The heroes of the faith mentioned in Hebrews eleven make for an interesting study.  I just can’t figure out why some of them are in there. You wouldn’t have them over for dinner or even desire their friendship if they were alive today.  However, God loved them, chose them, and did a work through them.

I’m positive many look at me that way. The factor that they don’t understand in the grand scheme of things is that God loves sinners. He makes Himself known to them through the gospel and washes them by the blood of His Son.

Romans 3:24-26

being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Yes, there are a lot of characters in the family of God which cause us to scratch our heads. You might be one of them.

Give it some thought and thank Him for inviting you in.

Think about it.

Gary

Why is the person who invests your money called a broker? That job title doesn’t seem to fit.  I don’t know the answer to that question and there are many questions that I don’t know the answers to. However, I do know the answer to the most important question a person can be asked. Where will I be when I’m done with this tent I’ve been inhabiting for the past sixty-nine years?

Good question. Do you have the answer? The Apostle Paul did.

2 Corinthians 5:1

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

 Peter also had the answer.

2 Peter 1:14

knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.

The Corinthians were told of a building that is going to replace this tent.

2 Corinthians 5:1

 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

When it comes to my tent, I also know.

Think about it

Gary

Blindness is the result of many things.  Sometimes, it is a birth defect. Other times, it is the result of an accident or some disease. Whatever the case, it’s sad not to be able to behold the beauty of our world or see to navigate through it.

However, the most profound of all blindness is the one caused by Satan:

2 Corinthians 4:4

whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

An elderly lady told me she was trying her best to be accepted by God. She is blind to the truth that no one is good enough to be accepted by God.

Romans 3:10

As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;

If you had all the gold and silver in the world, you couldn’t buy it.

1 Peter 1:18

knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,

There is only one way and that is through the work of Christ on Calvary.

2 Corinthians 5:21

 “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

See the truth. Rest in His salvation.

Think about it.

Gary

Are you skilled or unskilled? Here is a soul-searching poem that might reveal if you fit in the skilled or unskilled category.

As I watched them tear a building down
A gang of men in a busy town
With a ho-heave-ho, and a lusty yell
They swung a beam and the side wall fell

I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled,
And the men you’d hire if you wanted to build?”
He gave a laugh and said, “No, indeed,
Just common labor is all I need.”

“I can easily wreck in a day or two,
What builders have taken years to do.”
And I thought to myself, as I went my way
Which of these roles have I tried to play’

Am I a builder who works with care,
Measuring life by rule and square?
Am I shaping my work to a well-made plan
Patiently doing the best I can’

Or am I a wrecker who walks to town
Content with the labor of tearing down?
“O Lord let my life and my labors be
That which will build for eternity!”

• Author Charles Franklin Benvegar

The church of God could certainly use some builders. There are more than enough wreckers in our communities.

1 Corinthians 3:10

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care.

Give it some thought.

Gary

The man told his doctor that he wasn’t able to do all the things around the house that he used to do. The doctor started a long and thorough examination but finally found nothing wrong with the man. When the examination was complete, the patient said, “Now, Doc, I can take it. Tell me in plain English what is wrong with me.”

“Well, in plain English,” the doctor replied, “you’re just lazy.”

“Okay,” said the man. “Now give me the medical term so I can tell my wife.”

Sometimes we know the truth but would like to camouflage it so we wouldn’t look so bad. However, a lie is a lie and it doesn’t matter how you dress it up.

Saul, the King of Israel, had a similar problem, but Samuel the prophet told it like it was.

1 Samuel 13:11-13

And Samuel said, “What have you done?”

Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered together at Michmash,  then I said, ‘The Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the Lord.’ Therefore I felt compelled, and offered a burnt offering.”

And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 

Saul was claiming a religious ritual was necessary, when in reality, obedience was necessary.

Give it some thought.

Gary

Somewhere around forty-five years ago, my mother-in-law asked if I would go to the garden and get her a head of lettuce. I plucked the nicest head that I saw, thinking I was bringing back the right thing. My wife looked out the window and saw me coming with a cabbage. She said, “Mom, it looks like we’re having coleslaw for dinner.”

Strange how you can go through twenty-four years of life and not know the difference between lettuce and cabbage. Aren’t they both green and round?

Some lack of information you can get by without for a certain length of time. However, there is information that you shouldn’t leave this world ignorant of: That’s the knowledge about the person of Christ.

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 

Romans 1:16

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Eternity is too long a time to find out you didn’t have the right information.

Give it some thought and “letus” do the right thing.

Gary

The most famous song recorded by Otis Redding is also the most tragic. In the days before a fatal plane crash, Otis came out with that song that hit the top of the charts in 1968.  He would never know it and enjoy the fruits of its success.

The song chronicles a broken man mired in loneliness and depression. He is sitting on the dock of the Bay in San Francisco, having left Georgia, and he’s wasting time.

Did you know time comes from God and we can waste it?

Romans 13:11

 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

2 Timothy 4:6

 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.

James 4:14

whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

Don’t waste time. Find out who created you, placed you in this time slot and decided when your time was up.

Think about it.

Gary