Families and Healing

I know people who have had loved ones act in such shameful ways that it forever affects their relationship. So much so that in effect they never have a relationship. It is an open and continual wound that never heals. It doesn’t have to be that way.

In the Perkins family we’ve had many such negative events; Adultery and divorce, alcoholism, drug dependency, gambling, murder, suicide attempts, political differences, religious differences and I guess every sort of difference that you can imagine, and yet generally we are a big happy family. Here are some reasons that I think that is so.

We were taught to love each other and forgive and we had plenty of family gatherings where that was demonstrated.

I remember as a kid that we had come into town to spend Christmas and were staying at my grand-parent’s house and there was a big commotion. One of my uncles had come home drunk and knocked over the Christmas tree. Somehow they got the Christmas tree back up and we had a good Christmas and no one seemed to be too mad about it.

Every other year we gather at my brother Greg’s home for Thanksgiving and before the prayer the three brothers talk about family and memories and what the future holds and how God has blessed us.

A few years back we had a Perkins’ family reunion in San Diego, California and had 120 people in attendance. I give Facebook a lot of credit for that because we are all friends on Facebook. I’ve seen relationships build that didn’t previously exist. At the reunion many said… you know, I’ve never met you but I feel like I know you!

I’ve seen a relationship build between my daughter and my oldest cousin. Lauren has only seen Dave Perkins a few times but I can see that they love each other. We even have a private Facebook page that only family members are on so that we can share things that the rest of the world wouldn’t begin to understand.

I heard my daughter tell another cousin's wife (who had a tragedy occur in the family), "I love you and I think about you every day". They have only met once or twice but those are healing words.

We have several text message groups; Texas Perkins, Perkins Hog Hunters with Extreme Malice, Perkins Texas 42, Perkins Texas aggies, Deplorable Perkins and a few more. It’s not unusual for me to look at my phone during the day and see over 100 text messages.

We always contact each other on our birthdays including calling and singing “Happy Birthday”. The common response of the listener is to say you sound like the “Mormon Tabernacle Choir”.

Perkins’ have a great (although frequently misunderstood) sense of humor. We can make fun of each other and laugh at ourselves. If we know someone is a little sensitive we can even back off a little bit until we get them up to speed. My brothers and I were raised in a home that had a lot of laughter.

My uncle who never darkened a church house door after he left home was a drunk, left his wife for another woman and was notorious for his bar room fights. And yet in his old age I would call him three to four times a year and send him a ham at Christmas. I would occasionally talk to him about Christ but not all the time. The main thing I wanted him to know was I cared about him. Most of the time I just poked fun at him and he loved that. At the end of those conversations he would always tell me that he loved me.

About 5 years ago my brother Scott and I had a disagreement/misunderstanding and he was so mad at me I didn’t know what might happen, but now it’s just water under the bridge and the subject never came up again. You see if you love someone so deeply and intensely you just can’t let anything interfere with that. Of course there’s work you have to do along the way and communication is a big part of that as is demonstrating unselfish love.

I don’t know every situation and yours might be different but I do know a lot of situations and thought maybe these things could be of benefit to you. Sometimes those old wounds can heal if you apply a little medicine to them

"My Husband Doesn't Love Me"

Imagine you were at a dance and you saw a girl on the other side of the dance floor that just… took your breath away… her eyes sparkled, she smiled at you and you thought she was the prettiest thing you had ever seen and were summoning up the courage to ask her to dance when your dad came up and said, “I want you to dance with that other girl that no one else is paying attention to”. You looked over and saw a plain homely kind of a girl and your heart sank but you did it and danced the whole night with her. Finally at the very end you got to dance with the girl of your dreams and your heart beat so hard you thought it was going to break out of your chest.

That’s kind of like the story of Jacob, Leah and Rachel in the book of Genesis. Jacob had his heart set on Rachel but God had other plans for him and he had to marry Leah first in order to also marry her sister Rachel.

Here’s the thing… Leah knew Jacob didn’t love her. Jacob only had eyes for Rachel. What do you do when you realize your husband doesn’t love you? With many tears Leah prayed to God and God heard her prayers and opened her womb and gave her six sons and one daughter whom Jacob loved with all his heart… and Rachel? God closed her womb so she could feel some of Leah’s hurt.

When I used to work cattle every so often we would push a Brahma (Bramer) through the chute. Often times they would go down in the chute and “sull” stopping the whole process. You could put a kink in their tails or hit them with a Hot Shot but you just couldn’t get them to move until they were ready.

Leah didn’t “sull” she did what she could do, gave it a little time and left the rest up to God. Rachel eventually had two boys but died during the birth of the second. Leah lived a long life with Jacob and felt his love and was buried by his side. God does answer the prayers of his faithful ones (including Rachel).

Don’t despair if you’re not the prettiest one at the dance. God knows who you are and like Leah can make your offspring as numerous as the sand on the beach… one of whom was Jesus Christ. Have a little faith.

Proof of Faith

The letter that James wrote has a lot to say about proving our faith, which begs the question… does our faith need to be proven?...apparently so. James illustrates two ways faith is proven.

The first is by successfully conquering temptation to sin (James 1:2-3). When the Christian is faced with temptation and refuses to sin he has completed one leg of the race.

The second way faith is proven is by faith inspired works (James 2:14-26). The scriptures are replete with examples of faithful people whose faith inspired them to perform so called “works” and those works are illustrated in great detail.

The section on faith and works is concluded by the statement “faith without works is dead”. You may have conquered sin but there is still more to do. No one wants to have dead faith or even weak faith. Our goal is to have strong, vibrant faith.

The body builder goes to the gym every day to lift weights. One day is “arm” day another is “leg” day… so forth and so on. Eventually his physical body is transformed to the image of Herculean strength.

The spiritual faith builder exercises his faith by working good works every single day. As he does so he is transformed and his faith gets stronger and stronger until he is shaped into the spiritual image of Jesus Christ.

Our faith is proven in two ways; by refusing to sin and by proving our love for others by providing for their needs. Follow that formula and you will be well prepared for eternity.

How Important is the Lord's Supper?

Ephesians 3:10-11.

“His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord”

When we consider the Lord’s Supper it’s important to understand its purpose. When we understand it’s purpose then questions like how it is observed and how often we take it can be answered easier.

Christians have assembly obligations… the Lord’s Supper is one of those. Certainly partaking of the bread and the wine reminds us of Jesus’ body and blood and all the things represented by those things including the establishment of the new Covenant.

However something else happens as suggested in the Ephesians text… God’s wisdom is on display to heavenly/spiritual beings… demonic and angelic.

Think about this, as we are fulfilling our assembly obligations, including the Lord’s Supper, Satan is furious and God is happy.

When Christians decide to stay home and neglect the assembly and the Lord’s Supper… Satan is smugly smiling and God is sad.

Our assembly obligations have significance to ourselves, to our fellowman and to spiritual beings in the Heavens.

How often should we take the Lord’s Supper? Apostolic example suggests weekly and that sounds pretty smart to me considering that every time we do... God's wisdom is on display.

"The Unity of the Spirit" Eph. 4:3

This is from a discussion list. Howdy, Rob Perkins here.

First of all when 100 plus translators choose to capitalize the “S” in Spirit I give that a lot of credence. I see that in Ephesians sometimes we see “Spirit" and sometimes we see “spirit". In 5:16, we see…”but be filled with the Spirit” however in the footnotes (AS) they say “or in spirit”. I think the lower case makes more sense in this passage but only mention it because in some cases the translators give an option. I respect options.

Of course the epistle was written because there were issues between greek and jewish Christians. Hence we see in 1:13, both groups had the commonality of being sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.

In 2:18, both groups have access to the father in one Spirit, and are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.

In 3:16, Paul prays that they would be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man.

All these texts have Spirit with the upper case “S” then we come to the text in question… “giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”. I see no reason to suddenly decide to take issue with the translators and argue for the lower case “s”. I’m not sure there is a compelling reason to do so. Perhaps because the action is placed on the believer to “keep the unity”. However, a similar action is placed upon the believer when he is told to not “grieve the Holy Spirit of God”

We give diligence to “keep the unity of the Spirit” by “walking worthily” (4:1). Similarly we “grieve not the Holy Spirit of God” (4:30) by also walking worthily, i.e., no bitterness, wrath, anger, etc.

I also suspect “Spirit” in 4:3 is capitalized because it is preceded by the definite article “the”.

Esau and His Birth Right

Most Bible students are familiar with the story of Esau. He was the oldest son of Isaac and Rebecca and as such was set to receive the “birth right” that his father (Isaac) had received from his father (Abraham). Of course that “birth right” was the great promise made to Abraham that through him and his heirs, “all nations would be blest” (along with the other promises).

Esau however traded his “birth right” for a bowl of red stew. The scripture says he “despised his birth right”. The Hebrew writer (12:16) describes Esau as godless.

Let me suggest that Esau’s despising of his “birth right” foreshadows the Jews despising of their “birth right” by their rejection of Jesus Christ.

Esau was so hungry for food (and didn’t at the time truly understand the value of his “birth right”) that he traded it off for a bowl of stew. He was godless and didn’t believe in the promise of God.

The Jews were so hungry for their position of authority in their nation that they couldn’t recognize the value of Jesus Christ and sacrificed him to maintain their position among the Jewish nation and the Roman Empire. They too were godless and didn’t believe in the promises of God.

Later in life Esau deeply regretted his hasty decision and begged his father with tears to receive the blessing of the “birth right” but it was too late. It was also too late for the ones who killed Jesus Christ.

The story of Esau also foreshadows events for us today. God still makes great promises to mankind. The wise will contemplate the great value of those promises and act accordingly. The foolish will reject them and chase after the pleasures in this life. What is it going to be… will we be wise or foolish? Learn the lesson of Esau. He is speaking to you and I.

Conquering Temptations

The letter written by James contains information on how Christians can be spiritually complete (which by the way should be the goal of every Christian).

Christians should be happy about temptations because the successful victory over temptations is proof of faith.

The author also defines those who fail at temptations. Those who are novices in their faith may have areas of weakness in their hearts that are simmering at a low level. If those areas are not extinguished and opportunity arises they can burst into flame and cause one to be spiritually burnt up.

The author identifies some of those temptations as “filthiness”, “wickedness”, “outbursts of anger”, “discrimination”, and “the love of money”.

I have a note section on my IPhone where I list every weakness that I think I have and every weakness that others have told me that I have (I also have a section on the positive things people have said about me).

I think and pray about those weaknesses and welcome opportunities (temptations) to defeat those things so I can be spiritually complete. I have confidence in 1 Corinthians 10:13 that assures me that God will not allow me to be tempted more than I can endure.

It’s a blessing when people say good things about you but it’s a greater blessing to hear the negative things.

We’re building a spiritual house both individually and collectively (the church) for a “dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:21-22). Let’s make it the best it can be. It starts with conquering temptations.