Saturday, May 31, 2014

The Broken Bike

My oldest son, Landon, recently learned to ride his bike without training wheels. He rides his bike every day. Yesterday he started pulling up on the handle bars and popped a few wheelies. Before he could learn how to pop some wheelies, he brought me his bike with the chain off. I knew that it would be imperative to repair his bike because he would want to ride it soon. Not only was the chain off, but the crank arms were loose.

For those of you who don't know, I am not the most mechanically inclined. I do like to tackle a problem, so I got out my tools.

I made an attempt to put the crank arms back together the best I knew how. Gripping, pushing, pulling and spraying WD-40 (because that stuff fixes anything!). It seemed there was not hope in sight. I was weighing our options - defeat seemed close.

Than I was reminded that my father had once made a similar repair on the same bike. I called him and asked his advise. He recounted what he done the last time and how to repair it.

After a break, I went back to the project. Remembering the advise, I put the bike back together again.

Landon hopped on to give it a test drive. He seemed to be having trouble about every third crank. I asked him to get off and I test the wheel by cranking with my arm. There was a problem. Although it seemed repaired, about every third crank it was very difficult to turn the arm. I started to disassemble the bike in order to correct whatever error I had made.

Upon my second attempt, I put the bike back together again and there was much rejoicing. Before letting Landon ride off, I spun the wheel around several times with ease. He hopped on and sped off.

I am remind about my relationship with God in this story.  Sometimes we don't know what we are doing.  Sometimes we mess up the first time, second time, third time...lets face it we are going to mess up a whole bunch of times.  But when we call on the Father in heaven, He is going to help us.  It wasn't until I called my father and asked him to help me...

Have you called on your heavenly Father to help you with your struggles?  With your doubt?  With your worry?  With anything?  He is there and willing to help you, but are you willing to make that phone call and ask Him for help.

Blessings.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Perfection and Faith: Thoughts on Hebrew 12:2 Part Two


"...and perfecter of our faith..." Hebrews 12:2

When I think of perfection, I think of the 1972 Miami Dolphins. As of today, this team remains the only undefeated team in regular and post season in the National Football League.

There's also the term perfect game in Major League Baseball. This can be defined as a pitcher or a combination of pitchers for the same team preventing the opposing team for hits, errors, walks or hit by a pitch through nine innings. Basically, 27 batters up - 27 batters down. This has been achieved 23 times in MLB history.

Perfection, even in these sports arenas, is rare. In our lives, we can look forward to perfection only in Jesus Christ at death, ("And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ," Philippines 1:6). Jesus even says in Luke 18:19, “...Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone."

Jesus is perfect!

This passage not only tells us Jesus Christ is perfect in all that He does, but that His perfect life is the foundation for our faith.

We have faith in many earthly things: chairs, direct deposit, the Yankees winning, our cell phone coverage, our DVR settings, girlfriends/boyfriends - we probably could go on for days. We put our faith in many of these things that will or eventually fail is.

Jesus will never fail you.

"Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," John 14:6. Through His life, death and ressurection we gain access to our Father in heaven. We believe in our hearts (Romans 10:9-10) and He washes every single one of our sins away. We gain perfection through Jesus Christ.

Due to His perfection, He was the only acceptable sacrifice; in whom I put my faith in. Who or what do you put your faith? My hope it is in our perfecter of faith, Jesus Christ.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

LOL, TTYL, BRB, PTL

Letters are getting shorter. No, we still have 26 in the alphabet, but written letters from one person to another are not as common place as they used to be. Yes, we have email and text messages, but an old fashion letter spoke volumes.

In a letter, one would correspond with another, stories about daily activities, life happenings and anything someone wanted to convey was written and mailed. Letters kept people in the know about one another. Some letters conveyed exciting news of marriage or having a baby. Some letters expressed condolences. These letters often caused the person receiving the mail to have some type of emotional and physically response: joy, shouts, tears, sadness, etc.

Have you ever considered yourself to be a letter to the world or someone who needs to see Christ?

"You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." 2 Corinthians 3:2-3

When He changes our heart, our life becomes a living letter to anyone we come in contact with. Not with ink, but with the Spirit of God - this supernatural letter represents Christ to a desperately lost world.
God tells us we our His letter to someone who needs to see, hear and feel His love. When we share our letter or share our stories with those around us sometimes there is a response - they might see Jesus and respond to Him.

Who have you shared your letter with today? Have you told some how Christ changed your life? Share His letter this week.