SINNER/SAINTS

I raised the white flag five minutes ago. My one year old twins are now officially sinners.  Could these be the same boys who two months ago were model citizens, cherubs from heaven?  Luke has never seen a meal he doesn't like.  He went right after green beans and sweet potato mash, but Sam swatted away my first spoonful of green beans with a deft left hand swipe and with a mischievous grin that seemed to say, "Try and feed me big guy!"

Play time was a war. No matter how a divvied up the toys, each wanted what the other had.  Grabbing, pushing, screaming, crying!  What is going on?  They're only one year old!  They're at the stage where changing diapers and putting on pajamas is good training for wrestling alligators. They wore me out!!

But then a switch went off.  It's bedtime.  They take their bottles without a fuss.  I read them stories, sing them songs. They go to bed without a fight.  They jabber and laugh until they slowly fall asleep.  Too precious to miss.

I love my sinner/saint grandboys!  Happy 1st birthday, Luke and Sam.

PARTY HARDY

Do we do enough celebrating in life?  I’m realizing how much fun it is to have a good celebration.  I was looking back over some of the really big ones that still bring a smile to my face.   There was the arrival of my Mom’s family from Germany in 1957.  She had not seen them since she’d left Germany 30 years earlier.  Wow what a day!  My graduation from Marine Corps Boot Camp.  Big time celebration.  And then there was my Minnesota Twins 1987 World Series win.  And what about a WEDDING!  Not sure it gets better than that.  Around here I don’t think I’ve seen families celebrate a child’s first birthday any better.  We love to celebrate big events and milestones, and well we should.  But do we celebrate enough of them?

As you read the Bible you realize that God is into celebration.   He loves a good party.  He gives His people reasons for feasts and some real blowouts.  It’s like He is saying, “Take the life I have given you and the relationships we have together, and CELEBRATE.”  Whether the occasion was deliverance from Egypt, an abundant harvest, or a wedding, Party hardy!!  

It’s fun to celebrate a lot of things in life, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, job promotions, our favorite team’s championship, but I wonder if there are some we overlook.  How about celebrating the anniversary of our spiritual birthday, or our baptism, or the occasion when we had the joy of leading someone to Christ?  Pretty big stuff.  We could call it a new life party!  I think God could really get into that.

GOT GUNK?

I took my grandboys, Owen and Griffin, swimming Sunday night, followed by Graeter’s Ice Cream.  Owen wanted a small plastic Red’s ball cap in which to put his scoop.  Griffin chose a waffle cone dipped in chocolate with sprinkles.  We sat outside and enjoyed the flavor of it all.  Griffin had more than he could handle as ice cream melted and ran all over.  By the time he had my full attention, the only real thing I could have done to clean him up was to strip him naked and hose him down.  Ice cream was everywhere.  I dropped them off at their Mom and Dad’s, talked with Bryan out in the yard for a minute, when out came Owen from the house with green gunk in his hair, I mean really sticky adhesive stuff that would not come out.  Owen’s explanation was he needed something to hold his plastic Red’s cap on his head.  The final result of it all was that Owen got his hair buzzed short.   It was easier to grow a new head of hair than preserve the old.

I wonder with us, if there aren’t some similarities.  We get crud in our lives, stuff that shouldn’t be there, and rather than confessing it, cutting and cleaning it all out, and starting fresh, we try to hang on to it, manage it, work around it, maybe deal with it a little at a time, but it keeps us from the freedom and joy Christ wants us to have.  Got gunk?  Christ loves cutting it out.

COMPETITION

I was pondering the word “competition” the other day.  Is wanting to “win” a bad thing?  I thought about how much of my years have been lived in a competitive mode.  From the time I was little I wanted to be picked first when teams were drawing up sides.  I wanted the best grades.  I wanted to win the heart of the girl who had many interested suitors.  I wanted to win the bike race, the spirited debate, the Monopoly game.  Maybe you have a little of me in you.

But I wonder how competitive we feel when it comes to spiritual things, especially the eternal souls of mankind.  I think we all realize that Satan vies for the souls of man even as God does.   If God wasn’t competitive about the souls of mankind, Christ would have never died on the cross.  God wants people to experience and enjoy the fullness of eternal life with Him and Satan is doing all He can to prevent it.  God has enlisted us to be part of His team in battling for the souls of mankind, so one of the core components of CCC’s mission is “Winning people to Christ”.   Are our competitive juices flowing?

WHO DEFINES MORALITY?

Who defines morality?  Who decides what is right and what is wrong?  The president’s endorsement of gay marriage may be one social hot potato whose morality is debated by people on both sides of the issue, but the issue of gay marriage is just another manifestation of a culture that has been pushing the God who created us and redeemed us from the center of life and society to the margins.  What He has to say in the Bible seems to be irrelevant to the majority of people in America.  What is taking its place are phrases like, “It seems to me… or…The way I see it is…”  We adopt our own sense of understanding and fairness.  The issue really isn’t gay marriage.  The real issue goes back to President Obama’s comment that America is no longer a Christian nation.  To me that was as much an observation as a pronouncement.  Our nation’s separation from the God of the Bible as the starting place for morality, life decisions and legislation, has led to a descent into relativism, pluralism and tolerance which makes the lines of defined morality, fuzzier and fuzzier.  As God becomes just a word rather than a reality to whom we are accountable, and our own understanding rather than God’s revelation guides our sense of morality, we will continue to see increasing moral confusion and decline.  Until people are willing to acknowledge that the God who made us is God of all people and nations, and holds each accountable for their decisions and practices, we can fight the skirmishes of social issues, but we’ll lose the bigger battle.  We need a God sent revival that convicts the heart of man and returns them to their God and His Word.  That is what we need to be praying for.

Yes, we still need to stand strong on the truth that defines these moral issues, but we need to go beyond them to the heart of the problem, namely, man’s need to repent and return to God.