Did You Grow Today?

Tonight during Bible class Marc asked us if anyone thought they had grown spiritually today and I raised my hand.

This morning there was about 10 minutes left in Bible class and our security guy tapped me on the shoulder and said someone was in the foyer who wanted to talk to me. I didn’t figure it was an emergency so I told him I would talk to the fellow after class.

When I went back to the foyer I saw about what I expected to see… a young man who was about 30 years old, tatted up pretty good and who looked homeless. When I sat next to him he didn’t smell very pleasant either. As I talked to him I discovered he was a little different than most… he started sobbing and telling me what a bad life he had lived and how he didn’t know what to do. He had spent some time in jail and had been living on the streets for about 8 months.

He lived by walking up and down streets asking if people needed any help and made a few dollars. He also said some would hire him for a whole day and then at the end of the day laugh at him and refuse to pay him.

I talked a while with him and then Larry talked to him for a while. When services started he came and sat on the back pew with us and started sobbing. Larry brought a box of tissues to him. Then Noe got up from his seat and sat next to him and consoled him. I made closing announcements and mentioned a few things about the young man and the congregation showed an outpouring of love towards him.

I had been wondering what to do with him after services and thought about taking him to lunch with our family but was uncomfortable with him being in our car sitting behind us. So I decided to offer him some money. I looked in my wallet and there were five one dollar bills and a fifty dollar bill. I really didn’t want to give him the fifty but the ones were not enough so I crumpled the 50 in my hand and told him I wanted to help him. Guess what… he refused to take any money. He said he couldn’t take any money he hadn’t earned. Dude… that is really different… like unheard of. So I asked him if him if he would like to go eat lunch with us. He gladly accepted.

We went to a hamburger place and he only took about two bites out of his hamburger and said his stomach was upset. Later I found out he hadn’t eaten in two days.

So… I had been thinking about what to do with him after lunch. I didn’t really want to invite him into our home because I still had a notion in the back of my head that this might be some kind of set up. I asked him what he was going to do? He said, walk around and try to make some money and figure out where he was going to sleep tonight.

My conscience whipped up on me again and I said… would you like to spend the day with me? … yes, he would. He talked to us about his mom who lives in Fairfield, Texas and I asked him if he would like to use my phone to call her. I heard him tell her that he had been to church and how nice everyone had been to him. She told him that maybe if he came home they both could go to church.

During the day he told me he had never been in a church building… that when he was in jail some inmates had shared a Bible with him and he read the Book of Job. He said he was walking down Weber road and something told him to turn down a side street and he saw our building and he walked in. He said everyone in the congregation was so friendly to him and as he sat on the pew and thought about the horrible life he lived and the unexpected friendliness the congregation had for him that he just started crying.

He said Marc’s lesson had a lot of meaning for him. As we were out driving he had mentioned that he would like to go back home to his mother. I told him that I could find him some odd jobs and if he demonstrated responsibility I could probably find him a better job or… if he wanted I would loan him the money to get a bus ticket back to Fairfield. Note… I said loan him because he had previously rejected free money.

He thought for a minute and said… I would like to go home. Julie got on line and bought him a bus ticket for Fairfield, Texas. He leaves at 11:45 tomorrow morning and has a 14 hour bus trip ahead of him. He said with the ticket the bus company would let him spend the night in the station. Julie, bless her righteous heart, wanted to get him a hotel room but I told her he was plenty happy with what we had done already. We went to services with him Sunday night and I was talking to Noe about him and Noe said… we need to talk to him about being baptized! So we did.

We baptized Juan right then and right there. When he came out I was the first one to hug him. He was shaking and sobbing and held me for a long time and I cried too. We exchanged contact information and he said he would like to come to Corpus Christi to visit and talk every once in a while.

So when Marc asked during class if anyone had grown spiritually… yes… definitely me. The Lord took away all my second thoughts and doubts and a soul was saved today.

We have a lot of members with a lot of talents but thank you Lord for sending Noe to us… he has a great heart!

There’s a video of the baptism that I’ll put up on our public FB page. Uncle Rob

Spiritual Obesity

We had a client who brought their beloved dog in every year who was just obese… morbidly obese. Of course obesity in dogs can lead to early onset osteoarthritis, cancers and just poor quality of life and the owner knew this and was concerned about it. So we did all the lab work including testing for hypothyroidism and we used all the prescription diets designed to manage weight and still this poor canine was obese.

Actually I think our associates were the ones who had been seeing this dog and finally as fate would have it I happened to examine the dog. Finally I looked the owner square in the eye and told him I had an all-natural diet that I guaranteed would cause weight loss. It was a high protein, high fiber, low fat and low carbohydrate diet. The owner was very excited and said I’ll do it! So I told him to let his dog eat one Jack Rabbit every day and make his dog catch it.

There’s lots of applications we could make with that story…how to save a failing marriage, the challenges of parenting, etc. But let’s talk about the fellow who wants to be a better Christian… whatever that looks like. Maybe he wants to know his Bible backwards and forwards. Maybe he wants to preach or lead moving prayers. Maybe he wants to be the best Bible class teacher around, etc. But somehow he can’t seem to get past ground zero.

He knows his goal and wants to end up there but can’t seem to find the right path… the path he’s been on always ends up in the same place. He’s like that client who is looking for some exotic diagnosis and some magical medication that will affect a great cure and neglects to see the obvious.

It takes 12 months to get a year’s experience. There are no shortcuts to success.

If you don’t want to be spiritually obese maybe it’s time to start catching a few Jack Rabbits.

Let's Build a Temple for God to Live In

David King of Israel wanted to build a physical Temple for Jehovah God to live in. He wasn’t allowed to because he was a King who had spilled much blood in the killing of Israel’s enemies. Instead his son King Solomon built it.

Jesus Christ also wanted to build a temple for God to live in and he too like his forefather David was a spiller of blood. Not the blood of his enemies but his own blood.

The temple that Jesus built was not a physical temple in a physical place but a spiritual temple that exists in each and every person who believes in Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:16).

Jesus allowed his own blood to be spilled so that he might purify and cleanse those who believed in him from sin, because God cannot live in a temple tainted by sin (1 Corinthians 6).

What a privilege and blessing that we as Christians have by God personally living in each and every one of us. Also, what an awesome responsibility we have to keep ourselves from sinning so that God feels welcome to continue to live with us.

Let’s not be like the great warrior David who killed his enemies and wasn’t allowed to build a Temple for God. But be more like Jesus Christ who died for his enemies to create more Temples for God to live in.

We are in the Temple making business… for ourselves and for others.

My Dad

I’ve been having dreams about my dad, that he didn’t die and was still with us but his illness had changed him… he was older and more feeble and he didn’t talk much anymore.

In the dream I had last night I was on a road trip with him and he was driving and we stopped at a gas station and he went up to the cashier and when he was backing up he bumped into a woman and he stumbled a few steps and fell to the ground. I ran up to him crying and said… dad… dad are you okay? And he looked up at me and I helped him up and I told the woman how sorry we were.

I really miss him but I guess everyone who has lost their father also misses them.

Dad of course loved the Lord. When I was active on a Christian discussion list he copied all my posts and kept them. I found them when I was going through his things when mom moved out of their home.

I’ve always written in my Bible and made notes and such in it and we were home one weekend and Dad happened to pick up my Bible and started lookin at it. I’ll never forget when he just kind of held that Bible to his heart and didn’t say a word but just kind of gave me a look that he told me he was proud of me.

I’m sure Dad told me he loved me but I don’t really remember him saying it but I never doubted it because he showed me love in so many ways.

I also don’t doubt that he’s in Heaven and he’s happy up there. I wonder if the Lord lets him know how is family is doing. If he does then I know Dad is really happy.

I’ve wished that the Lord would let me have one day with him so I could catch him up on some things like how well my son and daughter have married and introduce him to my six grandchildren each one of whom is so special to me. I would like to take him to church with me and introduce him to all the members who are also so special to me. And just let him know how much the Lord has blessed me.

I guess that will never happen but I have a great hope and base my faith on the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead and I will be too so that I can catch up with Dad in eternity.

In a few years my son and then my daughter will turn 44 years of age and when they do I’ll tell them (if I’m still alive) that they are the same age when I lost my dad and let that sink in.

Anyway, I woke up this morning crying remembering a dream and wishing I could see my dad just one more time.

Cleaning Up the Mosaic Law?

And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together let not man separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another… commits adultery: and he that marries her when she is put away also commits adultery” Mt 19:3-9.

I was thinking about these verses the other day and wondered to myself if Jesus was teaching new law for the sake of Christians or just cleaning up the Mosaic Law for the people living under it in that day and age. I’m really not sure which. Certainly he says Moses allowing them a “certificate of divorcement” was taken away.

So I decided to take a look at these verses only through the lens of the Mosaic Law.

“I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another… commits adultery”

Why was the exception given for a man to remarry if his wife committed adultery? My guess is because under the Mosaic Law she would be punished for that sin (adultery) with the death penalty. Since she is “dead” the man is free to remarry. Even if the penalty was unlawfully not applied she was still under the sentence of death under the Law of Moses.

In addition, the husband who divorces his wife (except if she is guilty of adultery) and marries another is committing adultery. Why? Because Jesus does not allow a “certificate of Divorce” and the man is still lawfully bound to his original wife. He risks the Mosaic death penalty.

What about the situation if a wife is divorced for a reason other than adultery and remarries?

She cannot remarry because she is still legally bound to her first husband and therefore not eligible to remarry and if she does remarry she makes her new so-called husband an adulterer… and they are both eligible for the death penalty under the provisions of the Law of Moses.

Of course Jesus may not just be cleaning up the Law of Moses he may in fact be instituting new law and so we have to be very careful about the modern application of these verses. I’m continuing to think about these things and hope you are too. There are certainly other verses that need to be considered as well.

Events from God... Local, City-wide and the Whole Earth

When Jesus was born God sent an Angel to some shepherds to inform them of what happened. Other Angels and the “Heavenly host” appeared and with their voices praised God. He also sent a star that could be seen from the east so that wise men could follow it and find Jesus and when they found him they identified him as The “King of the Jews” and they worshipped that little baby Jesus.

When Jesus was crucified and killed God put out the sun so that all was in darkness. God also caused an earthquake and rocks were split open and many of God’s holy people who had died became alive again and walked out of their tombs.

The things that God did at the birth of Jesus were different than the things he did at the death of his son. The things God did in the small town of Bethlehem were smaller and to a select group than the things he did in the capital city of Jerusalem where everyone in the city could see what was happening.

When Jesus comes in his glory it will be on an even more massive scale… not just small groups of people like at his birth or even a whole city like Jerusalem at his death.

Jesus will descend from Heaven on the clouds with his mighty Angels and every eye on the earth will be able to see him. There will be noise… “a cry of command”, “voices of the arch angels” and “the sound of the trumpet of God.” There will also be a great “wailing from all the tribes of the earth”

And at his judgment “the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”

The first two miraculous events have already occurred and were seen by witnesses and written about for our benefit. Let me suggest that the third promised event will be just as real.

Don’t be among all the “wailing tribes of the earth”. Be saved from that wondrous and terrible event by believing in Jesus and by being washed in his blood so that you can be among all the rejoicing tribes of the earth gathered around the throne of God.

Singing Like Little Birds

Marc was talking this morning about singing to God in Heaven and mentioned that we should enjoy it on earth as well. I heard about a family one time where the dad made the comment that he didn’t want to go to Wednesday Singing night because he didn’t really like to sing. His child said… what? You don’t like to sing to our God?

Not everyone likes to sing but I’ve got a feeling in Heaven it will be different. Remember the first 6 months of this year when we didn’t get any rain and then finally it started raining. Do you remember what happened? Everything turned green and the birds started singing their heads off. It’s like they couldn’t help themselves. I’ve got a feeling that when we’re finished with this life and we come face to face to God we’re going to start singing too. Just like those little birds.