Increasing Security

We have had a problem at our church building for the past
few years, which seems to be getting worse instead of better. Folks are leaving
doors to different parts of the facility unlocked. It varies by days of the
week and times of the day. We speculate that folks just don't remember to lock
up after themselves when they leave, but it makes you wonder if there is
something more sinister going on. Could someone outside of our members have
gotten a key?

There is no denying that security has become a major concern
in our world today. Each of us tends to be a little more cautious with our
personal security. We make sure we lock our cars and our homes; we install
alarms (and try to remember to set them). We are told that in our community, crime
has risen by 14% in the past few months, (mainly breaking into homes).

I understand, from those who are suppose to know, that no
matter how hard you try and secure your stuff, there are always weaknesses in
your preparations. Someone who is an experienced thief will find those
weaknesses and exploit them to get you stuff if they really want it.

What are we to do? What can you do, when you've done
everything you can to secure your stuff or even your own safety and it's not
enough? Who do you trust in then?

As a Christian you know the answer already, you trust in
God.

I love the story about Thomas Edison when a fire completely
destroyed his research facility. His son found him watching the blaze destroy
everything he had created. Rather than dwelling upon the destruction he told
his son, "Go and get your mother, she'll never see another fire like this
as long as she lives." 

He of course picked up the pieces of his life and
laboratories and went on to invent even more wonderful things.

In Matthew 6:19-21
we read: "Don't store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust
destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in
heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and
steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be."
(NLT)

Maybe we need to stop and ask ourselves, "Just what is
it in this world in which I really trust?" In Matthew 28:20, after giving directions as to what he expects his
followers to do, he makes this promise: "And be sure of this: I am with
you always". (NLT) I will continue to trust in the Lord, the maker
of heaven and earth (Ephesians 3:15).

GETTING IT WRONG

Have you ever done something and realized (sometimes
immediately) that you made the wrong decision? Most probably you have, I think
it is part of being human.

Sometimes the bad decisions are obvious, glaring things that
stand out for all to see, sometimes, they are things of which only you are
aware.

I started thinking about this when I read an article that
told that bubble pack was originally marked at wall paper. I honestly can't see
how they ever thought that would work, but then I'm looking at it from a
background that says, "bubble pack is used to pack stuff."

As I do a quick review of my life, I can quickly find many
things that I made the wrong decisions about. Now, I could dwell on those
things and worry about them and let them control my life and make me miserable,
but I'm not going to do that. I choose to focus on the good stuff.

I've known some folks in my life, who have done nothing but
remember their wrong decisions. They worry about them to the point that they
come to believe that they have no worth; no value even to God. How could God
possibly forgive them if they can't forgive themselves?

If you are a fan of the Anne of Green Gables books and
movies, you may remember one scene where Anne comments that "Everyday is
brand new, free of mistakes." What a wonderful concept and one that is so
true.

In 1 John 1: 8-9
we read, "If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not
living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness."
(NLT)

Honestly, this is my favorite (at least one of them)
scripture in the Bible. In this scripture we find hope when we make the wrong
decisions. We find promise that we can start over fresh with each new day. What
does it take? Admitting we messed up and believing what God says, when he says
he will "cleanse" us.

It seems sometimes that I work overtime at getting it wrong
in my life; I think the wrong things, say the wrong things and do the wrong
things. But our God "is faithful and just to forgive us our sins."

You see, it's God's love that brings us forgiveness when we
get it wrong in life; it's our responsibility to accept that forgiveness and
get on with living for him.

Often Communicate We Don't Well!

When we lived in Africa we tried, (emphasis on tried) to learn the
languages of the local people. We were successful to a limited extent, but we
understood that often we spoke as a small child might as we tried to communicate.

 

You probably noted that the
title of this article is somewhat mixed up, but what is the best way to say
what I am trying to say? (1) Often communicate we don't well, (2) We don't
communicated well, often, (3) or, Far too often we fail to communicate clearly?

Our world is in a huge
transition in communication at the present. Things are in flux, or undergoing
changes, which it always has since time began. Admittedly, those of us of
"the mature generation," may have more difficulty than those who are younger
in adapting to the transition. Personally, I still have refused to embrace
"text messages,"

"chat rooms" and such (I'm still stuck on emails and blogs). I
understand that makes me quite "Old Fashioned" and out of touch in
some folks minds. I know that I will eventually be dragged into the modern
world if text messages, but honestly, I don't want to spend that much time
learning a new language (text shorthand). I can envision being involved in
something like the following incident.

It seems that on a cold
winter day a husband received this text message from his wife: "Windows
frozen." Having had to deal with the problem of the windows in his
car being frozen shut in the past he replied with a text message that said:
"pour some lukewarm water over it." A short while later his
wife sent him another text message that read, "Now the computer is really messed
up."

How we communicate with one
another is important, whether we do it face to face, by text, email or over the
telephone. Through the years I have made my fair share of mistakes in trying to
communicate, but failed in the trying. Thankfully, those with whom I "miss
communicate," have been very forgiving.

Where am I going with this?
The goal of these thoughts is to cause you to consider how we communicate with
God. We can't email or text message God, it takes a real heart to heart
conversation to communicate with him. There are no short cuts, no
abbreviations, no way to get around talking with him and expressing our love,
our thanks and the needs of our heart.

I understand that for some
folks, all they know is some prayer they have been taught to repeat. They
really don't know how to think freely and communicate from the heart with God.
It's really not that hard if we stop and think about what God tells us he wants
from us in His Word. You say, "I don't know how to pray." God
speaking though his servant Paul tells us in Philippians 4:6, "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray
about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done."  (NLT)

It's a simple process, pray
for and about everything. Share like you are sharing with your best friend.
Tell God what we need and thank him for all he has done, tell him what is going
on in you life, about your struggles and your successes. Communication doesn't
get any easier than that.

Books by Russ Lawson @
http://www.lulu.com/russlawson

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?

SANDY HOOK - Jesus Calms the Storm

SANDY
HOOK - WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO?

This past week with the national tragedy at Sandy Hook as well as the many personal tragedies which
many of you suffer are difficult to deal with. I know that to each of you the
shootings were terrible, but I also know that many of you are dealing with
heart aches and heart breaks of which few others will know.

We are often torn by feelings of guilt as we see something
as terrible as the killing of innocent children and adults. We do mourn for
their loss, but feel guilty for mourning for our personal losses. Many in our
world have had terrible losses in their lives this past week also, do we forget
them or act like they are unimportant because another tragedy seems worse that
our own? Of course not, we can't do that, it isn't in our human nature to
refuse to grieve just because someone else is grieving.

Sadly our cultures and our media have tried to make one
terrible thing seem worse than another, when in reality terrible things that
happen are terrible to all who are in involved. I heard a statement a while
back that went like this. Someone said about something bad that had happened
because of their actions, "It was nothing personal."  The response was, "It was nothing
personal to you, it didn't hurt you, but it was plenty personal to me! I was
the one who was hurt."

You may be grieving right now and few, if any even know
about it. Don't hide your grief just because you think someone may think you
are insensitive to what has been termed "a greater tragedy". Don't
feel guilty if your personal difficulty or tragedy affects you more than the
stories coming of Sandy Hook.

We can have the greatest sympathy for the families of those
who lost loved ones, but often our personal pain tops that and because of that
we feel guilty. Don't! Don't feel guilty, mourn as you need and give comfort as
you are able, that's all God expects of you.

What do you do when there is nothing you can do? You share
your pain and your hurt with others to let them help bear that burden. Paul
urges Christians in Romans 12:15,
"Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep."
And in Galatians 6:2, "Share each other’s burdens, and in this way
obey the law of Christ."

So, I urge you to pray for those who have suffered this
great loss and turn your own cares over to God. Peter urges us in 1 Peter 5:6-7, "So
humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will
lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about
you."