Hope for Life Blog

I’ll confess it now: I don’t like to read poetry. When we had to read poetry in school, it was the rare poet who appealed to me. One that did, however, was Robert Burns. One of his poems that stands out in my mind is one called “To A Louse,” with the subtitle “On Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church.” The poem addresses a louse which is crawling around on the head of a young lady.

The real point of the poem, however, is the vanity of the young lady. She, noticing the looks and pointing directed her way, vainly thinks they are admiring her and begins to toss her hair. The last stanza, in modern English (Burns wrote in Scottish), says:

O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait would leave us,
And even devotion!

It’s a brilliant thought, and I could certainly do worse than write on this idea. Yet my thoughts are turned a different direction. I can’t help but think how many people are like this poet. They go to a church service and spend their time focused on the people around them. How many times do you hear people say, “I’m not interested in being part of a church… they’re all a bunch of hypocrites”?

I think we need to raise our vision. We need to accept that churches are made up of humans, with all their flaws. When we become part of a group of believers, we are seeking more than human interaction; we are admitting to a belief in something above and beyond those people. Attending a church service should be more than seeing and being seen; our focus should be on the One who is unseen.

If you think that church is full of vain and shallow people, like the young lady in this poem, let me invite you to look again. Look beyond the people. Church isn’t mainly about us; it’s about the God that calls us together.

If you haven’t found a church home, I’d like to help you do so. I’m in contact with Christians around the world; I’d love to connect you with some of them. Just fill out the form under the Contact tab at the top of the page. Hope to hear from you!

It was a chanced exchange that happens when you sit next to someone on an airplane. “What does Herald of Truth do?” she asked. I smiled and gave my standard reply, “we tell people about Jesus.”

Then almost rudely she queried, “Why?” As I looked at her face, I realized she didn’t understand the motive and I started to formulate an answer that should have been obvious to her as well as to me, but I had rarely framed a response. “It’s about souls to Heaven. It’s all about heaven. We want people to get to heaven,” I finally affirmed.

“Oh,” she countered and her book came out, signaling that our conversation had ended.

The book of I John talks about: Doing what God wants you to do, believing in Jesus, confessing sins, loving your brothers by actually do things in addition to saying them and then in chapter 5, verse 13, he writes:

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

In his gospel, John says God loved the world so much that He gave Jesus so we can believe in Him and have everlasting life. John 3:16-17:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

It’s All about Heaven!! Our mission, obligation and responsibility is to tell the remaining 2/3 of the world’s population (4.4 Billion) about Jesus, so that those who do what God commands will go to Heaven.

Sooooo:

For you, is going to Heaven important?

Why?

How do YOU get to Heaven? And what are you going to do about it?

I believe that God exists with every fiber of my being.  I have given my life to following that conviction.  But I cannot prove that He exists by scientific standards.  How can I?  If He is God the Creator, how can those he created understand and prove His existence?  I am not sure I would want to follow a God so ordinary that His Creation could prove His existence.  So my decision to believe in God is very much an act of faith.  But there is a basis for my faith because I can see evidence of God.

Creation is evidence to me that there is a Creator God.  It may not be definitive proof, but it seems reasonable that there is a Creator.  I marvel at nature.  It is beautiful, it works, it is astounding in the way it functions.  Our bodies are amazing.  Mind, heart, and body working together in a way that is incredible.  The way of a man and a woman made for pleasure and procreation.  Some would attribute all of this to randomness and chance.  That seems more a leap of faith to me than accepting the existence of God. 

Changed lives point to God.  I have seen broken marriages healed, families restored, alcoholics made sober, angry people made gentle, and sexually immoral made pure.  And they give credit to God.  I have seen prayers answered.  I have seen people’s health restored after asking God for healing.  This is where some would ask me to explain why every prayer for healing is not answered.  I do not know how or why God acts in the way He does.  He is too far above my understanding to explain.  And it is absurd for the created to attempt to defend the Creator.  So I choose to believe. 

Creation, changed lives, answered prayers.  To me, that is evidence of a God greater than my understanding.  I cannot prove He exists because I am one of the created.  So I choose by faith to believe in the unbelievable.  Because I have seen where He has been.  Because He has touched my life and changed me. 

Blessings,

steve

Summer starts this week. Officially, that is. In the Northern Hemisphere. According to astronomers, who wait for the solstice to declare that summer is actually here.

For most of us, however, summer had already begun. For school children, summer begins when classes end. For meteorologists, summer begins when June arrives. The Irish Calendar considers May 1 as the first day of summer.

From what I can tell, none of that really matters as far as the weather is concerned. Sometimes it gets hot early in the season. Sometimes it gets hot much later. Men can debate when summer is going to begin, but the truth is, summer will do as it pleases.

Kind of like some of the debates I hear about who God is and what He can/will do. Men debate everything from the age of the earth to the existence of hell. They wrangle over whether God knows the future and whether God determines the future. Some present philosophical questions like: “Can God create a boulder so big that even He can’t lift it?”

In the end, though we may be entertained and enlightened by such discussions, none of them will actually change reality. I believe in God and believe that God will be who He is, no matter what men decide. He will act as He chooses. He will do things as He deems best. Nothing I can say or do will change that.

No scientific discovery will change who God is. No theological treatise will make Him any more or less holy. God will be God.

Rather than defining summer, we’re better off learning to enjoy it while it’s here. Saying “It’s not summer yet!” won’t make it any cooler, nor will declaring the end of summer affect how things are outside.

In the same way, our job as humans isn’t so much to define God as it is to seek to know Him and obey Him. As the old Westminster Catechism states, the chief end of man is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” That’s what we need to be about.

I’d love to talk to you more about how to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Write to me at tarcher@heraldoftruth.org or contact us via our www.hopeforlife.org website.

I sometimes talk to people who say they believe in Jesus but do not attend church.  Or if they do attend occasionally, they are not involved.  Their reasoning is that they are able to worship God anywhere, or that the churches they have attended have not met their needs, or they have not felt connected.  While there may be some validity in these viewpoints, it is possible they are missing the point that church is more than worship, what I need, or how I feel.  Church is not a building, nor is it just about how we worship.  Church is a place to be part of a community of believers.

A glimpse of the purpose for church is seen in the book of Hebrews:

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another … (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Meeting together as a community is where we inspire and motivate each other to love and serve in this world.  Even in the early days of Christianity, there were those who did not see the need to meet together.  You need to be an encourager.  You need to be motivated.  That happens in community.  We show unity as we share in the supper of the Lord, engaging again in his death.  We are inspired by singing together.  We petition and praise God together.  We listen together to God’s Word.  We build relationships over weeks, months, and years of worshipping together.

Church is a place for us to help each other, not just a place to receive help.  It is a refuge in times of trouble and sickness.  It is the place to find help in battling the evil One.  It is where people can confess their sins to you and know you will pray for them, encourage them, and help them.  It is a place where you can confess your sins, receive encouragement and know you will be helped.

But you cannot give – or receive – these things if you are not part of community.

Blessings,

steve

In the Bible, we read about something called the Sabbath. It was a day of rest. One day each week, God’s people were to abstain from work.

They didn’t stay in bed all day. It was a day for being with family, for worship and for recreation. It was a time for all the things that could get neglected during the regular work week. The principal goal of the day was rest.

Rest has a bad reputation today. For many, the word “rest” smacks of laziness and sloth. We live in an “always on” society, where people brag of their ability to multitask (which is another word for not concentrating on any one thing!). Our cell phones beckon us night and day. E-mails clamor for our attention. We want instant, we want immediate, we want everything done now. Where does rest fit into such a society?

If you’re getting ahead of me, you probably think I’m going to propose that we return to one day per week of rest. While that’s certainly a positive thing, I don’t think it’s enough. I don’t think we should be satisfied with one day of rest. I don’t think we should be satisfied with weeks or months of rest.

We should be seeking rest that has no end. In the Bible, the writer of the book we call Hebrews says, “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” (Hebrews 4:9-10)

This isn’t a one-day-a-week rest. It’s a one-day-that-never-ends rest. He’s talking about the rest we’ll have when this life is over, the rest that we’ll have with God.

That’s the Sabbath I want. Not just one day. I want to come into the presence of God and know that I can forever turn off my cell phone, shut down my computer and enjoy being with Him. I won’t have to worry about work or bills or retirement any more. All I will have to do is rest.

That same writer goes on to write, “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.” (Hebrews 4:11) Sounds like a good goal, the same goal people had under the old Sabbath. The goal is rest, God’s rest, the eternal Sabbath.

It was an email that carried the news. It was one of those things that catches you off guard and makes you think. I needed to express my appreciation, my honor of their work, so I wrote my email and addressed it to their daughter. It was my way of giving honor to whom honor is due, based on Romans 13:7.

I was told yesterday that Mrs. Scott went to be with the Lord that morning. You will note that even after all these years it was and still is Brother and Mrs. Scott. I have been thinking a lot about both of them since receiving that news. And about their Legacy.
I was a young, immature know it all when I came to Freed Hardeman College in the summer of 1967. Hopefully I have grown out of at least two of those afore mentioned items. That summer I enrolled in your Dad’s world history class and entered a world of discovery. As a result I think I took every class your Dad offered into Acts and Church History. I also had the opportunity to have your Mom for British Literature when I learned the prologue to the “Cranberry” Tales. (my name for them). Which to this day I try to work those words into many of my presentations (I learned it so I want to use it).
As you already know, both of your parents worked with me on my commentaries on WFHC-FM. I would write, they would comment in red, I would rewrite, they would comment in red again and finally when they approved, I would record and air the result of our collaborations. There were times when it wasn’t so pleasant, probably for all three of us, but we kept at it.
When I came to Herald of Truth one of the first things I noted as I looked at our donor base was your Mom’s name. In fact I wrote on her receipt asking if she had taught at Freed and in fact had she been my teacher. Her response was that in fact she was. For 29 years your parents contributed to the work of Herald of Truth, most of that time sending their gifts monthly.
Your parent’s legacy is multifaceted. They have helped more people know Jesus through their gifts of money to Herald of Truth, their local church and numerous other efforts that they championed. They taught students not just the facts of their respective disciplines, but also about God and His Son.
There is a personal legacy that I hold. For they shared with me a quiet determination to finish even when things become unpleasant. They shared with me a sense of discovery and appreciation for things that I view as different. They shared their time, energy and counsel with a young, immature, know it all, who years later still cherishes those memories.
You already know these things from your personal closeness to your family. I hope knowing that when your Mom joins your Dad in Heaven, there will be people there they know and then someone will approach them and say: “ you don’t know me, but you taught so in so, and they taught so in so, and they taught so in so, who taught me about Jesus. So I wanted to thank you for sharing your faith with all of us.” I pray that this will ease a bit of the loss you feel.

We should acknowledge those influences before the eulogies. Why do we want until after someone dies to acknowledge what they meant to us? Shouldn’t we tell them before we unable to tell them?
Whom do you need to honor? What did they do to make your life different?

Good news:  kids under twelve eat free.  When I see offers like that, it really doesn’t excite me.  I think it is more like interesting news.  My children are grown, so unless the offer is about old folks eating free, I do not get too excited.  Good news is something that I can participate in; interesting news is what other people participate in.  The Bible talks about good news.  If you believe it, it is the best news ever.  If not, it is something interesting to talk about.  That good news is gospel.

Christians like that word.  It is also a word used in our culture to mean something that is absolutely real and true.  But in the Bible it is used to mean good news.  Preaching the gospel is preaching good news.  Gospel truth is good news truth.  Believing the gospel is believing good news.  The apostle Paul wrote in the Bible that the good news is what he preached and what is most important.  Good news is what saves us.   So what is this “good news”?

Paul explains that the good news is that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day.  Jesus died to pay for my sins, my offenses against God.  All the things I did that I should not have done.  All the things I should have done and did not.  The things that keep me from a holy God have been paid for by God’s own son.  Not only that, but he came back to life.  Jesus, God’s son, paid for my sins by his death on the cross and God brought him to life again.  That is good news.  That is great news. 

This good news is not just something for me to intellectually acknowledge, but something I get to participate in.  In another one of the books in the Bible, Paul reminds us that our baptism was sharing in the death and burial of Jesus.  And just as he was raised from the dead, we are raised to a new life.  Because we shared in his death, we will share in his resurrection.  I can live with a holy God forever.  I am living good news.  I was crucified with Christ and the old me died.  Now I live for Jesus and someday I will be raised from the dead to live in God’s presence forever.

Living good news.  That is what we Christians are.

Forty days after being raised from the dead, Jesus Christ was taken to heaven. At that time, his followers were told, “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11) Christians have been waiting for His return ever since.

Some people think they have figured out exactly when that will be. You may have seen the billboards along the side of the road. I don’t question the sincerity of the people who put those signs up, but I’m convinced they’re wrong.

Years ago, a man of God felt the need to comfort some of his friends. People around them were talking about the timing of the end of the world, and he wanted to reassure them that the rumors they were hearing were not true. This man, named Paul, wrote: “Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2)

Paul had just written to these believers about Jesus’ return, but he didn’t want them worrying about when that would be. He didn’t want them trying to calculate dates nor decipher times. So he tells them: It will be like a thief in the night.

There will be no billboards along the highway. There will be no Mayan calendars announcing the end of the world. Just as thieves arrive unexpectedly, Jesus will return without warning.

For early Christians, the idea that their Lord was coming back was an exciting one. They wanted to be prepared when He came. In that same letter, Paul said, “So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.” (1 Thessalonians 5:6) If we’re awake, we won’t be surprised by a thief in the night.

We should be watching. There should be an expectant edge to our lives, as we wait for the day when our hopes are realized. We don’t know if that will be today or a thousand years from now. But we know that it will be a wonderful time for those longing to see Jesus. As Paul wrote to his friend Timothy: “Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day — and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

Jesus is coming back. We don’t know when. But we know it will be a great day.

This is a statement I often hear in conversations with people who are not Christians.  And I sometimes hear this from those who are trying to live the Jesus lifestyle.  I am a preacher and I have this feeling sometimes.  So if you have been afraid to start reading God’s Word because you have trouble understanding it, or you are afraid you will not understand it, let me share some ideas that have been helpful to me.

First of all, it is true that some parts of the Holy Bible are difficult.  Peter and Paul were two of the most active preachers in the early history of the church.  Both of them wrote letters that are in the Bible.  Peter said that some of Paul’s writings are hard to understand.  He also warned us that there are people who will distort these and other Scriptures in a way that leads to their destruction.  So I know there are some things in Scripture I may not understand.  It is okay to not understand everything. 

Remember that the Bible was written for one main purpose:  to help you know Jesus.  The gospel of John explains that it was written so that we might believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and by believing that we can have life in his name.  Jesus did many things that are not recorded in the Bible.  In fact, if everything Jesus did was written down, the whole world would not have room for the books it would take.  But what is written is so we can know Jesus.  So we can believe in Jesus.  So we can live like Jesus.  So we can live forever with Jesus.  When I have trouble understanding the Bible, I try to remember that the focus is Jesus.  He is the important thing to learn from the Bible.  God gave us the Bible so we could know his Son.

Finally, you need to know that there is help for understanding the Bible.  There is a story in the book of Acts about a man who was reading his Bible but did not understand it.  God had a Jesus disciple connect with him to explain the Scripture.  When they began to talk about the Scripture being read, the Christian told him the good news of Jesus.  The Ethiopian believed it, acted on it, and found life in Jesus. 

We can too.

Blessings,

steve