Grandfather's Hands

"Parables Please" is now on the radio!

To hear our 15-minute podcast, click on the title line above ("Grandfather's Hands")...which will link you directly to the show's audio.

This show includes "musical parables" by Susan Cantey plus a "modern-day parable"...about how Jesus' hands are so AMAZING!

How Healthy Are You?

The older I get, the more it takes to keep me going.

As a matter of fact, during a one week period recently, it took all of the following...

Tylenol
Eye Drops
Vitamin E
Multiple Vitamins
Rubbing Alcohol
Aspirin
Blue Emu Cream
Neosporin
Hand Lotion
Aleve
Dayquil
Eye Drops
Mouth Salve

Not to mention the various and sundry mouthwashes, toothpastes, deodorants, shave creams, after-shaves, soaps, shampoos and hand sanitizers that I use basically every day.

And the equipment! I need toothbrushes, hair brushes, nail clippers, scissors, flosses, wash cloths, towels, razors, Q-tips, mirrors, and other items that generally fall into the category of "unmentionables."

Funny, but when I was younger, it took so much less stuff to help me stay in relatively good health.

I didn't need as much sleep either...or as much help from my kids with the heavy-lifting around the house.

What happened?

I think I have become J. Alfred Prufrock, the subject of one of my favorite poems. Written in 1917 by T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" includes the following verse...

"I grow old...I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach."

Basically, I wage this battle every single day. It is "me" vs. "me." If I win, I stave off the advance of Prufrock for one more day.

Why do I work so hard at it? Because I want to feel as good as I can for as long as I can.

So I wage the war.

I am willing to do it, willing to do even more, actually, if it helps me stay healthy just one more day.

It has become a priority in my life...and a higher and higher priority with each passing year.

Maybe you can relate.

Of course, when it comes down to it, this is only half the battle. All of these things deal with only the "physical" part of my life.

What about the spiritual "me?"

Do I wage the same kind of war there?

Do I work as hard on my spiritual health as I do on my physical health?

Does it matter as much?

Come to think of it, what equipment do I use to keep my spiritual health up? My Bible? My book of daily devotionals? My church? My service in the Name of Christ?

What do I need every day to stay spiritually healthy? Prayer? Praise? Penitence?

Are these as much a priority for me as my pills, pain-killers and powders?

Obviously, both physical health and spiritual health are extremely important to all of us. But, in the long run, which one is really the MOST important?

Here is how Paul compared our perishable, physical part to our imperishable, spiritual part...

"But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I'll probably never fully understand. We're not all going to die – but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes – it's over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we'll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal."
(1 Corinthians 15:50-54a from The Message, by Eugene H. Peterson)

When I consider what the Bible has to say about my ultimate future, I think I need to start making my spiritual health a higher priority.

Don't you?


Greg

The Good Gardener

It pains me to look out my front door in the spring and summer.

Most days, I try to avoid it as much as possible.

Not that I have a problem with the neighbors. I don't care about teenagers' cars parked in the street. I'm not concerned about any litter that has found its way into my front yard.

I don't even get upset anymore about people who drive way too fast down our cul-de-sac street.

The reason I hate to look out my front door...every single day in the spring and summer...is because I know what I will see popping up in my garden – WEEDS!

I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehate weeds!

No matter how hard I work at trying to get rid of them...no matter how many times I send my son, Jordan, outside with weed-killer in hand...they just keep coming back.

I pull them. They come back.

I spray them. They come back.

I cut them. They come back.

I dig them up. They come back.

Just when I think they are all gone...when I finally feel that I can rest from my weed-whacking...just when I start to feel pretty good about how our garden looks...

...I take a peek out of my front door and there they are, popping up again!

It is a never-ending battle that I just can't seem to win.

In a way, weeds remind me a lot of sin.

Just like weeds, sin keeps popping up in my life no matter how hard I work to get rid of it. I try to pull out sin by the roots, promising myself that I will "never do that again."

But it comes back.

I try to spray out sin by sheer willpower, striving every day to do and say only the "right things."

It comes back.

I cut out sin by praying for help to "be stronger the next time."

It comes back.

I dig out sin by filling my free time with spiritual pursuits.

It comes back.

Like weeds, when I think I have overcome sin...when I finally feel I can rest...when I start to feel good about how well I am doing...

...there it is again, popping up in the garden of my life.

I just can't seem to win this never-ending battle against sin.

And the truth is, I can't win it.

I have a sin nature that is a part of me, no matter how "good" I try to be every day. There is only one way to get rid of these weeds of sin...I have to seek God's forgiveness through my faith in Jesus.

Here is how Paul described it in his letter to the Roman church...

"What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it...I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help!

I realize I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't do it. I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway...something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time...Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions...Those who enter into Christ's being here for us no longer have to live under a continuous black cloud...The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death." (The Message, Romans 7:15-25, 8:1-2 selections)

The good news is that some day, I won't need to worry about the weeds in my garden anymore. When Jesus comes again, He will create a new earth which I believe will be without weeds.

And I will live with Him there, in a place where sin is gone forever too.


Pastor Greg

Channel Surfing

If I position the rabbit ears just right, I can pick up four main stations on the television set in our family room...channels 5, 9, 12, and 19.

But, no matter how long I play around with various combinations of antennae positioning between the two long, straight antennas, the center round antenna, and the calibration dial on the base, in the final analysis, channel 5 is always grainy...channel 9 goes in and out of focus depending on which way the wind blows...and channels 12 and 19 are real troopers, generally giving pretty good reception no matter what.

I must confess that I really do not have a "favorite" among these four local stations. When it comes to television shows, I choose the station based on the program I want to watch, regardless of the channel. For local news and weather, I watch the station which is NOT running a commercial, channel-surfing between all four and, in the process, driving my wife crazy.

Why don't I get cable? That is another story, although you are getting close if you know how to spell the word, "c-h-e-a-p-s-k-a-t-e." This fact has been a never-ending source of embarrassment for my children, ever since they were old enough to realize that their friends were watching shows which they had never heard of.

When the weather turns bad and the snow begins to fall, we turn on the TV early in the morning at our house. We do this so we can see the list of closings running along the bottom of the screen on all four channels. Of course, since we can't really read the letters clearly on channels 5 and 9 due to the grainy or out-of-focus pictures, we are usually glued to either channels 12 or 19.

If the bad weather hits on a Sunday, it is my job as the pastor to contact these four stations whenever we need to cancel a service. The process of getting on those television lists is quite interesting.

Channels 5 and 19 are happy to take the information over the phone. No questions asked. Just call the news desk, give them the information, and in a matter of minutes, "Walnut Hills Baptist Church" shows up every time their lists finally roll around to the "W's."

Channel 9, however, refuses to take closing requests over the phone. If you want your church's name added to their list, you must submit the information via email. Unfortunately, finding the proper email address on their website is like finding the proverbial "needle in a haystack." Still, if you follow the rules, you can get on their list.

Channel 12, on the other hand, is a different story altogether. The only way to get on their list is to have a special ID number...and to know the double-secret probation password. From their standpoint, this is an important process because it is a safeguard against "just anyone" putting our church on the closings list. In their minds, it keeps those cagey choir members from calling the station and cancelling a service just because they don't really feel like singing (or hearing the sermon) that day. No ID number...no password...no listing.

In a way, these television stations are not unlike some religions. The way they handle their closings has a similarity to the way some religions handle their beliefs.

For example, some religions, or religious denominations, require that their members possess some type of secret knowledge known only to them. It is through this secret understanding of scripture...this secret code...this secret key...this secret password or handshake or belief system that makes it possible for them to approach God and get into heaven. Theirs is a channel 12 faith.

On the other hand, some religions or denominations require a strict observance of a specific set of rules and regulations. You must "do" this. You must not "do" that. God is available to you and heaven is possible only if you follow the prescribed path without deviating. Theirs is a channel 9 faith.

The problem is that Jesus did not go to the cross so He could make God available to only a select few people who have a certain secret knowledge. And He did not die on Calvary to give us a new set of rules and regulations to meticulously follow if we want to get to heaven.

Instead, Jesus came to die so that EVERYONE who wants to be on HIS list, can be.

There is no secret...the way to get on God's list, the list of everlasting life, has been proclaimed for centuries. There is no long and grueling set of rules which must be followed or else. There is only one rule: Realize that through Jesus, and what He did on the cross, you can have your sins forgiven and by so doing, enter into God's presence for eternity.

Jesus, by what He did on the cross, opened the way to heaven for us all.

Paul put it this way in his letter to the Ephesians..."In Him (in Jesus) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses."

In his book, "Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die," author John Piper describes it like this..."Forgiveness costs us nothing. All our costly obedience is the fruit, not the root, of being forgiven. That's why we call it grace. But it cost Jesus his life. That is why we call it just. Oh, how precious is the news that God does not hold our sins against us! And how beautiful is Christ, whose blood made it right for God to do this!"

That is a channel 5 and channel 19 faith...available to all who call.

May this be the kind of faith you know in your walk with God. If it is, you will be on HIS list when the "roll is called up yonder!"


God's blessings,

Pastor Greg

Easter Faith

Easter faith is a pretty faith. We dress up our Easter faith today. We put it in a new suit or put a
brightly-colored bonnet on it. It is pretty and easy. Perhaps it is too much so.

The Easter faith of Jesus' disciples was not pretty or easy. Theirs was a faith of a bloody cross and a stone-covered tomb. Theirs was a faith of sacrifice.

Actually, during the early encounters of that first resurrection morning, the word of the hour was not "faith," but "doubt." Consider all of the doubt which surrounded that first Easter:
Thomas doubted until he saw with his own eyes, Peter refused to believe the women who returned from the early-morning trip to the tomb, Mary thought she was speaking with the gardener because it "couldn't be" Jesus, and the two pilgrims on the road to Emmaus spent hours walking with Jesus, but didn't recognize him in their own hour of doubt.

Not only did these people doubt the actual event of the resurrection, but they also doubted the promises which Jesus had made to them beforehand. Promises about being raised to life on the third day. Promises of reunion after three days in the earth. So many things are easier to believe. So many promises are more easily kept.

The disciples were overwhelmed by the nature of those promises. They were impossible promises. Incredible. Inconceivable. As dawn broke on that first Resurrection Sunday, everything the disciples knew about life and death said that Jesus was not coming back.

Eventually, the memories of Good Friday faded into the realities of Easter Sunday. By the end of the day, these same people rejoiced not because of the nature of the promises, but because of the nature of the Person who made the promises.

Jesus has made impossible, incredible, inconceivable promises to us today as well. Sometimes, our circumstances in life lead us to the same kind of doubt the disciples experienced. We doubt His promises because, like them, we lose sight of Him.

During our darkest days, when we see only a blood-stained cross and a stone-covered tomb before us, we need to summon strength from our own Easter faith. A faith that believes Jesus' promises not only when it is easy to do so, but also when it requires a sacrifice.

Easter faith believes in Easter promises. Easter promises bring life from death. As our lives become Easter lives, doubt disappears, replaced by a "peace that passeth understanding' and a certainty of eternity.

Happy Easter!

Pastor Greg

Hands of Faith

My grandfather's hands always fascinated me.

There was nothing particularly extraordinary about them physically, except perhaps the field of freckles that dotted them like a haphazard splash of paint on a blank wall.

No, what made them special hands in my eyes was not what they looked like, but what my Grandpa did with them.

My Dad's dad, he worked in the meat department of a grocery store for over 40 years. Back then, we called him a "meat-cutter," but today he would be called a "butcher."

Whenever I visited him at work, his hands would be busy grinding hamburger, or cutting pork chops, or packaging newly sliced T-bone steaks.

When he brought home the fruits of his labor, his hands would soon be busy again, preparing meat for a cookout, lighting the grill, and serving the best meal ever, every time.

On weekends during the summer, our family convened at a one-room, cinderblock cabin, where Grandpa's hands not only did much of the cooking, but also cut grass, painted walls, patched the roof, hauled water, built the dock on the river and the mended the screen porch.

When the work was done, those hands would hold a paperback book, or deal a hand of cards, or shoot a gun, or bait the hook on a fishing line, or guide our motorboat to shore, or pitch a horseshoe into a distant pit.

I loved to watch my Grandpa's hands, no matter what they were doing. They were hard-working hands.

My grandmother, my Mom's mom, had hands that were filled with talent. She knitted beautiful sweaters, crocheted exquisite afghans, did finely detailed needlepoint and painted paint-by-number masterpieces that looked just like the originals.

They were creative hands.

Maybe that is why I have always admired people who use their hands for a living, who make the world around them better through their hard-work and creativity.

Painters, sculptors, electricians, carpenters, cooks, gardeners, tailors, brick-layers, photographers, quilters, musicians, and fishermen all amaze me, along with so many others like them.

Maybe that is also why I have often wondered what Jesus' hands must have been like.

Have you?

Think about what those hands did while they were here on earth!

They healed, they fed thousands from just a few morsels, they washed the disciples' feet, they broke bread and served wine at the last supper. They cradled small children, turned over the money-changers' tables, and were often folded in prayer.

Think about what those hands did while they were in heaven!

They created the stars and the sun and the moon. They molded the continents and raised the mountains. They formed Adam and made Eve. They "knit together" every baby that has ever been born.

Most incredible of all, though, is that those hands were opened and placed on a wood cross, where they were wounded by the piercing pain of cold, hard, steel nails driven through them by one awful hammer blow after another.

And when I consider that Jesus' hands were hurt for me...how He took my place on that cross...when I realize it should have been MY hands that were hit with those hammer blows...

...I find that I can never look at my own hands in the same way ever again.

And I can never look at Jesus the same way, either.

There are so many reasons to love Jesus. For me, one of those reasons is His hands...all the things they did...what they did for me.

When I get to heaven, don't be surprised if I act a lot like the disciple, Thomas, when he first saw Jesus after His resurrection...

"Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord."

But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were...I will not believe it."

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands...Stop doubting and believe."

Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God." (John 20:24-28, NIV)

I want to see Jesus' hands too...not because I doubt...but because I believe!


Pastor Greg

Cold Fries and Cold Lives

The calendar has turned to the cold, cold month of February, and I have been thinking about things that leave me cold. Like...

-- The conversion to digital television
-- Comedians who revert to vulgar language for laughs
-- Preachers who are so proud of themselves
-- People who drive on ice like there is no ice
-- Bad grammar and words spelled incorrectly in the newspaper
-- Dirty restrooms in public places (or, why can't Cracker Barrel do a better job?)
-- Being forced to watch TV commercials at the movies
-- Old, cold french fries

Which begs the question: Why can't I get fresh, hot french fries at a fast food drive-thru?

I mean, these places serve millions and millions of french fries at their drive-thru windows every day...McDonalds, Wendy's, White Castle, Steak n Shake, Burger King, Rally's, Arby's, Frisch's, Chick Fil-A, KFC, Long John Silvers, and so many more and none of them can keep their fries fresh and hot.

Believe me, I have given them all plenty of opportunities to prove me wrong!

Yet, time after time, after time, after time...after time...the same scenario repeats itself: I stop at the drive-thru and wait patiently for my food to come popping out of the window, and as soon as I get it, I drive like a maniac so I can make it home while the fries are still hot.

Only to be disappointed every time.

The fries are not hot. As a matter of fact, it is obvious that they had not been hot the moment they were plopped into the bag. They are limp and lukewarm and rubbery. That doesn't happen in the time it takes to drive home.

Nothing leaves me cold like a cold french fry. Once they lose their heat, there is no way to get it back. There is only one thing you can do with cold fries...throw them away.

Here's the catch...

...if I could find even one place that would hand me hot fries instead of lukewarm fries, I would be their most loyal customer. I would drive through their drive-thru a lot more often.

And, I have a feeling I am not the only one. I have a feeling there are many, many people in the world screaming for hot fries!

Which means, if even ONE restaurant would make it a rule to serve ONLY hot fries at their drive-thru, they would increase their business, make more money, and gain the loyalty of millions of customers!

So, why don't fast food restaurants serve hot fries?

I think it is just the way most companies do business today. Instead of working on ways to MAKE money, businesses today think about how to SAVE money. In the fast food business, they think they can save money by using old fries instead of cooking fresh fries.

They S-T-R-E-T-C-H it.

They "make do." They think those lukewarm fries are "good enough."

The logic goes something like this: They serve lukewarm fries rather than throwing them out...the fewer they throw out, the fewer they cook each day...the fewer they cook each day, the more money they save because they go through fewer fries each day.

But the goal of a fast food business should not be to SAVE fries. Instead, the goal should be to SELL fries!

Hint: If you serve ONLY hot fries at your drive-thru window, you will SELL more fries.

Trying to save fries by serving lukewarm fries = selling fewer fries = less money.

Selling only hot fries = more fries sold = more money.

So why can't I get hot french fries anywhere? Because people are afraid to throw away a few lukewarm fries and just step out in faith that hot fries are the secret to selling more fries.

That is true of our spiritual walk as well.

We want to "make do" with a cold fry faith. We want to make our original commitment to Christ S-T-R-E-T-C-H so that it, alone, will be "good enough" to last us for the rest of our lives!

In the process, we think we are saving something special by holding so tight to that first encounter with our Savior that we never go any further...we don't grow in our walk with Him...and our relationship with Jesus goes from hot, to lukewarm, to cold.

Just like those fries.

And a cold faith leaves God cold just like those cold fries that come through the drive-thru window leave me cold.

How much better it is to keep your faith fresh...to know Jesus more intimately...love Him more fully...and to try to be more like Him.

The secret to a vital walk with Christ is to serve Him only the hot fries of faith, which you keep fresh and hot by the way you seek Him in new and fresh ways every day.

Here is how the author of Hebrews expressed it, as translated into contemporary language...

"By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one – baby's milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God's ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong.

So come on, let's leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ...there's so much more. Let's get on with it!"
(Hebrews 5:11-6:3, selected from "The Message")

Stop craving baby's milk in your relationship with God. Stop saving those old, cold fries! It is not "good enough" for Him.

Instead, step out and give Him the good stuff...give Him the place of priority in your life by pursuing Him in prayer, worship, study, giving, and obedience!

When you do that, even the month of February will not seem so cold, after all!


Pastor Greg