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YOU'LL FIND JESUS THERE
"Tomorrow morning I'll open up your heart" the surgeon said to the 8 year-old-boy.
"You'll find Jesus there," the boy said.
The surgeon continued, "I'll open your heart and check the damage."
"You'll find Jesus there," the boy said.
"When I see the damage, I will suture you back up and then think about the next step," said the surgeon.
"You will find Jesus in my heart because my Sunday school teacher told me so. She said it says so in the Bible. Besides that, our Sunday school songs say He lives there," said the boy.
The surgery took place the next day. After the surgery the surgeon began to make notes of what he found. In his mind there was no hope and no cure. The little boy would die within a matter of months.
The thought began to get to the doctor and all of a sudden the doctor shouted to God, "Why did you do this to the boy? Why can't he live a normal life?"
God spoke to the surgeon's heart and said, "The boy is a part of my flock and will always be a part of my flock. When he is with me there will be no more suffering and pain. He will have comfort and peace. One day his parents as well as you will join him and my flock will continue to grow."
The next day the surgeon went to the boy's room and sat down with the parents beside the bed.
In a moment or two, the boy opened his eyes and asked very quietly, "What did you find in my heart?"
With tears flowing down his cheeks, the surgeon said, "I found Jesus there."
(author unknown)
The SS teacher told the 5th grade class that Jesus was buried in a borrowed tomb. One student said that she knew why. " Jesus only used it three days."
Nothing can choke the heart and soul out of walking with God like legalism.
Consider the story of Hans the tailor.
Because of his reputation, an influential entrepreneur visiting the city ordered a tailor-made suit.
But when he came to pick up his suit, the customer found that one sleeve twisted that way and the other this way; one shoulder bulged out and the other caved in.
He pulled and struggled and finally, wrenched and contorted, he managed to make his body fit.
As he returned home on the bus, another passenger noticed his odd appearance and asked if Hans the tailor had made the suit.
Receiving an affirmative reply, the man remarked, "Amazing! I knew that Hans was a good tailor, but I had no idea he could make a suit fit so perfectly someone as deformed as you."
Often that is just what we do in the church.
We get some idea of what the Christian faith should look like: then we push and shove people into the most grotesque configurations until they fit wonderfully!
That is death.
It is a wooden legalism which destroys the soul.
[Legalistic Strait Jacket, Citation: Richard J. Foster in "TSF Bulletin," Nov.-Dec. 1982. Leadership, Vol. 4, no. 2.]
LOVING TEDDY
Miss Thompson taught Teddy Stallard in the fourth grade. He was a slow, unkempt student, a loner shunned by his classmates. The previous year his mother died, and what little motivation for school he may have once had was now gone. Miss Thompson didn’t particularly care for Teddy either, but at Christmas time he brought her a small present. Her desk was covered with well-wrapped presents from the other children, but Teddy’s came in a brown sack. When she opened it there was a gaudy rhinestone bracelet with half the stones missing and a bottle of cheap perfume. The children began to snicker but Miss Thompson saw the importance of the moment. She quickly splashed on some perfume and put on the bracelet, pretending Teddy had given her something special. At the end of the day Teddy worked up enough courage to softly say, "Miss Thompson, you smell just like my mother . . . and her bracelet looks real pretty on you too. I’m glad you like my presents." After Teddy left, Miss Thompson got down on her knees and prayed for God’s forgiveness. She prayed for God to use her as she sought to not only teach these children but to love them as well. She became a new teacher. She lovingly helped students like Teddy, and by the end of the year he had caught up with most of the students. Miss Thompson didn’t hear from Teddy for a long time. Then she received this note: "Dear Miss Thompson, I wanted you to be the first to know. I will be graduating second in my class. Love, Teddy Stallard." Four years later she got another note: "Dear Miss Thompson, They just told me I will be graduating first in my class. I wanted you to be the first to know. The university has not been easy, but I liked it. Love, Teddy Sta...
"MAYBE IF YOU LISTENED..."
In the middle of an argument, my Mum would say something like this - "Maybe if you LISTENED for a change, you would understand what I am trying to tell you!" So often I am not so much listening but simply waiting for the other person to finish so that I can get across my point of view. Not really a very teachable position to be in.
In Matthew 13 Jesus says "LISTEN!" with even greater authority than my Mum, and that's saying something. He addresses this problem of how different people are responding to Him. I can get caught up in all the arguments, but the real issue is to do with LISTENING. MAYBE IF I LISTENED... He is obviously about to mention something important, but as I read, it doesn't seem all that significant. Just a simple story. The question is "Am I going to miss what He is trying to tell me because of my preconceived ideas about Him or my own points of view?"
In the first century, a 12-year-old would have been well along in their life since:
-a third of those born would have died by age 6;
-60% by their mid-teens;
-by their mid-twenties 75%;
-90% by their mid-forties; and
-maybe 3% reached their 60s.
Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992) 211.
"The Dragon"
I would like to tell you a story this morning about a dragon.
"There was once a great and noble King whose land was terrorized by a crafty dragon. Like a massive bird of prey, the scaly beast delighted in ravaging villages with his fiery breath. Hapless victims ran from their burning homes, only to be snatched into the dragon’s jaws or talons. Those devoured instantly were deemed more fortunate than those carried back to the dragon’s lair to be devoured at his leisure. The King led his sons and knights in many valiant battles against the dragon.
Riding alone in the forest, one of the King’s sons heard his name purred low and soft. In the shadows of the ferns and trees, curled among the boulders, lay the dragon. The creature’s heavy-lidded eyes fastened on the prince, and the reptilian mouth stretched into a friendly smile.
"Don’t be alarmed," said the dragon, as gray wisps of smoke rose lazily from his nostrils.
"I am not what your father thinks."
"What are you, then?" asked the prince, warily drawing his sword as he pulled in the reins to keep his fearful horse from bolting.
"I am pleasure," said the dragon. "Ride on my back and you will experience more than you ever imagined. Come now. I have no harmful intentions. I seek a friend, someone to share flights with me. Have you never dreamed of flying? Never longed to soar in the clouds?"
Visions of soaring high above the forested hills drew the prince hesitantly from his horse. The dragon unfurled one great webbed wing to serve as a ramp to his ridged back. Between the spiny projections, the prince found a secure seat. Then the creature snapped his powerful wings twice and launched them into the sky. The prince’s apprehension melted into awe and exhilaration.
From then on, he met the dragon often, but secretly, for how could he tell his father, brothers or the knights that he had befriended the enemy? The prince felt separate from them all. Their concerns were no longer his concerns. Even when he wasn’t with the dragon, he spent less time with those he loved and more time alone.
The skin on the prince’s legs became calloused from gripping the ridged back of the dragon, and his hands grew rough and hardened. He began wearing gloves to hide the malady. After many nights of riding, he discovered scales growing on the backs of his hands as well. With dread he realized his fate were he to continue, and so he resolved to return no more to the dragon.
But, after a fortnight, he again sought out the dragon, having been tormented with desire. And so it transpired many times over. No matter what his determination, the prince eventually found himself pulled back, as if by the cords of an invisible web. Silently, patiently, the dragon always waited.
One cold, moonless night their excursion became a foray against a sleeping village. Torching the thatched roofs with fiery blasts from his nostrils, the dragon roared with delight when the terrified victims fled from their burning homes. Swooping in, the serpent belched again and flames engulfed a cluster of screaming villages. The prince closed his eyes tightly in an attempt to shut out the carnage.
In the pre-dawn hours, when the prince crept back from his dragon trysts, the road outside his father’s castle usually remained empty. But not tonight. Terrified refugees streamed into the protective walls of the castle. The prince attempted to slip through the crowd to close himself in his chambers, but some of the survivors stared and pointed toward him.
"He was there," one woman cried out, "I saw him on the back of the dragon." Others nodded their heads in angry agreement. Horrified, the prince saw that his father, the King, was in the courtyard holding a bleeding child in his arms. The King’s face mirrored the agony of his people as his eyes found the prince’s. The son fled, hoping to escape into the night, but the guards apprehended him as if he were a common thief. They brought him to the great hall where his father sat solemnly on the throne. The people on every side railed against the prince.
"Banish him!" he heard one of his own brothers angrily cry out.
"Burn him alive!" other voices shouted.
As the king rose from his throne, bloodstains from the wounded shone darkly on his royal robes. The crowd fell silent in expectation of his decree. The prince, who could not bear to look into his father’s face, stared at the flagstones of the floor.
"Take off your gloves and your tunic," the King commanded. The prince obeyed slowly, dreading to have his metamorphosis uncovered before the kingdom. Was his shame not already enough? He had hoped for a quick death without further humiliation. Sounds of revulsion rippled through the crowd at the sight of the prince’s thick, scaled skin and the ridge growing along his spine.
The king strode toward his son, and the prince steeled himself, fully expecting a back handed blow even though he had never been struck so by his father.
Instead, his father embraced him and wept as he held him tightly. In shocked disbelief, the prince buried his face against his father’s shoulder.
"Do you wish to be freed from the dragon, my son?"
The prince answered in despair, "I wished it many times, but there is no hope for me."
"Not alone," said the King. "You cannot win against the dragon alone."
"Father, I am no longer your son. I am half beast," sobbed the prince.
But his father replied, "My blood runs in your veins. My nobility has always been stamped deep within your soul."
With his face still hidden tearfully in his father’s embrace, the prince heard the King instruct the crowd, "The dragon is crafty. Some fall victim to his wiles and some to his violence. There will be mercy for all who wish to be freed. Who else among you has ridden the dragon?"
The prince lifted his head to see someone emerge from the crowd. To his amazement, he recognized an older brother, one who had been lauded throughout the kingdom for his onslaughts against the dragon in battle and for his many good deeds. Others came, some weeping, others hanging their heads in shame.
The King embraced them all.
"This is our most powerful weapon against the dragon," he announced. "Truth. No more hidden flights. Alone we cannot resist him."1
1 from Laugh & Lift Daily Issue for Feb 20, 2006
The Dragon
(By Melinda Reinicke, Parables for Personal Growth, [San Diego, CA: Recovery Publications, Inc., 1993], pp. 5-9.)
STOP PAYING THE BULLY
In his book Fuzzy Memories, Jack Handey writes:
There used to be this bully who would demand my lunch money every day. Since I was smaller, I would give it to him. Then I decided to fight back. I started taking karate lessons. But then the karate lesson guy said I had to start paying him five dollars a lesson. So I just went back to paying the bully.
Too many people feel it is easier just to pay the bully than it is to learn how to defeat him.
WASH YOUR HANDS
In 1818, Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis was born into a world of dying women. The finest hospitals lost one out of six young mothers to the scourge of "childbed fever." A doctor's daily routine began in the dissecting room where he performed autopsies. From there he made his way to the hospital to examine expectant mothers without ever pausing to wash his hands.
Dr. Semmelweis was the first man in history to associate such examinations with the resultant infection and death. His own practice was to wash with a chlorine solution, and after eleven years and the delivery of 8,537 babies, he lost only 184 mothers--about one in fifty. He spent the vigor of his life lecturing and debating with his colleagues.
Once he argued, "Puerperal fever is caused by decomposed material conveyed to a wound. I have shown how it can be prevented. I have proved all that I have said. But while we talk, talk, talk, gentlemen, women are dying. I am not asking anything world-shaking. I am asking you only to wash. For God's sake, wash your hands."
But virtually no one believed him. Doctors and midwives had been delivering babies for thousands of years without washing, and no outspoken Hungarian was going to change them now!
Semmelweis died insane at the age of 47, his wash basins discarded, his colleagues laughing in his face, and the death rattle of a thousand women ringing in his ears.
(From a sermon by Terry Blankenship, A Redeeming Ministry, 2/8/2011)
“Broken Hearts Don’t Need Vince Lombardi!” Mark 5:35-43 Key verse(s) 41:“He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha koumi!’ (which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, get up!’).”
I did not know what to do for her. Her heart was breaking right in front of me. She so much wanted to be held, yet she shunned the embrace. Cradling her head in her hands, she sobbed, “I just don’t know what I am going to do! Nothing is working out the way I wanted it to. I’m so lost, so alone. I just don’t know what to do.”
My daughter had been struggling with so many things for so long. She had bottled them up in her tender heart and just couldn’t contain them any longer. She had wanted to be brave, to face everything on her own. But now, her second year of college nearly under her belt, she wanted to chuck everything into the dust bin and call it quits. It seems that life had been pretty hard on her for some time now and she just couldn’t face another semester of competing, doing and just being who she was. More than anything else she wanted to throw in the towel and stop the fight. Yet, sensing that she needed someone with which to share her deep sorrow, she had given me a call. “Dad, I need your help!”
“Dad, I need your help!” These are five little words that makes the adrenaline flow in any fathers’s being. The fact that a child puts you into the role of knight and defender can really become the wind beneath your wings. It can also become the fire within as it strikes a fear in your heart, not knowing what that help might require. As soon as I had taken the phone call I drove down to campus and found her sitting on the grass near her dorm. I could see that she was struggling and was deeply troubled. I sensed pretty quickly that nothing I said would have much of an immediate effect if any at all. How do you respond to “I just can’t go on!” Having nearly raised four children, three of them daughters, I had learned long ago that the locker room pep talk is a pretty ineffective tool at times like this. Broken hearts don’t need Vince Lombardi. Trying my best to comfort her, I encouraged her to think clearly before making a decision to quit everything. She was a top student on nearly a full scholarship. It seemed like such a waste. It wasn’t long before I began to grasp the tenor of the situation. It seemed that father and daughter were really not there for discourse at all. We were there merely to labor and work at the pain; to place our spades deep within the sorrow and shovel it out. Not knowing what else to do, and not wanting to leave her alone, I slipped my hand into her’s and began a long silence. Soon there were two sets of tears. The vulnerability within her had reached out and pulled me deep into the hurt. There was nothing I could do but go with the flow.
In The Four Loves, author C. S. Lewis writes, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must given your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket––safe, dark, motionless, airless––it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.” (The Four Loves, chap. 6, para. 13, p. 169)
Compassion is more than doing good or being charitable. Although there is a place for the civic “do-gooder,” being compassionate is more than just showing u...
