Don Henley-The Heart of the Matter

When Your Father is Less than Perfect

On this the dawn of another Father's day, many of us will celebrate the presence of a father or "dad" in our lives. Many of our "dads" have done the best they can for us, and have been there for all all of our successes and failures along the way. Some of our fathers have taught us how to play sports. Some have taught us right and wrong. And still yet some have taught us the family profession, whether it be truck driving, pastoring, or running a business among other things.

On the other scope of things, however, are those who have a father who is "less than perfect". Maybe he struggled with a bad temper. Maybe he struggled with alcohol and drugs. Or maybe he is even incarcerated or has had other brushes with the law. When you have a less than perfect father, it's easy to have animosity about it. It's easy to get mad about the things he does (or did) and want to throw up your hands and say, "Oh well, it's too late for us to have a relationship!" But here are a couple of things to remember:

1) Those who have an imperfect earthly father have a perfect heavenly father. We must remember that God is a "father to the fatherless." (Psalm 68:5)

2) Even if we have a less than perfect father we should seek to reconcile the relationship and forgive him if at all possible. Remember that Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34) In a sense we all, in some regards, "know not what we do" because we have been marred by this sinful world. We might realize something is wrong, but the sins of pride and the blight of denial cause us not to realize what we are doing. The same goes for our earthly fathers at times.

3) We should pray for our fathers. Whether we have a father who is "perfect" in our eyes, or who is less than perfect, we should keep them in prayer, especially if they are unsaved, but even if they are saved and are a professing Christian.

Whether you have a perfect or "less than perfect" father, may God bless you this upcoming father's day!

http://www.focusonlinecommunities.com/blogs/Finding_Home/2012/05/14/the-president-should-have-called-the-pastors-first

Jars of Clay--Five Candles (You Were There)

Illustration: A Visit from a Back-up

I remember not too long ago when the Denver Broncos won their first Super Bowl in 1998. There was a lot of fanfare and a great deal of excitement.

One other thing I remember is that the high school of our little town actually received a visit from one of the back-ups from that team. I noticed something very interesting about that visit. The speaker was Patrick Jeffers, who was a back-up wide receiver for the Broncos that first year they won the Super Bowl. If you look at the career of this man, his stats were not all that special. They weren't hall of fame caliber, you could even say that they were barely even Pro Bowl caliber.

But one of the things I noticed in my little high school is that people started talking about him and idolizing him even though he was at best average. They talked about good he was and different things.

The moral of the story? Sometimes people don't care what you know until they know that you care. The very fact that he took the time out of his busy schedule elevated him in the minds of many of our high school's athletes.

"She's not a prostitute..."

At one time an individual had the opportunity to visit some of his friends who lived in a very large city in the United States. Everyone in this circle of friends was a Christian, and these city friends had a rather unorthodox ministry.

They desired to minister to people who for whatever reason or another were on the street, so their weekly ritual was simply to walk up and down a given neighborhood and familiarize themselves with the people that were there. While they were doing this, they would pray for opportunities to witness about Jesus, to minister, or simply just to serve others in some way.

The visitor noticed several interesting things as his friends pointed some things out to him. First of all, walk slowly, they said. Next, walk close to the curb, they advised. Another thing they told him was to make sure to stay out of alleyways that could be dangerous. Finally, they said, be careful to note gang colors to understand gang turf and the like.

The visitor noticed a woman on one of the curbs who was very scantily clad. He asked one of his friends when they were out of her earshot, "Was she a prostitute?"

There was a long, somewhat awkward, pause from this friend.

Finally, he said, "She's not a prostitute...she is a person....caught in prostitution."

Let us remember this day to have a heart for others, just as this group of friends on that night, for the "Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve." (Mark 10:45)

Personalizing John 3:16

A new way to look at John 3:16.

Anointed People: "That Boy Will Never Be a Preacher!"

Growing up in the rural Southern U.S. in the 20's, 30's, and 40's, many mothers dreamed that their sons would grow to preach the gospel, much like many today dream of their son growing up to become a doctor or lawyer. During this time, there was a young man in North Carolina named Billy. He was a bit of a quirky youth, and a lot of people did not think much of him. Many people said that "that boy will never grow up to be a preacher". And they were right, in a way. That boy did not simply grow up just to become a preacher. Billy Graham grew up to become one of the most remarkable men that God has used since possibly the Apostle Peter or the Apostle Paul. So the next time that you feel the need to "limit" one of our youngsters, consider that if God wanted to, he could make anyone the next Billy Graham.

Anointed People: "The Minister is Upstairs" (3 of 5)

It's been a while since I have posted on this blog, but I thought I would share this one. I'm not even if this is a true story or not, and I could not find it anywhere on the internet, so if you know the story and it is a little embellished, my apologies.

At one time there was this widowed Christian minister who had been pastoring different country churches for over 40 years. He had had a very fruitful ministry and many people had become Christians because of him and many people were better people because of his leadership. He was now getting older, and sometimes his back would hurt him and he would have various aches and pains.

Even though he was nearing retirement, he felt led to accept one more pastorate before he retired. So he put his resume out all over the state, and the only church that responded was a smaller church of about twenty people in an inner city. He went to candidate for them, they put it to a vote, and he was called to the church, and to the surprise of many of his friends and family, he accepted the call.

He packed up his belongings and fit everything he could carry into his tiny car, and he drove out to the large city to begin his pastorate in this large city. He preached his first sermon at his new church, and many people responded for healing and to rededicate their lives.

After church, he began apartment hunting in order to find a place to live (the church was too small for a parsonage). He encountered a lot of resistance, but a couple of days later he found an apartment. Unfortunately, the only one that he could find was a walk-up directly above a bar. To make matters worse, there was no outside entrance; he would have to go through the bar to get to the stairs and to his apartment.

He told the owner of the bar, who was also his landlord, of his plight. The landlord agreed that he would remind the bar patrons to not get too loud by putting a sign on the wall that said "The Minister is upstairs", which he did that same day.

Time went by, and the church grew to about 30 members. The minister also became very well-known at the bar, and sometimes he would stop before going to his apartment and would get a Pepsi (non-alcoholic of course) and sit and listen to the jukebox before going upstairs. As time went by people at the bar got to know the minister and of his kindness. Even though it was a normal bar, the minister became very well-respected. And always, the sign "The minister is upstairs" would be tacked to the wall once he went upstairs for the night.

A couple of times, the minister would even volunteer to take people home for the night who had had too much to drink. At times, people would decide to stop coming to the bar and would join his church instead. The landlord, who had become good friends with the minister, (and even swapped war stories with him a time or two as they had both been in the service in their younger days) would joke with him that he was "taking away my business!"

One cold November month no one from the church or from the bar had heard from the minister for a couple of days. After going upstairs to investigate, they found that the minister had died in his sleep a few days prior to that.

At the funeral there was a standing-room only crowd of the many people that the minister had touched over the years, including the landlord and some of the other people from the bar.

After going back to the bar to get ready for the crowd, the landlord noticed the sign "The minister is upstairs" hanging in its normal place. He paused from wiping down the counter top to remove the sign, but he didn't have the heart to do it.

The sign "The minister is upstairs" continued to hang in the bar for well over the next twenty years, and took on a new meaning as, of course, the minister was still, in a much better and glorious way, "Upstairs."

Anointed People: Pastor Kevin Bradford and the Congregation of First Pentecostal Church in Bakersfield, CA (2 of 5)

One of the things that we as Christians have a tendency to forget from time to time is that God can and does take our lowest moments and can use them for his glory. When Pastor Kevin Bradford of Bakersfield, California received the news in December 2o10 that he had diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, he was devastated. After announcing it to the congregation, he had surgery to remove one of his lymph nodes and began chemotherapy treatments. However, he did not plan for what happened next.

As he was beginning services in January, he realized very quickly that this was going to be a different kind of service. He smiled as he saw the stream of men who came into the sanctuary all with little or no hair. They had decided to shave their heads in solidarity and support for the pastor that they had.

This is what Christianity is supposed to be.

Link: http://www.fpcwichita.org/pentecostal-pastor-diagnosed-with-cancer-has-tremendous-support.html

Anointed People: Sojourner Truth (1 of 5)

I have decided I am going to start a series about people that were used of God for a certain time and place. The first person I have decided to write about is Sojourner Truth.

Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree in 1797 in Swartekill, New York. She was an individual that was mightily used of God both for the Christian faith and for the purpose of equal rights for people of color eveywhere. By the time of her passing in 1883, her many activities and accomplishments included the following:

• Received a life-changing vision at a stream that proved to her God's love for her.
• After running away and getting her freedom in 1826, she began a small ministry to city prostitutes.
• Felt the call of God to become an itinerant preacher at the age of 46, and said of the experience, "the spirit calls me and I must go."
• Recruited black soldiers to fight in the Union army during the Civil War.

Here is an excerpt from her famous "Ain't I a woman" speech in 1851:

"I could work as much and eat as much as a man---when I could get it---and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children and seen most of them sold into slavery. And when I cried out with a mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?" Sojourner continued, saying "that little man in back there, he says women can't have as much rights as men 'cause Christ wasn't a woman. Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from?" She answered her rhetorical question and said, "From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with it!"

This just goes to show you that long before Joyce Meyer, there was Sojourner Truth.

The Big Picture

There is a popular story about blind men who are feeling an elephant and trying to describe it. One man feels the tail and says, "the elephant is like a rope". Another blind man on a ladder feels the elephants skin and says the elephant is scaly and large and flat. Another man feels the elephant's ear and says that the elephant is thin. Still another feels the trunk and says that the elephant is thick, and narrow like a snake.

Obviously, someone who can see the elephant would be able to describe it in its entirety. God himself is a lot like that, because He can see the big picture. For the Christian, we can see the "big picture" as well, because we have the closest understanding to why things are the way that they are. For example, when we notice the problem of evil in the world, we know that the world is this way because of man's sinful nature. When we see love for each other, (not just romantic love either) love for country, and caring for people because they are all created in the image of God, we can get the "big picture". When we realize that God in His Son Jesus died for people all over the world, we get the "big picture" in how we are supposed to react to others.

The Poems of Helen Steiner Rice Part 2

God, Are You There?

=============================

I'm way down HERE!

You're way up THERE!

Are you sure You can hear

My faint, faltering prayer?

For I'm so unsure

Of just how to pray----

To tell you the truth, God,

I don't know what to say....

I just know that I am lonely

And vaguely disturbed,

Bewildered and restless,

Confused and perturbed...

And they tell me that prayer

Helps to quiet the mind

And to unburden the heart

For in stillness we find

A newborn assurance

That SOMEONE DOES CARE

and SOMEONE DOES ANSWER

Each small sincere prayer!

The Poems of Helen Steiner Rice, Part #1

This Christmas Eve 2010 I'm going to take a few blog posts and devote them to the poems of Helen Steiner Rice, who was a prolific Christian writer. Here is the first one:

Someone Cares
-----------------

Someone care and always will,
The world forgets but God loves you still,
You cannot go beyond His love,
No matter what you're guilty of---
For God forgives until the end,
He is your faithful, loyal friend,
And though you try to hide your face,
There is no shelter any place
That can escape His watchful eye,
For on the earth and in the sky
HE'S EVER PRESENT and ALWAYS THERE
to take you in His tender care
and bind the wounds and mend the breaks
When all the world around forsakes. . . . . . . .
SOMEONE CARES and LOVES YOU STILL
and GOD is THE SOMEONE who always will.

So, after reader Mrs. Steiner's words, remember that God does indeed care, and you should "cast all your cares on him, for He cares for you." (1 Peter 5:7)

*From the book the Collected Poems of Helen Steiner Rice, 1972: Fleming H. Revell Company.

The Importance of Christmas

Have you ever stopped to wonder why Christmas is just so important and why it is so important? To some, Christmas is a good time of year for the family; to others it is the time of year that helps their retail business stay afloat and keep them in the black for the rest of the year, but for others, the real meaning of Christmas is the fact of "Immanuel" or "God with us". The reason that we as Christians celebrate Christmas is because of the seemingly inconceivable miracle of the fact that God saw our sinful condition and decided to enter time and space in the form of a baby boy named Jesus born to Mary in the Roman backwater of First-Century Palestine.

Think about it this way, with this illustration:

Many years ago, there was a middle-aged farmer with a wife and two kids. The farmer was a loyal Christian and church-goer for most of his life, but that particular year he was feeling disheartened. His church had went through a very painful split and the pastor that he had grew fond of ending up having to resign. As a result, he felt that most Christians were hypocrites, and he was beginning to doubt his faith altogether. The church had their usual Christmas-eve service, and his family went as they always did, except this time he decided not to go. His wife and kids left him alone, and now he contemplated his life. As he walked to the barn he noticed some birds huddled together on the ground, apparently having missed the migration. The birds were freezing, he knew, and would likely die if they stayed where they were. If only he could get them to the safety of the warm barn....he tried everything he could think of, but the birds were scared to death of him. He even tried shooing them into the barn, but with no luck whatsoever. He finally had an epiphany. The birds are afraid of me. If only I could become one of them, then I could guide them into the safety of the warm barn. He then realized that Immanuel, or "God with us", had done just that on that cold evening thousands of years ago in early Palestine. That, my friends, is the purpose of Christmas. To remember that God in all his majesty entered time and space to be our Savior is the most important way to view the Christmas holidays.

God Story #10

It seems some time ago there was an Iranian Christian minister that was driving through the Iranian countryside with his wife. They stopped in a small town on the way to their destination to get some water. As they went into their equivalent of a grocery store to purchase the water, the man and his wife noticed an individual standing against the wall holding a machine gun. The wife pulled her husband aside and told her that he needed to give him the Bible that they had in the car. The husband prayed about it as they continued shopping in the store but ultimately decided against it. As they went back to the car and were putting their items away, the wife asked him once again to give him the Bible. The man refused because he was afraid. They drove away and made it out of town, and the wife continued to pray, and finally the man relented. "All right," he said, "I will go back and give him the Bible. If he shoots me, then he shoots me." They drove back to the store and the man with the machine gun was still standing there. The minister walked up to him and placed the Bible into his free hand. The man with the machine gun immediately began crying. "I don't live here," he said. "I had to walk for three days in order to get to this village. But three days ago an angel appeared to me and told me to walk to this village and wait until someone had given me the Book of Life. Thank you for giving me this book."

Because of this event, the minister became a courageous witness for Christ. Eventually, along with many other co-workers in the Iranian church, he was martyred for his faith.

Will there be pets in Heaven?

This is a very interesting debate for sure. There are some that say that animals do not have souls, so cannot go to heaven. There are some to say that animals do have souls, but they do not have an accountability of sin so they will. Wherever you would fall in this issue, its an interesting debate nonetheless!

Links:

http://my.opera.com/SavedNotFried/blog/index.dml/tag/Heaven

http://gotquestions.org/pets-heaven.html

Teaching of the New Testament

The teaching of the New Testament is that now, at this very moment, there is a Man in heaven appearing in the presence of God for us. He is as certainly a man as was Adam or Moses or Paul; he is a man glorified, but his glorification did not de-humanize him. Today he is a real man, of the race of mankind, bearing our lineaments and dimensions, a visible and audible man, whom any other man would recognize instantly as one of us. But more than this, he is the heir of all things, Lord of all lords, head of the church, firstborn of the new creation. He is the way to God, the life of the believer, the hope of Israel, and the high priest of every true worshiper. He holds the keys of death and hell, and stands as advocate and surety for everyone who believes on him in truth. Salvation comes not by accepting the finished work, or deciding for Christ; it comes by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole, living, victorious Lord who, as God and man, fought our fight and won it, accepted our debt as his own and paid it, took our sins and died under them, and rose again to set us free. This is the true Christ; nothing less will do. (from the pen of A. W. Tozer)

Powerful Movie

To Save a Life

----------------------

The movie To Save a Life is all about the tough subject of teen suicide, and is a powerful movie. The movie begins when the film's protagonist, star basketball player Jake Taylor, decides to reevaluate his life after the loss of his once-childhood friend, a kid named Roger, to suicide. Jake literally reevalutes everything, including his relationships, life choices, and future dreams. The movie touches on a variety of teenage issues, including self-mutilation, divorce of parents, teenage drinking, and a variety of other subjects including of course suicide. The movie is also very effective in touching on the positive influence that the Gospel of Jesus Christ can have on teenagers as well.

Have you "arrived" yet?

I was asked about a week ago by a friend of mine if I thought I had "arrived yet", because there are a lot of things in my life that are beginning to fall into place. As I reflect on his words, I really wonder about life and how we as humans always make it about a destination. If you are one of my five readers or even if you were just scrolling blogs, seriously, think about it for a minute...we humans are always looking forward to something in some stage of our lives. "Oh I can't wait until I'm in Junior High" we might say, or "Oh I can't wait until I graduate high school and can be on my own", "I can't wait until I get married!", "I can't wait until I start that new job!", "I can't wait until my baby is born!", "I can't wait until I get a promotion!", "I can't wait until I retire!", and we could go on and on for eternity if we wanted.

When we reach that seemingly impossible goal---that is usually when our human nature tells us that yes, we have arrived. We have arrived if we graduate high school. We have arrived if we get married. We have arrived if we get a promotion. We have arrived if we, after a long hard-working career, are able to retire. But....what if our arrival is only a dead end? Then what? What if our marriage, despite all of our best efforts, ends in divorce? What if that promotion places us in a position that brings too much added stress? What if our retirement is marred by a cancer diagnosis? What do we do?

While there are no simple answers, I do understand what it's like when someone's "arrival" is only a "dead end". When we arrive and find out its just a dead end, God is there! God is not just some ethereal tyrant up in the sky, some disengaged clock-maker, or just an imaginary being made up for comfort. When you have reached a dead end in your life, God is there! And for all those who call on the name of Jesus and are Christians, the final destination where one will actually truly "arrive" is Heaven, which Jesus said in his word: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." (John 14:2)