Monday is for Morons: 10-24-2011

Sometimes Mondays can feel like an unhappy awakening from an otherwise fanciful life that you were living. I'm willing to say that the guy who invented sliced bread did so on the weekend, woke up on Monday and was still bummed. And sometimes it seems it would be more pleasant to listen to an entire album of nails on the chalkboard then to roll out of bed. This is life . . . but not all of it, thank God.

There is a verse in the Bible's Old Testament, the book of Psalms, which was often the only reason my work chair stayed occupied: 'Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy!' Think of that in an agrarian culture; if you did not sow the seed for your crops at the appropriate time, come harvest season you'd be looking at the ground going 'crap,' because nothing has come for you and your family to eat or sell. So a point here, the one which was helpful to me, is that your labor today is somehow helpful to you or will be. It is maybe part of a stepping stone in your career or maybe your life; maybe it is as simple as being productive and useful; for most it is a means to place food on the table, heat in the house and toilet paper on the roll.

Today may be the worst day in the world, but keep hope. For the Christian there is hope. Work is not JUST work. And sadness will not remain forever. Remember the Gospel of Jesus. He did not come to make you a perfect being with no flaws while on earth. He came to save you because you, because all of us, are a bunch of idiots who very frequently forget that God is god and we are not god. 'I have sinned!' you say. I have too. all of us have. Now let us together remember that Jesus, if we believe in him, what he did, if we entrust ourselves to him (lots of words here but it is not hard) we are forgiven forever. And that is a long time.

Monday is for Morons 09.12.2011

Well it is that day again, the day which all bad things seem to have been building up only to all explode on again: Monday.

As it is Monday and we are forgetful and often silly creatures, here is a reminder of God's grace and power in addition to the hope he gives us to keep on keepin on:
'Christ Jesus came to save sinners of whom I am the foremost.' (1 Timothy 1.16).

This is the Apostle Paul talking here and he is not producing some false humility either--saying he is bad but really thinking he is not--no, he realizes he is woefully sinful and in need of some serious and drastic help from God! The Apostle Paul has no boot strap sufficient to pull himself up by; his friends who probably have way more obvious sins than he are not enough to make him good enough, his past accomplishments are simply not enough to mend a ripped relationship with the God of the universe . . but Christ was enough for Paul and Christ is enough for you and me!

Friend, are you doubting? Are you in depression? Do you feel that you are sinful before God? Do you sense guilt and hopelessness within you? Are you afraid? Do you know you are inadequate? Then you are in a good place, now good to Jesus Christ who died for each and every one of your sins; go to him and find your forgiveness. Nothing you could do will forever separate you from God's love, save that you do not go him through Jesus'.

We can be forgiven our sin and also have our guilt taken away because Jesus Christ died on your behalf. Believe it. Believe him. Follow him.

A Happy Hope

We cannot exist if hope is absent. As someone once put it, 'suicide is not motivated by selfishness or irrationality, but a complete and total loss of all hope.' Presidents campaign on hope; we continue working because of some hope that we will continue to be employed; we dream because we hope there can be a different outcome; we live because we have been convinced, by one thing or another, that there is something still worth living for. We all need hope.

The Apostle Paul, in his letter to his friend Titus, gives a swift sketch of the hope Christians have. In the New Testament book of Titus, the Second chapter, verse 13, Paul says that Christians are 'waiting for our blessed hope.' Blessed is a translation from the common Greek Paul wrote in, it is a word that is worth understanding.

We can think of a ton of things when we here blessed, from license plates to a pro athlete in a post-game interview; but here, in this context, with this particular word the Apostle uses, blessed means 'happy.' It is not some secret or mystical happiness, nope, just the real, genuine, smile-on-the-face, I feel good happiness.

Why should the Christian hope be a happy one? Paul goes on to say that the hope is the appearing of Jesus Christ--remember Jesus lived on earth, was murdered, but then killed death itself and rose back to life and is in Heaven until he comes back. When Jesus comes all the promises in the Bible for the followers of Jesus will be fulfilled; when Jesus comes all the wrong and injustice will be corrected and be brought aright. The Christian has a hope that is eternal, a hope that is already fulfilled yet it is not fully realized yet, it is still in queue. A Christian does not have to wait for the full fulfillment of his or her hope to presently be satisfied and gratified. The Christian, in the hope we have in Jesus, is already on the boat and sees the end only a mile or two away and the joy in the realization, the happiness, compels us to keep going now, to love when revenge would be normal now; to give when saving would be acceptable now; to hope when all other hopes falter like a wet piece of tissue paper trying to hold a bowling ball.

We Christians have a happy hope that we want and beg all the world to know and to posses. We hope in Jesus Christ.

Monday is for Morons: 08-28-2011

It’s Monday. Today is the day that reminds us how long a week is and how quickly the weekend goes. Monday is a status—How are you today? It’s Monday—as if we all know what is going on this day, we are all familiar with the feelings that the Monday sun shines on. Monday is the day of whining and pouting. Monday is the day of sighs and complaints. Monday, somehow, is the day I forget what Jesus has done… therefore Monday is for morons like me.

I hope to use this sometimes dreadful day as a quick reminder of God; a simple word to give hope and a fresh, crisp breath in our forgetful souls; something just enough to get us by until the sometimes-good-sometimes-bad Tuesday.

So before you kick your dog, be rude to your spouse, or pour coffee on your co-worker here is God:

Romans 8.31: ‘If God is for us, who can be against us?’ The quick answer is everyone; everyone can be against us, the whole world! But God IS for us. You are in God’s corner. God is fighting on your behalf. God has established victory for YOU! Yes, he already knows your wicked and stupid and miserable and gross sins, but he has forgiven them, all of them. He fights for you; he has won for you; he has succeeded for you! Let’s not let the Monday drag us down but let us instead be glad in Jesus’ work for us. It is finished and nothing will change that. Don’t think that you can outsin the grace God has freely given; kick such thoughts to the curb and keep on keeping on. Take your emptiness to God and be reminded anew of the smile under which you, Christian, always and forever will sit under. The only smile that matters: God’s.