Bad News

Bad news. We’ve all gotten it at some point in our lives. Maybe it was the unexpected loss of a loved one, or maybe your company was downsizing and they were letting you go, or maybe a doctor’s visit didn’t go how you had planned. Bad news comes in all shapes and sizes and doesn’t care about your social status, age or race. Most of us will not, and probably have not, received bad news only once in our lives. If you’re reading this today, you have survived 100% of the bad news you have been given so far in life.

So what do we do when bad news comes knocking at our doors as Christians?  What should our response be?  The Bible is pretty clear on what our course of action should be when the time comes: pray. First and foremost, we should personally pray to God for our own situation. We should go to Him with our fears, our weaknesses and our questions. God is big enough to handle all of them. I think of the the life of David between when he was anointed king and he actually became king. The trials and tribulations (bad news) he endured during those times that give us so much of the Book of Psalms. “I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.” - Psalm 34:4.

Second, we should confide in our closest circle the need for them to pray with us and for us. Our closest and dearest friends and family will always seek the Lord on our behalf in whatever bad news we may be facing making supplications for our needs. “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” - James 5:16. We know from God’s Word that where two or three are gathered together in His name, He is there. When we ask for His will to be done, He hears our prayers.

Lastly, when we are done praying, we are to pray some more, seeking God’s intervention. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” - Matthew 7:7-8. God’s answer may not always be what we think is the correct response, but it is always the right response in accordance to His Will. Even our Savior knew that, “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.’” - Matthew 26:39.

Have a great day and God bless.

Homecoming

Homecoming. It’s that time of year again. I’ve seen tons of pictures of my high school friends who have kids that are now in high school and all the homecoming dance pictures from this weekend. Everyone was all dressed up and looking pretty in their dress  and handsome in their suits and ties. My alma mater had their homecoming weekend this past weekend with my former college having an alumni soccer game as part of the celebration. Too bad I live about 700 miles away or I would have loved to go back and catch up with old friends and teammates.

There have been some awesome stories in the news the past couple of weeks where high school student bodies selected classmates, that would otherwise be left out, as their kings and queens. Kids with special needs being honored by their classmates by being crowned to homecoming courts. One story told of a girl who had been shot a few years ago, and recovered, being chosen as the homecoming queen. All feel good stories that bring a tear to your eye. Kids that normally aren’t considered the popular crowd being given the spotlight of their school for one special night. I congratulate their classmates for doing such an honorable thing.

Jesus taught His disciples the same principle about honoring those that may be considered less fortunate or not the most popular people. “He said also to the man who had invited him, ‘When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.’” - Luke 14:12-14.

We are blessed when we bless those who cannot provide us anything in return. Those that are not able to repay you for what you have done receive a greater blessing than those that can give back to you what you have given to them. There will always be people more fortunate than ourselves, and there will always be people that are less fortunate. God commands us to reach down and help those that we can without needing to be repaid for what we’ve done.

Have a great day and God bless.

Balance

Balance. Have you ever just lost your balance because you’ve gotten your foot caught unexpectedly?  It hasn’t happened to me often. About ten years ago I got my foot caught in a book bag strap and dislocated all my fingers in my right hand. This morning, on the way to church, I got my foot caught in between the car door and the porch and lost my balance. I didn’t fall hard, but I did do enough to twist my knee. I don’t know if it was more about being embarrassed than being hurt, but I jumped back to my feet as quickly as I could.

Life works the same way, we are occasionally knocked off balance by unexpected events in life. Those events are different for each of us, some may be facing health issues that knock us off balance, some may be facing family issues and others may be facing work or school issues. Life knocks us down and we have two decisions to make: stay down and sulk or get up and keep going.

I think about the prodigal son, when he came to the end of his money and he had to hire himself out as a pig farmer, living in the mud with pigs. He could have just stayed in the slop and decided that it was his lot in life, but he didn’t. He came to his sense and said that working for his father was better than what he was doing at that point. “I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants."” - Luke 15:18-19.

He made a decision to get up from the pig pen and go back home admitting that he had sinned. “And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'” - Luke 15:21. When we break our fellowship with God, we need to go back to the Father admitting that what we had done was sin in His eyes. And just like the father of the prodigal son, our Heavenly Father will welcome us home with open arms. “And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” - Luke 15:20.

Have you fallen in your walk with God recently?  Are you far from Him and don’t know how to go back?  It’s easy; come to your sense and head back to God and admit to Him that you had sinned. He’ll welcome you back without hesitation.

Have a great day and God bless.

Turn Around

Turn around. I was on my way to a yearly event tonight by myself as my family stayed at home. As I was making my way to the event, the Holy Spirit spoke to me to turn around and go back home and spend the evening with my family. I’m going to be doing some traveling soon and will be away from them during that time, I didn’t need to be away from them tonight. I tried to argue with the Holy Spirit that I only do this event once a year, but He wasn’t having it. So I turned around and came back home. I’m glad I did. We had dinner and then a family movie.

God wants us to “turn around” too; it’s called repentance. To repent means to realize the path you are traveling down is the wrong path, so you turn around and head back towards the direction you left. The wrong path is the path that leads away from God, so to turn around, or repent, means to turn back towards the direction of God. It’s not a ninety degree turn, it’s a one hundred and eighty degree turn.

“Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” - Luke 15:7.

“Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus.” - Acts 3:19-20.

“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” - 2 Corinthians 7:10.

I am glad that I turned back tonight and came home to my family. But more importantly, I’m glad I turned back one day about seventeen years ago and came home to my Heavenly Father. He greeted me with open arms, just like the father of the prodigal son, and said, “Welcome home my child, I’ve been waiting for you!”

Have a great day and God bless.

Burn the Ships

Burn the ships. That seems like an odd topic for a post about Christianity doesn’t it?  Actually, it comes from a newly released song that is out on the radio. The first time that I heard it, I didn’t understand what burning ships had to do with God. But, the more that I listened to the song, the more it made sense in the context of the rest of the song. The concept of burning the ships relates to forgetting our past and moving on with our future.

I don’t know about you, but there are many things in my past that I regret, both before I became a Christian and after I became one. The one thing about our past is that we can’t change it, it’s gone, and we can’t do anything about it. All we can do is learn from what we did and apply those lessons to the rest of our lives to make sure that we do not commit the same mistakes in the future.

I think of all of the people in the Bible that had either a sketchy past, or a downright sinful past, that God still used. People that had committed murder, people that were harlots, and people that were the least respected in the culture of their time. God forgot about their past and was more concerned about their future. The Apostle Paul comes to mind. He approved of the stoning death of Stephen and was the hunter of people of the Way. God met him along the road to Damascus and forever changed his future.

“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 3:13-14. There may be things in your past that keep you from moving forward with life, from doing the things that God has called you to do. We need to forget what lies behind because God has - “as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” - Psalm 103:12.

Don’t worry about your past, there is nothing you can do to change it and if Satan wants to bring it up, tell him that it has already been nailed to the Cross. Forget what lies behind and keep pushing forward towards the mark.

Have a great day and God bless.

Justice and Mercy

Justice and mercy. It was never more evident than in the courtroom yesterday. A former cop shot a killed a man that she thought was inside her apartment. The problem was that it wasn’t her apartment, she was on the wrong floor. She went to trial and was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to ten years in prison yesterday. Justice was served.

But an amazing thing happened after the sentencing was over: mercy showed up. The brother of the victim offered forgiveness to the lady that shot and killed his brother. He spoke from the witness stand saying that he didn’t want bad things for her life, he wanted her to find grace in the person of Jesus Christ. He got up from the witness stand and went down to the young lady and hugged her as an outward sign of his mercy and grace towards her.

It wasn’t only the brother of the victim that came down to show mercy to the recently sentenced ex-cop. The judge rose from her bench and came down to hug the accused, as well as, the mother of the victim. The judge gave the young lady a copy of her personal Bible that she kept at her bench and instructed her to take the time she was sentenced to, to read it.

I can’t count the number of times that I have heard God spoken of in one of two ways: as a ruthless judge looking to condemn people to hell, or a God of love that would never send anyone to hell. Both descriptions are not fully accurate of who God is. God is a Holy and Righteous God who cannot be in the presence of sin, because of that He must judge sin and those that commit sin. God is love. He loves His creation so much He sent His only Son to die on the Cross in our place. Just like a coin has two sides, so does God.

There is no better example of justice and mercy than the Cross of Calvary. Justice needed to be carried out for the sin of man because God demands justice. But mercy showed up in the form of Jesus Christ who went to the Cross to pay for our sins; that’s love. “For our sake he made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” - 2 Corinthians 5:21. Justice was carried out that day on Jesus Christ so that we who put our faith in Him may receive the mercy of God, just like what happened in that courtroom yesterday.

Have you received God’s mercy? Or are you planning to taking the judgement of your own sins upon yourself in a place called hell?  God doesn’t send people to hell, people choose to go there because they are too proud to accept the free gift of salvation.

Have a great day and God bless.

Potholes

Potholes. On my way to work this morning, as I was going around a turn, I got a little too close to the shoulder of the road and I hit a pothole with my tire. I hit it hard. Hard enough to think that I may have popped the tire. I pulled over a little further down the road just to make sure I didn’t hear any air leaking from the tire. No issues with the tire going flat but it did drive a little funny after that.

But isn’t that a lot like life thought, we are cruising right along with no issues and then out of nowhere we hit a pothole. Maybe it’s a financial pothole, or a health pothole or maybe even a relationship pothole. And all of a sudden things no longer feel right. We aren’t on the side of the road broken down, but things are no longer running like they once did.

There will be potholes throughout our entire lives. Things that catch us by surprise. Some potholes may be bigger than others and some potholes may do more damage than others. But life goes on. We make the necessary repairs and continue down the road. As Christians, we’ve never been promised a smooth road, in fact, just the opposite is true. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." - John 16:33.

Potholes will come, there’s no doubt about it. Make the repairs and keep on your journey to becoming more and more like Christ.

Have a great day and God bless.