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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Soldiers of Christ Arise

“The story is told about an elderly man who retired after many years in the Army. One day a man who knew about his long and distinguished military career decided to play a prank on him. As the old soldier walked down the street with his arms full of packages, the jokester sneaked up behind him and shouted, "Attention!" Without hesitation, the military man dropped his arms to his side, and every package went tumbling to the sidewalk. Without a conscious thought, the veteran was doing what comes naturally for a soldier.”
As Christian who believe in all that Jesus has taught us we to should act in a similar manner. We should be able to act more and more like the life of Christ. We still deal with temptations and sinful desires that come up, and because of that we need to train ourselves to act as God wants us to be. Like a solider or athlete in training we need to practice repeatedly until doing what’s right comes naturally without conscious thought.
There will be times in all of our lives where we make a big choice for God or for Satan. Maybe it’s going to be a choice of a person you marry, a item you buy, a job you take, or maybe you will be asked to deny Christ. In order for us to make that choice for God we need to be training ourselves daily on the small things in life.
With your faith in God and all that he has taught us, with your understanding in Christ in how he has shown us to live, we should all be developing habits of submitting to God’s word. Then in every situation of life we will find that obeying God’s will is doing what comes naturally.
Proverbs 3:5-6
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.

Gift of Jesus

There is so much giving going on this time of year. It could be that you are helping with the feast of sharing giving time and/or food to those in need, or maybe you are purchasing gifts to fill the need of a child, maybe you have noticed a person in need that you work with and have helped in some way. Whatever it is giving a gift is a special thing and we all love it when someone thinks enough of us to give us a gift.
This time of year more than ever people’s hearts seem to be at least open to some discussion as to what Jesus is all about. Maybe it is due to all the giving, the idea of Christmas, or a little holiday cheer, but something has people more aware that there is a higher power in control. You will be around kids at school, co-workers, family members and other while preparing and celebrating the holidays. Take advantage of those moments to share the love of Christ with those who are lost.
My challenge to all of us is that while you are busy with the various things you will be doing in the coming weeks, don’t forget to add sharing Christ with others to that list. It has been my experience that hearts are never more open or more receptive than during these seasons. This can be the greatest holiday ever in regards to allowing God to use you to touch others for Him. Pray about it and ask for his help in guiding your efforts to affect the lives of the people you come in contact with.
As we all know sharing a gift with someone is a special occasion, but sharing the greatest gift that God has ever given, the gift of his son with someone else is priceless.
I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday.
Joe

Messed Up Big Time

I want to remind you about a man of God who messed up completely in a big way. He committed sins that you wouldn’t think a good man would commit. This wasn’t one of those times were he accidentally committed the sins either. He committed them and then tried to cover them up with a great deal of effort. When all was said and done, two families were destroyed. The most amazing part of this whole story is that this didn’t ruin the man. He was able to recover from his mistakes and get back on his feet.
You probably already know which man of God I am talking about. He is none other than King David. He is the one in the bible referred to as the man after God’s own heart.
One evening, King David had a hard time going to sleep, so he went out on the balcony of his palace to take a walk. Off in the distance he saw a beautiful woman named Bethsheba taking a bath. When he found out that her husband, Uriah, was a soldier and was away at war, David sent for her and seduced her. Sometime later she told him that she was going to have a baby. In an attempt to cover his tracks, David had Uriah brought in from the battlefield for a time of "R&R". David suggested that Uriah go home and spend time with his wife. Uriah politely refused; going home to his wife during a time of war would have been an act of disloyalty to his fellow soldiers. Since Uriah couldn’t be persuaded to compromise, David sent him back to battle with a letter to deliver to the commanding officer. Uriah didn’t know it, but he was delivering his own death warrant. The letter told the CO to put Uriah on the front lines and withdraw the other troops so Uriah would be sure to die. This is exactly what happened. Uriah was killed in battle and David married Bethsheba.
No one in Israel knew the story behind the story, but the Bible says, in 2 Samuel 11:27 that…The Lord was very displeased with what David had done.
It wasn’t long before a prophet named Nathan confronted David with his sin. David knew that he had done wrong, and I’m sure that deep down he knew he couldn’t get away with it. To make matters worse, David and Bethsheba’s newborn child was very sick, and Nathan said it was all David’s fault. He said to David, "Because of what you have done, this baby is going to die." Imagine how David felt about that. He couldn’t hide it any longer. He had messed up big time and now he had to face what he had done.
David did face the music. He made things right with God and got his life back on track. At some point during this time, he wrote Psalm 51. This Psalm is all about "What To Do When You’ve Blown It." We can learn from David’s example how to make things right whenever we make a little or big mistake. When that happens, we often make the mistake of thinking that God hates us because of what we’ve done. The truth is, He loves us no matter what. When we sin, even when we sin big, He wants to forgive us and help us get back on our feet.