Nick’s Walk

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 […]

My Thanksgiving was perfect. I realized that this morning after carefully reviewing the Black Friday ads and concluding there was no deal great enough for me to go out there and face the teeming mob. I am truly blessed.  It really was a great Thanksgiving. My immediate family were all present. We thanked God for each other. Ate too much great food. Laughed and hugged.  We kicked off our Christmas season by pulling names and deciding we would play dirty Santa this year with each of us tasked to purchase a “as seen on TV” gag gift as well.   There was an appropriate amount of emotion as Kaydence left to meet her dad and spend time with him. If the truth be known, there were tear drops in my corn bread dressing.   It was a bit disturbing to see how many spent this day for thanks waiting in line for Black Friday sales. I realize that the day after Thanksgiving has been the traditional kick off for Christmas shopping. It always seemed too early for me. I like shopping on Christmas Eve.  But the demons of commercialism have gone too far. Thanksgiving Day is under assault. Now stores are […]

Thanksgiving is an action word. Thankfulness and gratitude are attitudes; but Thanksgiving requires doing something. The Pilgrims didn’t just feel gratitude to the helpful Indians. They had them over for lunch.  You, however, correctly remind me that Thanksgiving is about thanking God. Consider that God is the one creature who doesn’t need us to take action in thanksgiving. He, like no other, knows our thoughts and appreciates our thankfulness unspoken.  So why all the Thanksgiving? Because we need it. We need to express our thankfulness, because we forget the many reasons we have to be thankful. Like a child at Christmas, we need to make a list and check it twice. Yesterday I published just a partial list of reasons to be thankful. A list that was so well said that I borrowed it from the folks at Vision Forum Ministries.  With just a little effort you can come up with many more. I believe there is even a greater reason for the action of Thanksgiving. We are surrounded by people that need to know that we are thankful for them. We stupidly persist in our belief that the ones we love and appreciate know all about our love […]