Day 66



The Moped

 

The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.

 

Proverbs 27:12

 

 

Ethan was given a moped by his grandparents. It had been sitting in their garage unused for some time and they decided that Ethan was old enough to use it. I took it down to the local hardware store so that they could get it in running condition.

When it was fixed I rode it home. The only way to anywhere in the small town we lived in was on the highway. The speed limit in town was 35 mph, though typically people went faster. The moped would top out at 35 mph on a flat surface but we lived in the hills of Arkansas. I could go as fast as I needed to keep from getting run over if I was going down hill but going up hill it would only go about 5 mph. I quickly decided that it was not safe for Ethan to ride in town even if he was wearing a helmet and body armor.

The street we lived on wasn't long and had a dead end. He could ride the moped on that but it would have been pretty boring after a while. I thought maybe he could use it like a dirt bike and ride it on the trails around our street. (There were only 3 houses on the street the rest was just woods.)

Before I sent him off riding through the woods I though it best for me to test it to see if it was safe for Ethan. I got on the moped and took of on one of the trails.

The trail was kind of rocky and went steeply down hill. The moped, I discovered, had no shocks. It wasn't long before I was going way too fast and was airborne. It was then I made some crucial discoveries:

• Brakes don't work when you are in the air. Not even air brakes.
• Riding on that trail, with that moped, was not safe for me or  Ethan or probable Evil Knevil.
• Preachers may be full of hot air but we do not float and we are still subject to the law of gravity.
• The ground is hard. Very hard. I have the scar to prove it.

I wish I could say that the moped incident was the first time I have done something so goofy. Unfortunately I have years of experience in the goofy department.

Once in my younger years, when I was a recreation director for a camp, the youth minister took the teens to this swimming hole. The big attraction was about a 10 foot waterfall we were told you could jump off of into a pool of water below.

The youth minister told me, "Jess you're the rec guy, jump off that waterfall and see if it is safe."

In a moment of sanity I asked, "And if it isn't?"

"Then we will swim somewhere else," he said.

My moment of sanity had passed because that seemed like a reasonable response. So I jumped off of the waterfall into the water below. (Give me some credit - I didn't dive.) Fortunately it was safe to jump off, though I almost got hypothermia because the water was so cold.

Proverbs 27:12 tells us, "The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it."

I readily admit I have done some simple minded things and suffered a few bruises and cuts from them. How I have escaped without ever breaking a bone is the grace of God. Now that I am older and my athleticism and recuperative powers aren't what they used to be I am much more cautious. To go on putting myself in harm's way trusting God will miraculously bail me out would be more than simple minded. It would be presumptuous and wrong.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Matthew 4:5-7

• What is Jesus tempted by the devil to do?
• Did the devil make it seem like a reasonable thing to do?
• What about the situation did Jesus tell the devil was wrong? 

 

 



 

Day 65

 

A Hope That Does Not Disappoint

 

And hope does  not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

 

Romans 5:5

 

Thad called me one night when I had not heard from him in years. He had been in my youth group in years back and since that time I had moved to a different state to become a pastor. We chatted a while and caught up on each other's life. I though it odd that he would go to some trouble to locate me and call me unless something was up. I waited for him to bring something up but he never did, at least not then.

He called me again the next week and finally got around to the real reason he had called. He was planning to kill himself. I pleaded with him no to do it. I offered to fly him to Arkansas, where I was living, and told him he could stay with us until he could work things out. He refused my offer and wouldn't give me any contact information.

Desperately I called the city on the west coast where he was living and told them the situation but without an address or a phone number (he was using a disposable cell phone when he called me) or even a description of his car there was not much they could do. I called people I knew that might have some information about him but no one knew a thing. Thad's parents were dead and he had been on his own for years and no one could help me.

A week later he called again, this time late at night. Tonight is the night he told me. He asked for my address because he wanted to send me a letter and had some last wishes he wanted taken care of. I pleaded with him not to go through with it. I asked as I had before what was so bad that it would drive him to this but he refused to tell me. When he hung up I called the police in his town again but with no new information there wasn't a lot they could do.

I sat awake in bed that night praying for him. About 1:45 a. m. my phone rang. It was a friend of his in that city who said that Thad had left his place a few minutes before acting strange and had asked him to mail me a package. I told him, "Call the police, tell them what kind of car he is driving and where he lives, he intends to kill himself."

The next call I received came at about 4:00 a. m. and it was the police. They had found Thad and it was too late. I talked to investigators and told them of the package and letter he wanted sent to me and that I thought it might have some information about his remaining family.

A few days later his family was tracked down and the police forwarded the letter to me. I preached his funeral. I read his letter over and over again but never found any reason why he would take his life. It seems that there was something he just didn't want anybody to know about and he had just lost hope.

Unfortunately that is not the only suicide I have had to deal with. There are people who for some reason have lost hope and think that killing themselves solves the problem. It doesn't. It does not solve a thing; it just creates heartache and problems for others. Thinking it solves the problem is like Sherlock Holmes thinking that quitting the case will solve the mystery.

I confess that I don't really understand such a feeling of hopelessness. I understand people have them, it is just foreign to me. I have had some bad things happen in my life but I have never come close to being that hopeless.

How do people get there? I don't know. I do know that there is a way out of hopelessness. In Romans 5 Paul talks of a chain of events that lead to hope. He tells us to "rejoice in our sufferings" because that suffering will "produce perseverance" (Romans 5:3). The perseverance will in turn produce character and the character will produce hope. (Romans 5:4) I guess for some people a link of that chain is broken and their suffering never produces perseverance, at least not the kind that will lead on to hope.

Paul goes on to say that the hope from God will "not disappoint us." It doesn't disappoint us because it is the love of God washing over our hearts in the person of the Holy Spirit.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Habakkuk 3:16-19

• What was Habakkuk feeling and why?
• What is in Habakkuk's lists of things that could possibly go wrong? (v. 17)
• If all the things that could go wrong do go wrong what will Habakkuk do? (v. 19)
• How can Habakkuk do that?

Bonus Material

 

Several times after someone has committed suicide I have been asked if suicide is the unpardonable sin. The idea is that in committing suicide a person's last act is a sinful one so there is no opportunity to repent.

The answer to that is simply no; suicide is not the unpardonable sin. People die all the time, some suddenly and some lingering, where there last act is not confessing their sins. I am sure that heaven has plenty of people in it who were not "fessed up."

If confessing our sins in a timely fashion before we die was what got us into heaven it would be a salvation of works. And we know that salvation is not of works but of grace and faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). We do need to acknowledge or confess to God that we are sinners and this comes as his Spirit convicts us. But anything we do, confessing our sins or noble deeds, is pointless unless we receive the free gift of salvation that comes through Jesus Christ and his death on a cross and his resurrection from the dead. When we place our faith in his grace nothing, not the lack of confession of a particular sin, can prevent us from being saved and joining Christ in heaven.

 

Extra Special Bonus Material

 

So, what is the unpardonable sin? In Matthew 12:32 Jesus tells us, "that anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or the age to come." Speaking against the Holy Spirit or blaspheming the Holy Spirit is the unpardonable sin.

Okay, so what does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit? The key to understanding what Jesus means is in the context. Jesus heals a demon possessed man who was blind and mute. Most people who witnessed this were saying, "Could this be the Son of David?" They witnessed a miracle and saw it as a sign that Jesus was the promised Messiah. The Pharisee's reaction is different. They attribute the healing to Jesus using demonic powers.

It was not the first time they had witnessed Jesus do an astounding miracle. There probably was not anyone who watched Jesus more closely than the Pharisees. They had all the information they needed to know that Jesus was the Son of God. The had seen proof of it over and over again and had to know what Jesus claimed was true. Knowing it was true, being convicted in their hearts it was true, they still rejected Jesus. They even suggested he was from Satan when they knew he was from God.

An important verse is Matthew 12:25 when Matthew tells us, "Jesus knew their thoughts." He knew exactly when they crossed that line of saying, "Yes, I believe what Jesus is saying is true but I choose to reject it." Jesus knew in their hearts they had said, "no" to the convicting power of the Spirit of God. And that is blaspheming or speaking against the Holy Spirit.

Don't miss out on something important here. When Jesus is telling us that there is one sin that cannot be forgiven he is also telling us that all others can be forgiven. Paul persecuted the church, held cloaks while Stephen was stoned to death. He was forgiven. David stole another man's wife and arranged for his death. He was forgiven. And so shall you be if you ask for forgiveness and say yes to his convicting Spirit.

 

* For a more detailed explanation of the unpardonable sin I suggest you read John Macarthur's book The Jesus You Can't Ignore. Chapter 7 of the book explains it well and you will see my explanation is essentially John Macarthur's explanation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 64

 

Counseling

 

All this also comes from the Lord Almighty, wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom.

 

Isaiah 28:29

 

Several years ago a young man called me on the phone and told me he had a problem he needed help with. I asked him what his problem was. He explained to me that he had been making phone calls to his boss's daughter that were somewhat rude in nature. His boss found out about it and he was warned to quit making the calls. He didn't quit and was fired.

He was a determined, though somewhat deranged, young man so he kept calling. The police had finally shown up at his door and warned him that if he made one more call that he would be arrested and charges filed against him. The problem he wanted help with was, "What do I do now?"

Being a highly trained professional I was able to come up with an insightful and profound reply. "Don't call her," I told him.

He said, "But I want to call her!"

"Fine," I replied, "then go to jail."

"Is that your advice?" he asked.

"That's it," I assured him.

I guess he wanted me to explore his feelings and probe his past like Oprah or Dr. Phil would. I'm a little more direct than that. It is not that I don't care about people's problems it is just that at times I am unsure what to say.

One man confided to me that since his bypass surgery he had lost his sex drive. What do you say when someone tells you that? The best I could come up with was, "Maybe they bypassed the wrong thing."

Okay, perhaps that wasn't the too helpful. It was better than my alternative: "I'm pretty sure you didn't lose it in my office so maybe you should enquire about it somewhere else." It's not like the Southern Baptist Convention sends a case of Viagra to every pastor with instructions to "dispense as needed." I was a little out of my realm of expertise. (If I actually have a realm of expertise).

When people come to me for counseling I do take their problems seriously and try to help as best I can. My advise in most every situation is to turn to the Lord for help. The Bible tells us he is "wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom." That is better credentials than Oprah and Dr. Phil combined.

 

Upon Further Review

 

Read Isaiah 28:23-29

• Did the Israelites really need advice on planting herbs?
• What point is God trying to make when he gives the Israelites those everyday guidelines to planting?
• Is sometimes the best counsel and wisest thing to do the most obvious and simple thing to do?

 



Day 63

 

The Lunchable

 

"Look, I am about to die," Esau said. "What good is the birthright to me?"

 

Genesis 25:32

 

 

"So who is your boyfriend?" I asked Michelle.

"I don't have one right now," she said.

This was surprising because I thought I knew who her boyfriend was. She was only 8 years old and having a boyfriend didn't really mean that much except as status at school.

"What happened to Carmelo?" I asked. "I thought he was your boyfriend."

"He was, but now he is some other girl's boyfriend."

"What happened?"

"This girl asked him to be her boyfriend but he said he couldn't because he already had a girlfriend. Then she said she would give him her lunchable if he would be her boyfriend. He was hungry, so now he has a new girlfriend."

I was astonished and amused. "Michelle, you mean you got traded in for a lunchable?"

"Yeah, basically."

Self esteem was no problem with Michelle so I didn't worry about some deep emotional scar over being traded for a lunchable. She had just stopped by my office to chat and we were both laughing about it. It reminded me though of how often we trade in our birthright, as God's children, for something as transient as a lunchable.

Esau was a hunter and would go off on long trips looking for game.  Jacob was more of a stay at home type. One day Esau came in from a long hunting trip and saw Jacob cooking. "Quick, let me have some of that red stew!" Esau demanded.

Jacob was shrewd and the second born (if only by a few minutes since they were twins). So Jacob said, "First, sell me your birthright."

The birthright of Esau, the firstborn, was double the portion of any other brothers he might have. There were only 2 of them so Esau stood to inherit two thirds of Isaac's estate to Jacob's one third. It was a steep price Jacob was asking for.

It didn't take much for Esau to cave in to Jacob's asking price and Esau swore an oath to sell his birthright. It is then we read that "Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew."

Esau thought he was trading his birthright for some "red stew", meaning meat stew and what he got was a bowl of beans. It would have been bad enough to trade the birthright for some beef stew but all he wound up with was beans.

It happens like that all the time. As Christians we trade our birthright, our position in God's family, for things we think are going to be really great and we find out what the world has to offer is just a bunch of beans. It is terrible and foolish to trade away a close fellowship with Christ for anything this world has to offer.

Satan tried to tempt Jesus with this same kind of offer. After Jesus had fasted 40 days Satan tried to tempt him with his physical needs (some bread), pride (showing off he was the Son of God by jumping off a high point and having angels rescue him) and power (all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would only worship Satan). Jesus turned down all these offers knowing them to be nothing but beans compared to what his heavenly Father had to offer.

And that is what we need to remember. What God has to offer is so much more than what Satan or the world has to offer. The world offers candy and God invites us to the "wedding supper of the Lamb." (Revelation 19:9) The world offers a false sense of pride and God makes us "co-heirs with Christ." (Romans 8:17) Satan offers us power and God promises us we will reign with him for ever and ever. (Revelation 22:5) The world promises beef stew and delivers beans. It promises you everything and will abandon you for a lunchable.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Genesis 25:24-34

• Who was Isaac's favorite son and who was Rebekah's favorite? (v.28)
• Do you think having favorites helped or harmed the relationship between the brothers?
• Do you think Esau was really in danger of starving or was he just hungry?

 

Read Genesis 27:35-36

• What 2 times did Jacob deceive Esau?    



Day 62

 

Broken Feet

 

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

 

1 Thessalonians 5:18

 

My son broke his foot. How he did it I don't know. I don't even know how long it was broken before we discovered it. What  sounds even worse is it turned out both of his feet were broken and we didn't know it.

You may be wondering how such a neglectful parent escaped child protective services. In my defense he was walking fine and we noticed he was limping only when basketball season started. Everyday in practice his limp would become more pronounced. We took him to a podiatrist who saw his age (at the time he was in Jr. High) and the shape of his foot  and told us that he would take an x-ray but was sure it was broken. The x-ray proved him right and he explained that kids of that age with feet shaped like his often suffered from stress fractures in their heels. So Ethan wore a walking boot for a couple of months on one foot and then switched it to the other foot.

So you see, my child did not suffer from child abuse. I have abused my lawn mower on occasion and regularly abuse the English language but never my son. The only thing abused on this occasion was my checking account.

We did have medical insurance and I was thankful for that. Not everyone has insurance or a job for that matter. The trouble was that the cost to fix two broken feet was not enough to go over my deductible.

I was thankful for that too. You see a lot of people go over their deductible year after year. My family never goes over the deductible. We are all healthy people and rarely go to a doctor.

Being thankful has a lot to do with perspective. If you look at most things you can find something to be thankful for. You don't have to be thankful for some tragedy but you can be thankful while in the midst of a tragedy.

I am thankful that my son's feet healed. I am thankful I could pay for the care he needed. And I am thankful he only has two feet.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Philippians 4:4-7

• In whom do we rejoice always?
• What can we do about anxiety?
• When we pray with thanksgiving what do we receive? 

 

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?