I had not planned for this, but the truth is as we travel on this road along the good way we’re gonna find some places where it might the best to just stop and reflect a little bit about the journey we’re on. Why don’t we take just a bit of time here and look closely at what the Bible says about healing. I am sure that many of us have been in a church when someone requested that the congregation come together and unite in prayer for a brother or sister who is having some serious life problems. There are many folks within the Christian community that have never experienced a healing service so to say, or have you ever been present for the anointing of oil and other Christian rituals that have been passed down over the years. There are times that there are just services for prayer. To pray for someone’s needs and I’ve known enough times when it is a church wide service. Prayer for healing is a spiritual practice for a person or persons to ask for physical, emotional or spiritual restoration from the divine power. This can usually involve specific prayers for wellness, seeking a shift in mindset towards a more positive and whole person outlook, and trusting in a higher power for strength and guidance.

We acknowledge the different traditions of various prayers and rituals, the common themes such as asking for healing strength, the restoration of joy and the ability to bless and serve others in renewed health. Prayer is a very powerful source of being as close to the Father as we can possibly get. We have prayers for a physical healing, for emotional and spiritual healing, for strength and guidance, maybe a prayer for a shift in the way we live, in our mindset the way we’re looking at things letting go of past mistakes and looking for a better way as we’ve said, looking for the good way. There are some key aspects of prayer and it is the “Pews” view that prayer at its best is a sincere honest and heartfelt conversation with our God. Our prayers should of course, rest on faith and trust. Our traditions, our knowledge have told us that prayers are more effective when offered in faith. It should be a faith that knows God, trust God, and has every confidence that God will hear our prayer. Be aware that a lack of faith can inhibit healing. We have community prayers coming together as a community to provide support, especially when one’s own faith is weak. There a better way to put it simplistically speaking in a secular mode and that is there is always strength in numbers. Our prayers should be seeking divine will. Some suggest praying in accordance with the divine will can be part of a larger process of spiritual transformation. And lastly, that not being an indication of importance, but the exhibition of a trait that we all should try to cultivate. We must understand, patience, and time, some aspects of healing are immediate, while others may take time, as part of the longer journey of transformation. That kind of brings us back to the fact that God may not answer our prayers as we expected, God’s will, and desire may differ from ours.

Now moving along what exactly does the Bible say about healing? I have done my homework all this so to speak I’ve searched for scriptures about healing, and I’ve tried to understand. Sometimes healing doesn’t take place, and that is sometimes seized upon by unbelievers. I think the best way to close this out is to understand God still performs miracles, God still heals people, sickness, disease, pain, and death are still realities in this world. It should be a common understanding among all Christians that until the Lord returns everyone who is alive today will die, and the truth is that includes Christians. The majority of them will die as a result of a physical problem, disease, or sickness, injury, it is not always God’s will to heal us physically. For me as a layman, in the simple view of things, and not from a theological outlook, I’ll bring it down all of it to one thing…Revelation, 21:4 and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

There may be detours, some pauses along the way, but the good way leads us to the promise of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There shall be life, everlasting, promises kept.

Life is Good

jk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes the road to the Good Way seems a bit dark in places and today we want to kind of take time to look at a little bit of Christian terminology to help us understand how to stay on the Good Way. In Christian terminology light is a powerful metaphor, symbolizing God’s nature and presence, as well as spiritual concepts, like truth, goodness, wisdom, and salvation. The absence of that light in our life is referred to in biblical writings as darkness, and it represents sin, evil, ignorance, and spiritual blindness. When we talk about God, we’re talking about something that is inherently, holy and pure, and Jesus as the light of the world. It is that light of the world that dispels that spiritual darkness, and it leads us as believers to live in truth and good works. Now we will break this down a little bit and see if we can better understand that which gives us light as we travel along the road to the Good Way.

There should be in every Christian’s life, the presence of God, his absolute holiness, moral perfection, and and the undeniable quality of knowing everything. As Christians were familiar with the term “the light of the world”… it refers to Jesus, as being the true light that gives light to everyone, meaning he provides spiritual illumination and salvation. There’s plenty of scripture reference to such, we know that believers who follow Jesus will not walk in darkness, but will have the “light of life”. Because of such Christians are called to walk in the light which means living in truth, holiness, and good works. As believers, we are encouraged to let our light shine before others so that our good deeds may be seen. In a simplistic way, we are looking at good versus evil. The Bible consistently contrasts light with darkness. Light represents God’s truth, goodness and life and darkness represents sin, evil, and death. When we hear the terminology telling us the following, “walking with God in the light” it implies a state of fellowship, purity, and a departure from darkness and sin. It also provides for us a well defined path to the “Good Way”.

I had not intended to include the following segment in this blog this week. While it may sound strange to some people, the fact that Christian terminology can be excessive at times and may be a little confusing. So I’m simply going to attach a list that has been gathered from various sources of Christian writings and share with you the terminology that often is used within the Christian community. We can be certain most of us have been exposed to the following theological terms like grace, gospel, salvation… key figures, such as Jesus Christ, the apostles, significant symbols, like the cross and practices such as a baptism and repentance. We find these words are used to discuss the beliefs, stories, and commands central to the Christian faith, which are based and found within the Bible. With that said below is the list.

Key terms and concepts 

• Apostle: A person sent out to preach the gospel. Jesus called twelve apostles to follow him. 
• Baptism: A ceremony involving immersion in water, symbolizing a new Christian life and the washing away of sins. 
• Covenant: A sacred agreement or promise, used throughout the Bible to describe God’s relationship with people. 
• Christ: From the Greek word Christós, meaning “The Anointed One.” It is a title for Jesus, who is also called the Messiah. 
• Cross: The central symbol of Christianity, representing the crucifixion of Jesus. 
• Faith: Belief and trust in God. 
• Forgiveness: The act of pardoning someone for their wrongdoings, which is central to Christian teaching. 
• Gospel: The “good news” about Jesus Christ, especially his life, death, and resurrection. 
• Grace: The unmerited favor and love of God towards people. 
• Heaven and Hell: The afterlife destinations as described in the Bible. 
• Holiness: A state of being set apart for God and of being morally pure. 
• Jesus Christ: The central figure of Christianity, believed to be the Son of God. 
• Justification: The act of being declared righteous in the eyes of God, often through faith in Jesus. 
• Mercy: Compassion shown by God to people. 
• Redemption: The act of being saved from sin through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 
• Repentance: To turn away from sin and toward God. 
• Salvation: The act of being saved from sin and death through faith in Jesus Christ. 

Thanks for joining us in the pew this week. Please come back next week as we continue moving along the good way.

Life is Good

jk

Seems like I’m always giving a weather report from the back porch and here this evening it’s very pleasant 62° and very little wind at all. Well after we all got chairs or boxes and got seated this evenings Ponder came quickly. We got into a discussion about the holiday season. It’s pretty much upon us now. Next week will be Thanksgiving and we begin to talk about families and get-togethers and things that we’ve become accustomed to over the years that just don’t exist anymore. I think we all have reached a point in our lives where we realize that with age comes a lot of problems, blessings, different things and most of us are able to adjust fairly well to those changes. But there’s one change that takes place that really hits home hard. Tradition… and tonight that will be our Ponder for this evening. Tradition is the handing down of beliefs, customs, and practices from one generation to the next, often by word-of-mouth or practice. It represents a long-standing way of acting within a group or society, the word originates from the Latin word Tradere, meaning to transmit or handover. Now right off we want to eliminate groups, society and our focus will be on family traditions. We’re looking at inherited customs, beliefs, or practices that have been passed down and have a symbolic meeting or a special significance in our families. Of course, now we want to recognize the fact that there are cultural traditions. It’s a process of transmitting, cultural knowledge, stories, and habits from ancestors to descendants, sometimes without written records. And of course, when we get into the religious context we’re talking about the body of doctrines and laws and practices that are believed to have been established by a certain religion by its founders and their followers. What this really comes down to is that it’s about evolution. Many of our traditions are invented overtime and they can involve a whole lot of changes but us old folks we don’t do well with change. Most of us here on the porch agree that we like that turkey out of the oven cooked just like grandma and mom used to do. Oh yes, before I forget it. Don’t forget the heart, gizzard, and the liver and neck, they’re in that little sack hid in the cavity. We like our green beans country style, what we mean by that is a ham hock or some bacon grease boost them up and give them a down-home flavor. I always look forward to that sweet tater casserole. You know the one with marshmallows melted across the top of it. Of course, we always like those mashed potatoes with gravy, lots of gravy, homemade biscuits, some of us remember using a biscuit to sop up some of that gravy. And whatever you do, don’t forget the cranberry sauce. I will guarantee you that sometime later in the day, somebody will be in the kitchen, fixing themselves a turkey and cranberry sandwich. You gotta have plenty of iced tea, southern style, iced tea, lots of sugar. Now I almost forgot that dressing. Making dressing for this particular meal is an art and when you get it just right and you ladle enough gravy on top of it… how does that old saying go… “now you’re cooking”. Of course we don’t want to leave out the dessert. You got to have at least three kinds of pie. Your choice, of course, but mine would be Apple, Pumpkin, and Peach. Now in my family, you would have to also add, ice cream for the apple and homemade whipped cream for the pumpkin and peach. It’s a family tradition.

Somebody in the group brought up Hank Williams Junior, and a song that he had recorded some years back. “ It’s a Family Tradition” which we quickly reminded them that, that wasn’t exactly the type of tradition we were looking for. But in fairness to our friend, we recognize the fact that tradition takes many forms and whatever they may be they’re important to the people that they’ve been passed down to, and who will pass them down in the future. So, I guess at this point is where I write Ponder This…  there is no greaterTradition than the family gathering around the table, giving thanks, and enjoying a fine Thanksgiving Dinner.

Hope you and yours have a good one.

Kurt

I posted a blog some years back 2015 to be exact about the three things in the title above. As we continue traveling the Good Way I would like to take time to look at those three words from a Christian perspective.  Let’s take a closer look at these three things in relation to the Christian perspective.

Starting with Authority, which is the supreme power and right of God to govern all of creation, rooted in his role as the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Creator. This authority is considered to be absolute extending over all things, and it is the basis for moral and spiritual order  we face, guiding the lives of believers in forming the source of delegated authority in different aspects of life. Well, that is a lot of big words, but God’s aspect of authority is a very important part of living a faithful life. The very foundation of God’s authority is His act of creation, bringing the Hebrew universe into existence, and He has the ultimate right to rule over it. What is the extent of God’s sovereignty? What scripture tells us and it has been affirmed in psalms, what it means is his kingdom rules overall. It is a recognition that all delegated authority ultimately comes from God. It is the basis for moral spiritual order, guiding believers in their actions and beliefs. This authority of God’s includes the power to judge good and evil to show mercy and judge life and death. God does trust rules of leadership individuals, but their authority is limited in its scope, and it is subordinate to God’s will, and is condemned if abused.

Next, we move onto Accountability. We are speaking of our individual accountability for our actions decisions and thoughts, acknowledging sin and seeking forgiveness and striving to live righteously according to the divine principles. There will come a day when we will have to stand before God and be held accountable for those things which we have or have not done. This type of accountability is seen as a foundational aspect of the relationship between God and humanity, which includes mostly responsibility to live according to God’s will, and the hope of forgiveness and grace. We are each held accountable for our own choices and we can find that in testament versus from the book of Deuteronomy. Being a Christian means that we are willing to acknowledge our   not only just our outward actions, but also our intentions and thoughts. The process of accountability includes recognizing our sins, and seeking gods forgiveness. We are called to live a life that reflects our faith which includes being honest and making commitments and ethical decisions. These things indicate a reflection of our intent and personal commitment to God. Our stewardship of gifts should be faithful and diligent in using our God-given talents and resources that are illustrated in the Bible. This concept of accountability will come about when all individuals independently face divine judgment for their deeds. A closing thought on accountability… accountability is not meant to be born alone it involves relying on divine guidance and strength to live responsibly and make righteous choices.

The last of the three, Responsibility. 

“He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

I believe that there is no simpler way of expressing the responsibility that we have to God then the above verse. We can also enlarge on that a little bit and add that we need to be a soul winner, and we need to continuously give praise and be thankful for God’s great love. We must keep the faith and not allow doubt to cloud our ability to do what we know is right. Continue to be responsible, never be selfish with God… by withholding a share of our wealth from God and we need to serve Jesus and others. In the 15th chapter of  1st Corinthians Paul declares that if we really believe, and if we are truly thankful that our resurrection is sure we should therefore demonstrate our assurance and thankfulness by standing firm and letting nothing move us and always giving ourselves to the full work of the Lord that’s in first Corinthians 15:58 …so what Paul advises us is this, that it is the believers responsibility to stand firm in the faith and give himself completely to the Lord.

Life is Good

jk

The Great Raid… I am 82 years old and my generation is quite familiar with where and how these brave men stood for us and the many storied battles that took place. On this Veterans Day I remember Poland, Hungary. I Remember Dachau, Auschwitz and those camps were only two of some 20 total concentration camps. Dunkirk, the White Cliffs of Dover, London and the blitz then Normandy Beach, Anzio. War and hate knows no boundaries and with that thought along comes the Japanese. Remember Pearl Harbor, the war in the Pacific. General MacArthur and the plight of the Philippines. In all these places, people lost their lives and many of our young man died. And all across Europe and the Pacific American soldiers, men and women died to free others. It has been said that the only thing we ever asked of any of these countries or places was just enough ground to bury our dead. But man’s evil and the war it brings, seems like we never learn its lesson. They didn’t call it a war. they called it a conflict, the Korean conflict. I probably left something out, but then I’m an old man and my memory is not as well as it used to be, but I do remember very well, The Vietnam war. A war that changed a whole generation and called up the very best it had to offer and destroyed them in a political war that gained nothing.

Gleaming white alabaster crosses, marking the places where they lay at last in peace. Granite and stone walls that listed the names of those who died. I wrote this today to remember a battle that many of you don’t know about. It came to life in a book and a film that was made in 2005 called the great raid. The great raid is based on a true story of the January 30,1945 rescue of over 500 allies prisoners of war from the Japanese run Cabanatuan camp in the Philippines. It was led by US Army Rangers and Alamo Scouts, with the crucial support of Filipino guerrillas. It is considered one of the most successful rescue missions in US military history. The mission saved prisoners who had endured the brutal Bataan death march and other atrocities. As I wrote this, I thought about the hundreds of other little battles that occurred during these wars that we know nothing about. Death could be a very lonely thing and I’m not so sure that how you died matters as much as what you die for. With all that’s happening in our nation today I kind of feel like that 101 year-old Englishman who the other day made the statement I don’t think that all of what we went through was worth it. One more thing about my writing this. I never served in the military and having written this tonight and remembering all of these things I feel ashamed. I offer my humble prayer of thanks to those who stood for me. God bless them all.

Kurt

I would guess the best place for us to start would be with our title and just follow the words. Using that as our guide, let us begin with. Scripture. Scripture means any sacred or authoritative religious text with a common use referring to the Christian Bible or a specific message from it. You can usually refer to any religious text as considered sacred, to which I would add the Hebrew scriptures. Scriptures both in the Christian Bible as well as the Hebrew Scriptures are understood as containing spiritual truth and divine revelation. We will go ahead now and run the risk of repeating ourselves, but we want to follow the outline we have put together. Sacred writings are usually the most common, meaning any writing regarded as holy by a specific religion. Our Christian Bible often refers to both Old and New Testament and can be used to be a specific message from the Bible. Scripture comes from the Latin word scriptura, meaning writing. Now for those of the faith, and for this particular writing, I’m referring to both the Christian faith and Jewish faith for those people,  Scripture is considered to be a source of divine truth, spiritual power, and guidance.

I know that we have in previous writings in the past spoken of faith as being a deep trust or belief in something even without proof which can be applied to a specific religious system, person or ideal. But it involves and depends on confidence and loyalty, and in a religious context, that often means belief in a deity and commitment to their teachings. Faith can also mean an unwavering confidence in someone’s abilities or a firm set of principles. I do not believe that I can express fully enough how important Fidelity and loyalty is as an obligation to ones promises, duty, or an ideal, as seen in the phrase, “in good faith”.

The truth is that faith is not always that simple. The key components of faith are belief, trust, confidence, loyalty and commitment, which in a religious sense involves a commitment of a person’s life to that belief system. That faith goes one step further, and involves action, acting upon that belief rather than just intellectual assent. It means that we’re trusting without actually seeing. In a religious context faith is often described as believing in and trusting in God, even when he cannot be seen. A good example of acting on faith would be of the blind man who asked Jesus for healing, he had the faith that Jesus could do it. Faith also requires us to live a life that can be expressed through service and obedience to God. I guess we could apply a legal point here if you want to from a secular point of view, faith can also be demonstrated through actions that show sincerity of intent.

Let’s add one other word to our blog this week. We’ve been looking at faith and scripture. Now add  “practicability”. Now this is a hard one to put into place. When we do a little bit of research, we find that practicability likely would refer to the practical application and real world relevance of the two elements of faith and scripture. I will try to take us through this without it being too confusing. How are faith and scripture joined together to become a practical application to our everyday lives? Well, it does concern our actions in our behavior and how we react to certain situations which includes treating others with kindness and compassion and forgiving others to start with.That’s just a few things that come to mind. They can also be expressed through a good attitude at work with the understanding that all services are ultimately for God and when we practice our faith, that involves disciplines like prayer, reading scripture, worship, and serving others, scripture practicability is in its ability to be applied to everyday life, providing a guidance for living, even when faced with difficult decisions and circumstances. Now there is a word in our vocabulary, which carries a lot of weight and it’s called logic. The concept of faith over practicability suggests that there will be times that our belief should guide actions, even when it seems to contradict the worldly wisdom of logic. So to wrap this up, let’s look at a few of the examples of practical application.

In James 2:26… the Bible states that faith without works is dead, highlighting the necessity of faith being demonstrated through action.

Ephesians 6:1–3 and Colossians 3:20… both of these passages show a child’s submission and obedience to their parents as an act of faith.

Romans 10:9–11… this first speaks to the practical step of confessing faith in Jesus Christ, which is linked directly to salvation.

James 4:17… is a verse that shows the practical application of morality by stating that it is a sin to know you should do good and then not do it.

It’s important that we accept the practicability of both our faith and scripture through the practice of putting our religious beliefs and teachings into our daily actions and behavior. And I would remind us all that the real practicality of scripture lies in its ability to guide and impact real life situations even across different times and contexts.

Come back and join us next week in The Pew.

Life is Good

jk

 I have struggled all week to find someway to put down on paper our last little get together on the back porch. I have shared with you many times in the past that most of us here on the back porch are kind of in our older years so to speak as some people would say, the old-timers would say we’re a bit long in the tooth. We’ve learned that there’s very little agreement or support for our view and we’ve kind of learned to live the best we can and get through these last few years that we have. I believe if I’m pronouncing the name right Mamdani, the soon to be mayor of New York has been a subject that’s pretty well dominated the news for a few weeks now. Well, everybody is upset because he jetted off to a luxury resort for his organizational conference days after his victory. After we discussed that for a short period of time, it was pretty well agreed that he’s not the only one that’s ever done this,  We’re just talking about facts. Matter fact, most politicians love these resort meetings at the taxpayers expense. If we follow the headlines, we see that the government shut down is still in full swing. It doesn’t look like it’s gonna get settled any time real soon. Then there’s for a little bit of comic relief, the verdict that the jury came back with on the gentleman who threw a sandwich at a border agent, I’m sorry. The jury decided after several hours of debate that he was not guilty of assault on a federal agent. I wasn’t the only one in the group that found the verdict OK with us. His actions are pretty much the norm nowadays, and if all he did was throw a sandwich the agent who was the target got lucky. We would much rather have seen the agent having to answer to the question of why, after he was hit with the sandwich he slapped the guy across the face and put him on the ground, we would’ve liked that a lot better. Now, remember, we’re just a bunch of old man sitting on our back porch, our day has come and gone. We are fascinated by this chaos on wheels where these chaotic groups get together and they take over the streets and the police can’t seem to do anything about it. This last instance in Fall River, Massachusetts was rather small compared to some others, but it did draw at least 50 to 100 individuals over the weekend. They took over the streets on dirt bike, scooters ATVs, motorcycles, and disrupted the traffic while performing these reckless stunts risking not only their lives but lives of innocent law abiding citizens and putting pedestrians at risk. The thing that got our attention was the fact that there’s 50 or 100 people involved in this business and the police made arrests, three, that’s right, you read it right, three people out of at least 50 to 100 that were disrupting the traffic and the safety of people in the area, that’s it. Actually, we were having a pretty big time on the porch laughing about all these things and how complicated life is today and how easily you can get irritated just getting out of bed. But the one that really took the cake for all of us was that dear lady that we all love to follow occasionally and that is Elizabeth Warren. She got called out the other night by Washington Post for blaming Trump over Monday nights football blackout. I don’t watch pro football anymore so I wasn’t affected by It, didn’t even know about it but it seems that she that she said,  It’s all President Trump’s fault. The Washington Post editorial boards will they pushed back? They had an editorial which simply was titled, Elizabeth Warren knows better. So for the record what was really going on was that a couple of our larger entertainment networks who were at odds over contracts and they just canceled each other out so to speak, and there was no broadcast because of it. The lack of it not being on the air was due to corporations being at odds about who’s gonna pay who how much and when. President Trump didn’t have anything to do with it and rightfully so, it wasn’t a government matter.

Well, we’ve gone on with a bunch of stuff really and having not accomplished anything but that seems like that’s a pretty common situation today. Remember the 50s? Families went to church on Sunday. Most of the stores were closed in observance of the Sabbath. Of course I remember the young girls they dressed modestly yet they were some of the prettiest things in this world. It seems kind of odd to me, and I don’t quite understand it but the less skin that showed the more intriguing the ladies. These were the Eisenhower years, calm, peaceful suburban life, the church, the center of family activities, you could go anywhere you wanted to and not have to worry about your safety, you didn’t have to lock your front door or your car. It was just a laid-back time. I remember a lot of things about the 50s while I was growing up and even at that young age I remember the Eisenhower, president Dwight Eisenhower delivering his farewell speech. I remember his warning about the industrial military complex. I didn’t understand anything about it, but it became part of a historical writing that is still remembered today. Then came the 60s and with them, we began to change. It’s only natural for us old dogs to look back on that day and time and wonder where the quiet went. What happened to the families, our communities, our churches, and our life enhancing moralities. So that my friend is the ponder of the day? Ponder this… where did all of our yesterday’s go? What happened while we complacently enjoyed life.

Kurt

Devotion, Discipleship, Discipline is the best way to follow our series “The Good Way”, which by the way, never really ends. Last week we brought that series to close and remind you that the three of the main marks on our map of the good way was the 10 Commandments,Knowledge, and the Unity of the body of Christ. This week we’re gonna look at some of the stops along the way that help us to remain on and to even continue on the good way. The first of those would be Christian devotion, which is defined as simply being the practice of a dedicated time and heartfelt affection towards God. It involves daily activities like reading the Bible, prayer, and worship to grow closer to him. While some of this we covered in the previous series, but this involves a personal internal commitment to relationship with God and attitude, and an outward expression of that commitment through obedience. It means looking to things that provides spiritual encouragement and guidance. The very core of this is a personal relationship with God spending time with him through study and prayer. It involves reading the Bible and looking to understand God’s word. Our prayer should also be for our personal needs as well as others, and it is a means of communicating these to God. I will add here how important it is to go to church and to engage in singing, hymns of praise and engage in the worship itself. It’s a conscience effort to make God the center of your life, allowing that relationship to influence all your decisions, and you find yourselves a position of an intentional form of living. Not all of this is really kind of an individual emphasis on our self, so we must get beyond that and remember the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. It simply means that this relationship that we’re cultivating with God should extend outward to how we treat others. So how do we bring all of this together? Well, we start out by having a daily routine that brings us closer to God by using the resources that are available to us our Bible, online articles, things of this nature that give us a structured time of guidance towards how our God would have us live, but the purpose of all this is not just to complete a task, but to change our heart and mind and for a genuine connection with God, even at times when it’s not always filled with great enthusiasm.

The next “D” is discipleship, which is the process of following and becoming more like Jesus through a learning relationship and obedience to his teachings, and of course has a personal commitment to grow in one’s faith while we’re working hard also to help others do the same. It is an ongoing transformational lifestyle. It should not be treated as a one time event. We should be aiming for a personal transformation which involves a Holy Spirit and a desire to apply Jesus’s teachings to daily life, and to grow in spiritual maturity. There is a part of this discipleship which requires accountable relationships with people that are around you mentoring those who perhaps need help and using dialogue and discussion to encourage spiritual growth. A crucial part of what is going on, of course, is helping others to follow Jesus and this involves teaching them to obey Jesus’s commands and reproducing Christ’s life through our discipleship is really a very comprehensive process. The studying of the word of God, prayer and fellowship, praise and worship.

We really can’t ignore the fact that sometimes it will involve working through past pains and events that can hinder that growth.

The last “D”…Christian discipline, how we practice our faith and how we extend that faith and belief to others to help them grow in their faith and then there’s a part in there that I really do like. It’s in an instructive correctional procedure by parents to provide to their children not only the disciplines of life but also of a Christian life. And we’re talking about activities such as prayer Bible study, Fellowship, which help a Christian develop deeper relationships with God and to cultivate godly character. As parents, we must realize that godly discipline is characterized by compassion, clarity, consistency, and aiming to guide a child towards godly choices, rather than simply punishing misbehavior. Many of the factors that are part of this apply to adults and children alike. Our purpose is to grow in holiness to resist temptation and become more Christ like. Remember the old days in Sunday school when we used to have to memorize Bible verses, come back next week and share them with everybody? It is my wish and I would kinda hope that Bible reading, study and memorization will continue to be a large component of our children’s Bible studies. We have this thing today that in many churches or denominations, when you join there’s always a list of don’t do’s… well here’s a list of things to do. Make these things a part of your daily life. Prayer. fasting, fellowship with other believers having a sense of generosity and service and taking a little bit of time away from everything for meditation and solitude. Where our children are concerned a little word if you don’t mind please about parental discipline. It should be provided to lovingly guide a child to make godly choices and develop a respectful character. Some of the characteristics of that would be… consistency applying rules and consequences that are fair and  reliably dependable. Compassion, approaching the child with a loving and understanding heart. Clarity, clearly communicating rules and expectations. And of course correction directly addressing wrong choices with firm, but loving guidance. And all of these things about discipline that we’ve been discussing should contain these three key principles. One, it should be a means of grace not just a form of punishment, two, it balances love with firm boundaries. Three, it aims to develop godly character, and understanding of God’s presence.

Thank you for joining us in the pew this week and I hope that you’ve enjoyed our discussion today about the Three “D’s”. Here in the Pew we do work at trying to find a balance and not overwhelm you with scriptures. Come back and join us next week.

Life is Good

jk

Just a couple of us hunkered down here on the porch, this is the time of year when you get what I call the true southern winter. I will try and explain that as best I can. It’s been raining here where I live anywhere from a light mist to a light rain to an occasional downpour now and then and the temperature it’s just 53°. To me one of the coldest feelings I can get is a cloudy, wet, winter southern day, it will chill you to the bone. I guess that’s kinda hard for people to understand, but at this time of year around here in the south, nature is kinda working on the landscape, we call it fall. The leaves are turning, and things are beginning to look rather bare in certain places. But it seems like when you add that cloudy overcast, a slight mist and the temperature sitting in the 50s, that’s a southern winter. You can find a lot of things to ponder about this evening on the porch, but I believe we just can’t seem to get away from the fact that our country is in pretty sad shape. Now I’m not particularly and neither or any of those that are here advocating, any particular political party but we both recognize the fact that we have a situation in this country with the government’s being shut down now for 30 days and to me, it’s nothing more than a schoolyard fight between two bullies. We are in agreement that the object is really not to make things better for people, but to consolidate their power, whichever one can hold out the longest wins. Let’s get away from that sort of thing right now it’s too depressing but when we turn around and we look at the shape of the country as far as now is concerned it ain’t easy to move on. Everybody’s mad at everybody, more and more cities are having to deal with escalating crime and civil disorder, and believe there is actually a faction within our nation that are spending quite a bit of time trying to redefined exactly what criminal behavior is. It turns out that it’s really not about justice, but it has become a war of words and civil disobedience. Remember that famous Clintonian line…. “it depends on what is is.” I will say that here on the porch we all agree that the situation is simply this …if you came into this country in any way, other then through the means that are provided by law then your here illegally. There is no one to my knowledge that are even suggesting that you’re not human or that you don’t have some rights of expectation to be treated fairly, but you’re here illegally, which simply means you don’t have any rights other than human rights, and all we have to do is look around the world and we get a picture of how that particular thing, human rights, are looked at.

Take a moment and step back in time just a little bit. Walt Disney made a movie many years ago called Song of the South. The movie eventually ended up being banned so to speak because of racial overtones, need I say anymore. There was a song in that movie that is going to end up being our ponder for today. When was the last time that you had a Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah day? The lyrics are pretty encouraging and the song kinda makes a statement of what a wonderful day with plenty of sunshine headed my way. Now those of us here are on the porch are going to take that sunshine headed my way as simply meaning there’s something good coming. And then the lyrics talk about a Mr. Bluebird on my shoulder and that’s the truth. It’s actual and everything is satisfactual. Now I’m going to take that lyric is simply meaning that the Bluebird is a symbol of truth… and we get so little of that in today’s world. I guess it’s time to bring this porch time to a close by simply hoping that each of you has a Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Day. May your days ahead bring you a lot of good things and let truth come your way. Until then…Ponder This… Where have all the Bluebirds gone?

Kurt

For the past few weeks, we have been on a journey seeking the “Good Way”. The first landmark on our map was the 10 Commandments. God’s law given to Moses by God and then by Moses to the chosen people of God. The next landmark on our map was knowledge of the word following the word and living the word as God has given it to us to understand, with discernment and the aid of the Holy Spirit. The third landmark on our map is unity unity of the body of believers among themselves and in the faith. This week there is an abundance of scripture references for us to look to for guidance and we’ll get to those in just a few words.

Let’s take time to examine this wonderment the thing. As usual, the Pew will run to our nearest dictionary and look at the word wonder which means to feel surprise, admiration, or all, good to be curious about something. It’s interesting to know that it can refer to a person or saying that causes such a feeling but also it allows us to Marvel at a miracle. As a verb, it means to think about something with curiosity, including even to maybe doubt it  As a noun, it refers to the feeling itself, maybe an event that contains a natural wonder or remarkable object. Wonder the word appears in the Bible 148 times in total, if we break that down the word wonder is used 55 times. When it’s written as wondered, it’s used 15 times and wonderful is used 21 times. So the point here is that the word wonder or wonderment is not new to biblical thought and writings. In biblical terms it can constitute amazement, astonishment, and even can cause people to marvel at certain events of which they have no plausible explanation. So I ask the question is there an end to the good way? 

This is my personal thought about that question. A big NO. Now those scriptures that I was writing about a paragraph or so ago will lead us to the good way.There is no end to the good way. If there is an end to the good way, it takes place in the mist of the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and there is no end to our savior’s glory. Another way of expressing the good way is to simply say living a good life and Micah 6:8 speaks very plainly to that.

“He has shown you, oh mortal, what is good and what does the Lord require of you to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” 

So this verse outlines three key actions that constitutes the good way… justice, mercy and humility. There are many other scriptures that we can turn to… Proverbs 3:5–6 advises us to trust in the Lord and our signature verse that started all of this Jeremiah 6:16, which encourages seeking the ancient path, asking where the good way is, stop, pray and then continue on, and then we turned to Galatians 5:22–23, which describes fruit of the spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. To kind of dive into these versus just a little closer proverbs 3:5–6 encourages us to choose a path of trust and reliance on God’s guidance and in Jeremiah 6:16 this is a verse that speaks directly to us as we seek out and follow the good, ancient way, always seeking out  the fruit of the spirit. Looking at Galatians 5:22–23, these are the character traits that define the good way we also would add to these versus Ephesians 2:10, it speaks of God’s handiwork and this verse connects living a good way with fulfilling God’s purpose for each of us. Then Romans 12:2 encourages us to not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but by renewing our mind, we can be transformed, the passage encourages a transformation in our thinking to a better understanding and to follow God’s goodwill. The pew would also encourage each of you to have a spiritual balance in your life. The Bible is really about, maintaining a healthy relationship with God and integrating your faith into all the areas of life guided by the principles like loving God and your neighbor, seeking wisdom and seeking God’s way. We need to find a balance in our spiritual practices when possible, we need to give prayer equal time in our study of the Bible and we have to balance between spiritual life and material responsibilities. We need to look to truth and love and an attitude that prioritizes God is first.

Our journey is not yet over, but the day will come when this life we’re living now will be over and we will move on the good way and be in the presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I encourage you to make God first in your life and remember that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself this more than anything forms the foundation for a balanced life. Thank you for going on this journey with us here in the pew we hope to see you again next week. Keep the faith and stay on a good way. Amen.

Life is Good

jk