Paula and I were walking from the cemetery after a burial. Hearing a car behind us, we moved over to the grassy area to let it pass. It was the hearse with two undertakers. The car stopped and the window rolled down and we were asked if we wanted a ride. I replied, “No, I am not quite ready for that yet.” It was my first invitation to ride in one, but from experience, I know it won’t be my last. The next one, though, won’t be prefaced by an in invitation. I won’t have any choice.

The Bible tells me that this ride is coming:

Ecclesiastes 12:7 

And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Psalm 146:4 

When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.

Hebrews 9:27 

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

Are you ready for an unplanned ride in a hearse?

Give it some thought.

Gary

I spent thirty-five years in EMS (Emergency Medical Services) and made a few observations. Here’s one: We put sick and injured people in a truck and dead people in a Cadillac. An ambulance can weigh between ten and fourteen thousand pounds. The equipment and people riding in it add up. Many a time I sympathized with the patient when he or she complained about every crack in the road. Even the interstate proved to be a challenge for that one lying on a cushioned gurney.  I would share the irony of my observation about the uses of a truck verses the Cadillac with the patient. We took patients for a ride that no one wants to take, but is probably inevitable in the river of life.

So many circumstances beyond our control can give us no choices about the ride. So, it is with this life. Fools think they can know the future and affect its outcome.

Proverbs 27:1

Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.

Proverbs 25:14

Like clouds and wind without rain is one who boasts of gifts never given.

We are along for the ride whether we like it or not and it can be rough. Complaining won’t change anything.

Think about it.

Gary

What does God require of you as a Christian? Is it protests, political involvement or some type of violence?  No, here it is in a nutshell.

1 Corinthians 4:2

Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

Micah 6:8

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

In Micah’s day, religion was corrupt and the nation was on the precipice of judgment. If the church of our age would apply the principles set forth in Micah, this world of ours could be turned around. Stay away from radicals and walk with the Lord.

Give it some thought.

Gary

It was a picture taken in the late 20s or early thirties of a one-room schoolhouse in my hometown where multiple grades attended school. Someone had the students line up, facing the camera, with the schoolhouse in the background. The most amazing thing about the photograph was the fact that none of the students were wearing shoes. They were in their bare feet.

I had someone research who these children were and was pleased that I knew them as “the greatest generation.” One served in the Navy in WW2, while his brother was in the second wave at Normandy. I preached his funeral when he passed in his eighties.  They are all gone now and only pictures and memories remain.

That will be us someday- just pictures and memories.

Psalm 90:10 

The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

1 Chronicles 29:15 

For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding.

Look at the camera and smile because someday someone will be looking at you, wondering who you are.

Give it some thought.

Gary

In Exodus, we see the hand of God moving on behalf of His people to free them from slavery and oppression.  He intervenes for them against the most powerful nation at the time. This happens on His timeline, not theirs or Moses’.  Today, believers can count on His presence and intervention in their lives also.

Exodus 33:14-15

And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Then he said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.

God’s hand is also reaching out to every believer He has purchased with the blood of His Son. Are you willing to go with Him and face challenges and battles that lie ahead?

Give it some thought.

Gary

Fame is a vapor,
Popularity an accident.
Riches take wings.
Only one thing endures,
Character.

–       Horace Greely. 

 Joseph, the son of Jacob, had character:

Genesis 39:9

How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?

Ruth had character when she left Moab:

Ruth 1:16-17

But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”

Character consists of the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. If you don’t have it, God can supply it.

Give it some thought.

Gary

A mother was singing a lullaby to her three-year-old and he told her he hated it. “That’s a shame,” she said, “I used to sing it to you before you were born- when you were still in my tummy.”

 “I hated it then too,” he replied.

I don’t know how much we know in the womb. My memory doesn’t go that far back. However, I do know Someone who knows us intimately in the womb.

Psalm 139:14-15

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

We don’t surprise Him at all. He knew all about us when we were kicking around in that confining space.

Give it some thought.

Gary