Be Encouraged, Be an Encourager

Ok, my last blog was kind of heavy, all true, all important for your life, but still a little heavy.  Let's talk about something a little less intense this time.  I had something happen in my store last week that almost blew my mind.

As I was checking out a gentleman, a rather large and somewhat imposing gentleman (of course, when one considers my size, a great number of people could fall into the category of imposing) something happened that I  considered out of the norm.   In the middle of the small chit-chat that happens during checkout, right as he was speaking to me, he stopped and turned to a couple that had come up next to him.  

As he looked at the couple he instantly said "You don't know me and I don't know you, but the Holy Spirit has just told me to tell you that the Lord knows the burden you have been carrying and He wants you to know that He will lift your burden.  You will see His blessings, His mercy and His love."

As the man at the register continued to speak I watched the man he was speaking to.  His eyes went from questioning suspicion to amazement to understanding to appreciation to joy with little tears in the corners of his eyes.  

As I stood there listening, my mind was racing, too.  My first thought was "what in the world is this guy doing!"  Then I realized that he was actually speaking from the Holy Spirit.  I was amazed at the effect it was having on this man and his wife.   Then I was amazed that the man at the counter had the chutzpah (sorry, that was the best word I could think of because the words like daring and courage and audacity and bravery just aren't enough to describe his actions) to speak this way to people he had never seen nor met.  I admired his courage and envied his ability to speak a message from God with such obvious ease.   

I thought, man, if I could just speak a message of encouragement in the  power of the Holy Spirit like that wouldn't it be great.  Then I realized that maybe the Holy Spirit had tried to use me like that as I  grew up and I just didn't have the faith and the courage do what the Holy Spirit wanted to me to do.  

I remember, as a young man, sitting by the bed of my aunt, one of the most precious people in my mother's life, as she lay dying of bone cancer.   I remember the the voice in my head that said, "You have the power to heal her if you will just touch her and declare her healed in the name of Jesus Christ!"  Well, of course I was too afraid that people would think that I was crazy and sat there and watched my dear aunt die.

I've never escaped the feeling that I  could have changed that  if I had just had the courage to trust a God that I told people I trusted. A God who says that He is the Great Physician.  A God who tells us that if we have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed we could move mountains.  Did He lie or am I just not as trusting in Him as I should be.

God didn't call each of us to exercise the spiritual gift healing and He didn't call each of us to exercise the spiritual gift of prophecy but He does call each of us to trust Him.  And he gives this promise for each of us:  "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord , “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV)

God has encouragement of all sorts in His Word for you if you have made the decision to make Him Lord of your life.  And if He is Lord of your life you can so easily make a difference in the lives of others by just giving a word of encouragement.   You don't have to have a spiritual gift of encouragement to bless the life of those you come in contact with.  Just share a word of encouragement, not lies, not flattery, just honest encouragement.  

Danger: Lost Opportunities

I have to tell you that I really love my Sunday School class.  We have two marvelous men of God who trade out the teaching responsibilities and they are both great but I think I'm seeing a  pattern going on.  

We are studying the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, arguably one of the most difficult books in the Bible, and when we get to a particularly hard passage neither one of them is available to teach that day so they ask me to teach it.  No, seriously, all of Hebrews is a difficult book to glean out all of God's Truth, and they both do an excellent job.  I am grateful and honored when they give me the opportunity to lead their class.

Before I tell you about the Sunday School class, let me tell you about being raised in a small country church in the South.  You had a preacher who loved God and loved his church and he knew everybody by name.  On any given Sunday morning he could be preaching along and even get a little loud if he got excited or needed to make a point.  And on any given Sunday you might be sitting on the back pew with a couple of your friends, writing notes or whispering and all of a sudden, right in the middle of his sermon, the preacher, who knew all of you and all of your parents, would stop and call your name and tell you to be quiet or pay attention.  You were mortified to be called down by the preacher but you also knew that you were going to get it when you got home! (Please don't ask me how I know this.)

This past Sunday the verses we looked at were Hebrews 6:1-8 but since the passage starts with the word "Therefore" you really need to go back to chapter 5, verses 11-15 first.  In the first part of Hebrews Paul (we're actually not sure who wrote Hebrews but I'm going to say Paul to keep it simple right now) tells about how superior Christ is to Moses as a prophet and a leader and then how Christ is superior to any high priest, including Melchizadek (I'll explain him later) when suddenly this preacher realizes that no one is following what he is talking about.  He tells them that they should be able to "eat spiritual meat" but they are having trouble understanding spiritual "milk".  They just aren't following all he's talking about.  In Hebrews chapter 6 he tells them, not so subtly, (kinda like my preacher when I was a kid) what kind of life to prepare for if they choose to play at being a Christian instead of really trying to become a better Christian, or worse, if they've never really turned their heart over to God through faith in Christ and they are just playing the church game because they think it makes them look more acceptable.  

Let me try to make 8 short verses even shorter. If you invited Jesus into your heart or "gave your heart to Jesus" and continue to make the same bad choices that "the worldly" people (people who admittedly could care less about Jesus or His sacrificial death) make, He will, first, let you experience the consequences of your bad life decisions (which should be bad enough to encourage most of us to want to change the way we are living).  And if that isn't sufficient to encourage you to seek a life that demonstrates Godly choices and a God honoring lifestyle, second, He might actually be forced to resort to punishment, much as a parent is forced to chastise a petulant and disobedient child.

How, you might ask, can we know what is a Godly choice or a God honoring lifestyle?   The best way is to read God's word, the Bible, a portion every day.  The old excuse about, "I just don't understand all those 'thees' and 'thous' really doesn't work.  There are many excellent translations available now, some even in conversational English (contact me in comments if you would like some suggestions).  And to start getting you interested, I suggest you try reading the book of John first (the third book in the New Testament).  You just can't make Godly choices until you begin to know a little about God.  His Word is a great place to start.

Well, what can I do to learn faster?  Start attending a good Bible teaching church!  OK, there are so many churches how can I know which is the right one?  Three things go into that decision.  First, attend several near you and see how you feel about them.  You will be surprised at how they might impress you, and that has to do with the second thing in finding the right church, listen to the Holy Spirit.  When you gave your heart to Jesus you immediately received a very important companion called the Holy Spirit.  The Bible describes Him as our counselor, our guide, our comforter, and our companion.  What He is is the part of God who stays with us all the time.  He lives in our heart.  Not necessarily the muscle that pumps blood, but the part of us that is really us, where all of our secret desires lie and where our important decisions are made.  Where the real "us" is.  He's the part of God that stays with us all the time, so, I guess, that makes Him a Who, not a What!  And as we search for a Bible believing and teaching  church the Holy Spirit will help us in our decision if we let Him.  Third, pray!  Praying is not a lot of fancy words that old men impress you with at the close of church, prayer is just talking to God.  Talking about what is important to you and asking what is important to Him.  Oh, and some times that means prayer means allowing a little time to be still and to be quiet and listen.  Yes, God will talk to you, too, by impressing your heart.

God doesn't want your life to be a meaningless, purposeless life of corporate ladders and social status and fighting and failures and frustrations.  He wants it to be meaningful, and joyful and filled with satisfying purpose.  It will be only when we seek to walk with Him and learn more about Him and what He has for us everyday.

Hebrews chapter 6 tells us the other option:  to ignore God and seek self-satisfaction and self-social distinction and to gain the envy of man leads to despair and a purposeless life and failure and depression.  Because remember, without God, he who dies with the most toys, still dies, but he who lives for Christ never dies.

They Thought The Had More Time

I have to apologize to you for seemingly deserting this blog.  I have been dealing with some time consuming and moderately debilitating health issues.  It has been something of a struggle trying to balance doctor's appointments, treatments, and a 50 hour a week job plus still be part of my family and church.  Quite honestly, I'm not sure that I've done any of them well but that's not what I want to talk to you about.

I want to talk to you today about why I'm back.  First off, (that's one of those phrases we use down South) because if there are only five of you out there who read this blog or if there are 5,000 of you, you're each one important to me.

Second, I'm reading a book called "They Thought They Had More Time".  Now it's about the second coming of Christ, but, as much as I love to talk about Christ’s second coming, that's not what we'll talk either. No, it's the book title that struck me about the way I'm spending the days of my life. I could let this health problem control the  way I spend the days of my life or I can control them and continue to do the things that are important.

The name of this blog is Southern Comfort, and the idea was to give you comfort and the assurance God's willingness to stay with you in the middle of your problems and the first thing I did when problems came into my life was to be "too busy" focusing on the things going on in my life.  Sorry!

Don't get me wrong.  Your health is important and it needs your attention as long as your attention can have positive effect on the health issues of your life. There comes a point though, in every issue where what can be done has been done and the constant attention to the issue becomes a distraction to the living of our life.

I recognize that every issue, every distraction, is not the same and the immediate time they claim is not the same but we must not let them become time vampires of our lives.  

Another marvelous little booklet I read in college was called "The Tyranny of the Urgent".  The premise of the book was that we tend to let our lives become dominated by tending to the urgent things in our lives instead of doing the truly important things.

As the days of my life pass (and all of us are watching the days of our lives pass) I don't want my legacy, the things my children and my friends and even you remember about me, to be my problems or my health issues or the TV shows I watched or the video games that I played or that I wasted my life on frivolous distractions.  I want my legacy to be how much I loved my God and my family and helping people find their way in our crazy world and I have to get back at that now because I don't want to find myself in the group that "They Thought They Had More Time".

A Reason to Praise

What a time to start a blog on living in a better relationship with God:  Passion Week, Palm Sunday, Passover! All of the fullness of God's love is demonstrated in this one week. But this blog is about walking with God and in order to walk with God, we first have to recognize who God is. Seriously, how can you walk with someone that you don't know and wouldn't recognize if you saw them. Palm Sunday was designed by God to help us recognize who God is.

First, let us look at what happened on Palm Sunday. The time is the last week of the physical life and earthly ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, the week of the observation of the Jewish festival called Passover. The setting includes the city of Jerusalem, the town of Bethany and the highway between them. Passover was, and still is, a celebration held every year on the first full moon after the spring equinox. Even though the religious leaders in Jerusalem had already demonstrated their desire to have Jesus executed, Jesus had determined to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. As Passover approached Jesus had yet to make an appearance in Jerusalem but on the first day of the Passover week things suddenly changed. On Sunday morning (remember, the Jews celebrated Saturday as their day of rest or Sabbath so Sunday was not just the first day of the week, it was the first day of the work week, too) Jesus instructed his 12 closest followers (or disciples) to go into town and they would find a colt tied up like it was waiting. They were to untie it and bring it to Jesus. He told them that if anyone asked them what they were doing, they were to say that the Master had need of it. That was all, no fancy explanations or excuses, just "the Master needs it." And that's what happened. The owner came out and saw them and asked what they were doing. The disciples told him what Jesus had said to tell him and that was that, no arguments, no if ands or buts, they brought the colt to Jesus. Then some of the disciples laid their cloaks on the back of the colt for Jesus to use as a humble saddle while the rest of the disciples laid their cloaks on the road to symbolize what we would call a red carpet. As Jesus drew closer and closer to Jerusalem more and more people began to crowd the road way to see the teacher and healer and miracle worker who was coming to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover with them. They recognized because of the miraculous things Jesus had done (healing the sick, making the lame walk, causing the blind to see, and literally raising the dead) that he was not just an ordinary man so they began to shout out, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord" and "Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" Now, in the crowds you could also find the religious leaders called Pharisees (now the Pharisees were a group who believed it was absolutely necessary to obey every law, the laws of God and the laws of man, no matter how trivial that law was) and when they saw how this huge crowd was praising Jesus they were absolutely outraged. They pushed their way over to where Jesus sat riding the colt and hollered up at Him (Ok, a Southern phrase slips in a little) and said, "Teacher rebuke your followers!" (A Southern translation would be more like, "Teacher, tell this mangy mob to shut-up!) Jesus didn't get upset or worried, He didn't even bat an eye. He looked that old boy straight in the eye and said "I tell you, if these people were silent, the very stones would cry out"  Luke 19:40 ESV(emphasis mine).

We live in a world where we watch the economy change almost every day and we don't miss a beat. We watch technology change over night and we follow what's happening like our next breath depended on it. And yet we, the most complex part of creation, the crowning glory of God’s handiwork, go through our lives never recognizing the work that God is doing around us every day and never acknowledging His son, Jesus, who came into our world to show us God up close, and suffered to make a way for us to have a relationship with the living God, not just for now, but forever. And even though we are as blind as rocks, Jesus said that even creation, even the rocks recognized who He is and they long to praise Him. Years ago a lady by the name of Dottie Rambo wrote a children's song called: "Ain't Gonna Let the Rocks Cry Out for Me". The words were, Ain't gonna let the rocks cry out for me, Ain't gonna let the rocks cry out for me. I'll lift my hands and shout so the rocks will not cry out, and I ain't gonna let the rocks cry out for me." This weekend, as we remember that Sunday long ago when Jesus rode into Jerusalem being praised as a king, take just a moment of your time and look around to see if you can see that King and lift your voice to praise Him. Then listen real close, you might just hear the rocks praising Him, too. 

The Thought of Southern Comfort

The South has long carried an image of plantations and riverboats and magnolia trees and spanish moss, and it should, those are all part of the South.  But there are other things that are just as much a part of the South, small communities and Friday night High School football games and lazy summer afternoons fishing with a friend and big Sunday dinners after Church.  These all speak of closeness and support when you need it and strong ties that are there for you when your world turns upside down.  That's the southern comfort that I want this blog to be.  We want to talk about things to give you strength and faith and courage.  We want to talk about a lifestyle that is slowed down when yours is racing along out of control.  We want to talk about things that will help you find a paddle when you are "up the creek" without one.  We hope you find this to be a place way down south where there is a big ole pecan tree you can rest under with a quiet stream where you can refresh yourself and a cool breeze where you can relax and enjoy the view as well as enjoy the read.  Join me for a little Southern Comfort!