Archive for the ‘Pastor’s Ponderings’ Category
August 25, 2013
From William Barclay’s Study Bible Notes on Luke 13:10-17:
“In Christianity the individual comes before the system. It is true to say that without Christianity there can be no such thing as democracy, because Christianity alone guarantees and defends the value of the ordinary, individual man or woman. If ever Christian principles are banished from political and economic life there is nothing left to keep at bay the totalitarian state where individuals are lost in the system, and exist, not for their own sake, but only for the sake of that system.”
Have you ever wondered, considered, given thought to, cared about the direction our government is taking us. Perhaps if we were to vote our Christian beliefs, vote in politicians who we had researched and found that they openly professed their faith and lived it by example. Just an example of the criteria we could use is asking the question: Does the person I am considering voting for tithe? This is just a small part of our faith but is the one that says do we put our money where our mouth is. If we look at the giving (tithing) of our current leadership (Pres and VP) we might use that as one criteria about their faith walk. They are obviously able to give based on the salaries and other perks they receive. But do they? Tithing is just one example of our faithfulness and is not all-inclusive. There are many ways we can example our faith but it is interesting that Jesus talks more about man and his money (possessions) than most anything else.
The most important criteria for us to look for in the people we are voting for is “Do they love God the Father with all their heart, soul, mind and strength and do they love their neighbor as they love themselves.” This criteria leads us all to give (sometimes until it hurts) whether it is love, money or time. If we claim to be Christian we should live our lives differently and look for people to support who also example the love for God and neighbor.
Have a blessed week by walking in His will,
Pastor Randy
Tags:America, Blessings, church, devotional, God, integrity, Jesus, love, Luke, meditation, methodist, Scripture readings per Revised Common Lectionary, united
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August 13, 2013
I ran across this short article in reference to this weeks Gospel reading from Luke 12:49-56. Just wanted to share it with you. Have a blessed day, Randy
Thank God for those free thinkers throughout Christendom who have brought fire upon the earth, the early Church and the Catholic Church which has prevailed for almost 2000 years holding the banner of Christ.
Martin Luther, who called the church back to a Gospel which emphasized grace rather than works. John Wyclif and William Tyndale, who against the wishes of church leadership produced the Bible in the language of the people. William Wilberforce, against the will of many within the church, fought the evil ravages of the institution of slavery. Hudson Taylor, who dared to adopt the customs and culture of the people to whom he was a missionary. He converted people to Jesus, not to Western culture. He changed the focus of foreign missions. Men like John and Charles Wesley, Charles Finney, and Spurgeon, who called upon their churches to reform. They woke the world with their fiery preaching.
These men were trouble makers. Thinkers. Applecart shakers. Men who muddied the water just like Jesus. Heroes of the faith, we now call the, because they were not afraid of division. They knew Jesus did not come to bring peace but a sword. In other words: Truth. God’s truth is like that. It is a double edged sword. What sounds like peace, the peace that Christ gives, really isn’t peace as the world would have it. It is peace as God would have it. And what kind of peace is it that God wants? He wants the peace that exist between you and Him when the weight of your sins no longer are a snare and you can run with endurance the race set before you.
Brett Blair
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August 3, 2013
Are you an Active Prayer who listens???
God is not passive, and neither are we. In fact, Jesus calls us to an active life. We tend to think of prayer as a passive affair, which in many ways it is. After all, prayer is listening before it is speaking. However, it is active listening. You know the difference between passive and active listening? Passive listening is the husband who has one ear to the television when his wife speaks. Passive listening is the wife who has her “to do” list between her and her spouse. Passive listening is the young person who hears everything through ears that are “bored” with anything and everything that isn’t more exciting than what is possible.
Active listening, on the other hand, is giving 100% attention, and facing toward the One who speaks, putting aside remote-controls, “to do” lists, and boredom. Active listening is anything but passive. It’s really hard work, when you think about it. It’s not “zoning out.” Far from it. Prayer is, in part, active listening. How do you receive daily bread from God, if you’re not faced in his direction, attentively reaching out? How does forgiveness become a reality if we don’t step into it – and how are we to step into it if we’re not walking in the direction of, toward the One from whom forgiveness flows? The Lord’s prayer, whether it be the version Matthew remembers, or the one Luke recalls, encourages active movement toward God on our part.
Peter L. Haynes, Asking…Seeking…Knocking
Tags:forgiveness, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, listening, meditation, Prayer
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July 24, 2013
The first two paragraphs are from a sermon by Leonard Sweet and the rest is mine.
What you do is your history. What you set in motion is your legacy.” Are you just pouring concrete or building a skyscraper?
Every one of us wants to leave a “legacy.“ Something that outlasts our biological lives and can somehow continue to declare “I was here.” For a very few this is achieved through intellect or infamy, greatness or great sacrifice. But for those of us who know we are not Augustine or Martin Luther, or Christopher Columbus or George Washington or Albert Einstein or Martin Luther King, Jr. — we still have a gateway to a large-than-life memory. What is it?
Our story.
Our family. Our siblings. Our spouses. Our children. Our great-grandchildren. Our “story,” our life goes on, because we are remembered and recounted in the memories, in the roots, branches and leaves, of our family tree.
Our family tree (our grandchild Lila Jane) has just grown by one. The births of our children and grandchildren are times for us to stop and reflect on the legacy we leave behind. How will we be remembered? How will you be remembered?
I hope to be remembered as someone who loved family very much because I loved God and the savior, His Son. I hope that family will recognize that love for God in me, my love for them and be able to pass those two traits on to those who come after them. That is what I want my legacy to be.
As Christians, we are called to show God’s love for all peoples to each and everyone we meet. Go out and leave a legacy of love for family, friends, neighbors and our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Have a blessed day in Jesus Christ,
Pastor Randy
Tags:children, God, grace, grandchildren, Holy Spirit, Jesus, legacy, love, neighbor
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June 4, 2013
Jane and I were at the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church last week in Houston. We were staying in the Hotel Americas there at the George Brown Convention Center. A very nice place to spend 3 days. As you can tell from the picture above we were staying in a room facing the west. Normally I am not fond of the Houston skyline but when God says to pay attention to how He can clean up this world and turn whatever we make into a thing of beauty, I have to take a picture. Yes, it is another sunset picture that just made my day.
At conference we heard Kenda Creasy-Dean speak. She is a professor of Theology at Princeton University and I believe she specializes in youth. She spoke in reference to her book “Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church.” She speaks to the issues of teenagers not practicing the faith that they were brought up in as they mature into young adults. She also speaks to the issues of the parents who raised those children and how they exampled their faith to those children. Not just whether or not the children were raised in church but how the parents own faith was lived out in everyday life. She mentioned the fact the we as believers are translators of our Gospel but I believe that we must be translations of the Gospel message. Everything we do should reflect the Gospel message of love for the world that Jesus taught us. That before everything else God must come first and love of our neighbor is to follow. We will then be a living translation of the Gospel Message.
Are you living the Gospel Message? Are you that living translation that people will see and say “wow” that person sure is different from most of us? Yes we are called to be different from the rest of the world! Jesus Christ was different. Because of Jesus Christ the Apostles were different and because of them and many others who were different the world is a better place. Don’t lose focus on who God calls you to be and you too can make a difference for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Most especially in those you are around everyday.
Don’t be an “Almost Christian” and most importantly don’t be responsible for others being “Almost Christians.”
Please meditate and pray about your own faith walk and have a blessed day,
Pastor Randy
Tags:Almost Christian, Blessings, church, Conference, devotional, focus, God, Gospel, Houston Texas, integrity, Jesus, john, Lectionary, Lord's, love, meditation, methodist, peace, Scripture readings per Revised Common Lectionary, Spiritual growth, united
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May 20, 2013
This Sunday is Trinity Sunday. Do you understand the Trinity. Some don’t so here is an explanation.
If you really want an explanation of the Trinity, the best one possible comes from the great mind of C. S. Lewis who undertook that task in his book Mere Christianity seventy years ago. He writes, “An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God, that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. The whole threefold life of the three‑person Being is actually going on in that ordinary act of prayer.”
That’s as good an explanation of the Trinity as you and I are apt to get and it is still too complicated for most of us. So as you pray, remember it is God’s Holy Spirit prompting you to get in touch with Him. It is through God’s Son that we are made more deeply aware of the love language that God wants us to be a part of in our lives. So the Trinity is God, God’s Son the Word and the connection to us through the Holy Spirit. Clear now? Well perhaps if you are still curious it is the Holy Spirit touching you now.
Have a blessed and peace filled day,
Pastor Randy
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April 29, 2013
I ran across this illustration and thought I would share it with you.
The Peace of Christ in a World of Chaos – John 14:23-29
One of the best newspaper cartoons of all time is Calvin and Hobbes. One day Calvin and Hobbes come marching into the living room early one morning. His mother is seated there in her favorite chair. She is sipping her morning coffee. She looks up at young Calvin. She is amused and amazed at how he is dressed. Calvin’s head is encased in a large space helmet. A cape is draped around his neck, across his shoulders, down his back and is dragging on the floor. One hand is holding a flashlight and the other a baseball bat.
“What’s up today?” asks his mom.
“Nothing, so far,” answers Calvin.
“So far?” she questions.
“Well, you never know,” Calvin says, “Something could happen today.” Then Calvin marches off, “And if anything does, by golly, I’m going to be ready for it!”
Calvin’s mom looks out at the reading audience and she says, “I need a suit like that!”
That’s the way many of us feel as we see the news and deal with life. Sometimes this world seems quite violent and people seem to be at each other’s throats. A suit like that would help, so we can say with Calvin, “Whatever may come my way, I’m going to be ready for it! Bring it on!”
Well, I don’t have a suit like Calvin’s to give you this morning, but I do have word for this morning: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
There is a defining phrase in that statement. One that tells us what kind of peace it is that Christ gives us. Listen to it again and see if you can pick it out: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” The defining phrase is: “Not as the world gives.” Do you see how that defines God’s peace? The world promises peace through the rule of law. Law and order is the only way for a society and a people to experience peace and law and order must be kept by the aggressive use of force. That’s the only way that the world can bring about peace.
But here is how Jesus will give you peace. If you obey his word He and the Father will come to you and make a home with you. Right in your heart. Not by force but by choice. They will abide in your heart bringing peace. The world’s peace is peace through strength. The Lord’s peace is peace through surrender…
Tags:Blessings, church, devotional, God, integrity, Jesus, john, Lectionary, Lord's, love, meditation, methodist, peace, Scripture readings per Revised Common Lectionary, Spiritual growth, united
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April 24, 2013
Wow! Was last week something else! I have been doing a lot of pondering over the events that unfolded last week with the Marathon bombings, West, Texas explosion and the tragic death of one of our church members in a car accident. If you watch the news it doesn’t take long to begin to feel an oppressive weight come over you. So much news about the negative side of our human existence/life. It makes me wonder how people who don’t know that there is a better place after this life can go on functioning in a world gone so wrong. It makes me wonder why people support belief systems that teach such hate and use such destruction to carry a message that should be positive. It makes me wonder at the selfless giving that people will do even when faced with such tragedy. When a hatefilled act like the Boston Marathon bombing takes place there are always people who will immediately respond to the injured needs. When a fire and explosion happen there are people who will respond and put themselves at risk of life and limb. When either type of tragedy strikes, whether it is accidental or purposeful, people respond in all sorts of ways in order to help because they care. So, why do they care? I believe it is the Holy Spirit prompting them. Prompting them even if they don’t believe in God or the Holy Spirit or Jesus Christ as their Savior. I believe that the Holy Spirit prompts all peoples to do the good and right things and we even listen to it sometimes. For those of us who believe we must listen proactively, be ready to act as the Spirit leads us and really try to be the positive influence in the world that Christ calls us to be. For those who don’t believe continue to do the good and right things that you feel led to do. If both are listening and being led into the good and right things to do then the world will be a better place.
Have a blessed day,
Pastor Randy
Tags:America, Bless, bombings, boston, church, God, Jesus, love, methodist, Spiritual growth, study, texas, tragedy, united, west
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April 10, 2013
Sunset on Canyon Lake last summer. Looking forward to this summer.
John 21:15-19
Jesus and Peter
15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” 19 (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”
There is a lot of speculation around what Jesus is actually trying to get across to Peter. I am going to bottom line it for you according to what I think. Jesus wants us to love God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. Then He wants us to follow His example. Loving the Holy Trinity is not an option. Living a life that does not show love for your neighbor is not an option. Not necessarily the meaning of asking three times but who knows? What we do know is that Jesus exampled His love for the Father in Heaven to His disciples and us. He fed the children physically and spiritually. He tended to His disciples and He fed them as well. Could He mean communion, The Last Supper or teaching and preaching. Perhaps all? Maybe Jesus was helping Peter forgive himself for denying Christ three times. Psychology 101?
Lots of questions and lots of answers. Theologians have plenty of thoughts but I am more interested in what you think. What are some answers you can come up with after a little meditation on the Word?
Let me know what you think by commenting below…and have a blessed day.
Pastor Randy
Tags:breakfast, fish, Jesus, john, Lectionary, love, meditation, methodist, Peter, preach, question, teach, united
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April 3, 2013
Our new roof. Looks good, huh! You can see the difference in the home page picture. No doubters around here about the work we had done. See my thoughts about a biblical doubter below.
Have you really ever thought about Thomas or his doubt. Maybe we need to look closer at who Thomas was and really what his faith was.
When Jesus turned his face toward Jerusalem the disciples thought that it would be certain death for all of them. Surprisingly, it was Thomas who said: “Then let us go so that we may die with him.” It was a courageous statement, yet we don’t remember him for that. We also fail to point out that in this story of Thomas’ doubt we have the one place in the all the Gospels where the Divinity of Christ is bluntly and unequivocally stated. It is interesting, is it not, that the story that gives Thomas his infamous nickname, is the same story that has Thomas making an earth shattering confession of faith? Look at his confession, “My Lord, and my God.” Not teacher. Not Lord. Not Messiah. But God! It is the only place where Jesus is called God without qualification of any kind. It is uttered with conviction as if Thomas was simply recognizing a fact, just as 2 + 2 = 4, and the sun is in the sky. You are my Lord and my God! These are certainly not the words of a doubter. These words exclaim his true belief. Just like Thomas don’t we often have doubts even though we still believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. When faced with tragedy don’t we look for proof that Jesus is still alive and with us.
Thomas got his proof. Have you gotten yours? Reach out to Jesus and see if He is still alive in your heart. Jesus is there with you and all you have to do is accept Him as your savior. Do it today! You will be one of those blessed because they have believed and even though they have not seen Him. Amen
Pastor Randy
Tags:doubt, faith, heart, Jesus, methodist, personal, relationship, roof, Thomas, united, Wesley
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Wesley United Methodist Church, Orange TX 