Ipods, Solomon, and Thanksgiving
But what is our attitude? We are richer than Solomon, one of the richest men that ever lived. We have what he did not even dream existed. And our attitude, which should be one of thanksgiving, is often complaining. It takes too long for the hot water to reach the bath. We have only 170 hours of music and someone else has 230 hours of music. We only have a 50" TV and our friend has a 65" TV.
So let us always be thankful to God for the great riches that He has poured on even the poorest of us.
Snowflakes and God
It snowed last night - fast and furious, and what beauty - lots and lots of snow flakes coming down. But what struck me last night is God's creativity. Every snowflake is unique and there were thousands of them last night, perhaps millions. How can that be? God, who is infinite in power, is also infinite in creativity. So He made each snowflake unique. I think I would have run out of new ideas after a thousand, but He creates millions and millions of snowflakes that are unique. Just like no two human beings are identical. Even identical twins have different fingerprints. Each one of us has our own God-given DNA, our own finger prints, our own teeth, etc.
So let us praise God because of His creativity.
Rejoicing
It is great to be able to start the new week off rejoicing. We were able to go to church twice and it is truly a privilege. Yesterday we had a great service - followed by a time of fellowship over food, a time to rejoice with others. A time to pray with and for others. It was great to start the week off in the house of the Lord.
It is great to start the day off with devotions, reading a passage from God's Word and then praying.
May you-all have a blessed week -
Complaining or Thanksgiving?
Let me give a personal example. For Christmas vacation, our family drove from Norfolk, VA to Pennsylvania to see my mother and father-in-law, and then we drove to New Jersey to see my mom. We drove into NYC on the 23rd of December and then on the 24th we drove to Michigan to see my daughter and her family. On the 30th of December we drove back from Michigan so my son could fly to South Africa on the 31st. On the 4th of January our car would not start. We had it towed to our mechanic, and he discovered that we had a bad fuel pump and that our radiator was split and was leaking coolant. The gas tank had to be lowered, the fuel pump replaced, and we needed a new radiator. All in all it cost us many, many dollars.
So what is our attitude? Are we complainers? I could have used the money to pay off some debts, but now I am further in debt. Looking back I had to give thanks to God. We could have had the fuel pump go out on Friday 30 December on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. To get Philip home in time for his flight, we would have had to get towed to a garage and on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the exits are often 30 miles apart. Then we would have had to rent a car and where could we have found a rental car agency in the western part of Pennsylvania that would have been open on Friday night? Then we would have had to drive home - 8 hours away, and Philip still had to unpack from the Christmas trip and pack for South Africa. Then turn around later in the week and drive back and pick the van up. Or we might have had the breakdown in NYC on Friday the 23th. Then we would have had a towing to a garage, repair and thus we would have missed celebrating Christmas with my wife (who was already in Michigan) and my daughter and her family.
So I was and am very thankful that the van broke down at home, and not on the PA Turnpike or in NYC. I am thankful that it broke down after my son had caught his international flight. I am thankful that it broke down in our driveway, vice failing when my son was driving 70 MPH going up a hill with concrete barriers on one side, and heavy truck traffic. I am thankful that I could get in fixed by my mechanic, whom I trust, and not by some other person. I am thankful that I could get zero percent financing for the next six months. So here is just one example of how to live with an attitude of thankfulness, and not whining, puleing, or complaining.
The challenge is to always live a life of thanksgiving, even if it costs you money.
New Year's Resolutions and God's Faithfulness
Second, I want to say what a comfort we can draw that we know that while man is unfaithful, God is faithful. We often read in the Old Testament about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is saying that He was faithful to those great saints, and He is going to be faithful to their descendents. So let us rest in His arms, knowing that God is faithful.
Christmas & Samuel Andrew Vandermolen
When Jesus Christ was born, He was born with a definite purpose. He was born to save. In Luke 1:30-31 we read: But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus." Jesus is Greek for Joshua which means Savior. And in Matthew 1:21 we read: "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins."
So while the future of Samuel Andrew Vandermolen is unknown, we know why Jesus came to the earth. He came to save His people from their sins.
Shopping Days till Christmas
Have you noticed that the "Shopping Days till Christmas" is now "Days till Christmas"? It used to be that there was no shopping on Sundays. For example, if Christmas was on a Monday, the previous Thursday they would say "3 Shopping Days till Christmas." The days would have been Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with the stores closed on Sunday and the celebration of Christmas on Monday. As a child I remembered taking my dime and biking to the store to buy a brother a chocolate bar for his Christmas present. I distinctly remember doing it on a Saturday afternoon, realizing that the stores would be closed the next day. But now that the fourth commandment is routinely violated, disregarded, ignored, and broken, in the above example there would be 4 Days till Christmas.
It is a shame that people are so interested in making a buck, that they don't sit down and rest. They are certainly not in the churches on the Sundays before Christmas. And even on Thanksgiving, the retail workers have to leave early to get to work at midnight. Does America really need 365 shopping days per year? Is there no rest for the worker? Must the fast pace continue so fast that the families feel compelled to shop? The much disparged Blue Laws protected the workers.
So let us observe Sundays as a day of rest. Spend time in church with God and His family. Then, visit a nursing home and spread good cheer. And have a Merry Christmas.
Santa Claus or Jesus Christ as the Judge
You better watch out!
Better not cry!
Better not pout!
I'm telling you why,
Santa Claus is comin' to town.
He's making a list
and checking it twice.
He's going to find out who's naughty and nice.
Santa Claus Is comin' to town.
He sees when you're sleeping.
He knows when you're awake.
He knows if you've been bad or good.
So be good for goodness sake!
You better watch out!
Better not cry!
Better not pout!
I'm telling you why,
Santa Claus is comin' to town.
Why is it that we spend more time thinking about Santa Claus than Christ? Santa Claus, a mere mythical human, can judge the world and "He's going to find out who's naughty and nice." Santa Claus as a judge is well known in the cartoons, whether it is Garfield or Curtis. We sing about Santa Clause the Judge who gives gifts. if you are good, you get presents and if you are very good, you get lots and lots of presents, and only occasionally does he have to put coal in someone's stocking.
But we ignore at our own peril Jesus Christ who is coming back to judge the earth. Because He is God, He does not have to check the list twice and He already knows who is naughty and nice. Further, when Jesus Christ returns, He will either bless us with His eternal presence (not presents) if we believe in Him or He will curse us for eternity if we don't believe in Him as our Savior.
My prayer is that we confess our sins and repent and turn to Him.
Christmas and the Second Coming
Are you ready for Christ's Second Coming? He has not announced when, but He has announced that He will surely come again. Yet I fear that many of us will not be ready. Unlike the Christmas celebration of today, we do not know the exact date. But that does not mean that He won't come back. He surely will come back. So let us be prepared.
Thanksgiving or Black Friday
Shame on us for not giving thanks to our Creator and Savior. In Romans 1:21 we read: "For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened." Our thinking has become futile, and our hearts have been darkened.
Prayer: "Lord, forgive us for not glorifying and thanking You."
Thanksgiving to whom?
This is some great revisionist history. What really happened is described to us in a letter from Edward Winslow: "Our corn [i.e. wheat] did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, but our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sown. They came up very well, and blossomed, but the sun parched them in the blossom. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."
Note the following differences:
1.) Winslow states emphatically "Praise be to God" not "Praise be to Squanto." In fact, Squanto is not even mentioned by name.
2.) Winslow and his countrymen were Pilgrims, not Puritans.
3.) Winslow never mentions "good fortune." He specifically mentions the "goodness of God."
So the question to you dear reader, is to whom do you give thanks? Yourself for being such a good guy? to your boss for providing work or to your workers? Or to God, from Whom all blessings flow?
Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever -watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably
engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the
nation and to restore if, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full
enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
NOTE: Abraham Lincoln issued Thanksgiving Proclamations in the spring of 1862 and the spring of 1863; both proclamations gave thanks for victories in battle. Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation in the autumn of 1863 - the second Thanksgiving Proclamation in that year - gave thanks for the general blessings of the year. This second 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation, the first in the unbroken string of annual Thanksgiving proclamations, is regarded as the true beginning of the national Thanksgiving holiday. (Pilgrim Hall Museum)
Veterans Day
Two take-aways -
1. The wars and rumors of war confirm that Jesus is coming. In Matthew 24: 4-8 we read: "Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains."
2. The war to end all wars will not happen with earthly forces. In Revelation 19:11-20 we read: I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. . . Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army. But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur."
Thus, the LORD Jesus Christ will in the last day defeat Satan and conquer him. Only when Satan is defeated and cast into the lake of burning sulfur will true and everlasting peace reign. President Woodrow Wilson was naive when he thought he could bring peace on earth. Only Jesus Christ can do that.
Steve Jobs and Anti-Authoritarianism
But was Steve Jobs really that anti-authoritarian? Not really if one looks at how he ran his own company. He wanted those who worked for him to give him 100% of their life. For example, he was known to call up even his suppliers in the middle of the night (3 A.M.) and asked them detailed questions about their product.
So before we lift Steve Jobs up as the ultimate anti-authoritarian, we must recognize that once he was in power, he was very controlling. That is the same with the devil. The devil tempts us to rebel against God. But like Adam and Eve, we realize that the freedom from God means just that we have traded a kind Master for an evil tyrant. We will always have a master. You must choose if it is God or the devil whom you want to serve.
[Thanks to Rob Bradford for getting me to think on this one.]
Prayer to God
What a privilege it is to be able to pray directly to God - my boss - Who loves me and listens to me, not just about work conditions, but about everything - food on the table, to helping my wife through math exams to healing. Not only that, but He sent His Son to take away my sin so I can worship Him forever in heaven. My boss's boss's boss's boss can't do that.
What a great God we have.
Baseball and Certainity
Man does poorly predicting the future. But God not only knows but also controls the future. For example, He predicted that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem more than six hundred years before He was born. And He predicted that Cyrus would rise up and send the Jews home from the Babylonian captivity. Cyrus is an interesting name because Cyrus means shepherd. Isaiah has a beautiful play on words: "Cyrus, He is my shepherd." Isaiah wrote about 150 years before Cyrus came to the throne. Further, Cyrus is a Persian name, and at the time Isaiah made his prediction, Persia was a small country of insignificance.
In conclusion, man is awful at making predictions. God makes predictions and they always come true because He is God.
Steve Jobs and Heaven
Steve Jobs and I were both born in the same month of the same year - but he was far more innovative than I was, and he earned more money in one year than I will ever earn in a lifetime. But the real question is what of the afterlife?
In Acts 4:11-12 we read "Jesus is 'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.' Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
So the question that God will ask Steve Jobs is "Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior?" Hint: that question is based on what occurs on earth, not when you are before the Judge. So no matter how great a man Steve Jobs was, no matter what his brilliance was in making superb products, no matter how much money he earned or gave away, no matter how he loved his wife and three children, the real question comes down to "Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior?" for salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given to mankind by which we must be saved. That is the question. This is an open book exam. How well will you do?
Marriage and God's Timing
Coram Deo - Before the Face of God
He writes "To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God. To live in the presence of God is to understand that whatever we are doing and wherever we are doing it, we are acting under the gaze of God. God is omnipresent. There is no place so remote that we can escape His penetrating gaze. . .
The Christian who compartmentalizes his or her life into two sections of the religious and the nonreligious has failed to grasp the big idea. The big idea is that all of life is religious or none of life is religious. To divide life between the religious and the nonreligious is itself a sacrilege.
This means that if a person fulfills his or her vocation as a steelmaker, attorney, or homemaker coram Deo, then that person is acting every bit as religiously as a soul-winning evangelist who fulfills his vocation. It means that David was as religious when he obeyed God’s call to be a shepherd as he was when he was anointed with the special grace of kingship. It means that Jesus was every bit as religious when He worked in His father’s carpenter shop as He was in the Garden of Gethsemane."
As I wrote last time on labor, all labor is good labor. All must be done to the glory of God as He is indeed sovereign over all of our life. We must obey God in all aspects of life. We must "act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with [y]our God" (Micah 6:8).
Our Calling
Traditionally, vocation was restricted to God’s calling to the ministry. Webster says: “especially : a divine call to the religious life.” But Calvin contended that all of us have a vocation, a calling to a specific task. Vocations was no longer just a calling to go into religious work. In other words, being a pastor or a priest is not a higher calling than being a trash collector or a janitor. He goes on to say: “It is enough if we know that the Lord’s calling is in everything the beginning and foundation of well-doing. . . . From this will arise also a singular consolation: that no task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight.”
Simply put: follow God’s calling and you will be happy in your vocation and no vocation is more important than other vocations.