Category Archives: Obedience

Those little things you do when no one is looking

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“God is Watching.”  –sign over the door of Gwen Williams’ home in Picayune, Mississippi.

John Ed Mathiston told his congregation in Montgomery, Alabama a story about kindness.

“Not long ago, a man from the Middle East walked into a new car showroom and asked to speak with a particular salesperson.  The receptionist called for him, the fellow walked to the front, and they greeted each other.

The foreigner said, “I’d like to buy some trucks.”

Some trucks. That caught the sales guy’s attention.

“What did you have in mind, sir?”

“I want to buy 750 heavy duty trucks and 250 pickups.”

The salesman is stunned.  Surely someone is pulling a prank.  This cannot be happening.

The Middle Easterner pulls out a letter of credit with a huge American bank.  It is legitimate. This is the real deal.

The salesman says, “Sir, you know you can go to Detroit and buy those trucks at a huge discount.”

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The church which wants to help the needy has its work cut out for it.

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“Give to everyone who asks of you” (Luke 6:30).

Everyone who works around the church office will identify with this.

From my journal of Tuesday, August 12, 1997…

In the afternoon, I took a phone call from a Don Peterson.  “Remember me?” he said.

I said, “Refresh my memory.”

“My fiancée and I were in your services three Sundays ago.”

“No. Sorry.”

“Well, my father has died.  In Ann Arbor, Michigan.  I need some money for a plane ticket.  I need to borrow it until Sunday.”

I said, “How much?”

“Fifty-four dollars.”

I said, “How can I verify this?”

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What laypeople need to know–and seldom do–about speaking in “big church”

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By laypeople, I mean non-preachers.

By speaking in church, I mean before large groups of the Lord’s people.

Many non-clergy are outstanding on their feet in front of large groups. Schoolteachers come to mind.  But the typical church member, even one who teaches a Sunday School class, is out of his element when suddenly asked to deliver a talk in front of the whole church.

Marlene said to me, “I’m sorry I took the entire service, Pastor. But the Lord was leading me.” Translation: She really got into her talk and couldn’t control it.  As a young pastor, I had invited church members to share testimonies in the morning worship service, something along the lines of 5-7 minutes.  (Later, I learned to interview the individual and retain hold of the microphone the entire time!)

Since Marlene had not prepared adequately, once she got going, she couldn’t find a convenient stopping place. She kept on for a full 40 minutes.

Personally, I would not blame my failure to prepare on the Lord.

I see it happen all the time.  It’s almost embarrassing.

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Nothing for me, thanks

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At the end of a long day of touring the big city, the country boy is said to have knelt by his bed and prayed, “Lord, we saw a lot of things today. But I thank you I didn’t see a thing I want.”

“The ruler of this world is coming, and He has nothing in Me” (John 14:30).

Toward the end of His earthly ministry when our Lord was preparing the disciples for the difficult days ahead, throughout this Upper Room Discourse (John chapters 13-16), Jesus assured them He would not be leaving them as orphans. The Holy Spirit would be arriving in full force to supply everything they would be needing.

They should expect difficult days, He said. And make no mistake, He says, the devil is coming, too.  (Perhaps He spotted that fallen angel peeping up from a garbage can somewhere.)

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Stifling the urge to correct others

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“Convince, rebuke, exhort….” (2 Timothy 4:2).

“Winston Churchill’s wife told him that loosing the election may turn out to be the best thing that could have happened.”

That statement from an online preacher’s magazine set off my inner alarm. The proper word is not “loosing,” but “losing.”

As an old high school English teacher, I know a little about these things.  And I know that these things matter.  (That is not to say I don’t slip up occasionally. I definitely do.

However….

A couple of days ago, someone wrote to Smiley Anders’ column in our paper to bemoan the wrong placement of the word “only” in conversation and print.  Someone may say, “There were five boys, but I only gave quarters to two of them.”  See the problem? “Only” belongs before “two of them.”  It should say, “There were five boys but I gave quarters to only two of them.”

Two days later, Smiley says the language maven wrote a followup note to say that the very day her gripe ran in his column, the editorial cartoon violated the “only rule,” with that word in the wrong place.

And I’m thinking, “Get over this, lady.  If you go through life correcting everyone’s English, you have taken on a thankless job and unachievable task.”

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The high cost of disobedience

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“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for me will find it.  For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?  Or, what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26)

What do you have to give up to serve the Lord?  Well, for starters, you give up your sin and guilt, your anguish and your lostness.  You give up your waywardness and fears, your selfishness and your pride.  You give up being lord of your own life and master of all your own choices.

Paul called this “presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1).

It’s a daily exercise, by the way.  While we wish we could do a one-time-works-forever thing, it’s not to be.  “I die daily,” said the apostle (I Corinthians 15:31).  And so do we, if we get this right.

Before long, as we grow in Christ, we begin to realize that not only did we give up a lot of bad things to come to Him and to serve HIm, now, He is asking us to give up some good things which happen to be outside His will for us.

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Just doing my job…while I still can.

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“Use it or lose it.”  –If that’s not a Scripture, it should be.  (Which means it’s probably in there, but stated otherwise.  Anyone?)

(Several suggested the text should be the Parable of the Talents from Matthew 25.  It begins: “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and another one talent, each according to his ability.”)

When a pastor with whom I’d just connected on Facebook thanked me “for your unique ministry,” I replied:

I’m only doing the same thing you are–using what God has given me to do what He has told me in the place where He has sent me.

That’s what basic Christian ministry is all about, and it’s available to every child of God, whether we serve in the pulpit or from the pew.

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Some harmless looking things can be deadly

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“For rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft, and arrogance like the sin of idolatry”(I Samuel 15:23).

“Oh, he’s so cute. Can I pat him?”

Our little daughter was fascinated by the large black bear that was crawling through the garbage cans near our house.  We were attending a weeklong conference at the conference center near Glorieta, New Mexico, and had noticed signs warning about bears.  Traps in the form of large steel drums had been set for them.  (They would be hauled back into the mountains and turned loose.)  This night, we had just returned from a two-hour service of worship and were going from our car into the duplex when we spotted the bear across the street.

“No, you may not pat him!”  The very idea.  We hurried inside and watched through the window.

What the child considered a teddy bear could have easily been a killer.

My sin was not a big thing.

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