daily java

Daily Java:

Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. (Colossians 3:2)

I am not a fan of modern culture. I hate most of what is on TV and even have trouble finding things to watch on Netflix. Half the time we turn the movie or program off half way through because it is just dumb. And I hate dumb stuff of any kind.

It is a fact that I am a prude. I know that and don’t mind. I do not like trash. I hear about stuff that everybody else seems to watch and I realize that I would not have it in my house. A lot of the reality shows (a genre I despise) are just stupid. They demean the people that are in them and debase the people watching. Some of the animated shows are just trash and I could go on but won’t.

Where is the Christian any different who watches this trash? How can the world look at you and say there is any difference in you and those who are unsaved?

I mean, I like movies as much as the next person, especially those which take place on other planets and have Arnold Schwarzenegger cutting people with his sword or Clint Eastwood shooting people. I am a fan of sci-fi and westerns and things like that. There are some things I love, like Monty Python and Zombie movies. But on the other hand, there are those which I will not watch because they become so profane, so filled with sex and the like. I turn them off. That doesn’t mean that I am better than everybody else, but it does mean that I have been set apart for something better.

How does a Christian watch Family Man or South Park without cringing? And if you cringe, why watch it? The more you watch the more it begins to make no difference. Shows about pawn shops and porn stars, motorcycle mechanics cursing at each other and filled with anger. What is the point? How is it that this edifies the child of God?

I am not some Pentecostal wacko advocating a removal from TV and movies. I still have a TV and watch movies and what shows on Netflix and YouTube I want to watch. But what I am advocating is sense in choosing what you watch. There are things that once seen cannot be unseen. The internet and the TV are full of those images. Why see them when all it will do is hurt you in your relationship with God? After all, you, as a Christian, are holy. Having discretion is not the same as being removed. It just means you are careful.

I think of the woman who said that all of the porn movies she had watched in her past before she came to Christ replayed themselves in her mind during communion. She would have given anything to not have seen them.

So what’s the point? Don’t do it. Turn off the TV. Sister Ella and I did and I think we are the better for it. There is no reason to fill our minds with trash.

You are welcome to disagree with me. But I think that if you look at what we as Christians are called to do, you will know it is right.

And don’t get me started on Christian clothing. Maybe I need to go take a pill.

daily java

Daily Java:

But as for me, I am poor and needy;
    please hurry to my aid, O God.
You are my helper and my savior;
    O Lord, do not delay. (Psalm 70:5)

There is a point in Bible study that too many people miss. The point of Bible study is not to know more, or to memorize verses. It is not to look for doctrinal points so that you may convict the gainsayers. The point of Bible study is to gain contact with God on a personal level.

When we read the Bible, if things do not touch us on a personal level, the reading is worthless. Knowledge in general is worthless, too, if all we have is knowledge. The things we know about God, the things we learn about his history in our world – all these things are worthless if they do not touch us personally.

Our relationship with God is not an intellectual relationship. For one thing, it would be impossible to have an intellectual relationship with a Being that is eternal and omnipotent. It would be like my cat discussing theology with me. We are on totally different wavelengths and have totally different intellects.

That is not to say we are stupid, but it is to say that we do not understand God nor will we ever be able to do so.  Any understanding of God that we gain through our reading is that which touches us personally. We can only know God through our hearts and through our souls anyway.

And furthermore, we can only know God if he is in our hearts helping us understand. That is why, again as I have said before, Hollywood cannot understand Christians and cannot make a decent Christian movie: they do not have the mind of Christ.

You cannot know God by reading about him any more than you can know about anyone by just reading about them. The only to know that person is to become acquainted with him. All other knowledge is purely superficial, academic in nature.

So when you read, ask God to open your heart and ask him to help you understand. Reading is good. But reading with the goal of understanding is the only good goal. There is no way to understand God just by reading. He is entirely too great.

daily java

Daily Java:

Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent; with their mouths shut, they seem intelligent. (Proverbs 17:28)

I read an article by a woman who was in a demonstration in Portugal several years back when she was just sixteen. She wrote that permission to have a demonstration was denied by the government. The government was in constant fluctuation at the time and it was feared a strong left-wing takeover would come. A lot of people were afraid of this and wanted to demonstrate but were not allowed.

One person came up with the notion that a demonstration was yelling and noise and all, so if they remained silent, it wouldn’t be a real demonstration. So they walked across the city in silence, a whole huge crowd of people.

When they got to the facility in question, she found herself in front facing an armed contingent of guards. Still silent, she was afraid to run for fear that they would begin to fire. The young people stood with their signs and because they stood, the adults had to also and then the media noticed them and the need was gone.

All because a group of people remained silent. If they had begun to holler or run, they would have been killed. But they stayed silent.

When Jesus went before Herod, king of Galilee, at his trial, he was silent. He knew that anything he said or did would be made fun of so he just didn’t talk. The response was that he really irritated Herod. Nobody lies to be ignored and nobody wants to remain unanswered.

One of the hardest things I have ever learned is the ability to stay silent, to just sit quietly and listen. I like to talk. All preachers do. It is part of the personality dynamic. They are, after all, preachers. You don’t have a professional “sitter and listener” in a church, usually. You have a preacher. And people want to be told things. If for no other reason, they want to be told so they can find holes in what you say and attack you.

The last church I pastored had a secret Saturday night meeting. I had not yet been installed, but some were afraid that I was going to bring wholesale change to the church. This was in spite of the fact that I had never said so nor had I done anything in the couple of Sundays I had been there that would lead them to believe it. It was mainly the work of one man who wanted to run the church and have control. He had had control over the preacher before the last one and wanted it enough again that he had run off the last one and was trying to keep me from coming.

A woman on our board called me and told me of the meeting and I showed up, surprising them.

I sat on the edge of the platform and listened to them speak for almost thirty minutes. They talked about everything and you could tell most of it had come from one source. It dealt with everything from worship style to moving the pulpit to a table being placed along the back wall to me walking about while I spoke. None of it was major, all was minor and some things were just plain petty. But all I did was listen. I made no verbal responses or agreement nods or anything like that. I just sat, looked at them and listened in silence.

It all wore down and they were nervous about why I had not spoken the entire time. Finally, the lady on the council who called me mentioned that maybe I had some things to say and turned to me and asked, almost plaintively, “Do you?”

I sat for a few more moments just kind of neutrally looking at them and then talked for a moment about friction between new people and such. I never answered a single complaint. At the end, I led a prayer and everybody went home.

That silence had the effect of making someone very wary of me. I had control and he didn’t. And it showed that nobody pushes me around. He went underground, ended up leaving the church and poisoning things at a distance. I ended up leaving and the next Sunday after I had left he came back in with a triumphant roar.

But he never faced me down. He was too afraid of my silence. He came by the house and told me how sorry I was and how much damage I had done to him and his family, but again I just listened and he finally put the keys to the church on the table and left after I prayed for him.

Silence takes all the wind out of sails. It silences people. I have learned to stay silent in listening to people. I had had people tell me their whole life stories, because I just sat and listened. In that regard, people are dying for someone to listen to them. However, sometimes that can backfire because they tell you more than they want because their mouths keep running.

But, as the Proverb says, it is better to shut up than to talk. It was supposedly George Washington who said “Stay silent and the world might think you a fool. Speak and remove all doubt.”

It is really hard to remain silent but if more people were to do it, the world would be better.

daily java

Daily Java:

I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices. (Matthew 9:12)

It is easy to see a God who is mad at us. We do act stupidly an awful lot. You don’t have to be in jail to know that. All you have to do is look around and see what all is happening. We figure that we do so many dumb things that God is angry most of the time and mildly annoyed the rest.

But the only problem with that is God is not made like that.

When God made us, he made us to be with him. In Genesis 1, he made people to be like him so that he could have someone to talk to. In fact the Bible says that in the Garden God walked with his people, enjoying conversation and just being together.

But then, of course, people sinned and couldn’t be with God. God is holy and in our sin we are not. There had to be a way to get back together.

There was where Jesus came in. He made us perfect by his sacrifice so that we could talk to God again.

But people confuse how the talking should be. Do we just stand around and do whatever we want? Or do we have certain things that we have to do, certain sacrifices and rituals?

Those who believe in the rituals and sacrifices will do anything to give them. Those rituals and sacrifices become the most important thing in the world. If they are not done, in their minds at least, God will be angry.

Jesus said – and this was his message his whole life – that God was more interested in what was inside of you than what was outside of you. He cares more for what is in your heart than what is outside. In other words, the sacrifices mean nothing if your heart is not in it.

It would be like giving a present to someone for their birthday still in the sack with the tag attached. That shows them that you had to buy a present so here it is and shut up now about it.

When we offer sacrifices – singing, giving, doing good things – and we do it simply because we have to and God might be mad otherwise (we would really rather do something else), the sacrifice is useless. Just because you do something doesn’t mean anything. It has to be from the heart or it is nothing.

That also means that sometimes you make mistakes by doing things wrong. If you belong to Jesus, he will forgive you as long as you are trying.

And God wants us to use that same attitude to others. They mess up when they are doing things to us. But God wants us to forgive them like he forgives us.

He wants the mercy because that is how he is made. The stuff without the heart behind it is as worthless to him as it would be to us.

God loves you and wants you to love others, hard as it may be. That is the real sacrifice.

Visiting the Cooper County jail

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’ “Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters,  you were doing it to me!’ (Matthew 25:34-40)

I am the Cooper County jail chaplain and visit the jail one night a week. I have even found that I am the only one out of the entire world (excluding guards) that they ever see one on one. everybody else they visit with through  glass on a phone. Me they can touch and shake hands with and talk to one on one. I listen to them and respond with comments and sympathy. I am a friendly face.

I really do not like jail work that much, but it is needed. Even though I have never been in trouble with the law, it always seems to fall to me. Someone has to be there to tell them that God loves them, that there is a way out of this misery beyond just a dismissal of charges. And I try to be that avenue to the grace of God.

When I go in, I try to tell them and show them that I care about them. one way is going to trial when they have their cases heard. They see me and know that I am there and the next time I see them, they will comment on it.

Today was court. I sat through several hours and only saw one guy. But several things came to me as I looked at the proceedings and the people that were there.

First was the amount of misery present. The cases are tawdry and it is a parade of foolish people. Drunk drivers, drug abusers and seller, bad checks, domestic assault, assault and battery – the list goes on. And none of the people on trial look like they are proud to be there.

Which comes to the second thing: the way people are dressed. The lawyers and the judge and personnel are all dressed in coats and ties. The accused are wearing all manner of foolish looking clothing. Women who are extremely overweight wear tight clothing, making them look elephantine  the guys wear torn clothing, t shirts with foolish messages, other stuff. Even though they are going before someone that will have to be swayed by their actions, they still will not dress in a way that is appropriate. It is kind of pathetic.

I recognize that the world in general is bent that way now – no rules as to dress – but still. They look awful and do not seem to care.

Third is the boredom of the judge and the lawyers. They have case after case of exactly the same thing with many of the same people day after day. In the TV show, Night Court, they covered this over with humor and making fun of stuff. But the boredom is real and it has to affect these people. They cannot see and participate in this misery day after day, year after year and just accept a paycheck. It has to impact them.

Another observation is the number of interracial couples. There seem to be a disproportionate amount there in court in trouble with the law. I do not see many interracial couples that are doing well. I am not against interracial marriages, but it seems that it tends to involved people who are lower on the economic scale.

Fifth is the size of the lawyers. Most of them are fat. I am not sure why, but it surprises me to see that many fat lawyers.

Last is the joy that those I am there for express when they see me sitting in the audience looking at them. They know there is someone who cares enough to put themselves out for them. there is no one else (or so they begin to think) that cares a fig for them and they are all alone. My presence, at least I am hoping, changes that.

I know in the long run it will not do much. I am not a fool. But it is something I can do. And when I do, I follow my Lord in his mandate.

daily java

Daily Java:

This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. (Genesis 2:24)

Our first apartment was a small one. It was in Germany in 1971 when I was in the army and it was really little. As I recall, it was big enough for a table and chairs with a small kitchen in a cupboard and a chest in the main room and a bed with a chifferobe in the bedroom. There was also a bathroom, which we were fortunate to have. Many had to go down the hall to one.

The bed was longer than American beds and really too narrow for my comfort. I was 6’3” tall and 190 pounds but I was a little too big for our bed. The pink and orange checked sheets we had brought were both too short and too wide for our bed. But it had one redeeming feature. It was ours.

The apartment was no more than 10 or 12 by 20 in all but it was ours. We were newlyweds and it really didn’t matter how small it was. It only had three windows, one in each of the rooms (bathroom included) and they had shutters that came down and locked out the light completely.

The main room had a tiny kitchen in a cupboard. It was a little sink with two hot plates and some shelves above. Below was a dorm sized refrigerator. We went down the street and bought our groceries every day like the Germans did. We laid meat against the freezer so it would last longer. We also discovered that if we took the dividers out of the one ice tray that fit in the tiny freezer we had more ice for our iced tea, something that Germans didn’t drink.

We were broke almost the entire time we were in Germany. We had enough to buy gasoline to drive our Volkswagen places and to buy minimal groceries, but we had no extra money.

But it didn’t bother us. We were, after all, newlyweds and were happy just being together. We walked and explored and drove around a lot. Even though German gas was expensive (over $1.00 a gallon at a time when it was less than 25 cents a gallon back in America), we got a gas ration from the army and it was enough to do what we wanted.

We drove to castles and to other cities during times when I was off from work and we had a great time. We visited museums and sat in restaurants in palace courtyards and had Coca-Cola with lemon like cultured Europeans. I learned rudimentary German and could make myself understood and we dressed German so that we wouldn’t stand out in crowds like American GI’s often did.

I bought German shoes so I didn’t have to wear GI brogans like other GI’s. I cut my hair at German barbers and Ella let hers grow. We fit in. She was beautiful and I loved her. We had a great time together.

This time together did several things. For one, it set us as a couple without the interference of parents. When you take your new bride 5500 miles from home where a phone call is over $40, it makes a difference. We learned to like each other as well as love each other. We were our friends. We also had friends in the Church of Christ there in Germany and that also made a difference. But in general, we were our friends. We were alone in a foreign country and we liked it.

We set ourselves as a couple and it has remained in our lives ever since. We are our family. As the kids have gotten older and left, we have gone back to being a couple, our own friends. We love each other and are bound in a way that a lot of couples are not. She is my home, no matter where we go. She feels the same way.

I love her and have loved her since we moved into that apartment in Germany on the third floor of that doctor’s house. We paid $100 a month and it was worth every penny. Even on the month when someone came in and stole what little money we had and we had to count pennies and eat cheese sandwiches for a month, it was still worth it. We had a furnished apartment with a $4 transistor radio for our entertainment, and it was great. I loved her then and I love her still.

I can imagine no life without her and still remember her in that tiny apartment in Germany. She knew no German and waited each day for me to come home to her, hanging out the window like all the other hausfraus. She was so beautiful and so lovely.

I will love her forever.

daily java

Daily Java:

Get the truth and never sell it; also get wisdom, discipline, and good judgment. (Proverbs 23:23)

Some things are so important that we will do anything to get them. We will work a long time and very hard to get a new car or a house or some fancy clothes. We will go far out of our way to gain knowledge or expertise. We will humiliate ourselves to gain the attention of a young woman or an acting scout.

There are things that are so important to us  that are not that important in the long run. The car, the house, the clothing, even the knowledge and expertise will be useless soon. What doesn’t wear out is rendered obsolete. We go to school to be informed about something that is soon replaced by something else we know nothing of. We buy things that are basically disposable.

But, there are things that are more important to us that are important in the long run, that will last and will gain us something great, things that are invaluable and beyond value.

The writer of the Proverbs said to get truth and never sell it. Gain truth, gain that which is always important and always valuable and never let it go. Truth is always the most valuable commodity. And no matter what else happens in life, truth is always there, always unchanging. Values may change, fashions sure enough, even knowledge and expertise. But truth is always constant.

And with that truth, that knowledge of what is real and unchanging, there are corollaries that come with it. The more you look at that truth, the more you meditate on it, dwell on it, move it around in your mind and make it part of you, the more you are able to gain the wisdom to use it.

Raw truth is good and necessary, but wisdom is the ability to use that truth. Discipline is the ability to keep on using it even when everybody around you tries their best to tell you that it is not real or relevant, and good judgement is how you show it to others.

Truth is not a bludgeon with which to beat people over the head with. It is a way through which we live our lives, a way that we know what is real. Good judgment is how we use it, how we deliver it, how we tell others about it.

Truth is never relative. But the way we present it is. And that way is with wisdom and discipline and good judgment.

But above all, without that truth, there is no wisdom, there is no discipline, there is no good judgment. All there is is relativism, change for no good reason, fear and distrust.

daily java

Daily Java:

Now go and write down these words. (Isaiah 30:8)

I have been writing these articles for about three years now, both for this bulletin and for my blog online. I also usually put this article into the blog. I know that the blog readers, both of them, are dying to read it and it also saves me from having to write another article.

Here lately, I have also been putting some articles on Facebook on my page, so when it comes down to it, many of my bulletin articles do triple duty. More bang for the buck.

This article makes 1300 posts in my blog. That means that I have put 1300 articles online. The total wordage (is that a word?) as of the last blog post comes to 597,737 words.

In the past three or so years I have written almost 600,000 words. At about 500 words per bulletin article and an average of 500 to 900 words per article in general, that comes to a lot of writing. That is six books.

Someone asked me why I felt compelled to write so much and I had no answer. I have always written, both for newspapers and magazines, multitudes of bulletin articles in my nearly forty years of ministry, other stuff. In high school, the one thing I always got good grades on was music and English. I could always sing and I could always write.

My voice has decayed a considerable amount now, but I still can write. And the advent of the blog made it easier to write and saves the writing for others to read. In case you don’t know, blog is a word that is short for web log, or online journal. It was shortened from web log to just blog. People have blogs for everything from fish to nuts, religion to pornography, travel to collections of thimbles.

Every blog post I have made has begun with a scripture. That limits my audience but I don’t care. I have always found one that fits even if I have to take it a little out of context, like I did today. The rest of Isaiah 3:8-9 reads:

Write them in a book. They will stand until the end of time as a witness that these people are stubborn rebels who refuse to pay attention to the Lord’s instructions.

I don’t think most of you are stubborn rebels so that didn’t really fit. But one verse which does is Ecclesiastes 12:12:

Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out. 

I have written at all conceivable hours from just getting up to late at night, 3:00 in the morning, when ill or angry, during fasts, just a whole bunch of stuff.

And I have always appreciated your comments about the bulletin article and am grateful you read it. It gives my offering of verbiage meaning when you know someone reads it and likes it.

This makes 1300 posts and 500 words right now. (God bless you – this is eleven more, but I don’t care.)

the Highway of Holiness

Isaiah 35

Even the wilderness and desert will be glad in those days.
    The wasteland will rejoice and blossom with spring crocuses.
Yes, there will be an abundance of flowers
    and singing and joy!
The deserts will become as green as the mountains of Lebanon,
    as lovely as Mount Carmel or the plain of Sharon.
There the Lord will display his glory,
    the splendor of our God.
With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands,
    and encourage those who have weak knees.
Say to those with fearful hearts,
    “Be strong, and do not fear,
for your God is coming to destroy your enemies.
    He is coming to save you.”

And when he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind
    and unplug the ears of the deaf.
The lame will leap like a deer,
    and those who cannot speak will sing for joy!
Springs will gush forth in the wilderness,
    and streams will water the wasteland.
The parched ground will become a pool,
    and springs of water will satisfy the thirsty land.
Marsh grass and reeds and rushes will flourish
    where desert jackals once lived.

And a great road will go through that once deserted land.
    It will be named the Highway of Holiness.
Evil-minded people will never travel on it.
    It will be only for those who walk in God’s ways;
    fools will never walk there.
Lions will not lurk along its course,
    nor any other ferocious beasts.
There will be no other dangers.
    Only the redeemed will walk on it.
Those who have been ransomed by the Lord will return.
    They will enter Jerusalem singing,
    crowned with everlasting joy.
Sorrow and mourning will disappear,
    and they will be filled with joy and gladness.

dialy java

Daily Java:

Hot-tempered people must pay the penalty. If you rescue them once, you will have to do it again. ( Proverbs 19:19)

Do it again. If I could do it again, what would I do differently?

First of all I would probably not become a preacher. It has brought me nothing but problems. I have given my life to the Lord and he has thrown it back into my teeth.

Second, if I were the kind of fool that would become a preacher (2 Corinthians 11:23), I would go to school and get all of my schooling in advance, rather than as I went along.

Third, I would save more. I really thought that the Lord would take care of me like he said when I got older. But he hasn’t and we are just about destitute. It would be nice to have some money at the end of my life so that we didn’t have to live in government housing. Some dignity would be nice.

Fourth, I would not make the mistakes I made in thinking that the Lord needed me in certain places. I would be a lot more judicious in where I went to pastor and wouldn’t think that the Lord needed me there when he obviously didn’t.

There are a lot of things I would do differently. But there are things I would do the same. I would try my best to convince Ella to be my wife. It would be hard because I would not be the little Church of Christ guy she married. That would be hard on her.

I would also make far more use of my music instead of being in some stupid church that didn’t believe that instrumental music was according to God’s plan, that only sinners used instrumental music. That was foolish for me, and I would not do it again.

On the other hand, if I had to be in the Church of Christ, as I probably would, since my parents were that, I would do what I could and leave when I could leave.

I don’t know that the scripture above really works, but I used it anyway.

I do know that my life in the Lord has somewhat been wasted and now that I am old, I am almost destitute. The Lord has hung me out to dry.

Yet I continue. Why? I am not sure. I teach class, am involved in the worship services, write for the church, do hospitality ministry, am totally involved in this little local church. Yet God has not rewarded me or shown me any of the blessings he promised. We live on less than $1000 a month combined retirement and disability. I really am kind of pathetic as one person said.

On the other hand, who else will I serve? Where else will I go. It is he who has the words of eternal life. So I am stuck, kind of like the apostles in John 6.