Nick’s Walk

I have extolled the virtues of home churches many times before. I need to do so again. The home church I attend just completed a twelve week cycle. We won’t meet again as a group until the end of summer. The twelve weeks were great. The food was great. The teaching was great. The prayer time was great. I can get great teaching anytime I want, on the internet, on tv, from a book. I can get great food anytime I want. I live in a community with more great restaurants per head than anywhere in the world. My wife is a great cook. I don’t even have to leave the house. I can hang around with people in any many places. I can go to ball games or bars. There is an international festival this weekend where I could rub elbows with a hundred thousand folks. The thought is frightening. What I can’t get anywhere else is an atmosphere where folks are willing to share about the battles they are facing. In the last twelve weeks, we learned about and prayed for an amazing number of issues. It isn’t that our group is more needy or has more battles […]

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;    his mercies never come to an end;23 they are new every morning;    great is your faithfulness. I have had a lot of contact with kids and spring recently. We have been taking advantage of the spring weather to work in the  yard. School’s out this week so we’ve also been blessed with lots of kid contact. I couldn’t help but notice how kids and spring are similar. They are both fresh and exciting bursting forth with color and enthusiasm. They both possess promise of new things and futures filled with potential. One of the many blessings of Easter, not the bunnies and candy part, but the risen from the dead part, is that the same kind of fresh promise is ours every day. With each new day comes forgiveness and forgetfulness of the mistakes and missteps of the past. Each new day brings the possibility of new faithfulness and following of the Savior. We need to be more like kids and spring. We need to stay fresh and excited in our perspective and the promise of each new day. We need to shake off the tendency to be burned out by the summer or the failings that […]

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 What’s the meaning of the empty grave? Death is conquered. We tend to focus on the conquering of natural death. The real significance of the empty grave is that spiritual death is conquered. Because the grave is empty, the we can live eternally. Take the empty grave, add faith, you have eternal life. The empty grave is about possibilities. Because the grave is empty, eternal life is possible. Being born again, is being born spiritually. Since Adam we are born dead, spiritually dead. Since Jesus, we can get that spiritual life back. To be born again is to be different. Years ago I remember gathering in Baton Rouge to demonstrate in favor of life. There were two groups present: pro-life and pro death. The demonstrations were large but peaceful. Just before the crucial vote, the pro lifers without any direction, lay silently on their faces and began to pray. The pro deathers were confused but stood in respectful silence. They were in the presence of something spiritual. Something they did not […]

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. 2 Timothy 4:7 Last night I got to see and hear Tim Tebow. As a Gator fan, he is one of my heroes. As a Christian, he is one of my heroes. His humble, sincere love for people and Jesus comes through in person. It was inspiring to listen to him. The crowd was pretty young and he was well received. His message also affected me as an older guy. He talked about growing up with parents who taught him to follow his passion. In life, we too often become satisfied with what works and let our passions fall by the way side. If we find a job that pays the bills, that’s a good thing. Setting aside what really moves and motivates us is sad. I have a passion that I haven’t really pursued. I am never happier or feel more in the will of God than when I teach or preach. I get to do so occasionally, but not enough. Tim motivated me to seek more opportunities to pursue this passion. I am committed to do so. Tim also talked about […]

I love my church. My church doesn’t seat more than a thousand. There are no giant screen televisions up front. In fact, you can see really well from every seat. We don’t have camera men running around providing close up shots for the giant screens. We don’t have speakers that can be heard a mile away. We have no coffee shop. We sometimes put a pot of coffee on before church and that pretty much takes care of everybody who needs some caffeine. I don’t know the name of every person at my church, but with a little effort I could. If I want to talk to my pastor I can get him on the phone anytime or I can invite him to coffee or lunch. It someone is in the hospital, our pastor is there. At my church there are always folks there a lot older than me. That wouldn’t be true in many churches. I love my church. I understand that folks that have giant screens, giant auditoriums, really loud music, and coffee shops also really love their churches. That’s why Jesus is so great. He doesn’t need cookie cutter churches. Churches are often vastly different, but if […]

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor. 5:21 Good Friday is strangely celebrated. Some observe it as a day of prayer and fasting. In some traditions, there are processions. Here in south Louisiana, more crawfish is consumed on Good Friday than on any other day. In some places it’s a holiday, but not everywhere. Considering what the day commemorates, it’s strange that it’s called “Good.” I think the problem is that almost everyone is uncomfortable with the brutal death of what nearly everyone would agree was a good man. For those who consider Him a prophet or, as we do, the Son of God, it is incomprehensible. Why would God require such a sacrifice of his Son? Why would such extreme suffering be required? Wouldn’t a simple painless death be enough? How could anyone be willing to accept such suffering and death for others? Even the strongest Christians and the most learned theologians struggle to answer these questions. The answer is usually framed in terms of love. Face it, we don’t understand that kind of love. So how do we handle […]

I had a really productive day yesterday. I had cryosurgery at 8:20 in the morning. Before you send me  flowers or plan providing meals during my recovery period, you should perhaps know that my cryosurgery consisted of freezing some “pre-cancerous” lesions on my bald head. It took about 3 minutes and was painless. I just wanted to use the word, “Cryosurgery.” I also wanted to use “pre-cancerous.” It sounds much more significant than “bumps.” I also cleared up the staircase to my office as a first step in office reorganization. I babysat the cable guy while he replaced my cable box. I had an hour-long and very satisfying conversation with an important client. I did lots of office paperwork. I helped Rosemary in the garden. I helped Tyler work on a toilet at Martha’s. This was mainly just holding the flashlight and paying for parts. I also managed to watch part of, and listen to part of, the UL softball team’s exciting one run win over McNeese. It helps that I woke up at 3 a.m. The Lord woke me with a clear direction that I should research the beginning of my blogging experience. It turns out in June […]

15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are.17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” 18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” 21 “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” 22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away. Matthew 22 I hate April 15. I think I have justification. Each year on that date I write by far the largest check of the year, made out to people I don’t trust so they can do things I don’t believe in.  I know that the government is “necessary” and does […]