Nick’s Walk

Here is my grandson, Nicky, sporting his new glasses. I think they make him look pretty smart. He and I watched the 10 Commandments last week and we decided that except for God and Moses everyone in the movie was a dummy. But on more careful reflection I realize that the foolishness of the Egyptians and the Israelites was not really the result of a lack of intelligence but a lack of God.    After all in the movie, God was no fool because He’s God and Moses, well he had begun to experience God.   It’s like Paul. Read any of his letters and you have to admit Paul is smart. Yet although he had  studied God his entire life,  he was a dummy for years as he persecuted the new church. It was only after Jesus threw Him off his horse, that he understood. Man did he understand. After years of studying God, he had experienced God and with experience came real understanding.   And so it is with us. We can study and strain all we want to try to understand the things of God and we can fail. To understand the things of God we […]

I overslept this morning, too much NCAA Basketball Championship and Words with Friends with my brother in California. Woke up to an email from Jessie needing me for something and from there the morning got away from me. I have to admit I was not disappointed as I have little to add to OC’s meditation today. He’s still focused on the cross and I’m ready to move on. Maybe that’s the point. I’m always to ready to move on, to turn my gaze away from Jesus Crucified. It was after all the reason He came: to die. “The Cross was not something that happened to Jesus— He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” ( Revelation 13:8 ). The incarnation of Christ would have no meaning without the Cross.”  These words of OC did strike me: “The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much.” There is no doubt that the easy obtaining of salvation is a problem for us. We can’t understand that the gift is free so we add to it; “Jesus plus _____” We fill in that blank […]

After going through the remembrance that is Easter, we should be renewed in our understanding and enthusiasm for the Fearless and Extraordinary lives we should be living as redeemed children of God. If that’s not where we find ourselves this morning, we need to review the process to see where we might have missed out. We know that He has not missed out. He accomplished his assignment perfectly. If things are not as they should be, we missed it somewhere. Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples . . . . ’Stay here and watch with Me’ —Matthew 26:36, 38. His call to his disciples to stay and watch with Him is His call to us. We need to see and understand, to the full extent we are capable; what He saw and understood that night. As God and as man, He saw and understood the enormity of sin. It was a personalization of what He was called to do. We must personalize as well. We like to say that if we were the only person on earth; He would have died for just us. That’s a wonderful truth. But what we […]

Morning Like This Was it an extraordinary morning when Jesus Rose? It was a morning that changed everything. It was the culmination of the most incredible week in human history. A week before He enter the City triumphant. On Thursday He established an everlasting memorial. On Friday, He suffered and died. On Sunday, He arose, death and the grave conquered. But it was all for Monday. It was all for the rest of time. It was all for his chosen so that they might live extraordinary lives guided no long by Fear but by Faith. And is that the way it is? I was in the Family Book Store yesterday and noticed that Fearless is the number one Christian Living bestseller. In fact, it’s the book of the year. There must still be fear out there among His people after 2000 years. And it’s only going to get worse. Our freedom to practice what He preached is in danger. His return seems more imminent than ever. Our world seems more lost, not less. “Indeed the hour is coming . . . that you will be scattered . . “. —John 16:32. Indeed, instead of being on the triumphant march, […]

One of the best known former residents of Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola is Freddie Fender. Best known for his hit song Wasted Days and Wasted Nights, Freddie was a man who knew about missed opportunities. He recorded the song which would later be a hit then spent three years at Angola after a drug arrest in Baton Rouge. He rereleased the song after Jimmie Davis got him out of prison. It had new meaning then. OC talks about missed opportunities today; how Jesus cried over Jerusalem. If you had known . . . in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes —Luke 19:42. “What might have been” is a refrain we can all sing. We miss opportunties. God’s perfect plans for us are foiled not just once but again and again. Yet, like a GPS, each day he “recalculates” a route to Him. Satan would have us waste more time lamenting over what might have been, but Our Lord forgives, forgets and recalculates. He provides new plans for a joyous life of service after each stumble we make. Tomorrow is Easter and it should be a celebration […]

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus “When Paul received his sight, he also received spiritual insight into the Person of Jesus Christ. His entire life and preaching from that point on were totally consumed with nothing but Jesus Christ— “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” ( 1 Corinthians 2:2 )” It’s no accident that Christmas is more popular than Easter. The world doesn’t want to consider Jesus at all; but if they must they prefer the innocent child in a manger to the man hanging on a cross. I know I need the Jesus who feed 5000; I have physical needs. I know I need the Jesus who allowed the children to come to Him; I need to be comforted. I know I need the Jesus who  taught with a power never seen before or since; I have a need to know. I know I need the Jesus who heals and cures; I am sick. I know I need a risen Christ; because I need death to be conquered. I know I need Jesus who promises a Comforter because I need a constant presence and guidance. It’s the crucified Jesus that’s […]

Today is March 31, 2010 ~ the last day of March! April is just right around the corner… and how I love this time of Year and Spring! Everything is New Again – as we celebrate the Resurrection of our Saviour, Jesus! We are Easter people. That is good and proper. The Resurrection of Christ changes everything, but Friday comes before Sunday. We tend to skip over the Passion and Death and go right to the Resurrection. That’s a mistake. The Glory of Easter morning is more real if we have focused on the events of Thursday through Friday.  We tend to look for distractions on Good Friday. In Acadiana more crawfish are boiled on Good Friday than any other day of the year. I started the morning with the idea that I would suggest that we watch the Passion of the Christ on television on Friday; but I could find no showings on the hundreds of channels on cable this weekend. You can watch the Passion of the Christ on line. But isn’t it strange that the most popular movie on the subject isn’t broadcast during the entire Easter weekend? On the positive side,  Jesus of Nazareth  airs […]

I live in a needy world, a world in which I am the neediest of all. It is frustrating and exhausting. There are needs at every turn. Everyone seems to “need”  time and attention. Don’t they know I have really nothing to offer them? I can only apply band aids to wounds and hollow words of consolation to problems and deep hurts. I am spending too much time in the world and it is doing no one much good. We fail others when we fail to put God first. It is the greatest pride to think that time spent with others is more important than time spent with God. What is it that we believe we can do for others that God can not? We do best for others when we spend time with God interceeding for them.  If  Christ “always lives to make intercession” ( Hebrews 7:25  ), and the Holy Spirit “makes intercession for the saints” can we have too much devotion to intercession? Any priority that puts anything but God first dooms us to distraction. If we try, even to do His work, on our own without enough time with Him we won’t have enough of His […]