Turning To The Right

Romans 6:17 - Thanks be to God,

Even though I grew up in a Christian home, if I had had my way, I would have slowly drifted further and further from Jesus. I had already found "reasons" for my laziness and neglect in regard to going to Sunday School and Church. In addition, my mind and eye were becoming more and more interested in the "pleasures" of sin. But, "thanks be to God", He had mercy on me and intervened in this death spiral.

Romans 6:17 - even though you were once slaves of sin

We've all experienced the harsh force of being a slave to SIN. This verse reminds us that God knows where we have struggled and failed to be free from the power of sin.

Romans 6:17 - you have become obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,

We are no longer obedient to ourselves, to our wrong desires and to SIN as lord. He has done everything possible to open the door of Mercy for us. All we need to do is to cry out to Him for help. God knows our heart and how we have given it to Him as the savior, love, master and power of our life.

Romans 6:18 - and having been freed from sin, you become slaves of righteousness.

By our death in Jesus and resurrection into His life and spirit we have freedom from the slave master SIN. Praise the Lord that we no longer have to succumb to temptation. We are FREED to be able to do what is Right.

The Right thing to do is not always the cultural thing.
It is not necessarily comfortable.
It may not be easy.
It may be humbling.
It will be powered by God.
The Right thing will help love to grow.
It will reveal Jesus.
We can turn to the right and do right only by His Spirit in our heart.

Power in the Dungeon

we also exult in our tribulations.. (Romans 5:3)

A few weeks ago, my bride had to have some dental work done. When she returned, she revealed that there were complications in her mouth and dental surgery would be required. After telling me this news, she asked me what I was thinking. Strangely, a scripture I had been memorizing had popped into my thoughts as she was speaking. So, she was surprised when I said, "We Exult in our tribulations." As a result, we took a few minutes to pray and to praise God for how He could use the tribulation of dental surgery.

It does not come natural to exult in tribulation or to "rejoice in EVERYTHING." My natural responses are to complain, to get angry, or to worry. Exulting in tribulation definitely requires grace and strength from God and an act of the will. Our emotional response to disappointment, failure, persecution, betrayal, loss or pain can take over our thinking and our response. But, we are called to a living and active faith that says God can use any and all of the "bad stuff" and turn it to good in our lives. By God's grace and because of the hope we have that His Word is true, we can sing songs at midnight while sitting in a dungeon after a severe beating.

Our faith is "the victory" and our faith will lead to manifestations of God power to those around us. Anyone can complain and be depressed. But, God's power is required to praise Him even when everything is falling apart. Faith changes things. Jesus' power to heal and to do miracles was affected by the faith of those who heard him. Maybe we don't see God's power "in the dungeon" because we've been forgetting to exult.

Slay the Blood Sucking Monster

And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.

The things we bring into our lives should be extensions of our dedication to God. If we are tools in His hands, then our "things" should also be His tools. If we use any of the stuff in our life primarily for self-indulgence instead of as a tool then that thing may have a negative effect on our life, goals and relationships. Things like houses, cars, TV's, music players, computers, media-phones, beds, clothes, and so on can obviously be of great value. But, if any of them begin to drain valuable time from our lives because we are pleasing our "self", then that thing may need to have a different focus.

I spend many hours in front of a computer screen because it is a tool I use for work, communication and learning. But, I can sometimes get drawn into spending too much time reading or watching the news. If I don't watch it, I can waste an hour or more at the screen and end up with basically nothing in exchange for that valuable time.

The same thing can happen to any of us with hobbies, cars and especially TV. If our wife, parents or friends object to how much time we are spending on one of these things, it may be an indication that we've let a tool become a toy for self. That toy may be stealing our life or future. It may have become like some kind of monster sucking vitality out of our goals, marriage or education. It may get an hour or two or more every day of our time. But, we may not recognize that that time had a leverage effect because time or other resources invested in growing ourselves has been found to give a return of at least five to one. Take a one or two hours away from that toy every day and invest it in learning, exercise, or relationships. That time will have a fantastic return in skills, love, achievement or in building God's Kingdom.

Toy time may have great pleasure but at what expense? Let's pray and ask God to show us our toy time and ask Him to give us grace to change.

May the Lord help me and each of you to slay the blood sucking monster of self indulgence. Let's give ourselves and our toys to the King of Kings. It will be a sweet-smelling sacrifice that will bring God's Kingdom into our personal life and into our family.

The formula is a lie.

You;therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? (Romans 2:21)

The natural tendency in judging ourselves is to raise up some rag of a “good work” and excuse ourselves from the rest based on our good intentions. Any of these formulas might be familiar. “Maybe I'm not as close and transparent with my wife as I should be but, at least I occasionally wash the dishes.” “Maybe I didn't really seek for God's Word and power before teaching the Bible lesson but at least I do it when others won't. “ “Maybe I'm not as orderly as I should be, but at least my floor is visible.”

Our external failures may reveal a flaw of character, a wrong desire or weak faith. But, an external success does not necessarily reveal strength or goodness. We tend to make little, personal formulas in our thinking that define success in our life or relationships. But, often these formulas don't add up to truth. As we read God's Word and meditate on it, these formulas are revealed to be false. Then we choose whether we will throw out the formula or God's Word. God's Word is not presenting another set of rules and formulas for life. It is challenging us to realize that we can never live up to a true standard. God is calling us to change our way of thinking, to accept Jesus' as our redeemer from dead formulas and efforts, and to be transformed by His Spirit. Yet, we are tempted to keep living and teaching the same old formulas for self-improvement and for salvation.

Only new life from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit means anything. Once we repent of excusing our self, living by formula and doing our own thing then Jesus can truly begin to fill our being, transform our thinking, and make something of our lives. The formula is a lie.

May God give us grace to hear Him when we teach (or judge) others, realize where we need Him, repent of our self-sufficiency, and be transformed by His Spirit.

"It is better to be an honest man who tells a lie, than a liar who tells the truth." -- Bonhoffer

I Start Disappearing

Nevertheless let each one among you also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see to it that she respect her husband. (Ephesians 5)

We have a daughter who is a late communicator. Many people, whether because of Down Syndrome, autism, disease or injury, face challenges in learning to communicate in healthy ways. We're currently learning how to be more balanced, matched, playful and responding in our interactions with our daughter. A late communicator can often feel alone and misunderstood. A late communicator may actually be able to talk quite well but may not know how to interact socially. A book we are reading to help us with this interaction is, "Play to Talk" by James McDonald. It has a poem "Respond and I will Exist". It has the following line in it.

"When you do not respond to what I do with you,
I start disappearing"

This is a reality in all our relationships and especially in our marriage relationship and in our relationship with God. When we notice, talk with, play with and try to understand our spouse, they not only feel more loved but also more substantial and real. When we stop interacting, listening and playing then our wife begins to feel like she is disappearing from our world.

Our interactions and responses to God also reveal how much He is a reality in each of our lives. If I don't try to listen to Him and don't respond to Him in my daily life, how real is He to me?

May God help us to see how we can "communicate" better, how we can interact better with those who are at the center of our life. May He give us grace to give up unhealthy habits of interaction and learn to love.

Respond and I Will Exist

When you respond to the little things I do,
My little sounds or the way I play,
I feel alive. I feel I'm real.

When you do not respond to what I do with you,
I start disappearing,
And feel I should not do what I'm doing.

When you respond to me,
I feel okay, I feel I belong to you.
I feel we are real partners.

When you do not respond to me,
I feel alone
I feel you are gone.

I am going to learn more
When you respond to whatever I do,
And then show me what to do next.

I have to feel alive to learn,
I feel alive when you respond to me.
I bet you didn't know you were that important! -- James MacDonald

Having Fun Learning to Play

I have a confession to make. I'm NOT a musician. But, I would like to make music. How many of you wish that you could sit down at a piano or keyboard and pound out your favorite hymn or tune? I'm one of those who didn't learn a musical instrument growing up. I've enjoyed watching my wife and children play the piano and violin. Their skill looks magical – and fun.

What if it's not too late?!

A few decades ago, just after we got married, my bride and I thought we would help each other learn something new. I was going to help her learn calculus and she was going to help me learn to play the piano. The result: I forgot my calculus and I didn't learn to play the piano. I was discouraged from piano by a couple of things. One was the mountain of learning I faced before I could really make music, another was the discipline of practice and the "last straw" was the next-door neighbor banging on the wall and telling to me to stop making so much noise.

As I said, that was decades ago. Recently, we were able to get a new piano for the family. It's entry into the home stirred a new interest on my part in learning to play. One day, I happened to come across a book that gave me new hope of learning to play the piano. That book is this one, "Play Piano in a Flash!" by Scott "The Piano Guy" Houston. The basic premise of the book is that the piano can be played in a least two very different styles. For example, I'm sure all of you have noticed the major difference between classical guitar and pop guitar styles. In a similar way, the piano can be played in classical piano or popular music styles. Learning to play classical piano is a long and arduous road. In contrast, this book puts forth the idea of learning the non-classical, popular style piano.

I've been learning about this approach for only a few weeks. Only basic knowledge of music notation is needed. This was good news to me since, at that time, I could not read music and about the only thing I knew about the piano keyboard was where to find middle-C.

The first step is to choose something to learn. This should be a tune or song that you would just love to learn to play. The chosen piece of music becomes part of the motivation because of the deep desire to learn it. In my case, I chose one of my favorite hymns, "Heavenly Sunlight". This music is where I started. Having the mysterious music notation before me I set out to decode it. Now, for this style of playing, the bass clef is ignored (the bottom line of notes in a hymnal) and the focus is on the notes that form the melody. As some of you probably know there are whole books of sheet music that show just the melody along with some chord notation. Those are called Fake Books. Here is an example of one. I'm also passing around the page that has "Heavenly Sunlight" on it.

So, using this music and the simple description of how to decode it shown on these two pages, I set out to translate the note on the page to pressing a key on the piano. Since I already knew the tune, I didn't have to worry too much about the details of the rhythm described by the different notes. This is all done one note at a time with the right hand. For example, here is the first line of the hymn...

Once I began to get a feel for where to find the notes with the my right hand, I went to the next step for me. In this case, the next step is the done with the other hand. This is the step of adding chords using the left hand. If you play a guitar, you know where to find the information about what chord to play. It is marked above the melody line on the sheet music. So, you might see "D" or "G" or "A7". Scott's book describes how to go from the root key of the chord to the other keys in the chord. It also provides diagrams of many common chords.

To start with, the chord is played at the beginning of the measure and is held until the next chord or is repeated at the beginning of the next measure. As one gets more proficient with the piano, there are many variations that can be learned. I'm not there yet. There are many, many possible chords. But, for this project, it is only necessary to learn the hand-full of chords noted on the music. Here are some of those chords...

So, it is very focused situation. Learning the melody with the right hand – playing one note at a time. Second, learning the chords to accompany the melody with the left hand – one chord at a time. And, learning to combine the two hands. The idea is to make the music sound the way you want it to sound. The music notation is a guide rather than a rule. You get to have fun learning the tune because it is one of your favorites and you are seeing constant progress in learning it.

I'm still getting off the ground in learning to play popular style piano or keyboard. But, my experience so far, has convinced me that it's not only possible but fun. So, if you would like to have fun playing some of your favorite tunes, it's not too late! Get some of Scott's materials, choose your favorite tune and start playing!

Play Piano in a Flash!" by Scott "The Piano Guy" Houston

Mercy's Birthday

We had a great time celebrating Mercy's 13th birthday. She not only enjoyed Suzanne's fire engine cake, new clothes, and exciting toys but also a ride with Solomon on the Texas Star ferris wheel at the State fair of Texas. Is it the biggest ferris wheel or is it the biggest in Texas? She thought the pig races were funny, the prize bull was huge and the baby goats were not only cute -- they were friendly. There is something special about seeing Mercy's joy and gratitude. We praise God for the gift of Mercy Carol.

For more pictures see Heather's Blog.

A Debt

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. (Romans 1:14)

Recently, I was at the Texas State Fair. I had taken along some of my favorite "ice-breakers" to share there. But, I only gave out a few of the million dollar bills. Thousands of people but no relationship, no toehold to conversation or to hand over a piece of paper. There were a few where I developed fleeting relationships and, looking back, I can now see how I could have responded better. But, why bother? Why worry about how to get the Good News into the lives of others?

What is this "obligation" that Paul speaks of in Romans? Another translation calls it a debt. If I were to experience being cured from some dread disease such as cancer, and if I knew how to help others be cured of this disease, then I would have a moral obligation to help those in need of that help. My heart would condemn me if I stood in silence while a friend or child was slowly consumed by that terrible disease. Yet, if I speak up, I may be rejected and chased away by the victim, his family or by the disease experts.

Lord, give me boldness, give us boldness to speak up about the hope we have in Jesus Christ. In Him, we have real life, eternal life and hopeful life. Without Him, there awaits only a meaningless pseudo-life, with despair at its core. This empty shell of a life will end in disaster. We may be excited about our new life or we may have gotten distracted from the central purpose of life. The first priority is to spread the good news and to build God's Kingdom wherever we can. If we have come to new life in Jesus, then we also owe a debt to those who continue to stumble along in spiritual darkness.

Whatever?

Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for you serve the Lord Christ.
(Col 3:23)

As I look around my office, I see that I have not applied this word of God to how it is kept. I make notes and get journals that I hope to review soon and so I let them occupy a space on my desk. Gradually, that note or journal becomes two or three or ten. In addition, I have books on my shelves that I have not looked at in ten years and that contain obsolete information.

Outside, my tool shed had become very disorderly partly because it was being used by multiple people in our family and I had not established a method or a priority to keep it organized. The result was that it caused me to lose valuable time looking for things, spend more money to replace tools I couldn’t find, and damage things that needed more care. Recently, one of my sons came out and helped me organize it. Since then, I have already noticed several situations where that orderliness saved me much time. I have probably already made up for the time spent in organizing by being more efficient.

By nature, orderliness seems to very important to some people and of minor importance to others. Also by nature, even if we are good at orderliness, we all tend toward taking the easy way out in some areas of our life. But, this verse challenges us to cry out for God’s help to make our lives a genuine reflection of our relationship with Jesus Christ, “our Lord”. How much He is our Lord in everything we do is revealed in how heartily we serve Him in the “little” things. The little things are the areas where we personally but a low value or priority. That little thing may not be so little in God’s eyes. It is easy to blame others. “My tool is lost because my children didn’t take care of it.” But, any parent can see the problem with that blame, since we know who is responsible for training the children. And, much of that training comes through example.

So, let’s take personal responsibility for the “messy” parts of our lives whether it is in the office organization, in our personal relationships or in a part of our daily duties that we don’t like. May we heartily serve the Lord Jesus Christ in these “little” areas just as much as in those where we like to work. Lord, guide me and empower me as I tackle organizing this office and may He empower you for that whatever project that is popping into your thoughts.

Magical Ability

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all,
because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. (Romans 1:8)

In a recent football game, a player was praised for his desire to make powerful contact and drive through the defenders. Another player was praised for his "magical" ability. There are many things that seem praiseworthy to the "man on the street". It's not uncommon to hear praise for a man's strength, toughness, speed or ability to throw a ball. We sometimes hear praise for a person's kindness, generosity, wealth or influence. This verse in Romans 1 reveals what God sees as praiseworthy. Faith in God through Jesus Christ is, according to God's perspective, the primary attribute deserving of praise. God wants to praise your faith and my faith. Let's pray for and seek ways to grow in faith.

However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" - Jesus (Luke 18)

Some ideas:
- Scripture reading
- Spiritual retreats
- seeking God's glory at every opportunity
- meditating on God's Word
- sharing struggles with others
- your ideas??

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. (Romans 10)