It All Starts Friday

In a few short days we will have two holidays in a row. It begins early Friday morning. We have grown to know it as Good Friday. And I guess it is. Good for us that is.  This is much different from those words of terror that my mom used to use; “You won’t do that if you know what’s good for you.”
I, like many of you reading this, grew up in an age that seemed to be so different from today. We had rules and boundaries. We made snap decisions in the face of angry parents, and wished we had been across town when they found out about this or that.
We even knew that what they said could be backed up by what they quoted for us from the bible. Ones like, God helps those who help themselves.  It wasn’t until I was in Bible College that I found out most of the lines they used to put fear in us, really were not from the bible at all.  But we didn’t know any different back then. We just thought the line came from the bible and life was fine.  After all, in most cases it sounded reasonable. We all believed that black was black and white was white. No such thing as grey. Fifty shade or not.
I want to tell you that life is still that way if we use our bibles to shape our world view. Simply put, we live by the one real message Jesus gave to all of us. The truth of this verse came from His Father and it reads, “Love the Lord your God with all you heart, soul and mind, and your neighbour as yourself.”
Think about that. To love everyone as you love yourself. What an amazing concept. A long time ago someone described sin in three very human terms. They said sin is when what we do hurts someone else. Is what we do hurting someone we love? Are we hurting ourselves by the activity we are involved in? Or ultimately, are the black areas of our life hurting God?
John writes that Jesus died not just for my sins but the sins of the whole world. And on Friday, I pray that He is not dying again for something I have done, hurting Him by what is happening in my life. What about you?
Something to think about
Happy Easter, He IS Risen!
Rob

Just Looking.

Do you realize that all of our lives we have something to look forward to? It’s true.  Just follow this with me.  Right after we have a huge bag of candy on Nov. 1st we start looking forward to Christmas. My wife even asks the kids for their wish lists at Halloween.  Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year closely followed by us settling into the cold of winter when we begin to look forward to seeing what the ground hog has to say. But we are not looking forward to that necessarily because only a couple of weeks later St. Valentine shows up. And our wonderful government decides to get into the act by giving us family day thank you very much.
Right on its heals is what every student from here to there prepare for and that is March Break. There are plans afoot on how to enjoy and make the most of this winter break. Florida? Maybe skiing? And now that it’s over, and the children are back to school we can look forward to Easter coming quickly. Easter bonnets, and clothes and of course another bag of chocolate and a couple more days off of school. What a life to suffer through. 
I love looking forward to things. And this life is really full of them as summer holidays come and Thanksgiving and again another bag of candy.
Mixed into this are all the personal things we look forward to: birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, first car, second car, first house, new snow blower - but that’s another story. The list goes on endlessly.
There are also things we look forward to that we don’t know when they are going to happen. It’s a waiting game. Will he call me again? Will he ask me to marry him? Will that company call me back and offer me the job? When will I be ready, mentally, physically, emotionally and financially to retire? Understand that you have at one time or another thought of when you knew something was coming, something was going to happen but you didn’t know when? My insurance company raised my rates because I have not had an accident in 30 years and according to them, my number is coming up?  That was five accident less years ago.
Yes our lives are full of something we are looking forward to or something we expect might happen. I believe we are very fortunate here in Canada to have something more important to look forward to and we don’t even notice because it comes along with exact regularity. We start all over again every Monday morning looking forward to going to church come next Sunday. Or we should be looking forward to going to church. At least I do. And that makes me wonder if you do to. I believe with all my heart that God is looking forward to seeing us there to bring Him our worship and show Him our love. I’m looking forward to church. Are you?
Something to think about
Rob

Laugh Out Loud

I saw it again today.  Actually, I saw it a number of times and it never gets old. It was the commercial on tv with all the happy babies laughing. There are many commercials that we all see on tv and say to ourselves, “What were they thinking?”. Of course there have been so many that we wish we would never see again.
Got me to thinking about how many of these companies would have saved millions of dollars if they had only sat and watched their commercial 30 or 40 times before paying for it? Many of them get very old very fast. I have seen, and I bet you have to, some commercials that you don’t want to see again. They are so bad you turn the channel when you see it come on the screen.
But back to the ones we like. There is just something about a child’s laugh that brings a smile to your face.  No, this is not just a woman’s thing. I think the laughter of little children does something to us. Just last evening, when this commercial came on again, I looked across the room to my wife smiling and watching intently. We are past the age of buying the product but, get our attention? You bet.
I remember way back to the first service I preached at the church. One dear lady came outside that warm Sunday summer morning and said to me. “Thank you Pastor, that is the first time I have laughed in church in a long time.” How sad.
What a beautiful sight to behold, seeing a child laughing. In fact, how many of you out there, when you see a baby, try as hard as you can, to do something childish to make that baby smile. Go ahead, put up your hand if you have. See.  We are all there.
I wonder if that was part of what Jesus was thinking when He said to the disciples, “Suffer the children to come unto me  . . . ” Maybe, just maybe we need to laugh more. Maybe our churches are emptying out because we forgot to laugh and laugh out loud. Maybe we are too serious. Maybe, we need to start with a smile when we think of what Jesus did for us and laugh out loud on Easter morning, not because we have chocolate, but because we can laugh out loud because the debt to sin is paid by Jesus himself.
Something to think about.
Rob

Lead - Follow?

One question for you today.  Are you a leader or a follower? Simple question you might think but think about it a little longer.  Leaders are described as those individuals who take charge. They lead for many reasons. Mostly they just enjoy seeing things getting done. Here is an interesting way of looking at leadership.  “I’m going to clean up this room today and get it shipshape and thereby showing others what can be done.” Mm mmm, let me think about that for a minute. Yes, it’s leadership but, is there anyone following?  It’s good to show how a task can be done but it is only accomplishing its intended conclusion if someone notices and repeats the task you have shown them that needs to be done.
You see the best definition I have heard on leadership is; A leader is someone who has someone following them.  So, what is a follower? Here is my definition.  A follower is someone who comes along side a leader and observes what they do and then learns to do the same things. Is that good for you?
Two interesting things come from this. First, you can’t have one without the other. Yes, we can step out and do things but if it is just us doing things on our own, we are not a leader? We are just an accomplisher, if there is such a word. Here’s another thought, we are not human doers, we are human beings. Think on that for a moment or two.
Secondly, if we are just followers, we only accomplish the task given us. And that means, we are just cogs in the wheel of life and take no ownership. No input, just do this and let me know when it’s done. I lived that once and only once. The reason only once was, I realized early on we are both leaders and followers.  There is always someone to look up to and there is always and ever will be someone to pass on what we know.
I have a dear friend, I will call him Val, because that’s his name. I have always admired Val’s ability to fix clocks and watches. I would take something into him, visit and then come back a week later and pick up the clock or watch. Now, I have begun learning how to do it myself. He is my teacher and a good one at that. But here is the best part, what I am learning I will hope to pass on to someone else.
Jesus did that. He learned from God the Father, and as Paul wrote, what he received he was passing it onto faithful individuals. It continues today. Have you learned anything from God lately? Have you shared it? Now it’s your turn to be both a follower but a leader as well. Remember there is always someone looking up to you. What do they see?
Something to think about.
Rob