Jackson Rogers, ten, raised enough money to put up a house for the homeless. The young entrepreneur said he took on the fund-raising project for Habitat for Humanity in February when he accepted $100 and a challenge from his pastor at First Presbyterian Church.

“My pastor gave me a hundred dollars and told me to do something good to help someone,” said Jackson, one of several congregants who accepted their pastor’s challenge. They were told to use the money for good and then report on what they did.

At first Jackson’s father was hesitant about letting his son take up such a daunting task, but Jackson was determined. “I was discouraging him from volunteering because I didn’t know what the pastor intended. But he pulled away from me and ran down there,” the father said.

Jackson knew he wanted to help a homeless family. But he wasn’t sure how to do that, so he asked his dad. What they came up with was a letter-writing campaign asking for donations to raise $50,000 to build a house through Habitat for Humanity. Jackson then wrote a letter in his own handwriting on notebook paper. “I used the hundred dollars to buy stamps and paper,” he said. He then sent out letters to friends and family.

One woman was so touched by his letter that she passed it on to several of her friends and colleagues. Soon, people from Tennessee, Virginia, and Idaho were sending in checks. The 170 people who responded contributed a total of $43,000. When the congregation at First Presbyterian learned the little miracle-worker was $7,000 short of his goal, people chipped in the rest.

“A little person can do something really good. You don’t have to wait to be an adult,” said Jackson’s mother.

Let your children do something good, really good.

Michael

I believe that the real difference in the American church is not between conservatives and liberals, fundamentalists and charismatics, or Republicans and Democrats. The real difference is between the aware and the unaware.

When somebody is aware of the love that the Father has for Jesus, that person is spontaneously grateful. Cries of thankfulness become the dominant characteristic of the interior life, and the byproduct of gratitude is joy. We’re not joyful and then become grateful — we’re grateful, and that makes us joyful.

Think today what you are grateful for today.  The joy will come.

Michael

A significant increase can be seen in five of the seven core religious behaviors that the Barna Group has studied over the past decade.

• In 1995, 31 percent of Americans read their Bibles at least once a week outside of a church setting; in 2006, that number jumped to 47 percent.

• In 1996, 37 percent of Americans attended church in a typical week; that number jumped to 47 percent in 2006.

• In 1996, 17 percent of Americans attended a small group outside of Sunday school or Christian education classes; in 2006, 23 percent attended.

• Church volunteerism hit a low of 20 percent in the mid-nineties; in 2006, 27 percent of Americans volunteered in a church setting.

• Sunday school attendance hit a low of 17 percent in 1995 and 1996; it climbed back to 24 percent in 2006.

Somewhat surprisingly, the only two religious behaviors that did not reflect significant change were prayer and evangelism. The number of Americans claiming to have prayed within the last week remained steady — around 84 percent in the period between 1993 and 2006. Similarly, the percentage of born-again Christians who claim to have shared their faith with a nonbeliever remained at about 60 percent in the decade between 1996 and 2006.

With the world thinking that Christians are failure, I thought you should know the truth.

Michael

See you tomorrow at the Great Day of Service

The Message - John 13:35

35 This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."

     Jesus was laying down his farewell commandment to his disciples. The time was short; if they were ever to hear his voice they must hear it now. He was going on a journey on which none might accompany him; he was taking a road that he had to walk alone; and before he went, he gave them the commandment that they must love one another as he had loved them. What does this mean for us, and for our relationships with our fellow-men? How did Jesus love his disciples?

     (i) He loved his disciples selflessly. Even in the noblest human love there remains some element of self. We so often think--maybe unconsciously--of what we are to get. We think of the happiness we will receive, or of the loneliness we will suffer if love fails or is denied. So often we are thinking: What will this love do for me? So often at the back of things it is our happiness that we are seeking. But Jesus never thought of himself. His one desire was to give himself and all he had for those he loved.

     (ii) Jesus loved his disciples sacrificially. There was no limit to what his love would give or to where it would go. No demand that could be made upon it was too much. If love meant the Cross, Jesus was prepared to go there. Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that love is meant to give us happiness. So in the end it does, but love may well bring pain and demand a cross.

     (iii) Jesus loved his disciples understandingly. He knew his disciples through and through. We never really know people until we have lived with them. When we are meeting them only occasionally, we see them at their best. It is when we live with them that we find out their moods and their irritabilities and their weaknesses. Jesus had lived with his disciples day in and day out for many months and knew all that was to be known about them--and he still loved them. Sometimes we say that love is blind. That is not so, for the love that is blind can end in nothing but bleak and utter disillusionment. Real love is open-eyed. It loves, not what it imagines a man to be, but what he is. The heart of Jesus is big enough to love us as we are.

     (iv) Jesus loved his disciples forgivingly. Their leader was to deny him. They were all to forsake him in his hour of need. They never, in the days of his flesh, really understood him. They were blind and insensitive, slow to learn, and lacking in understanding. In the end they were craven cowards. But Jesus held nothing against them; there was no failure which he could not forgive. The love which has not learned to forgive cannot do anything else but shrivel and die. We are poor creatures, and there is a kind of fate in things which makes us hurt most of all those who love us best. For that very reason all enduring love must be built on forgiveness, for without forgiveness it is bound to die.

For those in small groups, review this week's devotions and pick out the one or two insights or questions you discovered this week.  Loving one another is much more than we thought.  It is the highest and greatest challenge of life.  It is the only thing that crosses over.

Think well of your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Michael

Hebrews 6:11 MSG

11 And now I want each of you to extend that same intensity toward a full-bodied hope, and keep at it till the finish.

     There are two interesting things implicit in this passage.

     (i) We learn that even if these people to whom he is writing have failed to grow up in Christian faith and knowledge and even if they have been falling away from their first enthusiasm, they have never given up their practical service to their fellow Christians. There is a great practical truth here.

Sometimes in the Christian life we come to times which are arid; the Church services have nothing to say to us, the teaching that we do in Sunday school or the singing that we do in the choir or the service we give on a committee becomes a labor without joy.

At such a time there are two alternatives. We can give up our worship and our service, but if we do, we are lost. Or we can go determinedly on with them, and the strange thing is that the light and the romance and the joy will in time come back again. We keep right on loving each other and the joy returns.

     (ii) He tells his people to be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherited the promise. What he is saying to them is: "You are not the first to launch out on the glories and the perils of the Christian faith. Others braved the dangers and endured the tribulations before you and won through." He is telling them to go on in the realization that others have gone through their struggle and won the victory. The Christian is not treading an untrodden pathway; he is treading where the saints have trod.

Has any part of your Christian journey become boring?  Have you lost some of the joy?  Love your brothers and sisters and hold firm.  The joy is there.  The purpose is there.  We just have to get our heart back.

Michael

I Peter 2:17

     Here is what we might call a four-point summary of Christian duty.

     (i) Honor all men. To us this may seem hardly needing to be said; but when Peter wrote this letter it was something quite new. There were 60,000,000 slaves in the Roman Empire, everyone of whom was considered in law to be, not a person, but a thing, with no rights whatever. In effect, Peter is saying, "Remember the rights of human personality and the dignity of every man." It is still possible to treat people as things. An employer may treat his employees as so many human machines for producing so much work. Even in a welfare state, where the aim is to do so much for their physical welfare, there is a very real danger that people may be regarded as numbers on a form or as cards in a filing system.

     John Lawrence in his book, Hard Facts, A Christian Looks at the World, says that one of the greatest needs in the welfare state is "to see through the files and forms in triplicate to God's creatures who are at the other end of the chain of organization." The danger is that we fail to see men and women as persons. This matter comes nearer home. When we regard anyone as existing solely to minister to our comfort or to further our plans, we are in effect regarding them, not as persons, but as things. The most tragic danger of all is that we may come to regard those who are nearest and dearest to us as existing for our convenience--and that is to treat them as things.

     (ii) Love the brotherhood. Within the Christian community this respect for every man turns to something warmer and closer; it turns to love. The dominant atmosphere of the Church must always be love. One of the truest definitions of the Church is that it is "the extension of the family." The Church is the larger family of God and its bond must be love. As the Psalmist had it (Ps 133:1):

Behold, how good a thing it is,
     And how becoming well,
Together such as brethren are
     In unity to dwell!

     (iii) Fear God. The writer of the proverbs has it: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Prov 1:7). It may well be that the translation should be, not that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge but that the fear of the Lord is the principal part, the very foundation of knowledge. Fear here does not mean terror; it means awe and reverence. It is the simple fact of life that we will never reverence men until we reverence God. It is only when God is given his proper place in the center that all other things take their proper place.

     (iv) Honor the king. Of the four injunctions of this verse this is the most amazing, for, if it was really Peter who wrote this letter, the king in question is none other than Nero. It is the teaching of the New Testament that the ruler is sent by God to preserve order among men and that he must be respected, even when he is a Nero.

Show a little love today.  Michael

John 14:24

²⁴ Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me. And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me

Tap into the Power

Jim Davis tells the story of a lady who owned a small house on the seashore of Ireland at the turn of the century. She was wealthy, but frugal. When electricity was offered along the coast, some of her friends were surprised that she had it installed in her home. Several weeks after the installation, a meter reader came to her door, and asked if her electricity was working okay. She assured him that it was. He then said, “Could you explain something to me? Your meter shows hardly any usage. Are you sure everything is okay?” “Certainly,” the woman said. “Each evening when the sun sets, I turn on my lights just long enough to light my candles, then I turn them off.” The woman had tapped into the power of electricity, but wasn’t using it. Her house was connected, but her habits had not changed to draw upon that power. If you know Christ, the power of Christ has saved you. Will you let the power of Christ now transform you?

Who Is the One?

When my wife and I got married, we knew we were supposed to be one, but the problem was figuring out which “one” it was! I say that with a twist of humor, but in all seriousness, we had to learn quickly that Christ is the One. He is the decision maker, the head of our marriage, and the head of our family.

Ask God to touch you in these 40 Days.  Michael

I John 4:20

²⁰ If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?

Double the Dose

Evangelist Michael Guido told of a wise physician who once said to a young doctor, “I’ve been practicing medicine for a long time. I’ve prescribed many things. But in the long run, I’ve learned that the best medicine is love.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” asked the friend.

“Double the dose,” he said.

Honored

F. E. Marsh observes, “Love has not an irritating thorn in its hand, nor a jealous look in its eye, nor depreciating words on its lips, nor sore feelings in its heart. Love sees the best in others, and the worst in itself. Love will wash another’s feet, and think it is honored by so doing.”

In Footsteps of a Pilgrim, Ruth Bell Graham began this poem for her mother when she was nineteen—on Mother’s Day, 1940, and finished it thirty-four years later—November 8, 1974, the day she died.

As the portrait is unconscious

of the master artist’s touch

unaware of growing beauty,

unaware of changing much,

so you have not guessed His working

in your life throughout each year,

have not seen the growing beauty

have not sensed it, Mother dear.

We have seen and marveled greatly

at the Master Artist’s skill,

marveled at the lovely picture

daily growing lovelier still;

watched His brush strokes

change each feature

to a likeness of His face,

till in you we see the Master,

feel His presence, glimpse His grace;

pray the fragrance of His presence

may through you seem doubly sweet,

till your years on earth are ended

and the portrait is complete.

May God paint a beautiful picture with you today.

Michael

John 13:34 (BBE)
³⁴ I give you a new law: Have love one for another; even as I have had love for you, so are you to have love one for another.

While Tom Wiles was university chaplain at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona, he picked up Leonard Sweet at the airport in his new Ford pickup to take him to a leadership conference. Since Sweet was still mourning the trade-in of his Dodge truck, the two men immediately bonded, sharing truck stories and laughing at the bumper-sticker truism “Nothing is more beautiful than a man and his truck.” Sweet tells what happened next:

As I climbed into Tom’s 2002 Ranger for the ride back to the airport a day later, I noticed two big scrapes by the passenger door. “What happened?” I asked.

“My neighbor’s basketball post fell on the truck,” Tom replied sadly.

“You’re kidding! How awful,” I said. “This truck is so new I can smell it.”

“What’s even worse is my neighbor doesn’t feel responsible for the damage.”

I immediately rose to my friend’s defense. “Did you contact your insurance company? How are you going to get him to pay for it?” I asked.

“This has been a real spiritual journey for me,” Tom replied. “After a lot of soul-searching and discussions with my wife about hiring an attorney, it came down to this: I can either be in the right, or I can be in a relationship with my neighbor. Since my neighbor will probably be with me longer than this truck, I decided that I’d rather be in a relationship than be right. Besides, trucks are meant to be banged up, so I got mine initiated into the real world a bit earlier than I expected.”

Remember Mary Wheeler in your prayers.  She is recovering from an infection and hospitalized.  Ailene Reynolds should be home.  She had a gall stone removed.  And tomorrow, Marilyn Reedy finally has that knee replaced.

As a part of 40 Days, pray today for someone you don't like.  It is the highest expression of love.  Have a blessed day.

Michael

40 Days of Community

Love is not a definition of God—God is infinitely more—but God is the definition of love. Without Him, love does not exist (John 3:16; 1 John 4:8–10).

Biblical love (Gk. agapē) is active, yet selfless. Though most graphically and fully illustrated in God’s love for us, agap love is also God’s pattern for our love for Him (1 John 4:19) and for our love for one another (Eph. 5:25; 1 Pet. 1:22). Its basis is God’s deliberate, active, sacrificial giving of His Son for our redemption. To be loved by God means that He has set His sights on us and is actively wooing us toward Himself at all times.

God’s love is self-starting (1 John 4:10), indestructible (Rom. 8:38, 39), undeserved (Rom. 3:23), compassionate (Is. 49:15), constant (Jer. 31:3), immeasurable (Eph. 3:18, 19), voluntary (Rom. 5:8), and a gift (John 3:16). He did not begin loving at the Cross, nor will He love us more tomorrow than He does today. There is nothing we can do, think, or say that will change His love because there are no surprises for God—He knows us totally and loves us anyway (Ps. 139:1–5).

The goal of God’s love is to have us with Him throughout eternity (1 John 4:16). He presented and made possible the accomplishment of this goal through Jesus and His sacrifice on the Cross (John 1:14–18).

Deeper love … down to our very soul.

It’s there we have an anchor who will not let us go;

The Lord who calmed the sea is the One who sees us through;

He’s given us … a deeper love.

Diane Machen

Allow yourself to be loved today.  Michael.

Humility the Hard Way

Chuck Colson writes of being invited to preach at tough old San Quentin Prison, an opportunity he greatly anticipated and carefully planned for. Three hundred of the 2,200 inmates had agreed to come to the chapel to hear him. But just days before his arrival, officials uncovered a hidden cache of weapons, and the prison was immediately locked down with inmates confined to their cells.

When Colson arrived at the prison chapel, he was disheartened to find that only a handful of men were able to be present, and they were mostly Christians. His spirits flagged, for he had so hoped to preach the gospel to the unsaved. Struggling with a lack of enthusiasm, he thought Maybe I’ll just give a short devotional, ten minutes or so. I can’t really preach my heart out to this crowd.

But spotting a video camera in the far end of the room, he said to himself, Maybe this is being recorded for the chapel library. Maybe I’d better give it my all. He felt convicted for basing his morale and mood on the outer circumstances rather than the inner impulse of the Spirit, and so he preached with great fervor, as though a thousand inmates were listening.

Later he mentioned to the prison chaplain how disappointed he had been to have missed sharing the gospel with the three hundred men who had originally signed up to attend. “Didn’t you know?” asked the chaplain. “Because of the lockdown, the administration agreed to videotape your sermon. They’ll be showing it to all the inmates tomorrow on closed-circuit television in the morning and again in the afternoon.”

In fact, the sermon was aired not just twice, but nearly a dozen times over the following weeks. Because of the lockdown, not just three hundred but all 2,200 prisoners heard the gospel.

Colson said that he learned three lessons from the incident:

• Mother Teresa is right. God calls us to faithfulness, not to success.

• When our goal is to change society, we often fail. When it is simple obedience to God, He blesses our efforts more than we can envision.

• We should not grow weary in well-doing, for we shall reap a harvest if we faint not.

^{Do not want or envy too much today.  Think about what you already enjoy.}

^Michael

In a world confused about finding love and intimacy, the Word of God is open about the purpose and purity of that sacred relationship. 

Man and woman are radically different physically, emotionally, and spiritually; yet they are designed by God to complement each other. “Become one flesh” combines all aspects of life. It is presented first in the Old Testament (Gen. 2:24) and repeated four times in the New Testament, with the idea not only of procreation but of mutuality in meeting needs and as an illustration of the relationship between Christ and His Bride, the church (Matt. 19:5; Mark 10:8; 1 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 5:31).

Only in monogamy does the idea of becoming one flesh have any significance. From this broader perspective of union, intercourse includes the exchange of thoughts and feelings. The act of marriage is the highest form of the communication of love for one another and the ultimate expression of intimacy. It provides a language that can express love without words. Indeed, there are no words to express all that is felt. Faith in God is the bond of the marriage covenant; sexual intimacy is the Holy Spirit’s seal.

The quality of the celebration of sexual intimacy depends on the quality of the total marriage relationship. There can be very little fulfillment in the realm of physical intimacy if there is little closeness in the overall union. Since God designed male and female to fit together and instilled within each a desire for the other, no problems are exclusively sexual in nature. Difficulties in physical intimacy are nearly always a symptom of problems in other areas of the relationship.

The attitude of the wife about herself, her husband, and about lovemaking will determine her response in physical intimacy. If expectations are unmet or if negative emotions of jealousy, rejection, or bitterness exist, physical intimacy will be hampered. Sexual union is not to be used as a weapon or a reward but is nonetheless a rightful need and expectation of each marriage partner (1 Cor. 7:3–5).

Say something nice to your spouse tonight.

Michael

READ Isaiah 1:18-31

On the morning we remember our nation's greatest loss inflicted on its own soil, we do well to remember the greatest wound inflicted upon us: sin and its penalty of death.  Mark Roberts offers a wonderful insight.

“Come now, let’s settle this,”
     says the LORD.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
     I will make them as white as snow.
Though they are red like crimson,
     I will make them as white as wool.” [Isaiah 1:18]

Even in the first chapter of Isaiah, where the emphasis is upon God’s call to Israel to obedience, we are also reminded that God alone can forgive sins. God is the one who can take our scarlet sins and “make them white as snow.”
It’s not hard to figure out the connection of whiteness and forgiveness. White signifies purity and cleanliness. When God makes our sins white as snow, they are wiped away.
But what is the connection between sin and scarlet? The context in Isaiah suggests a close association between sin and blood. In verse 15, God had said, “Though you offer many prayers, I will not listen, for your hands are covered with the blood of innocent victims.” The sins of the Israelites were scarlet in that their hands were bloody with their works of violence and injustice.
Ironically, sin and blood are closely related because the shedding of blood is required for divine forgiveness (Heb. 9:22). In the Old Testament era, animal blood from sacrifices signified God’s forgiveness. For those of us in the New Covenant, the shed blood of Christ takes our scarlet sins and makes them whiter than snow.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: What do you do with your sins? Do you rationalize them? Do you try to hide them? Ignore them? Minimize them? Do you try to get rid of them by your own strength? Or do you rest upon the forgiving work of God in Christ?

PRAYER: Gracious Heavenly Father, it is true today even as in the time of Isaiah: you are the only one who can make my scarlet sins white as snow. Through the shed blood of your Son, I am forgiven and cleansed. What a marvelous gift! What a wonder!
Help me, dear Lord, to live each day with reliance upon your forgiveness. When I sin, may I turn to you for “whitening.” When I’m tempted, may I reach out to your Spirit for the strength to choose what is right. Let me live, Lord, in the purity you have given me through Christ. Amen.

We have the greatest security that can be offered.  He is called Jesus Christ.  Give thanks today and remember.

Michael

My thanks to all of you for your prayers and thoughts as we traveled to check on Marcia's folks.  They are doing as well as can be expected given their age and health.  Like many of you, we wrestle with the care of aging parents.  That is why today's text has a special meaning.

Romans 13:10  Love does no wrong to his neighbor, so love makes the law complete.

Doing the loving thing is the important thing but it isn't always easy. 

On Friday nights, volunteers from Bridgetown Ministries help the homeless people gathered under the Burnside Bridge in Portland, Oregon. In addition to providing hot meals, shaves, and haircuts, some of the volunteers wash the homeless people’s feet. Tom Krattenmaker, a writer for USA Today, was stunned when he saw that, calling it “one of the most audacious acts of compassion and humility I have ever witnessed.”

This group of society’s outcasts had their bare feet immersed in warm water, scrubbed, dried, powdered, and placed in clean socks. One man reported with a smile, “I can’t find the words to describe how good that felt.”

Krattenmaker later wrote, “Washing someone’s feet is an act best performed while kneeling. Given the washer’s position, and the unpleasant appearance and odor of a homeless person’s feet, it’s hard to imagine an act more humbling.”

The leader of Bridgetown Ministries prepares volunteers for this ministry by saying, “When you go out there tonight, I want you to look for Jesus. You might see him in the eyes of a drunk person, a homeless person . . . we’re just out there to love on people.”