Once in a while I get something via email that I want to share with others. I received this one from a good friend of mine with a teenage daughter.
"The doctor cured by hearing problem," one girl said to another.
"What did the doctor do?" her friend asked.
"She removed my Ipod!"
Once reason why this is funny is because it has some truth to it. But it also raises some questions as well.
Do we have our spiritual earphones on? A good way to find out is to ask yourself how long it has been since a friend confided in you.
How long has it been since you confided in a friend?
Have you closed yourself off from God?
Do you feel self-sufficient?
We all need our friends for mutual support. We all need God's forgiving love. So, let us remove our spiritual earphones and open our hearts and receive.
Some friends play at friendship but a true friend sticks closer than one's nearest kin. (Proverbs 18:24)
Monday, October 29, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Devotion for the Week of October 22, 2007
“Pastor, I understand the idea of ‘You are the light of the world,’ but I’m not sure what Jesus means by being ‘the salt of the earth.’ This is how a conversation started after we had watch Godspell with the youth group some time ago.
I realized that in our twenty-first century culture many things from the Bible may not make sense to us. For us salt is a cheap condiment we find on almost every dinner table in America. But this was not the case 200 years ago.
In the ancient world salt was a valuable commodity. Workers were paid with salt. An interesting footnote is that the word "salary" is derived from the word, "salt." Many of the Roman soldiers were paid in salt. Some people wanting to buy something in the ancient world would often pay for it with salt, in the same way we use money today. People would treasure salt as we might value gold or silver. Even in Colonial America households usually keep salt locked up or hidden.
One reason salt was so valuable had to do with needing to have salt as part of ones diet when living in the heat of the Mediterranean world. Also, the value of being able to preserve food with it.
So, with this in mind, Jesus was calling them and their work valuable.
But there is more to it than that. The best way for me to explain the other part is with a story.
One evening a mother said to her son, "Put this salt in water and come back to me in the morning." The boy did as he was told, and the next day his mother said, "Please bring me the salt you put in the water yesterday." "I can't find it," replied the boy. "It has dissolved."
The wise woman told her son, "Taste the water from this side of the dish." Again the son did as he was told. "What taste does it have?" his father asked. "Salt," the son replied. “What about the other side of the dish,” the mother asked. Again, the boy answered, “Salt.”
Next, the woman told her son to pour the salty water onto the rocks. The boy did so only to discover that after the water had evaporated the salt reappeared.
Perhaps in calling his followers the "salt of the earth," Jesus meant that once people become his followers there is no turning back.
You are the salt of the earth. (Matthew 5:13)
I realized that in our twenty-first century culture many things from the Bible may not make sense to us. For us salt is a cheap condiment we find on almost every dinner table in America. But this was not the case 200 years ago.
In the ancient world salt was a valuable commodity. Workers were paid with salt. An interesting footnote is that the word "salary" is derived from the word, "salt." Many of the Roman soldiers were paid in salt. Some people wanting to buy something in the ancient world would often pay for it with salt, in the same way we use money today. People would treasure salt as we might value gold or silver. Even in Colonial America households usually keep salt locked up or hidden.
One reason salt was so valuable had to do with needing to have salt as part of ones diet when living in the heat of the Mediterranean world. Also, the value of being able to preserve food with it.
So, with this in mind, Jesus was calling them and their work valuable.
But there is more to it than that. The best way for me to explain the other part is with a story.
One evening a mother said to her son, "Put this salt in water and come back to me in the morning." The boy did as he was told, and the next day his mother said, "Please bring me the salt you put in the water yesterday." "I can't find it," replied the boy. "It has dissolved."
The wise woman told her son, "Taste the water from this side of the dish." Again the son did as he was told. "What taste does it have?" his father asked. "Salt," the son replied. “What about the other side of the dish,” the mother asked. Again, the boy answered, “Salt.”
Next, the woman told her son to pour the salty water onto the rocks. The boy did so only to discover that after the water had evaporated the salt reappeared.
Perhaps in calling his followers the "salt of the earth," Jesus meant that once people become his followers there is no turning back.
You are the salt of the earth. (Matthew 5:13)
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Devotion for the Week of October 15, 2007
In 1903 a woman by the name of Annie Johnson lived in a small town in Arkansas. Her husband had left her to raise her two young children in the one room house they lived in. She had very little money and knew that there was no way she would be hired at the town’s two major sources of employment an cotton gin and a lumber yard. Being a tall and large woman she was unable to get work as a “domestic” plus she would have to leave her children with someone else most of the day. She also trusted God to give her the courage to find a way and follow it.
Now Annie had a talent, she could cook. She would never admit to being a great cook and se to say that she was only “mixing groceries well enough to scare hunger away from starving a man.”
She decided to use her talents and make herself a new path.
Early one morning Annie went outside the cotton gin with meat pies she had made the night before. Her plan was to heat them up so the aroma would entice the workers to buy them. One day she would serve the hot at the cotton gin for a nickel a piece and then go to the Lumber yard and serve them cold for three cents each. The next day she would reverse the order. At first her idea didn't catch on because most of the workers packed their own lunch, but gradually more and more of the workers bought her pies.
For the next few years, Annie never disappointed her customers. The workers came to depend on her. Before too long her simple mobile stall became a store carrying meat and cheese, built an equal distance between the cotton gin and the lumber yard where the customers came to her.
Annie had stepped from the road which seemed to have been chosen for her and cut herself a brand new path. That takes courage. That takes trust in God. What new path is God calling you to cut?
Each one helps the other, saying to one another, "Take courage!"
Isaiah 41:6
Now Annie had a talent, she could cook. She would never admit to being a great cook and se to say that she was only “mixing groceries well enough to scare hunger away from starving a man.”
She decided to use her talents and make herself a new path.
Early one morning Annie went outside the cotton gin with meat pies she had made the night before. Her plan was to heat them up so the aroma would entice the workers to buy them. One day she would serve the hot at the cotton gin for a nickel a piece and then go to the Lumber yard and serve them cold for three cents each. The next day she would reverse the order. At first her idea didn't catch on because most of the workers packed their own lunch, but gradually more and more of the workers bought her pies.
For the next few years, Annie never disappointed her customers. The workers came to depend on her. Before too long her simple mobile stall became a store carrying meat and cheese, built an equal distance between the cotton gin and the lumber yard where the customers came to her.
Annie had stepped from the road which seemed to have been chosen for her and cut herself a brand new path. That takes courage. That takes trust in God. What new path is God calling you to cut?
Each one helps the other, saying to one another, "Take courage!"
Isaiah 41:6
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Devotion for the Week of October 1, 2007
I apologize for not being up to date on this devotional page, but as many of you know, my mother passed away, and I have not really known what to write about. I have had writer’s block. The other when I was telling a friend of mine about this, he told me this story.
"The parish priest had asked George, one of the church members, if he could do some rewiring above the altar area. The only why he could reach the wiring was to enter the attic from the room behind the altar area and crawl out over the plaster ceiling by balancing on the rafters. His wife, Susan, was sitting in the first pew, keeping an eye on the occasional puff of dust from the ceiling that floated down.
"Susan did not realize it, but some of the other parishioners where starting to gather in the back of the church, waiting for the priest to walk out to the confessional. Those who were entering the rear of the church thought nothing of Susan, who did not recognize, sitting in the front pew because they assumed she was praying.
"Concerned for her husband’s safety, Susan yell up at George, "George, can you hear me? Are you up there? Did you make it okay?"
There was quite an outburst from the back of the church when they hear George’s clear and strong voice answer, "Yes, Yes, I made it up here just fine!"
For those of us who have had someone we love die, it is most comforting to know that they made it up there okay. We all have that assurance with Jesus Christ as our savior.
But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Philippians 3:20
"The parish priest had asked George, one of the church members, if he could do some rewiring above the altar area. The only why he could reach the wiring was to enter the attic from the room behind the altar area and crawl out over the plaster ceiling by balancing on the rafters. His wife, Susan, was sitting in the first pew, keeping an eye on the occasional puff of dust from the ceiling that floated down.
"Susan did not realize it, but some of the other parishioners where starting to gather in the back of the church, waiting for the priest to walk out to the confessional. Those who were entering the rear of the church thought nothing of Susan, who did not recognize, sitting in the front pew because they assumed she was praying.
"Concerned for her husband’s safety, Susan yell up at George, "George, can you hear me? Are you up there? Did you make it okay?"
There was quite an outburst from the back of the church when they hear George’s clear and strong voice answer, "Yes, Yes, I made it up here just fine!"
For those of us who have had someone we love die, it is most comforting to know that they made it up there okay. We all have that assurance with Jesus Christ as our savior.
But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Philippians 3:20
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