Thoughts from Around the Region

We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, ab­solutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into ex­istence and holds it all together right up to this mo­ment. And when it comes to the church, he organ­izes and holds it together, like a head does a body.    
Colossians 1:15-18 (The Message Bible)

Remember is an important word in the Bible. Hopefully, we said thank you to those who gave us Christmas gifts, but we should also remember to thank God for what was given to us all year. Before the Hebrews crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land, Moses urged them to remember that it was God who was giving them the land. Before Christ went to the cross, he gave his disciple a tangible sign of his continued presence and his sacrifice and said, "This do in remembrance of me."

Even when many things go wrong during a year, the year usually brings many good things to all of us and it these we should remember and be grateful for. A young child arrived late to school and was reprimanded for it. Later he discovered he had left his homework and he was scolded again. He began to feel sick and ran in from the playground. As he ran, he tripped and fell, breaking his arm. While he was on the ground he discovered a dollar. On the way home from the doctors, the little child told his parents, "This is the best day of my life, I never found a dollar before." We need to cultivate the spirit of that grateful child so that we may remember the good things and be thankful, even when much may have gone wrong. What may we remember now and be grateful for as we begin this New Year?

The Goodness of God

Isaiah mentions God’s "great goodness," which God expresses according to "Compassion and loving kindness," Isaiah 63:7. The hymn writer says, "Count your many blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God has done." God is still doing and God’s mercies are still new every morning of every year.

The Grace of God

Isaiah also refers to the fact that God adopted Israel and became their Savior, Isaiah 63:8. God did not do this because the Hebrews were the biggest and the best, but because of God’s grace. God also adopted us, not because of who we think we are but because of God’s love for us. When is the last time you spent time thanking God for such extravagant grace and such a great salvation? Think of where you would be without God in your life and thank God for the difference God has made.

The Guidance of God

Isaiah paints a beautiful word portrait of the empathetic love of God. God hurts when we hurt, God sends angels to help us and God even picks us up and carries us, Isaiah 63:9. Only God knows just how many times we have been in danger and God has protected us. Some of us are here today, alive, to ‘Let our Light Shine in 2009" only because God has a providential guiding hand at work in our lives.

Remember and let gratitude mark your celebration of a new year. Jesus tells us, "You are the light of the world. Let your light so shine that others may see your good works and glorify (exalt and praise with thanksgiving) your Divine Parent is heaven." My prayer for you this year is…

May the blessings of Heaven touch every branch of your family tree. May the abundant gifts of creation and nature be ever within your reach. May you see beauty in all things, the Sacred in every breath. May you feel deeply the blessings of Life, Light, Laughter and Joy in every day of 2009.
Pastor Lee

 I recently received an E-mail with the subject line "Best Poem in the World" by an unknown author. The poem so intrigued me in simplicity and theology that I want to share it with you. I trust it will establish your heart upon the great distinctive feature of the Christian faith: The grace of God. GRACE (unmerited favor and blessing) is the heart of the inclusive Gospel and invitation of Jesus Christ.   I've also sought to share some relevant scripture which backs up the concept and clearly explains the how and why grace is preferred over judgment. For the sinner or the saint the options are always ours.

BEST POEM IN THE WORLD

I was shocked, confused, bewildered, as I entered Heaven's door, not by the beauty of it all, nor the lights of the décor. But it was the folks in heaven, who made me sputter and then gasp – the ones I knew as sinners: thieves and liars, alcoholics and outcasts; all those I thought were trash.

There stood the kid from seventh grade, who swiped my lunch money twice. Next to him was my old neighbor who never said anything nice. Herb, who I always thought was rotting away in hell, was sitting on cloud nine, looking incredibly well.

I nudged Jesus, "Hey, what's the deal? I would love to hear Your take. How'd all these sinners get up here? God must've made a mistake. "And why's everyone so quiet, so somber – give me a clue."

"Hush, child," He said, "there're all in shock. No one thought they'd be seeing you." JUDGE NOT!                 ______________________________________________________________

"For God so greatly loved and clearly prized the world that God gave Jesus, the only unique Son, so that whoever believes in Jesus should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn and pass sentence on the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and whole through Him. Those who believe in Jesus are not judged. They never come up for judgment. For them there is no rejection, no condemnation and they incur no damnation…The basis of the judgment and indictment, the ground for sentence lies in this; that LIGHT has come into world, and people have loved darkness more than LIGHT for their deeds were evil. For every wrongdoer detests the LIGHT and will not come out into the LIGHT, lest their conduct be exposed and reproved. But those who practice truth and who do what is right come out and into the LIGHT, so that their good works, conduct and deeds may be plainly shown for what they are – wrought with God's help, in dependence upon God. John 3:16-21. Jesus loudly declared, "The one who believes in Me does not only believe on Me but also the One who sent Me. Whoever sees Me, sees the One who sent Me. I have come as a LIGHT into the world, so that whoever believes in Me may not continue to walk in darkness. If anyone hears My teachings and fails to observe them it is not I who judge them. For I have not come to judge and to condemn or to pass sentence and inflict penalty on the world but to save the world.  John 12:44-47. "We love God because God first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, and hates, abominates and detests their fellow human beings, they are lying. For the one who does not love their sisters and brothers whom they have seen, cannot love God, Whom they have not seen. And this command we have from Christ Jesus: the one who loves God shall also love others." 1^st John 4:19-21

Don't you just love it when the WORD preaches itself! Come out into the LIGHT! Love one another.

Pastor Lee

Philemon 1:21

ST Paul championed change. Paul challenged his good friend Philemon to be a champion of change, too. He challenged him to forgive his slave Onesimus for breaking an immoral law and running away. During his run he met Paul and became a Christian. Paul also challenged Philemon to accept Onesimus back – as an equal brother and fellow believer in Christ. In this short personal letter from a Pastor to a friend, St. Paul also challenges believers today to step out of the status quo and tear down the walls that divide us.

Walls Divide and Separate

There are many things that we allow to separate us from one another. Many of them we build ourselves and others we allow to become walls. Our fear of something different, our prejudices, grief or social, political, economic and religious status. Even change itself, our clothes and possessions can separate us from one another. Actions, attitudes, and events all have away of imprisoning us and keeping us held to the way things are, even when we know it is  contrary to the Spirit of Christ and our mutual good.

Love Brings Down Walls of Separation

Such walls only come down through the power of love, clearly seen in experiencing Christ. That was the power which changed Onesimus and subsequently his previous master, Philemon. It is the power which continues to change the world. It is the power that changes even the most hardened criminal or self righteous saint. Love changes and motivates us all.

It was the love of God, through Christ, in Paul's life that allowed him to change from being the chief persecutor of the church to one of its' greatest hero's of faith. It was the love of Christ to which Paul appeals both to Philemon, Onesimus and us. Paul calls us to allow the love of Christ to make us champions of change in our generation so we can work to tear down the walls that divide us and the human family.

Bear Bryant, who once coached the University of Alabama to several national football championships, once commented: "I'm a good coach to a boy who isn't a champion but doesn't know it yet. My office walls are full of pictures of young men who weren't champions but never found out."

Through Christ, we're called to be champions of change; champions of equality. We're called to be leaders in tearing down walls that separate us from God and one another.

Pastor Lee

There is a story from Luke's Gospel (Luke ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />8:26-39) about a man who was so demonized by his neighbors that he became possessed by strong demons of self loathing. He is known as the Gadarene demoniac because of the city where he lived. He had lost all power of self control and no one could help him. But when Jesus came, he expelled the demons, delivered the Gadarene, and gave him a new affection. This story vividly portrays how Christ's power extends over the visible and invisible worlds. Christ can change even the most hopeless situation and individual. But when Jesus changes a person, he may not want that person to change everything else.

A popular theme recently resurrected in movies portrays the power of good against the power of evil. In the Star Wars trilogy, the dark side, in the person of fallen Jedhi warrior, Darth Vadar, opposes the young and noble Jedhi, Luke Skywalker. The trouble with most of these popular treatments is that they take several sequels before any redemptive scenarios arrive, if ever. And they attribute an equal amount of power to evil as they do to good: from which we derive the English word God.

Yet in the New Testament, there is no comparison between the power of the d-evil and the power of Christ. Christ's power is complete. It extends over all worlds – visible and invisible. When Jesus the Christ appeared to the Gadarene, there was no fight to the finish for supremacy. Christ's power is incomparable and complete. Even the demons recognized the Lord of Glory and they trembled…and they still do when the name of Jesus is invoked by faith filled people.

Someone once said, "Hell is close, but God is closer." The person of faith does not need to fear the unseen world or be overly wrought by the terror of today's seen world. We may live our lives in full confidence that Christ's power extends over the seen and unseen and that no power can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:31-39) St John said, "Greater is the One living in you than the one in the world." (I John 4:4)

By the time he was fifty, John D. Rockefeller had become the wealthiest man in America. Yet he lived under such stress that his diet included a bland combination of milk and crackers. He lost all the hair on his body and it was reported that he would be dead in a few months. But Rockefeller realized in time his situation, made a choice to live and changed from the inside out – he then lived into his nineties.

Before Christ came into his life, the Gadarene demoniac had no power over his own circumstances. He could not change himself. No amount of external influence – money, fame, personal influence, or success – can put a person in their right mind. A right mind comes from a right heart. Christ's power changes a person's heart and replenishes their mind. As the scriptures teach, "Let this mind be you which was also in Christ Jesus." And, "Create in me, O Lord, a clean heart and renew in me a right spirit."

One of the natural outcomes of experiencing the life – changing power of Christ Jesus is that we discover that we are free to follow Christ. The Gadarene was so thrilled at his healing that he wanted to leave everything in Gadara to follow Christ and go with him everywhere. Jesus however, knew that the man would be a greater witness for Christ if he stayed in his home town and lived the life of Christ before the people who had so distanced themselves from him.

Christ calls some of us to follow him to the ends of the earth in fields of mission or other special ministries, but most often what Jesus is really calling us to do is just what He called the Gadarene to do: Stay where you are, use what you have, and be a witness to Christ's life-changing power in your own life. Whether we are service workers, teachers, mechanics or students, the world needs to see Christ's power in our lives right where we are living.

Setting our affections and interests on Christ's love for us and doing Christ's unfinished work in our world, will expel all negatives and keep us in our right minds.

Pastor Lee