Posts Tagged ‘grace’
Upperroom Daily Devotional 3-23-14
March 23, 2014Pastor’s Ponderings, Wonderings, Wanderings
October 3, 2013
Jane and I are proud grandparents. I guess you can see that by the smiles on our faces. I do want to call attention to the smile, perhaps smirk, on the face of Lila Jane, our newest grandchild. It is as if the look says “Well I have really got it made, these two will be suckers for anything I want”. Shes pretty much right on.
Jane and I love our grandchildren and we will do whatever we can to help them make a good life out of the life that God has given her.
Isn’t that what God wants us to do with all of His children, help them make a good life out of the life that God has given them. Through prayer, meditation and the change of heart that only God can bring about in us, will we be able to help those less fortunate than us. While being a witness to our grandchildren is really important to us, it is just as important to be a good witness to the love God has for all of us to each and every person we encounter every day.
Love your neighbor means what it says. While loving grandchildren might be a lot easier than loving some we meet in our lives, it is still important to show God’s love for us all to the world.
Have a blessed day,
Pastor Randy
Pastor’s Ponderings, Wonderings, Wanderings
September 27, 2013
Henry Ford was known for both his frugality and his philanthropy. He was visiting his family’s ancestral village in Ireland when two trustees of the local hospital found out he was there, and they managed to get in to see him.
They talked him into giving the hospital $5,000 dollars (this was the 1930’s, so $5,000 dollars was a great deal of money). The next morning, at breakfast, he opened his newspaper to read the banner headline: “American Millionaire Gives Fifty Thousand to Local Hospital.”
Ford wasted no time in summoning the two hospital trustees. He waved the newspaper in their faces. “What does this mean?” he demanded. The trustees apologized profusely. “Dreadful error,” they said. They promised to get the editor to print a retraction the very next day, stating that the great Henry Ford hadn’t given $50,000, but only $5,000. Well, hearing that, Ford offered them the other $45,000, under one condition: that the trustees erect a marble arch at the entrance of the new hospital, with a plaque that read, “I walked among you and you took me in.”
A humorous story about a great man and two other men who were shrewder business men than he was. Our scripture lesson from the Lectionary for 9-22-13 was Luke 16:1-13. The manager who got caught with his fingers in the till –so to speak- and got fired. His next step was to get some of his former debtors to be indebted to him by reducing their debt before the Master got the word out about his dismissal. He took his master in also, and was commended for his shrewdness. Jesus tells us, “for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light”.
I am not sure how we should be more shrewd in dealing with our own generation but I do know that if we are faithful in treating others as Jesus asks us to we will be doing all He wants us to do. More importantly we will be faithful to God’s will for us in a secular world where we are called to take people in.
That is to take people into our churches, homes, and hearts.
Have a blessed day in Jesus Christ,
Pastor Randy
Pastors Ponderings, Wonderings, Wanderings
July 24, 2013The 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
Wesley United Methodist Church, Orange TX 