Category Archives: Holidays

I Am Grateful

29 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by in Bulletin Article, Holidays, Preaching

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As a Christian, for what are you grateful?

I am grateful to the Lord because back in 1983, Alamogordo, New Mexico, I obeyed the Lord Jesus, associating my life with His in faith and water baptism – exactly like the Lord called on me to do. Paul wrote in Romans 6:3-4, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (KJV), and this is exactly what I did.

I am also grateful to the Lord because I learned the church of which I was a member (the Nazarene Church) came into existence well-over eighteen-hundred years after the time of Christ. Eighteen-hundred years too late. I also learned the Lord’s church came into existence merely ten days later than when Jesus ascended to the Father (Acts 2). As great as the Nazarene Church was to me in the early years of my life, the Lord’s church is far more influential because of who Originated it.

I am grateful to the Lord because I serve as a preacher in His kingdom. With this role wherein I serve, I have a heavy responsibility placed on me to do at least two things. First, live the life of Christ as revealed in Scripture. Second, be faithful to teaching that which He said He wants taught. Peter wrote, “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 4:11). I do not have the liberty to go too far, or not far enough. I must stay with the Lord with a “thus saith God” in my preaching and teaching. I could faithfully serve the Lord in any number of roles, but I chose to serve the Lord in this role.

I am grateful to the Lord for His mercy. As I look back over my life as an adult (nearly forty years), I am humbled by “where I was” and “where I am now.” The baggage I brought to the Lord is more than some have experienced, but perhaps not as much as you. Still, I carried a full load. To this day, I have many regrets associated with that baggage, but in the Lord’s mercy, He remembers it no more. Gratitude beyond measure I have to the Lord for that!

I am grateful to the Lord, as I mentioned a moment ago, for the responsibility placed on me. It is my prayer He is pleased with what I am doing. I am grateful He has given me the ability to write, to think quickly and deeply, to challenge error, but to do so with compassion, understanding and without a threatening disposition. I am grateful to the Lord for a thick-skin. Time and again people try to penetrate, but I know my standing in the Lord’s presence. I know my strengths, and I know my weaknesses. I know what is true about me, and I know what is false about those things said concerning me. For me to be offended, as one sister said, one would need to use a two-by-four against me. I refuse to be troubled by that which is not the truth. In fact, it is only truth that I want to penetrate, and especially the Lord’s truth.

For what are you grateful?  RT

The Gift(s)

18 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by in Holidays, Jesus, Salvation

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Mary and Joseph’s troubles had only begun. The joy of a newborn is magnified when one (Mary) learns from the Lord’s angel (Gabriel) that the child she would carry would be the Lord’s anointed. In accordance with Jewish law/tradition, Mary and Joseph circumcise their Son on day eight after his birth. Rather ordinary; the ordinary then turns to marvel when a very old man, Simeon, speaks praise to the Lord and then speaks plainly to both (Mary especially) that their newborn child will bring much joy and anguish to the nation of Israel. In fact, the message and life of the child (then adult) will pierce the heart of his mother (Luke 2:25-35).

This is the part of the “Christmas” story that is often forgotten. So often it is that we hear the joy of the message that God’s Son was brought into the world with that joy expressed in gifts given. But in this joyous occasion it is the forgotten message that He is God’s gift to man. Why would God give a gift to humanity?

The experience of Mary and Joseph illustrate why God gave His unique (one of a kind) Son to man. They learned from the Lord that Herod, a raging and jealous king, was seeking to destroy the child recently born. This insecure man was a servant of Satan. “Now the dragon’s tail swept away a third of the stars in heaven and hurled them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. So the woman gave birth to a son, a male child, who is going to rule over all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was suddenly caught up to God and to his throne, and she fled into the wilderness where a place had been prepared for her by God, so she could be taken care of for 1,260 days” (Revelation 12:4-6, NET).

God’s gift to man is not understood; what is learned is rejected exactly because of the efforts of the “dragon” one reads in Revelation. He is the “god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), and he seeks to destroy as many as he can.

Though Christmas is not a Bible holiday, it is a time when the Lord’s saints can do much good in helping others learn the true significance of why Jesus came into this world. Whatever gifts are given, it is God’s gift that is truly the most important.

A Faithful Step-Father

08 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by in Bulletin Article, Faith, Holidays

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Scripture does not tell us the age of Mary when her son Jesus was born, thus, we don’t know her age at her betrothal. Assuming her to have been a mid to late teenager, and knowing the maturity level of such teenagers today, I can’t imagine her emotional bewilderment. For three months she carried a child within her, and surely she wondered how to handle this difficulty with her betrothed (Joseph). Did she satisfy herself in thinking that just as the angel told her, he would tell him? Yet, as we know, at a particular time when Joseph was contemplating what to do, the angel said nothing to him.

Presumably, Mary told Joseph the visit with the angel. Did Joseph find this too fantastic to believe? It appears that he might have because he was considering his options. He settled on one of those options he considered, putting Mary away quietly. Under the Law of Moses, Joseph surely knew, Mary was to be stoned (Deuteronomy 22:23-24). But maybe Mary expressed herself intensely enough that Joseph now had begun to wonder what really occurred. Perhaps he had doubts that she was guilty of infidelity, but he could not explain the pregnancy, and her explanation was beyond human experience, so he decided to quietly dismiss.

On the verge of doing this, the angel of the Lord speaks to Joseph in a dream. He is told not only is Mary innocent, but that the child in her womb was to be a child unlike any other in human history. Imagine being Joseph in the morning with this information! Joseph, being the righteous man he was, took Mary as his wife and did his part as a loving husband, loving father, and a faithful child of God.

The pressure, magnitude of the occasion, the perplexity, responsibility, and holiness surrounding all of this was placed directly on the shoulders of two humble people. This was certainly not the entry of Israel’s Messiah into the world expected! David Roper wrote, “The Jews were looking for a man of war to lead them to victory; God would send a helpless baby to bring them back to Him. Man wanted a ruler on an earthly throne; God would give them a child in a feeding trough. It was not man’s way, but it was God’s way (The Life of Christ, p. 63). RT

 

Thanksgiving Week

27 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by in America, God, Holidays

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In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he mentions one reason for a person to be grateful to the Lord (among many reasons). He said, “Now God who provides seed for the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your supply of seed and will cause the harvest of your righteousness to grow. You will be enriched in every way so that you may be generous on every occasion, which is producing through us thanksgiving to God” (9:10-11, NET). Paul said this in a context of a great collection being gathered for saints in a different location suffering deprivation. Sometimes we can fail to remember or reflect on just how well we have it in regards to material things. It may be that in our society we are poor, but those of a generous heart will even give of their poverty to help another. That is the love of God!