Tuesday, March 20, 2012

ARE YOU READY?




While  much of the country was enjoying sunny and warm weather this past weekend, things have been different for us here in the Southern California Mountains. We have had temperatures in the 20's and have been under a winter storm watch. We ended up getting between 8 inches of snow here in our community.

How many of you rush to the store, when you hear about a snow storm coming into  your area? Personally, I went to the store early on Saturday morning,  just to pick up a couple of things… Needless to say, I was not alone.

The store was full of other shoppers, looking to do the same thing.  As I reflected upon this phenomenon later, I thought about the parable of the ten maidens in Matthew 25:1-13. You remember the story, a bridegroom was coming and the maidens had to be ready when he came, and his intent was to surprise them.

I read about another way to tell this story, but don't know who came up with the idea, but here is my rewrite of the story someone else shared.

"The kingdom of heaven is like ten people who sat down one night to watch the evening news. Before long, the All-Wise, All-Knowing and Always Accurate Weatherman appeared on the TV set and spoke.

"Behold," he said, "A snow storm of a severe nature approaches, so be prepared. At midnight, it shall be upon you and in the morning, there shall be whiteness on the ground which shall reach up to your knees. Thus says your weatherman.

Five of the ten people were prepared, so they sat comfortably in their homes and watched the rest of the news. But the other five were not prepared. They had no milk, they had no bread and they wondered where they had left their winter gloves.

So, they jumped into their cars and raced to the store with money in hand, desperately hoping they could lay an offering upon the altar of the Cash Register and get a few last minutes things in return.

But behold, they were too late. The door to the store was locked. The gods of commerce would accept no more offerings until the morning. The five people went home and asked their neighbors, "Do you have any bread or milk I can borrow?" Their neighbors said, "No, I don't. I only have enough for my family.

A curse upon you who hear this warning and do not prepare… The snow approached and you paid no attention to the day or the hour. You should have been prepared. Now you shall be judged wanting in the day the snow cometh…"

I know it is a silly little story, but does that make it any less true? If the Lord were to come tonight would you be ready?

Thursday, March 8, 2012

TIME TO CHANGE




Here we are at that time of year when the time changes once again. You know, "Spring forward," "Fall back" Daylight savings time. It's actually only a small sign of how much life changes as time goes on. Life is definitely different for ever person, each of us have our own particular view of life, what it should be and how it should be lived. I wanted to share some thoughts on living!

Sign on a storefront in Great Britain: 
 
"We have been established for over one hundred years and have been pleasing and
displeasing customers ever since. We have made money and lost money, suffered 
the effects of coal nationalization, coal rationing, Government control, and bad
payers. We have been cussed and discussed, messed about, lied to, held up, robbed,
and swindled. The only reason we stay in business is to see what happens next."
 
If we ever hope to make it through this thing called “life,” then we are going to have to have 
the right attitude. I tend to think of life as an adventure, while I know folks who think of life as 
only something to be endured until something better comes along. Those folks never seem 
truly happy! They are always worrying about what bad thing is going to happen to them next. 
Melody and I have been married for 45 years and often talk about the great adventure it has 
been for us. That doesn’t mean that we haven’t had our up’s and down’s, our have and have 
not times in our life, but I think it speaks to how we view life in general. 
 
We have a faith in God that lets us believe that clouds do have silver linings and things do 
really work out for the good (Romans 8:28). Our faith allows us to see things differently 
from much of the world. We believe the promises we find in the scripture that God will 
provide for the necessities of our life if we make the effort to follow his word, 
(everything else is a bonus). 
 
Jesus speaking in the “sermon on the mount” tells us in Matthew 6:25ff   “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” Go ahead and read the rest of the passage, it’s powerful and will test your faith to believe it, but then that’s one of the purposes of life isn’t it? To test our faith and see just how much we really do trust God to keep his word?

So, how do you deal with life? Is it an adventure or a burden to be endured? On a movie title a while back, were the words: “And the adventure continues!” It may seem strange, but I pray that for your life the adventure may continue or maybe more, and that you may view life as an adventure looking to Christ for your strength. Take a look at Hebrews 12: 1-2 about running the race to see what it’s all about..

May God continue to bless you with a sense of adventure and then some...