When I was younger I had a passion as a lot of my friends to collect baseball cards. We would buy tons of them from the store, get them as gifts for our birthday and Christmas, and trade them with one another. I stored all of my cards in three ring binders with protective sleeves. That was the cool thing to do back then and we all loved it.
I would keep my most prized cards locked up tight and only bring them out every once in a while to show off. I remember several Saturdays we would all sit around going through the cards and putting a value to each of them using a price guide. I had several Nolan Ryan’s being a big fan of his. I think the most valuable card I had was worth around $10, but it meant the world to me.
While at my grandparents house my brother and I had just bought a box of cards together and we were going through them talking about them. My grandfather walked in the room with us and talked about the cards. Right off I guess he could tell the importance the cards were in our lives. He left and then soon after called us into his office. When we walked in the room he handed us both an envelope. Inside the envelope were baseball cards that he had. I opened my envelope and there was a 1955 Topps Sandy Koufax Rookie Card. I remember grabbing my pricing guide and at that time it was worth over $200.00. I couldn’t believe it. I gave my granddad a big hug and my brother and I were so excited about the cards that we talked about it for weeks. We showed the cards off to our friends and then I made a special place for it in my locked cabinet. To this day I still have most of my cards including this one and from time to time I will take it out and think about my granddad and the gift he gave me. There was no way I could pay for this card; there was no card or cards that I had that would be the same value as this card. It was an extravagant gift of love.
The resurrection of Jesus was an extravagant gift of life. Make no mistake—it was not a fair exchange. God saw the distress of his people, their brokenness, their hopelessness; and God gave them the one thing they needed: Jesus.
We can give our money, gifts, and time. We can dress up and go to worship on Sunday. We can offer our services to the poor and needy people in our town. We can give gifts to people that will change their situation for the better. We can give gifts to the church in order to progress God’s work, and we can be sure they bring joy to God’s heart. But the gift of Jesus, God’s son, is a no-trade-possible gift. All we can do is receive the gift and then latch on to the giver in some attempt to say thank you.
Pages
▼
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
It is part of your nature to forgive
Eph 4:31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
Devotional
The Lord has commanded us to Love one another. Although people may hurt us, and at times we my feel rejected by them, we have been instructed to forgive 70 x 7 times. If someone is continually hurtful to you, your responsibility is to forgive them. Take the opportunity talk to them about how their behavior is hurting you. This is a task that when written in black and white seems so easy but when done in life can be one of the most challenging thing we do.
Forgiveness is something that is vital to us as Christians. God tells us that he will forgive us just as we have forgiven others. That makes forgiveness high on the priority list for us. When someone does something wrong towards you immediately find a way to forgive them. Remember like most things in our lives practice makes perfect.
I have heard people say it’s completely against our nature to not retaliate on those who harm us, but it just can’t be. God made us in his image and he has forgiven sins beyond belief. He has created you with the will and the strength to forgive others when they do wrong to you. Take that as your encouragement as you work on forgiving others.
Devotional
The Lord has commanded us to Love one another. Although people may hurt us, and at times we my feel rejected by them, we have been instructed to forgive 70 x 7 times. If someone is continually hurtful to you, your responsibility is to forgive them. Take the opportunity talk to them about how their behavior is hurting you. This is a task that when written in black and white seems so easy but when done in life can be one of the most challenging thing we do.
Forgiveness is something that is vital to us as Christians. God tells us that he will forgive us just as we have forgiven others. That makes forgiveness high on the priority list for us. When someone does something wrong towards you immediately find a way to forgive them. Remember like most things in our lives practice makes perfect.
I have heard people say it’s completely against our nature to not retaliate on those who harm us, but it just can’t be. God made us in his image and he has forgiven sins beyond belief. He has created you with the will and the strength to forgive others when they do wrong to you. Take that as your encouragement as you work on forgiving others.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Do it Yourself Plan
We all know that if you want to get better at something you practice, surround yourself with people that support you, find someone to teach you, and sharpen your skills daily. We see it with people who are successful in sports, with their work, with school, and with life. We understand that practice makes perfect or at least real close. We all believe in theory, because we have seen it work time and time again. The problem is we don’t often bring that same thinking into our Christian walk.
How do you feel you will become the best follower of Christ? Will you face all the struggles, temptations, and fears all on your own? Or will you put into practice the act of sharpening your skills, surrounding yourself by people who love you and support you, attend class so that someone can help teach you, attend worship to be encouraged and to encourage others? What is your plan to follow Christ? Will you try the “do it yourself plan”? God never intended us to be “do it yourself” people. He tells over and over to surround ourselves with other Christian people in order to overcome the sin in the world.
Proverbs 27:17
17 As iron sharpens iron,
so one man sharpens another.
If you haven’t been to church in a while know that your church family is missing you. They are waiting with open arms for your return. If you are waiting for the right time, the right Sunday to come back, make it this Sunday.
Hope to see you there.
Love,
Joe
How do you feel you will become the best follower of Christ? Will you face all the struggles, temptations, and fears all on your own? Or will you put into practice the act of sharpening your skills, surrounding yourself by people who love you and support you, attend class so that someone can help teach you, attend worship to be encouraged and to encourage others? What is your plan to follow Christ? Will you try the “do it yourself plan”? God never intended us to be “do it yourself” people. He tells over and over to surround ourselves with other Christian people in order to overcome the sin in the world.
Proverbs 27:17
17 As iron sharpens iron,
so one man sharpens another.
If you haven’t been to church in a while know that your church family is missing you. They are waiting with open arms for your return. If you are waiting for the right time, the right Sunday to come back, make it this Sunday.
Hope to see you there.
Love,
Joe
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Google It
I often say to people when asked a question about something, “I don’t know the answer, but we can Google it”. It’s become a part of my everyday life when I run into a problem with technology, when I have a question about how to fix something, when we need a recipe, when we want to see what movies are out, when we want directions to somewhere, if we need a phone number, and the list goes on. I say the phrase “Google it” so often that the people around me have made comment’s about it. They say things like “I think you Google everything or is there anything that you haven’t looked up on Google”. With the internet at our finger tips a large percentage of the day for a lot of us it’s become our way of finding information to help us make better decisions.
When traveling to Bryan the other day my son asked if Lori and I knew the answer to a question he had. It was something about a Nintendo game and we both were stumped. We said no, and he responded with… you guessed it. Why don’t you “Google it” Dad. Laughing about his response I started thinking that I probably look at Google more then I look at my bible. When looking for direction in my life my goal should be to not look at Google but look at the bible for my answers. Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not saying that Google is bad, but what I am saying is maybe we should all start taking more time to look at the bible for answers about how we should live our life. God has given us every answer we need and all the information to be a loving and faithful Christian. Maybe the next time you are wanting to know how to do something the right way, or which path to take along your journey in life, or what the answer is for a question we will turn to God’s word and Bible it. “Bible it” let’s make that our new response when question come to us in life.
Joe
When traveling to Bryan the other day my son asked if Lori and I knew the answer to a question he had. It was something about a Nintendo game and we both were stumped. We said no, and he responded with… you guessed it. Why don’t you “Google it” Dad. Laughing about his response I started thinking that I probably look at Google more then I look at my bible. When looking for direction in my life my goal should be to not look at Google but look at the bible for my answers. Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not saying that Google is bad, but what I am saying is maybe we should all start taking more time to look at the bible for answers about how we should live our life. God has given us every answer we need and all the information to be a loving and faithful Christian. Maybe the next time you are wanting to know how to do something the right way, or which path to take along your journey in life, or what the answer is for a question we will turn to God’s word and Bible it. “Bible it” let’s make that our new response when question come to us in life.
Joe