Good morning, all! It's been about a month since my last posting, and I promise to try and get better at this! I felt compelled to write after this past Sunday's church service. This past weekend, people were encouraged to come forward for an impromptu baptism for all three of the weekend services (1 Saturday night and 2 Sunday morning), and I understand 8 people came forward for Saturday night's service, while 8 also came forward for the 9:30am Sunday service my friends and I attended. I've no idea at this time how many came forward for the 11:00am service. It would truly be interesting if that number was 8 as well! Time was set aside at the end of the sermon to allow for these baptisms, and the preacher, Jeff Clark, did the baptisms himself (he normally doesn't do them).
Of the 8 baptisms that we watched Sunday morning, the very first one was so inspiring, so moving. This young man (he was either late teens or early 20's) walking into the baptismal pool with tears in his eyes for what he was about to undertake. His name was Dillon, and you could just see the joy in an aura around him as the Spirit of the Lord was totally upon him. As Jeff asked him questions, his silent weeping increased, and when Jeff asked if he had any family there to watch his baptism, he said no, that he was alone. So Jeff asked all of us to stand as his family, which increased Dillon's weeping drastically. And he wasn't alone. I had hot tears of joy running down my face, and I could see Carolyn on my left and Steve on my right both wiping at their eyes as well. I doubt there were many dry eyes in the sanctuary at all during Dillon's baptism. When Jeff had asked who the lord of Dillon's life was and had immersed him in death with Jesus and brought him back up out of the water in eternal life, the applause was thunderous and very long while Jeff and Dillon embraced and clung to each other. This is what the joy of Christ in our lives should be all about, feeling the love and adoration of our Divine Creator as well as the love and adoration of our brethren in Christ.
The remaining 7 baptisms were also very moving, but none held a candle to that first joyous baptism. To feel the Holy Spirit enter you, to reside in you, to embrace you and guide you through life, has to be the greatest joy one can feel in life. Nothing compares to it. Nothing should compare to it. Because religion has no place in the very personal relationship between ourselves and Jesus. Religion is merely a system of trying to see and be seen; to control others through power plays. But to feel the loving arms of Christ encircling you, holding you close, knowing that He sees all in your heart and loves you anyway, knowing that by trusting Him, loving Him, and following Him that He has washed away your sins, given you eternal life and joy, will hold you up when you stumble - what greater joy on Earth could there possibly be?
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Why Are People Disrespectful?
While I was at the laundromat this afternoon, I was minding my own business, as was almost everyone else in the place, when this woman comes in to do her laundry. However, she is talking - loudly - on her cell phone while coming into the establishment, and it's obvious from her end of things that this should be a very private conversation, not one to be conducted, at high volume, out in public. She was completely oblivious to the fact that she was airing her dirty laundry out for the whole world to see. Yes, I know, it was a laundromat, where else to air out dirty laundry? But the laundry there should be physical, not verbal and private! And the language she was using around very young children in the place! She was extremely disrespectful to everyone in the building.
I definitely breathed a sigh of relief when she left. I mean, I can understand that not everyone is happy with their lots in life, but come on, have some class and leave those conversations, and that language, behind closed doors, not out in public like that! And certainly not around 2-5 year olds running around the laundromat! I could see her sitting out in her car now and then while I was folding my clothes, but I had a lot of clothes to fold, and she was back inside before I had finished. About 20 minutes had passed, and she was still having the very private and very foul-mouthed conversation. While I was finishing up my folding, I wondered why God created such obviously-low-classed people in the first place? Then, it slowly dawned on me.
Just as God creates individuals to test our ability to love and to have compassion, He also creates individuals to show us where we would be, or might be, without His presence in our lives. And sure enough, as soon as that thought struck me, I realized back in my darker days, before I allowed God to embrace me and make me His once more, that I was very much like this woman. I would use foul language, without worrying who was around me, I would have what should be private conversations out in public (I can even remember a few with my vile and sharp tongue in the USM library on the library's desk phone). However, shame did not consume me, for I realized I had moved on from all of that, and going along with last week's church sermon by Jeff Clark, I had forgotten and buried that past where it belonged. And I thanked Jesus for having taken me away from all that I was and making me into a better man today.
Watch Jeff Clark's January 1 sermon here on forgetting the past:
http://vimeo.com/34527652
Should I have invited that woman to church instead of just rolling my eyes at her crude and vulgar language and leaving without a backward glance? Should I have confronted her about using such language in a public place around small children? I don't know. I do know that if anyone had tried that with me back in the day, either their words would have fallen on deaf ears, or I would have turned on them like a cornered tiger for the audacity they would have had for sticking their nose into my business.
So I don't know what I should have done, but I did what I did (left), and there's no point in wondering what I could have done differently. As my friend Curt would say, there is nothing I could have done differently, because the action that I chose was the only action I could have chosen. I thank God for putting her there into my day as a reminder of what I once was like, and how I have come so far from being that crude, crass, and low-brow through His Grace and love. And while I still have miles to go, I've come too far to allow myself ever to backslide and stumble back into what I once was.
I definitely breathed a sigh of relief when she left. I mean, I can understand that not everyone is happy with their lots in life, but come on, have some class and leave those conversations, and that language, behind closed doors, not out in public like that! And certainly not around 2-5 year olds running around the laundromat! I could see her sitting out in her car now and then while I was folding my clothes, but I had a lot of clothes to fold, and she was back inside before I had finished. About 20 minutes had passed, and she was still having the very private and very foul-mouthed conversation. While I was finishing up my folding, I wondered why God created such obviously-low-classed people in the first place? Then, it slowly dawned on me.
Just as God creates individuals to test our ability to love and to have compassion, He also creates individuals to show us where we would be, or might be, without His presence in our lives. And sure enough, as soon as that thought struck me, I realized back in my darker days, before I allowed God to embrace me and make me His once more, that I was very much like this woman. I would use foul language, without worrying who was around me, I would have what should be private conversations out in public (I can even remember a few with my vile and sharp tongue in the USM library on the library's desk phone). However, shame did not consume me, for I realized I had moved on from all of that, and going along with last week's church sermon by Jeff Clark, I had forgotten and buried that past where it belonged. And I thanked Jesus for having taken me away from all that I was and making me into a better man today.
Watch Jeff Clark's January 1 sermon here on forgetting the past:
http://vimeo.com/34527652
Should I have invited that woman to church instead of just rolling my eyes at her crude and vulgar language and leaving without a backward glance? Should I have confronted her about using such language in a public place around small children? I don't know. I do know that if anyone had tried that with me back in the day, either their words would have fallen on deaf ears, or I would have turned on them like a cornered tiger for the audacity they would have had for sticking their nose into my business.
So I don't know what I should have done, but I did what I did (left), and there's no point in wondering what I could have done differently. As my friend Curt would say, there is nothing I could have done differently, because the action that I chose was the only action I could have chosen. I thank God for putting her there into my day as a reminder of what I once was like, and how I have come so far from being that crude, crass, and low-brow through His Grace and love. And while I still have miles to go, I've come too far to allow myself ever to backslide and stumble back into what I once was.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Forget The Past to Move Forward
Sunday morning, New Year's Day, our pastor gave a sermon on moving forward into the new year. As he pointed out, 2011 was a good year for some, a bad year for others, but 2012 is a whole new year unto itself. How can anyone move forward if they're holding onto the past? So his challenge is to forget 2011 and put it behind us. Now, he doesn't literally mean to totally forget what happened, to forget friends and family, but merely not to dwell upon what happened in the past. For how can you move forward if something, or someone, from the past is dragging you backwards?
And he doesn't mean just forgetting the bad things; he means putting the good things behind us as well. Al Bundy from the TV show Married... With Children comes to mind. Al was constantly reliving his high school days when he was a football star, but by doing so, he was depriving himself, and his family, of being a star in his present. He was always bemoaning how horrible his life and family are, but not once did he stop to consider that HE COULD CHANGE THAT by living in the present and trying to make his present life awesome.
While of course there are things we want to remember, and even brag about, from our past, we can't let ourselves become so obsessed with those things that we can't move forward. And constantly remembering when "times were good" means we're not letting Christ make the present good for us. God's plans are not for mortal men to understand, but He definitely has those plans, and when we don't look forward to the future, and don't live in the present, we're basically telling God that whatever He has in store for us isn't nearly as good as how it used to be.
And who among us would be willing to slap God in the face like that? I, for one, have no intention of telling God that His plans for me aren't working out, that I'd rather live in the more fruitful past, and I don't want His designs for my future to come to fruition. Not only would I never slap my Creator in the face that way, I also know, for a fact, that my life is better now than it was in the past. Even if certain periods in the past SEEM better than now (for instance, when I was employed full time, or when I didn't have to worry about how I was going to buy groceries, or pay my bills), I know that I am more of what God wants me to be now than I ever was back then, and I'm certainly happier now than I've ever been!
And he doesn't mean just forgetting the bad things; he means putting the good things behind us as well. Al Bundy from the TV show Married... With Children comes to mind. Al was constantly reliving his high school days when he was a football star, but by doing so, he was depriving himself, and his family, of being a star in his present. He was always bemoaning how horrible his life and family are, but not once did he stop to consider that HE COULD CHANGE THAT by living in the present and trying to make his present life awesome.
While of course there are things we want to remember, and even brag about, from our past, we can't let ourselves become so obsessed with those things that we can't move forward. And constantly remembering when "times were good" means we're not letting Christ make the present good for us. God's plans are not for mortal men to understand, but He definitely has those plans, and when we don't look forward to the future, and don't live in the present, we're basically telling God that whatever He has in store for us isn't nearly as good as how it used to be.
And who among us would be willing to slap God in the face like that? I, for one, have no intention of telling God that His plans for me aren't working out, that I'd rather live in the more fruitful past, and I don't want His designs for my future to come to fruition. Not only would I never slap my Creator in the face that way, I also know, for a fact, that my life is better now than it was in the past. Even if certain periods in the past SEEM better than now (for instance, when I was employed full time, or when I didn't have to worry about how I was going to buy groceries, or pay my bills), I know that I am more of what God wants me to be now than I ever was back then, and I'm certainly happier now than I've ever been!
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