Category: Blog

Improvement. Doing better. It’s a part of all of us. Coaches work to get every ounce of performance they can out of every player. Coaches, players and fans alike dream of going to the top: the state championship, the Final Four, the Super Bowl. There’s something about J.J. Watt that inspires all of us to be our best.

You hear a lot about it as a New Year cycles across the horizon. Resolutions to eat better, to lose weight, to quit bad habits and to get into shape. The desire to do better gets really cranked up at church. The Rev thunders about the need to better serve the Lord. He trounces dead beat and half-hearted Christianity, and we know he’s right. There’s conviction. We’re at a natural doorstep of new beginnings and opportunities to straighten up and get things right. So with considerable emotion, we go down front and promise God things are going to be different. This time, we’re for real. We’re going to do it. We’re going to do better. We say it in our hearts and out loud to those around us.

History has proven that most of the time our pious promises don’t hold up. But, they make us feel good. We thought about it and have a good heart. Our intentions are good. In well over half a century in the ministry, I have heard lots of promises. My! They really roll out when people think they’re about to die. At a time like that, they’ll promise God just about anything. If He’ll spare their lives and heal them, they will serve Him faithfully forever. I am sad to say that I’ve heard a lot more talk than I’ve seen follow-through.

Someone has wisely said that talk is cheap. It shouldn’t be, but too often it is. I rejoice when people become convicted about where they are in life and when they aspire to do better. I say, “Yes. Do it. That’s God’s way. He wants growth in all of us. It’s not His will that any of us plateau and stalemate.” At the same time I am wondering how the person with the good intentions is going to get it done. Has he taken a serious look in his mirror and diagnosed his situation? Does he really see his weaknesses and where he needs to improve? Is he truly honest about where he is? What is he going to improve: his attitude, his priorities and his integrity? Is he going to become kinder, more caring and competent and a more effective worker? Is he going to treat his mate better? What about the people at work? And, the neighbors? What’s he going to do about that loose tongue, those irresponsible ways and that self-centered approach to life?

I’m also wondering about his game plan. I’m curious to know how he plans to get from point A to point Z (or even B). Is he going to get into the Bible and seek God’s counsel on his issues? Is he going to seek out people with proven track records and let them help him? Is he going to deliberately address his weakness and work to do better in specific areas? I know for sure that until a person gets specific about areas of need, little if any improvement is going to occur.

Change for the better is a wonderful concept, but usually it is nothing more than an empty pipe dream. There must be more than good intentions and empty rhetoric. Vain words and a trip down front won’t cut it. Improvement involves serious intentions followed by lots of hard work. Athletes who win gold medals pay a high price: sweat, endless practice, long hours, dedication and plenty of sacrifice. Everybody wants a great body with a gold medal around the neck. Not very many are willing to pay the price. It is easy to say, I want to improve and be a better person. It is not so easy to get serious about it.

Christmas is really about Jesus Christ. He left heaven where all power, glory and praise was His and came to this earth where He was rejected, hated and abused beyond adequate description. The Bible puts it this way. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” Philippians 2:5-8.

Imagine that! He was the creator of all things. “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made,” John 1:3. He is the “Almighty,” Revelation 1:8. There can be many who are mighty, but there is only one Almighty. Jesus Christ was (and is) “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords,” 1 Timothy 6:15. Nobody made Him come here and go through that absolutely horrendous, bloody, mind-boggling ordeal. He did it voluntarily, of His own free will. Hear it in His own words. “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” Matthew 28:18. “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself,” John 10:18.

What would move Him to do such a thing? Just one thing: His love for you and me. Yes! “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,” John 3:16. God knew that all of us are sinners and that sin has consequences. “The wages of sin is death,” Romans 6:23. That’s not merely a grave, it’s separation from God. Unless sin is properly addressed, the separation is eternal in a lake of fire. No man is capable of properly addressing his sins. Only the blood of an innocent, sinless sacrifice can do it. If the sin problem damning every man was to be addressed, God would have to personally address it. Only He is sinless and qualified. Would He give Himself in the place of sinners or would He stand by and let all of them perish in the lake of fire? We know the answer to that question. He’d willingly and voluntarily do for them what they could not do for themselves. “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for us . . . God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” Romans 5:6, 8. What made Him do it? Love, not for the lovely and good; but love for us as unlovely as we are! “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us,” 1 John 3:16.

Oh what a joyous season Christmas is! We love the special time with family and other loved ones. We make little chubs out of ourselves with all that great food. Who doesn’t like to be remembered with special cards and gifts? So much glitter, the festivities, a little time off from work! I love those beautiful Christmas trees and all those decorations. The music is great, especially the carols. The kids are all full of anticipation. The excitement is contagious. Yes, it’s a great, great season!

But, the bottom line is Jesus Christ! Christmas is really about Him. Our hope is in Him. If He had not come, Christmas and life would be empty, meaningless. There would be no hope, especially beyond the grave. It would all be about right here; and with aging, disease, death and a world that is more and more dangerous and out of control there couldn’t be very much joy. The good news is that He did come; and while He was here He died on the cross, went to the grave and three days late conquered it in resurrection. Yes, that’s really good news. Upon the strength of what He did, every man can have forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Someday the body will go back to the earth from which it came, but the spirit of all who come to Christ for forgiveness of sins and eternal life will go to be with God forever.

In view of His coming and sacrifice Jesus said, “I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish,” John 10:28. Friend, don’t miss Christmas. It’s about Jesus Christ doing for you what you cannot do for yourself. You have one and only one lifetime to get it right. “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely,” Revelation 22:17.

Everybody has a stake in the police business. Yes, everybody including you. Most of us see law enforcement as us and them. Yes, there is the official law enforcement community at various levels: city police, sheriff, state troopers, game wardens, National Guard, the military and the list continues. Yet, peacekeeping is everybody’s business; mine and yours.

The need for law and order is embedded in every fabric of society. Even little babies need someone to help them with boundaries: fire is hot, poisons can kill, the rights of others must be respected. Without boundaries they become hazards to themselves and others. Homes, schools, businesses, churches, governments and even police forces cannot function very well without some measure of law and order.

At the heart of law and order are such factors as honesty, integrity, justice, personal responsibility and accountability, respect for the rights and property of others and obedience to God-ordained authority. (Oh yes, it’s pretty obvious that Jesus Christ was right in the bull’s-eye of where life really is!)

Just how do you insure “honesty, integrity, justice, personal responsibility and accountability, respect for the rights and property of others and obedience to God-ordained authority” in “homes, schools, businesses, churches governments and even police forces?” Do you keep raising taxes and hire more law enforcement officers? Will more and tougher laws do it? Is the answer stiffer penalties and more incarceration facilities? No, no, no! We all know better.

It is obvious that law enforcement starts in the heart. (Oh yes; there’s that Jesus stuff again.) Law, order and peace come when people learn to police themselves. Their own honesty (not a policeman) keeps them from taking what is not theirs. A bicycle in the yard or an unlocked car or home is safe. They don’t cheat on others by cutting in line: at the cafeteria or on the freeway. It is not a contract that makes them pay their bills. On time! It’s their own heart that makes them tell the truth and treat other people with respect and kindness. Before God their own heart moves them to do the right thing.

What happens to a society that leaves God out of the equation? Look around. America has been moving away from God for a long time. One of the ramifications is a diminishing of self-policing. With the diminishing of self-policing has come a steady rise in lawlessness, violence and civil disorder at every level of society: the breakup of homes, vastly increased crime, bigger and beefed up police forces at all levels, more incarceration facilities and a huge tax burden.

It is the personal responsibility of every person to police himself. Failure to do that ultimately breaks a society. As fewer and fewer people police themselves lawlessness, violence, bedlam and chaos grow to an unsustainable level. Usually a bloodbath takes place and a dictator with an iron fist steps up; everybody loses.

Who is your policeman? Who keeps you honest and doing the right thing? No Christian should need a policeman or a contract. Love for our God is enough. Oh how our world needs more Christians; not professors who wear the name but are void of the earmarks, but real Christians whose lives have been changed from the inside out by a personal meeting in the heart with Jesus Christ!

Most good beliefs and practices are now in question. Even Christianity’s most sacred book is on the list; it is under attack in multiple ways. Even so it is still regarded as “the Word of truth.” To avoid twisting it’s messages and falsely making it say what it doesn’t say, all who use the Bible are commanded to “rightly divide” it. It is very easy to do otherwise. I suspect that most who do not rightly divide the Bible (the Scriptures) are unaware of what they’re doing.

Preachers (especially pastors) have the greatest potential for twisting and misrepresenting the Word of truth. They’re regularly and often up there in the pulpit. They’re the teachers, the pacesetters and regarded as the authorities on the Bible. They preach sermons and teach lessons on what the Bible says and means. Some of them write books. On a trip from Houston to New York one uncorrected wrong turn can get you far off course, and one wrong position on a Bible truth can lead to major falsehoods.

For example, at the time of Christ and the Apostles who followed Him, orthodoxy was regarded as what Christ and the Apostles said. The 27 books of the New Testament along with the Old Testament were known as the Scriptures. Adherence to the Scriptures was orthodoxy; positions contrary to the Scriptures were considered heresy. Within a few years Christian leaders (especially preachers) began putting their slants and interpretations on the Scriptures. For one thing they began viewing the church as all who claimed to be Christians. They forsook the position of the Scriptures that a church is a local assembly of baptized believers covenanted together to keep the ordinances and carry out the great commission. Soon the new order saw orthodoxy as what the church taught, not as what the Scriptures teach. Any beliefs contrary to the positions of the church were considered heresy and those who embraced them were viewed as heretics. Really! Those who believed exactly what Jesus and the Apostles taught were considered heretics and millions of them were persecuted, tortured and killed simply because they believed and practiced what the Scriptures teach.

A while back I heard a sermon from John 8 on the woman taken in adultery. The preacher cleverly made Pharisees out of all who believe in standards. As I sat there I couldn’t help thinking of God and His 10 Commandments. They are standards, and there are multitudes of other standards throughout the Bible. How many times have you sat in a church and heard the just as I am routine? A wonderful message on how God receives fallen, broken-down sinners just like they are! The beautiful picture of grace apart from works for salvation shines forth. It’s so appealing to those whose lives are in a hopeless mess; however, something is missing. The sinner comes forward to receive the miraculous change; but the next day he wants another drink or fix, he’s still in a financial mess and all his passions are alive and well. Somehow in church he didn’t get the true picture that God receives sinful men just like they are; but that doesn’t mean all the problems are gone, that God is going to leave you like you are or that the road ahead will be easy.

Those who do not get or give the true picture of the Word of truth miss the point. Be careful before jumping on a new bandwagon. Since Jesus Christ was here there have been many Pied Pipers, people (especially preachers) who had great new takes on what the Scriptures mean. Beware! Some of them may be right; most of them probably aren’t. Look at professing Christianity today. What a checkered, self-contradictory mix! People with every imaginable conflicting idea, all claiming they got it from the Bible! That’s especially true in this day when old Christianity is generally scorned, a witch hunt for dirty laundry among old-timers is highly popular, attack books are in vogue by those who despise bigotry and negativism (talk about the pot calling the kettle black) and old Christians and proven Bible-based beliefs are being thrown under the bus. All by the charismatic new breeds who are so much smarter than those who went before them.

Look before you leap. Beware of Pied Pipers. Stay with the Scriptures! Do not be deceived by someone with charisma, who quotes lots of Scriptures, who seems intellectual or who has come up with some great new revelation. Insist on truth rightly divided. Reject that which is twisted or skewed. Be a true Berean. Search the Scriptures to see whether or not what you hear is true. Make the Word of truth your standard of judgment for all things and people.