There Will Be A Day

Luke 2:30-32  “I have seen the Savior you have given to all people. He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel.”

It is with deep sadness I write this article. It is the Christmas season, a time of joy and a time of hope. Yet today there is one less student walking the halls of my daughters school. For the second time in 90 days a classmate of my daughter has taken his own life. What do you say to your sixteen year old daughter when she tells you another one of her classmates has killed himself. A boy she knows has decided life is too hard, a boy decides only death will take away the pain.

I was walking through the grocery store later that night and I was adding items to my cart I thought my daughter would like. I stopped and thought of this young man’s parents, will his mother find herself adding an item to her shopping cart for her son, suddenly remembering. Are there already presents under the tree with his name on them. Standing there in the grocery aisle I wanted to cry, my heart was breaking for this young man, for his family, for his friends and for my daughter.

A poem was given to me a few years ago by a high school student, this is what she wrote: Titled --Care “Nobody knows where she came from, Nobody knows her name. She sits quietly in class, as invisible as a ghost. Her hair is a long scraggly mess, Her cloths are dark from wear. She has a black string around her neck. On which she wears a broken heart. She never talks or says a word, Silent as a winters night. The bruises on her skin show clear, and no one really cares. Everyone seems to look, but no one actually sees. They walk on by her teary face, Without a second glance. O, what people go through for the want of a friend. She looks very thin, Her face so gaunt. Her pain is so great, It’s almost impossible to bear. She sits in the dark, Bathing in her misery. She hopes there will be a day that someone will bring her salvation. She waits in agony, Slowing sinking down. Why should she continue to fight, If no one even cares? The pain finally gets too great, And the love not great enough. She ends the pain in her own way, And no one even cared. O what people go through For the want of a friend.”

Almost everyday kids are leaving messages on the face book page of the young man who took his life back in October. They talk to him, they tell him how much he is missed.  They are looking for healing, for someone to hear their voice.

In her poem the young woman wrote, “She hopes there will be a day, That someone will bring her salvation.” Christmas celebrates that day, the verse from Luke are the words of an old man named Simeon who held the baby Jesus in his arms and said, “I have seen the Savior.” This Christmas let us share the love of the Savior Jesus with people around us who are hurting. Let us share His joy with people who are finding the pain too great.  This Christmas let them know that we do care.

Give Thanks

2 Chronicles 20: 3,4 “Jehoshaphat was terrified by this news and begged the Lord for guidance. He also ordered everyone in Judah to begin fasting. So people from all the towns of Judah came to Jerusalem to seek the Lords help. 18-21 Early the next morning the army of Judah went out into the wilderness of Tekoa. On the way Jehoshaphat stopped and said, “Listen to me, all you people of Judah and Jerusalem! Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be able to stand firm. Believe in his prophets, and you will succeed.” After consulting the people, the king appointed singers to walk ahead of the army, singing to the Lord and praising him for his holy splendor. This is what they sang: “Give thanks to the Lord; his faithful love endures forever!”

In the midst of war Judah fasted, prayed and gave thanks. God gave them the victory. On October 3rd 1863, our country was in the midst of a Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said these words.“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens... And fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

Lincoln asked Americans to set aside a day of Thanksgiving. In March of that year President Lincoln also set aside a day of prayer and fasting. President Lincoln said this, “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer.

Thanksgiving was set aside as a day to thank and praise God. A day to ask God to heal our wounds and to restore us. In 1863 our leaders through their actions echoed the words of Jehoshaphat. “Believe in the Lord your God, and we will be able to stand firm. Give thanks to the Lord, his faithful love endures forever!”

Why Was I Ever Born?

1 Peter 5:8 “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”

A classmate of my daughter took his life this past week.  He was a senor in High School, active in sports, popular, the American dream. The next day at school my daughter sent her mother a text saying, “It’s horrible here. I want to come home.”

The Centers for Disease control report that suicide is the third leading cause of death of people aged 15 to 24 and that suicide is the fourth leading cause of death for children between the ages of 10 and 14. Depression is the leading factor which causes teens to take their life, a feeling of hopelessness and feeling that suicide is the only way to solve their problems.” The National Institute of Mental Health believes that as many as 25 teen suicides are attempted for each one that is completed, and teen suicide numbers are increasing. Every 2 hours and 11 minutes, a person under the age of 25 completes suicide.

The prophet Jeremiah felt this despair this hopelessness and wrote, “Yet I curse the day I was born! May no one celebrate the day of my birth. I curse the messenger who told my father, “Good news—you have a son!” Let him be destroyed like the cities of old that
the Lord overthrew without mercy. Terrify him all day long with battle shouts, because he did not kill me at birth Oh, that I had died in my mother’s womb, that her body had been my grave! Why was I ever born? My entire life has been filled with trouble, sorrow, and shame.” Jeremiah 20:14-18.

Why was I ever born? All of us have asked this question? Satan whispers his lies in our ears, “Your no good, you’re situation is hopeless, everyone would be better off without you.” Hopelessness, powerless to change things. Where did Jeremiah find the courage to continue? In his God or Lord, “But the Lord stands beside me like a great warrior. Before him my persecutors will stumble. They cannot defeat me.” Jeremiah 20:11.

I cannot begin to feel the pain of this family. Yet I find hope in the response of the school , they brought in local pastors to talk to and pray with the students. The students prayed during classes, they prayed for his family and for each other.  The Lord was in the school, standing beside these students.

The school sent a letter to us, the parents of students, advising us to lend support at home and to be sensitive and aware of the reactions experience by grieving adolescents. The same advise applies to all of us, to lend support, to be sensitive to the people we love. Satan is lurking and prowling about, whispering lies to our family, our friends and to us. “Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are.” 1 Peter 5:9  

Your Not The Boss Of My Life

Luke 4:18,19 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

I was driving the other day with a friends sons, Asher age 7 and Jude age 6, riding in the back seat. “We wrote a song,” they told me. I asked them to sing it for me. “Your not the boss of my life.” I laughed and asked them who the song was about. I was thinking it might have been directed at their parents. “Satan,” was their reply. “Your not the boss of my life.” They then continued with the next line. “I’m so happy, your the boss of my life.” Again I had to ask, so who is this line about. “God, Jesus,” was their answer. I asked them to sing the song to me again. Throughout the rest of the day their song kept playing in my mind, their bold and in your face statement, “Satan, your not the boss of my life!”

Jesus was tempted by the devil for 40 days in the wilderness. Jesus overcame the devil by relying on the Holy Spirit for strength, he said to Satan, “You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” In the words of Jude and Asher, “Your not the boss of my life. God I’m so happy your the boss of my life.”

I have had the opportunity to see the life transforming power of Jesus in the lives of many young people and their victory over drugs and alcohol. They have been released, no longer held captive by drugs and alcohol. They would be the first to tell you it is not through their own efforts but only by their reliance on God and the power he brings. As in step 3 of the Twelve Step Recovery Program, “We made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God.” They made God the boss of their lives. In so doing, God has given them the power of the Holy Spirit, and the strength to say to Satan, “You’re not the boss of my life.”

“Good News to the poor! The oppressed will be set free.”  Jesus touches lives and he heals broken people. Isaiah 50:10,11 Who among you fears the Lord and obeys his
servant? If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust in the Lord and rely on your God. But watch out, you who live in your own light and warm yourselves by your own fires. This is the reward you will receive from me: You will soon fall down in great torment.” Asher and Jude trust in the Lord and proclaim, “Your (Satan) not the boss of my life, I’m so happy your (God) the boss of my life!” The words of these young boys have been ministering to me the past couple days, I pray they will also minister to you.

Walk With Jesus

Romans 6:1 “Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness? vs 15 “So since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does this mean we can go on sinning?”

Recently I was talking with a young eleven year old girl (Hannah) and her mother about Jesus and the subject of sin came up. I said some people believe you can become a Christian and still live a sinful lifestyle, living no different from the world around us. Hannah said, “That doesn’t make sense. Asking Jesus into your heart is like a contract, you sign it by asking Him into our hearts. That (living a sinful lifestyle) would be like breaking the contract.” For Hannah it is a simple concept, when we choose Jesus, we should live like he did. We should try our best to live a life apart from sin.”

The Apostle Paul agrees with Hannah, his answer to the question, Does this mean we can go on sinning?  “Of course not! Don’t you realize that whatever you choose to obey becomes your master? You can choose sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God and receive his approval.” Romans 6:15,16  A great question and a simple answer, “Of course not!” Yet it is a truth that challenges us.  Our culture says everything is ok. Just do it. A hit song aimed at teenagers encourages them to have sex “Let’s go all the way tonight. Don’t have any regrets just love, you can dance until you die, “You and I, we’ll be young forever.” It is a horrible message a lie. Yet we also send a misleading message, a lie when we tell people only of the love of Jesus. “Just accept Jesus into your heart, and your golden, good to go. Jesus loves you and you will live with Him forever.” It is a tempting lie, we don’t want to offend people, we don’t want to turn them off. So we don’t tell them the truth. We tell them only half the gospel, some call it cheap grace. Jude vs 4 says this, “I say this because some godless people have wormed their way in among you, saying that God’s forgiveness allows us to live immoral lives. The fate of such people was determined long ago, for they have turned against our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

I will end with the chorus and two verse’s of a song titled, New Way To Live by Joel Hanson. Chorus “Arise there’s a new way to live, thought we were living but that’s not what we’ve been, we’ve been breathing out, we’ve been breathing in, but the question remains have we ever truly lived--verse-there’s more than one way a man can lose his life, might have a heart beat, but nothing left inside, he prayed a prayer maybe bent a knee, but he never walked with Jesus, and he never got free. Chorus again then verse--arise little girl Jesus said, take my hand and get out of your bed, come to life, you’ve been fast asleep, come and live, come and follow me.”

Misfortunes of Others

Matthew 14:13,14 “When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.”

Jesus had just been told that John the Baptist had been beheaded. Hearing this Jesus must have felt anger, sorrow he just wanted to be left alone. So he got into a boat and went to be by himself. The crowds saw where he was going and they were there waiting for him when he arrived. This verse says that upon seeing the sick and hurting people he had compassion on them and healed them. Compassion is defined as concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.

I was driving home from work the other day and I was having one of those days that I just wanted to be left alone. Anger was bubbling inside me, I wasn’t sure where it was coming from but I knew I wanted to be by myself. I then noticed a man trying to change his tire on the side of the road. I could see that he could not remove the wheel. I thought that’s too bad I’ve been there, done that. I kept driving.  About a 1/2 mile down the road I stopped, I had a bar in my trunk designed to remove stubborn wheels. I turned around, pulled up behind him and asked if he needed help. He said, “Ya another guy just left and he couldn’t get this off either.” I went to my trunk grabbed the bar, crawled under his car and within a minute we had his wheel off the car.  I saw the relief on his face when he heard the pop and the wheel was off.  He thanked me and I left. I was about a mile down the road when I realized my anger was gone and I was smiling.

I told my daughter this story and she said that is what the Pastor spoke about the past Sunday. She said he read the above verse about Jesus and the verses that follow in Matthew 14, about Jesus breaking the five loaves and two fish and handing the pieces to the disciples who then gave them to the people. The bible says 5,000 men plus women and children ate and where satisfied that day.

God has handed each of us gifts and resources that we are to use to bless the people around us. It can be something as simple as a crow bar that was lying unused in my trunk. Yet it was the exact tool that was needed to help a man stranded on the side of the road. It was lying unused and useless until I had felt the compassion, concern for his misfortune.

I was so blessed to have stopped that day. It also made me think; What gifts has God given me that are lying unused and useless locked away inside of me?

Faith of a Child

Matthew 19:14 But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.” And he put his hands on their heads and blessed them before he left.

I spoke at a small church in Forbes Minnesota this past Sunday and I was blessed to meet a young boy named Herald. At the end of the service his mother walked up to me and told me that for the last 40 minutes I had her 8 year old’s sons attention. He was listening to my message and throughout the message he was asking her questions.
One of my points that day was that we have to bring the name of Jesus into our everyday conversations, a friend of mine had once told me that we all have a box of things we talk about when we are with certain people in our lives. When we get together we take about things in that box, whether it be sports, work, world events, politics. If something is not in that box of comfortable conversations we hesitate to bring it in. So I said, “We have to bring Jesus into the box!” His mother told me how Herald then asked her, “How do we put Jesus in a box?”  I met up with Herald and his parents outside the church about 10 minutes later and I told them I was  pondering Heralds question. I said it’s great how children aren’t afraid to stop you and ask questions, “Wait how do you do that? What do you mean? How can you put Jesus in a box? Herald’s dad then told me how he has a hard time bringing Jesus into his conversations. This lead to a great conversation about sharing the gospel with the people we know. Heralds dad had the same question as Herald, he just didn’t ask it.

I spoke at another church and my topic was the faith and obedience of Joseph, the husband of Mary. I quoted Matthew 2:13 “After the wise men were gone and angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up and flee to Egypt with the child and his mother, the angel said. That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother.” I asked the congregation how many of us would pack up leave everything we know and just go? I young girl raised her had and said, “I would.”

Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Children take us at our word, they take God at his word. Jesus says go and they want to go. Jesus says share my good news and they want to share his good news. My daughter was in fourth grade  and she was concerned her friend was going to go to hell so she shared with her friend about Jesus. She called me up that night and told me about their conversation.  A friend just shared with me how his two young sons will ask relatives or friends, “Why don’t you believe in God? They take God at his word, they cannot fathom why others do not.

The Gospel is a simple message children take it at face value and believe. The question is, do we?