daily java

Daily Java:

Then a loud wail will rise throughout the land of Egypt, a wail like no one has heard before or will ever hear again. But among the Israelites it will be so peaceful that not even a dog will bark. Then you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between the Egyptians and the Israelites. (Exodus 11:6-7)

I had to put down a dog today. And on top of it all, I have never killed an animal before.

My son-in-law’s dog was over 16 years old and had gone completely infirm. In fact, yesterday she couldn’t even stand. It has been a bone of contention between him and my daughter for a while now, and the obvious suffering of the dog has affected us all.

But he couldn’t bring himself to put her down. She had been with him through some difficult times for most of her life. And he loved her.

She was a Jack Russell terrier, a good-looking dog. And she had been a faithful companion to him through some rough times. But when it came down to it, he just couldn’t bring himself to put her down, even though he knew it was past time.

So I did, using his 22 rifle, and then I dug the grave for him and filled it in.

It is odd, not having her here. She was so bad off at the last that she would just walk in circles and give a breathless howl. She really didn’t even have the wind to howl, but she tried.

I cried myself, but mainly from the sadness of him losing a friend.

daily java

Daily Java:

Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. (Romans 13:7)

When I came home on leave from the army in 1969, my mother wanted me to wear my uniform to church.

I didn’t want to. For one thing, I had been wearing a uniform places for several months and was looking forward to wearing my civilian clothes. I was in great shape from basic training and looked pretty good. Really, the last thing I wanted to wear was my uniform.

The other reason was that uniforms were not very welcome in the age group in which I was. It was the height of the Vietnam war. Protesters were everywhere. There were rumors (unfounded, for the most part) that people had spit on soldiers in uniform and called them “babykillers.”

I just didn’t want to wear that uniform.

Unfortunately, my mother is the person who when she gets an idea in her mind, she considers it absolutely right, and she almost demanded that I wear it. It was easier to do so than to fight it, so I wore it.

I will have to admit, I was striking in my uniform. One of my friends told me that I looked like a recruiting poster. I was 6’3” tall and 185 pounds of mostly  muscle. I have always stood straight anyway, so I stood tall and straight. She was proud.

I did what millennia of young men did and gave in to my mother. So everything was fine. I was put out for a moment, but she got what she perceived of being the  glory of having a son in the army. People commented on it. And I came home and changed clothes afterwards.

You figure, I was in good stead. Even Jesus gave in to his mother. In John 2, he performed his first miracle because his mother forced him into it.

She saw me as a representative of the government in the honorable age-old class of warrior. I saw a uniform that my generation wanted to eschew. She saw a symbol of freedom. I saw what the music I listened to considered a symbol of oppression. She saw honor and I didn’t.

But she was right and I was wrong. Just like Jesus giving in to his mother’s wishes that he make some wine miraculously at a party, I was right for giving in to the wishes of my mother.

She wanted to show me honor for my sacrifice, and, of course, reap some of the honor from others for her sacrifice of me to the protection of her country. It didn’t hurt her any that she was standing beside me while I was in uniform and got reflected glory.

We have become a nation – and we began with my generation – of people who disparage more than honor. We denigrate, we put down, we lessen others when we should be giving them honor.

Whatever I felt about the war in Vietnam – and I have to admit,  I was a sheep of my generation with no real convictions beyond the cool philosophy in the music of the time – people owed me a little honor for my sacrifice.

And I owed other young men honor for theirs. I owe people honor for any time they give their lives to a nobler cause than sitting around, eating chips, watching movies. I owe honor to anyone who serves his country.

And I will give it.

the end of the world and the second coming of jesus

However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows. (Matthew 24:36)

The other day, a preacher predicted the end of the world. He has done so four or five times in the past. The time before the last, a lot of people were scared. This time, it passed with just a brief mention.

There are those who will tell you that they know the end from codes in the Bible. There are those who tell you that they know the end by the things that are happening in the world right now. There are those who will tell you that they know the end because of some divine revelation or some way they have figured out or something else.

But the truth of the matter is no one knows when it will happen. Not only that but the Bible is not all that specific as to what will happen at the end, and there are 10,000 different ideas, from the sublime to the absurd.

We cannot know when Jesus is coming back. The Bible says that God didn’t even tell Jesus. And if he didn’t tell his own Son, repository of the fulness of deity in bodily form, why would he tell anyone else?

People say they can tell by the condition of society, that the Bible says in the last days bad things will happen. But bad things have always happened, from the time of Jesus’ death until now.

As bad as our society is at times, the Roman empire of the first century had open homosexuality, open immorality, public nudity, government corruption and slavery. It is hard to get much worse than that.

Someone once said that the American churches were fine with their theology until bad things started happening to them. Then it was the Apocalypse.

Things have happened all over the world for the past 2000 years and suddenly they start happening to us, the favored people of God, the US church, so the end has to be near.

Jesus said, in Matthew 24:5-7: For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world.

In other words, bad things will happen but that is not the sign. What is the sign? There is none. The apostle Paul said that he would come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:2).

He is not going to tell you when no matter how badly you want to know. And he isn’t going to tell some preacher. He didn’t even tell Jesus. Why should he tell somebody else?

Worrying about it never did any good. Just live your life like the second coming will be tomorrow and you will be fine.

daily java

Daily Java:

I appeal to you to show kindness to my child, Onesimus. I became his father in the faith while here in prison. Onesimus hasn’t been of much use to you in the past, but now he is very useful to both of us. I am sending him back to you, and with him comes my own heart. (Philemon 10-12)

A slave stole some of his master’s things and then ran away. Then he found Jesus and knew he had to do what he could to make up for it. But in the meantime, he had also found the apostle Paul. Paul had made him a child of God, but more than this. God had changed him. He was now what his name meant in Greek: Useful.

He had been useless, now he was useful.

He had probably been a lousy worker, always griping, sullen, hiding from the people he was supposed to be working for. He had probably stolen other things, but one day he saw a chance to make a big score and with it, gain his freedom.

The man he worked for was a good man and kind. But it didn’t make any difference. Onesimus wanted want was “his” and was willing to steal to get it.

But contact with the apostle Paul changed him. He saw how he could be better, how he could serve God. However, he had to not only change his heart, he had to change his relationship with his old boss.

Paul wanted him for an assistant in his ministry, but he also knew things had to be made better between the two. So he sent him back.

We don’t know what happened, if Onesimus came back or if Philemon, his old master, had him put in jail or what.

But it is absolutely true that, if you can change what you have done, you need to. If you have stolen, and you can repay, you need to do so.

Sometimes, the amount of things you have done and the distance involved make it impossible to repay. There was a classmate of mine in the seminary I attended that was told by our teacher, who was a rather black and white man theologically – no room for any variance, that he had to repay anything he had stolen. The man said it would be almost impossible.

The teacher asked, well, how much money are we looking at here. The young man replied, hundreds of thousands of dollars. As it turned out, in his former life, he had stolen to feed a drug habit. And there was no way he could repay it all back. If he could even have found out who he had stolen from, he would have worked the rest of his life and more just to repay. He could not.

But he had changed and would steal no longer.

Some things you cannot repay. But you can quit doing what you were doing and become useful for Christ.

Then and only then he can use you.

daily java

Daily Java: 

Remind the believers to submit to the government and its officers. They should be obedient, always ready to do what is good. They must not slander anyone and must avoid quarreling. Instead, they should be gentle and show true humility to everyone. (Titus 3:1-2)

The Occupy Wall Street movement and all of its branches are in full swing. Sixties style rebellion is coming back, complete with unwashed hippie like people and citizen occupation forces commandeering large sections of public property.

But is it right? I saw one sign saying Who Would Jesus Occupy? Lots of people quoted Bible passages about wealth and selling everything you own and riches and all.

But what does God think of all this? If the Bible is true, and I think it is, he doesn’t like it.

What does he say? He says submit to the government and its officers. Be obedient and do what is good. Don’t slander or quarrel. Be gentle. Show humility.

None of those things are evident at the occupations. For that matter, none of those things are evident in the election in general. In fact, the absolute reverse is displayed.

We walk a fine line in our country. On the one hand, we have the freedom to choose who we want to be our leaders. On the other hand we have to live with the majority vote.

If someone is elected that we like, we are happy and things are great. If someone else that we do not like is elected, we are miserable. And we have the right to choose who will lead us and the philosophy that leads us.

But the thing is, when we have elected leaders, whether we have voted for them or not, they are our leaders. And we have to respect them. It is hard to respect a man who you feel is hurting more than helping, but it is what God wants.

When the apostle Paul wrote this, it was the Roman empire and there was an emperor. The one who was around when Paul wrote these comments encouraging people to submit was the emperor Nero. He was bad, cruel, vain, everything you can think about and not like in a political leader. In fact, one of his main missions was to stamp out Christianity.

And what is more, he had absolute contempt for Christians and didn’t care that they submitted to him or prayed for him.

Yet, Paul said to submit and be obedient. And 1 Timothy 2 says to pray for them.

Why do we submit? Why do we not slander? Mainly because of attitude. Christians are the ones that a government ought not to worry about. God tells Christians just to live their lives in a way that others can see the love of God.

That doesn’t mean we cannot participate in the political process or vote or things like that. But the rancor that so characterizes the political process today should be absent from a Christian’s life.

There is no place in the life of a Christian for calling others liars or any of the other pejorative labels used so often. We are not called to foam at the mouth at political rallies. We are called to bring Jesus to this world.

There is nothing wrong with politics and I read about it daily. But we walk a fine line between political participation and sin when we refuse to submit to our leaders, whatever we may think of them.

daily java

Daily Java:

“We are ashamed,” the people say.
      “We are insulted and disgraced
   because the Lord’s Temple
      has been defiled by foreigners.” (Jeremiah 51:51)

There are some things I have always liked to do that seem to be cast in a bad light, some words that I have always used that now have been ruined. This is primarily because the world hijacks them and uses them to their own ends, destroying them forever.

The word “gay” has been gone for a while now, co-opted by the homosexual society. Where once you could refer to people as being gay, no you cannot. The same with the word “bright.” The atheists have tried for a while to use that word for themselves. I am not sure yet if it will catch on. If it does, it is another word down the tubes.

Certain things I used to do with no problem now take on a veneer of ugliness.

I was in Fort Gordon, GA, in 1970. When I went back to Georgia after Christmas leave, I drove my car. On the way I picked up a friend in Shreveport, LA, and we went together. on the way, we stopped at a motel and shared a bed for the night. That was not an uncommon occurrence, as many hotels had only one bed.

But I wouldn’t do it now. It has been slimed with ugly associations.

In 1980, I went to Ephrata, WA, to speak on a Sunday morning. I took a teenaged boy with me and we spent the night in a motel before getting there. I would never do that today. It has been slimed with too much bad association.

So many things that were totally innocent have been ruined but our allowing others to co-opt them for their own ends.

In church, it is hard to use certain words because of connotations. Certain songs are hard to sing because they mean something different now than they did when written.

It is all because the Lord’s temple has been defiled by foreigners. When we allow others to determine how we talk and to determine what we say means, we do damage to the Lord’s temple.

Not sure what we can do about it, but sometimes it is hard to look at the wreckage we have allowed to be made of society, both in and out of the church.

daily java

Daily Java:

The Lord is king!
      Let the earth rejoice!
      Let the farthest coastlands be glad.
Dark clouds surround him.
      Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
Fire spreads ahead of him
      and burns up all his foes.
His lightning flashes out across the world.
      The earth sees and trembles.
The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
      before the Lord of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his righteousness;
      every nation sees his glory. (Psalm 97:1-6)

Ella and I had our first apartment in Europe. I was in the army and had six more months to go when I came home and got her to go back with me to Darmstadt, Germany. And we had a great time.

The apartment was small, no more than 120 square feet, the entire two room apartment. It was on the third floor of a doctor’s house, on a floor with three other apartments.

The kitchen was a tiny sink and two hot plates inside a cupboard, a small dorm sized refrigerator underneath.. The cabinets and closet were free standing units, as is common in Europe. In the corner of the main room there was a banquette with a bench and two chairs. The bedroom was just big enough for a bed and chiffarobe with a footlocker at the end of the bed.

We did have our own bathroom. The other apartments shared one down the hall.

We had to park down the street and around the corner. But we had the most marvelous view out our windows.

Down the street was a Russian Orthodox church that was used by Czar Nicholas of Russia when he came to Darmstadt to visit Alexandra’s relatives. In front of the church and the university that was beside it was a large park, filled with students and people of all ages in any good weather. Flowers were everywhere. The street was cobblestone with a fountain at the end of it.

There were complications, of course. One month, someone came in and stole our rent money and we had to scrabble for that month. We had to go a ways to get the car.  The nearest laundry facilities were at the base a couple of miles away.

But it was great. When I came home from work, Ella would be sitting in the window like all of the other hausfraus, watching the traffic and the world go by.

It was our place, our apartment. We were newlyweds with Europe just outside our door. And we took advantage of it. We walked a lot of places, even though we had a red 1962 VW beetle. We rode the buses (which were electric) and took the train to distant places.

We drove up the Rhine River and saw castles and other great things. We looked and we loved it.

We went to church on base. There was a Church of Christ meeting on Sunday afternoons and we soon made a lot of friends in it.

And our marriage was made stronger by it. When you live 5500 miles from the in-laws, you learn to depend upon yourselves and be your own people.

It was the best thing that could have happened to us and I thank God for it. I also thank God for my wife.

Nothing to do really with the scripture above, but I like it.

daily java

Daily Java:

Sing a new song to the Lord!
      Let the whole earth sing to the Lord!
 Sing to the Lord; praise his name.
      Each day proclaim the good news that he saves. (Psalm 96)

I was about ten years old and was sitting in the living room of our house on West Eighth Street in Freeport, TX. I looked out the front door in time to see a man drive by. He sneezed directly in front of our house, never stopping.

I remember that to this day, and the memory is so strong that it could almost seem like yesterday.

I have no idea of who the man was or where he was going, what kind of car he was driving, even what color it was. But I remember him sneezing directly in front of our house.

It’s strange what you remember, and how absolutely trivial the memory is.

Others come to mind that were almost instantaneous, yet they are so sharp. And they remain in my memory banks for more than fifty years.

Then there are things that I do not remember. My wife was telling me something the other day that I have no memory of. She remembers it as being important, but I do not remember it at all.

Why does one thing stick and another doesn’t? I don’t know, but the memory of that man sneezing in front of our house over fifty years ago is still strong.

I do remember the time when I acknowledged that I needed the Lord. I accepted Jesus December 13, 1959 at the Freeport Church of Christ in Freeport, TX. It was a Sunday night and I was baptized that night. I came out of  the water and felt like there ought to be angels singing or something.

After I had dried off and changed clothing, I came out into the auditorium and took communion. It had been left until after my baptism so everyone could take it with me. I was wearing a white shirt and dark slacks. That memory is also strong.

Others crowd in.

This blog post really doesn’t mean much I suppose, and the scripture really doesn’t have much to do with it. But I like it and wanted to use it.

I want each day to make new memories and for those memories to be in him.

hurricanes when i was growing up

He decided how hard the winds should blow and how much rain should fall. (Job 28:25)

I grew up in south Texas on the coast. We lived in a town called Freeport for much of the first years of my life. Freeport was well below Houston and right on the Gulf Coast.

Because of the proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, we had a lot of hurricanes. They would blow in and we would hunker down in the house to wait them out. My father worked for Houston Lighting and Power so he had to go out into the storms to repair electrical lines as they broke.

This was a bruising job in that he climbed 100 foot poles in hurricane force winds. I was told that the poles would sway quite a bit and occasionally someone would fall off.

But people want their electricity so out they would go and work sometimes for days before coming back home.

And when they came back home, sometimes they came back to homes that had been destroyed by the storms.

We only ran one time. That was Hurricane Carla in 1961. We went inland about fifty miles and stayed in a garage apartment during the storm. Carla was a particularly bad storm, a Category Five hurricane so a lot of damage was done.

In a storm like this, the power of raw nature is so apparent. Whole houses were gone, whole subdivisions wiped out, many families left homeless having lost all their possessions.

We never did. There were a couple of times we had mildew from the water lapping against the bottoms of the floors or meat ruined when the electricity went out and the freezer was off too long in the South Texas heat, but in general, we were blessed.

But it was funny. We never ran except from the Category Five Hurricane Carla. That was a bad one and it was good we did. Freeport was hurt badly in the storm. In general, we rode them out.

We would sit and do something, reading, or playing games. My mother would try her best to keep us from worrying while she herself was consumed with worry about my father working in the storm. When the lights went off, as they always did, we would light candles.

I really do not remember what all we did in the storms, while the hurricane raged outside our home, but I do remember the strength of my mother, keeping her family from harm. And I remember that I was never afraid.

When I hear people today gibbering in fear from the small storms that hit, I remember her and her strength. And I remember us sitting in the dark with candles lit, doing whatever it was we did, waiting.

daily java

Daily Java:

Avoid godless, foolish discussions with those who oppose you with their so-called knowledge. Some people have wandered from the faith by following such foolishness. (1 Timothy 6:20-21)

The young preacher, not long out of school, stands in front of a group of people. He is the Bible class teacher and he is going to teach them something out of the Bible.

He reads the pertinent scripture and starts to talk about it. He would love some discussion but doesn’t really know how to get it, so he just talks.

A guy near the back speaks up with a contrary opinion. After what almost comes to an argument, the guy says, well, I just wanted to be the devil’s advocate. I really didn’t believe that.

Visions of guns, public whippings, the like come into the new preacher’s head. The whole thing was so useless. All the guy wanted to do was argue.

And each week he does. He has a contrary point to make. After a while you get to dislike him. And he tears up the class.

The apostle Paul says to avoid people like this. He says that there is nothing worse than people who talk for the sole purpose of hearing themselves talk. Their knowledge is not real, their faith is not strong, all they want to do is oppose you and somehow build a following based on their own “wisdom.”

They feel somehow that by opposing everything you say, they seem open-minded. What they are is just opposers. No real wisdom, no real discretion, no real sense of the proper place for this sort of thing.

I’m not sure there is a place for this sort of thing. We did it in school to figure out why we believed things. We would take different viewpoints so that we could try to understand why people thought the way they did. That is a good learning tool if used right.

Debating was big for a while in my world. And I found that I could take a contrary side almost easier than taking a side I believed in. I think that is because the devil likes to confuse things, to make things harder, to stir us up.

The more opposition he can bring in, the easier it is to find someone who will believe one of the oppositional ideas. Before long, people don’t know what they believe.

And it is all because some person (other words come to mind) will decide to be the devil’s advocate.

I may take contrary views in my life to discuss things or to talk about things. People need to know that there is not just one viewpoint on everything. And sometimes it is good for discussion to remind them that they are not the sole repository of all great and wonderful thoughts and ideas.

But one thing I never want to be is the devil’s advocate. That is for sure.

daily java

Daily Java:

God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1:7)

We are a scared society. We are scared of terrorists, we are scared of each other, we are scared of our cars breaking, scared of our food poisoning us, scared of our drugs, of our environment, of our very existence.

To feed this, every day, the news media tells us another bad thing happening in the world. And not only do they tell us about it, they go there with cameras and take pictures of suffering people and get stories of suffering so that we can know exactly what it is and exactly how we need to be scared.

After a while, it breeds suspicion. It is a suspicion not only of each other, but of all of the stuff we use and come into contact with.

The worst part is that we have to use these things, we have to see each other, we have to live in this scary world. and that makes us eve more scared. There is nowhere we can go to get away from the fear.

We are afraid because we do not trust God. We are afraid because he is not firmly enough planted in our lives. Because he is not there strongly enough, we have to rely on ourselves. And we are not enough to protect us from the thought of dying.

There it is. We are afraid of dying. And all of the stuff around us is the stuff that will kill us.

When God is in our lives, death is not the great Monster that it is when he is not in us. And what is more, fear is not the pervading feeling in our lives.

That is not to say the Christian will not be afraid on occasions. God gave us a healthy dose of self-preservation instinct to keep us from harm. And he expects us to use it.

But when a person is in Jesus, in his grace and in the presence of God, he doesn’t need to be afraid.

Whatever it is you are afraid of, it is not a fear that is sent by God. It is sent by your own heart in its effort to rule your heart instead of letting God rule it.

Fear of change, fear of having the wrong translation, fear of certain food and drink, fear of worshiping wrongly – these are all fears of the devil, not of God. And they are one of his greatest tools to separate you from God. As long as you are afraid, you have trouble really living for God.

If it comes from God, it is power, love and self-discipline. If it comes from God, it is strength to live. If it comes from God, it is power to praise him anyway no matter what else happens. If it comes from God, it is the ability to look at the scary world and say If God is for us, then who can ever  be against us (Romans 8:31).

When we recognize that power, we learn to live above the world. the scary stuff is still there, but it is not as important any more. He is in control.

daily java

Daily Java:

Seventy years are given to us!
      Some even live to eighty.
   But even the best years are filled with pain and trouble;
      soon they disappear, and we fly away. (Psalm 90:10)

Last week I turned 62. It is truly hard to believe that I am this age. I am no longer the young man I have felt myself to be the vast majority of my life.

According to this scripture, I have no more than eight years left to me, maybe eighteen, depending on whether or not I am allowed it.

It is a fact that people are living longer nowadays. Good nutrition, availability to doctors and medical attention, all that stuff has caused us to live longer. And there are those who think that they are just a step or two away from a longevity drug that will cause us to live even longer.

But do we really want to? As hard as the last five years has been on Ella and me, would I really want to live a long time like that.

There is also the problem of finances. If people live longer, what will they use for money? Social Security will run out, pensions only are able to go so long, unless you have a phenomenal stock portfolio, you will run out of money. Then you are a very old person with nothing.

And if people live to be over 100, who is going to hire a 100 year old to work? Not to mention the fact that there are young people who need the work too to start their lives and families.

It really is a selfish thing to want to live too long. But why do people want to?

What is it about life that causes them to try desperately to hold on to it and to their youth?

One of the big things I hear nowadays is that 40 is the new 30. People forty today are in the shape people who were thirty were in fifty years ago.

I will admit that as I get older, older women look better to me. younger women are beautiful, yes. But older women have something to say. Sooner or later you have to get out of bed and talk. It would be hard for me to carry on any kind of life conversation with a woman who is the age of the Victoria Secret models. Older women are more appealing there.

But it is also true that an older woman cannot hold a candle to a young woman in terms of absolute physical beauty. Not only that, she turns into a fool trying to do so.

Plastic surgery, dating younger men, large helpings of denial – all look stupid on an older woman.

Looking at some of the movie stars and their botched plastic surgery facial jobs, it is hard not to feel sorry for them. When you have nothing but your body, you are desperate to keep it.

The older actresses who make a place for themselves as older actresses are to be admired. They recognize that there is life after beauty, that youth is not all there is.

I have heard it ventured that the reason Marilyn Monroe killed herself was because she was about to turn 40 and could not imagine herself as an older woman. She was a star in many ways based on her looks. When those were gone, what was left?

And the funny thing is she is almost idolized today because she died at a point in time before the ravages of age hit her. would she have done well older? I don’t know. And we will never know.

We accept what we have and we grow older. The key is to grow to our 70 or 80 with dignity and grace. There is nothing more beautiful than a godly older person. And there is nothing more pathetic than an old person who is trying desperately to keep his or her youth.

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Daily Java:

Neither King Zedekiah nor his attendants nor the people who were left in the land listened to what the Lord said through Jeremiah. Nevertheless, King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the priest, son of Maaseiah, to ask Jeremiah, “Please pray to the Lord our God for us.” (Jeremiah 37:2-3)

It gets odd sometimes. On the one hand, people do not want to hear what you have to say and the messages you have from God. On the other hand, they know in their hearts that you are from God and want to have your intercession for them

And sometimes, even though they do not want to hear your message from God, they still recognize your calling and want you to pray for them. But when you pray, they want you to pray the way they want to hear.

It’s a strange game of trying to circumvent the will of God while asking God for his will. They want it but they don’t want it. They want to hear it but on their own terms.

It is a view of God as an erratic order taker. You ask him for something and he gives you something else. You reject what he has to give you and ask for what you want again. And this continues. You want people to view you as religious, or even holy – after all, you keep asking God for his will in your life – yet you are not willing to listen when he tells you.

Jeremiah the prophet would tell them what God had to say. They would get mad and tell him that wasn’t what God had to say. They would whip him and put him in jail and everything else they could do to make him shut up. Then they would ask him again. After all, they were simple holy people only wanting to know what God had to say.

However, when God would say it, they would put their fingers in their ears and shout loudly so they couldn’t hear it. Then they would ask again.

And they kept on doing this holing that sooner or later, God would give them what they wanted. Until God got tired of them and refused to give any kind of answer.

When God speaks to you, listen to him before he gets tired of you and quits talking com0letely.

daily java

Daily Java:

The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. Jehudi brought it from Elishama’s room and read it to the king as all his officials stood by. It was late autumn, and the king was in a winterized part of the palace, sitting in front of a fire to keep warm. Each time Jehudi finished reading three or four columns, the king took a knife and cut off that section of the scroll. He then threw it into the fire, section by section, until the whole scroll was burned up. Neither the king nor his attendants showed any signs of fear or repentance at what they heard. Even when Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah begged the king not to burn the scroll, he wouldn’t listen Then the king commanded his son Jerahmeel, Seraiah son of Azriel, and Shelemiah son of Abdeel to arrest Baruch and Jeremiah. But the Lord had hidden them. (Jeremiah 35:21-26)

It was late Autumn, and Jeremiah had sent a prophecy to the King. The King was angry with Jeremiah because insisted on sending him prophecies he didn’t want to hear. He wanted to hear from God, but he only wanted to hear what he wanted to hear, not what God wanted to say.

When he got the prophecy, which Jeremiah had written down, he cut it up as he read it and burned it up. Needless to say, the prophecy came true anyway and the King was punished by God for his rebellion.

There are a lot of times that God tells us things we do not want to hear. Of course, just because someone comes up and tells you that they have a word from God doesn’t mean it is. But even so, we can usually tell when God is telling us something. It may be circumstances keep ordering a certain way, or something keeps impressing itself on our minds, or a scripture stands out from the page.

Whatever the case, and however he speaks to us, we ignore him at our peril. King Jehoiakim, the king who did all this, was in rebellion to God. God told him things he didn’t want to hear. And he told them through Jeremiah, so he tried to punish Jeremiah. He figured that if he could silence the messenger, he could silence the message.

However, it wasn’t so easy. God told Jeremiah to write it again, only this time it would include the fact that King Jehoiakim’s line would die. He would have none of his children or his family to sit on the throne.

When we refuse to listen to God and his voice, we risk bad things happening. We need to keep our minds attuned to him and to his will and voice.

Only then can we live the life he wants of us.

growing and changing as you are in your spiritual journey

The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

The preacher at my church was talking a couple of weeks ago about growing and changing as you travel in your spiritual journey. Here are some observations I wrote down during the sermon. Some of them talk about the same thing, but in different directions.

-The presence of the Holy Spirit in your life demands growth. I saw a bumper sticker once that said “Christians are no different, just forgiven.” As I thought about it, I realized that if a Christian is not any different from the world, he is not a Christian. Life in Jesus demands change from us. Grace is free but it is not cheap. When we accept him, we become new and different and our entire motivation changes.

-I am different spiritually than I was a year ago. That is true. A year ago I was undergoing some severe challenges and trials. They have produced a man who is different today. I am still not sure if it is a good different or not, but we cannot emerge unscathed from our trials. The same with the rest of our lives in service. We come out changed. If we don’t, there was no point in our lives.

-Growth requires change. If you do not change, you have not grown. A child who grows changes dramatically. So does a person who grows in Jesus. He is different today than he was. His mindset is different than it was even a short time ago. As we gain more and more knowledge of God’s word and will in our lives, we have to be different than we were.

-Growth can be uncomfortable. Nothing could be more true. As you grow, you leave what was comfortable for you and come into a greater knowledge of the will of God. And sometimes it can be painful coming to a realization of what God wants of you now. The old is gone and will never be recovered. Recognizing that is growth.

-If you don’t change, you don’t grow. Growth is made evident in how different you are now than yesterday. If people do not see you as different, you are not. If you have really grown, it will be evident to all.

-The pastor should lead in the change. Someone once said that one of the main jobs of a pastor is to look out the window. He needs to see different things, things done differently, change in other situations that has both gone well and gone badly. He needs to see all this so that he can lead his church into a fuller relationship with God. He cannot be afraid of change, but must lead the church to a better place.

No church can remain the same, however much we may want it to do so. Churches that resist change will die. Churches that embrace change will live. We cannot expect to live in a constantly changing culture and have our church remain the same. We must change to meet it.

Yes, we preach the ancient unchanging gospel of Jesus and his grace. But we change in how we present it to match how our culture thinks. Otherwise we become like the Amish: a dying religious museum.

daily java

Daily Java:

Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead. They will say it is wrong to be married and wrong to eat certain foods. But God created those foods to be eaten with thanks by faithful people who know the truth. Since everything God created is good, we should not reject any of it but receive it with thanks. For we know it is made acceptable by the word of God and prayer. (1 Timothy 4:1-5)

It is easy for people to confuse preferences for theology. They want something and before long it becomes, as far as they are concerned, the will of God.

For instance, a person does not like meat. And since they do not like meat, they really do not like to see others eating meat, either. So they begin to think about it and come up with a doctrine on meat. I do not like meat, I am in the image of God, therefore God does not lie meat either.

It is a silly argument for the most part because it can be applied to almost any part of life

When it comes down to it, God does not care what we eat. The Bible does say that if somebody feels that they are sinning by eating or drinking something, and we insist that they :liberate” themselves by eating or drinking it, and sinning in doing so, we sin. The Bible does say that if we think something is sin, to us it is sin.

That doesn’t, however, mean that it is sin to everyone else. But it is easy to apply your preferences to the Bible and try to make a point for them.

But the plain truth is: the Bible doesn’t care what you eat or drink. In fact, the Bible speaks more of gluttony, or eating and drinking too much, than substance – what you eat or drink.

After all, Jesus ate and drank. He ate at people’s houses and refused to follow the ritual diet of the legalists and he was free in his drinking of wine. He was enough so that he was called “a glutton and a drunkard” (Matthew 11:19) by those who tried to make him look bad.

There is nothing wrong with food. And there is nothing wrong with alcohol. It is the misuse of either that is wrong. Jesus himself never sinned (1 Peter 2:22). Yet Jesus drank wine. In fact, in John 2, he made between 120 and 180 gallons of wine for a part, depending on how you measure the jars used.

As I said, it is easy to try to use the Bible to prove what you want. And it is easy to use Jesus to try to prove a point. People who do not like fossil fuels claim Jesus would drive an electric car. People who do not like meat claim Jesus would eat on vegetables, in spite of several places where he ate meat.

People who do not like things try their best to use Jesus to support their stuff. But the problem was, Jesus didn’t do that in his day and he doesn’t do it today.

In his day, Jesus went his own way and refused to follow conventional thinking. He refused to be popular on others’ terms. He came, he said, to carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will (John 5:30), not to pander to people’s political or personal philosophies and preferences.

my life post-ministry

Bend down, O Lord, and hear my prayer;
      answer me, for I need your help.
 Protect me, for I am devoted to you.
      Save me, for I serve you and trust you.
      You are my God.
 Be merciful to me, O Lord,
      for I am calling on you constantly.
 Give me happiness, O Lord,
      for I give myself to you.
 O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive,
      so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help.
 Listen closely to my prayer, O Lord;
      hear my urgent cry.
 I will call to you whenever I’m in trouble,
      and you will answer me. (Psalm 86:1-7)

I am trying to figure out what I am going to do with my life post-ministry. I really do not know. I have been a pastor for almost forty years and have never wanted to do anything else.

If I could figure out how to start my writing career, it would be different. That would be an adjunct of my ministry and would be logical. But otherwise, I do not know.

It’s a tough thing to be in this part of life, not sure what you are going to do, where you are going to go. Couple that with the fact that we are financially broke, and it presents a problem.

I look to this psalm. It resonated so strongly in me when I read it.

Hear me when I pray to you.

Help me in what I do, because I am your servant and all I have ever wanted to do was serve you.

Hear me because I am constantly calling on you for help.

Make me happy in my serving you.

Listen to me as I call on you.

There is nowhere else to go but him. I pray that he will answer me. I need him so much. I need answers so much.

somebody has hurt you

If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat.
      If they are thirsty, give them water to drink.
You will heap burning coals of shame on their heads,
      and the Lord will reward you. (Proverbs 25:21- 22)

Somebody has hurt you. He has done things to you that have not only hurt you, but hurt your family. Great pain has come from what they have done. You and your wife and children suffer from what they have done.

So what do you do? Load up the shotgun and visit them? Work out an elaborate system of revenge that will spring on them when they least expect it? Snub them? Tell everyone what they have done and try your level best to make them a pariah in the community? Act ugly to them?

All of these things come to mind, of course. We are, after all, human. Especially where our families are concerned.

So what do you do? You be nice to them.

Someone had done a lot of harm to me, and by extension, my wife. And everybody knew it, as did the person. We had a baptism ceremony to which he came. Everyone in my church wondered what I would do, as did I. 

When the guy came in and sat down, I walked over and said hello, shook his hand and welcomed him. That’s all. I had no desire to talk to him. He had done enough damage to me that I didn’t like him, nor do I consider him a Christian. Since he had done this in the past, I think my opinion was valid.

But I said hello and welcomed him. Several in my church were amazed, as was the guy. And I really think he was embarrassed and taken back by my reaction to him.

I didn’t like him. And if a hole had opened up under him, I am not sure I would have leaped to his rescue. But nothing was gained by my snubbing him, or walking over and looking all wounded or angry.

On the other hand, I have always tried to be nice to him, even though he is an idiot. And he knows I think so, even though I have never told him or anyone else. It does not take a lot of brains to know that when you do something bad to someone else, they will not like you.

And he knew what he was doing when he did it, and knew it was hurting us, but seemed unable in life in general to make himself do something more constructive.

But as the scripture says, Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the Lord. Instead, “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.” (Romans 12:19-20)

You do what is right and God will bless you.

The man did not change his attitude for long. He is still an idiot. But I am a child of God, and I act like it. And will continue.

daily java

Daily Java:

You show unfailing love to thousands, but you also bring the consequences of one generation’s sin upon the next. (Jeremiah 32:17)

It is a fact that what we do impacts our children. And that works both ways, good or bad.

My parents generation, what we call the Greatest Generation gave us a good life. They worked hard and saved their money. They sent us to school and did just about everything they could do to help us.

And above all, despite opinions to the contrary, they were for the most part a moral and godly generation. Church attendance was high, we were expected by both them and society at large to behave. It had its problems, but in general it was a good country.

But then my generation came along and challenged all of those values. And our children suffer for it.

It seemed like a good time at the time, but it turned out to not be. In challenging everything our generation stood for, we changed society and we changed our country. We went from being a godly country, One nation under God, to being a country with a lot of self-inflicted problems.

We went from a school system that accomplished something to one that is virtually worthless. We have a society that is in deep and serious trouble. Our children no longer have a society approved moral compass. Our cute little rebellion hurt our children in ways that we will not truly know for years.

What one generation does affects the next. If it is a good generation and does good things, the next generation will benefit. If it is a bad generation and tears down more than it builds, the next generation will be hurt.

God allows us to make our own history. And when we write the history of they baby-boomer generation, it will not be a flattering one.

daily java

Daily Java:

I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

The election season is upon us in full force. The candidates want desperately to be the one that runs for president. And they will do or say anything they have to do in order to be that one.

Reading the news pages, depending upon which sites you read, the president is exalted and maligned. He is called a liar, the fool-in-chief, anything you can think of. People are trying desperately to tear down his authority and his office so that someone else can come it. When that person gets in, others will tear him down to get at the office again.

It is a cycle with constant tearing and maligning, constant calls of liar and stupid, incompetence and anything else opponents can think of.

But that is not the way the Bible says to do it. The Bible says, here in this passage by the apostle Paul, that we are to pray for our leaders. The king would be the same as our highest leader, the president. We are to pray for them, not speak against them.

And that is hard.

In America, we have the opportunity to vote for the one we want to lead us as president. But in our desire to change leaders – and there is nothing wrong with that – we sin in maligning our president.

I am not a fan of our current president. I think he ought to be as far from the office of president as he can be. He has no business being there. However, he is the president and as such, he has the right to my prayers on his behalf.

That is godliness on my part, regardless of his actions. I do my part no matter whether he does his or not. We have to remember that when the apostle Paul  wrote this, the Roman emperor Nero was in control. And he was a bad and cruel man. But still God said to pray for him.

I follow the elections and will vote for the one I think is best. But I will also pray for the president no matter what I think of him.

daily java

Daily Java:

But listen now to the solemn words I speak to you in the presence of all these people. The ancient prophets who preceded you and me spoke against many nations, always warning of war, disaster, and disease. So a prophet who predicts peace must show he is right. Only when his predictions come true can we know that he is really from the Lord. (Jeremiah 28:7-9)

A couple of posts back I wrote about those who claim to have a “word from God” and then tell you how much God loves you and how things are going to turn out fine. My comment was you rarely heard real prophets ever tell anyone that things would be fine. Usually they came thundering the fact that God was about to slap the living fire out of somebody.

Jeremiah said the same thing here. He said, just look at the prophets who came before me. these people were full of the Lord’s righteous anger against somebody who had turned from God. They spoke of war, disaster and disease. They never came full of sweetness and light, with messages of good things to come.

They came telling of judgment.

Jeremiah said to be suspicious of prophets who come proclaiming peace. If a prophet comes proclaiming little happy things, the happy things coming true will be his authentication.

The prophets were not to tell people they were fine, when I came down to it. The prophets were there to tell people of what God wanted. They were there to tell of shortcomings, or failures of falling short of the glory. They were there as guideposts at the edge of the road to keep people from falling off.

Any time someone comes to me with “words from God” that tell me everything is fine and that God loves me and I am doing fine, I am suspicious of it.

Jeremiah was too. You should be too.

daily java

Daily Java:

This message came to Jeremiah from the Lord early in the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah. “This is what the Lord says: Stand in the courtyard in front of the Temple of the Lord, and make an announcement to the people who have come there to worship from all over Judah. Give them my entire message; include every word. Perhaps they will listen and turn from their evil ways. Then I will change my mind about the disaster I am ready to pour out on them because of their sins.”  (Jeremiah 26:1-3)

A preacher has to know that it is more than likely his audience will not listen to what he says.

Oh, they may make the appropriate responses and stuff, may tell you that they really liked the sermon today, pastor. They may tell you exactly what they think you want to hear, but they probably didn’t really listen.

Judah is just about through. Israel has been destroyed because of their sins and God is ready to punish Judah for theirs. They have flaunted those sins in front of God for long enough and he is tired of them.

He sent prophet after prophet to Israel and they refused to listen to them. Instead, they killed several of them. And there is a large contingent that want to kill Jeremiah for having the audacity to run counter to the prevailing conventional wisdom. They had all decided that God loved them and would give them whatever they wanted, so it had to be true. They even had a bunch of officially licensed prophets of their own to tell them this.

How dare Jeremiah come in here and tell them something they didn’t want to hear?

God told Jeremiah something that was sad: perhaps they will listen. Maybe they will hear me and do what is right.

I am reminded of that old Steve Martin routine where he debates with himself over something that he could have done different and then, after he has raised the best case scenario, he says Naaaaah! God looks at Judah, the remnant of that once great nation he had formed from a bunch of slaves and says, maybe they will listen this time. But if he wanted to, he could have said, Naah. They won’t. And he could even have said, why even bother?

But he did. I do not believe that God necessarily knows everything that will happen. I believe he could, and there are times when he is pretty specific about what is coming up. In the last part of Deuteronomy, he tells Moses a very brief and depressing history of a rebellious people right before Moses dies.

But in general, he continues, hoping they will run counter to their previous history and do something good for a change. They never do, but God keeps hoping. He could know they will not, but still, he keeps on.

Just like he keeps on with us. Like we keep on with our children. Like preachers keep on with their churches. The old expression “Hope springs eternal in the human breast” is what keeps us going. And who made the human breast? God, of course. We are made in his image so we keep on hoping against hope just like he does.

He gives second chances so I will. He hopes so I will. He loves so I will.

love does not demand its own way

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

My daughter ate at IHOP, the pancake place, tonight. And I am glad because it makes her happy to eat there.

That is love. The fact that I didn’t but she did and I am glad. I want her to be happy and when she eats at her favorite place it makes her happy.

And when she is happy, I am happy.

That is love. Love doesn’t mean that I have to eat there too, that I have to do the same things she does, that things have to be equal. Love means that things can happen to her that are good and that do not happen to me. But even so, those things make me happy.

My wife and I figured that out long ago. Because something happens good to her, I can be happy, even though nothing necessarily happens good to me.

It is the making her happy that makes me happy.

When we figure that out, we figure out a lot.

Young couples have a problem with that. Everything has to be equal. Yes, you had a good thing happen, so I have to have one too.

But a mature love recognizes that the other person is happy and that makes you happy.

It almost sounds like doubletalk, but it isn’t. It is real. And it is love.

As the scripture says, it does not demand its own way. It recognizes that good things can happen to your wife that do not happen to you and that is okay. And conversely, good things can happen to you and not to your wife and that is okay.

In other words, love does not demand equality in order to be happy.  Inequality can make you just as happy.

My wife wins an award or some kind of recognition and I do not. So what? Love says that is good.

My wife and I both recognize that. She accepts my ministry without necessarily having to be a part of it and is happy. I can be recognized as something and she is happy. And in the same way, she can be recognized and I am happy.

Love likes the best of people and doesn’t demand equal treatment. You can be happy they got their due while you didn’t. So what?

That is love.

My daughter got to eat at her favorite place tonight and I am happy. She loves it at IHOP and I am happy for her. That is love.

daily java

Daily Java:

I have not sent these prophets,
      yet they run around claiming to speak for me.
   I have given them no message,
      yet they go on prophesying.
If they had stood before me and listened to me,
      they would have spoken my words,
   and they would have turned my people
      from their evil ways and deeds. (Jeremiah 23:21-22)

Worship is going well and all, and then somebody stands up and says: “I have a message from God.

The first thing is that sometimes the “word” is nothing more than a rehashing of something already said, couched in such vague  generalities as to render it totally incomprehensible. It is like the horoscopes in the newspaper, so vague and general that it could be applied to several completely disparate things.

Sometimes the “word” is so nice. It consists of nothing more than the person saying God loves you and wants what is good for you and all. It is so treacly that it is virtually meaningless, like the baby talk a parent gives to a baby.

Sometimes it is meaningless, just gibberish. You sit there trying to make sense of it and there is no sense to be made.

Did you ever read a real word from God? Real words from God were strong and powerful. When someone said them, everybody knew it and everybody was afraid. God never came to groups of people and said “You are fine and great and I love you and everything will work out.” It was not in the nature of his pronouncements.

When God came to people it was generally to tell them they were about to die, or that he was going to punish them. Words from God were full of God’s power, not full of saccharine.

Second is that it is often apparent that the person with the word wants nothing more than to be noticed. They will even come to you and say, “I have a word from God” and then expect to be treated with deference because of it. Some have even gone so far as to tell you to kneel while they give it.

Any time the “word” comes in such a way as to exalt the giver, it is wrong. The real word comes to exalt the One who gives, not the giver. All the giver is is a conduit. God used anyone and anything to give his word. He ever used a donkey at one time (Numbers 23). The one who gives only does the will of the One who sent him.

In the passage above, a real prophet, the prophet Jeremiah, had this word from God: Everybody shut up. I am sick of you and your fake words. If you have heard me and given my real words, they would have changed things, people would have turned to me.

I believe God speaks to us today. But he doesn’t speak as often as many claim.

That is problem with a “word from God.” It becomes such a vague generality that the it is hard to dispute without you sounding like you know it all. If you turn it down, you appear as though you are turning down something holy.

A real word from God you when you hear it. It resonates in your soul and touches that part of God that lives within you. It makes a connection. Fake words may sound good and everybody will applaud making the giver of the “word” feel so good, but they do no real good.

And God hates them.

all of the signs of fall are here

Then God said, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them mark off the seasons, days, and years. (Genesis 1:14)

The trees are changing, leaves are blowing, people are sneezing and snorting – all of the signs of fall are here.

The nose thing is about the only downside I can think of. Same with spring. It is great after the dreariness of winter but you sneeze your head off with all of the new stuff.

In autumn you do the same because of all the dead and powdery stuff. Then finally, the cold hits and you stop.

But while it is here, it is beautiful. There is one tree just down from the church on Main Street that is magnificent. It is big and orange and beautiful. A couple of years ago, I took several pictures of trees around the church and that was one. It is a picture worth taking.

The glory of God is shown so strongly in fall. Of course, it is in spring too. Then the world is waking up. Now the world is getting ready to go to sleep.

Albert Camus, who I never liked to read, said: “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” Somebody else wrote: “Autumn's the mellow time.”

The whole process is rather strange when you think about it. In primitive societies they tried to think of reasons for these things that baffled them.

Greek mythology had a girl named Persephone who got tricked into marrying Hades, the god of the underworld. Her mother got her out of some of the contract, but Persephone still had to go into the underworld for six months of the year. That time she spent with Hades was fall. Everything died because the world was sad that she had to go. When she came back the world was happy and that was spring and summer.

Of course, that was a primitive people without God trying to explain the inexplicable. They couldn’t figure it out so they made us stuff to explain it. Kind of like Hollywood and Christianity when it comes down to it. They can’t understand Christianity because they are outside of God. So they make up all kinds of stuff to try to understand what they cannot understand.

We usually smile at primitive people and their attempts because we are “an advanced civilization” and consider ourselves beyond that sort of thing.

We’re not really all that far. We still can make fools of ourselves in stuff.

But I still like fall. I love the colors and the texture of the air. I love the impending cooler weather. I really like all four seasons when it comes down to it.

I think I’ll go look at a tree. They are beautiful.

daily java

Daily Java:

This is what the Lord said to me: “Go over and speak directly to the king of Judah. Say to him, ‘Listen to this message from the Lord, you king of Judah, sitting on David’s throne. Let your attendants and your people listen, too. This is what the Lord says: Be fair-minded and just. Do what is right! Help those who have been robbed; rescue them from their oppressors. Quit your evil deeds! Do not mistreat foreigners, orphans, and widows. Stop murdering the innocent!

(Jeremiah 22:1-3)Sometimes you have to just walk up to bad and confront it. You cannot live a ways off and do things hoping that the evil situation will change. There are times when you have to just come up and say: You need to change!

The Lord told the prophet Jeremiah to go to King Zedekiah, a king who was cruel and immoral, adulterous and idolatrous – one not unlike a lot of government people – and tell him he was doing wrong.

This was hard for Jeremiah. It is easy to write articles or preach sermons to the church or even go on radio or TV and say stuff. But God said, go to the man himself and say: quit doing things that are wrong. Start doing things that are right. Quit sinning and start doing what God wants you to do. Lead your country in the right direction. Don’t just issue edicts and all but sit around doing the exact opposite yourself.

In other words, wise up. Turn or burn. Do what God says and quit being stupid.

People in authority rarely want to hear those kind of things. They surround themselves with people who will not tell them what is wrong or what they are doing wrong. They usually only want to hear that they are doing fine. That is why so many politicians, actors, wealthy celebrities have so much trouble. All they listen to is yes men.

And when everyone around you tells you that you are fine, then you, if you are smart, know you are in trouble.

Jeremiah was not appreciated for his hands on approach to prophetic utterances. It would not have been nearly as unappreciated if he had even just stood in the street, or rented a hall, or wrote a series of “scathing articles.” Those the king could have ignored.

But the problem then was that the prophet of God had the right to come in and tell the king stuff. And it was very rarely good stuff because most of the kings fell in this trap of only listening to yes men. Since they did that, they were almost always corrupt because they ended up doing what was right in their own eyes.

And they hated someone who didn’t say yes. Just like they do today.

Nobody likes to be told they are wrong. But sometimes we have to. Sometimes we have to speak up in a situation and say, No! This cannot go on. This is wrong.

Until we as Christians do so, our nation will continue to falter and founder in its own sin, just like Judah did them.

i believe in love at first sight

I believe in love at first sight. The first time I saw my wife I fell in love with her.

I walked into a bowling alley that had been rented by a church for an after youth meeting get-together. a woman named Betty Richter almost picked me up bodily and plopped me into the midst of four girls. Ella was one and I fell in love with her.

She wouldn’t let me take her home that night, which is normal. She came with the youth group and she would have gotten in a lot of trouble if she had gone with me. And she was a good girl. For that matter , I wasn’t a bad boy, either. I accepted it. This was, of course, 1969, and things were very different then, for the better.

We saw each other a week or so later and then again in a couple of weeks. The third time it looked like we would not click, but I was not one to give up.

I showed up at her church on Sunday, April 6, 1969, Easter Sunday. I had moved to Houston the previous Friday and had a job with the telephone company. I had my own apartment and my own car and I was determined to have her as my girlfriend.

We went together until I was drafted in August. I saw her when I came home on leave and came back in January of 1971 to marry her.

I am not worthy of her. I am a will of the wisp, a wanderer, almost a life vagabond who would move in a minute, do something in a minute, consequences be hanged. We have never lived anywhere for more than a few years, and have never had the money she deserved. That was due to my jousting at windmills mainly, my own predilection for being mobile. I always had to see what was somewhere else.

I guess I was one of those guys who came west in the nineteenth century, except that I lived in the twentieth.

She always deserved better than I was able to give her, yet she has loved me with a love that is so intense. And I have reciprocated.

Now that she is afflicted with her illness, Multiple Sclerosis, I am her caregiver and cannot imagine any other work. I am not particularly fond of myself, but she likes me.

I think that when she was younger, she felt that she was ugly or fat, although she was neither. She had a beauty that was pure and good and she has gotten more beautiful as she has gotten older.

Our marriage has not been perfect, mainly due to my own peccadilloes, but still.

I love her and always have. I love and always will until I die.

I believe in love at first sight because it happened to me.

daily java

Daily Java:

“There’s typing to say something, and there’s typing to make noise because there’s someone in the next cubicle and you want to sound busy, and there’s typing just to type and prime the pump, which is what this last sentence was. The only cure to looking at the page and not knowing what to say is to start saying something.”  James Lileks, Oct 11, 2011

I am rapidly coming up to 1000 posts on my blog. I have written over 500,000 words since January of 2009 when I started this blog.

The funny things is that what Mr Lileks says in his article quoted above is exactly what I do.

Sometimes I do not have the slightest idea what I will say and will just begin writing. When I do the words begin to organize themselves and sometimes even a scripture will come in to fit what I am writing about.

In fact, the apostle Paul’s comments in Romans 15:14-15 comes to mind:

I am fully convinced, my dear brothers and sisters, that you are full of goodness. You know these things so well you can teach each other all about them. Even so, I have been bold enough to write about some of these points, knowing that all you need is this reminder.

There. Now I have a scripture to go on. I really don’t necessarily need one, but almost everything I have written in the past year and more than a half has had a scripture attached to it. What I usually do is take it and put it at the front, but I am not going to this time, just for fun.

This is, after all, a blog that unashamedly says “java soaked theological philosophy and kind of associated blather” so I have to do something that is basically scripture oriented.

And besides that, my life is the Lord and his word and things around it, so it makes sense I would have a scripture.

But it is interesting how many times I just sit down and begin to noodle on the keyboard. And I always – I repeat, always – come up with something.

There is within me a burning desire to write that I did not fully realize until I got this blog. And 500,000 words later, I am still writing, I still have something to say.

Or at least I think I do. I am not sure anybody reads this. It is probably mostly drivel, and if printed out would make great kitty litter (it would have to be shredded, of course).

But write I do. And keep on writing. Sylvia Plath said: “I write only because There is a voice within me That will not be still”

It was John Keats who said: “When I have fears that I may cease to be, Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain.” He was afraid that he would die before he got everything he was thinking about written down. I am not sure he did and probably everything he was thinking about was not worth writing down.

But still.

I have found that writing fills a need that I did not know I had. I have always liked to write. And quite frankly (although why I would lie to you I am not sure) (whoever you are) I did as well as I did (which was not very well) in high school English simply because I could write. Essays never bothered me as I tend to think in outlines and put words together easily.

Preaching and teaching always came easily too for that reason. I could just always put words together on the fly.

And really that is how I write: just kind of a free association kind of thing.

It seems to work.

my fortieth birthday party

My fortieth birthday party in Goliad, TX.

today has been my birthday

I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5)

Today has been my birthday. I really do not enjoy getting older, but there is little I can do about it.

I was thinking about birthdays in the past including the one in the picture accompanying this post. Forty years ago today, I had my 22nd birthday. I was high on the world at the time, just having come out of the army, living with my new pretty little wife in Houston in our own apartment. I had a good job with the Telephone Company, we went to a church that had accepted us.

I had not yet had my major car wreck, and some other things were waiting over the horizon. But in general, it was a good time.

Other birthdays are remembered over the years. I remember my 35th in Washington State, just before my life blew apart. There was my fortieth in Goliad, TX, my 51st where I threw a party and hired a band to play. Those seem to stand out for some reason.

You figure though, when you have had 61 birthdays dinners in your 62 years of life, they do tend to run together.

Today was an odd one. I shared a cake with my son-in-law, Mike, who turned 57 yesterday. I cooked his dinner and mine and we had zero money. The van is broken and is in the shop for a new starter and I am unemployed. We live in a bedroom at my daughter’s house. It is not a good birthday.

My family tried, but the cards were against them this year. I just didn’t feel like a party. The past year has been rough and I am depressed by it and the prospect of getting one year older with so little to show for it.

In fact, the past five years have been the hardest of our lives. I truly regret wasting my time in the Pentecostal churches I have pastored. We were not welcomed and had nothing but trouble and financial ruin for having done so.

I keep thinking things will get better, but I do not know if they will. Having left ministry, I do not have the slightest idea what I will do. Add that to the fact that I came into the work force in a depression where men my age are the most unemployed or underemployed in the nation and it is hard.

I suppose the class I teach on Sunday nights is the high point of my week. It is a good class and I enjoy it. It is the one time I am alive.

If it were not for my wife and her love, I am not sure what I would do.

But I am, as Tennessee Ernie Ford sang, another year older and deeper in debt. I am going to do my level best to make this next year better. I am not sure how, but I am going to go down fighting.

I know the Lord has something for me. the alternative is too much to bear. So I wait for him.

As my Facebook scripture of the day says: I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from him (Psalm 62:1). All I can do is wait on him. He is my God.

daily java

Don’t demand an audience with the king
      or push for a place among the great.
It’s better to wait for an invitation to the head table
      than to be sent away in public disgrace. (Proverbs 25:6-8)

Christmas of 1964, my first date. I was in ninth grace, Mary Sue Beckhusen was in eighth grade. The church had a dress-up dinner at the Holiday Inn. I invited her to go with me as my date.

The Holiday Inn was a place of unimagined fanciness, or at least it seemed to me in 1964. And if a dinner was held there, surely I had to have a good suit to go. So my parents took me to Sears in Pasadena, TX, to get a black suit to wear.

I was nervous as this was my first date. My parents drove us and I picked her up. She had on a gold brocade semi formal dress. And we were off.

We walked into the Holiday Inn banquet hall and the tables were all set up. We found chairs and sat down. Not long after we had sat down, someone came to me and told me that where we were sitting was the head table and we had to move. It was embarrassing, but we did.

I have never made that mistake since. In fact, I make it a point to never sit at the head table unless someone specifically tells me that I need to.

So many people have a problem with that. It is the desire for pre-eminence and it will get you in trouble.

To our credit, back in 1964, we sat there in ignorance. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a head table. I just sat somewhere that turned out to be the wrong place.

Right now we are going through the presidential campaign. It is an orgy of people seeking the head table. They want to be in charge. Many come into that campaign with the desire to be the head of the USA, the leader of the free world. Sometimes there is no real desire to serve, it is just the desire to live big, be seen, be kowtowed to, be respected.

I believe the presidency is a good thing and needs a good man to fill the position. But at the same time, one who just wants to sit at the head table can do a lot of harm before he is taken out of the office.

The apostle Peter, in 1 Peter 5:1-4) says: As a fellow elder, I appeal to you: Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God. Don’t lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example. And when the Great Shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of never-ending glory and honor.

In other words, you are not in charge because you are so wonderful, you are in charge to help the cause of Jesus.

In any organization the church included and maybe especially, people want to be in charge. They want people to see them and admire them, to respect them and defer to them.

But Jesus, when he came, gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a servant  and was born as a human being. (Philippians 2:7). When Jesus came, he came as a servant, not as an autocrat.

If more public servants would realize the servant part, that they are there to serve us, not us to serve them, more good things would be accomplished.

The same with the church. If we focused more on service and less on self-aggrandizement, the church would grow and become stronger.

The desire for the head table is vanity. Anyone who insists on being deferred to and who thinks their opinion is the only one is a fool. The Bible says that (Psalm 53:1) in that they have supplanted God and replaced him with themselves.

daily java

Daily Java:

Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for these people, I wouldn’t help them. Away with them! Get them out of my sight! (Jeremiah 15:4)

I had a van once that was basically a good van. But it kept breaking in small ways. Nothing really huge, but just kept breaking. I had spent money to fix it and all, but I was getting tired of it. Since I do not like to change cars, I was trying to make it work. If it had continued, I would still have it.

But finally, one thing too many broke and it was again sitting by the side of the road. I had a friend who was extremely good at keeping cars going and kept a sorry old pickup he had running with duct tape and spinner wire. He really needed something else. So I gave him the van.

He took it home and found out that there was a bolt that had come misplaced somehow in the underassembly somewhere. He put it on and it worked fine.

He told me that it was a small thing and that it ran fine now. He felt bad taking it when it was such a small thing. I said no. I was sick of it. It had been a hassle and I had worked on it and worked on it until I was through with it.

Jeremiah the prophet pleads for Israel before God. But God says no. I am sick of them. I have given them my love and shown them my power and fed and clothed them, protected them and they have never really loved me. They spurn me at every opportunity like an unfaithful wife who cannot get enough of other men.

He says to Jeremiah, even if Moses and Samuel came to ask me, Moses and Samuel, two of the best men who ever lived, men who had an extremely close relationship with God – even they could not convince God to help them now.

They had gone into idolatry so far that Manasseh, one of the kings in the recent past, had even introduced infant sacrifice to the idol Dagon. To God this was absolutely repulsive. He was through.

Oh, he would bring them back as a smaller group, under the control of other empires. But they would never be like they were. In 900 BC, under the leadership of King David, they were the largest empire in the world. now they were a remnant in captivity.

Sooner or later, they would turn from worshipping him and begin worshipping his law and he would finally cut them loose and set up a new Israel, spiritual Israel )Romans 9-11). In this new system, he would gather all of the people of earth who really wanted to be part of his family and make them his children.

No longer could someone brag that they were physically born into his kingdom. Now all of the people who wanted to be with God could do so. It was a voluntary family, made up of volunteers, of people who wanted to be there. Anybody who wanted to come into that family could do so.

The God who was rejected  took all the people rejected by the world and made them his new family.

Sooner or later, enough was enough, even for God.

daily java

Daily Java:

You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not a failure. You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. (1 Thessalonians 2:1-2)

There are some churches who are balms to weary preachers. When they go there, they feel good and loved.

Unfortunately, churches will slice a minister up. Their ideas of what church ought to be like and his are different and rather than give in or even compromise, they will eviscerate him and even his family. Many a good man, one ordained by God, has left the ministry because a church has just cut them to pieces.

Why this is, I really do not know. And after almost forty years of preaching, I still do not truly understand it. I mean, I understand the basic principles, the idea of who is in control, whose idea of ”church”  is supposed to be dominant, all that. And there are people who wan their idea of “church” to be dominant to the point that they will tear the church up to get it.

It was the same all though the Bible. God sends his prophet to a group of people who have already decided how things ought to go. He preaches God’s word and people sometimes even kill him to make him shut up.

They have made up their minds and no one, not even God, will tell them otherwise.

But then you see churches that have had a pastor for a long time. They are a happy church, one which seems to be doing things and accomplishing a lot for the Lord. The pastor is happy, the church is happy.

Of course, there are problems. There always are when there are people involved, but some churches seem to be able to work it out.

Other churches go through pastor after pastor, always looking for “the right man” and never finding him.

It is like an many times married woman who cannot find a “good husband” or a man who has been married a lot who feels he has to go out of country for a wife because there are no good women around here.

It is not that there are no good men or women to marry, it is that they are all marrying you. You are the constant in that situation. A church that goes through pastor after pastor has a real problem. And if they have left a trail of disillusioned pastors, they need to quit and die as a church. They are doing far more harm to the kingdom of God by existing than they are helping.

The apostle Paul was glad for the Thessalonian church. He had come there hurt and they healed him. That is a good church.

May God give us more like that. And may God close those who are harmful.

daily java

Daily Java:

We will not hide these truths from our children;
      we will tell the next generation
   about the glorious deeds of the Lord,
      about his power and his mighty wonders.
 For he issued his laws to Jacob;
      he gave his instructions to Israel.
   He commanded our ancestors
      to teach them to their children,
 so the next generation might know them—
      even the children not yet born—
      and they in turn will teach their own children.
 So each generation should set its hope anew on God,
      not forgetting his glorious miracles
      and obeying his commands.
 Then they will not be like their ancestors—
      stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful,
      refusing to give their hearts to God. (Psalm 78:4-8)

in the old days, there was one person whose job it was to pass on all of the stories. He or she did it orally. They would just sit and talk and the rest would listen and absorb what they had to say. This was the way they passed down their history, their philosophy, their who way of thought.

Without the story tellers, the next generation would not know anything about where they had come from and would, in essence, be cast adrift.

There is a move afoot in the educational world to release us from our history, to rewrite it in such a way as to make us different from those who came before us. This takes away our background and makes us more like they want us to be rather than like those who came before us would have us to be.

But we need to know what came before us. It puts our own lives into context.

George Santayana (1863–1952) said: “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness…. when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it…. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in whom instinct has learned nothing from experience.”

We need to know what came before. And that is the whole purpose of the Old Testament: to show us what came before, where we came from, why we are here, who this God the Bible speaks of is.

Romans 15:4, in talking about the scriptures which came before, said: Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us. And the Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled.

Our children need to know who we are, where we came from, why we are here. And we need to tell them, not only about our personal families, and about our country, but about our God.

Our history as a people of God is too valuable to be forgotten.

daily java

Daily Java:

You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires. (Colossians 2:21-23)

It seems that people cannot stand to not have rules. It is natural for people to make them up. Put a bunch of people somewhere and in no time they will have a whole list of rules they have to follow. And sometimes they aren’t even written down. Unwritten rules are sometimes the harshest.

But in Jesus, there are not rules. There is life, there is commitment, there is devotion but God never intended to set out rules. In fact, the one rule he gave was a non-rule: love God. That is more of a heart thing than a rule anyway.

Go to a church and you find a lot of rules. Most of the time they will not be a church handbook or anything like that, but they will be no less binding. Denominations make up rules to feel a greater difference between them and others.

After a while, the rules become theology and people search the scriptures to find biblical justification for them. Most of the things we claim the Lord is against, he never said anything about.

The ones who follow the rules, the apostle Paul said in this passage, appear more devoted, more holy somehow. But they have given their lives over to the observance of precepts that are not from God.

In the new order, the New Testament, Jesus said that rules didn’t matter. What mattered was was grace, whether or not your heart was in order, whether or not you loved God.

In John 14:15, he said If you love me, you will keep my commandments. But the commandments were not all the stuff that people make up. The commandments were those laid out by Jesus in Matthew 22, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.

When the heart is ordered as God would have it, the life will follow. But rules, Paul says, never count for anything. And nobody has the right to tell you what to do in the name of Jesus.