daily java

Daily Java:

Lord, through all the generations
      you have been our home!
Before the mountains were born,
      before you gave birth to the earth and the world,
      from beginning to end, you are God.
You turn people back to dust, saying,
      “Return to dust, you mortals!”
For you, a thousand years are as a passing day,
      as brief as a few night hours. (Psalm 90:1-4 NLT)

When I was a little boy, I remember asking my mother, as all children who go to church do sooner or later, where God came from. My mother replied that God had always been, he was eternal.

It was hard to wrap my head around that when I was young. As I have gotten older, however, it has gotten no easier.

The flip answer to the question is that God has always been. The true, reasoned answer is God has always been.

There is no easy answer.

But we know this: the Bible says that God is love (1 John 4). And since God is love and God has always been, love has always been. The force of love has always been at work in the universe.

We had to work pretty hard to come around to hate, but love has always been, because God has always been here.

And this eternal love, this eternal force which transcends time and space, loves you. No matter how far you look or travel, God is there. And he is love.

To him time is different than it is to us. He moves differently. When we die, and he takes us to be with him, we will move in that time sense.

People always debate what will happen when we die. Will we go to heaven or hell immediately? Or will there be this big waiting room where we will sit around and read magazines until it is time for the judgment? Or will we lie in suspended animation or in our graves or what?

But when we die, we go to be with God. To him time is different. We are no longer locked into our physical time frame. With him it will be tomorrow for us, as all our  yesterdays will be gone.

But in all this, we know that God is eternal and he is love. His whole time sense is that of love.

In him we will be subsumed in that pure love and then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

i was not a wild young man, but i was fringe at times

Do not remember the rebellious sins of my youth. Remember me in the light of your unfailing love, for you are merciful, O Lord. (Psalm 25:7)

I was not a wild young man, but I was fringe at times. There was within me a need to express myself and a desire to not have anyone tell me what to do. I had a bad temper and was strong and those are two things that don’t really go well together.

It wasn’t that I was rebellious in the sense that I went around looking for fights. It was just that I was rebellious enough that I tended to make people uncomfortable.

My hair was always too long and I dressed in a way that set me apart. My favorite outfit in my early 20’s was tan Levis bush jeans, a black shirt, a wild tie I had gotten in Germany, buckle suede shoes (also gotten in Germany), topped off by an Army dress green suit jacket. I loved that outfit and wore it to church whenever I could.

This attitude got me in some trouble at times. No one tried to fight me or anything. I was a little too big to have a lot of physical argument. But people didn’t know how to take me, nor what to expect from me. So they tended to go behind my back. They still do.

I was large and loud and boisterous and confrontational. I was definitely not a company man.

Yet I had friends in the church where we went in Houston when we were first married. There were people who liked me. I suppose they saw the regular young man underneath and knew that I loved God and the church.

In fact, often my best friends were the ministers of the churches we attended. That was one thing that pushed me into the pastorate: just a plain old identification with them and acceptance by them.

And since they liked me, the church usually liked me. I guess they viewed me as the congregational eccentric.

And I carried it out a long ways, even to my vehicle of choice.

I had a 1956 Chevrolet pickup, light faded blue, with a Ford bed. It had bars all over it for hauling lumber. And it’s name was Ralph.

I loved that pickup and went everywhere in it. It was a great fit for me. It just looked like me.

It had a foot starter and a couple of holes in the floor and I bought it for $60, a great deal even in 1972. It had been taken care of by its previous owner and served me well until winter of 1974 when it got too cold and the block cracked.

That hurt. It was almost as if a part of my life was over. I gave it to a guy who always liked it. He put in block stop leak and painted it purple with a roller. He also wrote RALPH on the door in yellow paint.

It was almost as if someone had taken the body of a friend and painted it up and put it on display.

I have never had a vehicle since that I loved as much as that truck, even the new 1981 Mustang with T Tops that bought me. That truck was me. I drove with the radio blaring (an AM radio, of course). Whenever I hear Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie, it shoots me back to 1972, driving to the shop where I worked for the telephone company in Houston over on Bissonet.

At that point, I guess I changed some. I went to seminary, and started dressing more regularly, cutting my hair more, shaving more.

But the internal man – the one that a woman told me once reminded her of a wolf/dog mix: dog on the outside with the wolf coming out occasionally – stayed for a while. It was just kind of submerged.

The motorcycle helped when I finally got one at 30 years old.

daily java

Daily Java:

Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother was Jehoaddin from Jerusalem. Amaziah did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight, but not wholeheartedly. (2 Chronicles 25:1-2)

You go to church for years, decades sometimes. You sing the songs, boring as they are. You bow your head during the prayers while you go over your day’s itinerary.  You throw a little dough in the plate. You listen to the guy up front blather and try your best to look interested.

And you have done this for years. Why then doesn’t the Lord bless you more? You need some stuff and you have put up with church for a long time. He owes you.

Joash, Amaziah’s father, was a king of Judah who did just enough to get by. His father was a good man who lost his focus. He listened strongly to his mentor, a prophet and a priest, and prospered while he did so. Then the older man died and his friends corrupted Joash and he ended up outside of the Lord and dead by the hand of assassins.

Amaziah started pretty good, but he was one of these people who figure they can just do the stuff and they will be fine. They have the formulas and the people to say the right words so everything is good.

In the movie Book of Eli, there was a man living in the post-apocalyptic society who was searching desperately for a Bible. he wanted it because he view it as a magical power. If he had one and could say the stuff in it, people would automatically do what he said. He would be powerful. Needless to say, when he got hold of one, he didn’t have the ability to read it.

The American Indians would wear crosses and carry Bibles into battle. They viewed them as white men’s power and wanted to be able to use them themselves. Needless to say, it was not the things that were powerful, but the God behind them. Without God, the stuff was just that: stuff.

Psalm 9:1-2 says: I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all the marvelous things you have done. I will be filled with joy because of you. I will sing praises to your name, O Most High.

The joy in life and the happiness in service comes from just that: service. Service from the heart is needed for the service to matter. After all, no one likes purely obligatory service.

And neither does God.

Amaziah too, like his father, died by the hand of assassins while on the run. He disobeyed the Lord to the point that God turned from him. his son did the same thing and ended up with leprosy from the hand of God as a reward for his arrogance. Sad endings to sad lives.

you did something stupid and you didn’t tell anybody

Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. (Psalm 32:5 NLT)

You did something stupid and you didn’t tell anybody, or at least you didn’t tell your mother. You hide it for sometimes years.

Then one day, you tell what you did. And the relief is immense. If nothing else, you have gotten it off your chest. You no longer have to hide whatever it was.

Sometimes it wasn’t even anything big. You broke a vase when you were five and told your mother you hadn’t. A man came in and knocked it over and laughed because you would get in trouble.

Well, of course, she didn’t believe you. Or maybe you hid it so well, she was baffled for years over whatever had happened to whatever it was.

But when you told her, you were relieved.

Maybe it is something you did to a friend that hurt them. You never told them it was you. They may have suspected but it sat there. And one day you tell your friend it was you. Even though it may damage your relationship irrevocably, still it had to be said.

Even though there is hurt, there is also relief.

The same holds true with God. You have done things that have hurt you spiritually, that have damaged your relationship with the Lord. You hide them. Even though it is impossible to hide from God, you pretend that you do.

Then one day, it all breaks out and you confess to the Lord what you have done wrong. And when you do, there is forgiveness.

Of course, there is forgiveness anyway. God forgives. Forgiveness is not dependent upon your asking. If that were so, then we are saved by works. God sees our hearts and knows how we are. And he knows our weakness.

But he also wants to hear from us that we are sorry for what we do wrong. Just like anybody wants to hear I’m sorry from someone who has done wrong to them, God wants to hear it.

And when we tell him, he has already forgiven. When we ask, we accept that forgiveness. And all of our guilt is gone.

He forgives when no one else will. He loves when no one else seems to. He accepts when everyone else rejects.

And he is with us forever.

daily java

Daily Java:

So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

Today is Sunday and church day. We meet together today and sing and pray, listen to a lesson from the scripture. in our case today, we will take communion and eat together after services.

But is that why we are here?

It is hard for me to imagine a world without church on Sundays. It is hard to think of sleeping late, or just goofing around. In my family, and in my wife’s, when we were growing up, we always went to church on Sundays.

And we always filed in and sat in pews and sang and prayed and gave money and all.

Then we went home and had dinner. In my church, we also had Sunday evening church, but in the one I pastor right now, we don’t. when church is over, we are through with it for the day.

But is there more?

We can be Christian by ourselves. But with church, with the meeting together, we can become strong Christians.

That is the point of coming together in worship. The worship is important, the prayer, the singing, the giving, the hearing from God’s word – all are vitally important.

But that is not really why we are there. We are together not just to worship God, but to encourage and edify each other. We help each other. We push each other to better service. We build each other up.

The reason we meet together on Sundays is for encouragement and mutual edification. Without it, all we are is a bunch of people sitting in rows listening to a band or some guy talk. With it, we are fulfilling our duties to each other.

Hebrews 10 says: Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. (10:23-25)

If we don’t do that, we might as well stay home. We have lost the point.

Church was designed to be a life-long spiritual support group, helping each other attain heaven. When we do that,  we do what we are supposed to do.

daily java

Daily Java:

Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. No one was sorry when he died. They buried him in the City of David, but not in the royal cemetery. (2 Chronicles 21:20 NLT)

I don’t guess there are many comments in the Bible that are sadder than this. No one was sorry when he died.

Jehoram started out well. He was the son of Jehoshaphat, a king of Judah who was, for the most part, a good king. He had his problems and his difficulties as most did, but he tried to serve God.

But he didn’t. he moved quickly into being a bad guy. He killed his brothers immediately upon gaining the throne.

Parts of his kingdom rebelled and moved away forming their own country, other countries attacked and ransacked the palace, even taking away his wives and sons.

Finally at the end, he had a severe intestinal disease and he died in agony.

In general, his life started good and went quickly into the toilet. By the time he died, people had a party.

What would it be like to live your life in such a way that when you died, no one was sorry?

I did funerals for displaced people in the Tulsa, OK, area a few years back. If there was someone who needed a funeral and didn’t have a pastor, the funeral director called me.

Some of these were truly tragic. One had three people in attendance, myself included. No music, no real flowers, just a couple of people sitting in a mausoleum. I sang Amazing Grace simply out of sadness. I felt there needed to be some kind of music.

After a while, my wife started going with me, just to have one more person at the funeral.

Many of these were people who had moved away and were to be buried in Tulsa. All of their friends were gone and no one knew them.

But they deserved a funeral, even if somewhat sparsely attended. And music, even if spontaneous.

Probably Jehoram had a funeral, and it was probably a state funeral with some pomp and ceremony.

But nobody cared or was sorry that he died.

And 19 of this chapter says that His people did not build a great funeral fire to honor him as they had done for his ancestors.

What a sad way to go: unloved, uncelebrated, unmourned.

It’s what happens when you turn from God.

daily java

Daily Java:

Will merchants try to buy it to sell it in their shops? (Job 41:6)

I am at a garage sale right now. It is being sponsored by the prison ministry that we are helping in.

Garage sales are fun. But the one thing I especially like to do is talk to the people coming up. But they don’t always want to talk back.

For the most part, people coming to garage sales want to just look. I always like the interaction,

That is the way with life. My dad could talk to anyone. If necessary, he would even talk to animals. He just liked to talk.

I inherited some of that. My son said one time that when I met someone, I asked too many questions. Then he stopped for a moment and said, But at least I find out a lot about people.

And that’s true. I love to find out about people. I never could figure how a person would go through life and not want to meet others.

The stuff we have for sale, for the most part, is general garage sale stuff. In other words, not worth a whole lot. But, on the other hand, you find some good stuff.

We had a Jeep child’s riding toy for sale, no battery, but otherwise good. One boy was entranced and we sold it to him for five dollars.

There was a child’s basketball hoop and a fort looking thing that had a swing and slide on it. That went pretty quickly.

I have gotten to visit with some friends while we waited, but the day is hot and muggy, so we tend to be slow.

But all of the stuff goes to a good cause, the Set Free Prison Ministry. That will help a lot especially with the families of inmates. That is one of the main thrusts of this work.

More people coming. I always try to bless them in some way when they leave. Sometimes it is the only way people can come into contact with the Spirit of God.

confessing

So also Christ died once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:28 NLT)

When I misbehaved as a child, my mother would always say, Wait till your father gets home.

What she didn’t realize was that she was not only affecting my outlook on my father, she was also affecting my theology. My view of my father became that of the family policeman, the judge and jury. He would come home and give me what-for for whatever it was my mother was mad about.

It made me dread my father coming home.

And because God called himself a Father, I tended to transfer a few things from my own life over to him that were not necessarily applicable.

It made me afraid of the second coming, because, as the bumper sticker says (kind of), he is coming and he is mad.

We get to feeling like Hebrews 10:28 where it says: There is only the terrible expectation of God’s judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies.

Even though we have done what is good and tried our best to rely on him and in his grace, we still are afraid.

You ask someone why did they obey God and become a Christian? And they say, because I am afraid of going to hell.

That is the same attitude of the young man who only obeys his father because his father can whip him. Sooner or later, he is either going to find out his old man isn’t as strong as he thought or he is going to figure that he can’t do anything right anyway, so he might as well have fun. either way, constant fear will make him rebel, not love.

Fear doesn’t work for long. Sooner or later it ceases to be effective. If that wasn’t true, there would be no underground churches in Communist or Islamic countries. They would give up.

But we have to remember. Jesus is not coming to punish us, but to take us home. There is no need to live in fear like a bad kid waiting for his father to come home. The end is not to be feared, but to be anticipated.

That is the Christian view of things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. (Philippians 3:20).

Our God is not coming with his hired thug, Jesus, to whip us for being human. He is coming with his Son to welcome us into his rest.

We do not have to be afraid.

daily java

Daily Java:

After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, “Do you understand what I was doing? You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that’s what I am. And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message. Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them. (John 13:12-16 NLT)

They get through with dinner. Jesus rises and takes off his outer garment. He kneels in front of his apostles and begins to wash their feet.

Wait! This is the actions of a servant, greeting his superiors. Jesus is the Lord. They are servants. They should wash his feet, not he theirs.

But it is too late. He has already started. The apostles don’t know what to do. Jesus is always doing things to make them feel uncomfortable.

When he gets through, he puts his coat back on and sits down.

Now then, he says, you understand what I was doing? They didn’t, of course. They were probably baffled.

He said, I was showing you something. You call me Lord and Teacher, and I am. But if I can wash your feet, you being my followers, then you have nothing to feel big about.

That is the problem with the church. Everybody wants to be in charge. Everybody wants to be catered to. It boils down to a matter of control.

However, Jesus, although he was on his knees in front of his apostles, was in control. He was still Lord and Teacher and he was still in charge.

But he was also serving.

People do not come to church to be served, but to serve. They do not come to church to cater to, or control, or be committee chairmen. They come to serve.

Philippians 2:5-11 says that Jesus gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. He came as a slave, a servant, not as a boss. And when we are servants of him, we are slaves, servants, not bosses.

Church is not about control and being in charge. It is about serving others and helping others find God.

Only then can we really be his servants, servants of a servant.

daily java

Daily Java:

Jesus shouted to the crowds, “If you trust me, you are trusting not only me, but also God who sent me. For when you see me, you are seeing the one who sent me. I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark. I will not judge those who hear me but don’t obey me, for I have come to save the world and not to judge it. But all who reject me and my message will be judged on the day of judgment by the truth I have spoken. I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it. And I know his commands lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells me to say.” (John 12:44-50 NLT)

I grew up with a picture of Jesus watching what I was doing. For the most part, on his better days, he was mildly annoyed. On his worst days, he was really ticked off.

Of course, God joined him in disapproval of what I was doing and of my life in general.

That is a picture many of us have. Even though we proclaim a God of love, at the same time we tend to see him being angry or sad or whatever at what we do. 

We see him judging us.

Jesus himself said that he didn’t come to judge, but to save. He didn’t come to sit in judgment, complaining about everything we did wrong, watching us in mild annoyance. He came to bring us back to God.

He knows we have problems living our lives. After all, it was through his agency that we were made. In fact, God knew from the beginning that we would fail and not be able to do what was right.

Ephesians 1:4-5 says: Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

In advance he decided to adopt us. He knew we would remove ourselves from the family. He knew we would need help coming back in. He knew we would be powerless. So he sent Jesus.

And if we trust in him, we trust God. When we see him, we see God. When we reject him, we reject God.

There is no other way but through Jesus. And I trust him to do what he said he would do: bring me to the Father and love me.