Day 61

 

The Underwear Patrol

 

For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

 

Matthew 12:50

 

Bert and Ernie's favorite thing to do when they got home from elementary school was to strip off their school clothes and watch TV or just play while only dressed in their underwear. I had come to their house because their mom was sick - in fact she was chronically ill and in bed a good deal of the time. As I rang the doorbell I could see the boys through a glass pane in the door and they were running around the living room in their underwear.

Bert came to the door and without opening it asked, "Who is it?"

"It's Brother Jess with the underwear patrol", I told him.

He took off down the hallway towards his mom's bedroom and I heard her faintly ask, "Who is at the door?"

"It's Brother Jo with the underwear patrol," he told her.

In his excitement he got the Brother part right but used my wife's name (Ms. Jo, his Sunday School teacher) instead of mine.

On another occasion we had to pick up Bert and Ernie from school because their dad had to take their mom to the hospital While we were driving home Bert asked me, "Brother Jess, why did your mother name you Brother?"

My mom did not name me Brother, but I am called that more than anything else. To my family I'm just Jess or Dad, everyone else, other than old friends, call me Brother Jess. You see I have a lot of brothers and sisters. In a biological sense I have 3 brothers and 1 sister but in God's eyes I have more brothers and sisters than I can count.

Jesus tells us that, "whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister." So if I do God's will and you do God's will then we are Jesus' brothers and sisters and that makes us brothers and sisters. We are also "co-heirs with Christ." (Romans 8:17) It wasn't my mom that named me Brother, it was Jesus.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read John 7:1-5

• Did Jesus' own brothers understand him?

Read Matthew 12:46-50

• Is Jesus saying anything negative about his family?
• Somewhere along the way did Jesus' brothers come to understand him and follow him? 

 

 

 

 

Day 60

 

WWJD

 

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

 

Matthew 16:24

 

The kids in the class were all wearing their WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) bracelets. They had discussed what the WWJD stood for and had moved on to a craft project. There was only one tube of glue and Bert wanted it. The only problem was another little boy was using the glue. Bert asked for the glue but the other boy refused to give the glue up. So, Bert got a ruler and whacked the other boy upside the head with it and said, "Give me the glue!"

The teacher startled by the sudden assault said, "Bert, remember your WWJD bracelet. What would Jesus do here?"

Bert replied, "If Jesus was here he would make him give me the glue!"

Even when we are 5 years old we have a hard time discerning the difference between our will and God's will. One thing is for certain though, what Jesus would have done would not have included whacking a kid with a ruler.

The popularity of the WWJD bracelets have come and gone. You just don't see them that much anymore. We have moved on to new slogans and printed new t-shirts. Hopefully we have not discarded, along with our bracelets, asking ourselves what Jesus would do.

I believe if we consistently ask ourselves what would Jesus do  we would all be much better off. Anybody who invested in a get rich quick scheme could have saved themselves a lot of money by asking, "Is this something Jesus would do?" Anybody who has wounded a friend deeply by saying something they should not have said could have saved a friendship by first asking themselves, "Is this something Jesus would say?" The list is endless: Would Jesus raise his kids this way? Would Jesus spend his money on this? Would Jesus sit and listen to this?"

Jesus tells us if we are going to do the things he does we must take up our cross and follow him. Taking up our cross is not a burden we bear (like bad eyesight or a mean mother in law) the cross is a instrument of death. We must die to what we want to do and follow Jesus doing what he wants to do.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Matthew 16: 21-26

• What was Jesus explaining to his disciples that he must do?
• Was this what the disciples wanted to happen?
• How do we find real life? 

Day 59

 

Chicken Pox: The Gift that Keeps On Giving

 

Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

 

Psalms 32:1

 

I had the chicken pox when I was a kid. Not being a selfish youngster, I shared them with my dad. I was pretty young so I don't remember it much. I remember the spots and itching and my dad being miserable but the rest of it is a blur.

Once Ethan had to fill out a form that listed all his immunizations. I was thinking as the form was being filled out that I had not been immunized for several of those diseases, I had just had the disease. I had the mumps, which I shared with my mom (wasn't I the most generous of children?). I had the measles and the chicken pox. Ethan has been immunized for all of those.

They announced the beginning of the chicken pox vaccine while the chicken pox was going through Ethan's pre-school class. Every kid in his class but him and one other boy got the chicken pox. Ms. Juana, a daycare worker from El Salvador who absolutely adored Ethan, was afraid he would get the "chicken pops." I told her that chicken pops was a breakfast cereal and that chicken pox was the disease. To be fair, her English was way better than my Spanish. Maybe in El Salvador they do get the pollo pops. Whatever they call it, Ethan didn't get the pops or the pox and I was able to get him immunized.

Several years ago I was getting ready to go to a Promise Keepers Conference with a bunch of guys from church. I was not feeling well and told my wife I wasn't sure I was up for the trip. I had these bug bites that were driving me crazy. I was getting on the church van when I told my doctor (who was going with us) that I was becoming the biggest wimp because I had these bug bites that hurt big time. He asked to see the bites, so I lifted up my shirt and showed him. He told me the reason my bug bites hurt so much was because they weren't bites, I had the shingles.

The shingles is the chicken pox coming back to haunt you. I had a mild case but still the spots on my stomach felt painfully connected to the spots on my back. I had a new found admiration for those whom I knew had suffered and endured the shingles for extended periods of time and suffered from a more severe case. Recently I got a shingles vaccine because I don't ever want to go trough that again.

Sin is kind of like the chicken pox. Sometimes it has consequences that come back to trouble us a long time after the sin. If we confess our sins God forgives us and our relationship with him is restored but we still have to suffer the earthly consequences of our actions. God can and sometimes does remove those consequences, or he might lessen them but most often he lets us endure them to discipline us. We do the same thing for our children.

So next time you are tempted to sin just think about the chicken pox. Like the chicken pox sin is painful and disfiguring. And some day down the road, like a case of shingles, your sin can come back to zap you again.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Psalms 32:1-5

• What do you think it means by "in whose spirit is no deceit"?
• What happened when the psalmist kept silent about his sin?
• Did God forgive him of the guilt of his sin or the consequences of his sin?

 



 

Day 58

 

Of Mice and Men

 

He who did not spare us his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

 

Romans 8:32

 

Mice seem to be attracted to houses that I live in. They are uninvited guests to be sure but I really can't blame them since I am a big fan of air conditioning myself.

While I don't blame the mice for wanting to move up in the world I would prefer they move up somewhere else. Being a non-violent kind of guy I used to try and catch them in one of those yuppie "let's not hurt the mouse" traps. It is a little cube that with a one way door where the mouse goes in but can't get out. The idea is like catch and release. I figured I could catch them and then release them at the home of a deacon who was giving me a hard time.

It turns out that mice don't really like to check into mouse hotels. They did like to take a dip in my pool, when I had a house with a swimming pool. What they didn't know was that my pool was like Las Vegas. What went into the pool stayed in the pool. I constantly had to toss out drowned mice into the woods behind the house.

The mice that bypassed the pool and made it into the house (through some hole I was never able to locate) always wound up in the same place. I could hear a mouse at night and find him the next morning in an old fashioned spring trap placed by the hot water heater. That location never failed. The first time we put a trap there we caught a mouse within 5 minutes.

When Ethan was a preschooler, catching a mouse was an event. We had mouse funerals. On one occasion we sang Amazing Grace and I asked Ethan to say a few words about the mouse. He said, "He had big ears." I said, "Amen."

At the graveside service I said, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if the trap doesn't get you the cat must." Then we laid little Mickey to rest.

Humans are tough on mice. Some people have pet mice that they raise to fee to their pet snake. And will humans willingly share their spacious home with a mouse? No! And if you are a mouse you best not let a scientist get a hold of you. He'll have you running endless mazes or drinking so much coffee your nerves are shot. Or worse, some scientist will get you hooked on little mouse cigarettes to see if you get cancer.

Some people think about our relationship with God in mice and men terms. They think God is sending us through a maze of weather disasters, financial crises and relationship troubles. They believe God just keeps sending bad stuff our way to see how much we can take.

But that is not God at all. In Romans 8:32 the Bible tells us, "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" God loves us and gave his best for us, his Son. The "all things" he gives us in this context refers to salvation and that nothing can separate us from the love of God. It doesn't mean that we will get all the toys we want or that we will be free of troubles. It does mean that with Christ we have all we need to overcome those troubles.

Where we live now we have solved the mouse problem with an accessory that came with the house. A cat. But if you should catch a live mouse I have a list of addresses you can send it to.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Romans 8:31-39

• Is there anyone who can bring a charge against one of God's children that could somehow separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus?
• Is there anyone who can condemn a child of God and somehow separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus?
• Can any of the things Paul mentions defeat us and separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus?
• 

Day 57

 

Stray Dogs and Grace

 

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast."

 

Ephesians 2:8-9

 

We had a white dog named "Brownie." I know the name doesn't exactly fit but my then 4 year old son, Ethan, picked the name out before we picked out the dog. He had his heart set on a dog named Brownie so that became his name. And actually we didn't pick out the dog, he picked us out. He was a stray.

When Brownie came to us he was in a bad way. He had an open wound on his shoulder, was covered with ticks and fleas, had mange and was just about starved to death. We couldn't bear to see the dog starve so we fed him and he stayed. My wife, Jo, is a nurse and she doctored his wound as best she could. We got some worm medicine down him and after a shampoo to get rid of fleas and ticks we applied some mange medicine to him. Brownie started looking like a half way decent dog.

So, Brownie found a home. We rescued him from  death, or at least a very hard life.We saved him; it was an act of grace. You see Brownie had never pulled one of us out of a burning building or rescued us from a lunatic gunman. Brownie had never loved us, known us or thought of us. But we took pity on Brownie, a poor, ugly, sick, starving, stray dog. We fed him, we healed him and we gave him a home. It was grace.

I was a spiritually poor, sin sick and starving for a relationship with God stray boy when Jesus took pity on me. Jesus healed me of my sin, his word and his Spirit feed my soul and I have a home built in heaven. It was and is and will be grace. I didn't, don't and never could deserve it.

I didn't go looking for Brownie, he came to my house. In contrast, Jesus came down from heaven looking for me. It was wonderful, loving and amazing grace.

Brownie turned out to be a pretty good dog. He was no Lassie barking out a warning that the dam was about to break and flood the whole valley. But then again, maybe he did. Perhaps the problem was that I was no Timmy and didn't understand what he was barking about.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Luke 18:9-14

• Who did the Pharisee measure his goodness against?
• Did the tax collector make any claim of worth?
• Is it better to "justified by God" or to be self-justified?



 

Day 56

 

Having Eyes But Are Blind

 

Lead out those who have eyes but are blind, who have ears but are deaf.

 

Isaiah 43:8

 

 

Ethan was really terrible at playing hide and seek. He did okay in the hiding part; he could find imaginative places to hide. What he couldn't do was seek. Well, he could seek, he just couldn't find.

Once we were playing in the house and it was his turn to find me. I went and hid in his room. My hiding place was that I was lying in his bed, no covers up, just lying there in plain sight. He came into the room and looked in the closet but didn't see me.  A short time later Jo snuck into the room, immediately saw me and climbed in the bed with me. Ethan came into the room looking for us both and though we were in plain sight he could not find us. There was nothing wrong with his vision, he just didn't see us.

The Bible talks about people "who have eyes but are blind, who have ears but are deaf." On numerous occasions Jesus says, "He who has ears, let him hear." The problem is not being physically blind or deaf, it is being spiritually blind.

I've talked to so many people who are on a pathway that leads to destruction and you would think it would be quiet evident to them, but they don't see it. They do things that they should not and are mystified when the consequences are bad. It should be clear that their way of living has led to misery  and that they need a Savior in the most desperate way.

It is like it is their turn to seek, to seek out salvation, a better way of living, and they can't find Him. They look in the bottom of beer bottles  or in empty prescription containers and don't find Him. They try sitting in a certain position, chanting some nonsense, breathing in incense thinking it will clear their vision and don't find Him. Some don't even try to find Him, they think as long as they play by the rules that they are winners but they never stop to ask what the rules really are. 

All the while Jesus is in plain sight, on a hill called Mount Calvary, lifted up on a cross.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read John 3:5-16

 

• What did Nocodemus not understand?
• What event in Jesus' live corresponds with Moses' lifting up of the snake in the desert?
• What must we do to have eternal life?   

Day 55

 

Mother's Day

 

Give her the reward that she has earned and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

 

Proverbs 31:31

 

For some men the only redeeming quality they seem to have ever had is their ability to pick a good wife. I am always amazed when some sorry character manages to convince some sainted woman to marry him. I was 33 years old before I ever got married, and I had many a bachelor friend who married above his market value. It used to frustrate me to no end when a nice Christian girl gave me the "I love you like a brother" speech, and then she would marry some goofball a year later. (Of course, some did way better than me.)

I had friends who were worried that I would never get married. A standard gift for me at Christmas time or for birthdays was cologne.  People seemed to think I needed all the help I could get. If smelling good was the key to winning a girl's heart, I could have had a harem. Why at any time I could have smelled like a brute, a canoe, a pair of chaps or a karate expert. I could have smelled like old spice, English leather. I could have smelled like Halston, Chanel or even Zorro. I had colognes, aftershaves, deodorants, musk and soaps on ropes. At one time I had over 30 bottles of cologne. To my knowledge none of it did me any good because all the soap on a rope never helped me lasso a wife.

I don't know what made my wife say "yes" when I proposed. She is normally very intelligent, a graduate of Rice University, the "Harvard of the South." I am grateful for her momentary lapse in judgment. She is a good wife, a good mother and a good person.

Years ago my son, Ethan and I brought her some flowers for Mother's Day. It was hardly a suitable reward for that she had done for us but if we had got her chocolates we would have been the ones to eat them. Let me tell you what she did with her flowers.

First she took a couple of flowers out of her arrangement  and put them in a little vase that was filled with water that had food coloring added to it. She did this science experiment for Ethan so that he could see the flowers change color and learn how plants grow.

Most of the rest of the flowers were gone by the end of Mother's Day. They were given to children at the church to give to their mothers. The flowers she had earned she freely gave as a gift.

After she had given them away she asked me if I minded. I didn't, of course. I thought what a great illustration of why we have Mother's Day. It is because our mothers give, often sacrificially. They put their joy second to that of their families.

One of the great things about my wonderful wife Joanne is that she didn't marry me because of my cologne. She is allergic to the stuff. It is a real ego boost to know that she didn't fall for the greatest cologne collection east of the Pecos; she fell for me.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Proverbs 31:10-31

 

• Is it easy to find a good wife?
• What does a good wife do for her husband?
• What does a good wife do for others?