A Frigid Steering Wheel
O nations of the world, recognize the Lord;
….recognize that the Lord is glorious and strong.
Give to the Lord the glory he deserves! Psalm 96:7-8a NLT
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One thing that I notice on my bus every day this time of year is how cold my steering wheel is first thing in the morning! There have already been several mornings this winter, where our “feel like” temperature has been in the single digits. Though we can throttle up our buses and let them run for several minutes, diesel buses especially, do not warm up well.
I can’t speak for other drivers, but I wear a glove on cold days on my right hand which is closest to the door that opens and closes multiple times. I don’t like wearing one on my left hand because it’s too hard to scratch my nose or get something out of my eye with a glove on. So, when I grab the steering wheel, my right hand is fine, but it is absolutely frigid in my left hand!
It starts out that way but after a while the heat from my hand, a balmy 97 point something usually, warms up that portion of the steering wheel. And as long as I don’t move it too much – we’re supposed to keep our hands at 9:00 and 3:00 for the greatest control – it is no longer frigid but instead is warm to the touch.
My body temperature is the overriding power in this situation. If I had no heat on the bus and all the windows were open, the outside temperature would eventually affect my body temperature but since that is not the case, my body temperature impacts the steering wheel and not the other way around.
You may be wondering. “Where is he going with this?” Well, let me tell you!
As followers of Jesus, when we live our lives out amongst the world, we have His warmth running through us all the time. As long as we are in a relationship with Him, the cold world in which we live cannot impact us…we instead impact the world.
Most of you know that before I began driving a school bus, I worked at the same Kohl’s Department Store for 18 years. As with all things new, when I started there, it took a little while for people to warm up to me. Over time I developed several cherished relationships with my fellow workers. Many of those who allowed me to “touch” them in caring interaction, became dear friends.
Over the years I have been privileged to be a pastor to some. I have officiated marriages as well as funerals. When we began online services with COVID, a few, from what I lovingly referred to as my third church, began attending our virtual services. They call me with prayer requests and we all, as the body of Christ, gather around them and pray for one another.
What was once cold, by no choice of our own – it’s just the way things were – has now become warm. Indifference for many has become relationships of compassion, they care for me, and I care for them. And all because of Jesus! His love for me readily transferred through me to them. And truly we are all the better for it!
Lord Jesus, may we diligently maintain our relationship with You as we reach out and touch the world. Use us to love others. When we strive to love You with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we can surely love others as we love ourselves (Luke 10:27). Amen.
Jan 23rd, 2022, Sun, 7:37 pm
God’s Perfect Agenda (Part 2)
Father, thank You for the blessings on this relatively normal day. It’s easy to forget to be grateful for normal, but I sure am. All praise to You!
Acts 3:12-26 (<<click here to read the passage)
(This is part two of yesterday’s post – God’s Perfect Agenda – check it out before you read this one.)
When Abraham came along, he listened to God. He followed God’s leading – and yes, he messed some things up, too – but overall, things continued to move in the right direction. Of course, for Israel, there were plenty of ups and downs…alright probably quite a few more downs, but God kept encouraging them to move forward.
God gave them all the direction they needed to be a nation set apart and holy. But they couldn’t escape sin’s constant intrusion. Selfishness, arrogance, lust, greed…they all wiggled their way into the mindsets of God’s holy people.
God desired to reach the world through His people. But they lost interest in the things of God. They chased after their own heart’s desires. And even when God’s Chosen One, the Messiah – Jesus, stood right in front of them, they rejected Him. Sin did what sin always does. It put up a wall between us and God.
Peter, with his infilling of the Holy Spirit, continued to proclaim what God had wanted us to understand from the beginning. We messed things up but God had made a Way for the chasm between us to be eliminated.
Jesus Christ’s self-sacrifice – taking upon Himself the sins of the world, dying in our stead, and His victory over death and the grave became the Way to overcome sin’s control. Yes, we still struggle. We still fall. But the Holy Spirit is there to pick us up, dust us off, and encourage us to keep moving upward and onward!
We are still called to separate ourselves. We are still called to be holy. Peter and company succeeded in bringing literally thousands of people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, but only because they allowed the Holy Spirit to fill them and use them. When He is in control, He enables us to remain separate and holy. We think differently than the world does. We act differently than the world does. When we do things the world’s way, sin influences us, and both we and the world lose. When we do things God’s way, He influences us, and we are victorious.
Lord Jesus, You created us so that You could have someone to love and that we would love You back. And though we messed up Your plan, You have put everything in place so that we can get back to that place. And You use us to accomplish that goal. May we willingly be used as Your hands and feet to reach the world with the Good News of that message. Amen.
Jan 20th, 2022, Thurs, 8:38 pm
God’s Perfect Agenda
Publish his glorious deeds among the nations.
….Tell everyone about the amazing things he does.
Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise! Psalm 96:3-4a NLT
Acts 3:12-26 (<<click here to read the passage)
Why are we so set in our ways? There are times when we refuse to move out of our way of thinking and other times it’s just easier to remain with our limited mindsets. It would take too much time or effort or resources on our part to go another direction. And when I say “we”, I’m not just talking about you and me, I’m talking about a majority of humanity from the beginning of time!
A note in my Life Application Study Bible says that beginning with Abraham God had promised that He would bless the world through Abraham’s descendants, the Jewish race (Genesis 12:3), from which the Messiah would come.
And the last part of the note is what grabbed my attention.
God intended the Jewish nation to be a separate and holy nation that would teach the world about God, introduce the Messiah, and then carry on his work in the world. After the days of Solomon, the nation gave up its mission to tell the world about God.
In the very beginning, God’s human creation decided to separate themselves from God’s perfect agenda. They allowed sin to enter the world and cut themselves off from continuing God’s work in the world He had created.
Through the centuries, there were a few here and there who truly strove to follow God’s directive for their lives…but sin made it extremely difficult. Our mindsets and free will constantly trip us up!
In Paul’s writings to the Romans, he hit the nail on the head. He said,
I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. Romans 7:15-20 NLT
That’s our problem but I need to pull up the reigns here. I finished writing this post, but it is way too long. So, I will put out the rest of it tomorrow! Hang in there, I pray that it will be worth waiting for!
Lord Jesus, plant this seed in our hearts. May it begin to grow and then grow even more when the rest of it is shared tomorrow. Amen!
Jan 19th, 2022, Wed, 7:36 pm
Consequences
An unexpected day off enabled me to get ahead a little bit on service preparation. Thank You Father for unexpected blessings!
Acts 3:12-26 (<<click here to read the passage)
I’m an odd duck of sorts. I’m an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene but have served in the United Methodist Church (UMC) for almost 20 years now. They are considered sister denominations, with the Nazarene church branching off from the Methodists more than a hundred years ago. Doctrinally we’re not identical, but very similar. Probably the biggest difference for me is how we’re governed.
For example, both denominations have District Superintendents. If you’re elected to that position in the Nazarene church, you serve in it until you retire – most of the time but not always. In the UMC, those positions are appointed by the bishops who serve above them. They fill that role for four years or so and either return to pastoral ministry or possibly retire.
Local pastors then are always getting new faces, new ideas, etc. Of course, there are pros and cons but overall, it works well. One of the challenges is that we regularly have a new “boss”. Since we’re all on the same team, it’s best for all if we follow their directives. We listen to them and do our best to obey them. The bad thing is, pastors can have their own mindsets and are ofttimes not easily persuaded to change course, just because the new guy or gal says so.
When Jesus came on the scene, being the true Boss, He ruffled quite a few feathers – so much so, that, according to God’s plan, it led to His death. As we know, that was by no means the end of the story. Jesus conquered death and rose victorious!
In today’s passage, the Apostle Peter boldly proclaimed who Jesus was and what He had come to accomplish. Under the Spirit’s inspiration, Peter regularly quoted many Old Testament Scriptures – most fulfilling prophecy from of old.
In this sermon, he quotes Deuteronomy 18:15 by stating,
Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a Prophet [i.e., Jesus Christ] like me from your countrymen; you shall listen to Him and obey everything He tells you. Acts 3:22 AMP (emphasis mine)
Well for many, that didn’t happen. A majority of the Jewish religious leaders thought more along the lines of “Listen and obey that young upstart? Who is He that we should listen to Him? We’re in charge and will do as we well please!”
Peter goes on to say in verse 23,
Then Moses said, ‘Anyone who will not listen to that Prophet will be completely cut off from God’s people.’ NLT
This reference is taken from Deuteronomy 18:19 and Leviticus 23:29. (Keep in mind these are parts of God’s Law which they were to know inside and out.)
It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he [i.e., Jesus Christ] shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him [and there will be consequences]. Deuteronomy 18:19 AMP (emphasis mine)
If there is any person who will not humble himself on this same day, he shall be cut off from his people [excluding him from the atonement made for them]. Leviticus 23:29 AMP (emphasis mine)
If they were truly listening, that had to sting. If they didn’t change their mindsets, there would be consequences…they would be excluding themselves from the atonement made for them.
Before we get too high and mighty about their attitudes, we mustn’t forget that we have to accept Jesus as the Christ – the Messiah – as well. And now that we know, there are no excuses.
Jan 18th, 2022, Tues, 7:18 pm
Forgive and Forget
Thank You for a productive day, Father. Yes, it was a day to finish up year-end reports for my churches, but they are done!
Acts 3:12-26 (<<click here to read the passage)
One thing we all tend to struggle with is to forgive. I have written several times about our need to forgive. A key verse in that line of thinking is found in Ephesians 4:32,
Be kind and helpful to one another, tender-hearted [compassionate, understanding], forgiving one another [readily and freely], just as God in Christ also forgave you. AMP (emphasis mine)
Hopefully, we succeed at forgiving more times than not. But how do we do with the adage, “forgive and forget”? We struggle with forgiveness, yet it is nigh impossible to forget. It probably wouldn’t take much for many of us to recall incidents committed against us when we were children. And it’s probably a good possibility that even all these years later, it still can make us a little hot under the collar! “As a follower of Jesus, I may have to forgive them, but how in the world am I supposed to forget what they did!”
One Old Testament passage that comes readily to mind is one of David’s psalms, which reads,
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12 AMP
Can you picture that in your mind? If you began traveling north, eventually you would begin traveling south. But, if you started traveling east, you would never begin traveling west. It just doesn’t work that way! That is how far our God has removed our sins – our transgressions – from us!
The Old Testament prophet Micah shared the same train of thought.
He shall again have compassion on us; He will subdue and tread underfoot our wickedness [destroying sin’s power]. Yes, you will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. Micah 7:19 AMP (emphasis mine)
When Peter, in Jesus’ name, healed the lame man by the Beautiful Gate, he took advantage of the gathering crowd by once again proclaiming the word the Spirit gave him. After plainly showing them how that had had a hand in killing the Messiah, he laid out their only hope of salvation. He said,
So repent [change your inner self—your old way of thinking, regret past sins] and return [to God—seek His purpose for your life], so that your sins may be wiped away [blotted out, completely erased], so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord [restoring you like a cool wind on a hot day] Acts 3:19 AMP (emphasis mine)
The Amplified Bible uses the phrase blotted out, which is also found in the King James Version. Merriam-Webster defines the verb blot out to mean to destroy all traces of.
Do you get the point? God forgets! When we repent, he forgives and removes our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west. He cast them into the depths of the sea. He blots them out, never to the see, heard, or thought of ever again! Our almighty God who can do anything and everything chooses to forget! And He can help us do the same! Amen and amen!
Jan 17th, 2022, Mon, 7:01 pm