Author: Nick

Jesus was a radical. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, He radically changed the parameters of love. He made it at once universal and personal. Before Jesus, enemies were tolerated, if not permitted. By making the victim in His tale a Samaritan, Jesus changed all that. Samaritans were despised by Jews. They were outcasts. It was inconceivable that one would be called to love one. But so we are. The category of “enemy” is eliminated. Everyone is our brother. But more over, Jesus required that love of neighbor be personal. It’s not good enough not to harbor ill will toward men. We must clean up their battered bodies, soothe their wounds, fill their empty bellies. Jesus is radical. With these radical criteria we must examine our “love lives.” Do we still consider whole groups of people unloveable because of their race or religion? Do we cross them off because of their attitudes or even their actions? Do we require that they first love us or, at least be nice to us? If so, we fail to love as Jesus loved and as He demands we love. Do we love with good wishes and kind words? If so we […]

You will keep him in perfect peace,       Whose mind is stayed on You,      Because he trusts in You.        Isaiah 26:3 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. Philippians 4:8 NKJV The key to the perfect peace we all seek is to keep our mind on God. The enemy, therefore, tries to keep us focused elsewhere. If we will but use the check list of Philippians 4:8, our minds will keep a right focus. That’s a huge challenge. How embarrassed would we be if our minds could be read? Would those we love ,still love us, if they could know the thoughts that sometimes come? We all think we know people who “say what they think.” But even the most outspoken person we know, doesn’t completely dump his thoughts on the world. For most of us, most of the time, our heads are sewers filled with dirty, ugly, base lies, in other words, the opposite of the Philippians 4:8 checklist. What to do? We have […]

Okay so we agree that we need to have relationship with Our God. How do we do that? Talk to Him, out loud. I am not a fan of the style of preaching that consists of constantly telling the congregation to say this or shout that. It all seems pretty artificial to me, but I do believe we need to audibly talk to God. It’s not that God can’t read our minds. He certainly can. But speaking out to Him makes our words to Him real to us. When we vocalize, we hear ourselves. We put emotion into our words. They become more real. Trust me. Try it. Do this. Think about what you would most want to say to Jesus if He was sitting right across from you. Just the one most important thing. Now get off by yourself. This is necessary so others don’t think you are nuts. In today’s world, that’s probably in your car or truck, on the way to work or the store. Turn off the radio and tell the Lord what’s on your heart. Tell Him like you would tell a friend, with honest feeling. You don’t have to use special “praying” language. […]

“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Matthew 6:25 NLT It’s not much in dispute that relationship, first with God and then with men, is the most important thing. It’s just not much in practice. The reasons are trust and control. As Christians we say we turn our lives over to Christ but we don’t trust Him to be in control. We believe we have to drive and provide the gas. As long as that’s our attitude, relationships will never be first. Our priority will be money and getting things done. Money, because we need it as provider and getting things done because we believe it all depends on us. If you need confirmation ask yourself, “What’s the first thing you think about in the morning? What’s the last thing you think about at night?” It you’re honest it’s probably about money, getting it, spending it, not having enough of it to last until payday, Or it may be about doing things, what you need to do, what you forgot to do, […]

29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. 30And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’[b] 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

Yesterday I was working on one of my malpractice cases when I realized that a medical file I needed was at a physician’s office in Crowley. I decided to go pick it up. I asked Rosemary if she felt like a trip to Crowley. She did if I would include lunch and a stop at Toys R Us to do some kid Christmas shopping. Off we went. After a nice lunch at Fezzo’s in Scott, we hit the interstate and headed west. I took the first Crowley exit and ahead, on the off ramp, I spot a pathetic figure. It was a women, older, red faced and shivering in the cold. She held a crudely made sign which read “Broke.” As the traffic stopped I was a few feet from her face. I forced myself not to look at her and gazed straight ahead. She didn’t look at me but her pathetic eyes broke my heart and Rosemary’s. As we pulled away from her, we began to discuss her situation. We went through all the usual. Is she really in trouble? Is she a professional pan handler? Is she a serial killer? Nonetheless, we decided we needed to do […]

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse! Galatians 1 (NIV) The Good News of the Gospel is so incredible and the pride of man so intractable that the preaching of a different gospel is inevitable. It doesn’t matter how good your intentions or how substantial your body of work “for God,” the preaching of another gospel puts you under God’s curse. And pride is so strong that this “different gospel” slips in quickly. We are called to live in the grace of Christ and not of our own works. But pride says, “surely what I do counts for something.” Does the term […]

I read two seemingly unrelated articles yesterday that have swirled together and I can’t get out of my head. One discussed the recent Barna group study on youth leaving the church and the other was on the false gospel of moralism. The false gospel is the belief that the gospel can be reduced to improvement in behavior. I believe we are losing youth and many others because we are conveying this false gospel. When our youth wander away, we call after them, “Just wait until you have rebellious kids. You’ll be back. You’ll see.” Except these folks aren’t coming back. Many aren’t getting married. Those who do are doing so much later and after having drifted much further from the church. Our words are ringing in their ears. They understand that for us religion was just a means to keep them in line, to improve their behavior.  We often fail to convince that Jesus offers the only life worth living. Instead we preach “You act better or you’ll make baby Jesus cry.” No wonder that our performance based “religion” produces frustration and a search for a better way. We have failed to demonstrate by our lives that Jesus is […]