Jewels From the Word

 

This morning when I let the dog out, there was a hummingbird at the empty feeder, but thank goodness, he wasn’t going to starve, since I have trumpet plant, hibiscus, rose of Sharon, and other plants that hummingbirds seem to like.

I have two hummingbird feeders in the backyard, the standard red and clear plastic kind that you fill with sugar water or the formula that you buy and mix with water.

Sometimes I’m really negligent and don’t get the feeders filled back up. I’ve seen hummingbirds come to my empty feeders, and then whiz away, apparently to some other yard, bypassing all the good plants in my yard.

This is just like us, attracted to the bright flashing lights and brilliant colors of the world, looking for something to feed our souls, our emotions, our minds. We pass right over the good things that God has provided to get to the cheap thrills that soon fade away.

When we get up close and stop long enough to think, we realize that the “feeder” is empty.

The prodigal son traveled afar off from his father, and left his real self, his true self back home.

He followed the bright lights and brilliant colors of the world looking for fun. He enjoyed wine, women, and song, spent all his inheritance, ended up living on the streets.

He went to an empty feeder, looking for something to feed his soul, but all he found was dry corn husks that the farmer fed the pigs.

“But when he came to himself.” Luke 15:13 NKJV.

He realized who he really was, the son of the master of the house, whose very servants ate better than the he had in the pigpen. He returned to himself and he went back to his father, asking to be a servant. Oh, but his father had better things planned for him than that. He welcomed him back as his son and held a party in his honor.

The prodigal son returned to the place where the tables were full, where his soul could really be fed. He returned to his father’s house.

Let’s return to our Father God’s house, where the table is full with the good things of God which truly feed our souls.

 

I’ve always believed that, given the right information and material, I could do anything. Even years ago when I was in college, I worked on my own typewriters and sewing machines. If I could look it up in a reference book, read it and see it, I could do it.

We Baby Boomer generation were raised by parents in a booming economy just out of World War II, excited about the future with the chance to make a good living. They worked hard, built homes, bought cars, saved their money, and planned for their children to graduate high school and go to college, because most of them hadn’t been able to do so.

These parents made their children believe that the sky was the limit, the world was theirs, they could be president, if they worked hard enough.

We the Baby Boomer generation graduated and raced out to change the world. We used the manuals that were there and wrote manuals for the things that didn’t have them. We invented new things and wrote the guidelines to go with them. We developed new ideas for using old things and gave the world the information in written form.

This generation has been the Information Technology generation. We were the ones who made the shift from industry to information, because we were taught that if you had the right information, you could do anything.

The world is full of people who are living their whole lives based on the wrong information. They believe you can work your way into heaven. If you work hard, treat everyone well, do good deeds, and give to charity, then when you get to the Pearly Gates, Peter will pull out the balance scales and if your good deeds outweigh your sins, you will get into heaven.

However God’s Manual the Bible says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 NKJV

There is only one way to have everlasting life, to enter into heaven when you die, and that is to believe in Jesus, God’s only Son.

Jesus is the only way to heaven.

 

Recently while we were cleaning the church, we started rearranging furniture a little as women like to do. When we were vacuuming the church sanctuary carpeting, we moved the pulpit and communion table, just a little. Oh, nothing too noticeable.

We spruced up the drapes over the window into the baptistery and refreshed the fake ivy in the opening. We moved the Elder’s and Pastor’s chairs on the podium so they were evenly balanced on either side of the stage.

Then we started putting everything back into place and being the perfectionist that I am, I wanted everything to line up straight and be pleasing to the eye.

I wanted the drapes to be open just enough to reveal the rough-cut cross of Christ with the crown of thorns hanging on it, and the purple cloth draped over it. I walked up into the baptistery to re-drape the cloth, hang the crown of thorns just right, and cover a pipe with material so it wouldn’t reflect the light.

Then we started lining up the pulpit with the baptistery window behind it. A couple of people moved the pulpit as I stood at the entry to the hallway and looked down the aisle toward the pulpit.

“A little more to the right. No, that’s too much. Back a little. That’s better.” I wanted to line up the pulpit with the cross.

Now when you walk in the front door, from the foyer into the sanctuary, your eyes are drawn to the oak communion table, the pulpit, and up, where dominating over all is the cross of Christ Jesus, with the crown of thorns He wore when He shed His blood for the world.

The communion table represents the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and when we receive Christ’s salvation, our communion with the Almighty God, Creator of the universe. The pulpit represents the Word of God preached in churches around the globe to hungry people who believe and to a dying world until the return of Christ.

Paul said, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Galatians 6:14 NKJV

Everything in the church must line up with the cross of Christ.

 

My daughter loaned me her one-speed bike last week. I’m going to put a comfortable old lady’s seat on it and cruise the streets of Vinita, as soon as the heat wave is over.

I got my first bike for my birthday the summer before third grade, a used bike from my older sister’s friend up the street. I could only go as far as the ends of the block. Later Mama trusted me to ride down on the southside of town where my friend Victoria and I rode Canadian Street behind the rodeo grounds at top speed, screaming as we raced down the hill.

My little brother had a tricycle about that time. He and the neighborhood kids were always riding it. The trike couldn’t keep up with my bike. In fact, they were forbidden to have it in the street.

Top speed for my one-speed bike with a rider in great condition would probably be 10 miles an hour. 10-speed bikes with all those gears have the ability to go much faster, maybe 30 or 40 miles per hour. Compare that to a car that can go 120 miles per hour or a jet airplane at 500-600 mph.

If you were going to travel from Oklahoma to California, would you take off riding a tricycle? Bicyclists do ride long distances like that on bike, and many people drive to California by car, but I would guess the majority of us travel by plane. You usually travel by whatever means will take the shortest time.

In Ezekiel 1:16, Ezekiel spoke of seeing “a wheel in the middle of a wheel.”

 The little wheel inside the big wheel was turning faster than the big wheel. Many Bible teachers have used the explanation of the little wheel in the middle being the wheel of time and the big wheel being the wheel of eternity or timelessness.

If you step off the little wheel of time, the tricycle of time, and get alone with God, you can step out onto the wheel of eternity or timelessness, where God can plan your time.

The old song says, “The big wheel turns by the grace of God.”

 

Grandmother had a great shade tree in her backyard–giant silver-leaf maple tree. The backyard facing east was always so shady and cool, almost like being out in the country. Grandmother’s house was just a three-room cottage, so peaceful and quiet.

I don’t recall who discovered the silver-leaf maple tree had fallen over or even which day. There might have been some wind, we aren’t sure, but the weather had been sunny. Grandmother had moved to heaven several years before and no one was living in her house.

The tree was pulled completely out of the ground, with its roots showing, an empty hole left behind. The tree trunk lay on the ground, the trunk at the base about 3 feet in diameter.  The roots were all showing—little roots, fat roots, but no tap root, not a single long root going down deep into the earth.

Jesus told a story of the farmer who went planting seed. Some seed fell on stony ground where there wasn’t much dirt. Jesus said this was like certain “people who gladly hear the message and accept it right away, but they don’t have any roots, and they don’t last very long. As soon as life gets hard or the message gets them in trouble, they give up.” Mark 4:16-17 Contemporary English Version.

We’ve all seen people in the church, friendly, carrying their Bible, slipping a $20 in the collection plate. They come to church a couple of times a month and always show up on Easter and Christmas, but when hard times come, they fall away from the church.

When one loses his job or problems come in their marriage or they have trouble with the children, instead of running to God and the church, they seek out the advice of their non-Christian friends.

“The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.” Psalm 92: 12-13.

It’s time to get planted in church and grow a deep root.

Every year when school was out, the other kids could be found playing baseball, roller-skating, riding bikes, or swinging, but I was inside reading a book. Oh, I roller-skated some and loved my bike, but reading was my first love. I got my first library card when I was eight years old in the third grade.

If you come to my home to visit, you will probably be amazed at all the books, magazines, and newspapers cluttering my home. Why is it that I have such difficulty discarding books? It all goes back to my mom and dad who trained us children to value books. From the day a little cloth book was put in our baby hands, we were taught to love them. “Don’t tear the book. Don’t write in the book. We love our books, don’t we?”

My school teachers influenced my love of books. At the beginning of the school year, when books were given out, I opened the first page to the label that showed who used the book the year before and proudly entered my name on the next line. If the book was new, we went through a procedure of “breaking in” the new book, by opening up to the middle and running our fingers down the middle, then opening to another place in the book and doing the same. We were taught to never open the book and bend it backward which would break the spine.

I can only think of a few times in my lifetime that I have actually thrown a book in the trash. Most times it was because the book was badly damaged, but several times it was because it un-Biblical. How did I know? Because I know what the Bible says.

It is said that banks train tellers to recognize counterfeit bills but giving them the real bills to study. If you know what the real thing looks like, you should instantly know when something is counterfeit.

Paul wrote to Timothy, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” II Timothy 2:15 NKJV.

How do I know the truth? I study the Bible for myself.