Month: January 2010

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This Old House

Donna wasn’t sure how she would explain away the passing of her mother to her own grandchild but as they headed to the funeral home she told David, “Aunt Julie is gone, David.”
The little boy looked at her and asked, “Gone where, grammy?”
Donna’s moment of truth was here.
“You know how Grandma Julie’s house is next to ours but she’s wasn’t living there anymore? She had gone to live at the nursing home but Grandma Julie’s house was still there?”
“Uh-huh”, he said.
“Well, when you see Grandma Julie today, it’s just an empty house. She’s not there. Grandma Julie has gone to live with Jesus now!”
At the funeral home Donna took David up front.
The little fellow stared at Grandma Julie with his grandma.
Then Cindy, one of Julie’s sisters, came up front.
She was one of those women that can’t be pleased by anything and always spoke her mind!
“Why…that doesn’t even look like Julie!” in a voice that would wake the dead.
“Her hair is wrong. Julie never wore her hair like that. What’s wrong with them? Donna, can’t you get them to fix her hair!”
She went on and on but as she did a little voice kept calling out, “Aunt Cindy! Aunt Cindy!”
Finally little David walked over and tugged on Aunt Cindy’s dress.
“Aunt Cindy!” he said, “That’s not really Grandma Julie. That’s just her empty house now. She’s gone to live with Jesus, Aunt Cindy! That’s just her empty house!”
Tears came to Donna’s eyes as she realized that David got it!

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. 2 Cor 5:1-8

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Morning thoughts from Pastor Tim

As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, And its place remembers it no more. Ps 103:15-16
Life is surely quick! Its days add up and are gone before you know it.
I found an old picture of the Swanson family and the big question has been when it was taken.
The three kids in the picture are the key to its date. Knowing when they were born along with any information about deaths, other births, or divorces can lead us to the years late 1968 to early 1969.
I remember the picture being taken but never gave it a second thought to burn into my memory a date.
Why would I? I was 11 years old and had eternity in front of me.
So did most of the others but out of all in the picture only 11 are still living; half are gone.
I’m so glad the Bible finishes the verse with this; But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, And His righteousness to children’s children, To such as keep His covenant, And to those who remember His commandments to do them. Ps 103:17-18
We may not last but God’s mercy does!

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Keeping God's Holy Day

“If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight,
The holy day of the LORD honorable,
And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways,
Nor finding your own pleasure,
Nor speaking your own words,
Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD;
And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth,
And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father.
The mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
Isa 58:13-14 NKJV

“Keep the Sabbath day holy. Don’t pursue your own interests on that day, but enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight as the LORD’s holy day. Honor the LORD in everything you do, and don’t follow your own desires or talk idly. If you do this, the LORD will be your delight. I will give you great honor and give you your full share of the inheritance I promised to Jacob, your ancestor. I, the LORD, have spoken!”
Isa 58:13-14 NLT

“If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the LORD’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
then you will find your joy in the LORD,
and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land
and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
The mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Isa 58:13-14 NIV

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A Nation Under God

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, The people He has chosen as His own inheritance. Ps 33:12
I’ve seen the devastation of Haiti, the poorest nation in our hemisphere.
My prayer is for the people living there.
But I fail to understand why they are so poor.
America was a land on no commerce.
When the first settlers came to this land it was not to settle into a new cushy job; it was to carve out a nation.
The U. S. has been built from the ground up to become what she has been and is today.
Why can’t other nations, like Haiti, do the same?
Someone said in church that the country of Haiti gave itself over to satanic forces years ago.
If so, then that’s a problem.
Another problem is leadership.
While the people live in shanties the presidential palace was a just that, a palace.
What a nation needs to prosper is two things; people that seek after God and leaders that seek after God.
I fear that our nation is loosing both.

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What No Other god Can Do!

Though I missed the live interview, I caught the Youtube of Fox News report Britt Hume and his assessment of what Tiger Woods needed.
In a word – Jesus!
I was shocked and happily pleased.
It’s not often that you hear something like that on TV.
He said that the Christian faith offers Tiger something that no other faith can offer – redemption and forgiveness.
If Tiger would accept Jesus his life would change.
Perhaps this is the reason that Christianity is under attack!
Through Jesus, God offers something to mankind that no other god can or has offered.
No wonder Moses and the Israelites sang, “Who is like You, O LORD, among the gods?” Ex 15:11