Day 25

 

A Trip To The Mall

 

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self ..."

 

Ephesians 4:22

 

 

The Minister of Music and I had gone to the mall for lunch and to play video games at the arcade. It wasn't exactly a power lunch by 2 young executives, but this was back before everybody had their own game system at home. We were eating at the mall food court with the goal of a quick meal and moving on to play video games. We had just started our lunch when a guy from the church came over and asked us if he could join us.

 

He was a young guy like us and worked as a mall security guard. He was one of those guys who came to church on Easter and Mother's Day but never at any other time. It also became apparent that though he recognized us as people he knew he did not recall where he knew us from.

 

He began to talk about the girls who worked in the mall. His conversation became "R" rated as he began to mention certain attributes of these girls. The Minister of Music and I gave each other wide eyed looks of amusement. Finally the guy got up to leave and go back to work.

 

"By the way," he asked, "where do I know you guys from?"

 

The music guy said, "Church."

 

The dude turned pale and quickly walked away.

 

I had a Seminary professor who always said, "It's not how high you jump, it's what you do when you hit the ground." You can be jumping for Jesus on a Sunday but you better be sure when you hit the ground on Monday morning that you're living the right way. As Christians we should be the same person at work that we are at church. Jesus told us to take up our cross daily, not just on Sundays.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Ephesians 4:20-32

• What are we to put off? (v.22)
• What are we to put on? (v.24)
• What are we created to be like? (v.24)
• What are some of the things Paul lists that we should put off? (v.31)

 

Day 24

 

Ode To A Deacon

 

"Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them."

 

Acts 6:3

 

 

At one of the churches I served at as a youth minister there were a couple of deacons who had their own business. At least 3 days of the week they would come to the church around lunch time and we would all go out and get something to eat.

One day as we came back from lunch the church secretary and the janitor informed me that there was a young lady waiting in my office to talk to me. They both had big smiles on their faces so I knew something was up.

I went to my office and closed the door and introduced myself to the young woman and asked what I could do for her. Her answer was somewhat surprising.

She wanted to talk to the girls in my youth group. She had a special piece of advice to share with them from her personal experience. She wanted to share with the girls in the youth group about the evils of topless dancing.

As a topless dancer herself she had become discouraged with the profession, she told me. It was hard to make an honest living at it and so many of her friends had turned to drugs and prostitution. She complained long, bitterly and graphically about the plight of topless dancers.

At one point she was telling me about what happened to a co-worker of hers that had been particularly talented. She described how this girl could do this dance while standing on her head on a table top. Then she offered to demonstrate this dance on the top of my desk!

I assured her that it wasn't necessary, that I was convinced it was a very special dance. And while she is telling me all this I could hear this faint giggling outside  my office door. Those 2 deacons had been informed by the secretary that it was a half crazy topless dancer in my office that I was talking to so they had crouched outside my door to listen in for "my protection." They would have never done such a thing for a legitimate counseling session but this dancer gone scooters was one they couldn't resist.

In all my years of church work I have never had a difficult time with deacons. You hear all these jokes about pastors and deacons not getting along. I have found that the vast majority of them want to do nothing more than serve God and their church. They want to be what every church needs, servants.

After I had promised the young lady I would give her a call if any of the girls in the youth group started considering topless dancing as a career move she left. The deacons came in and were laughing with tears in their eyes over my little counseling session. I got them though. Several months later when they asked me if I knew anyone who might provide some entertainment for the deacons and wives Christmas party I gave them her name and phone number.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read 1 Timothy 3:3-8

 

• What are deacons to keep a hold of? The church finances?
• What are deacon's wives supposed to be like?
• Is the standard for deacons and their wives a standard that everyone should try to meet?

 

Day 23

 

Here's Your Sign

 

"By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

 

John 13:35

 

 

The pastor's daughter was getting married and it was a big production. People were coming in from all over the country for the wedding. I was the youth minister at the church and hopelessly single. There was a single girl flying in for the wedding to be a bridesmaid and suddenly everyone was too busy to pick her up. So, guess who they asked to go to the airport?

I was not totally stupid. I know why they were all too busy.  They had already told me about this girl. I was nice enough to play along (okay, desperate enough), so off to the airport I went.

When you are picking someone up at the airport that you have never seen you have to have a sign. You've seen the people standing there with a person's name on poster board. Usually they are limo drivers or desperate guys like I was. So, there I stood holding the sign up and hoping that the girl who bore a striking resemblance to a dachshund wasn't the one I was there for.

The problem is you aren't just holding up a sign with the person's name on it. There is another invisible yet readable sign. In the movies it is Tom Hanks holding up the sign and it has Meg Ryan's name on it. When she reads the invisible sign it reads, "Nice guy, willing to help friends."

My life is not Hollywood and I am not Tom Hanks. The girl does look like Meg Ryan though. (This is so it is all the more painful for me). You see the invisible sign I am holding up says, "Desperate Loser."

It's only a minor setback. Everyone loses a few checkers before they win the game.

We all carry signs. Yours may read, "Business Man" or "Nurse" or "Athlete." Hopefully you are carrying a sign that reads "Christian." Jesus tells us that people should be able to recognize us as his followers by our love for each other. Out of all the signs I had that day at the airport, visible or invisible, that was the most important one for me to be carrying.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read John 13:1-35

• What is going on in John 13 when Jesus tells his disciples they will be known for their love for each other?
• How did Jesus demonstrate his love to his disciples just prior to him telling them to love one another?
• What did Jesus know about Peter and yet he still demonstrated his love for him? 
   



 

Day 22

 

He Who Has Ears

 

He said to them, "Do you still not understand?"

 

Mark 8:21

 

I lived in a small apartment complex that only had about 40 units. It was mostly older people that lived there besides me and the young couple who lived above me.

One Saturday night I was awakened by a loud thump. It startled me and I thought it sounded like it came from the apartment next to mine but I ruled that out. There was an older lady who lived next to me who never made any noise so I figured it must have been the couple upstairs and I went back to sleep.

I awakened later in the night when I heard what seemed to be someone tapping on my wall. Again I figured it must be the couple upstairs and that the sound was traveling down my wall, so I went back to sleep again.

I got up on Sunday morning, headed for the shower to get ready for church. As I left the bedroom it sounded as if someone had faintly called my name. I paused but did not hear it again, so I went on and got ready for church.

After church that morning I came back to the apartments to find an ambulance in the parking lot. It was pulling out as I was pulling in. I parked my car and was walking to my apartment when the manager of the apartments approached me.

"What's with the ambulance?" I asked.

"It's the lady next door to you" he told me. "She fell in the middle of the night when she got up out of bed to get a glass of water. She couldn't get up but she was finally able to reach her cane. She said she was tapping on your wall with it trying to wake you up. She even called your name! Did you hear anything?"

 

Jesus was always saying, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." I can only think of one guy in the Bible who didn't have an ear and his name was Malchus. Actually Malchus had ears but on the night Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter cut Malchus' right ear off. Malchus was only earless for a short while because Jesus put the ear back on. So, when Jesus says, "He who has ears," he is talking to everybody. We all have ears, we just don't use them to listen all the time.

Sometimes it is not just a question of listening, but of understanding. In Mark chapter 6 Jesus feeds 5 thousand people with 5 loaves and 2 fish. In Mark chapter 8 Jesus feeds 4 thousand people, this time starting with 7 loaves of bread. After feeding the crowd, the disciples and Jesus get in a boat and cross the Sea of Galilee and the disciples only bring 1 loaf of bread. The disciples become concerned that they haven't brought enough bread with them.

Jesus interrupts their discussion about the lack of bread and asks his disciples some questions. "Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see and ears but fail to hear?"

The disciples, like us modern day disciples, had ears but sometimes didn't listen. They sometimes listened but they didn't always understand. We read God's word and think, "Well this doesn't apply to me." We hear sermons and think the message was for someone else. We are just the same as I was at that apartment, we hear but we don't understand that the message was for us.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Mark 8:14-21

• How many loaves of bread did the disciples bring with them?
• Did the disciples understand Jesus' comment about "the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod"?
• What was Jesus trying to get his disciples to understand?