Unchanged and Unmoved

Do you ever watch those commercials on TV for World Vision or other programs that feed starving children in places far away?  They always start by panning in on the face of a poor child. Then they talk about how they live from day to day.

 They show images of children sorting through garbage dumps, living in paper shacks with a large family in one room, flies buzzing around their dirt and tear streaked faces.  They live in abject poverty, depravity, hunger, disease on all sides, with no hope for a future.  They get you, don’t they?  I know they do me.

 Let’s change the picture today.  We pan in on the face of a blond haired, blue eyed, healthy, tanned, smiling child.  We see him or her in the front yard of his parent’s 10 bedroom estate.  He’s getting ready to get in mom’s Mercedes, to be taken to his exclusive private school, to be joined by his well to do friends. Well fed, well groomed, well educated, and afforded every luxury and advantage that is possible by his loving parents.  They get you don’t they?  I know they do me, only in a different way from the first child.

 Compare the two; child of poverty versus child of wealth. Loving home versus orphaned street urchin, 3 meals a day of the best food money can buy versus eating out of a garbage dump, Nike and Prada versus dirty callused bare feet.  Some comparison isn’t it.

 Here’s the most important question and think hard; which child needs Jesus more?  Do we base how we react on what appears to be the person with the greatest need?  Consider the story of the rich man and Lazarus in the gospel of Luke.  What do we know about these two individuals?

Lazarus was a beggar!  He was covered in sores.  He was obviously homeless.  He probably even had a unique odor that surrounded him.  He wasn’t popular or handsome.  He was a beggar!  He was that child in the commercial.

The rich man was, well, a rich man.  Fair-haired, well fed, clothed in the finest linen.  He had the best chariot; he went to the best schools, lived in the finest home.  In other words he had need of nothing.  His life was a fairy tale from start to finish.  He had it all!

When Lazarus died, do you think they had a great funeral for him at the local temple?  Did all of his friends come out and say wonderful things about him and the life he lived?  Did they tell of his great charitable works and what a wonderful person he was?  Did they weep over the loss of a person of such great power and influence?  Did the funeral procession stretch for miles?  Did the local media report of the great loss?  Not for Lazarus, no.  But for the rich man, yes.

Lazarus was probably taken to the local potter’s field and buried in a shallow grave amongst the rest of the paupers and the disenfranchised.  No words were probably even spoken over his grave.  After all, he was a poor homeless loner with no family, no friends, nothing.

But you see, we still haven’t answered my question; who needed Jesus more?  “We” would say that the poor guy who had nothing is the one who needed everything.  He after all had nothing, so he needed Him the most.  He couldn’t help himself, so he needed the most help.  The rich man had it all.  What could he possibly need?  That’s our perception.  Matthew chapter 25 says that if we do it to the least of these, we do it unto Him.  Makes sense, but which one is the least of these?

So let’s take a step back for a minute and examine this from a heart prospective.  What does God see that we don’t see?  And why are we not moved at the plight of those who seemingly “have it all”?  You see, sin is like cancer.  It starts as a microscopic organism and as it consumes it grows.  You can’t usually see cancer.  The person looks healthy.  How much easier it would be if all cancer was like skin cancer, growing on the outside for all to see.  But it’s not.

In the final analysis, the rich man’s condition was not visible, but like cancer, it was there.  What was on the outside was sweetness and light, but inside darkness and despair.  He didn’t have a relationship with the one who made him.  The consequences of not knowing are deadly.

But we’re not moved by that image.  We see with our finite eyes.  If we could see the infinite condition of a man’s heart, then we would be moved.  Our attitudes would be changed.  We’d see as God sees. 

We need to be moved.  We need to have compassion for very person, not just the ones we deem as worthy.  You see, if we see as God sees, we’ll be changed.  If we know the quiet desperation of the human condition and not just of the need for food, shelter, clothing and medical care, we would be moved.  We would be moved as God was when he saw our condition and did the only thing that could be done, giving His One and only for us.

It’s time we’re changed.  It’s time we’re moved.  Time’s running out for so many. 

Are you?  Be one…

What is Holiness

I want to preface this commentary with a commentary on my commentary. I know, if you’ve told me once you’ve told me a thousand times to not be redundant, but it is what it is:

I will always endeavor to do my very best to keep this blog from being overtly (or even covertly) political in nature, to try to not be so preachy that it turns people off, but since this is the pastor’s blog, I felt that I needed to address a topic that I found somewhat troubling, and that made me think about something else that was important to me. Boy was that a gigantic run on sentence or what?

Here goes: In the past several months, we have had many opportunities to observe, directly and indirectly, by all types of media, a great deal of political rallies, speeches, various and sundry debates and commentaries, all of which came to a head this past November with an historic election of a new president.

My interests being more than just a casual observance of these events, I watched with somewhat of a critical eye not only the presenters, but those being presented to, on both sides of the equation. I found something eerily common, a thread that ran through the entire process if you will. It reminded me of a scripture reference:

Exodus 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Where am I going with this and what does it have to do with the subject of holiness? Let’s get there together. Watching the people watching the speech makers was very unsettling. What I saw was people worshipping the creature rather than the Creator. They would nod their collective heads and cling on every word as if they came straight from the mountain top and were in the hands of Moses himself.

The fact is, no matter who was speaking, they did have one very important thing in common; they were human, just people, not prophets, not sages or soothsayers, not men that came from the heavens bringing glad or sad or bad news. They were not endowed with wisdom beyond their station. They were just men. None of them could even begin to explain to us how we should live our lives in the light of eternity. They have no more of an understanding what it means to be holy or to live a life of holiness than the very short lived fruit fly. Just men, nothing more.

So if these fairly intelligent well spoken individuals cannot impart on us the real meaning of living the kind of life that will please God, then who can? Who do we turn to that will give us the necessary tools to function at the highest of levels, to fulfill our grand purpose for being on this little ball we call earth? Good question! Let’s try to gain a little insight, establish some parameters if you will. Here are some quotes from some famous people about holiness:

Oswald Chambers, who penned the book ‘My Utmost for His Highest’ said this – “Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man.”

William Law, an English theologian from the 18th century wrote – “This, and this alone, is Christianity, a universal holiness in every part of life, a heavenly wisdom in all our actions, not conforming to the spirit and temper of the world but turning all worldly enjoyments into means of piety and devotion to God.”

The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 14 – “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, with out which no man shall see the Lord.”

George Whitfield, an evangelist in England in the 1700’s penned these words – “It is an undoubted truth that every doctrine that comes from God, leads to God; and that which doth not tends to promote holiness is not of God.”

I have learned one thing from all of this wisdom; being holy is hard! The quote from William Law could and probably has caused a lot of folks to think that living a life that’s holy, of not following the creature, but following the Creator, can be one of cloister and separation, of self denial, of suffering and sacrifice, of forsaking anything that would give you selfish pleasures. A life that says all of those things that we humans so enjoy would need to be avoided. Wow! How can that kind of life be possible? Well, it’s not, except…

I have good news for you. I do not see the priesthood or a nunnery in your near or distant future! You can have all of those things. You know; pleasure happiness, joy, and even a little fun, and still live a life that would meet the standard that Oswald Chambers addressed. To me, and I’m no theologian, even though I’ve got a degree that says I could be if I had just stayed off of the basketball court and studied a little harder, where true holiness is concerned, where the desire to walk the walk and not just talk the talk, where being consistent and true to the One who gave us life really matters, the process becomes a joy rather than a burden.

You know what He did for us. He did all the heavy lifting, He made the necessary and hard decisions, and He gave the ultimate and most precious gift. All that he asks from us is that we live a life that is pleasing in His eyes.

You see, all we need to do is follow that other verse that I personally love so much in Romans chapter 12 verse 1 – “ I beseech ye therefore brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

Such a little thing to be holy. He said reasonable service. That’s what it means. You don’t have to go to some far away land and be a missionary and give up heart and home. You can be holy right here! Looking at holiness in that light makes a huge difference in our ability to live that way.

Bottom line: Holiness is about sacrifice, about following the Creator. But it’s also something that we can all do. Even me, and I’m just an ordinary guy.

I’m back!

You know, there are times when you just get so busy that you really don’t get anything done. In reality, you’re not that busy. Even the President takes time from his busy schedule of putting us in debt up to our children’s eyeballs to play a little basketball.

So I guess that I’m not really all that busy, I just haven’t taken time to come back and say a few words. So here I am, with my hat in my hand (I’m indoors so I can’t wear it on my head. Momma said that’s bad manners) trying to apologize for my false busy.

This week at our little church, we’re going to talk about friends. You see, I’ve learned a very valuable lesson. It’s taken me 30 years, but I finally figured it out. You just don’t make many real friends in this life. You become aquainted with hundreds, even thousands of people, but you really don’t make that many friends.

For instance, about 5 years ago, I was in a grocery store somewhere in Fort Worth and this lady who I thought I had never met ran up and hugged the stuffing out of me. She said, “Oh brother Randy, you came to my church and sang 20 years ago. We really loved you and the group you were in (college ensemble). Thanks for coming!” My first thought was, ‘who are you, and why are you hugging me?’

Then I realized, this person who I thought I had never met was touched by a brief encounter that made a difference in her life. I was amazed by that! We weren’t especially good and not really remarkable enough to remember, but we had an effect on at least one person. That’s really all that matters.

So you see, if just a chance or a brief encounter has that kind of effect on a person, just imagine what a long term real friendship can do.

Benjamin Franklin said the following: “Be slow in choosing your friends; slower in changing.” When you find a true friend, keep them. They are precious. They will stand you in good stead, and they are few and far between.

By the same token, Ralph Waldo Emerson said the following; “I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with the roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know.”

He wanted us to know that real lasting true friendship cannot be broken simply by the whim of a disagreement, by difference in ideolgy.  It stands the true test of time and distance.  You do not forget those who you count as true.  They are the real stuff that life is made of.

 

So keep them close, hold them dear, cherish the time that you have with those persons that are part of your inner circle.  They will do the same for you.   Helen Keller was spot on when she said, “With every friend I love who has been taken into the brown bosom of the earth a part of me has been buried there; but their contribution to my being of happiness, strength and understanding remains to sustain me in an altered world.”

You don’t need human eyes to see truth.  Amen to that..

In The Beginning

Here we go.  My first time to host a blog.  I’m not even sure if that’s the right term, but I’ll learn, I’m sure.  I’m still trying to find spell check on this thing, so I apologize in advance for poor grammar.

It’s my hope that by sharing my (often random) thoughts, that others will be encouraged to join in, to participate in the process.  I want this to encourage, to enlighten, to make you laugh, sometimes to make you angry and thereby make you think.  Oh, and if you’re not careful, you just might even learn something.

They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, so here’s my one step.  Settle in, relax and join the fun.  Next time, I’ll have some real content!