daily java

Daily Java:

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant (Galatians 6:7)

If you put your finger in an electrical plug, you will get shocked. If you eat poison you will die. If you stand on a train track and a train is coming you will get hit.

These are all facts of life and most people know them. On the news the other day a thief was cutting up electrical lines for the copper and they were still live. He died because he was stupid.

But people do the same thing all the time. They eat too much and then wonder why they are overweight. They drink too much and wonder why their livers get bad. they spend all their money on goofy things and wonder why they are broke. A guy hits his wife and wonders why she doesn’t like him. Someone doesn’t do anything and wonders why he is broke.

What we do determines what happens to us. If we do bad things, we ought not to be surprised that bad things happen to us.

On the other hand, when we do good things, good things happen to us. We are kind to people and they smile back. We give things to people who need them and people help us. We act in love to our wives or our children or our neighbors and they like us back.

If you rob a liquor store, you go to jail. If you kill someone, you get capital punishment. It may seem like you got away with it for a while, but chances are you will get caught. The jails are full of people who complain that they are there, but they really know why. They did something wrong and got caught.

But the reason they got caught was not because they were careless or had a friend tell on them or didn’t plan well enough. It was because they did something wrong.

Jesus did nothing wrong, never sinned, yet he died. He died so that when we were being punished, we could know that God loves us anyway. And he died so that God, though Jesus’ sacrifice, would be able to forgive us.

We still have to go to jail, or even be put to death. After all, we still have to pay for what we did wrong.

But God forgives us. And as long as we do what he says, we will not have those bad things happen to us.

In him we have real freedom.

daily java

Daily Java:

Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. (Romans 12:15)

Again, it is the community of the church that makes us strong. We share with each other both joy and sorrow, up and down, good and bad when we are happy, church is the place that we should be able to share our joy.

And when we are sad, church is the place where we go for comfort. That is the plan God had for his people when they meet together.

It could be that way if you would begin to make it so. If we decided to help each other and support each other, what a difference we could make in life, in the lives of others, in the life of our country and our culture and our world.

Misery loves company. That is true. But mainly people hate to be sad alone. They want someone to share with them, to help them, to lift them up from where they are and put them into a better place, to make them happy.

Of course, some people we cannot make happy. They are professional sad people. But the church should do it level best to ameliorate the problems people have, to modify behavior in a positive way.

One of the best ways to do that, of course, is just to sit and commiserate with those who are in pain. Sitting quietly with someone who is sad is the best way. You don’t have the answers and they know it, but you can just be a friend.

Just being a friend is what matters. We need friends that will just sit with us and love us anyway.

And that is what the church is for.

daily java

Daily Java:

Endure suffering along with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 2:3)

Today is Memorial Day, the day of the year when we remember the sacrifices that those in the armed forces made for us.

It brings to mind a lot of things. One is the fact that so many have died and sacrificed their own lives, the lives of their future children and generations on the battlefield so that I could remain free.

Somebody said, “People are free to sleep soundly in their beds because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf to keep them safe.” Some say that was George Orwell, some Winston Churchill, some Rudyard Kipling. Whoever it was was right. We are safe in how we live because someone a some time killed someone else who was bent on taking our freedom.

I love the bumper sticker that says, “If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you read it in English, thank a soldier.” Those who have defended us gave us the ability to keep our cultures.  I suppose that is one reason it burns me so much when I see dishonest portrayals of soldiers made by Hollywood who is trying to tear them down.

"Dances with Wolves" was a good movie with a good story. However, I never really liked it because of its portrayal of the American soldier. All of the soldiers portrayed in it except for Lt Dunbar who defected to the Indians were portrayed as thug-like or weak or crazy. Having been a soldier I dislike that portrayal. Yes there were some, just as there are dishonest and greedy preachers, or dishonest accountants, or thieving secretaries or ignorant teachers. But they are not the norm and do not deserve to have a whole movie built around them.

The same went for Avatar and its oblique portrayal of America.

I did not go overseas to fight but I would have. I did not lay my life on the line, but I would have. I suppose that I did by allowing myself to be taken into the army. By so doing I gave myself to the will of the military to use me wherever needed.

And I am glad I did. Guys my age who didn’t go into the army always have a hundred excuses why – bad ears or flat feet or something.

I had terrible flat feet but didn’t have medical documentation so it didn’t matter. And I am glad I didn’t. At the time, if I had known, I probably would have gone to the doctor and gotten one and gotten out of the army completely.

And for the rest of my life, with the inferiority complex I have, I would have had to explain why. So I didn’t (even if by accident) and went in and came out and Memorial Day, in a very small part and way, is about honoring people like me, just guys who went in when called, whether they wanted to or not. Just ordinary citizen/soldiers.

And they served and gave up two, three, four, six years of their lives in defense and honor of their country.

It is a good day. And I honor our soldiers.

daily java

Daily Java:

Don’t despise your mother when she is old. (Proverbs 23:22)

My family had dinner together yesterday. For some this is not big news, but for my family it is. For one thing we do not get together enough. For another, my mother is here with us for a couple of weeks.

It is good having her with us. She went through a lot of trouble getting here. She took a plane from my brother’s home in Delaware and went to three airports before it became apparent her tickets were going to the wrong Columbia. She was routed to NC rather than MO.

When they finally figured it out and went to get a ticket, the tickets to come from Washington, DC, to Columbia, MO, was going to over $1000. My brother decided to drive her here. 1100 miles. When he got here, he had supper with us and turned around and went back.

A long journey in anyone’s book.

Of course, when she got here, she had to show us her physical grace and fall, tearing her arm some. This necessitated a visit to the emergency room and 15 stitches in her arm.

But for now, we are calm.

I don’t see my mother as often as I would like, so the visits mean more, I guess.

But it is funny that with this being Memorial Day weekend, one of my strongest memories of my mother was in July of 1969. I will never forget the look on her face when she handed to me what many considered a death warrant: my draft notice. I was scared and she was scared. I would go in the army, go over to Vietnam and get shot getting  off the plane and be dead.

But of course, obviously I didn’t die. I lived and it has been over four decades since that time.

My mother looks different, yet the same. Her quality is the same. She is white headed but so am I. She is slower, but so am I.  She is our last surviving parent and the kids’ last grandparent on the Cliver side.

But we are having good conversations. It has been a little more than a year since my father passed away and she is at loose ends a bit with life. They were married for 63 years and celebrated their anniversary the day before he died last February.

I guess the best part is when she got to see her great grandson, her first and the only Cliver in the coming batch. We took a four generation picture today that I will treasure. Lots of pictures of her with the grandkids and our family together.

And I am glad she is here. It will probably be the last trip like this she will make. And we want to make the best of it.

I love her and am glad she is here. I just wish she could stay longer or lived closer.

daily java

Daily Java:

Don’t despise your mother when she is old. (Proverbs 23:22)

Two things I was thinking about that are kind of related, sort of.

1969. I walked into my parents’ house after work about July 12th or so. I worked for the Telephone Company taking money out of pay phones. Great job. I loved it.

They lived in Texas City and I had that city as a route and then went back to Houston to the shop. I always stopped in for a minute when I went to Texas City and had a glass of tea or something.

I walked in the kitchen and my mother and father were looking at me with these strange smile/grimace things. My mother handed me an envelope that was labeled Department of Defense. Inside was a draft notice. In a month I was to go into the army.

I didn’t want to, but I did and two years later came out.

I was thinking about that since it is Memorial Day tomorrow and it is in everybody’s minds. I had friends who died in Vietnam and I had friends that lived. I went to Germany and came back a year later, got married and took Ella back over for six more months of my service.

But I will never forget the look on my mother’s face that day in 1969 when she handed to me what many considered a death warrant: my draft notice. I was scared and she was scared. I would go in the army, go over to Vietnam and get shot getting  off the plane and be dead.

But of course, obviously I didn’t die. I lived and it has been over four decades since that time.

I still think of Ella like she was when we got married, and I still see my mother as she was when I was younger. But neither are. Both are considerably older. And I know for a fact that since my beard (which I am growing out as you might or might not have noticed) is almost totally white. That indicates a lot of time passed.

The second thing I was thinking about is my mother. She is spending some time with us and we are having good conversations. It has been a little more than a year since my father passed away and she is at loose ends a bit with life.

They were married for 63 years and celebrated their anniversary the day before he died last February.

Writing about her is hard as when I think about her so many things go through my head. Her warmth when I was little and sick. Her coming to all of the choir concerts and otherwise that I did all through school. The look on her face when I got my draft notice. Her pride in her sons and her joy in finally getting a daughter when they thought they would not be able to.

And I am glad she is here. It will probably be the last trip she will make. This one was hard with airplane mix-ups and falling on my rug and tearing her arm open.

I love her and am glad she is here. I just wish she could stay longer or lived closer.

daily java

Daily Java: (Written for the Real Freedom Jail Ministry in Cooper County, MO)

Greed causes fighting; trusting the Lord leads to prosperity. (Proverbs 28:25)

Everybody wants more stuff, no matter what they may say. If they say otherwise, they are full of baloney.

But how much do you want that stuff? Do you want it enough to steal or kill for it?

You want a new car, or new clothes. You don’t have the money. How do you get it? There are a few ways.

One of which is for someone rich to die and leave  you a lot of money. Chances are great that won’t happen.

Maybe you can find some money on the ground. No, probably not.

You can steal it from someone. That is not only not good but is illegal, so chances are great that you will get caught and be in jail. Maybe that is why you’re in here now.

If you steal the money, you usually have someone else that is helping you and it is easy to get into an argument with your helpers, your gang, your posse, whatever. You have to share with them in a fair way or they will be mad. And if one of them talks about what you have done, you are in jail again.

Or you can work for it. That is the hard one because it takes several things. One is that it takes a while in any job to save up money to get something. Unless you have all your food and clothing and rent and all taken care of, it will be a long time until you get any money saved up.

The second problem is that you always find something else you want too and you buy that. Then you don’t have any money again and have to start over.

But working for it does something the other two do not do. You feel like someone good because you worked hard for this money and you can buy whatever you want with it. There is pride in doing something yourself.

And that pride, if you keep on doing those good things, will bring prosperity. You will do well.

Otherwise you fight with others over the money you take, you fight with yourself because you feel like junk, you sure fight with the law, the DA, other inmates.

Sometimes, no matter how great something may be, it isn’t worth it unless you do the right thing.

daily java

Daily Java:

So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

Once upon a time, long before there were people, long before there was even land or water or anything, there was God. His name was YHVH. And YHVH was lonely. He wanted people to be with, to laugh with, to love.

YHVH set about to make a place for his people, those he would love and who would love him.

He made light and darkness and covered the world with water. He created night and day, the sun and the moon and all of the stars. He covered the ground with plants and put fish in the seas and animals on the land.

But these were not enough. YHVH wanted something more, someone more, that he could love and care for.

He made a statue out of dirt and mud and then breathed life into it. The statue became a creature above all his other creatures and YHVH loved him.

But although YHVH had a friend, someone to love him, he saw that the man – as YHVH called him – was lonely himself. He had no one like himself to talk to, to hug, to have dinner with. He was friends with YHVH but he was alone otherwise.

So YHVH put him to sleep and took one of his ribs. He made another person like the man but yet different too. When the man woke up, he was surprised, not sure what to do. He had never seen anything as beautiful as the creature before him. YHVH called her a woman.

And the man, who was now called Adam loved the woman, who was now called Eve. YHVH was happy and made them a garden to live in, one in which they could walk and eat the fruit of and be happy. He even put a tree in the garden, the Tree of Life, that when they ate its fruit, they never got sick and they never died.

Adam loved Eve and before long there were children everywhere. Everybody was happy, there was laughter and singing, joy and fun. YHVH came everyday and walked with Adam and Eve through the garden that he had built for them to live in.

But there was one catch, one problem, one thing that Adam and Eve could not do. There was one tree in the middle of the garden that YHVH told them they could not eat of. It was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If they ate the fruit of that tree, they would know the difference between right and wrong and would start to live in sin.

YHVH told them they must never eat of that tree. It was forbidden. If they did, they would die.

But the woman, Eve, would come sometimes and just look at it. She considered its fruit to be beautiful and wondered what it would taste like. She imagined that it would be sweet and juicy and would be so delicious.

Adam would tell her no, that they needed to stay away from it because YHVH loved them and told them to. They were not sure why, but he knew that it was that way because YHVH told them so.

One day, Eve sat for a long time and thought about the Tree. Adam came and sat down beside her and looked with her. He knew it bothered her and didn’t really know why.

As she was looking at the tree, a serpent came up beside her. Adam and Eve played with all of the animals in the Garden and, since they only ate fruit and vegetables, none of the animals were afraid of them.

The serpent was beautiful, with long elegant legs and a winning smile. He told Eve, “You can eat that fruit if you want to.”

Eve said, “Oh, no. YHVH told us to never eat it or we would die.” The serpent said, “No, you won’t. YHVH doesn’t want you to eat that fruit because he knows you would become great like him. He is afraid for you to eat it because he is jealous.”

Then the serpent reached out one of his long elegant legs and took a piece of the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and gave it to Eve and said, “Go ahead, try it. You don’t know what you are missing if you don’t try it.”

Eve took a bite of the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was so good. She took another. How could anything so good be bad?

Adam was watching. She gave it to him and said, “Here, Adam. Eat this. It is so good.”

Adam felt guilty because this was the only thing YHVH had ever told them not to do. But he didn’t want to disappoint Eve, so he ate it.

Instantly, he knew he had done wrong and he realized that YHVH would find out. Not only that, but he noticed that they were naked. They had on no clothing. And YHVH was due for his afternoon walk any time now. Eve was scared.

He and Eve ran behind a bush when they heard YHVH coming. “Adam! Eve! Where are you,“ called YHVH. “We are here behind this bush”, said Adam.  “We are hiding,” said Adam.

“Why are you hiding?” asked YHVH.

“Because we are naked,” said Adam. “And we are afraid.”

“Ah,” said YHVH sadly, “who told you that you were naked.”

“We found out when we ate that fruit you told us not to eat,” Adam replied.

Adam and Eve tried to explain why they had eaten it. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. The serpent just sat there and smiled. He had sure shown YHVH.

God knew they were lost now. Everything he had made was ruined. Sin – disobedience – had come into his perfect garden. If they stayed, knowing that they had sinned, and ate the fruit from the Tree of Life, they would be lost forever. YHVH couldn’t bear to hurt them like that, so he took them back to their homes.

He took two animals and killed them and made clothing for them from the skins. Adam and Eve had never seen anything die and it scared them badly. But YHVH wanted them to know that everything was different now. They had sinned and they could not live in a perfect world anymore. They and all their children had to go somewhere else.

He told Adam that from now on he would have to work hard to get plants to bear fruit for them to eat.

He told Eve that from now on, when she had children, it would be painful.

And he told the beautiful serpent that from now on, he would slither on his stomach, that his legs would be gone. He also told the serpent – who was really the devil – that one of these days, Eve’s child would come and crush his head for making them sin. The serpent would hurt his heel, but would die anyway.

But until that happened, Eve’s children – humanity – would always struggle with the devil. He would always try to make her children sin and God would always try to help them cope with it.

Then he made them leave the garden. As they left, they saw an angel of the Lord with a flaming sword standing at the entrance and they knew they could never go home.

At least not until one day when the child of Eve would crush the devil’s head and sin would be gone.

My 1200th post

“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.”  (Galatians 5:13)

This is my 1200th post on my blog. Some of them have been long, some short, but in general and in all, between Facebook and the blog, I have written over 650,000 words.

It is hard to believe that I have that many words in me. And it is hard to believe also that the posts could be as diverse as they have been. They have run the gamut from theological to whining to whimsy to philosophical to angry to funny to worthless to worthwhile.

In my second post on January 28, 2010 (my first was nothing more than a sentence to test out the blog in which I said I forgot my coffee), I wrote:

I will feed anyone and help anyone I can. I have promised my Lord that I will not judge and I will proclaim the freedom we as Christians have in Jesus.
My message is freedom. Freedom in Jesus and freedom in his grace.
And coffee. I love the stuff.

It has only been a little less than two and a half years since I began and it has become hard to remember that I have not done this for a long time. It is so natural that it is hard to consider that it is relatively new.

One of these days, blogs will cease to be and I would like to have all this somewhere in a bound form to keep. And I like to think I will continue to write.

For the most part, people have received it well. There was this one guy who didn’t like anything and I found out he still reads it occasionally, but in general, when people read it, they liked it.

I have not had the audience I hope to have. One well-known national blogger that I contacted for advice as to how to get people to read this sent me a short sentence in reply”

Write about porn.

Well, maybe I will, although I will have to state that I am against it. It seems people Google porn and when they do they would come across this column if I wrote about it.

I do not know that I will, but I do know that with the grace and help of God I will continue to write. And I will continue to proclaim freedom. It is my life and I believe my mandate to do so.

Here’s to 1200 more.

daily java

Daily Java:

Open for me the gates where the righteous enter,
    and I will go in and thank the Lord.
These gates lead to the presence of the Lord,
    and the godly enter there.
I thank you for answering my prayer
    and giving me victory!  (Psalm 118:19-29)

My mother is coming today to visit for a little more than a week. We are ready for her, she has a guest room all set up, we have planned the menus for the week she will be here.

We have done all we can think of to get ready for her to come. And we are a big nervous. I haven’t seen her since last February for a brief time when my father passed away and hadn’t seen her before that for a couple of years.

My parents have always lived far from us. we always went wherever I felt the Lord taking us and most of the time that was a long ways from their home in first Houston, TX, and then Tyler, TX.

We have lived in Washington State, Tennessee, Georgia, Oklahoma and Missouri, all of which was a far piece.

In fact, we have always lived so far away that when I spent a few years in Houston pastoring a church, we had gotten used to not visiting much. It was almost as if we still lived a long ways off.

And my family was never a close family. When Ella and I got married, I was in the army and we went for six months in Germany. Nothing sets a marriage as independent like moving 5500 miles away from the folks. We became our own unit and have remained so all our lives.

I wish I had spent more time with them now, but it is too late. So I look forward to her coming.

We have some differences, one of which is church. She is a member of a very exclusionist group, one I ministered with for twenty years. I moved away from it, but she never did.

As a result, we are never sure whether or not she will attend with us. She and my father usually go to one of their churches when they visit us. It is sad, but it is also the way it is, so things are probably not going to ever be different.

But I look forward to her coming, and we will do out best not to have any arguments or strong differences of opinion while she is here. I will do what I need to do to keep it harmonious. She is, after all, 82 and will probably not change.

And besides, I love her. If I can put up with the peccadilloes of older women in the church as I have for forty years of ministry, I can surely make things better and easier for my mother.

daily java

Daily Java:

Don’t be intimidated in any way by your enemies. This will be a sign to them that they are going to be destroyed, but that you are going to be saved, even by God himself. (Philippians 1:28)

There is a big deal now about bullying. There are all kinds of ads telling you to not bully and to not encourage bullying. For the most part, they are stupid.

Bullying is not something you deal with rationally. It is something you deal with on other levels. And above all, a person is bullied if they want to be bullied. A bully cannot intimidate you unless you allow him to do so.

My son had problems with bullies in junior high. He was a suburban Houston boy thrust into a rural farm community. The kids were different than he was. For one thing, they were a lot more physical. My son was not. He was basically a sensitive, shy kid.

They were beating him up and the like. Finally I got tired of it and enrolled him to karate classes. I told him that it was not so that he could stand up to the bullies and threaten to hurt them. It was so that he could gain confidence. If there is one person bullies do not bother, it is confident people.

I have not had problems with bullies since mid high school. It was at that point that I got both size and confidence. For some reason, even though I didn’t necessarily set out to do so, I got confidence. Although I was not necessarily a physical person, I looked like one. So bullies left me alone.

I wanted the same for my son. As he worked on his karate, little by little he gained confidence. And it showed in the way he presented himself. After one of the kids from his school saw him going into his karate school dojo, they decided he wasn’t worth the possible embarrassment of being beaten up. So they left him alone.

Bullies look for people who are ill at ease, or not strong. They prey on those people. The Christian should be the kind of person that people will not bother with. After all, as one friend said to me, what are they going to do? Threaten him with heaven?

There is a confidence that should be in a Christian that says to people that you cannot hurt him. Jesus himself said it in Matthew 10 when he said to not fear them who can destroy your body, but rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.

In other words, if you are going to be afraid, be afraid of real scary people. God is scary if you get to thinking about it. People are not. Sure, they may hurt you and even kill you. But there is a strength in the Christian that says that they will continue no matter what the problems.

A Christian doesn’t wait for the government to pass laws telling those outside the body of Christ that they cannot hurt those inside the body of Christ. The Christian relies on the power of God.

That power doesn’t mean that everybody is going to fall before him. But it does mean that no matter what else may happen, God is still in control.

People will try to bully Christians because they mistakenly view them as weak, but they are not. They have the power of God within them. and, if they truly rely on God, they have a strength within them that is beyond the power of the world to understand.

Bullies are stupid. They think they can get what they want by brute force or by intimidation. But the apostle Paul says don’t worry about them. They will ultimately be destroyed. And no matter what they do to you, you will be rewarded.

One of the inmates at the jail where I go on Thursday nights told me the other day that I radiate calm. I suppose that what he saw was Christianity coming through me. he saw the power of God in my life and he saw that I was not going to be afraid of a bunch of people wearing striped clothing.

Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world, Jesus said. And he meant it.

Bullies are going to be with us no matter what the government may pretend to do. But the Christian doesn’t have to worry about it. He has the God of the Universe on his side.

daily java

Daily Java:

She dresses in fine linen and purple gowns.
Her husband is well known at the city gates,
    where he sits with the other civic leaders. (Proverbs 31:22-23)

Long ago I promised sister Ella I would tell her if something didn’t look good on her.

There is nothing worse than a woman going to the store, picking out some article of clothing that she just knows will look good, putting it on, wearing it out for her husband to admire and she doesn’t know she looks like a truck with a badly fitting tarp.

So I promised her I would not say it looked good unless it did. And Ella likes that.

Now to some people this is being mean. I have had people really gripe at me for my insensitivity in telling her that something looked bad when I knew full well she wanted it. Even if she looked bad, she wanted it. And that matters to some people.

But really, what is worse? Telling her it looked good when it made her look terrible? Or telling her it made her look bad because you want her to look good and you love her? It is a lot meaner to tell her she looks good when she doesn’t. You have lied.

After all, I want my wife to look good. I look bad enough for the both of us. And just about everything she has looks good on her. I picked it out. She tried it on and I told her it looked good so she bought it. Otherwise, it would be a waste of money.

If she bought something that looked bad, sooner or later, she would figure it out and then not wear it and it would be a waste of money. And she would feel guilty. We do not spend much on clothing, but what we spend I want to make count.

She knows that she has one objective view in the world that is concerned with her looking good. I love her too much to let her look silly in bad fitting clothing.

I want her to look good. And she does. To help her do this I edit her clothing. And I have to. She hates change. If I didn’t help her change her style, she would dress like she did in 1973. I have forced her into every new change of fashion that she looked good in. I never bought her spandex or tight things or disco clothes or stuff like that. But most women really don’t have any business wearing that sort of thing anyway.

She sees something she likes. She asks me what I think. I give her a preliminary opinion. And I am brutally honest. Some things I know automatically will not look good. When I am, she knows that when she goes to church or wherever, she will have clothes that look good on her, the style of which fit her.

Then she goes into the dressing room and comes out. I tell her exactly what is right and wrong with it. After all, salespeople will lie because they want the sale.

I was with a guy the other day outside a dressing room and his wife came out and looked like a giant badly dressed sausage. Her clothes were terrible. She loved them and told him he did too. So he agreed and asked me. I said fine, sure. They didn’t ask what I thought, just if I agreed. So I did. And she was going to look horrible.

Not Ella. Everything she has fits her to a T, whatever that means. And I like it, because I like to be with a well-dressed woman. And I like being with her.

If you love someone, you will be honest. It means you care for them.

daily java

Daily Java:

When he said these things, the people were again divided in their opinions about him. Some said, “He’s demon possessed and out of his mind. Why listen to a man like that?” Others said, “This doesn’t sound like a man possessed by a demon! Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” (John 10:19-21)

Reactions to Jesus were mixed. It is the same today. Some thought he was a great teacher and obviously from God. Others thought he was crazy. The same Jesus, the same messages, heard by different people with different perspectives.

It is the same today. Some hear Jesus and hear something fresh and new, words flowing from God. Others hear restrictions, negatives, things they are not allowed to do. Some hear freedom, others hear a mean old God telling them they cannot have fun.

But how is it that two people can hear the same thing and make such radically different conclusions?

People hear Jesus, as they do everything else, through the filters of their own desires, what they themselves want. They also hear him  according to a preset filter, one that says, No matter what he says I will not like it.

My son would decide in advance whether or not he liked a certain food. Then he would pick up a bite of whatever it might have been, look at it, shake his head, then eat it. Afterwards, he would shake his head again. He had decided he wasn’t going to like it and didn’t. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The food was doomed from the beginning.

When people hear Jesus, they usually go to hear what they want to hear. If he agrees with them or they can twist what he has to say to fit their ends, he is good. Otherwise, he is bad and they want to have nothing to do with him. In fact, some of his most vocal users are those who do not like him most of the time.

They will use him when they can, pluck verses out of context, or sometimes just assign a certain motive to him regardless of whether or not he would ever say such a thing.

It used to bother me how people could read what Jesus said, or when they heard him speak, could either twist him or completely disregard him.

But they can. And I try my best to keep faithful to him and what he says and Listen to him (Mark 8:7).

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Daily Java: 

Now that I am old and gray, do not abandon me, O God. Let me proclaim your power to this new generation, your mighty miracles to all who come after me. (Psalm 71:18)

I have grown my beard now for almost a month and it is still so white that is is hard to see. I can see it up close, but move back a ways and it kind of blends in.

It is still as thick as it was, but it was so dark and full. Now it is white with bits of dark in it.

I am not sure what I am going to do yet, whether I will grow it or cut it back into a goatee. I have had one of those for the past seven years.

But I wanted a beard. I just never expected to look like Santa Claus.

I remember one other man, the director of my seminary, who grew a beard and was startled that it was so absolutely white. I don’t know what he thought. His hair was extremely white so it was unlikely his bear would come in dark. But still, it is a surprise.

Now I can be John the GrayBeard. That sound kind of cool, kind of wise and official.

Of course, I am still unemployed and no one really cares, but at least it sounds good.

I think I will keep it for a while and see what develops. Ella is not real keen on it. She always liked my beard, but she took to the goatee with surprising enthusiasm. She hated it back in the 1970’s, but I suppose that was because I was the only guy with one for a while.

I do notice that in my Bible search, there are no reference to gray beards in the Bible anywhere. That is interesting since most of the Bible people had them, especially Old Testament people. And since they respected age, you would think they would mention them.

But no. Nowhere to be found. I will have to be a Gray Beard with no Biblical authorization.

What a rebel.

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Daily Java:

Mockers hate to be corrected, so they stay away from the wise. (Proverbs 15:12-14)

I was talking to a doctor not long ago about my cataract surgery and how I was almost blind in that eye before he operated on it. He told me that I had not been blind, that there were lots of  people far worse off than me and went on a little.

When he got through, I merely said, thank you for correcting me. I was giving a kind of relative statement and he decided to do something kind of weird with it. As far as I was concerned, I could barely use the eye without some pretty thick glasses on as it was extremely nearsighted. It was nearsighted enough that if both eye had been like that, I would have had trouble.

Some people just like to correct others. It makes them feel bigger. And on top of that, nobody really likes to be corrected. You may be glad that you know a better way, but no one likes to be told that they are wrong.

But sometimes you do need to be corrected. It may be a small thing or it may be something big. And many times the person who needs to be corrected doesn’t want to be. They like the way the live their lives. They like the wrong things they do.

And many times these people, who stand in desperate need of correction do not want to be corrected. They like what they are doing and the way they do it and really don’t want someone to stop them or tell them they are wrong.

So they go their whole lives doing something wrong and maybe in the end are consigned to eternal punishment simply because they were too proud to be told what was wrong in their lives.

The worse kind of person is the one who has insisted on ding something the wrong way and then gets made when he gets in trouble for it. Why didn’t someone tell me, he’ll wail. Someone did, though, or would have if they had been allowed to.

So the people doing things wrong stay away from the people who know how to do things the right way. Those who are living lives of debauchery hate to be around those who are living lives of holiness because they see what they are doing wrong and they do not want to change.

It is easier to stay away from a person than it is to admit that you need that person’s advice.

What a shame and a foolish way to live your life.

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Daily Java:

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live.
    I will praise my God to my last breath!
May all my thoughts be pleasing to him,
    for I rejoice in the Lord.
Let all sinners vanish from the face of the earth;
    let the wicked disappear forever.
Let all that I am praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord! (Psalm 104:33-35)

I left the Church of Christ in 1994 after several years of agonizing searching. I came to a point that I felt that I could no longer hold the corporate theology (Baptismal Regeneration, the unscripturalness of instrumental music in worship) and knew that to take their money without believing these core doctrines would be wrong.

So I left in 1994. But where was I to go. The Church of Christ was my life church. I had pastored for them for 20 years and had two degrees from their institutions. What was I to do? Where was I to go?

After casting about, I decided that the Independent Christian Church was a good fit at the time. Oddly enough, though, I ended up going to a Disciples of Christ church in a small town in Northwest Missouri. They advertised in Independent Christian Church newspapers and college placement departments.

I found out later that they could not afford the larger salaries demanded by Disciples of Christ pastors and could get Independent Christian Church pastors for much cheaper.

The first Sunday was something else. I had done some interim work at a church in north Houston so I was getting used to the instruments in worship. But in this church, the Disciples of Christ church in Hopkins, MO, I was also expected to lead the singing.

They used two big raw-boned Iowa farm boys as musicians. They had played piano and organ together for years. I stood up and announced the first song, I started, then they started, we stopped, I started, they started, we stopped again. After three or four false starts, we got together and almost twenty years later, I lead singing with a piano, organ, keyboard, guitar, whatever.

Such a leap to go from acappella to instrumental in one fell swoop. I have never had problems leading singing acappella, and even have almost perfect pitch.

But the cultural leap is amazing. Then there was Christmas with a large church Christmas tree (Church of Christ didn’t acknowledge Christmas as religious), Easter the following year and on. The Church of Christ was iconoclastic, denying all Christian holidays and seasons. We could do them at home and even had church Christmas parties at people’s houses, but not as an official church function.

Almost two decades later, it is hard to remember the both fear and thrill of being cut loose from old traditions, in realizing that they were not scriptural mandates, but were in fact just traditions.

And I sing.

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Daily Java:

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” (John 8:1-11)

In most of the translations, this verse is preceded by the annotation: [The most ancient Greek manuscripts do not include John 7:53–8:11]. It is my opinion that many tried to take it out of the Bible and the Lord put it back in.

As the church got older, it got meaner. Almost all churches do. They begin to get rules that are designed to show how holy they are and how strict they can be.

The Foursquare Church is an example of that. The founder of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel was a woman who was divorced three times. Yet, after she died, the Foursquare Church got to be death on divorce just like all of the other Pentecostal Churches. It was almost as if they were saying, Sure we started this way, but we are as strict and holy as you.

Fortunately, it has come back to a good center on that issue. But it is hard for some people to read what Jesus did and said here and just leave it alone. When they began to put the Bible together, as  it were, the early church leaders looked at this portrayal of Jesus – a sensitive, forgiving, and loving portrayal – and decided that it didn’t fit their views of Jesus.

Their  views of Jesus was that of a strong moral guy, one who brooked no sin, one who would not put up with people like this woman, one who disapproved of things like she did and people like her.

This is in spite of the fact that over and over, it was said of him that he ate with sinners and associated with those no one else would associate with. The desire to make him like they wanted him to be was so strong that they were even willing to twist the scriptures to make it so.

So they tried to take it out. And God put it back in.

If God is big enough and powerful enough to create light out of darkness, he is big enough and powerful enough to make his word like he wants it, no matter what people may do.

And this fits Jesus to a tee, whatever that means. He cared for more for people than he cared for condemnation. He even said he came to save, not condemn.

This passage shows that desire strongly.

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Daily Java:

The next day there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus’ mother told him, “They have no more wine.” “Dear woman, that’s not our problem,” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.” But his mother told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” (John 2:1-5)

Today is Mother’s Day. If you forgot, then we’ll pause while you shoot yourself.

Even Jesus had a mother. that sounds silly at first, but people tend to think of Jesus as living in a vacuum, kind of slipping into the world and floating around.

But here Jesus is at a party and his mother is there too. The family of the couple getting married is on a tight budget and didn’t have enough refreshments. In that culture, these weddings could go on for a long time, so it wouldn’t be hard to run out of food and drink.

These people ran out of wine and people were going to look at them as being cheap. Evidently they were some relation or something to Mary, so she goes to Jesus and tells him about it. He says that it is none of his business. She turns to the servants and tells them to do whatever he says, then she turns back around and looks at Jesus.

Jesus blinked first. He scuffs his sandal in the dirt and says, Aw, Ma. Then he performs his first miracle. He makes 150 gallons of wine for a young couple on their wedding day because his mother told him to do so.

I do not know what Jesus’ timetable was, how long before he intended to do a miracle. I don’t even know if he knew. He was human and I do not think he walked around all the time thinking about how divine he was. That sounds weird.

But his mother was his primary source of instruction and care and had always been. She knew that one day he was going to do something. And in her mind, the mind of a woman keenly aware of embarrassment at a party, this was something important.

Who was the couple? No idea. Was their family important? Probably not or they would have had enough money to get wedding stuff for everybody. Was making wine for a young couple on their wedding day what God had sent Jesus to this earth to do? No, not really.

Yet, this was his first miracle and he did it because his mother told him to.

We eat because our mothers encouraged us. We walk because they wanted us to. We learn to dress ourselves, eat with a fork, bathe, toilet train – everything because our mothers teach us. And they continue to do so all our lives.

Our mothers are the only people who can talk to us like that. And that is because they are our mothers.

Mary was Jesus’ mother and she said Get over there and do something to help these kids. And he said, Yes, mother.

And when mine says something, usually so do I.

Happy Mother’s Day.

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Daily Java:

At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:66-69)

Jesus had just gotten through saying some things that the people listening found, quite frankly, offensive. He had been saying that in order to be pleasing to God, you had to eat him and drink his blood. He was, of course, speaking metaphorically. What he meant was that you had to take him into your self in such a way that he became part of you. It would almost be as if you ate him and drank him.

A lot of the crowd said, in effect, “Yuck. Gross.” And then said “This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?”  (John 5:60). Jesus knew that his apostles were confused by such raw imagery and some just plain didn’t like it. So he asked them, are you going to leave too? They told him, where would we go? You are the answer to our questions. And we believe in you.

Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn starred in a movie about the older Robin Hood and Maid Marian. He came back after the Crusades to find her in a convent. As they told each other what had happened in the intervening years, he told her of the atrocities that King Richard had visited on those he fought and the things that he had Robin Hood do. Some of them were baffling, others were appalling.

Marian asked him at one point, why did your keep on doing these things? Robin’s answer: he is my king. What else would I do after a lifetime of service but serve my king.

That has always rang in me somehow. There are things that God has done or left undone in my life that I do not understand. And many things that he has done or left undone that I quite frankly disagree with him over. But I have served him for over four decades. It will not be but a couple of years that I will enter my fifth decade of service to my king.

Someone asked me the other day why I stayed in ministry when things seem to be going so badly. And my answer was like Robin Hood’s. He is my King. Where else would I go? There are no other alternatives, no other avenues of approach, no other ways to serve him. He is my King.

There are a lot of things that I just plain do not understand and a lot that I do not like. But he is my King. And if I serve him as my King, I have to recognize that what he does in my life is up to him. He has used me mightily in the past. Right now, I don’t seem to be doing much. He has blessed us financially in the past. Right now, he has not.

But above all else, he is my King.

Jesus asked the apostles, are you going to leave too? I was going fine and then I said something that you didn’t like so you leave? And to their credit, they said no, we will not leave. For better or worse, you are the Holy One of God.

As we see in politics and everything else today, someone may be a trusted advisor or confidant for years, and then say the wrong thing. When he does, he is pilloried by the press and usually dumped by those who just yesterday thought he was great, simply because they didn’t like what he said.

Sometimes it is good but you don’t want to hear it. Sometimes it may be too hard for you to comprehend. But whatever God says is always good, even when you don’t want to hear it.

In Revelation 10:9-10; the angel give the apostle John a book. It was God’s will and plan in a symbolic fashion.

So I went to the angel and told him to give me the small scroll. “Yes, take it and eat it,” he said. “It will be sweet as honey in your mouth, but it will turn sour in your stomach!” So I took the small scroll from the hand of the angel, and I ate it! It was sweet in my mouth, but when I swallowed it, it turned sour in my stomach.

The word of God is often beautiful, but often harder to do than to listen to. I am convinced that many people prefer the old King James Version of the Bible simply because they can listen to it in comfort and not really understand it because of the outdated language. Modern translations give the word of God in a format that is too easily understood and they don’t want to do it.

The apostles found again and again that Jesus was not just some good philosopher. He was the real thing. And the real thing is sometimes hard to follow.

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Daily Java:

When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them. They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. (John 11:33-35)

When I was younger and got angry, I would tend to do foolish things. Usually I would break something or hit something. The hitting stopped when I hit a door one day and it dislocated my wrist. I decided that I might could deal with the anger in a better way.

Today I don’t get as angry. I am not sure why, except for the fact that as I get older, I get more in control of some things. I still eat too much, but some things have finally gotten to where I can handle them.

The anger you feel at some problem is real and is not to be dismissed. There are those who would say that a Christian doesn’t get angry.

That is garbage. Jesus got angry. And he not only got angry, he also cried. The anger was from something he couldn’t do anything about. God never intended for people to get sick and die. But here Jesus was with someone he loved who were in grief over another friend of his who had died.

Now Jesus came to raise him back to life. But the whole grief thing got to him. It was just too much. He got angry at all of the trash that was happening in the world. The rage at how unfair things were got to him and he wept because of it.

He even knew one day he would stop it through the power of his resurrection. But it hurt now. He was angry now. He wept now.

But what he didn’t do was put his fist through the door, or yell at people, or break coffee pots (all my older pursuits). He just did what he could and looked to the future.

He also tried to comfort other people. He knew they needed the comfort. And he also knew there was no one to comfort him, but he did it anyway.

He got angry, but angry didn’t get him.

The key is to use the anger to something constructive, to not let it control you. Only a weird person never gets angry. And usually he is lying if he says he didn’t.

Be angry if you need to, but do it like Jesus did. Use it to fuel your desire to do something to change what you are angry at.

Daily Java: 

After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went, because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. (It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration.)  Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do. Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!” Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?” “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.) Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted. After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, “Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted.” 13 So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves. When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, “Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!” When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself. (John 6:1-15)

The apostles were always worried about things. What if kind of stuff. What if we don’t have enough to eat? What if people don’t like us? What if we get hurt? What if we fail?

There were a lot of people following Jesus around. In fact, there were enough people around him that there came a food shortage. They wanted to hear what he had to say but there just weren’t enough vendors to keep them fed.

And human nature being what it is, you know there had to be a lot of entrepreneurs around to keep everybody fed. But there were just too many people.  This was a huge crowd.

Jesus turned to the apostles and said something like he usually did: perplexing. “Feed everybody.” “We can’t feed everybody! There are too many. We can’t even get that much money together if we tried.”

Andrew points at a kid who had some food probably for sale. He had probably come up to the apostles and offered to sell it. And it is likely that he was one of many that were selling food. I would imagine, though, that he had sold most of it and just had a little left. Andrew said, here’s a little. But there are just too many. What did Jesus expect? They were only human.

Two ideas here. One was that Jesus expected faith. But he also knew that all this was new to the apostles. He knew that they would not be able to do anything and would be confused by his comment. So he would have to show them.

The other idea was that it surprised Jesus constantly that people around him didn’t have the same approach to the power of God that he did. He knew God could just cause this to happen, to just bring food up for hungry people where there was no food before.

I tend to think it may have been a combination of both. Jesus knew the power of God, yet at the same time he was always surprised by the faithlessness of those who were close to him. Not really faithlessness, I suppose, but lack of faith. There is a difference.

But Jesus was ready to just bring up food and the apostles were looking at what they had on hand: a pathetic amount of material for such a large group of people.

So Jesus showed them the power of God. He blessed the loaves and fish the boy had and began to break it up into pieces. And he broke it and broke it and broke it and soon there was a lot of food where there hadn’t been any..

Not only did he feed the crowd, though, he also had twelve baskets left over., one for each other apostles. He was saying, I can feed this huge group of people and still have plenty left over for each of you. I will not let you alone.

Of course, there were problems come from it. Everybody knew he had conjured the food from nowhere and this was a chance to get into something great, as far as they were concerned. Hang around with him and there will be free food. They were ready for an Occupy Jesus rally.

He knew this and ran. He left them because knew they were just looking at him as a free meal ticket. And he would have no part in that.

But one thing he could do, and he showed the apostles this in spades: he could feed everybody and still have some left over.
 

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Daily Java:

When Jesus had finished telling these stories and illustrations, he left that part of the country. He returned to Nazareth, his hometown. When he taught there in the synagogue, everyone was amazed and said, “Where does he get this wisdom and the power to do miracles?” Then they scoffed, “He’s just the carpenter’s son, and we know Mary, his mother, and his brothers—James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. 56 All his sisters live right here among us. Where did he learn all these things?” And they were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his own family.” And so he did only a few miracles there because of their unbelief. (Matthew 13:53-58)

One of the hardest thing for a preacher is to come home. He wants to come home and tell the people he knew what has changed his life. He sees them in his mind responding in amazement that he had changed so much, they want to know what caused the change, through his change he brings more people to the Lord.

But it doesn’t always work that way, even Jesus was to find out.

Instead of a changed person, many of them see a former kid acting silly. They think that he is acting better than he should, and they bring up constantly how he was before he left.

Isn’t this so and so’s kid. I remember when … and the person’s influence is hard to keep.

We want to go back and teach and show and bring the love and grace that so transformed us to those we love, but it just so seldom works that way.

Jesus came back and encountered nothing but opposition. Even though he was the best kid that ever graduated that high school, still people could not get over the fact that he was a home-town boy and, as such, was putting on airs.

In fact, the opposition to Jesus was so strong that he wasn’t even able to do many miracles there. The unbelief was so strong that it even stopped the power of the Son of God.

When Jesus was on the way to Calvary, he told someone that if these people could burn green wood this easily, how much easier it would be to burn dry wood. In other words, if they could accuse and kill someone who was innocent, how much easier it would be to accuse and kill someone who was sinful. If they could kill him, the Son of God, how much easier would it be to do the same to humanity, who was sinful.

The same holds true here. If they could turn aside the best person that little town ever produced, from the best family that ever lived there, then how can we expect to do any better?

Don’t bank everything on going home and telling your old friends how you have changed. They probably will not listen. And it is easier to impugn you and remember your past than it is to acknowledge that you are telling the truth.

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Daily Java:

Then the leading priests kept accusing him of many crimes, and Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer them? What about all these charges they are bringing against you?” But Jesus said nothing, much to Pilate’s surprise. (Mark 15:3-5)

I read  this today and it has resonated ever since. I put it on my Facebook page and so far have eight people “like” it.

It says: “Don’t ever mistake my silence for ignorance, my calmness for acceptance, or my kindness for weakness.”

I remember the movie First Blood, the first Rambo movie. The main character was arrested by a bully policeman and all the rest of his deputies beat on him until he snapped. The problem was that he said little or nothing and they thought he was weak. I remember telling my son when we watched it that their problem was they mistook silence for weakness. When the strength finally came, it was deadly.

He was quiet but he was not weak. He endured but he was not weak.

When Jesus was before Pilate, he felt no real need to defend himself. He was not guilty, he knew it and those around him knew it too. it was just that they wanted a scapegoat for what they wanted to do and he was handy. They also mistook his quietness in life, his calmness in the midst of trouble and his kindness for ignorance, acceptance and weakness.

They were none of these. Here was a man with the power of God behind him but he felt no need to use it.

I have noticed that real warriors never speak of the wars they have fought. Those who have the real backgrounds are silent. They do their jobs and live their lives with no braggadocio, no noise, no self-adulation. Those who talk the loudest I have found are those who have done the least.

Jesus was silent at his trial, but he knew what was happening and let it do so. He was calm in the face of danger and death, yet he knew that it was because he allowed it to happen that it did. He was kind, even to the point of forgiving those who killed him, but the one thing he was not was weak.

I learned a while back to sit and listen, even when people are railing at me for whatever reason. I no longer get angry or take offense. It is not that I am weak. I don’t think I am. I am a strong man and have no issues there.

But I find I feel no need to answer back, even in the face of recriminations. Answering back does nothing, and quite frankly, I have found, as it was in the case of Jesus, that silence can be as frightening to people as threats. More so really, as you are unspoken. He almost drove Herod mad when he refused to speak. Yes, he died anyway, but it was what he came to do.

I want to say what I have to say and let it be. I came to serve and not to defend. And I suppose that some have mistaken that for weakness. But that is their problem. I stand assured in the power of God and will not fail. He is my strength as he was my Savior’s.

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Daily Java:

You will be my people, and I will be your God. (Jeremiah 30:22)

We have a disobedient cat. Prisca is what Ella named her and she is a beautiful black cat, but in general, she is not affectionate and she is not obedient.

And I hate a disobedient animal around the house. She scratches things, tears up the toilet paper every night, loves to knock glasses off onto the concrete floor where they shatter into a trillion pieces.

She goes where we tell her not to, and won’t do what we tell her to do. In general, she is a disobedient little cat. Now I know cats are different than dogs and all that.

But this one is more so than any other. I suppose that all cats are wired that way. Dogs are eager to please, cats don’t really care either way. They will do it if it is convenient, otherwise no. They trade off being fluffy and figure that is good enough.

But another thing she does. She talks to us. We ask her something and she answers. She is the most conversing cat we have ever had. If you tell her she was a bad cat, she will explain why she wasn’t. If you ask her if she wants something, she will try to tell you. When you come in the door, she is there to say hi.

Sometimes, her attempts at speech appear almost human. It is as if she is trying to tell you something, but there is this species gap between the two of you and she can’t quite bridge it.

But Ella loves her. I personally think she would be a great crock-pot dish, but Ella loves her little Prisca. Stupid cat.

We are not God’s pets. Our relationship is different than that. But in many ways, he is as high above us and we are above Prisca. And in our limited way, we speak to him and he answers.

We too are disobedient. I suppose that if he were a God who would do so, he could look down each day and see us as disobedient. Stupid human, he could shout. You are a bad person! And we would try to explain why we sinned and why we fell short.

But it is because we are wired that way. And he knows it. We do the wrong thing because it is easiest. And when we do, we know we have done wrong.

Prisca knows when she has done wrong, and the phrase “Bad Kitty” will drive her into another room to lie under the bed. I almost imagine her under there saying, no, I’m not a bad kitty.

But the problem is, we are wired bad. And the only way to become good is let God rewire us, to let him change us, make us different. Then and only then can we become useful in his kingdom.

We are not pets, we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. And he is our God. And if we let him, we become useful in his kingdom.

blessing people who curse you

The following is an article I wrote for the Read Freedom jail ministry here at Cooper County in Boonville, MO

Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. (Romans 12:9)

What kind of freakazoid would advocate blessing people who curse him? Somebody curses me and I’ll take care of him.

That is normal. But the weird thing of Christianity is that God calls us to something more than normal. He calls us to him. And in him, things are different.

Look at Jesus on the cross. He was dying and people were killing him and it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t do the crime but he was still having to do the time. But he looks down from the cross at those who were making fun of him and he said “Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing.”

As he is dying he forgives. Then he says, Okay, Johnny, you do the same. (He calls me Johnny because he has known me a long time) I say, how? How do I look at people who want to do me harm and bless them? His answer: I will help you.

And you know what? He does help me. I sure can’t do it myself. As far as I am concerned, hurt me and my family and a shotgun is not good enough for you.

But he says, forgive them. Why? Over in another scripture he says: because I have forgiven you.

But have I done as much to God as they have done to me? Yeah, I guess I have. I have done stupid things, I have broken laws, I have hurt people, I have been, in general, a stupid person. Yet he forgave me.

Now their version of being a stupid person may be different than mine. But even so. God calls us to a different way of looking at things. It is a way of looking at things through his eyes. And in his eyes, he forgives.

But what if they don’t ask? The people at the foot of the cross didn’t ask either. He just went ahead and did it.

And I want to tell you, it is a lot easier to live when the need for revenge isn’t sitting there inside you percolating like sorry coffee, ready to burn your insides up.

That kind of anger and resentment hurts you more than it does them anyway. They live fine with you mad. You, on the other hand, have a lot of trouble being mad for a long time. It will eat you up.

And Jesus came to forgive us. That was why he came in the first place, to forgive us and bring us back to God.

His forgiveness starts with you.

daily java

Daily Java:

Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.” (John 3:5-8)

I was listening to someone trying to explain the nature and trinity of God the other day. It was a silly attempt. The nature  of God is so far above us that we cannot fully explain who he is. We just accept who he is. When we try to pin him down and get him on paper, we reduce him to the explicable. It is impossible to explain God. You can only go so far before you come up against a wall.

The same with the Holy Spirit. He is, after all, God, and again is inexplicable.

Nicodemus, the man to whom Jesus is speaking, asks Jesus for an explanation of how the Spirit works. Jesus said he couldn’t give him one. The Holy Spirit, he says, is like the wind. You know it is there and you can feel it, but you cannot explain it.

I have met people who said that if you can’t explain it, then they would have nothing to do with it. But as Jesus said, you really cannot explain the wind, either.  I worked for the phone company in the early 70’s but I never heard a good explanation as to why phones work, yet I used them. I do not understand electricity even though my father worked all his life for the light company. But I still use it. I have found no one who understands how computers work, but I have three. Five, if you count the phones.

There are lots of things I do not understand that make up an integral part of my life. Yet I use them and accept them. and I know that all these things are man-made. Someone somewhere understands them. but no one truly understands God.

And again, as I have said before, a God that you can understand and graph on a sheet of paper is not a real God.

I know he can make me new, I know he can change my heart, I know he can guide me and keep me safe. I know these things. And these things are enough.

I accept him even though I cannot understand him. And I praise him.

daily java

Daily Java:

And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for. (1 John 5:14-15)

Now here is the conundrum. What if he doesn’t give you what you ask for. The Bible clearly says that he hears us and will give us what we ask for. What about when he doesn’t.

I don’t have an answer to this question. I have heard a lot of pseudo-answers. He gives you what you need. Sometimes he says maybe. God knows what is best for you. He is not an order from or a warehouse. I even used that one today in my daily devotional on Facebook.

But the problem is that they are all junk. Theological drivel designed to hide the fact that we do not have the slightest idea how to answer the very real problem.

What happens when you pray for something and you need it, but God doesn’t give it. In fact, it is as if you are praying to a giant void, like your prayers are going no higher than your living room or even church ceiling.

You pray and pray and you fast and ask. You seek the Lord, you read the word, you do everything you are supposed to do and there is no answer.

People always bring up the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 11 when he says that he had prayed for healing three times and God finally told him no. “My grace is sufficient for you,” God said.

But that wouldn’t even be bad, if he would just say no. Or I am thinking about it, or later or something. Anything.

But instead, there is deafening silence. Does it mean he doesn’t love you? That he doesn’t care? I don’t think it does. But it sure feels like it. I will have to admit that the idea of a God who does not love us and care for us presents a bleak universe, one I don’t want to live in.

So I know he cares. His word says so, and I believe it. And like the old schmaltzy song says, “If you can’t see his hand, trust his heart.” Sure.

But there comes a time that it becomes more and more difficult to trust that he is there. When there is no indication of it, it gets hard.

Jesus says that our heavenly Father is better than we are as fathers. You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. (Matthew 7:9-11)

However, I would never ignore my children, never refuse to even give them the time of day. That is what he did to people in the Old Testament like King Saul who had disobeyed him. That is not how he treats his children today. Especially when that child has spent his entire life serving him as a minister, teaching of his love, suffering under the difficulties that come from being a pastor, loving him.

An article today of nothing but questions and problems. And no answers.

daily java

Daily Java:

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! He is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘A man is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’ I did not recognize him as the Messiah, but I have been baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel.” Then John testified, “I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and resting upon him. I didn’t know he was the one, but when God sent me to baptize with water, he told me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and rest is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I saw this happen to Jesus, so I testify that he is the Chosen One of God.” (John 1:29-51)

It is funny that you can look at something for a long time and then suddenly see it.

Jesus’ mother, Mary, and John’s mother, Elizabeth were close. More than likely, since she was so much older, Elizabeth had died in the time between the conceptions and John’s and Jesus’ adulthoods. But since the two women were close, it is probably John and Jesus knew each other.

And all this time, John had looked at Jesus and just saw his cousin. Then, when Jesus came to be baptized, John realized that he was more that just his cousin. He was the Messiah John had been sent to proclaim.

It probably didn’t surprise him, or shock him. Jesus lived such a life that John’s revelation was more an “Oh, yeah!” moment than anything else.

I was working out in a gym in the middle 1990’s. I had taken a couple of college courses and got a free gym class as part of the deal. So I decided to do weight-lifting. There were all kinds of people in there, and I was ultimately paired up with another guy who wanted to lift a lot. Near the end of the course, he mentioned something, did I like to do that. I said no, I didn’t do whatever he said. he thought back across the time we had been together and said, well, what are you? Some kind of preacher?

I hadn’t told him what I did so I answered yes and then waited for his response. His answer: Oh. That makes sense.

I considered for a moment if he would be shocked. You! A preacher? But it didn’t surprise him and I was glad.

When John saw Jesus, he wasn’t shocked. Surprised, yes. The Messiah had been under his nose all this time, but shocked? No.

John didn’t know what was going to happen now. But he knew his job was to introduce the Messiah in the spirit of Elijah (Malachi 3). And he had done it. How much more would he work and what else would he do for the Messiah? He didn’t know, but he knew this: his main job was through.

It wasn’t any time until he was dead, beheaded by a man  who secretly admired him on the whim of a girl of dubious morality. A sad way to go. But as Jesus said, a great man.