Nick’s Walk

21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Philippians 1 Most of the time I can’t help but believe that Christians are full of it. By that I mean they are completely inconsistent. To a man they claim to await eagerly the return of Christ, praying for it to promptly occur. On the other hand, they cling to life ferociously. If we really, want to be with Christ, shouldn’t we as eagerly await death as we do his return? Nevertheless, we pray for miracles for ourselves and others. We seek healing even after our lives have been full, our mission obviously complete, and we lay racked with pain and the despair of uselessness. I don’t get it. Well, maybe I do. Is it that we don’t really believe the promises of Christ that to die is gain […]

Sometimes the words of a song say it all: Listen to the song.  Jeff Johnson – Glorious Day Lyrics One day when heaven Is filled with His praises One day when sin was as black as could be Jesus came forth to Be born of a virgin He dwelt among men, my example is He [Chorus:] Living He loved me Dying He saved me Buried He carried my sins far away Rising He justified Freely forever One day He’s coming Oh, Glorious Day Oh, Glorious Day One day they led Him Up Calvary’s mountain One day they nailed Him To die on a tree Suffering anguish Despised and rejected Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He One day the grave could conceal Him no longer One day the stone rolled away from the door Then He arose o’er Death He had conquered Now is ascended My lord evermore [Chorus] Oh, Glorious Day Oh, Glorious Day One day the trumpet will Sound for His coming One day the skies with His Glories will shine Wonderful day My beloved was bringing Glorious Savior this Jesus is mine [Chorus] Oh, Glorious Day Oh, Glorious Day Oh, Glorious Day Oh, Glorious Day Oh, […]

Spring has sprung. The vast brownness of winter has given way to spring green. I have heard this season described as “If it’s green, it must be a weed.” It’s as if in its excitement to respond to warmer temperature and summer rains, everything comes charging out of the ground. On closer examination, what really looks good is mostly just weeds. My front ditch looks like a rain forest. Our flower beds are covered in weeds. Even the lawn, to the extent it’s green, on closer examination, it isn’t so much grass as it is a variety of weeds.  You want to charge in with a weed eater and herbicide, but care is needed because the first shoots of the “good” plants are buried in with the weeds. Some of my worst spring disasters have occurred when in my weed killing frenzy I have destroyed some of my wife’s favorite plants. The great thing about spring is newness. There is new life coming out all over. We seem to love newness. Like the spring growth, life produces new things which aren’t all great. There are more new weeds in our lives than anything else. We are suckers for the […]

On rare occasions I have a brief period of amazing clarity. In these flashes the normally cloudiness of spiritual life lifts and I seem to be able to see things clearly. Regretfully, if I look into a mirror during these brief periods, I see an ungrateful child, me. During most times, I seem to consider myself put upon, poor, old, and ugly. It’s not mysterious why this is the case. Look around, particularly at the media. It seems everyone is young, beautiful, rich, and living a life of ease. I like to laugh at the Housewives of Beverly Hills, but deep down we think that most folks live like them. The reality is so much different. If you work for minimum wage in America, you would probably be considered wealthy in most of the third world. For most of the world’s people, how they look is the least of their worries. In much of the world, folks don’t worry about living to an old age, they just want to live through the day. The reality is that I have a great life. I have a wonderful family. I make a good living not working really that hard. I will […]

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have done, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. John 14:12 As followers we seek to be more like Jesus, who we follow. We certainly want to adopt his servanthood humility. However, Jesus is God. Can we become more like the fully God Jesus? The wonder of the new birth is that our spirituality is awakened. We become children of God. With that comes incredible capacity; even the capacity to do the things Jesus did and more.  Consider the awesome responsibility. If we believe we should live up to our capacity, do we understand how incredible that capacity is? It’s a tight path we walk, recognizing that we have great capacity, but realizing that capacity comes, not from us, but from Him. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13 We are far different from those who think they are gods. Those folks take pride in what they consider is a natural state that just has to be recognized. “We are all gods.” The Christian recognizes his spiritual capacity is a gift […]

Come and hear, all you who fear God;     let me tell you what he has done for me. Psalm 66:16 Yesterday was my sixty-sixth birthday. I must say it lacked the drama of my sixty-fifth birthday. Number 65 was a big deal. This one, not so much. I got just a handful of “happy birthdays” on Facebook. I was overwhelmed with well-wishers last year. My wife gave me an outfit obviously designed to make me look younger. I haven’t tried it on. I don’t know if I will be able to handle her disappointment if it doesn’t have the desired youth producing effect.  Sixty-six just isn’t as sexy as sixty-five. I got tons of mail last year as everyone seemed to be trying to sell me a medicare supplement. This year I just got a bill for the supplement. Last year I was often asked about retirement. This year it was kind of like, who cares. Are you still around? Trying to find some meaning in the birthday I turned to Google. The only thing significant about the number 66 seems to be old Route 66 which runs from Chicago to Los Angeles. It used to be a road […]

Make my joy complete by being of a single mind, one in love, one in heart and one in mind. Nothing is to be done out of jealousy or vanity; instead, out of humility of mind everyone should give preference to others, everyone pursuing not selfish interests but those of others. Make your own the mind of Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped. But he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming as human beings are; and being in every way like a human being, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross. –Philippians 2:3-8 Having decided that following Jesus is the only way to go, how exactly do we do that? We know it’s more than a social media follow. We are not just interested in Jesus. It’s not just fan; it’s follower. Following Him means becoming like Him. How is that possible. He’s God. We can’t see Him. He’s seated at the right hand of the Father. Is following the Son of God even possible? Is it just a carrot dangled before us that we can never reach? […]

34And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 35“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? Mark 8 We don’t like this verse. We try to blot it out of our minds. That failing, we claim not to understand its meaning. We say things like, “It just means we all got problems.” It’s why we don’t like to be called “followers.” Just call us “Christians.” Lots of “Christians” aren’t followers. If you look close, they’re not even believers. “Christian” is meaningless. Forget it. Today it simply means someone who calls himself a Christian.  It’s a status word. It describes what someone is or says he is. It means no more than what the speaker intends. It doesn’t communicate a unique idea. Follower is an action word. It implies selfless action. It implies actions along a path determined by another. It implies a singularity that […]