and the front fender was destroyed. I had to go back quite a distance to find the tire. Neither of us was injured, however.
Sometime later the tow truck from the auto club came and took the car to the shop (the same one to which we were headed). When the Service Manager looked at the situation, he immediately said that it was strange. It’s not that wheels don’t come off on occasion, even though (thankfully) it’s rare. But, something just wasn’t right.
On Tuesday, the Service Manager called me with the (large) estimate for repairs. First, however, he asked me if the car was left outside at all. I told him that I park it in my driveway. He said, “There’s almost no way that this could have happened, except by vandalism.”
Remember, I’m not paranoid. I didn’t come up with this thought. The Service Manager did. And it wasn’t “kids.” You know how hard it is to loosen lug nuts. He said that these were taken off; they didn’t fall off during the incident. Nobody has taken that tire off lately and put it back without tightening the nuts, either. We had just returned from a very long road trip with no problems. So, it wasn’t negligence on the part of some mechanic.
The last time something like this happened it was a firebombing of the church I pastored. The police caught the individual and he admitted his crime, saying, “Lucifer told me to do it. He doesn’t like what’s preached in there.
So what’s going on? I’ll leave that to your imagination. I do know that this was no accident and that my wife and could easily have been killed.
Praise the LORD!
They may be trying to kill me. I’m not paranoid. But sometimes they are out to get you.
Last Friday, my wife and I were out in my car and a strange noise started in one of the wheels. I stopped and took a quick look but saw nothing obvious. I got back in and headed for the garage, which was not too far away. I didn’t get there – at least not driving.
The right front tire just came off as I was driving! It took about a hundred yards to stop the vehicle. We came close to being stopped by a telephone pole. We tore a nice furrow in the soft part of the road and the front fender was destroyed. I had to go back quite a distance to find the tire. Neither of us was injured, however.
Sometime later the tow truck from the auto club came and took the car to the shop (the same one to which we were headed). When the Service Manager looked at the situation, he immediately said that it was strange. It’s not that wheels don’t come off on occasion, even though (thankfully) it’s rare. But, something just wasn’t right.
On Tuesday, the Service Manager called me with the (large) estimate for repairs. First, however, he asked me if the car was left outside at all. I told him that I park it in my driveway. He said, “There’s almost no way that this could have happened, except by vandalism.”
Remember, I’m not paranoid. I didn’t come up with this thought. The Service Manager did. And it wasn’t “kids.” You know how hard it is to loosen lug nuts. He said that these were taken off; they didn’t fall off during the incident. Nobody has taken that tire off lately and put it back without tightening the nuts, either. We had just returned from a very long road trip with no problems. So, it wasn’t negligence on the part of some mechanic.
The last time something like this happened it was a firebombing of the church I pastored. The police caught the individual and he admitted his crime, saying, “Lucifer told me to do it. He doesn’t like what’s preached in there.
So what’s going on? I’ll leave that to your imagination. I do know that this was no accident and that my wife and could easily have been killed.
Praise the LORD!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)