Ecclesiastes 12:10

    In the summer of 1980, everyone was asking the question, “Who shot J.R.?” For those of you not around then, J.R. Ewing was the villainous character on the hit series Dallas .  That year’s season ended on a cliffhanger where J.R. is shot by an unseen assailant outside his office. The mystery became a global phenomenon. The question was referenced in the upcoming presidential election. Vegas was taking bets over ‘who done it’. The star of the show, Larry Hagman, was offered a million pounds to give away the answer (He didn’t know). A former President and even the queen of England tried to coax the answer out of the production. It took eight months and 4 episodes to finally reveal the shooter.   The funny thing is as big as the question was most people don’t remember the answer. The important as the question seemed to be, the answer did seem to matter much.   Lots of things in our life are like that. At the moment we are captivated by them. It grabs...

  An inventor invented a machine that had lights, bells, whistles, pulleys, gears and you would press a button and it would start running round and round and round. Somebody asked, “What does that thing do?” He said, “I don’t know, but doesn’t it run beautifully?”   For some, that is how they view God in their lives. They’re active. They go to church, they sing and pray, yet they begin to wonder ‘what is this doing for me’? If they don’t answer this, as trouble comes, it’s all too easy for them to just stop.   Yet the Scriptures give us an answer. In 1 st Peter 5:10 we read: “ After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you .”   Here it tells us four things God is doing to those that are doing his will.                 Perfect : He is completing us...

One of Abraham Lincoln’s favorite stories was about a horse that was about sold at the cross-roads near where he once lived.  He told it as follows: The horse was supposed to be fast, and quite a number of people were present at the time appointed for the sale.  A small boy was employed to ride the horse backward and forward to exhibit his points.  One of the would-be buyers followed the boy down the road and asked him confidentially if the horse had a splint.  "Well, mister," said the boy, "if it's good for him he has got it, but if it isn't good for him he hasn't.   I wonder if a lot of people take that same approach to serving the Lord. They feel like they are doing what God wants even if they don’t know exactly what that is.   The people of Athens were like that. They made an idol to an unknown God, assuming that any god would want an idol. The true God, He doesn’t.  Paul attempted to help them overcome their ignorant worship wi...

  If you ask most people about Napoleon Bonaparte and they will tells you two things. He was a French general and he was short.   Any movie, show, or cartoon that has Napoleon in it is real big on pointing out he was rather diminutive.  We even have the so called “Napoleon Complex” named after him, describing men who have an inferiority complex because of their height.  It seems his height was a defining characteristic of the “little corporal”.    Expect he wasn’t all that short.   The myth that he was short stems primarily from the fact that he is listed as 5 feet 2 inches tall at the time of his death.  However, this is 5 feet 2 inches in French units.  In modern international units, he was just shy of 5 feet 7 inches.  At the time in France, the average height for an adult male was about 5 feet 5 inches in modern international units.  So in fact, he was quite tall for his day.   His nickname Little Corpor...

  One of the most flustering things for college students has to be buying books.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, textbook prices have risen over three times the rate of inflation in the past 38 years, a 1,041 percent increase.  Students can’t do much about it since they are in essence a captive audience.  They must buy what the professor assigns.  In many cases the way to save was to buy used older books, but it has become increasing difficult to do because publishers are issuing new editions at much quicker rate.  Since the world change so fast, the books must be constantly updated in order to keep up.   However there is one book that is the text book for life and it has never needed a new edition.   In 2 nd Peter 1:3  we read, “ seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence .”  Her...

Crazy hypothetical: Monkeying Around* You are offered an interesting job.  You will work a normal 40 hour week being paid at above what you could typically earn in your normal line of work with great benefits and vacation time.  For this job, every day at the start of work you would be transformed into an animal. You would look like you but all your actions would be on pure instinct and you would have no conscience control over what you did from 9 till 5 but when the horn sounds you would go back to normal.  You would be observed (like in a zoo) and be placed in a protective environment so there would be no greater risk of injury than most typical jobs.  When you went home you would have a complete memory of your actions for the day but no way to control what you do during the day. You would take this job? *Crazy Hypothetical is a mental game that gives you a conditional choice that gets you thinking about a subject. I used these for several years as di...

    Once upon a time some of the youth approached me about a service project. They had noticed how the songbook’s bookmark had become frayed. We decide to  come up with a way keep them from getting worse. After some experimentation, we found the best way was to slightly burn the ends.  In order to fix all the books quickly, I bought some cheap lighters and gave them to the kids.     But I was amazed at how many kids did not know how to use a lighter. One of the girls pointed out to me that it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing! Most of a lighters common uses are not activities that we would want our kids to be involved in.    It reminded me of the verse in Romans 16:19 that says, “ For the report of your obedience has reached to all; therefore I am rejoicing over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil. ”  We live in an age that is filled with all kinds of bad information. Wise Christians know such inform...

An article I ran across drove home the point that we need to think about what we sing. It read: “ Alas the area of our singing has become a trysting place for me. I’ve spent many a direful night, rent asunder, with the ebon pinion brooding o’er the vale. What e’er betide, the bowers will not fail, even from ether-plains. It’s time to raise our Ebenezer’s and fain become gladsome. In mirth we have moaned, our suits distained. Now is the time to have our spiritual thirst assuaged as we fain the supernatural among the zephyrs wafting in the dale from days of yore.”   Many of these phrases, we have sung all our lives, but have never understood what they mean. When we sing not only do we praise God but teach and admonish one another (Colossians 3:17) If we never learn what we are singing, how can we be taught anything? If we simply overlook the phrases, we will never fully understand some of the most beautiful points of the songs we sing. Our singing should not be something we do with...

  All physicists in 1905 knew what light was. Whether from the Sun or an incandescent light bulb, light was a wave. All scientists knew, without doubt, that light originated at a source, spread out evenly and continuously through all the space accessible to it, and propagated from place to place as electromagnetic crests and troughs. In 1905, the wave nature of light was an established, incontrovertible fact. That is until Albert Einstein, in the face of this universally held knowledge, proposed that light was not a continuous wave, but consisted of localized particles. His worked was challenged by the physics establishment as it went against years of experiments and theory. It took two decades until people realized it, but Einstein was right.  After more study scientist began to realize that they had not seen the whole truth about the nature of light.    This doesn’t just happen in physics but in religion as well. Many people will have flawed ideas of God’s truth. ...

When I find myself in a mental block, I have made it a habit to go to the library and troll for ideas. I will wander the stacks looking for a book that might give me a spark of creativity. It always amazes me how many different books are out there.  Any topic, any person, any event, it seems has a book about. (I saw a book called “ The Drinking Water Book”) It reminded me of what the preacher said in Ecclesiastes 12:11-12, “ The words of wise men are like goads, and masters of these collections are like well-driven nails; they are given by one Shepherd. But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body .” There is great wisdom that can come from the library (and other places of learning), but also folly. Earthly wisdom will never exceed the wisdom of God. In our desire to gain more knowledge, we must be careful not to pull ourselves from the truth of God.  

Last year Donald Williams was to publicly sworn in as a judge in Ulster County, N.Y., on Jan. 2. What makes this story odd is that because the main offices were closed, the Bible used in the swearing in ceremony was unavailable. They looked for a Bible but couldn’t find one. So he was sworn in on a dictionary. I guess the Bible really is missing from our courts.  All joking aside, I know the pain of not being able to find my Bible. I have so many one is never too far out of reach, but it does remind me of an important verse. Psalm 119:11 says, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” When we take the word of God out of the book and into our hearts and minds, it can never be taken from us. It will never be out of reach or lost. The power and wisdom that is in the Bible will never be too far away.

The hardest thing for a teacher to overcome isn’t the intelligence of their pupils, a boring topic or even a lack of resources. It is simply a lack of desire from their students. When those you teach don’t have any desire to learn, it is almost impossible to be a good teacher (or at least feel that way).  The result is not good for the teacher or the students. The constant pulling and prodding to attempt to drag interest will wear anyone out.    I think God feels the same way. In Psalms 32:8-9 we read, “ I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.  Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, Otherwise they will not come near to you.” Just as no teacher wants to “force” his students to learn, God doesn’t either. We need to willfully and eagerly approach God and the lessons He has for us if we want the best for ourselves.

No man knows everything but every man knows something. Those that think they know everything know nothing but those that realize how little they know,  they know quite a lot. With that in mind let’s compare two verses. Jeremiah 4:22  "For My people are foolish, They know Me not; They are stupid children And have no understanding. They are shrewd to do evil, But to do good they do not know." Romans 16:19  For the report of your obedience has reached to all; therefore I am rejoicing over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil. In each verse, we have people lacking in knowledge. But one group is praised, the other is condemned. Why? Because of what they know. Knowing a lot about evil things isn’t a good thing! But not know about God is true ignorance. It’s better to know something about God than everything about the world.