Picture Perfect Purple

Purple Flowers

 A member of our extended family passed away two weeks ago. Her obituary had a note requesting that attendees of her memorial service wear her favorite color. A church full of purple, can you imagine? A country church, away from the hustle and bustle of a city, filled with generations, and the majority wearing something of people - even if a couple were bands on a sleeve. In some instances such bands would be black - here they were a celebratory color, and so was the service.

Her minister son-in-law was quite content to have the church pastor conduct the service, and it started off with a bit of difficulty with the sound system, so there would be no music. The pastor had known her all of his life - their parents had been best friends before their children grew up together. He sat with her during his first times in a congregation. Before him now were her parents, siblings, children, grandchildren - and extended family members, by marriages within that group.

Members of her family spoke - then the pastor asked if others would like to. The lady that walked to pick up the microphone said that she had known her since grade school. New to the school, she was very uncomfortable her first day, especially as she walked into the cafeteria. Where would she sit? She knew no one. Then she saw a girl's smile and headed to sit with her. As she sat her tray down, the smiling girl asked a question: "She asked a five-words that changed my life forever."

"Hi! Do you have a church home?"

She didn't. They were new in town. Before the weekend, her new friend's father had visited the family and picked her up on his bus route to their church for Sunday services.

That struck home for me, too. When we moved into the home we've had for almost 30 years, it was a multi-generation home on an acreage. My dad lived with my husband and I, while next door was my daughter's family. A friend from her school asked a similar question, and now five generations have held membership in that church.

A few of us requested membership based on our own salvation experiences years before, but soon new generations came to understand what was necessary for salvation:

That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:15-18 KJV)

It works just as simply as one child asking another "Do you have a church home?" But - it doesn't have to be a child. It can be a neighbor, a friend, a co-worker, actually - someone you just met as you both stood at a gasoline pump and you ask, "Do you have a church home?"

However - I can think of a few people that read this blog that I know do not have a church home. I know their reasons, and I haven't pressed them for answers. That has to change. According to the history of mankind as well as actuarial tables, my time on this earth is getting shorter every day. That's not unusual, it is true of everything on this earth. 

So this time, I'm asking - and I hope I get a few answers - Do you have a church home?

If "Yes!" please leave a comment about it. Would love to hear anything about your church home you are willing to share. If "No," what can I do for you to help find the kind of home that offers a child who loves purple and decades after asking that very question has her life celebrated by people who loved her enough to not only wear purple, but to tell others the effect she had on the lives of people around her for eternity.

By the end of the service, still no wiring carried music, but none of us were concerned. One person suggested we all sing "Amazing Grace." The song swelled, mostly out of tune, but loud, clear, and full of joy that God's grace brought us all together. We were from different walks of life, on different steps in our journey with God, yet all filled with the hope and promise that God's amazing grace gives us:

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (Ephesians 2:8 KJV)

So Very Ignored!!

This blog didn't really begin in 2008 as the list on the right side shows. It began Yahoo 360, where so many of our Junior High girls were and I decided to encourage Bible reading with posts about our upcoming Sunday School lessons. Soon there were other sites offering a wider audience, and I then moved to Multiply when I retired. By 2008, Multiply was changing, too. Google and Microsoft both offered sites that helped the non-technical write blogs - and I chose Google.

I've not regretted it, but I have let life take my attention away. I have no excuse. I have a nice computer setup, internet access, a good Bible (along with a good digital Bible that allows cut/paste easily accomplished.) As you can tell by looking at the years, months and dates of posts, there have been times life events have been overwhelming. 2018, 2020, and the next years that showed a slow decline.

Please be assured - I haven't lost my own desire for Bible reading. If you take a look at the "What I Believe" tab of my blog, I list the Bible in the first paragraph. Not because it is the most important part of my belief system, but because it contains the specific doctrine that defines my own personal beliefs. There isn't a single man, a single ideology, a single moment in history or life that begins the journey except for Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

Do you realize how much belief is required in those ten words?

First, you have to believe there is a god. Then you have to know why the title is God, not with a little G that covers a multitude of beliefs that have proven not to have been any part of a supreme being capable of creating what comes next - the heaven and the earth. The reference is to a being who created the heavens - infinite and universal, not simply the ground we are standing upon. We've added multiple worlds of knowledge since those ten words were written. We aren't able to prove they were written by Moses - but I firmly believe it is possible they were, along with the next five books.

Do you - can you - believe that? When you do, you'll want to share that with others. Paul did, and he did a great job of showing how that's done:

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:13-17)

Which leaves us with the question - having heard, do you believe? Or is this truth so very ignored?

But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. (Romans 10:18)

Once we've heard it, we are supposed to share it. I haven't done that here for months. There are very good reasons for sharing it now - there are people listening!

Psalm 19 & "Of the Glory of God in the Starry Heavens"

 

NASA Image GSFC_20171208_Archive_e002074 

You can pick up any Bible and turn to Psalm 19's opening verses:

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. (Psalms 19:1-3)

If you've been to numerous church services, you might have heard the open words to one of my favorite hymns:

The spacious firmament on high,

with all the blue ethereal sky,

and spangled heavens, a shining frame,

their great Original proclaim.

Nature speaks of God in so many ways. There is a in the makeup of human beings an urge, a species memory, a need to seek explanations. One primary explanation we seek is whether or not there is a Creator (as mentioned by Paul in Romans 1:25 and Peter in 1 Peter 4:19), the center of Pascal's Wager by a seventeenth-century French mathematician, philosopher, physicist, and theologian. We don't have to have that much intelligence to understand that all people make a choice whether or not to believe there is a Greater Power. Judaism is based on such a belief, as is Christianity, Islam, and a number of other religions who exist to worship the creative deity.

Over millennia, thousands of other deities have been worshipped. Several are mentioned in the Hebrew Torah, both Greek and Roman histories, along with tribes around the world who had no written word to write down a name. Each group believed their deity was the right one. That's the step beyond Pascal's Wager - once you determine a deity exists, which one is the One. 

I'm here encouraging Bible reading because the One who inspired Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 is the choice I made after decided there is a (singular) God. Part of Psalm 19 outlines what I believe to be true:

The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: 
the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. 
The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: 
the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. 
The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: 
the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. 
More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. (Psalms 19:7-10)

I've read the Law, and its confirmation in Matthew 22:35-40. I've read the testimony God inspired in men. I've read the results of living by His statutes and know His Commandments are enlightening. I do fear - I've read what happens to those who hate and disobey - Him, but believe His judgment is true righteousness. I've read of examples where He kept promises that resulted in good for people, and promises that resulted in judgment even to death. As Paul, I, too, know who I believed:

. . . for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. (2 Timothy 1:12b+)

And:

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

(As an "Aside": I wrote a poem using those last two verses and included them in a blog. Now I need to look that up and exchange this paragraph for a link to that blog. Wonder when I'll get around to that?)

Hope - Keep It Always

 "Light at the end of the tunnel" This tunnel takes Glasgow-Loch Lomond Cycleway under Glasgow Road

There are beautiful Bible verses that discuss hope. That was Sunday's message from David Webb, now a visiting pastor for our revival, from Walker Springs Road Baptist Church in Jackson, Alabama. When we first visited First Baptist Church of Cottondale, he was our Assistant Pastor/Youth Director.

Sunday morning, he spoke to us about hope and was inspired Brother Webb began with:

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)

Read through to:

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? (Romans 8:24)

If you'll read through the verses 17-23, it may be difficult to see what there is to be hopeful about. The words paint a picture beyond our ability to live through, and no thought of what we might do the "fix" the problems in our world.  There we discover we were created with vanity 

For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, (Romans 8:20)

That "vanity" is found often in the Old Testament, but only nine times in the New Testament. The Greek, from Strong's lexicon on line is:

ματαιότης mataiótēs, mat-ah-yot'-ace; transientness; morally, depravity:—vanity.

Yes - God made us to where we make the choices between good/evil, moral/immoral, love/hate - all those antonyms that show us to separate, but never equal paths we might follow. God has provided both to each one of us and the choices are ours to make under every circumstance. 

How do we know God made us and not millions of years of an uncertain, unthinking universe we can only see as stars in the night or scientific discoveries displayed graphically on a screen - or words in a scientific explanation that has words we always need to research before pronouncing? Back to the Bible telling us so. First chapter in Genesis pretty much lays out the basics, but my favorite verses come from John's first chapter:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. (John 1:1-5)

What are we in the scheme of things? Just a little lower than the angels:

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: (Psalms 8:3-6)

Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:12-17 describe the fall of a cherub who wished to take God's place. Whether we call him evil incarnate, the devil, Lucifer, Satan, or the snake in the Garden, he lost his place in heaven. A third of the angels were very much like the worst of us, Revelation 12:4 is thought to mean that a third of the angels lost their place in heaven, too.

If we want to discuss lost hope, Brother Webb introduced us to the hopeless estate of Job. In the beginning of the book he lost everything - his wealth, his home, his children, his wife - but some friends who only made matters worse. He even lost his hope with God:

What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life? (Job 6:11)

This is when so many loved ones despair to the point of believing there is no hope - why wait for death to solve all their problems. It takes a lot to destroy the last remaining piece of hope. That's only Job's sixth chapter. There are a total of 42. Job never lost the reality of his life with God. 

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39)

If you read Job's 42 chapter, you'll learn that everything that he lost was returned, doubled, except his wife. Remember, he had ten children in God's hands as well as the younger ten.

We have hope. We have it through everything written in the Bible about God and Jesus. Jesus seemed to be without hope on the cross - his followers certainly lost hope, but only one took his own life. The others maintained a hope in life, a time to find what comes next, to learn why:

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. (Hebrews 12:1-3)

That is our hope, our faith, that we will see Him - and the others who know who kept their hope alive and have firm belief we shall join them in God's perfect timing, not in a loss of hope.