Preface: Today....Monday....August 5th....at about 10 A.M....I took a little detour from the main boulevard to drive by what was once the Christian bookstore that back in 1982 I just happened to stop in while my wife was shopping at J. C. Penney's. Browser that I was and open to new ideas....I walked out of that store with Josh McDowell's classic Evidence That Demands A Verdict. God was about to change my shallow and aimless life. The shopping center today is barely alive....and what was the Christian bookstore....(it was called It Is Written by the way)....is empty with soaped-up windows. I stopped before it....put the flashers on....and just looked at the door handle that I placed my hand on back in 1982....that led to the glory of God overwhelming me now for 37 years....and I thanked God once again for mercies undeserved....and I wanted to tell you about it....for there is a door handle out there for you....and today is the day to reach out for it!
I first became aware of it a few decades ago. People get old. OK....to be more specific....a few decades ago I first noticed how celebrities get old almost overnight......or so it seems as I may not see a picture of them for twenty years or so.....and when I see the updated photo I'm nonplussed.....let me look that word up......yeah.....I'm nonplussed.
I've noticed since retirement that the weeks and months just roll by. When I was working there was a tendency to rest and start all over at the end of every week.....but not so now.....barring some event I can go months without looking back.
Life is a journey where you don't really want it to end....sort of...."Yes I'm going somewhere.....no I don't want to get there....I'll think about this God thing thing a little later on in the journey....too busy right now." The problem with this is that....in my observation anyway.....over many many decades....the older one gets.....the harder the heart becomes. When is the last time that you heard about someone in their 70s....or even their 60s....becoming born again? It happens but not often.
Pick a celebrity from the 60s or 70s.....one that's alive.....Robert Redford maybe....or Jane Fonda....they will stand before Jesus Christ....and have to look back on a long life full of excitement and fame and money....all along the way deciding for themselves if there is a god and what he (she) would be like if there is one. I thank God that my great acting and singing talents....and movie star looks....went unnoticed by Hollywood! Folks you know I'm just kidding right....but I am thankful that I didn't have all those things.....and become a celebrity....because I also would have by now fashioned a god that served my purposes....and a gospel that required nothing more than not being an atheist....and my heart would be stone cold.
Old age to a Christian is vastly different. It's a journey where you may not exactly want it to end right away but you know that the end is the beginning of something far more wonderful than any amount of fame and fortune could ever give.
We are living in an age of the Gospel of the Wrought Iron Life Preserver. Thinking that God will simply look us over and stamp our passport into heaven because we were pretty good along the journey is like being on board a sinking ship and then grabbing a wrought iron deck chair to float on until we are rescued. The gospel of good works sinks....straight away and straight down....it's no life preserver....it's an anchor.
Today is the day friends.....if you are not known by Christ. An R. C. Sproul Daily Audio from a few days ago put this conundrum in my mind. You may think that you know Him.....so everything will work itself out....but does He know you? (Jesus Christ...the King of all Kings....and the Lord of all Lords....the Bread of Life....the Great I Am....the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.....the Risen Lord....and the Resurrection and the Life....apart from whom no one goes to the Father) Are you Born Again? If you have to ask what that is then you probably are not. Today is the day friend....for no one knows what a day will bring....and hearts get a little harder every day!
Here's where you can get hold of a real life preserver......ligonier.org
WE ARE PILGRIMS
I first became aware of it a few decades ago. People get old. OK....to be more specific....a few decades ago I first noticed how celebrities get old almost overnight......or so it seems as I may not see a picture of them for twenty years or so.....and when I see the updated photo I'm nonplussed.....let me look that word up......yeah.....I'm nonplussed.
I've noticed since retirement that the weeks and months just roll by. When I was working there was a tendency to rest and start all over at the end of every week.....but not so now.....barring some event I can go months without looking back.
Life is a journey where you don't really want it to end....sort of...."Yes I'm going somewhere.....no I don't want to get there....I'll think about this God thing thing a little later on in the journey....too busy right now." The problem with this is that....in my observation anyway.....over many many decades....the older one gets.....the harder the heart becomes. When is the last time that you heard about someone in their 70s....or even their 60s....becoming born again? It happens but not often.
Pick a celebrity from the 60s or 70s.....one that's alive.....Robert Redford maybe....or Jane Fonda....they will stand before Jesus Christ....and have to look back on a long life full of excitement and fame and money....all along the way deciding for themselves if there is a god and what he (she) would be like if there is one. I thank God that my great acting and singing talents....and movie star looks....went unnoticed by Hollywood! Folks you know I'm just kidding right....but I am thankful that I didn't have all those things.....and become a celebrity....because I also would have by now fashioned a god that served my purposes....and a gospel that required nothing more than not being an atheist....and my heart would be stone cold.
Old age to a Christian is vastly different. It's a journey where you may not exactly want it to end right away but you know that the end is the beginning of something far more wonderful than any amount of fame and fortune could ever give.
We are living in an age of the Gospel of the Wrought Iron Life Preserver. Thinking that God will simply look us over and stamp our passport into heaven because we were pretty good along the journey is like being on board a sinking ship and then grabbing a wrought iron deck chair to float on until we are rescued. The gospel of good works sinks....straight away and straight down....it's no life preserver....it's an anchor.
Today is the day friends.....if you are not known by Christ. An R. C. Sproul Daily Audio from a few days ago put this conundrum in my mind. You may think that you know Him.....so everything will work itself out....but does He know you? (Jesus Christ...the King of all Kings....and the Lord of all Lords....the Bread of Life....the Great I Am....the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.....the Risen Lord....and the Resurrection and the Life....apart from whom no one goes to the Father) Are you Born Again? If you have to ask what that is then you probably are not. Today is the day friend....for no one knows what a day will bring....and hearts get a little harder every day!
Here's where you can get hold of a real life preserver......ligonier.org
WE ARE PILGRIMS
We Christians are pilgrims....we have been born anew....born from above....and we are on a journey. I thought that I would bring the following older post back for the Lord's Day. It would be a very easy Google search if you would like to hear this John Bunyan's hymn either sung by an individual vocalist or from a choir:
It's just a special little ditty that I often say to my wife in response to her urging me to put down the book or turn off the computer and go to bed to get some needed sleep. The words are very well known….for they are Robert Frost's from Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. Those word are....
It's just a special little ditty that I often say to my wife in response to her urging me to put down the book or turn off the computer and go to bed to get some needed sleep. The words are very well known….for they are Robert Frost's from Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. Those word are....
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
She's usually gone by the time that I finish that ditty. The words to the following hymn were written by my favorite author....John Bunyan.....and the music by my favorite classical composer....Ralph Vaughan Williams. The hymn.....Bunyan's only hymn.....is "To Be A Pilgrim." It was sung by personal request of Baroness and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at her funeral on April 17, 2013 at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
He who would valiant be
'Gainst all disaster,
Let him in constancy
Follow the Master
There's no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent
To be a pilgrim
Who so beset him round
With dismal stories,
Do but themselves confound- -
His strength the more is
No foes shall stay his might
Though he with giants fight:
He will make good his right
To be a pilgrim.
Since, Lord, thou dost defend
Us with thy Spirit,
We know we at the end
Shall life inherit.
Then fancies flee away!
I'll fear not what men say,
I'll labor night and day
To be a pilgrim.
