Christ and ?

Is Christ really all we need? How many times I have heard it said by well meaning individuals, "Jesus is all you need." Now being well versed in "Christianese", (the language of church goers), I know what that statement means but what about the homeless man or woman on the street who has not eat today or has no where to get in out of the cold? What about the person that has lost everything in a house fire or a tornado? What about the distraught parent's standing at the graveside as the minister reads Scripture over the coffin of their child? What about the teen girl that everyone laughs at because she is different in size, color, or culture? How would they accept that statement from us? "Well, all you need is Jesus." No, He is not all they need; they need for His servants to help them.

Yes, I know that salvation is the most important thing one has need of but we also have need of food, clothing, shelter, and someone who really cares about us. Oh, I know, "Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you," the Christian will say. Someone once said that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. We often associate that saying with teamwork. What if we applied it to the Kingdom of God? What do you think about this Scripture: And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh (Jude 1:22-23). What about that "Pulling them out of the fire" part? That kind of sounds like to me there is some work involved in having compassion. Saint James said, "If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?  Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead (James 2:15-17).

My point today is this; people do need Jesus but they need us too. Jesus not only died on the Cross that we may be saved, He also healed people, fed people, and showed them compassion without just telling them He had it. Lord, help us to do the same. Christ and us; the link that connects God to the rest of the world.





 

Are We Afraid to Ask?

Have you ever wanted to know something but were afraid to ask? I have even as an adult and especially as a kid. There was an old fellow in the town I grew up in that wore a patch over his eye and I always wondered how he lost his eye but was afraid to ask him. In fact all of us kids were afraid of that guy, he looked like a pirate and talked rough. He would catch us somewhere and would threaten to pull that patch off and we would fly!

The fear of asking questions goes way back to Bible times. St. Mark tells us that Jesus told His disciples that He was going to be killed but that He would be raised from the dead three days later and they did not understand what He meant, but were afraid to ask Him (Mark 9:32). I wonder why they were afraid to ask Him what He meant. We know what He meant . . . . now. We have the New Testament that explained it to us and we have the account of His death and resurrection; but they never had that. They only had His words at that moment.

Which brings me to the point of my message today; are there things we are afraid to ask Him even now? I mean, things like why did my mom have to get cancer and die. Things like why are You allowing all those Christians to be killed in Iraq. How about this one; why did you allow my spouse to leave me because they said they do not love me anymore. Maybe even, why did You allow my precious child to die. These are very personal and heart wrenching questions. I am sure we have asked why many times and yet we are like the disciples that day; we still don't know what it all means. We can all agree that there are things which He allows that we do not understand now but we know as people of faith that He is never powerless in any of these situations.

There are other questions some do not want to ask. Questions that we know the answer to but really do not want to hear His reply. "Am I praying enough?" "Am I reading Your Word enough?" To name just a few. We know that He loves us regardless of how He replies to those and because we know He loves us anyway, we kind of just don't ask them a lot.

Never be afraid to ask Him anything; yes, anything. He knows what we would like to know anyway but it sure does give Him joy when one of His kids ask!

 

Head, Heart, and Hands

"I just don't feel Him like I used to." Is that something you could say? Is it something you have said? I have a lot of people tell me that. I do my best to answer them and sometimes I think they accept it and other times I think they are still left unsatisfied with the answer. Our relationship with God and Christ can only be real if we have done what Jesus told the first disciples to do and continue to follow the instructions God has given us in His word.

The Apostle John wrote, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." To behold the glory of Christ, (The Word), was a marvelous thing for those first disciples. Jesus was with them in the flesh, day and night, morning and evening, in good times and in bad times. If He was not defending them against the Pharisees He was stopping a typhoon type wind that was splashing waves into their boat to keep them from drowning. They watched in awe as demons would come out of people at His command and blind eyes would be opened with just a word from Him. They must have questioned His sanity when He told them they would have to "Eat His flesh and drink His blood" if they were going to believe in Him fully. Then believing Him to be the Christ, the Messiah, they had to doubt their belief as they saw Him hanging helpless on a Roman Cross and still promising a man that he would be with Him in paradise that very day as the religious leaders paraded back and forth in front of Him shaking their heads and pointing their fingers as they ordered Him to come down from the Cross and prove He was who He said He was. They touched Him, they smelled Him, they hugged Him, they ate with Him, they watched Him, they listened to Him, they abandoned Him, and then they finally believed in Him with all their heart when the tomb was empty and He showed up in the private chambers and told them to "Touch His hands and put their hand in His side."

Here is my point; if it took His Bodily resurrection to prove to the first disciples that He was really alive and that He really was who He said He was; why should we expect to be any less skeptical than they were? That is why He told Thomas, "Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." I am glad He said that. I am REALLY glad He said that! If being saved by Him is determined only by seeing Him, or feeling Him for that matter, then our faith is futile and we are still in our sins. It could be that we don't feel like we used to about Him and mistake our lack of feeling toward Him as His lack of feeling toward us. Huh? You think that may be it? If I lose my love toward my wife how should I expect to feel her love toward me? We are the Bride of Christ you know (the Born Again Church). If we fail to love Him as much as we used to and then wait for Him to prove He loves us before we will love Him that way again; it is very possible that we "Won't feel Him like we used to." If He is just in our heads we will never "feel" Him in our hearts. If we try to touch Him with our "hands" (good works) and never allow Him into our hearts (Born Again of His Spirit) we will not "feel" Him either. There you go; take inventory and then maybe you can answer the question: "Why don't I feel Him like I used to?"




 

Mental Overload: Is there a fix?

Another one of those days. You know the kind I am talking about. From the moment you wake up things begin to go wrong. You are still carrying the baggage from yesterday that had unresolved issues. As the day wears on more stuff gets added. Trying to keep everything in perspective and under control is getting harder and harder to do. You are not sleeping well and your eating habits are changing. Even your body feels the impact from all this mental stress as the immune system goes into overtime trying to resist the current virus circulating around. You have trouble relating to those you love and become irritable and short on patience which adds more issues to your already overloaded mind. If not resolved you can expect the red flags to start popping up; headaches or maybe chest pains. What is a body to do?!

About now you are expecting me to tell you just to turn it all over to the Lord. That is what most preachers do, right? That is easy for me to tell you to do but I know from experience that it takes more than that. Because I have turned a lot of stuff over to Him but it never left me for some reason! I have tried to leave things at the altar but somehow they are still with me when I get home. Then some would say, "Well, you really didn't turn it all over to Him." I have tried. I have tried to walk away from it and promised myself to let Jesus worry about it. Guess what? Yeah, still had it. I have prayed and handed it all over to Him as much as was possible on my part; but it never left. Therefore I knew there had to be fix, a fix that I had not found.

Philippians, Chapter 4

Then one day during a devotional reading in my study I came across this verse written by Paul the Apostle: Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Paul went through a lot. Risking his life daily to tell people about Jesus. For him to say this must have had a great impact on his life. Then I read this verse a little farther down in the text: I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. ¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Ah, there it is! There is the fix Paul found. It was not giving his troubles to the Lord. It was learning, yes learning, to live with them. I realized that even though all these things were upon me, they had not killed me! Christ had kept them from crushing me! I then began praying different. Instead of praying and asking the Lord to take all the things I asked Him to keep me strong as I worked through them. Today, I still have unresolved things going on that I would like to have complete fixes for but I have learned, as Paul did, to keep my focus on serving Christ and not fixing the problems. When I do that, the problems do not go away, but they sure look a lot more solvable!