DESCRIBING JESUS

Years ago during a routine confirmation class, I asked a dozen ninth graders to watch a video version of Jesus cleansing the temple. His face flushed with anger, Jesus proceeded to thrash moneyboxes, tables, and pigeon cages. Then I told my 15-year-olds to describe Jesus in five words. They rattled off the usual answers: "Jesus is loving, caring, gentle, nice, sweet, kind..." After a few minutes of sharing, Aaron, who is normally the quietest kid in the class, couldn't stand it anymore. "Hey, you guys," he blurted out, "are you describing Jesus Christ or Barney?"

-- Matthew Woodley


#4589

WELL-BEING IN THE LORD

“For I know the plans I have for you" -- this is the LORD's declaration -- "plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”  (Jeremiah29:11 CSB)

Well-being is found in the renewal of disciplined lifestyles, committed relationships, and the receiving and giving of acceptance. To experience deep well-being is to be self-confident yet unself-conscious, self-giving yet self-respecting, realistic yet hope-filled.

-- David G. Meyers in “The Pursuit of Happiness: Who Is Happy and Why”


#4588

THERE ARE NO PERFECT MOTHERS

“Charm can be deceiving, and beauty fades away, but a woman who honors the Lord deserves to be praised.”  (Proverbs 31:30 CEV)

Our society sees to it that we all grow up with the notion in our head that there were two kinds of mothers: good mothers and bad mothers. Good mothers are loving, nurturing, and all-giving. Bad mothers are self-absorbed, uncaring, and inadequate. Yet most real flesh-and-blood mothers are neither all good nor all bad. Most mothers I know want desperately to be their best selves -- full of love and genuine concern. Yet the absolute dependency and endless demands of a child require every mother to give, at times, without getting anything immediate or tangible in return. No other relationship calls for endless giving and attention like that of raising and caring for a child. We expect mothers to spend their lives caring selflessly for their children without complaint....

This coming Sunday... churches... will extol the virtues of motherhood. The poem about the tireless, self-sacrificing wife and mother in Proverbs 31:10-31 will be read from pulpits and every mother attending church will nod her head publicly in agreement but berate herself privately for every instance in her mothering when she failed to live up to the biblical ideal. [Mothers need to be reminded] that there are no perfect mothers, that God knows and understands how hard it is to be expected to give unceasingly with little to nothing in return.

-- Dr. Renita Weems

#4587

CHRIST’S POWER IN OUR WEAKNESSS

The Apostle Paul wrote: “Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time He said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  (2 Corinthians 12:8-10 NLT)

That last sentence is the payoff -- the wisdom God taught Paul. God is always strong, but in our weakness that strength goes viral. The world sees that it is not about anything but Christ. At the end of me, I find strength in God that I never would have experienced otherwise…

As I’ve thought and studied over the years, I’ve changed my mind in some ways. Once I would have made the case that God works despite our weaknesses. Or God works around our weaknesses. But that’s not a strong enough statement. It’s not the real point. God doesn’t demonstrate His strength even though we’re weak -- He demonstrates it precisely through the weakness.

-- Kyle Idleman in “The End of Me”


#4586

SPIRITUAL JUNK FOOD

“These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm -- shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted -- twice dead.”  (Jude 12 NIV)

Godless men had slipped into the church, misleading the [congregation], seducing them to believe they could continue to sin and never receive God’s correction. Jude called these false teachers “shepherds who feed only themselves.”

Can you imagine a shepherd sitting on a barren hill, hungry animals all around him, enjoying his lunch? The baas and bleating would be almost deafening. He’d have to care for them.

Unlike sheep, people who fall in with wrong teaching rarely recognize the emptiness of what they’re taking in. Instead, they keep following, filling their hearts with useless calories of spiritual junk food, never understanding that they’re barely being fed after all.

Don’t follow these teachers. They’re here today, gone tomorrow. Nothing they do can last, because they aren’t founded on the bedrock of God’s Word.

-- Toni Sortor and Pamela McQuade in “God’s Word for Surviving the Real World”


#4585