Ecclesiastes 12:10

  Whether it’s a new job, a new team, or a new school, it is hard to be the new guy. The rookie has a lot to learn and must take a lot of guff. Eventually, they will figure things out, and the newness will wear off.   Even spiritually, we start off green. A person doesn’t come out of the water knowing everything. But that doesn’t mean we are supposed to stay that way. As Paul remarks in 1 st Corinthians 3, Paul remarks “ And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ . I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it.” But he continues by rebuking them for still being in that state.   He also gives us insight to see if we are still in a novice state, “ for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men ?”   We are still greenhorns when we are fleshy, that is, worldly-minded. Also, ...

     Many folks don’t think little towns have much going for them.   They are small, not many folks, not much going on. The future can’t be bright for a little town they say.   Some folks think the same thing about little churches.   But while they have some disadvantages, they also have advantages.   People are closer knit. They are quicker to be compassionate. They rally together. They fight through adversity. They typical kinder, simpler and less quick to fall into bad ways. " For who has despised the day of small things ? Zechariah 4:10   I think the mistake we make is by looking at what we don’t have rather than what we do have.   Size isn’t the issue. Some of the most dynamic things in the brotherhood come from small churches. A little town can do a lot when it gets everyone on board. A small start doesn’t mean a little finish (Mark 4:31-32).   God doesn’t expect us to do give what we don’t have but he does ex...

    Do you remember when you were in school, usually in the lower grade levels, when they gave out awards? Now often, almost everyone would get some kind of award. Maybe you were not the ‘Top Student’ but you could be the ‘Best Dressed’ or ‘Best Helper’ or ‘Nicest Smile’. I always felt the teacher had to make up an award for me, ‘Didn’t Burn Down The Class…Again’ or ‘Most Noticed When He Was Absent’.   Now if I asked you what was the best award to receive what would you say?  Would it be ‘Most Improved’? We might think that is not a great award but it might be the secret to success.   The biggest hindrance to success isn’t talent or smarts but it follow through. We get complacent, satisfied where we are, and stuck in our ways. But if we are seeking to improve, we will always be moving to the better. As we read in Philippians 3:13-14:  Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and re...

  In 2 nd Peter 1, we are told about the great gifts and promises that are found in Christ Jesus. He then tells us (verses 5-7) the traits we need to be adding to our faith so we will not become unproductive. In vs 9, we read  “ For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins .”   Sometimes we accuse people of not seeing the big picture. We remark ‘ They can see the forest for the trees ’. We lock into a detail and miss what is going on.  That is what Peter is warning about here. People that are missing the important point that as Christians we must be growing or we are missing out on what we have been given.   Abraham Lincoln once said, “ I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday .” I wonder if God says the same thing about us these traits. If we are not moving forward we are moving away from God.  But as he continues in verse 10, “ if...

   In Galatians 5:7 Paul questions the church in Galatia; “ You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth ?” It might be a good question for us as well. What is hindering us?   The word here implies a thing that slows you down, something that makes it harder to do the thing you are trying to do, an item that is an obstacle to moving forward.   It doesn’t take much to impede progress. Behavioral scientists tell us that if you can delay any action even just for a few seconds it can greatly change our temptation to get something done. That’s great if you are putting the cookies in a hard place to keep you from stacking, but it can be problematic when it comes to our spiritual race.   Marshal Keble once said, “ Most people think falling away from the church is like a blowout, but in reality, it is like a leaky tire .” I think he is right. We expect a big thing to keep us from the Lord and his church but more often than not it is a small accumul...

  Old Spice was having a tough time. It was getting crushed by its newest competitor Axe with its hip image that appealed to youth. Old Spice was …old. How could they regain their strength in the market?   They were able to do it with a new quirky ad campaign that changed their image and strongly appealed not to men, the primary users of their product, but to women the primary purchasers of their products. 60 percent of their body wash was bought by women.    I wonder if we are not having the same problem in our churches today. You hear all the time about how churches are shrinking. We see the statics about how the next generation is becoming less religious. The first response is to try to change in order to attract that demo. Be hip, lose the old ways, let popular culture determine your message and actions.  Yet before we do that let us consider, who are we trying to please and who will give the increase?     I planted, Apollos watered, but...

  Steven Spielberg's big break as a director almost didn’t happen because the star of the film was a flop.  At the time, Spielberg had only directed one major movie and it wasn’t a commercial success. Yet his talent convinced producers to give him a chance at a big film based on a popular novel.  Yet the star Bruce wasn’t making it easy for him. He didn’t make shoots and he wasn’t up to snuff when he did. His skin was bloated. He didn’t handle the ocean shoot very well. He didn’t seem ‘real’ in his scenes.  Spielberg couldn’t however fire the actor. Because he wasn’t an actor or even real. Bruce was the prop shark built to represent the man-eating shark in the film Jaws.  Yet it never worked. Spielberg later calculated that during the 12-hour daily work schedule, on average only four hours were actually spent filming.   How can you make a film about a shark with no shots of a shark?   It turns out very well. The mechanical problems with Bruc...

  T he Hebrew writer warns us about the danger of retreat: But my righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.   But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. Hebrews 10:38-39   It’s an interesting turn of phrase he uses here. It a word would be visually represented by a deflating balloon. One that is incorporates the idea one not finishing what he has started. Not just of one turning and running away but one refusing to advance.   Faithful living isn’t just standing in one spot unmoved. It is advancing to the goal. A Christian can be in full retreat even when they are standing still. Either you are growing or you are shrinking.   Look around, is everything the same, are we doing the same things, struggling with the same old problems. If so we are not moving anywhere.   This needs to be a shocking reminder to us. We can’t...

  No one likes to be criticized. We don’t want to be the butt of the joke. We don’t enjoy being the punching bag for others. It hurts when it isn’t true. It really hurts when it is.  It might bruise our egos, hurt our feelings and make our faces red, but how much does it harm us.     Words can hurt but only damage us if we let them. And it might even help us.   It seems to me that folks today have much thinner skin than we used to. Maybe it’s because we have so many ways to talk about people, it’s worn down our skin. Maybe, we are a little wimpier since we have had not to suffer as many ‘real’ hardships.  Whatever the case, from the athletic field to the boardroom, to the capital, people seem to be much more oversensitive to the words of others.   I wonder if it is because we place too much concern on what others think of us. A lack of self-esteem is shown in how we respond to critics. A wise man listens to a critic and takes to he...

  I can’t believe these politicians, why can't we get someone of character!  I don’t feel good, I think it is stuff they put in food nowadays!  My company let me go because of this terrible economy.  Little David failed his test; those teachers must not be doing their job.    Now it may be just that. Or it may be that have a diet consisting of nothing but Twinkies and soda, spend more time surfing the web than actual doing our job, never once have checked if little David is doing his homework and constant vote for candidates that benefit ourselves rather than ones that show integrity.   Could we consider for just a moment that we might have some responsibility for our fate?   Human beings have a bad habit of finding everyone at fault for a given situation other than themselves.  We can see others specks so much better than our planks.  But consider what the scripture says: Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for wha...

  John Paul Jones is known as a naval hero and the father of the American Navy.  His most famous battle occurred on September 23, 1779, when Jones’ squadron met a large British convoy in the North Sea. His ship, The Bonhomme Richard attacked the leading ship of the force, the Serapis .  The Serapis was larger and better armed than Jones's ship, so Jones took his vessel alongside it. The ships were so close that their rigging became entangled and the muzzles of their guns touched.  When asked if he would surrender, Jones famously quipped, “ Surrender, I not yet begun to fight !”  That battle would make Jones and his ship legendary.   Many folks know that his ship was named in honor of his friend Ben Franklin.  But few know why he named it after French title of Franklin’s famous book Poor Richard's Almanac instead of just after Franklin.     That story lies in how he got the ship in the first place. The revolutionary American ...

   Ok, I’ll admit even I am enamored by irritainment.  What is irritainment you ask?  It is the television that insults your intelligence, makes little to no sense, and has no redeeming factors, yet you still watch it to see how bad it is.  It is the person who boils your blood with the things they post online, yet you read every one of them.  It is the celebrity you despise but know every fact about.  Irritainment is the entertainment and media spectacles that are both annoying and compulsively watchable.   And the saddest part is I know I’m not the only one!  There just too much of this today for all of us not to be a little bit taken by it.  But why?  We don’t like to be annoyed, so why then do we choose to do it?   I think it goes back to the logical fallacy stuck in all our brains that if we just find something we are superior to then that somehow elevates us. We watch because we can look down on it from our per...

    There is criticism and then there is being critiqued. One is disparagement, the other appraisal. One is condemnation, one is assessment.  Knowing these words definitions is one thing, knowing which it is when they are being given to us is another matter entirely.     If you take all criticism as critiquing, not only will you be pretty miserable but also on the road to failure. If you take all critiquing as criticism, you also will be a failure but even worse you won’t know why. When you don’t ever listen to those trying to help you improve, you will end up miserable because you can’t figure out why you are falling.     So how can we spot when someone is telling us something that might be hard to hear but helpful, rather than when someone is just being hurtful? How can we make sure we are in the right mindset to accept the advice and ignore the naysayer? Let consider some wisdom from the Bible. 1.    If i...

  After completing many years as a journalist, Arthur Brisbane was offered six months of paid vacation time by William Randolph Hearst, the publisher of the San Francisco Examiner. Brisbane refused to accept the kind offer because of two reasons. He said, "First, if I quit writing my newspaper column for six months, it might affect circulation of the newspaper. Second, is that it might not affect the circulation of the newspaper   So what about you? If you took six months off from your service to the Lord, would you be missed? Would the church suffer? Would it even notice?   I’m afraid that the fact of the matter is too many of us have such a low commitment to the Lord’s work that we feel that the extent of our duty is just to show up occasionally. Our benefit to the church is as head to count.  Now I would be the first to tell folks that they need to be in the assembly of the church. But it’s not enough just to show up. Consider “the” verse on church at...

Dan West was serving as relief worker during the Spanish Civil War. His job was divvy up the rations of powdered milk to hungry families. Each day he was forced to decide who would receive the limited rations and who wouldn't – literally, who would live and who would die. The same starving children came everyday asking for help and there would never be enough to go around. This kind of aid, he knew, would never be enough. Then a simple idea hit him; Give them a cow not a cup . So when he returned home he started by sending seventeen cows to malnourished children in Puerto Rico. The idea was to end hunger permanently by providing families with livestock and training so that they "could be spared the indignity of depending on others to feed their children.”  Each family would be given cow with only one catch . When each animal gave birth, the first newborn cow had to go to another family. The gift had to continue. So an idea grew. An idea that is now estimated by the ...

It had been a very wet year in Iowa in 1909.  Also, that year had seen a boom in sales in automobiles; the Model T had come out that year.  So that winter the citizens of Iowa realized that it sure would be nice if they had a paved road that crossed the state.  To get it accomplished, during the rest of the winter, officials contacted all the communities along the route and had them to get together supplies for construction of an interstate when it got warmer.  On one Saturday in the summer of 1910; everyone went to the road at 9 a.m. sharp and started paving.   One hour later, the road was done, and by evening, all the road signs were up.  It wasn't a terrible rush job either, it was widely recognized as the “standard of the world” and would be the template for all interstates to come. The fact that they'd built a 380-mile-long road in one hour was pretty unbelievable, but even more unbelievable is what happened next.  The convolu...

       There is an old proverb that tells how a kingdom was lost because one person didn’t do their job. A servant was to shoe horse before a great battle. As he came to the last horse he didn’t have enough nails to finish the job. Rather than go back and get the supplies needed to do the job correctly, he simple quit. Because the shoe was not installed properly, the horse lost it sh in the battle, because the shoe was lost the horse was lost which lead to the loss of a rider which lead to the loss of the battle which lead to the loss of a kingdom. Many great things often turn on the apparently trivial details.     I thought of this story when I was reading Acts 9. In it, Saul had just been converted and had immediately begun to proclaim Jesus. This caused him a great deal of problems with Jews he had previously worked with. At the same time, Christians were not willing to accept him because they were afraid of him fearing that he really ...