Easter 2015

Just thought I would mention to you that Christmas is just over eight and a half months away.  Are you ready yet? Have you started shopping yet?  No? I saw more than one person at Target shopping for Christmas. Or maybe it was for Easter bonnets.

Christmas is one of the most amazing holidays of the year. It started one day as a remembrance of Jesus being born. A huge birthday party if you will. And I don’t care what the actual day He was born was, I’m just ecstatic that almost the whole world takes the day off to do what God did so long ago. He gave us an irreplaceable gift.

That was His birth. Now, at spring time we celebrate two more happenings in the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth.  The first is commemorated this coming Friday when He was tried, convicted, executed and buried.  What we really need to know is that He was convicted and executed to pay for our sins, yours and mine. It was all in God’s plan. A plan that helped the world become free from sin. They are our actions that separates us from a sinless, loving God.  

Then came the morning. Easter Sunday morning. Yes the world may celebrate Easter in other ways with Easter bonnets, chocolate and eggs delivered by bunnies. Cute, but not what seventy five percent of Canadians think about this coming Sunday. We will focus our minds and hearts on the Resurrection. You can read all about it in John 20. Jesus was raised from the dead just like the bible and He said he would. As the egg on Easter morning might represent new life, our risen Jesus brings new life. We are raised with Him into a better life, a beautiful life that God always intended us to have and share. Easter is here. He is Risen – He is Risen Indeed.

 “Then came the morning, night turned into day;

The stone was rolled away, hope rose with the dawn.

Then came the morning, shadows vanished before the sun,

Death had lost and life had won, for morning had come”.

FIRST, and Formost.

Many of us engage in one pastime that brings more smiles than any other; going down memory lane. For you who are old enough to have lots of memories, you think of all the important moments in your life. History changing moment like, the assassination of President Kennedy, the wedding of Lady Di, her son’s wedding or even the Twin Towers.

The best moments we will continue to visit are those that touched us personally.  Getting personal we may remember a number of special events. Things like graduation from grade 8, first car, first job, our wedding day, and also our own personal life changing moments. Unfortunately we all can so vividly remember the ill-fated ones we lived through. Like breaking a bone, not getting picked for the team or just missing a life changing moment.

As I went down my own memory lane recently I stayed a while on two special moments. Both intrinsically connected. It began with my first love. Most of us can relate. You can still see and hear them in your mind. When you close your eyes you can actually look into their face and relive the moment when you felt their hand in yours for the first time. The memories you shared flood your mind and you start to smile. You remember only sunny days and warm moon filled summer nights and you smile some more.  You continue to smile at the thought of those many, many, moments that you experienced. If you had similar experience I had, it all comes to a crashing halt when the memories abruptly come to a bridge out and you recollect standing there all alone. First Loves.

The other memory is directly related to the first. Let me read for you; “You have forsaken the love you had at first.” This line comes from the book of Revelation. It is all about leaving our first love.  That first love is God, in Jesus Christ. John wrote in another book, “We love because he first loved us”. I believe the allure of life gets in the way and we end up putting our love in other places. For us, they replace the one and true love we can have in our life. The love of Jesus Christ who said to our hearts, “I will never leave you nor forsake you”.

Something to think about.

Rob

Smile

The other day, while I was driving back and forth to the church, I took time, (when I could) to notice the faces of those other drivers whizzing past me. If you are lucky enough to be in the passenger seat sometime, take my lead. It’s interesting. I saw all kinds of facial expressions. I even saw people singing. Cute thing about that person was, they were singing the song that was on my radio. It made me smile.

One thing I didn’t see was a smile on anyone else’s face. Undoubtedly, even my own. I wondered what people were thinking or what was going on in their lives. Our life, yours and mine, are filled with so many things that find their expression in the facial expression we show as we walk through life. I wondered, were they on their way to a job they hated? Were they going to the hospital to visit a friend or family member that wasn’t doing very well? Or maybe they were late and were focused on getting there as soon as they could? It might be, as I believe many are, they were making their way just like every other day and they were on auto-pilot.

You have to admit that life can be like that. It got me to thinking about the line my mom used to say to my brother and I. I’m not sure if this is what it was exactly but it was something like; “Don’t forget to smile.” She knew. I also remember that the longest word is smiles. There is a mile between the 's'es'. God knows to. As I thought about that I turned to my computer and went to google.com and then to images. I then typed in two words: ‘smile quotes’.  I started to read. The more I read the more I, no, not smiled, but thought of the people that would benefit from those images. Then I did something I have never done before. God prompted me to send some out to people that needed to smile. And you are one of them.

Something to smile about

Rob  

Highway 401

Have you ever noticed that transport trucks love the middle lane of the highway? I remember back to my time getting a driver’s licence and reading somewhere in the free booklet, “slow traffic, keep right” and “Don’t pass on the right”. Do you remember that? Thought so. So why do these trucks sit for hours in the middle lane?

I believe their logic has to do with making time. No, we can’t create or make time. God only gave us 24hours in a day. What drivers think is, they want to get where they are going as quickly as possible. After all, isn’t time money? That’s a personal question that each of us has to wrestle with at many times of our lives. But there is within that concept an important lesson.

Even if we do not believe that time is money we all want to save some time in our lives. We all want to ‘get things done’ if you will, so you can move on to something more rewarding or fun or just more important. I’m of the opinion that we all have things we need to do in life. Things like go to school, go to work or even household chores. But as you know, there is more to life than doing.

Truck drivers are at work and they want to get home just like the rest of us. To get home quickly, they get in the lane that has the least amount of restrictions so to getting further down the road quicker. The next time you are on the highway, sit in the curb lane for a while and see how many times you have to slow down due to traffic coming on the highway or slower drivers. You see, the truck drivers have figured it out.

We can learn from these truck drivers. Each and every day, we must steer clear of anything that prevents us from getting to where we need to be and that place is close to Jesus Christ. We steer around obstacles in life, distractions, sin, or any other thing that gets in the way, Those things get in the way of the most important part of our lives. Those things slow us down, distract us or just prevent us from getting home to Jesus before the dark.

Something to think about. 

Rob

Good Job!

Most of us love compliments. We even love encouragement once and a while. Tell a child what they have just done is wonderful and they will ‘do it again’. Do it too much and they will do mediocre work. Just as children need both of these so do we.

Heard a story of a fellow being called in to do a project for a client. When he was finished he presented the final draft to the gentleman, only to be asked, “Is this the best you can do?” The fellow went back and worked diligently again. Again, when he presented it to the client, he was asked, “Is this the best you can do?” Once more he went back and sweated over it again and again. When he was finished this third time he went and heard the line once again. “Is this the best you can do?”

His reply was he had worked as hard as he could and yes he thought it was the best he could do.  This time the client replied, “The first time I saw it I thought it was very good. But what I was looking for from you, is that you believed it was the best you can do.”  Maybe that is what we lack in our lives. Too many times we do things and slide back. We take one step forward and go two steps back. We might even say it’s good enough.

Many of you know that my theme in life is, “Good Enough is not Good Enough”. At one time I was part of my own discouragement. I did enought to just get by. Remember, I’m not one looking for compliments, I changed back then and started looking to be the best I can be. Sometimes that’s hard and other times I’m just pleased that I took two steps forward and slide back one. When this happens I smile to myself and sing that old song; Give of your best to the Master;

“Gratefully seeking to serve Him,

Give Him the best that you have.”

Something to think about.

Rob