NEW THINGS

This week we finally had a new sound system installed in our
building. This new system is primarily about sound and allowing people to hear
better, but it is much more than that. This system allows us to come into the
modern world more fully, making available DVD's, CD's and Digital recordings in
general as well as posting to the Internet in the future.

I believe it is money well spent as we look for more ways to
reach out to our modern world. Now there is always some grumbling when we
"modernize". Some folks are bound to hold on to the idea, "the
old way of doing it was good enough for our parents, so it should be good
enough for us."

Let me assure you that "Modern" is not always a
bad word. In fact it is defined as, "relating to, or
having the characteristics of the present or most recent period of
development," (Webster). I know from experience, that as we age we tend to
look at some of the new ideas and trends of our world with skepticism. It's
natural for us to do so I think. I personally try my best to hold back some of
my natural prejudices and think outside of the box in which I was raised. I'm
not always successful, some times my thoughts are based upon "my
feelings" or "my likes and dislikes," and to a certain extent
that's OK, its how God put us together as humans.

I would suggest though there is a better
criteria for deciding whether a new or modern idea is acceptable or not. In his
instructions to the early believers Jesus said, "Jesus came and told his
disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore,
go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all
the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even
to the end of the age.” (Matthew
28:18-20, NLT)

Here we see that we art to go and make disciples, baptizing
and teaching them to obey all of the commandments of God. Going and making
disciples are the primary command; teaching about obedience in "ALL"
of God's commands is next. So sometimes we need to modernize our thinking as to
how to "GO and TEACH," but never about keeping all of the commands of
God.  We need to think outside of the box
in which we were raised and sometimes live, but never compromise the truth of
God's Word.

THREE INCHES FROM GOD

I wonder how often something keeps us from God. How often
does something keep us from believing and trusting in him enough to really live
up to the definition of what faith is all about. I'm sure you remember the
scripture: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen." (KJV) or perhaps a more modern translation would
explain it better: "Faith is the confidence that what we hope
for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see."
(NLT) (Hebrews 11:1)

What keeps us from having that assurance about things we
cannot see? If faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually
happen, why do so many of us who claim to have faith worry so much about the
future?

Many times I think we are like the man in this little story:
It seems that a man descended into a deep well by sliding down a rope which was
supposed to reach the bottom, but when he came to the end of the rope, his feet
still could not touch the bottom. He held on, but because his strength was gone
and he could not climb back up. Finally he could hold on no longer and he let
go fearing the worst. He fell three inches to the bottom.

This is the same problem some of us have today. Some of us
are just 3 inches from trusting God, but we are using all of our strength to
hold on to our doubts and fears. We can't make ourselves trust God and refuse
to trust anyone but ourselves. One man said, "He who cannot let go, cannot
hang on," he's talking about holding to faith in God and really trusting
him. Before we can let God help heal our hurts and comfort us in our
difficulties we must have faith enough to let go.  We must believe in God, his strength, his
power and his ability to help us.

Sadly far too often we to try and hold on to our sanity, to
try and reason everything out for ourselves, to "fix" things, make
them all better, to solve all of our own problems and then we are crushed when
we can't do it.

At some point in our Christian walk we are going to have to
follow the old adage, "Let go and let God." In other words, some time
we are going to have to let go of the rope, stop trying to fix the unfixable
and turn it over to God. I don't know about you, but I'm not so worried about
having a faith that can move mountains as I am having a faith that will help me
make it through tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. The writer of
Hebrews also tells us in Hebrews 13:5,
"…
For God has said, "I will never fail you. I will never abandon you."

That's the faith that I'm trying for, how about you? What is
it that is keeping you three inches from God? Maybe it's time to let go and let
him handle the problem and fix the unfixable!

Russ Lawson, Messages From The Heart

BLOG: http://messages-from.blogspot.com

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Planing for the Future

Everyone you talk with has plans,
or most do anyway. I talked to an out of state friend today and we ended up
talking about our plans. We are going to do things, go places, keep
appointments, talk with others, visit, phone, text, email, attend or something
of the sort at all times.

Being a minister, perhaps I am more
to inclined to ask than others, "how important are those plans," and
"do you clearly understand what your plans mean to your life?"

I love the humorous story of a new
young minister. He felt he needed to challenge his congregation to plan on
doing one big thing for the coming year. As he thought about it, he walked into
the auditorium and noticed, as he had often before that it was dark and dreary.
The idea came to him that perhaps he could unite the church behind the idea of buying
a chandelier to hang in the middle of the meeting hall.

He spent the next several days
preparing his sermon. On Sunday morning he spent twenty minutes telling the
congregation how great it would be to have a chandelier,  He chandeliered this and he chandeliered that
and finished his sermon with a big pitch for funds with which to buy a glorious
chandelier.

He really felt he had done well,
and people were very complementary of his lesson. But after several weeks he
still had heard of no action being taken by the leadership. So, he dropped in
on one of the elders for a visit and finally broached the subject of the
chandelier and whether they were making plans to raise funds for one.

He was rather surprised by the
elder's response: "Oh, we talked about that and decided against it. You
see nobody around here knows how to spell that word and even if we got one of
them things there's not a soul within a hundred miles who knows how to play one.
Besides that we decided what we needed more, are more lights in the meeting
hall!"

Well, that's the way it is with
some of our plans isn't it. We think that we have thought out all areas of the
matter, but when we begin to make plans we find out there were some areas of
the problem which we didn't clearly understand. If there is one point I want to
make it is that plans for our churches are important, good and necessary!
However, plans for our lives are more important!

What is the chandelier in your
life? What is it you really want to do or accomplish? Do you really have a
clear understanding of it and is it what you really need to bring light to your
life? James gives us an important lesson in life in the matter of making plans
when he says, "Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a
city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye
know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor
that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. For that ye ought to
say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that, the darkness is
disappearing, and the true light is already shining." (James
4:13-15)

If you want more light in your
life, you need more of Jesus, not a chandelier! Do any other plans you make
really matter?