Sin Popsicle

Up in the arctic circle there is tribe of Eskimo's who have learned to set a very simple yet effective trap for wolves. First they sharpen a knife razor sharp. Then they dip it in the blood of a seal they have killed. (you see seals are fairly easy to trap but wolves are very dangerous). After dipping the knife in blood they set it outside in the cold so the blood freezes on the knife. After if freezes (a matter of minutes) they dip it again into the seal blood and again take it out an let the blood freeze. Layer after layer they make a blood popsicle. When they are done, the knife's blade is hidden inside just like a popsicle stick. Now they take the knife out into the wilderness where they think a wolf might be. There the bury the handle of the knife in the snow leaving the blood popsicle standing up and they leave.

Now after a while a wolf will come along guided by his sense of smell and find the "bloodsicle". He will being licking it, enjoying every taste. Over and over he licks the knife and soon his tongue is so cold he cannot feel it any longer. It's numb. But his taste for blood is growing and he is not getting as much as he wants - you see, popsicles are slow eating. Finally his licking exposes the razor sharp edge of the knife. It cuts into his tongue again and again but he does not even notice for his tongue can no longer feel anything. The wolfs own blood now flows from his cut tongue. The wolf is thrilled, blood is now more plentiful and he continues to lick more and more.

Soon he notices something is wrong, he is getting weaker not stronger. Since he knows blood as food he increases his efforts to feed on the ever increasing flow of blood. His last thoughts are of how good the now warm blood tastes. Within minutes he licks his last and collapse next to the now fully exposed knife. Here the Eskimo knows he will find the wolfs body the next morning.

Now Satan's is capable of much more elegant schemes to trap us and injure us with sin than the Eskimo and we are often less wise than the Wolf. So Peter and Paul have both written to encourage us. They write -

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Pet 5:8 (NIV)

The reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. ......, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. 2 Cor 2:9 &11 (NIV)

The Bible teaches us that temptation itself is not sin. (see Heb 4:15). It begins with our natural desires and Satan. Satan knows about our sin nature just as the Eskimo knows of the wolves desire for blood. He then sets a trap for us and lies to us to convince us we must act outside of God will in some area of our life.

Pepaw takes aim

As an elementary kid one summer I remember working side by side my grandfather, dad, brother and uncle. It was at a time when we were all pitching in with helping hands to get ready a piece of land and house for my uncle and his family. My brother and I were very distracted throughout the day with a large family of cotton tail rabbits that were living on the piece of land. There had to be a dozen of them running around, and every time we moved something or made room for something there would be a rabbit or two. They didn’t seem fearful of us and that made it even worse. Let me tell you we were two country boys who had been raised to hunt all animals and this was torture. Several times during the day we would pick up rocks or sticks to chunk at the rabbits but were unable to bring home the bacon. I remember us both making comments about wishing we had our guns, or bows, or knifes, or slingshots, or anything that could be used for ammunition. Watching us all throughout the day was our grandfather (Pepaw). Never too far away from us but not once did he say a word to us at all of our failed attempts. Finally as the day was losing sunlight and we had gathered around the truck our Pepaw asked us both if we were able to bag some supper. Both of us feeling a little down on ourselves shook our heads no. Just then a daring rabbit hopped out about twenty feet from us and with lightning speed Pepaw pulled his trusty old pliers from his back pocket stepped and threw. This throw would have made Nolan Ryan weak in the knees. Pepaw walked over picked up the rabbit and brought it over to us. He didn’t gloat about it or show boat to us. He simply said, “You know when I was a kid if you missed your shot you didn’t get to eat”, and then we all laughed. My brother and I tried several times to get Pepaw to take aim again at another rabbit, but to no avail. He just didn’t believe in taking more than you needed or he thought there is no way I could make that same throw again (Scott and I believe that latter).

Really even though this may be a little rough or gory for some this was one of my fondest memories. I have told this story to several people due to the rarity of the great shot. Call it a hunting story for the books!

Have you ever taken aimed at something? There are a few people in the bible I can think of who took aim. Some hit the target dead on and other’s not so much. David would be my first pick and probably most obvious to most as he took aim with just a stone and defeated goliath. What a day that must have been. I know how much I looked up to my Pepaw for his shot with the trusties pliers, but those watching David had a story to tell. Another person who took aim was Moses. Maybe not so much with a slingshot or bow but he had a target of the promise land and he aimed himself along with several Israelites on the path. I don’t think any of us who know this story would say Moses made a bull’s eye here. It to me is one of the saddest stories about Moses. All the hard work he put forth lost due to what God says is trust in him.

Numbers 20:9-12

⁹ So Moses took the staff from the LORD’s presence, just as he commanded him. ¹⁰ He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” ¹¹ Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

¹² But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”

We read of the mistake Moses makes here and can’t believe he would lose trust in his creator.

Have you ever lost trust in God? Your immediate response to that question is “No way.” But really it’s not that far out there. Losing trust in God happens when we feel like we don’t need God no matter the task at hand. For some of us we tend to lean on God when things are hard in our lives but on a day to day we let God take a break and handle our lives by ourselves. What are we truly saying? Maybe we too don’t trust God enough to give him full control of everything in our lives.

As you finish reading this try and make this week be about taking aim on the right target. My real shot in this life is to aim to finish what God has left here for me to do, and that is to take his word live it and share it with as many people as possible. I pray to God that I don’t miss my target.

Acts 20:24

²⁴ However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.

Experience Understanding

Just try reading this without laughing till you cry!!!

Pocket Tazer Stun Gun, a great gift for the wife. A guy who purchased his lovely wife a pocket Tazer for their anniversary submitted this:

Last weekend I saw something at Larry's Pistol & Pawn Shop that sparked my interest. The occasion was our 15th anniversary and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife Julie. What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse- sized tazer. The effects of the tazer were supposed to be short lived, with no long-term adverse affect on your assailant, allowing her adequate time to retreat to safety....??

WAY TOO COOL! Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home. I loaded two AAA batteries in the darn thing and pushed the button. Nothing! I was disappointed. I learned, however, that if I pushed the button and pressed it against a metal surface at the same time; I'd get the blue arc of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs.

AWESOME!!!

Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to Julie what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave.

Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn't be all that bad with only two triple-A batteries, right? There I sat in my recliner, my cat Gracie looking on intently (trusting little soul) while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target. I must admit I thought about zapping Gracie (for a fraction of a second) and thought better of it. She is such a sweet cat. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong?

So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and a tank top with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, and tazer in another. The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water. Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries.

All the while I'm looking at this little device measuring about 5" long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference; pretty cute really and (loaded with two itsy, bitsy triple-A batteries) thinking to myself, 'no possible way!' What happened next is almost beyond description, but I'll do my best.

I'm sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side as to say, 'don't do it dummy,' reasoning that a one second burst from such a tiny little ole thing couldn't hurt all that bad. I decided to give myself a one second burst just for grins. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and . .

OH MY WORD . . WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION . . . WHAT IN THE WORLD!!!

I'm pretty sure Mike Tyson ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, body slammed us both on the carpet, over and over and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs? The cat was making meowing sounds I had never heard before, clinging to a picture frame hanging above the fireplace, obviously in an attempt to avoid getting slammed by my body flopping all over the living room.

Note: If you ever feel compelled to 'mug' yourself with a tazer, one note of caution: there is no such thing as a one second burst when you zap yourself! You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor. A three second burst would be considered conservative?

A minute or so later (I can't be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), I collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace. The recliner was upside down and about 8 feet or so from where it originally was. My triceps, right thigh and chest were still twitching. My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs. I had no control over the drooling.

Apparently I pooped on myself, but was too numb to know for sure and my sense of smell was gone. I saw a faint smoke cloud above my head which I believe came from my hair.

P.s... My wife, can't stop laughing about my experience, loved the gift, and now regularly threatens me with it!

Now to try and relate this story to our Christian walk with God. Let’s face it this is something that is going to be hard to follow.

There is probably a time in your life (I know there was in mine) when I did something that I thought was the right thing to do, but the consciences told me otherwise. There are several examples in the bible of the same thing like when Jonah decided to not go to Nineveh and spent some time in a big fish, or there was the time when people wouldn’t listen to Noah and lost their lives in a big flood, and then there was the time when Lot’s wife was determined to turn and look back and became a pillar of salt. I could go on forever with all the examples we have and reading them I can’t help but wonder why people have to be so stupid. Why couldn’t they have just listened to what God and his prophets told them to do? The answer is the same for them as it is for us today. The reason we don’t obey God’s word from time to time is because we think we know better.

So you tell me is it wise of us to try and experience things that God has told us to steer clear of or do we need to go ahead and tazer ourselves to find out the real answers.

If you think following God’s word is difficult, try doing this whole life thing on your own!

Searching for God

The story is told of a man who was walking along a highway one evening who saw the strangest thing. In a large field next to the highway was a large drove of hogs with their ears pricked up running first one way, and then another. They seemed to be terribly confused! The man observing this had no idea as to why this was happening.

The man kept walking and soon came to a farmhouse. He stopped and asked the old man on the porch, “Are those your hogs out there in that lot?” The old man replied, “Yes, they’re mine.”

“Well, there is something wrong with them. They’re acting crazy. They run in one direction for awhile and then they run in another direction with their heads and ears up. I’ve never seen anything like it,” the visitor replied.

The farmer then said, “Well, mister, I’ll tell you what’s wrong. You see. It’s about feeding time. Before I lost my voice, I would take a basket of corn up there and give a call or two, and they would come running to me. But since I have lost my voice, I just take my cane and knock on a nearby tree. When they hear me, they come running over to eat. But for the last week or two some woodpeckers have been coming to the trees in the field and when the hogs hear them, they think it is my knock and get confused.”

There is a lesson we can learn from this story. People are running around in different directions today religiously speaking. They are hearing people say all kinds of things about this religion is the right way, and you need to do this to be saved. They hear some people saying that God loves all and just want you to be happy while others are telling them that one sin will send you straight to hell. There is talk about grace, love, and forgiveness and then there are those they don’t even have these words in their religion. With all this talk it makes it really difficult for the average person to determine the best course of action. What is the solution? The solution is to look at the bible and follow an example we have in Acts 17:10-12

¹⁰ As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. ¹¹ Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. ¹² As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.

The Berean’s have it down. They searched the scriptures daily to see if Paul was teaching them the truth. They didn’t just trust their eternity to a man, even though he proclaimed to be this great apostle. They didn’t wait for Paul to tell them what they should believe but they figured it out themselves through studying the scriptures.

I have a feeling that if everyone did that today there would be less confusion with what it is God wants from us. So many times today we are reading our bibles through the mouths of our ministers and that is not how God wants us to learn his will. He didn’t hand the bible to each of us so that we could put it on the shelf.

Do yourself a favor that will last an eternity and learn what God’s position is on salvation. It’s his position that only truly matters. He will answer your entire questions through your studying of the bible.

In Him,

Joe

Why Worry?

In a small group class this past week we studied some well know and very wise scriptures from Mathew chapter 6:25-34.

After a lot of discussion on these verses we concluded the following:

All of us worry to some degree and for some people worrying is a struggle that they deal with on a weekly, daily, or even hourly basis. It’s something that we all struggle with, but we wanted to know why it is we all struggle with it and how we could be better at not worrying. Also there was a question as to what all is included in the act of worrying.

Sometimes we worry due to a lack of faith. The fact that God is always in control of the big picture is sometimes really hard to see. There is no denying it that for us to worry sometimes shows a lack in faith. We all want to increase our faith so before we get to far what all does worrying actually included? Specifically is there a difference in worrying about something and planning/thinking things through?

Do we worry about our day at work or do we plan our day? Do we worry about our retirement or do we plan for the time in our lives when we will not be able to work? Do we worry about monthly bills or payments to or creditors or do we plan for those payments? To plan your day at work is not saying you are worrying about your day. It means that as Christians we should always do the best that we can to fulfill our obligations. We do that by planning our actions in order to be successful. Also we discussed the fact that planning for the future like retirement, end of year payments, or month to month bills is something that God wants us to do. In no way does God want us to NOT consider our debts, or our future. We decided that in order to make sure that all of our affairs are taken care of we must plan for them and do the best we can to be prepared. Planning and worrying are two completely things so you can cross planning off your worry list.

The next thing to consider is do we have the same priorities in our lives today that the people in the bible times had? We concluded that no we do not, and that there are a lot more things to consider now then there where back then. The people during the bible time period where concerned about what they would eat and drink on a daily basis while people today have several other things that they could be worrying about. Really does it make it wrong or right? Not really we are told to still not worry about things, but it was an observation of the class.

Overall we agreed that putting God first daily with all the small things in our lives will allow us to not worry and put God first with the big things in our lives. We also agreed that it’s easier said than done and something that we all need to work on. This week we all need to pray for God to increase our faith, and open our eyes more to see him working in our lives so that we can cross all the things off our list of worries.

In Him,
Joe

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