The Contentment Factor

“THANKS” is probably one of the most under-used and under-appreciated words in the English language. And, I believe, as we progress further and further into the generation and age of entitlement, “thanks” will be a word even more rarely used.

As a follower of Jesus Christ, I am commanded to give thanks and to publish His goodness to a world that, apart from the praises of His people, may never be made aware of their need for His presence in their lives. But true thanksgiving is a matter of perspective. I used these examples in my sermon Sunday to illustrate…

I AM THANKFUL FOR…
…the taxes I pay… because it means I’m employed.
…the clothes that fit a little too snug… because it means I have enough to eat.
…a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning and gutters that need fixing… because it means I have a home.
….the spot I find at the far end of the parking lot… because it means I am capable of walking.
….my huge heating bill… because it means I am warm.
….all the complaining I hear about our government… because it means we have freedom of speech.
….the lady behind me in church who sings off key… because it means that I can hear.
….the piles of laundry and ironing… because it means my loved ones are nearby.
….the alarm that goes off early in the morning… because it means that I’m alive.
….weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day… because it means I have been productive.

We are trained to be consumers. I also believe God has blessed us with what we consume. But as we consume, He intends for us to do so with a grateful spirit and a heart of contentment rather than entitlement.

A contented heart will lead to a proper perspective. A proper perspective will lead to a more grateful spirit. A more grateful spirit will lead to a more contented life. And can’t we all use more of that?

New Year Resolutions

I know many of us are probably making resolutions to start the New Year off right.  We may make promises to ourselves to be a nicer or more giving person.  Maybe we fall into the same trap every year of deciding to start a diet.  Maybe we resolve to volunteer more.  Whatever the resolution is, it is only a resolution if you have the resolve to make it happen.  Resolve is something that can only truly be God-given.  Willpower becomes a much more meaningful word when the “Will” and the “Power” are from Almighty God.

I ran across a list of reslolutions that the great preacher, Jonathan Edwards made during the time of the Great Awakening.  Take a look and see if there are any you could adopt.  I know I found some…

Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), from the Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 1

Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humble entreat Him, by His grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to His will, for Christ’s sake. [I will] remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general.

Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.

Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.

Resolved, Never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

Resolved, Never to do anything out of revenge.

Resolved, Never to speak evil of any one, so that it shall tend to his dishonour, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.

Resolved, To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

Resolved, Never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession which I cannot hope God will accept.

Resolved, To ask myself, at the end of every day, week, month, and year, wherein I could possibly, in any respect, have done better.

Resolved, Never to give over, nor in the least to slacken, my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.

Resolved, After afflictions, to inquire, what I am the better for them; what good I have got by them, and what I might have got by them.

Resolved, Always to do that which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it. Let there be something of benevolence in all that I speak.

Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 1.

Do You Have Room?

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted something… Okay, nuf said about that!

Picture it.  You’re the owner of the most well-known hotel in town, and the government has just sent out a statement demanding that everyone stop what they are doing and return to their hometown for an accurate head count.  Does the word “Jackpot” come to mind?  People are going to need a place to stay when they come to town and you, my friend, are about to seriously be in the money!  You start making plans – stocking shelves, making sure the kitchen is ready to go, order extra cots, start turning the conference area into makeshift rooms and (the most important preparation) jack the prices of each room up by about $100.00, because you paid attention in business class the day they explained the Law of Supply and Demand.

Then it happens.  Someone comes to check in, then another and another.  Pretty soon, you are all booked up and can finally light that little neon “No Vacancy” under your beautiful sign!  Oh, but your wallet is no longer vacant, and neither is your schedule.  You spend every waking hour supervising the staff, making sure every need is met and every penny is paid.  The kitchen never closes and the housekeeping staff is fluffing pillows and changing sheets and breakneck speed.

Then there comes a knock, knock, knock.  Who could it be?  Didn’t they see the beautiful sign outside declaring to the poor unfortunate souls without room and board tonight that you had nothing to offer them?  You go to the door to answer and find a poorly dressed man from the wrong side of the tracks standing there with a very pregnant wife who is obviously in labor and due to give birth at any second.  They are begging for any space that you could offer in your hotel, so the child would not have to be born in the streets.  What should you do?

You think about it for a minute.  Perhaps there would be room in the offices, or maybe you could quickly set up a closet as a makeshift room for the night.  But no.  They probably can’t afford the gouged price anyway.  But there is a place they can go.  You have a barn out in the back of the building.  It is run down and infested with who knows what, but it is the “best” you can do.  The couple graciously accepts the offer and they turn and walk slowly and painfully toward the barn and you know that in the morning the barn for two will be a barn for three.

This is something like the innkeeper at Bethlehem must have experienced that night when Joseph knocked on the door desperate for a place to stay.  The truth is that the innkeeper had options.  He could have asked a customer to give up their room and stay in the barn so the baby could be born in desirable conditions.  He could have even given up his own room.  The owners of inns lived in their establishments at that time.  But why didn’t he?  There are several reasons we could assume, but the simplest way to answer is that he simply didn’t have room.  No room in his inn.  No room in his heart.  No room for the King.

The innkeeper is a symbolic example of the state of Israel and the world.  Jesus, the King of the Jews, the Savior of the world came to bring peace and eternal life to anyone who would make room for Him, but the Jews denied Him as Messiah and crucified Him as a heretic.  The world for centuries have found other things and other ambitions to pursue which serve to crowd out the Savior.  It is the most tragic occurrence in human history and it happens every single day in ever single city, not just Bethlehem.

What about you?  Do you have room for the Savior to come in?  Have you given Him place in your life to live and dwell; to lead, guide and direct and be your King?  All he asks is that we give Him room by offering Him our faith and repentance, and He will take care of the rest.

Christmas is a time of celebration.  We celebrate the birth of King Jesus, but we also rearrange to make room.  We rearrange our furniture to make room for a Christmas tree and other decorations.  We save room in our budget to handle the added cost of running Christmas lights for the month of December, and provide gifts to friends and family.  We rearrange our schedules to make room for family and for employees to have time off to spend with theirs.  The world makes room for everything at Christmas time, but in all that rearranging, we have once again let all the stuff crowd out the Savior who still stands at the door of our hearts and knocks, asking for a place to come in.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone will hear my voice and open the door, I will come in…” (the words of Jesus in Revelation 3:20)

This is the plea at Christmas.  Will you make room for Jesus to come in?  Or will you be like the innkeeper in Bethlehem that night? Or the nation of Israel when they cried for His crucifixion? Or like the world today who spends more time legislating and pushing “non-offensive” political correctness trying to keep Jesus out of His own birthday party than actually making room for the guest of honor?

“O little town of Bethlehem, looks like another silent night.
Above your deep and dreamless sleep, a giant star lights up the sky.
And while you’re lying in the dark, there shines an everlasting light.
For the King has left His throne, and He’s sleeping in a manger tonight.
O Bethlehem, what have you missed while you were sleeping?
For God became a man and stepped into your world today.
O Bethlehem, you will go down in history as a city with no room for its King,
While you were sleeping.”
(From “While You Were Sleeping” by Casting Crowns)

The Cost of a Gift

It is impossible to believe that October is almost here.  As I sit and write this blog, it is 50 degrees outside with a high of only 60.  I love the fall time and the changing of seasons, but must admit that this year has gone by too fast.  Before we know it, Halloween will come and go along with Thanksgiving and then Christmas will be upon us.  My wife and I are already making plans for the gifts we need to buy this Christmas.

I love gifts.  I could wax super-spiritual and claim that I love to give them more than receive, but what is the point?  If we were all honest, we would admit that giving gifts makes us feel good, but getting a gift is where it’s at.  I say that in a tongue-in-cheek manner because there are two completely different feelings associated with gifts.  Getting gifts makes a person feel loved and appreciated, while bestowing the gift results in a feeling of sacrificial love and good will.  Both, if done in the right manner are appropriate and beautiful if practiced in the proper proportion.  After all, no one likes a person who is content to always be on the receiving end!

To get back to my point, we all love getting gifts.  Gifts are great because we don’t have to work for them or do anything to earn them.  A true gift is given with no strings attached and no obligation therein.  I say a “true” gift because there are some gifts which are given that we all know are not “true” gifts.  Some people give gifts to gain emotional capital over someone.  Others give gifts as a way to buy someone else’s affection or good will.  Still, others give gifts because they know the other party has gotten them one and they want to keep the playing field level.  But a “true” gift comes with no strings attached, no emotional capital, no hidden motivations or secret agenda.  A true gift is given out of the love and good will of the gift giver.

When it comes to gifts, we must always realize that, although the gift is presented as free to the recipient, the gift did cost the giver to give it.  There really is no such thing as a free gift.  There is always a cost involved in giving a gift.  There is a cost of money, or time, or effort; and not matter how large or small, a price is required to make a gift possible to give.  And the cost is what many people focus on about the gift, and this is what has distorted our process of gift giving.  Think about it.  How many of you have opened a gift at Christmas and could obviously tell that the gift someone got you was more expensive than the one you got them?  All kinds of emotions begin to swell up from both sides (guilt, embarrassment, pride, etc).  In my family (as I am sure many other families do), we have tried to avoid this awkwardness by putting a “price limit” on the gifts we give, to equalize everyone’s investment.  While this is a good way to be considerate, it reduces the gifts to the price tag and the thought and affection in the gift is removed.  Why doesn’t everyone just keep their “X” amount of dollars and get together instead of trading junk no one is going to use anyway (if that offends anyone, I am sorry, but you know where I am coming from).

We have all heard the cliche, “It’s the thought that counts.”  This is the truest statement about a gift, but in our commercialized, materialistic world, the thought is secondary to the cost.  I believe this approach has destroyed the concept of giving gifts in our world… Except for in one precious gift…

Scripture tells us that there is a gift that is so precious, so costly, so valuable and so rare in its sacrificial and unconditional nature that it is, “unspeakable.”  In 2 Corinthians 9, the Apostle Paul is expounding on the Spiritual Gifts that come along with salvation.  He begins to talk about all the gifts or supernatural talents that are given to a believer for the purpose of carrying out His Kingdom work and then ends the discourse in verse 15 by saying, “But thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.  This gift is the gift of salvation which made all the other previous gifts in the discourse possible.

The book of Romans tells us that, “The wages (what we earn) of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life (salvation) through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  Eternal life is a gift that can only be given by God through Jesus, His Son.  Therein lies the point of what I am saying.  While the world spends so much time assessing the cost and value of their earthly gifts, they far too often overlook the value of the one gift that truly matters – the only gift that will matter when life is over.

We often speak of salvation as a free gift to all.  Yes, the gift of salvation is free to anyone who would receive it, but it most definitely is not free.  To make salvation (the gift of God, eternal life) available, God had to sacrifice His only Son.  This is an act that He would not allow Abraham to follow through with on his son, Isaac, in the Old Testament.  God, however, was willing to follow through with the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, because it was the only price that could be paid to make the gift available to all.  This sacrifice was so costly and valuable that none of us can ever repay it.  We can never offer a gift to God comparable to what He offered us, but instead of feeling guilty or embarrassed or akward, He wants us to feel happy and grateful and proud, because without that gift, we would have no hope.

While it kills the spirit of gift giving to focus too much on the cost, the price paid on the cross by God the Father and Jesus the Son, is a cost we must never forget.  It is the cost and sacrifice and unconditional love involved in this gift which makes it unspeakable.

Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!  I am going to try to remember that to the best of my ability as the craziness of Christmas approaches (alot faster than we think) this year.

National Day of Prayer

Today is the 58th observance of the National Day of Prayer.  This is a day set aside on our calendar as a time to reflect on God’s goodness to our nation and to make our requests for His further blessings, protection and guidance.  Most Christians today, however, believe that, as a nation, we are in decline and that God is beginning to remove His hand from our great nation as we move further and further from His Word and agenda.  Some are even to the point of giving up altogether.

There is no mistaking that the US is changing, and in most ways, not for the better.  But the changes are much larger than who is President or what political party controls Congress.  The changes are being made to the very fabric of our nation’s standards, beliefs and direction.  We are becoming less and less “One nation under God,” and more and more “One nation divided by ideology.”  This division is very clearly seen in Washington, on the news networks, and even in our neighborhoods as people argue and choose opposing sides on various issues leading to anger and hatred for one another rather than unity.  If ever there was a time when national prayer was vitally needed, it is now.

But the prayers we must offer cannot be prayers motivated by spite and prejudice.  They cannot be prayers offered through the filter of political agenda.  In short, we cannot pray for our nation to come around to “our way of thinking” in order to get better.  The problem with our nation is not the issues we hold so dear, but rather the damaging factor in our nation today (as in every other day) is sin, of which we are all guilty (Romans 3:10,23).

In chapters 3-4 of Jonah, the prophet comes to the Assyrian city after spending his three days in the great fish and preaches his sermon.  The Bible tells of Ninevah’s repentance in light of the message of Jonah and how they turned to God – a wonderful story, until we see Jonah’s reaction.

Jonah, after seeing a city of 120,000 people turn to God, leaves Ninevah and goes up to a hill overlooking the city, hoping to see God destroy all of the people who had just repented.  The obvious question which comes to mind here is why would Jonah want to see these people destroyed after preaching this message of repentance to them?  The truth of the matter is that Jonah did not preach a message of repentance!  Jonah’s recorded message is only one of destruction.  He walked through the city declaring the coming judgment if they didn’t turn, but gave them no solution to their condition.  It is like a preacher today delivering a message on Hell without declaring the free gift of salvation by which we can avoid Hell!  Even in light of what he had been through in the fish, Jonah’s desire was still to see Ninevah destroyed, and verse 1 of chapter 4 tells us that he was angry at God’s decision to spare them.

As Christians, we can become alot like Jonah if we are not careful.  We are commanded to love the lost and unloveable.  We are commanded to pray for our enemies and those who spitefully use us.  Sometimes we can get so caught up in our righteous issues from a political perspective that we forget our agenda is so much higher than just the political.  Our agenda is spiritual.  Our work should be for eternity, not for a political term.  Our scope should be for the Kingdom of God, not for an earthly nation.  When that is put into perspective, we can see our nation’s (and world’s) greatest need is for all to come to Christ.

This National Day of Prayer, may we remember that righteously motivated prayer is the greatest power we possess.  It is even greater than the power our vote.

Have they Seen Jesus Lately?

It never fails.  Easter comes and Easter goes with all the usual hype and celebration, but the morning after Resurrection Day, it seems like most of Christendom recedes back into hiding as though Christ’s resurrection was only for a 24 hour period of time.

According to Scripture, Christ remained on earth in His resurrected and glorified body for about 40 days appearing to believers encouraging them and igniting a passion inside of them so strong that it “turned the world upside-down.”  When Christ appeared to the men on the road to Emmaus, they remarked that while they were in Christ’s presence, their hearts burned within them.  There were many others who were strengthened by seeing Christ with their own eyes after the reported resurrection.

Some 2,000 plus years later, the world needs to see the evidence of the resurrection is just as needed.  Just as these believers were given reason to believe, the world needs that very same appearance of Christ to believe.  These lucky people saw Christ in bodily form, but the world today will see proof of the resurrection by viewing the “body” of Christ (the church).  We, the church are to be the proof of His resurrection.  Our ministry is to breathe life into a dead world.  Our worship is to proclaim a living Saviour and an offering of life everlasting and freedom to a world oppressed by the deadly chains of sin.  Are we showing by our passion, ministry and operation that we serve a risen Savior, or are we relaying the message to a lost world that Jesus is still dead?

Christianity is separate and set apart from every other religion and faith system in the world because we have a resurrected Lord.  Unfortunately, many who are lost do not believe there is a difference.  Maybe the reason people doubt that Jesus is alive is that they can’t get past constant sight of His dead “body”.

May we continually be mindful of the resurrection of our Saviour and the uniqueness of Christianity.  May we live in the power of His resurrection and embody that life to the world.

Party like it’s the day before Easter!

Have you ever stopped to wonder what things must have been like in the courts of Satan during the short time Jesus was in the grave?  Talk about feeling like you’re “King of the World”!  Leonardo DiCaprio must have had nothing on Satan and his minions that weekend.

Think about it… If you are Satan, you have just watched your influence take hold in the “religious” leaders (of all people) and seen humanity sink to its darkest hour as they followed the lead you placed in the jealous hearts of the Pharisees and cried out in bloodthirsty lust, “Crucify Him.”  You hear the mocking of the crowd at your immortal enemy as they spit on His ravaged body during His agonizing trip up the hill to execution.  You swell with pride as  the earthly onlookers taunt the object of your hatred while He is nailed to the cross and hoisted up in naked shame before the world.  As the final breaths of Jesus slip in and out, you get a flutter in your stomach, knowing that apparent victory is only moments away.  And then it happens – the skies darken, and earthquake tears through the earth.  The temple veil rips as the final buzzer sounds.  The final words of your opponent are weakly uttered – “It is finished.”  But you must wait a few more seconds for the confirmation of victory.  Everyone waits with fainted breath as the soldier picks up the spear and plunges it into the side of the “Defeated”.  As the water trickles out, a large burst of “Hurrah’s” and applause echo through the corridors of Hell sounding this great victory!  Jesus is dead!  Satan has won!  Satan has prevailed!  Let the victory party begin!

What a party it must have been for that weekend in Hell.

Now, stop to imagine what it must have been like the morning the party ended.  I can just picture it now… dawn is beginning to break and all the inhabitants of the demonic realm are sleeping off their revellings of the night before, when all of a sudden, everyone is awakened with a strange, loud, roaring sound and a flash of light like never seen before.  As Satan begins to stumble to his feet an ovewhelming knot starts to form in the pit of his stomach as the horrific realization begins to sweep through the throng.  The sound is the sound of the stone being rolled from the door and the light is the bright light of Heaven emminating through the opening of the EMPTY tomb!  The angel of God announces what all of Hell already knows – Jesus is alive!  He has risen from the dead just as He said!  Satan has been defeated just as was promised!  His days, not Christ’s, are now numbered!…

…GAME OVER… PARTY OVER… THE REIGN OF SIN AND DEATH OVER!!!!

Praise God for His amazing love and grace for humanity.  May we  never forget the disgrace of the cross.  May we forever live in the glory of His resurrection.

HAPPY EASTER TO ALL!