Dr Christian

Growing up, nothing would get me off our red leather couch & send me dancing around the room in my favorite pair of Rustler, bellbottom jeans, like the greatest jingle in commercial history “Be a Pepper”, You know “I'm a Pepper, he's a Pepper, She's a Pepper, we're a Pepper, Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too? Be a Pepper ~ Drink Dr Pepper” COME ON!! BE A PEPPER, DRINK___ DR PEPPER…uh sorry, got a little over excited there.

When I remember this commercial, it makes me think of how most Christians look at sharing the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. You know like… “I’m a Christian, he’s a Christian, she’s a Christian, we’re Christians. Wouldn’t you like to be a Christian, too?” Some look at it as more of inviting friends to join a club kind of deal. 

Do you realize that 70 to 80% of Americans claim to be Christian, when we share the gospel in this way, heck anybody can be a Christian. "Be a Christian, because I’m a Christian"…this isn’t Biblical witnessing.

There’s also another commercial that reminds me of how some go about witnessing. “Billy Mays here for…” is usually how they start. This dude sold everything from Oxi-Clean to health insurance…& did it all screaming. I often wonder if when he would go home, if he talks like that, “HONEY, I’M HOME…DINNER WAS GREAT TONIGHT…SURE I’LL SING THE BABY TO SLEEP, ROCKABY BABY ON THE TREE TOPS…

WAHHHHHHHHH!!!!

SORRY HONEY, BUT I DON’T THINK THE BABY IS SLEEPY!”

Sometimes we can be very harsh & very pushy, when sharing the good news, often offending people & embarrassing them. “BILLY MAYS HERE FOR, HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN!!!!” This kind of witnessing is also not Biblical.

When we come to others in a harsh, “better than thou” way, they are usually turned off quickly. If we go at it in a “come on, join my club” way, we haven’t truly lead them to Christ.

Witnessing isn’t just something that you practice doing, it’s what overflows from the Holy Spirit living in you. When Peter in Acts 2, spoke to the “Men of Israel” what he was saying was flowing from the Holy Spirit. He didn’t save those people, God did, and Peter was just an instrument by which God spoke to them. He didn’t belittle them or raise himself up to be something great. He even called them “brothers”. Did he step on some toes? Yes, pretty much stomped them with words like this, “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” He told them that they killed Jesus, but he did it in a caring way, he was sincere. When he was speaking, they could see & hear the love he had for them & the need they had. See we first need to realize that everyone has that need of salvation, that hunger to be made new…we have what they need.

It breaks my heart to walk out of the jail on Thursdays, knowing that there are those who haven’t accepted Christ, those who are still lonely, hurting & carrying the heavy load of their sins. But when I leave there, I always want to know that I shared with them out of my love for them & their need of Christ. I stand in the middle of convicted drug dealers, drug addicts, child molesters, rapists, con-men & often times murders, I can’t love them…humanly I can’t…but through the Holy Spirit I can & I do. I want those guys to see & hear the love that God has for them, as well as the broken heart he has for their sin. They also need to know that my love for them is through Christ & that I love them unconditionally…I don’t okay their sin, or think or say that they should not be in jail, but that doesn’t stop me from loving them & caring for them.

I also need to be that way daily, with everyone I meet. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t live a life daily the way I should. Actually there shouldn’t be a day that goes by that I don’t share the gospel with at least one person…but I often don’t...& I find myself missing out on sharing Jesus daily, as I should. But that is something that every believer needs to do daily. Imagine for a moment, if all believers shared Jesus every day…it would change this world in an instant.

We also need not look at those who are not Christians & expect them to live like Christians. So often we would rather whine & complain about the actions of others than share Christ with them, which would change their lives & morals.


“Dr. Christian” or “Billy Mays Christian” which are you, or do you just not share at all? Let’s make it a point today, to start building relationships with those who need Christ & look for a way to share the greatest news in the history of the world with all those that we come in contact with & do it through the strength of the Holy Spirit, with a heart of love & compassion.


Vern

Josephcoaster

“Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God…” (Genesis 45:8)

I’m not a big fan of Six Flags…I could live the rest of my life, never darkening the gates of Six Flags again & on my death bed say that I’ve lived a wonderful & fulfilled life…but I work with youth who love that place. most of them love the roller coasters…me, I have a problem with them, as I do with planes, a problem of trusting a man made machine with my life. But there is one roller coaster that I love to ride…the “Mindbender” or now I think it’s “the Joker”. I like this roller coaster because it is attached to the rails, it has a rap around wheel system that seems more secure, and more like it can’t come off the tracks than lets say the “Scream Machine” where with every hill you come out of your seat.

Joseph, back in Genesis knew a lot about roller coasters, he lived on one. Joseph’s life was anything but normal & talking about a dysfunctional family…Joseph’s family was messed up. His dad Jacob had several wives (all at one time) & by those wives had several sons, next to the youngest was Joseph, his father’s favorite & his father showed that, which made Joseph’s brothers hate him. His brother’s hated him so bad that when he came out to check on them where they were watching the sheep, they decided to throw him in a pit & kill him. Now I had an older brother & he may have at times wished he could throw me in a pit, but I know he never wanted to kill me.

Joseph’s brothers were stopped from killing him by the convicted heart of his brother Reuben, instead they sold him to some slave traders…now I know without a doubt that if my brother could have sold me he would have. May be at trade day or somewhere. But what they were meaning to be bad for Joseph, God meant for his good & the good of many others.

After Joseph’s brothers put him on their version of “e-bay”, he wound up in Egypt in the house of a man named Potiphar, who was head of all of Pharaoh’s bodyguards. Now Potiphar saw something in Joseph that he didn’t in the other servants, so he put him in charge of his other servants & when he decided to go on a trip, he put him in charge of his whole house hold while he was gone.
Long story short, & I will probably write a blog on this later, Joseph was propositioned & almost raped by Potiphar’s wife. But he ran away from her (very smart move), she yelled rape & Joseph was now in prison.

While in prison, Joseph has the opportunity to interpret a dream for two cellmates & later Pharaoh had a dream that he wanted to know the meaning of & hears that Joseph is the man to see. Joseph seeks God for the answer & he sees that there will be a great famine in the land & God shows him how to handle it so that the people of the land will survive. Pharaoh just like Potiphar, sees something in Joseph, & is so pleased with him that he places Joseph second in command of all of Egypt.

The famine that came to that land also helped to bring Joseph’s brothers, to have to stand before him in search of food. Now of course they had no idea that the man that would hold their life in his hand would be the very brother that they sold, but Joseph didn’t seek revenge, but reconciliation. This brought his father Jacob & little brother Benjamin who he had longed to see & even wondered if they were still alive to Egypt to live with him, where the Israelites would grow into a great nation & the place that Moses would be born. Later to return to the land of Canaan to posses it as their own, but during their time in Egypt, the idolatrous people of Canaan would be given 400 plus years to turn to God.

The roller coaster ride of the life of Joseph had plenty of ups & downs, as well as many sharp curves & upside down situations, but just like “The Joker”, it was right on track. He was in the will of God, because he stayed devoted to God through it all & through his life many were saved.
Going through some tough times, ups, downs, curves & loops? Stay close to God & count it as an adventure in His will…& you will be right on track.


Vern

Caught Cheating and Almost Stoned

“He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."
(John 8:7)

I’ve always said that you could stop a lot of the violence over in the Middle East, if someone would just pick up all the rocks…you always see the news clips where some guys are snatching up rocks & giving them a whirl…those guys will sail a stone in a heartbeat.

In John 8, we are told of a group of scribes & Pharisees who dragged a young lady into the temple, claiming to have caught her in the act of adultery. They wanted to see if Jesus would condemn her or forgive her. They were more than shock at what he did do…instead of condemning her to death by stoning, as the Law commanded, Jesus turned the tables on the accusers…why?

Jesus knew that they were trying to trick Him, they were using the life of this woman to do it. They also were not honestly seeking justice, these men didn’t care anything about this broken women before them or the law…they just wanted a reason to discredit Jesus. See the “Law” that they were speaking of, Jesus knew very well, it was the Law of God given to Moses. But the actual Law reads a little different than these foolish men were quoting. They said, I quote, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women…” Now, the actual Law in Leviticus 20:10 reads, “If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” Let’s see…they only brought in the woman…Hmmm? These guys weren’t looking to uphold the perfect, pure law of God…& Jesus knew that. So He stooped down & started writing…what was he writing? No one truly knows, but Jeremiah 17:13 say something interesting, “O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake You will be put to shame those who turn away on earth will be written down...” I often wonder if Jesus may have written the name of a woman that the oldest Pharisee, (seeing how he left first) was having an affair with or maybe the number of the Commandment that the Pharisees were breaking like the number “9”.Who knows, but we do know without the a doubt the words that Jesus spoke to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her”. Maybe the oldest Pharisee caught a glimpse of what Jesus wrote in the dirt, heard His words, dropped the stone & went home, followed by the others.

The Pharisees…what a legalistic bunch, huh! How about you? I know there are times when I find myself as legalistic as theses guys…we all do at times as Christians. It usually comes when we are away from God & in sin. We feel better when we can bring someone else down, lower than we are. See, sin can steal our assurance, our “joy of His salvation” (Psalms 5:12). In other words, we fall into sin & we start feeling that we may not be saved & instead of coming to God in repentance, we try to fix it ourselves by making someone else look worse off than we are. Though this was not the true agenda of the Pharisees in this verse, we do tend to do this in our lives when we start casting stones.

We are not called by God to overlook wrong in the world, or stay silent about evil, we are called by God to deal in mercy, grace & love…the world needs to know the God of justice & grace…we need to live a life that leads others to that God.

You notice that Jesus didn’t condemn her, but He didn’t approve of what she did either. He called her actions, sin & told her not to live that way any longer. When we come to Christ, He tells us the same “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” When we come to Christ, He forgives our sins & no longer condemns us, we are free from the penalty & bondage of sin, & free to live…yep, you guessed it…free.


Vern

In My Days It Was Tough

Strutt’s…what can I say, I love to eat at Strutt’s. It’s always fun to go there with friends & just eat & goof off. We were there last night & started discussing what we could tell our children & grandchildren about our days growing up…you know like when your dad or granddad would say things like, “In our days life was tough…” & they’d go on to say things like, “We lived through the Great Depression when people struggled to survive”, “We walked five miles to & from school in the knee deep snow, up hills both ways”, “We played baseball with chert rocks, usin' sawmill slabs for bats”, “We had to play with homemade wooden toys, we didn’t have all these fancy store bought stuff”, “we didn’t get a lot for Christmas, all we got was a couple of oranges & an umbrella & we were mighty happy to get that”. See what I mean…what kind of tales, will my generation have to show our children how tough we had it. We talked about it & come up with a few, how about:



“In our days it was tough, you had to stick your finger in a whole in the phone, turn the dial & wait about four seconds, before you could dial another number. It took every bit of thirty seconds for me to dial up a friend.”

“In our days it was tough, we didn’t have remotes for our television…I was the remote & we only had two channels & “Lawrence Welk” or “Hee Haw” was usually on one of them at all times.”

“In our days it was tough, I had to ride the bus about 5 miles to school & if it snowed even an inch…school was closed.”

“In my days it was tough, we didn’t have these Playstation 3’s or X-Boxes, all we had was “Pong”, two sticks on the screen & one square ball, you played tennis (doubles or singles) or you didn’t play anything.”

“In my days it was tough, all we could have in a car was an 8 track player. No 6 CD changers, no repeat button for your favorite song. No…you listened to your favorite song & waited a week to hear it again.”

“In my days it was tough, we didn’t have I-pods, and if we wanted to carry music around with us…we had to memorize it.”

“In our days it was tough, we didn’t have ‘texting’, if you wanted to type your friend a message, you had to put it in an envelope, slap a stamp on it & throw it in the mailbox. You wouldn’t get a return message for about a week or more.”

“In our days it was tough, we didn’t have DVD players & a store that was filled with all the new releases for rent or a ‘Netflix’, we had a VCR that opened from the top with big ‘Flintstone’ sized VHS or Beta tapes that could only be rented at one single quick-rip mart in town & they only had two movies, ‘Gone with the Wind’ & ‘The Ten Commandments’ & if they weren’t returned on time…the cops would come to your house.”

“In our days it was tough, we didn’t have laptop computers, if we would’ve put a computer in our lap it would have paralyzed us from the waste down. In our days it was tough, we didn’t have Myspace, Facebook or Twitter…heck if you had a home computer…there might not be anyone else you knew that had one.”

“In our days it was tough, we didn’t get to sit inside all day & text & play video games…our moms ran us outside to play.”

Man, we sure did have it good. But we can’t let our kids know that.

Vern

why does it take time for God to grant your wishes?

I received this question the other day & thought others might have the same question: “why does it take time for god to grant your wishes? Is it because god’s angels take the message up to god and then wait for him to answer and then they would get back to us, is that the long process or is it something else?”
(Female 18-30 yrs old - Europe)
I sensed a little sarcasm here, I may be wrong, but here’s my answer:

“When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
(James 4:3)

Some often see God as a genie; they just rub the Holy Bible & poof, out pops God, all blue & singing, “You ain’t never had a friend like me” & granting their every wish. They usually use verses like John 15:7, in this verse Jesus says that we can ask for whatever we wish & the Father will give it to us…but most people who quote this verse do not quote the whole thing, like: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish…” Jesus is saying the same as He does throughout Gods word, as in 1 John 3:22, “and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.” When we are in Christ & His word is in us & we are obeying His commandments, we will be in His will, we will not be asking for selfish things, we will be concerned with what concerns Him. We will ask according to 1 John 5:14 which tells us that God hears what is according to his will, so when we live by God’s will, then & only then will He answer our prayers.

Now God tells us in James 4:3 that the reason at times we do not receive an answer for our requests, is because we ask from selfish motives, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” Those who ask from God & they are out of His will, are asking from wrong motives, they want for themselves.

God always hears the prayers of those who are His. He always answers their prayers, with a yes, no or wait, but either way He always answers, we just often are not looking for the answer in any other way than the way we want the answer to come.

Timing wise, God knows what & when we need something. If we are in His will, He will provide for our needs, it may be in the moment we ask, it may be a year later, but whatever the timeline, if it’s in the will of God, then it will come in the time God sees as best.

To sum it all up, God only hears the prayers of the righteous, as stated in Proverbs 15:29 “The LORD is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.” The only prayer that God will hear from the wicked, is the prayer of repentance.

Vern

Stop and Smell the Roses...all of them.

“Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro:

He bustles about, but only in vain…”
(Psalm 39:6)

I was going in Wal-Mart the other day; just behind a lady who was evidently in a big hurry & extremely busy. She was in her business suit, with her phone to her ear & was dragging a little girl behind her. She was the cutest little girl who was… I guess about 6, dressed in her softball uniform with a visor. As the mom pulled her along through the automatic doors & past the greeter without speaking, she let go of the little girl’s hand to grab a buggy, the girl was skipping hurriedly behind… her mom still on the phone & walking faster.

They passed a hug display of flowers on their right, that the mom didn’t notice was even there, but the little girl, stopped in mid-skip, turned around hopped over to the display of flowers, that dwarfed her in size, & stuck her whole face in a gigantic bouquet of roses. I thought she was going to inhaul the whole bouquet, then she raised up with the biggest smile on her face & skipped away to catch up with her mother who hadn’t even turned around or stopped her phone conversation.

I was in a hurry that day, had a lot on my mind…but not after that…by the way those roses did smell good.

“Be still, and know that I am God”
(Psalm 46:10)

Vern

Rainy Complaining

“But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.”
(1 Timothy 6:6)

“I wish this rain would stop!” is what I heard loudly, as I was walking through a local store a few days ago, the conversation continued with the other man replying, “Well, when summer hits & it’s hot & dry, we’ll be grumblin’ about there not being enough rain…we ain’t never satisfied.” How true that conversation was, I catch myself complaining about all the wet weather as I watch my weeds grow higher than my knees & every time I do, I remember how I whined about the heat & dryness during our drought last summer.

In Exodus we see ourselves in the words of the Israelites. God continually blessed them with their needs & all they could do was grumble. When they were thirsty: “So the people grumbled at Moses, saying what shall we drink?” When they were hungry: “The whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses & Aaron in the wilderness.” When they were tired of Manna & wanted meat: “…the Lord hears your grumbling which you grumble against Him.” No matter what God did for them, it wasn’t enough, they, instead of coming to Moses & requesting these things, they would grumble amongst themselves, until it became grumbling & complaining to Moses. I often wonder if Moses was bald. I can see it now; some guy started whining to a couple of his buddies (we’ve all done this, so stop thinking of someone else, this might be about you) about being thirsty. Those two buddies started whining to their wives, their wives to there mothers & friends, & as the old shampoo commercial once said, “You tell two friend…& they’ll tell two friends & so on & so on & so on & so on…” until Moses has a problem on his hands. If he wasn’t bald he was receding.

It’s very true that we will grumble no matter the situation, but if we want to be truly godly, we will learn to be content. God knows that we need the rain, he knows at all times what we need when we need it, lets do our best to live our lives coming before God with praise as well as our needs, without the grumbling (this one was for me).

Vern