Those little “Oh my goodness” moments

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“Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your heart” (Hebrews 4:7).

God was there, and I knew it not.

That night, on the run from his brother and facing an uncertain future with family members he was yet to meet for the first time, and dealing with his own self-centered deceiving nature which had got him in this mess and brought him to this how-do-you-do, Jacob had a dream.

“Behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.  And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac….” (Genesis 28:10ff)

Wow. The Lord is here. In this very place.  And He has my number.

That can be unsettling, humbling, and life-changing. As it was for Jacob.

Ever felt the Lord call your name?

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Depressed Christians is not an oxymoron.

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“Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord.  Lord, hear my voice!” (Psalm 130:1-2)

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body” (2 Corinthians 4:8-10).

“You call yourself a Christian and you are depressed.  What’s wrong with you?”

Sound familiar? If some actual person has not said that to you, perhaps that little voice inside you–the one that loves to call attention to your failures and pretenses–has beaten you over the head with those words.

Surely we who are the redeemed in Christ and thus more than conquerors should live on top of circumstances at all times and radiate joy 24/7, right?

Why then,  are we sometimes depressed?

Does it help to know we have lots of company?

Some of the finest people who have ever trod the Christian path have dealt with depression on a regular basis. Whether we call it the blues, the dumps, melancholy, or, as Winston Churchill referred to it, his “black dog,” God’s people can be depressed also.

The grandma said to the teenager, “Trials and suffering are not par for the course, honey. They are the course.”

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Four things I wonder about the Scripture

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One: I wonder if the Lord ever wants to put beside particular scriptures the Facebook line: “Just saying.”

I sometimes wonder when to take a teaching literally and when the statement in Scripture was intended to be less than a command, or even simply a side remark.

Sometimes the Apostle Paul will say, “I do not have a word from the Lord on this, however….” and give us his thoughts. (An instance is I Corinthians 7:25.) Christians are of two minds about this. Some say, “It’s as plain as it’s possible to get. What follows is not to be taken as a command. How much clearer could Paul make it than he did?”  Others respond, “Yes, but we have all these epistles of Paul which we take as Scripture, whether it jives with anything the Lord Jesus actually said or not. So, if it came from Paul’s heart (and pen), it’s scripture.”

So hard to know.

We would be in bad trouble without the Holy Spirit to help us with this. (We make a big enough mess even with His guidance!)

Two: I wonder whether some statements were intended just for the apostles but not for us.

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What if we believed Jesus really did abolish death?

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“Who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).

You are going to love this.

If death has been abolished, then to most of us, what we have seems to be a “dead man walking.”  The corpse appears to be very much alive and well, this grim reaper who persists in continuing to mow down a fair to middlin’ number of victims every day.

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death,” said Paul in I Corinthians 15:26.

So, has death been abolished or not?

I’m indebted to a couple of old books for some insights worth their weight in gold. One is a biography of J. B. Phillips and the other is a quote from a book Mr. Phillips wrote.

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Get the love out: Sometimes only words will do

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“My little children, let us not love in word or tongue (only), but in deed and in truth”(I John 3:18).

In our effort to encourage people to “love one another,” we must not leave the impression that words do not count.  While deeds of love and other expressions are vital, a lot of people need to hear the actual words.

“I love you.”  “You have no idea how much you mean to me.” “Thank you for being such a precious friend.” “I treasure you.”

Speaking love is a good thing to do.

First, something inside me needs to speak words of love.  It’s good for me.

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Heresies inside my church

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“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine….”  “Preach the word….with great patience and instruction” (2 Timothy 4:2,3).

For a pastor, the way to deal with bad theology in his church is always to preach the Word.

Just hang in there, year after year, teaching and preaching God’s unchanging truth.  The changes in your people will come as you remain faithful.

The word “orthodox” means “right thinking.”  Straight shooting. Sound doctrine. Solid reasoning.

We think of heresy as something the bad guys do, the “spiritual gift” of cults, and the aberration of the rebellious. After all, aren’t all heretics nuts? (We interrupt to recommend a book. A half century ago, Walter Nigg wrote “The Heretics” to establish that the great heresies in church history were the result of some pretty smart people with real grievances, and not ‘nuts.’  Reading it was life-changing for me. I checked alibris.com and amazon.com just now. A used copy or two is available, and new reprints are expensive. However, this is a great investment and the book will be a keeper.)

As Walt Kelly’s comic strip ‘possum Pogo once noted, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

There is enough heresy inside the walls of your church to start twelve new cults by breakfast.

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The Lego Moment: When the “truth” of a heresy snaps into place

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“Even though we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8,9).

The devil, that master of falsehoods and creator of fake religions, is no fool.

He knows that a manmade religion has to look and feel right if people are going to buy it.

So, he keeps tweaking it until he finds the right combination to achieve that “aha!” moment when everything falls into place. He blends a mixture of doctrinal teachings that sound impressive, emotional incentives that feel good, and outlandish rewards out in the future that entice the unthinking alongwith a certain amount of history which he has either created out of whole cloth or tampered with to make it say what he wishes and a fellowship of the deceived-and-deceiving so the seeker can be locked into the system.

When the seeker is combing over the details of this new religion and suddenly finds it all snapping into place–a “lego moment,” if you will–two things are true:

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How the pastor can worry himself into an early grave

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Why do people do the things they do?

Try to figure that one out and soon your brain will explode from over-exertion.

Why did certain people leave your church? Why did that pastor search committee–that looked so promising, talked so excitedly, and seemed so certain–suddenly disappear without a word of explanation? Why did a friend turn on you and walk out of your life without a word?

People are going to leave your church, pastor.

You ministered to them faithfully, you thought you had a great relationship with them and they were happy under your ministry, then suddenly you noticed they were gone. Sometime later, you learn they joined another church down the road a mile. What happened?  Ideally, they will make an appointment to explain their actions.

But don’t hold your breath, preacher. This is not an ideal world.

In a half century of ministry, the number of families that have come to explain why they were leaving, I could count on one hand.

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Smile. C’mon, you can do this.

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I have accidentally become an evangelist for smiling.

I want to see God’s people smiling, and do not understand why many refuse to do so until their natural reluctance is overpowered by something really hilarious.  If anyone on the planet has cause to smile, it’s us.  We’re saved, our names are written in glory, there is no condemnation either here or in the future waiting to ambush us, and from here on in, it’s all good!  That sure brings a smile to this country boy’s face.

Now, the Scriptures say very little about smiling, if at all. However, the references to joy leak out from every page. And what is a smile, after all, but “joy made visible.”

So, the old saw holds true here: “If you’re saved, tell your face about it.”

Now, I sketch people wherever I go, sometimes as many as 500 in one week. And since everyone on the planet looks better smiling and they will like the finished product more if it shows them in the best light, I tell people, “Look at me–not down at the sketchbook–and smile please. I want to see your teeth.”  Or, I might just say, “Say cheese.” Or if it’s a child, after learning he is 5 or 6 years old, to get a smile, I’ll say, “And are you married?”

You  would be surprised, and probably distressed, to know how often the subject replies, “I don’t smile.” Or, “I don’t like my smile.”

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Dumb stories we preachers tell

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“Whatever was I thinking?”

I’ve said that. And I’ve sometimes thought it about other preachers whose sermon illustrations just got entered into the competition for dumbest story of the year.

A “dumb” story in this piece, refers to an account of something that distracts from God’s message, or sucks all the air out of the room so that no one hears anything for the next 15 minutes, or overpowers the sermon so the story is all anyone remembers for the next week, or is mind-bogglingly offensive. Or is just plumb stupid, did we say that?

Most of us preachers have been guilty of telling one or two of those over the years. Or a hundred.

Consider this a call for greater discernment in selecting stories and illustrations, parables and news items for our sermons.

1) A story that overpowers the sermon and smothers whatever point you were making is unworthy and needs to be tossed.

Have you heard the one about the dad who went fishing with his son and the boy’s friend?

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