Forgotten For Never

Imagine that night in Bethlehem’s pastures.  We know not their names.  They remain obscure characters forever etched into a story of wonder and hope for all generations.  We can only presume their age, their welfare and their status.  Some were likely old and experienced.  Some were fathers raising young men behind them to care for sheep.  There was likely a brotherhood to these guys, a “Band of Brothers” so to speak. But we can also imagine one lonely shepherd.  Think with me what a difference a Hallelujah Chorus would make to a lonely widower, resigned to live the rest of his life married to sheep. Others had for years reached out to Abé.  Most had resigned themselves to the fact that Abé preferred to be left alone. Abé was a loner.  He chose the further meadowlands near Bethlehem’s wilderness.  He never came to the market place at the customary festivals.  He was more of a survivor.  Abé chose to live in obscurity. His peers often wondered how he survived.  Abé was at peace with the circumstances life had brought him. He knew the life of the widow.  In the death of his wife in the breached birth of his firstborn, he lost his whole family.  He and Anna had been friends since childhood.  Their love had grown through the awkward years of adolescence and Jewish rites and arranged marriages.  They were so happy that their love was met with mutual consent from their fathers.  Their whole life seemed perfectly arranged.  He couldn’t love another. Abé spent night after night resolved to seek God in his loneliness while serving those he knew were dear to God. Not having to support anyone but himself, Abé had endeared himself to the words of Isaiah: “…Plead the widow’s cause…Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will be like wool.” Words as these the illiterate Abé understood. So his lambs always went to a widow at a price she could afford. Abé looked upon the baby in the manger and his young mother.  His own heart stirred.  He recalled the prophecies and the message of the angels, and Abé knew that he was looking into the face of a Lamb bringing peace for all the people.  Did he offer Mary a little lamb?  I think that would be a perfect gift.

Coach/PJ

Truth Tellers

We practice a form of falsehood when we withhold that which we have and know that our neighbor needs.  We lie to those who need hope when we have hope and fear sharing the reason for our hope with our neighbor.
"Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak the truth each one of you to his neighbor, for we are members of one another." Ephesians 4:25
Coach/PJ

Truth Tellers

I had been instructed all my childhood, “Do not run through the dining room!”  One day I ran through and pushed into the kitchen through the swinging door, cape flying behind me in my wake!  From the kitchen I heard a crashing and breaking sound. I laid the pieces back together and balanced them perfectly and escaped to my room on tip toes.  I remember missing Mom those days that I kept her in my deception.  Looking back I recognize that my falsehood created separation.  Then I heard it.  Crash!  I discovered my mother with the four pieces of her grandmother’s dish on the table…weeping!  That lie leapt from my guts as if someone had performed the Heimlich maneuver.  And we are to be lovers of truth once we put off the old and put on the new self!

Ephesians 4:17-24

Coach/PJ

MY HOPE

The other week while at Ridgecrest, I was the lone witness of seeing an older Junior Hill make his way from the lower parking lot, up the hill, climb a flight of stairs and then, with a hearty smile and a sense of victory enter the sanctuary with his worn Bible in hand.  This giant of a man looked at me and said, “I made it brother!”  The many years of travel and evangelistic crusades could have rendered him put out to pasture.  But here he was with a gait that showed him more akin to a thoroughbred coming out of the gates at Churchill Downs. I wish I had run down the hill when I first spotted him.  I wish I had walked with him; and if he had allowed me to, even offer a shoulder of support to make that climb.  Another climbs a mountain this week to his 95^th birthday and an appeal to America to embrace the cross, receive the message of hope that is found only in Christ Jesus, and be saved.  As of early October, 25,000 churches in the US and Canada have run down the hill, embraced Billy Graham in a nation-wide gospel presentation The Cross, a powerful presentation of hope through the testimonies of Billy Graham, Lecrae Moore and Lacey Sturm.  Check your local listings for the Friday and Saturday night telecast at 7:30 p.m.  You can also catch it Thursday night at 10:00 on Fox News!

Coach/PJ

When Grace is Grace

When Grace is Grace...Probably a title of a book I am sure, but nothing like self-discovery.  Last night I said to my son, "Grace is not grace until there is repentance." Then I lay awake through the night pondering that statement.  Does God's grace hinge on the work of repentance in the child of God?  Does my grace toward my children rest conditionally on their turning from their wrong toward me, their family, our God or others?  I pictured then the father of the prodigal on the porch night after night.  Was he full of grace on the porch each night or did his grace spring from the porch only when he saw his son on the horizon?  Upon much contemplation, I have much to learn.  I must be as that father, my grace and love for all, especially my loved ones, is offered free from any sign of their turning.  Certainly the grace I felt from God when He saved me was not withheld conditional upon my own heart turning in  repentance.  It is grace that leads to repentance. "Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?" Rom. 2:4
Coach/PJ

Two Precious Baptisms

Praise the Lord!  Two precious children baptized yesterday at Crosspoint!  What a confirmation for the parents of God answering prayers and rewarding their making of disciples in their homes.  Good day!
Coach/PJ

Next Generation Church

When your adult son sends a text "Dad, I am leaving your church."  That is a time for celebration. You may be puzzled by that statement, for surely it does sadden me to see my son leave our church.  But the reality is that the short text sends more than a post.  It is truly a milestone, a rite of passage in a young man's life.  I see it as my son truly leaving boyhood behind to be a man.  Consider this, one change of a word in that text could break a father's heart.  What if the text simply read, "Dad, I am leaving the church." That would speak so much more to a failure to pass faith in Christ and love for His bride to the next generation.  Today, I am a very happy daddy! "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child and I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put my childish ways behind me."  I Corinthians 13:11
Coach/PJ