God Can When You Can't!

God Works in Wondrous Ways – Yes, he really does. Many of you know that, in the past, I’ve had two sons in the Marine Corps. One chose to make a career out of the Corps. The other gladly served his time and then got out.


It is tough on any family who has a loved one in a combat zone. In the day of instant news, when everyone has a camera on their cell phone and when pictures and video from the other side of the world, can appear on your computer screen as they happen, there is nowhere to hide from the violence that happens so suddenly unless a person chooses to disconnect from communications entirely.
Well, with two sons in the service it was bound to happen sooner or later. There came a time when they were both going to be in Iraq at the same time. Due to deployment schedules and the fact that one was stationed in Hawaii and the other in North Carolina the two had not seen each other in several years. We had hoped to get them home for Christmas and get the special Christmas photo with both of them and their dress blues, but the opportunity never presented itself. In fact, we had never seen the two of them together in any form of official military dress.

Walt, the older one, was headed out of Iraq after completing his second tour. Alex was headed into Iraq for his second one. We had hoped there would be an opportunity for them to see each other. The Marine Corps had promised they would do what they could, but we knew it would be a God thing if it happened at all.

One evening the phone rang. It was Alex. He was at the Al Asad AFB staging for deployment in the Al Anbar province. He was in the middle of a huge tent city – hundreds of them, enough to house a whole battalion. He was trying to give us an address, but the best he could do was to say that he was in tent #36. We wished him well, told him we loved him, and promised to pray for him. That’s all a parent can do. However, God can always do more.

About 30 minutes later Walt called. He was in Al Asad as well with his battalion getting ready to come home. He said he had been looking for Alex all day, but there were so many tents he had no clue where to look. Try #36.

God is good. He takes care of things when we have no resources to meet the challenge. This remains the only picture of the two of them together in uniform. I love it dearly.

Pastor Craig
 
P.S. For those of you who are wondering, Alex is on the left and Walt is on the right!

Cheated

Cheated – We don’t like to be cheated. We get mad when we find out that the used car we bought is not 100% as represented. We are frustrated when the new and improved on the product we are trying must refer to the box because it certainly DOES NOT refer to the product! We don’t like being lied to; we don’t like feeling like we have been betrayed!

We guard against being cheated. We buy products with warranties on them. We even purchase the extended warranty program. The more valuable the product, the more likely we are to secure a guarantee of its quality, the more likely we are to assure ourselves as much as possible that we are not being taken advantage of by anyone.

Why would Paul find it necessary to warn us about being cheated out of our reward in Jesus Christ. Certainly we would make sure that we do everything within our power to strengthen our faith. Certainly we would evaluate the claims of the person preaching the Word of God against what we have read ourselves in the Word! That would have to go without saying, it would seem.

Recently we bought a new television. We checked out warranties. We educated ourselves about pixels and resolution. Tracy learned the difference between plasma and LCD televisions. I, eventually, gave up. After all, when WIPEOUT! is your favorite show, are you really that concerned about picture quality, or do you just want to see a good solid face plant?

The point I am trying to make is that we educate ourselves because so often we don’t feel our sales person REALLY knows what they are talking about. We want to know for ourselves!

Yet, when it comes to spirituality, we don’t really seek to educate ourselves at all. We trust the person in front of our class or behind our pulpits. We believe that all that schooling so many of our pastors have MUST be good for something! Yet, we seldom, if ever, check out what the Scriptures have to say for ourself. We simply trust to “the professionals.”

Paul cautions the Colossian Christians, “don’t let anyone cheat you out of your reward!” How could they do that? WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?! Paul says that unless they preach and teach the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ come down to take up our burdens, they may very well be wasting your time. If the sermon is always about empty viewpoints, and the multitude of angels, if study is always and only an academic exercise and seldom if ever a practical application of the Word of the Living God to your daily life, then you have someone who is taking you captive through worldly philosophy and not promoting nurture and growth in Jesus Christ. The only way we know these things is to spend more time reading the manual for our lives and educating ourselves on the workings of the human heart and soul than we do finding out about the latest and greatest in televisions.

Pastor Craig

Lay 'Em Down

Lay ‘em Down – The message of the Gospel is so simple. Lay down your burdens and walk away. Not your responsibilities, sorry about that. You’ve still got to take care of those. However, you don’t have to worry about them to the point of distraction. You can Lay ‘em Down like the words of the song by Need To Breathe.

It can be so difficult to do something so simple. Maybe what Jesus was saying to Martha was a call to lay down her burdens, to set aside her worries, to find peace and relaxation at the feet of the Savior. Many of us who have found salvation are still in search of the peace we thought we would get with it. The problem is not a defective form of salvation but, rather, an incomplete one – not incomplete in the sense that we will end up short of the Kingdom.

This incompleteness is more along the lines of buying a high end computer to do nothing more than play solitaire on! It could do so much more.

You know, at that exact instant, I don’t think Jesus cared if the table was set just so. I’m not sure he would have noticed if the food had was getting cold or overcooked because the conversation had gone too long. There was a teachable moment in the life of one of His children and that was all that mattered.

You’ve all seen the saying, “Don’t sweat the small stuff. Just remember, it’s all small stuff.”

Now, we know that’s not exactly true. Some of life’s decisions are of tremendous important. The problem is, most of those are usually beyond our control. The issue is not really about our decision; it’s about our battle for control. We give up control when we Lay ‘em Down.

Pastor Craig

The Way Home

Of all the parables Jesus told there is probably none more widely known than the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Even those of you who have been away from church for a long time can probably relate its basic story line.

A man has two sons. One of them requests his share of the inheritance so he can go and seek his fortune in the world. He gets it and promptly leaves.

He spends much of his early time on the road being the life or the party. He has friends and is well know. However, one day the money runs out and so do his friends. Eventually he finds his way back home after much turmoil and hardship. His father welcomes him back with open arms and still claims him as his own. Read it in Luke 15:11ff.

However, this wonderful story is preceded by two other stories, each of them well known in their own right, but seldom read with the story of the Prodigal Son. Most pastors preach them separately. However, it seems Jesus told them together in a single sitting.

The two preceding stories talk about a lost sheep and a lost coin. In each case a diligent search is made. The shepherd abandons the other sheep in the field and goes off to search and find the lost one. The woman tears apart her house until she finds the one coin. When she finds it she is so excited she calls the whole neighborhood together to tell them about it.

All three of these parables talk about the wondrous rejoicing over being found, when we recognize that God has been searching for us for so long and finally respond to His voice and come to him, there is indeed great rejoicing. There is more to this section than just rejoicing. Have you seen it? Some of you picked up just in my retelling here.

We search for lost animals. We are anxious beyond words when we lose our wallet. But, we never really go look for our brothers and sisters who may be stumbling blindly through life and feel so alone. Who went to look for the Lost Son? No one!

Jesus command was not for us to hide in our churches and shut out the rest of the world. He did not tell us to start programs or organizations to do the work he called us to do. No, Jesus’ last words to His disciples were to “Go!” He wants us to find that stumbling brother or sister and journey with them back home! 

Pastor Craig