Pump It Up!

For the final 2 years of seminary, I worked for my father-in-law's septic contracting company. This experience was nothing short of interesting! Most of our jobs were installing new septic systems at homes that were in the final stages of construction. These jobs were not too bad! I enjoyed learning the whole process of the septic systems - they are actually much more detailed than you would think! The new construction jobs were relatively enjoyable; the service calls on existing systems, were not. For the obvious reasons. Yuck.

When the call would come in that someone's septic system was backed up into their house, you can pretty much guarantee that you are heading into hostile territory. No one takes a backed up septic too well. So, we would arrive and try to diagnose the problem, and most of the time, probably more often than not, the problem was with the pump. Septic systems have a pump that moves the, shall we say, 'septic material', from the tank out to the drainfield. If the pump is not working, no 'septic material' is going anywhere, and the drainfield is dry. Thus, it comes back into your house. Yuck.

Now, I can pretty much guess what you are thinking at this point. You are wondering how we are going to go from 'septic material' and drainfields, to getting to a devotional thought for the day. I am starting to wonder that too, but I have a plan in motion, no worries!

You see, pumps in septic tanks have a job to do: they disperse 'septic material' out to a drainfield where it makes some of the greenest grass you can imagine! If it's not working right, you have a major problem on your hands (well, a major problem on your bathroom floor, actually).

If you are a Christian, you have a job to do: you are disperse the good news of the gospel out to a mission field of people who don't know the Savior, where those fields are white unto harvest! If you aren't working right, you have a major problem on your hands (well, a major problem in your heart, actually).

I fear that way too many of us have weak gospel pumps, and may need to call the repairman to come and evaluate our focus. Thankfully, changing out a pump isn't too difficult, even in the midst of a stinky septic tank, and it's even easier to change you spiritual pump. You don't even have to get your hands dirty! All that is required is a recognition of the need to change, and the motivation to do something about it. Here's your motivation: When Christ died on the cross, he took our punishment upon Himself. He died, was buried, and rose again in demonstration of His power of sin and death. Just as God raised Jesus from the dead, so God is making all things new! Including your pump.

Set the pump setting to 'high' today and outflow your love to someone who needs it. Let someone benefit from your high performance pump and share that good news with someone!

Blue Ribbon Pumpkins!

Among all the various hats I wear, I decided this year to put on the gardener hat. This year, as I look out my kitchen window, I have the pleasure of seeing a massive garden. A garden that is just about 900 square feet. Yeah, that's no joke. This thing is huge! As intimidating as it was knowing that I was going to have to work that garden, I found some sense of excitement as I planted and watered and protected it from birds and other critters. We bought mostly starter plants that had begun growing and planted them, and now we are waiting for their return.

Two sections of the garden are potatoes: one section is sweet potatoes, and the other is white potatoes. These are the most frustrating for me because you have to wait until August to reap the benefit! Other plants, like peppers and string beans, are already showing signs of life and I saw one bean already yesterday! It's an exciting thing when your work comes to reality.

As I was driving by the garden on the way to church this morning, I had an interesting thought: Being a gardener is a whole lot like being a pastor. Now, obviously they are much different, but hear me out on the interesting epiphany I had as I drove the next 4 miles past the garden to my office at church. As a pastor, it is my job to look out for the people in the congregation. I encourage them, visit them, pray for them, and help them any way that I can. All of these things are with the intent to grow them to be more mature as Christians, as well as individuals. You probably saw this comparison coming. This is the obvious, not-so-profound comparison. Here's the one that grabbed me this morning: I don't know which of my plants in the garden are going to be successful. I want every one of them to thrive and grow, but some will not be very abundant, or some may just wither away, but there are those who will take that Miracle Gro that I fed them and grow incredibly. Those prize winning giant pumpkins that you see in the newspaper came from the same garden that produced a few duds, too.

The profundity and challenge is not to focus only on the successful parts of the garden, and I think we err on that side of gardening, as well as ministry. It's very easy to take a picture of my beautiful red hot chili pepper plants and post it on Facebook, but I am certainly not going to put any pictures of the sweet potato plant that my son pulled out and planted in a new spot that currently sports a yellowy-brown hue.

Here's the challenge: if I put them in my garden, they're my concern. If God put you in my church, then you're my concern! But don't forget the part where the illustration breaks down. In my garden, I'm responsible for everything that goes on. In our church, you can help the other plants, I mean people, to grow and thrive! Paul writes in Galatians (In the Pastor Chris Paraphrase that fits the blog this morning) If someone is withering in their spiritual garden, you who are healthy can help them grow to make the garden successful!

Look around your garden and see who you are planted next to. Can you encourage them? Have they been pulled up by a 3 year old and planted elsewhere? Have they been picked at by some pesky critters? Chances are, you'll need some extra care soon. We can't all be prize winning pumpkins, but we can encourage each other towards that!

Galatians 6:1 "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness..."

Words with Friends!

Words are very important. Words can be strung together in such a way that they can encourage, motivate, entertain, or simply just inform others. I love words. On my ipad, I have no less than 6 applications that have to do with word games, and I have one on my cell phone. My wife and I play Scrabble so much, that when we play with friends, we are constantly being challenged as to the validity of a word because it's a rare word, or a strange use of a 'q' without a 'u' following it (and yes, there are several!). We use words every day - they are pretty important!

We get excited when our little children begin saying words that seemingly only their parents can understand, but they are still words to them! We get excited when our children move on to correctly conjugating sentences and utilizing proper tense in their various verb usages, and even employing the proper article at the proper location (please don't tell me I am the only one who gets excited about this...). Words are the very life blood of society, and without them we would be completely confounded and unable to communicate intelligently.

This morning, I want to talk about the word "ish".  In Hebrew, ish means man, but that has nothing to do with the blog today. Ish is that little suffix that we tack on to a word when we don't want to be specific about something:

"I'll be to your house about 6-ish..."
"That meal only has about 1200-ish calories..."
"We drove about 500-ish miles today..."

The little ending 'ish' completely negates the specificity of the word it's attached to. Arriving at my house at 6-ish for a dinner that you were invited to at 6 makes you late; however, an 'ish' on the end seems to magically cover your lateness! Many diets have been destroyed because of 'ish' calories!

If we transfer this to practical Christianity, the question this morning is, Are you a Christian, or are you an Ish-tian? One of them is the real deal, completely authentic, and genuinely devoted to the things of the Lord. The other is the one that has a convenient Christianity. Church doesn't interfere with their busy schedule because it's the first thing to go. Their Bible stays in the car because they'll need it next Easter when they go to church. They throw out Christian words when they need to, but forget them in the 'real life' situations. You know these people, and I know these people. Let's do our best not to be these people!

The question for you today: Are you a Christian, or are you an Ish-tian?

Living out loud

Television has become very sitcom light, and reality show heavy. Most of the shows on tv these days seems to be a reality show in which someone gets sent home by a majority vote, or a panel of judges. In a cursory observation of a six day period on tvguide.com, I saw a bunch of listings of reality shows: Wipeout, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, America's Best Dance Crew, America's Got Talent, Chopped, Kitchen Nightmares, Parking Wars, and the list goes on! We have been inundated with reality tv! However, the one that jump-started the whole reality genre has to be Survivor. (Disclaimer: I am not promoting, supporting, encouraging, or in any way inviting anyone to watch Survivor; I am using the show as a reference for the blog) This show has been on since May 2000, and has given away a pile of money, and has made some contestants famous. It features exhibitions of strategy, stamina, endurance, brain power, and at times, deception. This is the 11th year, and 22nd season of Survivor, and this one is breaking new ground. Why, you ask?

Well one of the contestants, Matt, lives out loud as a Christian. This guy has made no attempts to hide the importance of his relationship with Christ. From day one in Nicaragua, he humbly informed his teammates that he was a Christian. He is on camera praying, he is on camera sharing his faith to other members of his tribe, he is on camera asking God for strength, and then winning challenges and giving God the credit. This kid is a testimony and a half! Because of his overt Christianity, two other Christians made their faith public, and one female contestant, upon getting voted out, said that she wanted what Matt has, and has currently found a church to attend in her area! The reason this Survivor is breaking new ground is because of the Christian influence. Don't get me wrong, there are still other contestants on the show who are ungodly, but the breath of fresh air of unashamed Christians on the island is such an encouragement.

The challenge for this morning is this: why is it that we get that nervous feeling in the pit of our stomachs when we bow our heads to pray at a restaurant? Why is it that you never invite your friends to church, or tell your co-workers that you go to church? If a 22 year old can live out loud as a follower of Christ, on national television, in front of 10.99 million people (last episode's number of viewers), then shame on us for hiding our light under a bushel in front of 10.

Today, live out loud for Jesus, and see what happens!


Christianity Today interviewed Matt April 26th, check out his comments! http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/movies/interviews/2011/hardplacetobe.html

Go Yankees!

I am a big sports fan. I enjoy watching sports, playing sports, and talking about sports. I enjoy being a New York Yankees fan and talking to Boston Red Sox fans, and I hope at some point in my life to go to a Yankees vs. Red Sox game before I die.

When you watch baseball, particularly the Yankees, very often one of the batters in their All-Star lineup will swing as hard as they can and make contact with the ball and it sails out of the ballpark into the stands, awakening a sea of hands and arms hoping to catch the ball and bring it home as the one souvenir at the ballpark that they can actually afford! The announcers will often speak of the batter hitting the sweet spot on the bat as they sent the ball into short orbit. This ever elusive 'sweet spot' is the place on the bat that it the prime spot for contact. There isn't a specified 'sweet spot zone' on the Louisville Slugger, but you just seem to know it when you find it because of the results that it shows.

There's a lot of mechanics in baseball to the art of batting, but the one element to level the playing field is the bat. It's kind of a standard in the game. The rules say that the bat "can be no more than 2.75 inches in diameter at the thickest part and no more than 42 inches in length. It typically weighs no more than 33 ounces." On some days the sweet spot feels like the entire bat and you can do no wrong; on some days, that sweet spot feels like an ever elusive dream.

If we take this sweet spot out of professional baseball, and bring it into a practical Christianity context, we can identify that we have a God-ordained sweet spot! This is a place of intersection where God has called us to live in and function out of. We cannot be anything we want to be, or even anything people want us to be. But we can be everything God created us to be, and this only happens as we are operating in our sweet spot. When we identify and reside in that sweet spot, we will find ourselves in a prime spot to be faithful in our walk with the Lord, and we will find ourselves having success as we go through our everyday events.

Now, remember, this sweet spot is ever elusive, and some times will be working for you, but other times it's going to be tough! Work through the tough times, and thrive on those sweet spot moments when you feel like you can knock one out of the park over the center field wall.

Next time you check out a baseball game on ESPN or attend a Little League game, think about your God ordained sweet spot, and evaluate your spiritual home run average. Also, if any of you have any Yankees vs. Red Sox tickets you'd like to part with, I would most willingly take them off your hands!

Food Lovers Unite!

I love food. I love cooking food and eating food. I love cooking shows, trying new recipes, practicing new methods of preparing food, and shopping for kitchen stuff. I know that "real men" don't cook, they only grill, so I have been told, but I also have heard in my life that boys don't play piano, wear pink, or carry their wife's purse. If that's the case, then I am not a real man. Oh well. No worries on my end.

Because of my intense fascination with food, I can look to the source of food, the very creator of food, and gather a few thoughts: First, God is incredibly lavish with His creativity to us! We could live our entire lives eating biscuits and water and be sustained and full for our entire lives. This has carbohydrates and sugars and the necessary nutrition for our daily lives. But given the opportunity to eat either a biscuit for appetizer, a biscuit for my entree, and a biscuit for my dessert or oysters Rockefeller for an appetizer, a medium rare Delmonico steak marinated all day in a flavorful marinade for my entree, and a strawberry balsamic reduction over vanilla ice cream, I would choose the latter every time. God had created some incredible foods and food combinations.

Another thought is that God has been awfully generous to us. Did you know you can eat dandelion leaves? Did you know that sweetbreads are not sweet, nor bread, but are a combination of animal organs, and it actually is rather tasty? Did you know that there is a coffee bean that starts out poisonous until a jungle animal, called the civet cat, eats it, digests it, and shall we say, expels it, making it not poisonous, able to be processed, and sold for about $150 a pound! God has put so many things on this planet that we can eat, and as we sit to thank Him for our meals, we should thank Him for His creativity and generosity!

The entire human race was plunged into sin due to food, remember Adam and Eve and the bite of fruit from the forbidden tree? Food is important to understanding our depravity, but it is also key in understanding our redemption! We have been invited to a feast of God in heaven, but that invitation comes at a price, namely the death of Jesus on the cross. As you sit at your meals today, think of the creativity and generosity of the Creator, as well as the coming feast. Do you have an invitation to this lavish meal? I hope you do!

Important Messages

As a youngster, I had a few aspirations in life for what I wanted to be when I grew up. Of course I wanted to be a fireman, like every other young boy. Sirens, dalmatians, and fire? This is the definition of excitement for a young boy! After I realized the danger of fire, I backed away from that dream and wanted to be a journalist. I don't have any idea why, other than perhaps getting to wear a black fedora hat with a 3x5 card sticking out of it that says 'press' and having the nickname "Scoop". I'm not sure, but this morning I was thinking about that career path. What a busy week this has been for journalism! First, the Royal Wedding that seemed like something straight out of a fairy tale, I'm told. I was not one of the early risers to watch it. I had one, and it was royal enough for me! Then the week started off by proving Obama was alive, and yesterday, proving Osama was not. If I were a journalist, I would have calloused fingers from all the typing I would have done over the last 10 days or so trying to cover all of the details of every single event that transpired this week! The most important message for a day or two was the wedding in England, and then the most important message for a day or two was President Obama's birth certificate. Currently, the death of Osama bin Laden is the most important message for us to keep current on! It's tiring trying to play the "What's-the-ever-changing-most-important-message-of-the-week" game!

Thankfully, for Christians, the most important message hasn't changed. We have enough to keep current on - sports, stocks, politics, religion, children, schooling, work - we don't need to wonder what the message is this week. The Apostle Paul tells us what the message is as he writes in 1 Corinthians 15, informing us that the gospel is that "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and that He rose again the third day..." This is the message that has been the most important message, and will continue to be the most important message throughout eternity.

So, if you are feeling particularly journalistic today, grab a pen and a card and share the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus with someone who needs it. You can talk about Obama, Osama, or your mama later on. Just get that message of the gospel out of your hands and share it with someone today!