Think About It

I like the beach – I just can’t stand the sand! That may seem like an odd comment but let me see if I can explain. I really enjoy the sounds and the smells of around the ocean. I enjoy seeing palm trees and pelicans. I can stare at the beauty of how the white of ground meets the blue water. I even like wading in splashing waves and feeling the warm (or cool) water against my skin. I like just about everything about the beach except the sand. I don’t like how it gets in my clothes or how it burns my feet. It annoys me to have it blow into my eyes and mouth. I don’t like how it makes me work extra hard to get down to the water. Nope, I don’t like sand! Now, I have come to realize this about me and I have to make a decision, am I going to let this negative detract from the rest of the experience? Do I enjoy the beach more than I dislike the sand? The answer is usually “yes”, so I keep going to the beach. I am aware there are others who feel this way about sand, but I also ...

The Bible is pretty pointed about its approach to lying – we shouldn’t do it. Telling untruths are prohibited throughout the Scriptures including, “Do not lie to one another, since you stripped off the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created it …” (Colossians 3:9-10). Now, we could stop right there and make the point that lying is wrong, but have you ever thought about why lying is such a problem? Why is it wrong to tell falsehoods? Let’s take a look a few other reasons why we should avoid lies: 1. Lying puts our will ahead of others. Why do we lie? The answer is simple, because we want to get ahead. We want something that we are not naturally entitled to, so we position ourselves in a better light. This is wrong because Christians are supposed to put others first. When we lie, not only do we promote our own cause, we unjustly put ourselves out front. 2. Lying ske...

When I was a child, it seemed like I had heroes all around me. Not only did we have real life heroes like General (then, President) Dwight Eisenhower, we also had our silver screen heroes like Sergeant Alvin York. We even had a real-life hero as a movie star, Audie Murphey who played himself in his own biopic. Yet, our heroes didn’t stop with people we saw on through the media, we had everyday people who wore their uniforms proudly – even those whose time in the service was over. There were soldiers marching in the parades as well as veterans cheering them on with a tear of remembrance in their eyes. Yes, America was and is a place for heroes. As I think about heroes, my mind doesn’t stop with just those who displayed bravery in military service, my heroes also include those who gave their lives – not just for their country – but also for their church. It may have been one of the great Christian martyrs who died for their faith or a Christian wife and mother who stayed convicte...

The other day, as I was preparing for a Bible Class I came across an interesting verse. In describing his commitment to God, King David writes, “I will give You thanks with all my heart; I will sing Your praises before the gods.” (Psalm 138:1). Now, if you are at all familiar with David and the Psalms, this statement should not surprise you; but what stood out to me was his willingness to praise God to the gods. They (the false and non-existent gods of the heathen nations) could neither understand nor appreciate David’s praise, so why bother? I mean, come on, even if they had the capacity to see David glorify God, they wouldn’t get it, so why waste the effort? Then it dawned on me – David’s point is that he was going to praise God wherever he went, whether people listened to him or not. David’s concern wasn’t whether he convinced others to change their ways (even though he hoped they would – see Psalm 138:4), but no matter what, he was going to do what he was supposed to do? Do ...

During the last election, I got a little confused. I heard a lot of people encouraging me to get out and vote, but I got to wondering if they were wanting me to get out and vote my conscience or if they were merely encouraging me to vote for their candidate? If I take it one way, I am empowered by their desire to make this a nation that seeks to get better by involving it citizens; however, if they were wanting me to get out and vote so that their candidate would win, that seems a bit self-serving. Now, before everyone gets up in arms about my observation, the thing that I really took away from this thought is a question about evangelism. When we, as Christians, are out there teaching people to study the Scriptures on their own, are we doing it so that people will discover a new or renewed relationship with God or are we doing it just so they will see things our way? Are we challenging them to open the Word of God and find salvation or are we guiding them to certain carefully selec...

I was pretty encouraged by the turnout for this year’s election. For years, people have been trying to figure out how to get American’s more involved in the process – we’ll it seems like we did! Not only did I see advertisements on traditional and social media to get out and vote, I got emails from people telling me they voted and encouraged me to do the same. People were wearing their “I voted” stickers and made sure that their votes counted. I heard stories of people who stood in line for hours to make sure their voice was heard. As I thought about voting, it got me to thinking about our approach to worship? What if we put as much effort into attending worship that we do into voting? What if we took out media ads encouraging people to come out and worship? What if we told our stories about what happened in our worship assemblies? What would happened if we showed up at church – but, before we did, we sent out an email blast that we were going? How much influence could we ha...

What does this world owe me? The answer is nothing! Yet how easy is it for us to get into a mindset that this world owes us something and we are going to sit right here and wait (and whine) until someone makes things okay for us. The problem with this logic is that it isn’t going to happen – well, at least not consistently. Sure, we might be able to find someone who is willing to bail us out periodically, but if we are going to consistently be strong, we can’t rely on other people taking care of us. The other night, Jeane and I watched a movie that we both needed to see. The movie was PT 109 and the hero was John F. Kennedy. Now, I may not agree with President Kennedy’s politics or even some of his lifestyle, but that movie reminded me of what it took to not only be successful, but what it meant to be a hero. Even if only half of what Hollywood portrayed in that movie was accurate, it was a reminder that life may or may not be fair, but it is our responsibility to take charge o...