Saved?

Saved.

What comes to mind when you see that word?  Perhaps today it is more commonly used to talk about information on a computer.  Money can be saved.  Time can be saved.  Food can be saved.  And people can be saved, on several levels.

I once was called to the home of a man who was dying of cancer.  He lived in a mobile home in the small town of my first church.  Most of his life he had worked in the oil field.  As I talked with him about his life we moved from his illness to his spiritual life.  He made the statement, "God has saved me many times."  I asked him what he meant by that?  What followed were several stories about how he should have been killed in an oil field related accidents and he was spared.  He sensed God had a purpose for him being here and he vowed after each incident that he would live a cleaner, better life.  Each time he had reverted to his own sinful ways, but he asserted he had been saved by God - that was his definition.

I was able to explain to him that God had spared him here but wanted to save him eternally.  After several more visits, he did accept Christ.  Another pastor friend baptized him in his bathtub before he passed away.  I felt he did understand what it meant for God to save him eternally, but it goes to show how definitions of the word "saved" can vary. 

People get hung up on different issues of salvation.  Some people don't think they need it, they are fine just the way they are.  Some people have had an "experience" but begin to doubt it and wonder it they are saved.  Sometimes people wonder for years about their salvation.  What can you do if you are one of those people?  There is a good Biblical example in a man named Nicodemus who went to talk to Jesus about his life.  We will follow their conversation Sunday and hopefully clear up some confusion and bring some clarity.

For the journey...

Tim 

Destination Influence - Rerun

Several months ago, I wrote this blog and there was some strange problem with it getting out.  Not sure what happened but I saw where very few people saw it. But I was reminded of it while getting ready to go on a week of vacation with my family.  So here it is again, maybe for many of you for the first time.

In getting ready for my trip to Israel, I was pouring shampoo from a large bottle into a travel sized bottle.  As the smaller bottle began to fill something interesting happened.  Because of the thickness of the shampoo, there began to be something of a "pile" or mound of shampoo in the middle of the travel bottle .  The stream from the bottle of origin began to pour down the side of this little peak of shampoo in the middle of the bottle and started to move around the mound. 

This made a hard task even more difficult because the travel bottle had a small opening and now the stream of shampoo I was pouring began to dance around making it difficult to keep from spilling on the edge of the travel bottle.  Thankfully this dancing stream was short lived as the bottle filled up.

It dawned on me how the stream of shampoo became more determined by its destination than its origin.  That should be a good thing for us to aspire to as Christians.  As I was getting ready for this trip, my thoughts turned more and more to my destination.  There were a lot of preparations to make for being in another country.  The Christian life ought to be more and more like that as we mature.  We should become more influenced by our destination than our origin.  We should be getting ready for living in a new place.  The difference between my trip and our journey as Christians is that my trip is temporary, our trip and destination as Christians is permanent.  We are not getting ready for a visit there we are getting ready to live there eternally. 

So what is influencing more of your life today - your place of origin or your destination?  What preparations are you making for your journey?  Why not start today?

For the journey...
Tim

Is Eating Waffle Fries a Moral Statement?

I joined the thousands Wednesday who ate at Chick-fil-A.  There were long lines everywhere.  As I watched the very busy employees rush around, I wondered if they felt "appreciated" since this was a day not chosen by them to be appreciated for the company's CEO's comments in support of traditional marriage.  From the smiling faces of those who waited on me, it seemed like they were doing their job as usual. 

To be honest, eating at Chick-fil-A is a Wednesday evening family tradition so it was not that much of taking a stand for me either.  I did purposely go that day just to see what it was like.  I enjoyed my food as usual.  Seriously, how difficult is it to eat a grilled chicken sandwich and split some waffle fries?  That is not a sacrifice even if you have to wait an extra ten minutes.  

I wondered how many of us would have been there if it had been a sacrifice?  That statistics I read this week show that support for same sex marriage is growing.  Fifty percent of Americans support same sex marriage while 48% oppose.  Of those Americans who attend church, 28% support gay marriage and 72% oppose.  In both areas, in church and out, support is growing.

I am amazed at how much things have changed in this area in this past year.  What I am beginning to see is that there is a growing difference between people of the world and people of the Word.  I always want to be counted in the people of the Word category, waffle fries or not.  I also wondered how many of the people at Chick-fil-A on Wednesday would be in church on Sunday?

Sunday I will be preaching on the story of Jesus teaching in his home town of Nazareth.  He took a stand that day and it was not popular with the good people gathered in the synagogue with him.  That day, good moral people who surely would have joined us at Chick-fil-A if they had lived in our day, wanted to throw Jesus off a cliff. 

Maybe we are learning what it means not to be a person of the world.  I think we still have a way to go before we are truly people of the Word.  I pray we are on our way though. 

For the journey...

Tim

A Severe Ministry Opportunity

The strength of a Christian may be best determined by what kind of circumstance they see as an opportunity for ministry.  It would be hard to see surviving the Colorado theater shooting as an opportunity for ministry, instead of seeing it as a need to be ministered too.  One brave woman has seen the opportunity and God has brought her blog about it before thousands.  If you have not seen it, you need to.  Please click this link and read her words and let her minister to you.

http://aminiatureclaypot.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/so-you-still-think-god-is-a-merciful-god/

for the journey...

Tim

A New Journey

This morning I began a journey with millions of Muslims.  Though I will be walking through Ramadan with them, I will not be walking the same way.   I began a 30 day prayer journey for Muslims during their holy month of Ramadan.

When I think of Muslims, I think of them differently than I did just a year ago; God now brings specific people to mind - my Muslim neighbor who no longer practices Islam but still counts himself as a Muslim.  I think of a young man who grew up in our church and converted to Islam.  And I think of Ata.

Ata was the bus driver we had when we toured Israel.  I trusted Ata with my life and I would do it again.  I watched him drive that big tour bus down narrow streets, through incredible traffic and down one if the steepest, most winding and no doubt dangerous roads in Galilee (you could see the wrecked vehicles that did not make it down below on this breath taking road).  He did it all incredibly.

Ata is not just any Muslim, he once was the one of the men who voiced the "calls to prayer" from the towers of mosques in Jerusalem.  I was told, his rich deep voice is still heard in recordings as he read the Koran - for those recordings he is somewhat of a celebrity.  Ata drove me and our group to the most important sites for Christians in Israel.  He heard our stories, he understood the guide's explanation, he heard the Bible read as we moved from one place to another.  I pray that it all sinks in somehow and he can see Jesus not just as a prophet recognized by Islam but as the savior of all mankind and specifically his savior.  I know that Ata will be praying and fasting during Ramadan and I will be praying for him - that all this exposure to Christians and to the Bible would not harden him to the gospel but soften him to it.

I will remember his impeccably pressed dress shirts that he wore each day, I' ll remember how he made sure there was always bottled water for us and I will remember that he called me (and all the other men) "Brother."  He seemed to have a genuine concern for us beyond his job.  So it is easy now for me to pray for Muslims because I will think of Ata, who is a true servant, and I will pray that he becomes a servant of Christ.

This Sunday, I will ask you to join me in praying through Ramadan.  Maybe you don't have someone specific to pray for, the prayer guide we have available will help with that.  Or maybe you can join me in praying for Ata.

for the journey...

Tim

Being Carried

While I was mowing my front yard last week, I watched my neighbor across the street pull into her driveway, park and then with some effort carry her young son from his car seat and into the house.  You could tell they were both tired and this was a task for both of them.  That is how it is with small children.  Tasks like that will be repeated multiple times.  This little one will be carried for many more miles and several more years.

The thought occurred to me as I kept mowing, "Do I remember being carried?"  I have many memories of childhood, some from very young.  I can remember several early memories of sitting in my mother's lap and of riding my father's knee but I have no memory of ever being carried.  That's funny, because I know without a doubt that I was.  Those moments of being carried were probably like my neighbor's moment, a routine task in a routine day, quickly forgotten but none the less real.

God's presence can be a lot like that.  There are times that without a doubt He was there and carried us though we may not have realized what was happening in the moment and we will not remember after that moment is gone.  But we know that He did, that He does.  We can know that He will.

Jesus said that He would be with us "always, even to the very end of the age."  The fact that we are where we are today is evidence of the fact that He at some point carried us.  It is also assurance that when we need to be carried, He will do it again.

We will look Sunday at the power of His presence to carry out His mission.  I hope you will allow Him to carry you there.

For the journey...

Tim

Feedback

I rarely get responses to my blog.  Sometimes I wonder if people feel like it is a sermon and they are just supposed to pray at the end and go home.   But when I do get a response, especially a very important one, I feel like sharing it with everyone.  Here's one I got from last week's blog about when to honk when someone is not moving at a green light.  Bob Tate emailed me this after that blog.

My Dad was in the hospital just days before we found he had a stage 4 brain tumor. I had been up visiting him and really didn't realize how bad the news would soon be. As I left the hospital parking lot I was following another car who had also been in the hospital lot. When we reached the first signal light it was red....when it turned green the person driving the car in front of me didn't move.....I gave them the Christian 15 seconds before I honked. The driver seemed to come out of their cloud and moved forward.

Weeks and months had passed and Dad had passed away holding my hand in the same hospital. It was just him and me until I left and went to my car to go home and be with my family.  I don't remember much about the short drive home.....but at the first traffic light someone honked at me just like I had done nine months before......the light was green but I didn't react......I was still thinking about my Dad and my Mom and how we were going to handle things now that Dad was gone.  I don't honk much anymore, because when I do that memory flashes back and I am reminded how impatient we are.  We really don't know what is on a person's mind at a red light do we?

Bob said it well.  We never know what that unmoving person at the green light is thinking or experiencing.  It is always better to err on the side of patience.  It is no wonder to me that the first thing that 1 Corinthians 13 says that love is, is patient.

For the journey...

Tim