The Fullest Of Measure

Have you ever been searching for something and come across something else which leads you completely away from what you were doing in the first place? I do it all the time. My biggest problem is while digging deep trying to find something, I’ll un-bury a treasure of long ago and sit down to fiddle with it, reminiscing of a time when it was important in my life. I can’t recall what I was looking for the other day when I came across my old slide rule. I would venture to guess that most anyone born after 1975 has probably never seen a slide rule let alone know what it was. A slide rule was pretty much basic equipment for those who quickly needed answers to simple mathematical calculations, i.e. building engineers, on site architects, draftsmen, etc. The slide rule was a precursor to the hand calculator of today. It was very accurate to one decimal point, but generally needed long-hand calculation verification to take a solution out to three places plus. I never really got too proficient with it as the military draft took me away from my blossoming profession and only a few years passed until the world was enlightened by the electronic age and the hand-held calculator with precise accuracy. Anyway, I sat and played with it for nearly an hour then packed it away once again till the next time. I forgot what I was looking for in the first place, but I’m sure I’ll go looking for it again as soon as I discover the unfinished job I was working on.

While watching the TV weatherman, as he pointed out areas of rain across the country on his computerized map, a young boy overheard his parents saying how they wished the rain would come to their drought stricken area. The boy suggested, “Why doesn’t he just click on the rain and drag it down to us?” Our world today is being shaped by our unique pollex, opposable thumbs, working in unison at lightening speed “sharing information” and/or the click of a mouse dragging data from one place to another. It won’t be long before a printed book on the shelf is a marvel of the past.

[1 Timothy 6:17-19] As Paul teaches Timothy how to be an effective preacher and leader in the church, he says, “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.” Today our lives are being measured for success by how much each of us is worth by our monetary possessions. Most are willing to look at life with simple calculations carrying solutions out to one decimal place saying, “That’s close enough.” Of course, there is nothing wrong with having a good job with a good salary. That we are to work to sustain our existence is God’s will for us. Paul also instructs Timothy, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). Success from a worldly standpoint is one thing, but in view of heaven and hell, success must be viewed from a spiritual perspective. Nothing can compare to the glory, beauty and joy of heaven. Nothing can compare to the pain, suffering and eternity of hell. In the final analysis, success must be defined in the light of God’s judgment. We must carry out God’s Word to the fullest measure (James 1:22).

One Thing Leads To Amother

Have you ever done something for yourself to make life easier and in the long run it only produced a new problem in your life? Example: This year I resolved to chemically eliminate the need to use the grass trimmer around my chain link fence, thus saving on the aggravations of tearing up and replacing so much trimmer string on the unforgiving metal fence. Besides, my lazy side is becoming more dominant as the years pass and I just don’t want to do it anymore. Well, my now one-year-old Chihuahua, who loves her fenced in yard, has been caught outside the fence several times. The little Houdini found a way out which after inspecting the entire fence remained a total mystery to me how she was doing it. The best way to solve problems is to observe, so on the porch I sat watching the magician at work. It didn’t take long before I heard the fence rattle and there she was on the other side of the fence. By ridding the fence-line of grass for ease of maintenance, it caused the bottom of the fence to become loose and flexible enough for a little dog to scoot under and go exploring the big world. Good thing she didn’t run into a big dog. Well, some cheap tent stakes solved the problem, for now.

A young couple moved into a new neighborhood. While eating breakfast near a window, the first morning in their new home, the young woman sees her equally young neighbor hanging her wash outside to dry. “That laundry isn’t very clean,” she mentioned to her husband. “She doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.” Her husband looked on but didn’t say anything. Every time her neighbor hung her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments. About two months latter the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and commented to her husband, “Look! She has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her.” The husband casually remarked, “By the way, did you notice I finally got around to washing all the windows yesterday?” So remember, what we see while watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look.

[Matthew 24:24-26; Romans 15:1-6; Philippians 2:1-11] There was once a rather rough man, who for some reason, fell in love with a beautiful vase he found in an antique shop. He purchased the vase and placed it on the mantel in his living-room. The piece became a kind of judgment on his surroundings. The curtains looked dingy beside it. The sofa with the stuffing coming out of the seats would not do. The wallpaper and paint needed redoing. So, the man slowly started cleaning up the room to make it worthy of the beautiful vase. Gradually the whole room was transformed. Who is your biggest opponent? From whom do most of your troubles and struggles come? Maybe you guessed it right. The greatest challenge any of us face is self. It seems no matter what we do in the pursuit of happiness, it’s never exactly what we were looking for. Even in our relationship with God, most people never get passed the first requirement to follow Jesus: deny self. Our culture is of no help. All day, every day, we are told self is to be indulged, satisfied, served and fulfilled. Happiness itself, we’re told, depends on satisfying self. Happiness comes from the freedom of self-slavery which binds us in the slavery of sin. It takes a transformation of worldly thinking to spiritual living to move us from selfish living to servant loving. When a person puts the Lord on the mantel of his heart, his whole life begins to change. Amen?

God's Seed - No Other Will Do

A successful businessman was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business. Instead of choosing one of his directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives of the company together for a meeting. “It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you.” The executives were shocked as the boss continued, “I am going to give each of you a seed today – one a very special seed. I want each of you to plant your seed, care for it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown. I will then judge the plants and the one I choose will be the next CEO of this company.” One man, Jim, went home and excitedly, with seed in hand, told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and some compost, and together they planted the seed. He watered it every day, but it didn’t seem to grow. After three weeks the other executives began to talk about their plants that were beginning to grow. Weeks turned into months. As the others bragged about their plants, Jim kept quiet about his empty pot. He felt like a failure and knew he must have killed the seed. He thought about replacing the seed but knew that would be dishonest so continued to water and nurture the seed given to him. The day came to meet again. He felt sick to his stomach. It was going to be the most embarrassing day of his life. When Jim arrived with his empty pot he was amazed at the variety of beautiful plants the other executives were presenting. As Jim coward near the back of the room he heard the CEO say, “My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown! Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO of this company.” Jim was spotted and ordered to come forward with his product. When Jim got to the front the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed. Jim told him the story… The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim whom he asked to remain standing. Motioning toward Jim, the boss announced, “This is you next Chief Executive Officer.” Nobody could believe what they just heard. Then the boss said, “One year ago today I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, care for it , and bring it back to me today. What I gave you were boiled seeds, impossible to grow. All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that your seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. He is a worthy successor.

[Luke 8:1-15; Hebrews 4:12-13; 1 Corinthians 3; Isaiah 55:6-11; Galatians 1:6-9] * “…The seed is the Word of God.” * “…the Word of God is living and active.” * “… I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.” * “…so is my Word that goes out from my mouth, it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” * “…if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned.” God has given man all he needs for righteous living through His Word. When man thinks it isn’t working, he tends to substitute it with his own seed of earthly salvation. Plant God’s seed only. Water it with sound Biblical teaching and God will make it grow. We sometimes think we are failures because we don’t see the results we expect, but “Well done my good and faithful servant” will be the greatest of rewards.

There Are No Loopholes

I’m often asked what I think about this or that and there is never a shortage of subjects that need solving at the coffee table. When asked about the multiple conflicts erupting throughout the Middle East, all I can say is, the world is in a mess and most everybody has an opinion on what the best solution for each situation should be to bring about peace. The rub in coming up with the perfect plan for peace is – there has never been peace in the hearts of some men and cultures. The stigma of, you hurt me – I hurt you back, that prevails on both sides of a fence of superciliousness (look that up in your Funk and Wagnall), in my opinion, can’t be fixed. Then there’s the question of what to do about our own domestic backsliding. I’m afraid that in the interest of fair play, even our legislators have painted themselves into a corner of political correctness. They have tied their own hands behind their backs and are now too afraid to stand up, shake a fist in the air and say, “We’re going the wrong way!” I think we’re all turning into a bunch of Wooses sitting around complaining about our constrained law oppressed lifestyle in the land of milk and honey ignoring the fact that the foundation of our great nation is crumbling beneath us. The degradation of moral and ethical standards in this country has already produced cultures of hate and discord resulting in lawlessness in neighborhoods of some metropolitan areas. Ask the citizens of Colorado if they’re real happy with their decision to legalize ‘whacky tabacky’. All I can say is, since discipline and the will of God have been shelved, we’re going the wrong way!

The story is told of a young lady who came to a preacher for advice on her upcoming marriage. She considered herself a Christian with high Godly standards and was about to marry a ‘good ole boy’ but not a Christian. The preacher asked her to step up on a chair and then proceeded to help her step up onto his desktop. He said to the girl, “Now pull me up to where you are.” She tried with all her strength, but failed. The preacher, still holding the girl’s hand, gave a very slight tug and pulled her to the floor. He said to the young lady, “It is more probable that this non-Christian boy will pull you down to his level than it is that you will ever pull him up to your level.” Keep compromising the ideals of our founding fathers, drawn from God’s Word, and you too will find yourself being gently pulled down into the depths of ignorant bliss. For the lack of wisdom, the land of milk and honey is turning sour and beginning to smell rotten.

[Proverbs 11] One of the most popular entertainers of the Vaudeville era was W.C. Fields (1880-1946) While Fields could make audiences roar with laughter, he was certainly not a Christian and made no pretense of his disdain for the Bible. Thus, it came as a great shock when one of Fields’ close friends, visiting him in the hospital near the end of his life, found him reading the Bible one day. When asked what he was doing, Fields, ever the comedian, said, “Just looking for loopholes.” God’s law, unlike man’s, has no loopholes. No lawyer will be able to fool or sway the judge of all men or be able to negotiate a plea bargain. Hebrews 9:27 reminds us, “…man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment…”, and 2 Corinthians 5:10 reads, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” If you were to die this very day, where would you spend eternity? God knows and he wrote it down for you.

Unexpected Troubles

If you are a regular reader of my column you probably know my history with vocal cord problems. If not, I have had several surgeries on them to remove growths and pre-cancerous tissues all of which, thank God, have never shown full blown cancer. Because of this condition I have a regular inspection of my throat and vocal cords just to keep an eye on them and jump in whenever an unfavorable change is noted. The inspection of my throat is done with a camera all-the-while I am squeaking out funny “he-he-he” in a high pitch then “he-he-he” in as low a pitch as possible. Then it’s inhale and exhale two or three times getting the throat and cord a good workout and recording it all on the computer. During my last check-up, about six weeks ago, one cord had a noticeable change in color and when I inhaled this great big cyst jumped out of hiding taking the tech by surprise. Here we go again! My ENT of twenty years asked what I thought we aught to do about it. I trust him enough to tell him whatever he thinks we need to do. The challenge of each of these surgeries is to get my voice back and sing praises to my Lord, which is still a mystery to my doctors. I continue to achieve this goal each time. Well, I had surgery last week to remove and biopsy all the bad stuff. I don’t have an answer yet but the surgeon was very positive about what he saw. This was unexpected for me, but as I’m healing from this most recent surgery I can confidently say, I feel great and can’t wait to get singing again. God loves me.

[Luke 21:34-36] If you think life isn’t fair, you’re absolutely right. Just about the time you become complacent, thinking everything’s going perfect, grab your wallet, because easy living is about to cost you something. “…The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them” (Ecclesiastes 9: 11-12). A father was watching his young son struggle to lift a heavy rock. The little fellow grunted and strained, but couldn’t move it. The father said, “Are you sure you’re using all your strength?” The exhausted boy said, “Yes, I am!” The father replied, “No you’re not. You haven’t asked me to help you.” How true. We grunt and struggle with our burdens in this earthly life, often forgetting that our Father in heaven is always willing to aide us. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Have you ever thought about how easy Adam had it? He’s the only man who has never been compared to the man she could have married. He had no in-laws to drop in unannounced. There were no “Jones’” for him to keep up with. There were no credit cards or shopping centers to deal with. His dinner was never interrupted by a telemarketer. His wardrobe was simple. He never had to shovel snow. I thank God I can go to surgery with the total confidence that He is in charge, and my faith in Him brings peace into my world of unexpected happenstances. How do I gain such contentment? It is through Jesus: “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). Stop struggling and ask God. “But Tom, he doesn’t seem to ever help me.” Okay; read James 4:1-8 and 1 John 5:14-15 and ask with the heart. Then, read the Bible daily and learn of the one who loves and will always care for you.