Only Today

Take a moment to read the following words. Don’t just breeze through them. Take time for them and stay a while. Here they are:

“Each morning we are born again. What we do today matters most.”

Do you need to read them again? I found myself staring at those twelve words the other day. Not that I had not read them before, but for some unknown reason they became the focus of my attention. As a Christian I know about the phrase, “Born Again.” To us it is a once and for all thing that happens when we turn our lives over to Jesus Christ and seek to live the Christian life. So, what about being born again every morning? Can it be so? I believe the first six words are true. Did Christ pay for my sin once for all and there was a moment in time where we are born again? Absolutely. But each day? Yes each day. But this is a different born again. We have a new birth when our eyes open, when we lift our head from the pillow and place our feet firmly on the floor. We have a new and wonderful chance to make a fresh new start. An opportunity if you will to have a prefect day.
Then I understood the last six words. Today is the only thing that matters as it lives and breathes from the first six words. As more people then enough have said, yesterday is gone. Chad & Jeremy had one take on it and so did Fleetwood Mac. Remember yesterday but never live in the regrets of the past while we embrace our today. And then we know our future is unknown. Tomorrow is a vision of the future that we plan for but as the song says, tomorrow never comes.
In our Christian walk only today is important. Way back in Bible College a mature, caring professor started the year off with one phrase. Now forty years later I remember it as if he had said it yesterday. He told this young, full of energy class, “Make the most of your every day!” Not great English but great advice. He had us write it down. We were young and impressionable, looking to learn and then to move on in life. After all we had plans. Great, pie in the sky plans for the future and how we will change the world. By the way, we didn’t, maybe a little, but not like we planned.
The first page of notes that year had those words scribbled at the top. We were written in a hurry while we waited to hear more. But we all needed to go back to them over and over. And now, I go over them every day.
Make the best of today. Live it as if you are planning for the future but recognizing that today may be your last. God doesn’t want your yesterday, even though I believe He lives outside of time. He needs us today, and just today. I want all of us to change today. Change in a way that you make the best of your day and begin with a new birth and a new outlook. Today Will Be The Day! Just remember, how you spend your day tells the world where your heart is.
Have a great day, and spend it wisely.
Something to think about
Rob

In The Summertime. . .

SUMMER IS HERE!
Just thought I would mention it. After all, you might have missed it arriving this past Tuesday in the middle of the day. It’s not that it arrived with any fanfare. It just drifted into town and came to stay for three months. It might have snuck up on you while still doing your spring work. You know, the stuff that you would have normally done months ago but with all the rain you were unable get done. Point of fact. We just put in our Impatiens. Now there is a play on words. But, it’s great to have summer here. Soon, the children will be out of school and parents will be praying the summer is over quickly, while the teachers are praying for a long relaxing summer. Wonder which group will have their prayer answered? Yes, the children are out of school in a couple of weeks. Most of us will remember to watch out for children during the summer. They are at times, carefree and we adults need to be especially vigilant for their safety. We have to watch for those who chase balls and those that aren’t watching as best they can. That being said, it won’t be too long until the children are also, ready for it, bored. Yes, they can only keep occupied by doing nothing for so long. That is about the time the adults have to come up with some very ingenious ideas to keep them going. Just this past week, our daily paper had a whole page dedicated to what to do with children to keep them occupied with using their minds during the summer vacation. You can even get a book published by the Ontario government listing thousands of things to go and places to go each day for the whole summer. We at church learned long ago that we can keep them occupied for a week with Vacation Bible School. That is about the maximum time we mortals can take having 30 kids around all day. And that is why we appreciate teachers more then we can ever say. But yes, I remember VBS from my childhood. I actually thought that someone invented it for me. We loved going so much we didn’t worry about which church we went to. We would go to a new one each week. Mom must have cringed at the sight of another jewelry box made out of popsicle sticks. That my friend is what summer is all about. It is our time here in the frozen north to get out and do all the things we dream of in December. Get out and do some relaxing to be sure. Cram into two months all the outdoor things you can. Forget the computer, game boy, Xbox and the like. Go with the children as they seek new adventures. Be like the children who never neglect exercising the mind and growing in what you know, learn and experience for the first time. Lastly, we all need to stretch in the spiritual side of life. My bible tells me that I need to “know Him” and that means getting to know about God through everything around us in our world. Maybe that is why Church and Children’s Study Hour come on our day off? May your summer be filled with the fullness of all we can experience, especially when we recognize that He is watching out for all of us. Something to think about Robin

Father Knows . . . Really?

In a few days, most of us will celebrate Father’s Day. One day a year where we can take time to recognize the fathers in our life. For me, with my own father gone, Father’s Day is best celebrated by not celebrating. Not because he is gone but due to not wanting anyone making a fuss over me. Just to be left to myself with no “honey do list” or any unfinished projects. Let’s make it a day to do what I want. I know that many fathers are in the same boat. Okay guys, speaking about boats, why don’t you go fishing if you would like.
I believe that we have Father’s Day only because we have Mother’s Day and someone, who had a great father, wanted to do the same thing for her father. I will still say, as one very wise man said, “Thanks honey, but, no thanks.”
For every argument there is another compelling rebuttal. Some will say, and they do, “it’s only one day and we want you to know that we really appreciate what you do and have done for us.” Someone once even pulled up the scripture that says, “Honour your father and mother . . . ” Ex 20:12, Matt 15:4, 19:19, Eph. 6:2. Okay, it’s mentioned nine times and the first one is definitely a command.
All right already. I get the point. But, and you knew this was coming. What if your father was not that Jim Anderson of “Father Knows Best,” or Ward Cleaver of “Leave It to Beaver?” And be honest fellows, sometimes we are not the best fathers on the block. I am looking at myself as well. Even though we can say that biology does not make a father, we have to admit that most fathers do the best they can.
And that my friends, is what makes a father a dad. It is someone who does the best he can with what he has and what he has seen in not only his own father but all the other fathers he has know through life.
When I was young, and a child of a single mom, I looked to my friend’s fathers. There was no roll model in my home and it was necessary for me to observe my buddy’s dads as well. After all these years, two men still come to my mind. I saw Mr. Smith and Mr. Spence every week at church. Each of them by the way, raised a son who became a minister. What I observed in them as they fathered their children (and me to some degree), instilled in me something of what I wished for when I would eventually be a father to my own children.
As we are commanded to honour our fathers, I ask the fathers out there to be all that God intended us to be as we reflect the best father of all, God our Father!
Something to think about.
Rob

Penticost Sunday

I learned early on that ministers are always being asked questions. Many times during each week, I have people coming to me time and time again with a question or two. Sunday was no different. This time I want to share with all of you what I was asked this past Sunday and the answers I found for myself.
Someone came up to me and asked when is Pentecost Sunday. Like you, I know the main church holidays. I know definitely when Christmas is. I know when Easter is, and Good Friday is even though these two change every year. I even knew when Father’s Day is and of course my own birthday, but Pentecost? I took a guess and went home to discover I was right. Most people don’t even know what it is let alone when it is. You see, some churches don’t celebrate a liturgical church calendar anymore. If you are Catholic or Lutheran, you may know the answers to all of this. Just as an aside, our church calendar numbers off from Pentecost and ends with the Twenty Third Sunday after Pentecost, which is followed by the First Sunday of Advent. Now that’s scary.
So, I did my research and this is what I discovered. For those who have no idea or only a vague idea, Pentecost is the last Sunday of the Easter Season. I know what your saying; “yah, so?” Well-let me fill in a few more details. Pentecost is celebrated seven weeks or fifty days after Easter. In the UK it is called Whitsunday. Whitsunday means seven weeks. It is the day the church celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit. Which came ten days after Christ’s ascension. Are you still with me? Most of you remember when it was called the Holy Ghost. It is the third person of the Trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Jesus predicted it’s coming before He ascended to heaven. He said, “I will send you a comforter.” He could have been like the guest that comes to your home and brings a small token gift. When you are invited to someone’s home, you sometimes take something for the host or hostess. You know, something like flowers, or chocolates or the like. Jesus took it one step further. He said he was going to send something that will be with them forever.
Can you imagine what those disciples were thinking? They might think, what would it be, how would it come (especially during a postal strike), and the two all-important questions, when will it arrive and how will it comfort? Now, almost two thousand years later, we all know what the Holy Spirit is. And most of us know what it does within our hearts and minds.
What you may not know is it is symbolically related to the Jewish festival of Shavuot, which celebrates the coming of the Ten Commandments. Are you ready for this, - they came fifty days after the Exodus.
To answer his question, yes indeed, Pentecost is this coming Sunday, June 12. Celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. Over the centuries, Pentecost has been described as the “Birthday of The Church.” But even more so, celebrate it coming not just to the disciples, and the church. Celebrate it coming into your heart. Does the Holy Spirit live within your heart? I pray so.
Something to think about.
Rob