The Gathering Place

I have a Native American story teller doll. This figurine is of a Native American woman holding as many children as her arms can gather up. This sculpture represents the passing on of the oral traditions to the generations at a gathering place in the tribe. It always reminded me of my first grade class. I would say, “Let’s go to The Gathering Place,” and the children would huddle in as close as they could get for the lesson or story.

The Gathering Place was that special time during the day when the class could get close and personal. Sometimes it was for a story or encouragement or an in depth learning time. Sometimes it was to fuss at the group. (You know that happens.) But always it was to bring the group together for a purpose.

Paul talked about The Gathering Place in Hebrews 10:25 and in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2. In fact this Greek word for gathering was used in only these two locations.

(To the Hebrews at their church) And let us not neglect our gathering together, as some people do, but encourage one another, now that the Day of His return is drawing near.

(To the Christians at the church in Thessalonica) Now we ask you, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him that you not be shaken or disturbed from your composure about the coming Day of the Lord.

For the children of God there are two Gathering Places. One is for now and one is for the future. Our now Gathering Place is the assembly of our church at our church. Our future Gathering Place is the assembly of our church into the presence of Christ at His return on that day.

Sometimes we wake up on Sunday morning and think to ourselves, “Is it really necessary to go to church? Can’t I just lay here in my nice comfortable bed and worship God with my eyes closed…Zzz?” Paul says, “Yes, it’s necessary to go to church. Now get up!”

Someday we will gather together at The Gathering Place with Jesus at His return.

Let’s not forget to gather together with Jesus at our on earthly Gathering Place.

Let’s go to our Gathering Place.

See you Sunday...or that Day!

I Forgive Me

I’m a real push over for Hallmark movies. I know they are a little sappy but I like the happy “awwwwe” endings. There was one line in the last one I saw that left an impression. The husband in the movie told the wife, “Maybe someday you’ll be able to forgive yourself.”  That caused me to meditate on forgiveness.

I say meditate like I know what that is. I think it just sounds a little more spiritual than saying; I’m thinking about it a lot, I’m studying it a lot in the topical Bible, and I’m talking to God about it a lot.

Anyway, we've learned since we were little (if we have brothers and sisters) that if someone says, “I’m sorry,” we say, “I forgive you.”  And we've (maybe just I have) had to occasionally work hard to actually forgive that person. As Christians, most of the time, we do forgive. We've been told to do that by Jesus. We forgive others as He forgave us.

But sometimes we just need to give ourselves permission to forgive ourselves. I mess up my life with sin. And you do too. We confess it to our Heavenly Father and He forgives it. Hebrews 8:12 says that when God forgives He never remembers it again. Forgiven and forgotten.

At times, though, we carry the guilt of our sin for a long time even after God has forgiven us. It’s not that we think we have sinned so great that God can’t forgive it. At least I hope we all realize that Jesus died for all sin in order that all sin could be forgiven. We accept that God has forgiven us. We just can’t get over the fact that we messed up so bad. And we can and often do keep a list in our minds of all of the times we failed as a Christ follower. We go back to the sin and revisit it and come away feeling just as guilty as when we first confessed it.

That is not the way our loving God wants us to live our life. That is not victory. That is not running the race well. Here is what I’m reminding myself this week:

1.    Don’t go back to the memory of the forgiven sin. God doesn't.

2.    Don’t wish you could change the past and decide what you should have done. It’s over. God has changed you.

3.    Don’t try to justify that old forgiven sin. It was sin. It was forgiven.

4.    Don’t worry that you will never get to where God wants you to be. He’s going to change your life to get you there. All you have to do is be a willing servant.

In my meditation I’m also rehearsing a choir song. These words in the song keep coming back in my thoughts, study, and prayer:

“All my shame, guilt, sins, forgiven

No more chains, fear, my past is over

I've been changed

I won’t go back

I can’t go back to the way it used to be”

God has forgiven me.

I forgive me.

 But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 

Philippians 3:13-14 

Who Are You Going To Let Ruin Your Day?

We come in contact with many people each day. Some of the circumstances of our encounters may be appointed or happenstance. But we bump into a lot of folks during each day.

I was having a little trouble with my laptop so I took it to the computer fix-it workers at one store. I had to wait in a slow line to talk to my assigned geek. The problem was that there were only two geeks behind the counter trying to help all of us. We, on the customer side of the counter became increasingly impatient. For once, not me.(I know. I was just as surprised as you are.) I just started watching the exchanges between customers and geeks. Wow, I have a new respect for computer nerds whose job it is to help the computer ignorant folks.

These two young men got blamed for:

1.    Not telling a lady ahead of time that if she wanted to exchange a cell phone, she had to actually bring in the cell phone before the store could exchange it for another. It took the geek 10 minutes to help her understand this concept. In the end she walked off in a huff because she would have to go back home and get the offending phone.

2.    Not having the computer to be fixed ready when the man came in. Although the store had notified him that his computer was not ready for pick up yet. He just determined that the fix-it people should be able to fit within his schedule disregarding all the other computers that came in ahead of his. It took the geek a little less time but he was called everything from “stupid” to a “#$%^&.” The man stomped out saying, “Well, I can only hope that you idiots will tell me when my computer is fixed!”

3.    Being told that the reason your laptop crashed was because you installed software not compatible with your laptop. Then being told by the patient geek that they could fix it but he would have to buy a new hard drive. The man was irate that he would have to spend his money to fix his mistake. That took 15 minutes of all of our time for him to understand that “if you break it, you buy it.”   

When my turn finally came I felt that I needed to apologize to these two men for the whole human race. If this happened within 30 minutes, what must their 8 hour day be like? I decided that broken computer owners have a hard time admitting their own operator error to computer smarties.

But my geek just smiled that patient gotta love em smile and said, “There are billions of people in this world. I have decided that I’m not going to let one ruin my day.” Wow, did I ever have an “Aha” moment. What a great philosophy.

1 Thessalonians 5:14-15 and we beg you, brothers (and sisters,) admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, and be patient with them all (be a Jesus geek.) See to it that you don’t give back evil for the evil that is given to you, but always seek to do good to everyone (even crazy broken computer owners.) * Yes the parenthesis remarks are mine.

If I can, with a Jesus attitude, admonish, encourage, help, be patient, let the junk people throw at me roll off, and seek to do good to everyone then I might just have a pretty good day.

There are billions of people in this world.

 I have decided that I’m not going to let one ruin my day.

Back to the Future: Security

Last week our Sunday School lesson was on how we are to relate to the bosses we have in this world. Specifically, My Sunday School Teacher Eddie addressed our Christian response to bosses in the workplace. It caused me to think about all of the work related bosses I have had in the past.

I remembered one boss who used to couch his latest demand with the words job security. It always made me a little insecure because it was subject to his approval of my performance in this one mandate as to whether I kept my job or not. Oh, it was not stated in those terms but we all knew that was the way it was. We could look at the track record of people who did not meet his approval on a job assignment and how their contract for the next year was not renewed “because the budget could not justify their (existence – my word) position.” That’s a nice way of saying they were fired. I always felt self-doubt, uncertain, and anxious that I would not meet the expectation of the boss. I was vulnerable and unprotected of the future in this job.

I’m so glad that that is not how our relationship with our Heavenly Father works.

Paul was writing to the Corinthian church in his second letter and said that he wanted to come to them but wasn’t sure he could. He was vacillating back and forth on this issue and couldn’t give them a “yes” or “no” answer. But then he said something wonderful.

2 Corinthians 1:19-20 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ…was not Yes and No but in Him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him. That is why it is through Him that we utter our Amen to God for His glory.

Paul said even though you couldn’t always count on him you could and can always count on God. If He promised it then it is a Yes. It does not depend on your performance. It does not depend on you at all. If He promised it then it is a Yes. This word, promises, in the New Testament Greek was nearly always attributed to divine assurances and was even used as a legality pointing back to the Old Testament promises. Paul was saying, “If we go back to promises made by God in the past, they are being kept as surely as His promises are being kept to us now and in the future. That’s where the “Back to the Future” comes in.

And that, my friends, is our security. We can say, “Amen.” Amen is a word that means “so be it.” Or as I used to explain to first graders in a little poem to remember: “Amen, I agree, that’s the way it’s gonna be.” It’s a resounding, Yes!

We don’t have to feel uncertain or anxious about our security in Christ.

We don’t have to feel vulnerable or unprotected of the future.

Our job security with Christ is not based on our performance but on His mercy.

From all the way back in the past to the eternal future

God is keeping and will keep His promises to us.

Amen

I agree

That’s the way it’s gonna be.

Security

Our Great Expectation

I just received an order of 6 rose bushes to add to my collection of 25 I have already in my yard. Somebody stop me. My wonderful yard guy, Steve, didn't say a word about too many roses but just dug holes and planted.  Oh, he did say, “You sure can pack a yard,” and “These are going to be so pretty.”

That’s when I realized that he was in the hope business.  I saw the catalog with roses I ordered in bloom but all I was sent was some sticks and roots. He could see in his mind the roses already in bloom. He didn't have to have the catalog. He showed me how healthy the plant was and said that was how he knew they would be pretty. They still looked like sticks and roots to me.

He has great expectations about my roses. Because of his encouragement I now do too.

We have a great expectation that supersedes anything I can hope for in my roses.

Paul said to Titus in chapter 2 and verse 13 “Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,”

We should be looking longingly to welcome our expectant joyous promise of the return of our savior Jesus Christ.

We have this great expectation. When sometimes all we can see of our world are sticks and roots, we have this hope. We can look past the present and see the future of the glorious appearing of Christ. We are in the hope business too.

Our great expectation

Jesus is coming!

Let’s encourage each other with this hope.

What Is Truth? AKA What is my worldview?

“Worldview” was a subject brought up by My Sunday School Teacher Eddie a couple of weeks ago. That subject made me want to re-read The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer a Christian Worldview. Don’t even ask me how it is going. There are four volumes. It was written in 1982 by this twentieth century Christian philosopher. He is in heaven now and I wonder how he would interpret our national Christian worldview today?

He said that in the future whether we believe the Bible is actual truth would be what is at stake for the Christian. Wow, I think he was right. But he was only stating the obvious because history reveals that people have always had a problem with, “What is truth?” Pilot even asked Jesus that before he executed Him. What he was asking was: Is there really anything that is a certainty? Is there an unchangeable life ruling system? Is there anything I can put my absolute trust in? When the world asks what do I believe, is there an answer?

And what our answers are to the above questions is our own worldview.

The Barna Group says that the 2014 faith and culture trend will lead us to apply definitive answers to these questions about truth; - 1. What is our church teaching us? (Do I trust and believe it foundationally?) – 2. How is national violence affecting us? (What is our standard for control of violence?) – 3. What are our schools teaching our children? (What are the foundational philosophies to which my children are exposed?) We will each have to answer these questions about truth we have been avoiding for centuries.

This same Barna Group (I’m not making this up, Google them) polled United States Christians in 1984 using this survey:

• Do absolute moral truths exist?
• Is absolute truth defined by the Bible?
• Did Jesus Christ live a sinless life?
• Is God the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe, and does He still rule it today?
• Is salvation a gift from God that cannot be earned?
• Is Satan real?
• Does a Christian have a responsibility to share his or her faith in Christ with other people?
• Is the Bible accurate in all of its teachings?

If you answered “yes” to all of these questions you were one in only 9% of those claiming to be Christian in 1984. Now you are in the 4% of Christians. So this “truth” question is very important to our view of life and our place in the world. And, yes, we may have to answer these questions and live by our answers this year as the trend indicates.

I don’t know why we are having such a problem with the meaning of truth. The Bible addresses it 380 times. How’s that for a definition?

But I think the sustaining, you can grab it and hold on to it, definition came from Jesus Christ Himself. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father God but through Me.” He said He was in the past and for all time to come the only reality for life’s journey, the only absolute truth, and the only sustenance for physical and spiritual existence.  And that He was the only way to gain acceptance into our place with the Heavenly father. As we continue in this truth we obey and serve Him. He was very dogmatic about this.  There are no other options for those claiming to be a “Christ”ian.

So the questions are; Do I believe this Jesus Christ Son of God as explained in the Bible from creation to revelation? Do I use the Bible as my truth guidebook? Do I relate to the world around me with this as my unchangeable foundation?

This absolute doctrine may make us a little uncomfortable in our world of unfixed, uncertain, and “it’s OK to believe what you want to,” and “can we really define truth” philosophy.

But it’s the truth.

1.      It will revive our churches.

2.      It will bring enforceable standards to our violence problems.

3.      It will help us guide our children into having their own Christian worldview.

4.      It will show all those around us that we know where to get real answers to life’s tough questions.

It’s a real Christian’s worldview.

Life Lesson Concerning Kick-outs and Timing

I have a guilty pleasure. I like to watch WWE Monday Night Raw. It all started when I was in high school and went to my first wrestling match. It was not actual wrestling. We call it “wrassling” in North Carolina. It ended in the throwing of a metal folding chair and an audience brawl. My youth pastor hustled us out of there. Can you believe he took us there in the first place? I thought it was hilariously awesome. Since then I have sporadically checked in to see what is going on in the WWE and who is who.

My favorite thing is when one guy is pinned down and he throws his legs out (called a kick-out) before the ref counts to three. His opponent has to let him go. I don’t know if this is exactly a rule but it always happens and adds to the drama of the fight.

I was thinking about the kick-out and wondering why life didn't give us one. Wouldn't it be great if we could have a kick-out anytime we feel under stress and pressure? Not having a great day at work? Kick-out. Not getting along at home? Kick-out. People making fun of you because you are a Christian? Kick-out. Depressed? Kick-out. Frustrated? Kick-out. Angry? Kick-out. Then the oppressor or oppression would have to let you go. That would be a nice thing to have in my life tool kit.

To my great astonishment I realized I have a kick-out. All this time, I had a kick-out and was not using it. The ref would get to three in my life and the opponent would win. When all along, I could have used my kick-out option.

David said in Psalm 13:1-2

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?

The ref beats the mat; one, ...two, ...and just before three.....

The kick-out is in verses 5-6

But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.

Our kick-out when we are held down by Satan’s forces is…..Trust and Understand God's Character.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. And lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways understand Him, and he will make your paths straight.  Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust = belief in the reliability, truth, ability, and strength of our God over the situation

Understand God = Know God's character even if you don't understand the why of the situation

Then we are released from the bondage we feel. We still have to get up and continue the fight but we won't be out. The opponent doesn't win.

Then we get happiness and security from our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Life lesson: You can always use the kick-out option but your timing is critical.