Friday, September 25, 2015

HAVE YOU EVER...been a good person?

            21 years ago, I was sitting at my computer at Southwest Baptist University typing a paper.  My good high school friend, ‘Becca Creed called to tell me it was her birthday and I had forgotten.  I was so happy to hear her voice.  This was back before cell phones.  We were lucky enough to be in the same area code even though we were 30 minutes apart, at different schools.  Long distance calls to your friends were expensive. 
            I told ‘Becca that I was writing my testimony for my Old Testament class.  Dr. Bing Bayer was my professor and I was stuck in a class with ALL seminary majors.  I had been one of the last kids to sign up for classes my freshman year.  There had been a mix up and now by God’s great blessings I was stuck with these incredibly holy kids and my all-time favorite teacher of the Bible.  I told her how scared I was to share my testimony.  I didn’t even know where to start…
            I grew up going to church whenever the doors were opened.  My parents were Christians and we read the Bible at home too.  I knew God’s word.  I had gone forward in kindergarten and gotten baptized.  My memories were of my friends doing it though.  Granted it had been a long time, I still just didn’t have a good feeling about it all. 
           
‘Becca said to me, “Angie, you’re a better person than I am!”

Immediately, my whole life flashed before my eyes.  I was a good person.  Whenever, I brought new friends home or started dating a guy, my dad would ask me one question.  Are they a Christian?  Not do they go to church?  Do they get good grades?  How did you meet?  Always, are they a Christian? 
Many times I would answer with something like, “I think so.  Their family seems like good people.” 
Dad would always say, “Good people don’t go to heaven.  Saved people do.”
I’m not asking you to question your faith.  This is just the path that I took.  I prayed to Jesus that night to come into my heart and save me from my sins.  It took a lot of faith to move forward from that spot.  I went forward at my church again and was baptized again.  God knew my heart as a child, but I knew my heart in that moment. 
What I am asking you to do is think about the people around you.  Jesus is coming back soon OR you could get hit by a truck tomorrow.  Is your heart right with God?  Are the people in your family going to join you in heaven?  Do the people you work with know Jesus?  Are you walking a walk that is a testimony to nonbelievers? 
Happy Birthday to my friend, ‘Becca Creed Nimrod!  Happy Birthday to me on my Christian birthday!  I am redeemed by the blood of the lamb!  Saved forever I am!

HAVE YOU EVER…been saved?

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Romans 3:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life 
through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Romans 6:23

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  Romans 10:13

Sunday, August 30, 2015

HAVE YOU EVER...grieved?

            This week we celebrate the life of my Dad.  He passed away 7 years ago from pancreatic cancer.  He had been married to my mom for 35 years.  They met right out of college at their first teaching job.  He had 2 daughters and now 4 grandkids.  We all miss him every day.
            Grieving is a natural part of life.  I can say that now.  Up until 7 years ago – I had no idea what grief was.  I had been sad.  I had lost other family members and friends.  This was shattering.  Real grief changed my life.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  Matthew 5:4

            I don’t like change.  I lost my father.  My mom moved further away.  I was a stay at home mom with 2 young children.  I had nothing to focus on but my grief and the changes in my life.
            My oldest child had just started kindergarten.  I remember how everyone changes when they go to college, fall in love, get married, and have kids.  But I still didn’t like change.  I like routine.  The mundaneness of my life.  Nobody rock my boat!  Especially, you God!
            Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 that God comforts us in our troubles so that we can learn to comfort others as well.  In Revelation 21, John experienced God’s plans for us in heaven.  God will wipe away every tear.  And most of all I know my father loved the Lord.  Someday, as 1 Thessalonians 4 says, my family has the hope that Jesus will bring us all to be with him in heaven. In God’s timing. 
            Change made me grow as a person.  It was all part of God’s plan.  My life has changed more in the last 7 years than in the last 39, because of how God has been working in my life.  Because I finally accepted the changes, God is also working through my life. 

HAVE YOU EVER…changed?


Psalm 46:1-2; Romans 8:18

  

Sunday, August 23, 2015

HAVE YOU EVER...sent a kid to school?

This time of year, everyone has mixed emotions.  We are all going back to school.  For me, I just love a routine.  Some moms need a break from their kids.  I know many parents are busy taking back to school pictures.  I am crying because my son is almost a teenager and going to middle school.  I’ve seen a lot of kindergarten mom’s boohooing too.
We send our kids to school to learn academics, but we know that it is also a social event.  In the mid-eighties, Edwin Hutchins coined the term distributed cognition.  And since the sixties they had been studying how interactions among people in a continued environment; mainly the work place, effect cognition. 
Cognition is socially distributed.  Our environment affects us as a culture and community.  Working with others also affects us.  We learn and solve problems better together.
Now, there are even more ways to distribute cognition.  Phones, computers, and tablets distribute from person to person.  These objects create a collaborative internet world.  We all believe that the internet is the best way to learn because it has become more accessible.  EASY.
I don’t need to give you statistics.  Our kids were born technology geniuses.  They start younger and younger holding remotes and using their little fingers to swipe screens.  Even their school books are online. 
Romans 12:2 says do not conform to the pattern of this world.  We are all addicted to technology.  It is so easy to reach out to someone far away.  It is also too easy for our kids to see or say or do something on these machines they cannot take back. 
This year our entire school district – kindergarten through twelfth grade have been issued chrome books.  I am excited because it is going to be easier for teachers, students, and parents to link school and home learning.  I am scared to death that my kid will break theirs first.  I am also afraid of what kind of trouble they could get into with this type of access.  Just because my kids have chrome books for school does not mean that any of the technology rules are going to change at our house. 

Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.  
Proverbs 4:25

While creating a safe and successful learning environment is a goal for our schools, we still have a responsibility.  Just because our kids say, “I got this,” doesn’t mean they do.  My prayer is that they fix their eyes on Christ and make wise decisions.  I am praying for only wholesome things to pass in front of their eyes and that they see the importance of that too.

HAVE YOU EVER…prayed your kid through school?
  

Proverbs 13:20; Colossians 3:2;  1 John 2:15-17

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

HAVE YOU EVER...had hope?

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.  Romans 5:5

            You hear me saying, “I hope” this or that will happen all the time.  I also have hope in people.  I am a trusting person.  I believe that there is good in everyone.  Recently, I have really noticed that people have hope in me.  They count on me to behave or react in a certain way, because I am a Christian.  Non-Christians are watching and waiting for me to fail and I do.  I am a sinner.  Christian or not I fail.  Everyday.
            Have you ever been in a court room or watched a case on TV?  If it is a juicy case setting, you might have heard a judge tell someone that they were, “held in contempt.”  This means that the person was being disrespectful, causing a disturbance, or just blatantly disobeying the rules of a courtroom.  We find this interesting and exciting.  Why do we find someone disobeying rules intriguing?
            God sent his son to die on the cross for us one time for all of our sins.  We weren’t even born yet.  God knew how many times we were going to sin.  You cannot count how many times you sinned last week let alone your whole lifetime.   Why do I keep making the same mistakes?  Why do I keep falling for the same intrigue? 
           
When there is contempt, there is no hope.

            This statement says it all.  I hope in the Lord, but I do not have enough consideration to change.  I believe that Jesus Christ saved me, but I still feel worthless and undeserving.  The Spirit speaks to me through the Bible, but I do not regard following God’s word each day as important as my worldly ways.  Each day, God could be sitting in a large judge’s chair pointing a finger at me saying “I find her in contempt!”  But he’s not.

The LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love. 
Psalm 147:11

            I am a child of God.  I get up every day and read my Bible and ask the Lord to guide me that day.  I do my best.  Yes; I fail, but I keep trying.  I am still growing in Christ.  My hope is in Him.  I’m going to do better today. 

HAVE YOU EVER…been held in contempt?
  

Psalm 18:3; Proverbs 13:12; 2 Peter 2:10