settling for artificial

I really like French Toast. It's amazing to me that you can dip a piece of plain bread in an egg and milk mixture, cook it, and get a golden brown delight. Sprinkle on some cinnamon, spread on some butter, and pour on some syrup and you have yourself a great way to start the day.
My topping of choice is syrup (is topping the right word?), unless I can get my hands on some homemade strawberry jam. I grew up on the artificial stuff. We rarely had pure maple syrup. Maybe it was too expensive or just not available. Either way, we had some generic knock-off of Aunt Jemima at our disposal, and we never complained.
As I kid, I remember helping a man in our church haul partially frozen gallons of sap from the tapped trees and fill up a couple of 55 gallon drums. We had so much fun running from tree to tree carrying the precious juice back to the wagon. As a reward, we were given some of the syrup.
So when we sat down to eat our French Toast, we tasted some of our hard earned maple syrup. I didn't care for it. I preferred the artificial stuff.
Sadly, this is true of Christianity. So often, we have consumed the artificial, the fake, the unauthentic for so long, that we have lost our appetite for real Christianity.
This is true of worship, prayer, our interactions with other believers, and our witness to nonbelievers. We are afraid to be real. We are hesitant to be transparent. We are willing to settle for some generic, artificial brand of Christianity when we could be enjoying the richness of true Christianity.
Maybe this is why so many people reject Jesus and His people. They are tired of being sold a generic knock-off.

tragedy

A little boy died this week. This statement is relatively easy to cast off when the child is just another name in an obituary column, but I knew this little boy...and I know his mother. His mother is my cousin. Her innocent child was killed. This little boy didn't deserve to die.
This tragedy makes me angry. It makes me sad. I makes me appreciate my own son more who is the same age as this little boy. It makes me feel sick to my stomach. It reminds me of another innocent life that was taken.
Jesus didn't deserve to die. And yet my sin put Him on that cross. I killed an innocent person. This little boy didn't deserve to die. And yet the sin of another put him in that coffin. An innocent person was killed.
My heart goes out to my cousin and her family. My heart goes out to the family of the boy's killer who is indeed grieving as well.
Jesus died for me. He died for this little child. And He died for this little child's killer. Jesus didn't deserve to die.

getting knocked offline

We have DSL internet at our home and yet we get knocked offline everytime our home phone rings. It didn't used to be that way, but now we deal with the same annoyance that dial up users do (although out internet is still much faster). It is really a minor inconvenience, and yet I get so easily frustrated. It makes me wonder if we can get knocked offline spiritually? Are there times when we cannot connect with our Creator? I believe that nothing can sever my relationship with God, and yet there are a number of things that can disrupt my connection with Him. The Bible says that if I regard iniquity (or sin) in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. I know that God will never abandon me as His child, but if I live in direct disobedience to Him, He won't listen to me. I will, in a sense, be offline (or at least out of line) with God. I'm not okay with that. I want to be online with God at all times, so I will seek to take care of sinful disruptions as soon as possible. I challenge you to do the same.

finishing strong

My favorite time of year is almost here. No it is not the beginning of spring. No it is not my son's birthday. And no it is not tax day. My favorite time of year is March Madness, the insane time of year where I can literally watch over a hundred hours of college basketball (and I will if my wife will let me). I know, for being a pastor, that doesn't sound very spiritual at all, but I must confess that I LOVE watching college basketball. There is just something incredible about watching a number 14 seed defeat a number 3 seed. Buzzer beaters, overtime, upsets, David vs. Goliath, storied programs and dark horses. What more can I say. Okay, I do have something of value to say here. At the end of every season of a sport, there is a final tournament. All that happened before doesn't really matter (It only really helps to get a team a higher seed or perhaps home court advantage). What matters is, not how the team started (think the New England Patriots), but how the team finished (think the New York Giants). Every team but one ends the season a loser. One goes home with the trophy. When I think of March Madness (here's the spiritual part), I think of Paul in the Bible. He didn't start off right, but he finished strong. At the end of his life, he said, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." Paul started off rough, but he ended well.

getting junk mail

I have three e-mail accounts. I have a work account (I rarely get any e-mails there), a gmail account (Most of the people I know contact me with that one), and another personal account that I have used for years. If I sign up for something, I usually use that one. Sometimes we refer to reading the Bible as getting e-mails from God. Not a terrible comparison. He uses His Word to communicate with us. Like most people, I get a lot of unwanted mail: junk mail, forwards, and chain mail (in which I almost never participate). I am glad though that God's e-mails are never junk mail. There is tremendous value in every book, every chapter, every verse, and every word. This is an admonition to me as much as to everyone else. Let's make sure we open and read God's e-mails as often or even more so than we read our regular e-mails. We are assured not to get any junk mail.