Miss Alba

Miss Alba accomplished something that I have never seen before or may never see again as a long as I live. Now if that doesn't grab your attention, I don't know what will. Let me explain...

Alba Gibson is a very dear friend of mine. We were co workers. I was her store manager and she worked as a sales associate in the fabrics department of our store. You see Alba was one of our longest length of service associates at the store. She had in over 30 years of service and she finally retired this last November on her birthday. She was 90 years old when she retired! Can you believe this? That means that she started work with our company when she was 60 years old. Think about this for a minute. Most people would be thinking about retirement at that age, but Miss Alba went on to work another 30 years until she finally decided to call it quits. This ought to tell you something about her work ethic, commitment, and determination. I've never met anyone quite like Alba Gibson.

Well I guess I could stop right here and this would speak to the statement I said earlier wouldn't it? But this short story about Alba's work history is not what I'm referring to when I say she accomplished something I've never seen before and probably never will again. Let me continue...

Miss Alba retired this last November 2006. And since her retirement we have become very close friends. Unfortunately after she retired she became very sick. Her heart was weak and she spent many days in and out of the hospital. This last time she got out of the hospital she was too weak to care for herself anymore and her daughter moved her in with her to take care of her. It was during these days of her being bed ridden that we became closer and closer as we'd visit as often as we could. We enjoyed each others company so much.

Months Prior to her getting so sick that she couldn't leave the house, she came to me one day while I was at work and she asked if she could speak to me. We sat down together and she told me she had a favor to ask of me. I asked what it was and she told me that she knew her health was bad and getting worse all the time. She said was taking care of all of her funeral arrangements and basically getting everything in order so that at the time of her death her family wouldn't be burdened with any of those details and expenses. I thought to myself, "This is just like Miss Alba." I've never seen anyone so independent (or stubborn) I might add. I knew she was determined to get everything arranged. Then she asked me if I would preach her funeral. I was of course shocked. I asked her why she wanted me to do her funeral rather than a having a preacher or clergy do it. She explained that had a dear friend that was a preacher and she had asked him to speak as well, but she wanted me to do the preaching. I asked why me, and she said that she respected me as not only her boss, but as the man of God that she knew I was. Up to this point in our relationship we had laughed and visited together about many things, but we had never had the opportunity to talk about spiritual things. This just reminds me again, how important it is that we lives our lives each day so that other people can see the Holy Spirit leading our lives. We may be the only bible that others are reading. Anyway, of course I told her I would be honored to do this for her. We visited for a while and of course I had to ask her about her salvation. I was relieved and comforted to hear her tell me about her relationship with Jesus and the day she got saved and about her baptism and her days of going to church. She told me that she hadn't been in a church for a while and she regrets that, but this didn't change the fact that Jesus was Lord of her life. She also shared that she wanted the Pallbearers to be her co workers. She gave me a list of names and I told her I would speak with each of them and let her know what they say. Of course they all said yes. They all loved her as well and would do anything for her. Well from this day on we both got to know each other on a more personal level.
As she got weaker and weaker and finally became bed ridden, we'd visit as often as I possibly could come over. These times were special for her and I was blessed each time I visited. She truly was a very loving and caring person. She loved her family so much and she often shared how appreciative she was that they took her into their home rather than send her to a nursing home.

Well the day finally came, Miss Alba passed away and even though I was preparing myself for it, it was still very difficult to accept. The day of the funeral arrived and as I sat at the front of the sanctuary behind Miss Alba's casket, I looked out at the crowd of family and friends and what I saw is what I was talking about earlier. Something I've never seen before and may never see again. It dawned on me that the sanctuary was filled mostly with my associates that I supervise at work. Here I am the store manager, yet the preacher as well in this case. The Pallbearers were associates from work. Other than a few family members and friends the majority of the crowd were associates. Miss Alba's family was made up of her co-workers. She loved her work, she loved the associates she worked with and I remember the only times I ever saw her cry during our visitation times together, was when she would tell me she missed so much not being able to get out of bed and go to the store and see her friends at work. Today as I looked out I became aware of the uniqueness of this funeral. You see, Miss Alba's daughter also is an associate and her daughters husband, and her son in law also worked at the store. So even her immediate family was made up of co-workers. The uniqueness of all this was the opportunity that God had given me as the associates store manager, to talk to them all about Jesus. In today's work environment we have to be very careful when we talk about religion. But this day was different. Even though we weren't at work, we were all co-workers and as their store manager, I had the opportunity to tell my coworkers about Jesus and God's free gift of eternal life through his Son, Jesus Christ. This was a meeting with associates unlike any other.

After the funeral, as I watched the people begin to leave the graveyard, I wondered if Miss Alba had known all along that this would be the scene at her own funeral. It doesn't surprise me. She had planned everything else, she probably had planned this as well. I simply thank God for the opportunity that he gave me to speak to my associates about Jesus. I thank God for the wonderful opportunity that he gave me to get to know and love such a wonderful person, Miss Alba. She'll be missed, but never forgotten, and I know one day we'll see each other again in heaven. When that day comes she'll probably say... "How's everyone at work?"

The Conclusion of the Matter

The news is not the most encouraging part of my day, what about yours? Look at the newspaper and you read about the latest murder, sex scandal, or auto accident. very rarely does anything good ever make the front page of the newspaper. Oh it's in there on page 10 of section E, but never the headlines. Look at the television as the news hour approaches, Each commercial break we see headlines like... "Man shoots his wife" tonight at 10:00pm... or "Fiery crash downtown, 3 dead," tonight at 10:00pm.

Every time I listen to the news I get depressed. If there is a national tragedy going on then the media never let's up. We can watch every detail of what's happening in real time and even get to hear everyone's commentary on it as we watch. It's overwhelming. I remember a few years ago as I was visiting with my mom she just folded up the paper and shared how disgusted she was with all the stuff she just read about. It's crazy and often we find ourselves wondering, "What is happening to this crazy world." "Is everyone going nuts or what?"

In case you think this is something that's just gotten bad lately, I'd like to take you back to another time when everything seemed just as crazy as it is today. Listen to the words of the Teacher, Solomon, son of David, king in Jerusalem. The book of Ecclesiastes reminds me of a modern day news story. Yes it's chalked full of depressing information, everything under the sun appears and seems meaningless. Listen to these words...

Ecclesiastes

1:2, Everything is Meaningless.
1 "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!"

1:12-14, Wisdom Is Meaningless
12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

2:1, Pleasures Are Meaningless
1 I thought in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good." But that also proved to be meaningless.

2:17, Toil Is Meaningless
17 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Solomon goes on and on in the following chapters talking about all the things he sees as meaningless. Advancement and Riches are also seen as meaningless. He goes on about the evil that's in the world. He sees the oppressed in the world and he sees suffering. He sees loneliness, he sees the foolish things people do, he sees imprisonment of people because of the things they do. Even when people have wealth and good health he sees that they don't enjoy them, they don't see what they have.

Ecclesiastes is full of the headlines of evil and depressing things. It's the newspaper of yesterday but with same issues of today. At the end of all these observations and things learned this Teacher, this King came to the following conclusion.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

So what's all this mean to us? If you feel life is unfair, if you feel that the evil ones get away without being held accountable for their actions, you must remember that God will review every persons life to determine how each person has responded to him and he will bring every deed into judgement. Solomon shows us throughout Ecclesiastes that we should enjoy life, but this does not excuse us from obeying God's commandments. We should search for purpose and meaning in our life. But our purpose and meaning is not found in our own endeavours, it's found only in God. Yes there is evil in the world, we should acknowledge this and even recognize this, but we must remain faithful and trust that God will deal with the injustice of this world. We must maintain a positive attitude and strong faith in God.

One day every man will stand before God and be held accountable for what he or she has done. God will judge everyone for the things they did in this life. God will judge both good and evil. God will judge the quality of every persons life. So focus on living for him rather than being down trodden about what is happening in the world today. Life is not fair... never has been, but aren't you thankful that God will judge the good and evil that people do. So don't concern yourself with what you have no control over, trust in God to take care of it and enjoy your life as you serve your Lord.

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Easy to change?... Far from it!

Forgive my judgemental attitude. After reading the comment from my last posting I have realized that I did make it seem pretty easy to over come our past and just simply change. Making a change in our life of course is never easy, or as the commenter said... you'd think more people would do it.

My hope was to enlighten readers that they do have the hope to be able to change their circumstances and live a life differently than their past, especially if they see how badly it has hurt them over the years. Especially when they begin to do the things to their loved ones that they had done to them and as adults realize now that it's just not right. Something inside of them says... I've got to change.


We all have a conscious and this conscious determines our values and morals based off what we've been taught and what we've experienced. So our conscious will guide us and help us to make choices determining how we feel. But our conscious is not all knowing, our conscious doesn't give us the strength to over come, it simply reacts to what we're going through. Any real hope of change I believe comes from God and the pricking of His Holy Spirit in our lives. His Spirit convicts our heart of our sin and challenges or even demands that we change. And when we don't, we suffer. We suffer guilt, we suffer with disappointment, we suffer with more consequences to our circumstances. But if we're convicted by the Spirit to change... then we have the power as well to change and overcome. Maybe the reason people don't change is because they don't want to change, it's all they know. Maybe they don't understand or even realize what they are doing is wrong because they never saw it modeled any other way.

I compare this to an alcoholic or drug addict. Many addicts know that what they are doing is wrong and even say to themselves everyday... I have got to change my behavior. Most real drug addicts know that they will end up their lives with drug abuse either in Prison or Dead if they don't change. There are some that do not realize they even have a problem. They think they got it under control and can quit if they wanted to, or at least slow down. But they can't if they truly are addicted. Soon it gets so bad they realize they must get help. They must change and they have reached a place in their life where they want to change. They want to break the cycle and make things better. Usually this realization happens only after they have gotten to the point of disaster, bottomed out, their life's a wreck and so is everyone they know and love. The decision to change was not easy and never is... this decision to change usually comes at the end of a long rope of pain and suffering.

I'm not saying that everyone that changes their life is a Christian either. Many get help from family and friends and or institutions that are experienced and know what obstacles that the addict is facing and they know best how to overcome and help the addict with his or her recovery towards living a life free of drugs or alcohol. However, the Christian has all the power to overcome, and change. We as believers know and understand that with God anything is possible, but the decision to change still comes from within each of us. To allow God to change us so that we can have victory means to give into his leading or in other words, be obedient to the Spirits leading. This obedience is where we fail. We just find it so difficult to change that we allow ourselves to make excuses that causes us to repeat the cycle we're wanting to break. It's tough, it's hard, and it's anything but easy.

But... it's possible! There is hope. You can overcome. You can have a better life. With God anything is possible. If you'll put your full faith and trust in Him, you can overcome. I think of the book of Job. This man was faithful to God even when he didn't realize why such bad things were happening to him. In the end he was blessed more than he ever dreamed because of his faithfulness. Put nothing happened as he had planned or could foresee. My point is that we have to remain faithful and trusting that God will get us through this change that we're going through. Be sensitive to His leading and through His power you will have victory. It's when we realize we can't believe in ourselves that we must believe in God. He can change your life!

Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

Break the Cycle... Change

A prayer of David. Psalm 17:1-3

1 Hear, O LORD, my righteous plea; listen to my cry. Give ear to my prayer— it does not rise from deceitful lips.
2 May my vindication come from you; may your eyes see what is right.
3 Though you probe my heart and examine me at night, though you test me, you will find nothing; I have resolved that my mouth will not sin.

Have you ever met someone that when they were young they lived in a family that was abusive? Maybe as a child they were verbally or even physically abused. Their self esteem is gone. All they heard growing up was that they were worthless and no good. There was no love or compassion from their parents and because of this environment they now as adults behave the same way. They don't show the love they should to their children. They don't hug on them or kiss them because they didn't experience this as they grew up. They also tend to be abusive to their own children just like they experienced when they were young. Basically they copy and imitate the life they lived and use their past as the excuse to do so today.

This happens all the time. Someone says, well I'm a product of my poor environment, my dysfunctional family, my abusive relationship etc. etc. etc. They may be, but the good news is that they can change, they can break the cycle.

As a child we imitate our parents. Good or bad, we imitate what we see them do, we imitate their actions and behaviors. We learn from watching and listening. We see how a husband treats his wife and we see how a wife either respects her husband or not. Whatever we see our parents do, we think is the right way as a child. They are our guide and our example of what it's like to be married and living as parents. The sad reality however is that sometimes the example parents give their children is not a good example in some areas.

So what if you are one of those kids that grew up in an unloving abusive family relationship? How do you break the cycle for your family now?

Here's the truth... As a child you had no control over the situation, you learned the hard way and the wrong way. As you have matured in age you know that the life you lived was not good for you and you realize that it shouldn't be that way in your own family. What do you do? You change it. You're accountable for your own actions now. You make the decisions in your own life and you have the ability to make it different for your children. If you use your past as an excuse to treat your children like you were treated as a child even when you know it wasn't good or even wrong, then you are not taking responsibility like you should for your own actions. Your parents are not in control of you now (if they are you got to stop it now.) Take charge of your own life, make up your own mind and treat your spouse and children with the respect you know they deserve not the way you were treated growing up. I'm not saying this is easy. After all you learned it this way. But that still doesn't make it right. As an adult, you have the responsibility to change the behavior that you learned and make it right.

Nothing irritates me more than a grown mature adult using their childhood abuse as their reason to treat their own children like dirt. Guess what! Your not a kid anymore. Your an adult, a parent, a husband or wife, do what you know is right and quit making excuses. Break the cycle now, and start a new family tradition, one of love and respect. Do not let your own children go through what you went through. It's your life... live it, change it!

I'm not sure why I'm writing this but as I was watching a TV show the other day I saw a man being interviewed and he was blaming his parents and the way he was treated as a child for the reason he's abusive to his own children today. My thought was... Goodness sakes, "Your 35 years old now, get over it!" Why in the world would you hang onto a past like that and then repeat it? People just will not take responsibility for their own actions sometimes. I don't understand it. Why do we think we should blame someone else for the way WE behave? It's silly, but we see it every day.

I just wanted to say... if you are reading this and you are one of those that had a terrible life growing up. You owe it to yourself to make it right through the next generations in your family. Stand up! Do the right thing, and change the cycle. Your children will love you for it. Seek out God's direction for your life now and do the right thing.

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Worship... is it all you expected?

Over the years I've seen all kinds of preaching styles, worship styles, and ways to do church styles. Seems every other church is doing things differently with the focus being... how do we get more people inside these doors. There's all kinds of books and articles on how to best achieve this. Books on how best to set the tone or mood for a worship service. Books on how to blend the proper style of songs to enhance the worship experience and even prepare the hearts of men to hear the message of the Gospel. We can turn down the lights, we can play music in the background during the offering, we can even tell stories during our sermons that softens the hearts of those listening. There's so many things we can do to... well... persuade people into giving their heart to Jesus.

Our Pastor this morning shared a story about a person telling him that sometimes he comes to church and he just doesn't get anything out of it, sometimes he's not able to take anything away from the worship service. And as our Pastor pointed out... Worship is not about taking away, it's about giving to the Lord. It's about giving our attitudes, and our life to the Lord Jesus Christ and our Worship is a reflection of our life being completely in surrender to God and His will. Worship isn't something we take, it's something we give! It's praise and adoration of our Lord.

We have to be careful that we do not come to church expecting to be entertained. I think the mistake we make is that we want to come to church to be recharged, but instead we should come to church already charged and full of the Spirit and ready to WORSHIP our Lord and King. It's not supposed to be the other way around. Yes, our emotions are touched during the service through the songs and the message, but the Holy Spirit moving is the only thing that makes the service meaningful. Sometimes I think there's too much effort put into trying to convince people that they need the Lord, rather than leaving that part solely up to the Holy Spirit.

Imagine this... You go to church and welcome one another, fellowship, and enjoy each others company. Maybe meet some new folks you don't know or simply hug on the ones you already know. There's joy and happiness and excitement because we are about to enter into a time of Worshiping our Lord together this morning. We have a word of prayer Thanking God for the opportunity to Worship Him. We sing a couple of songs as a part of our praise and adoration towards our Lord. The Pastor preaches the Gospel right out of the bible. No illustrations or fancy stories or commentary, or videos, or media of any kind... just good ole preaching from God's word and then explaining to us how this scripture applies to our life today. We say a closing prayer and or benediction to encourage the congregation and then we fellowship as we leave.

That's it? No light show, no video's, no huge choir, no guest singers or special music, no INVITATION at the end of the service? You've got to be kidding right?

No I'm not... the truth of the matter is this; all those things do nothing expect try and create a mood or atmosphere. The Holy Spirit is the only One that can convince someone that they are a sinner and in need of a Savior. The Holy Spirit does not need our help nor should He. He is all powerful and really anything that happens will only happen if it's the will of the Father.

Look at Peter's sermon on the Mount. He simply gets up there and tells the people the truth of God's word. He preaches the gospel and the Spirit moved and convicted the hearts of many people that day. I ask you this... Why do we think we have to persuade people to come to the Lord when all He wants us to do is deliver His message and let Him do the rest? I'll tell you why! Because we have made Worship a thing for us rather than for God. Our focus is on our ability to experience something when it should simply be about Praising or Lord Jesus. In other words... Worship.

My last thought... If we want to experience God! We should be doing that in the way we live our lives throughout the week. We should experience God in our time alone with Him as we study and meditate on His word while reading our bibles. We should experience God as we pray as often as the Holy Spirit convicts us to. We should be experiencing God as we share the good news with others and help lead them to know the Lord. (that's where the invitation should be, not at the end of a Worship service).
What do we do? We don't experience God all week long and we've gotten to where we think coming to church is our time to experience God. How foolish is that? This time should be the one time of the week that God experiences our presence as we Worship our King together.

My prayer for you is the next time you go to church to Worship, that you'll go for only one reason and one reason only. To Worship our Lord Jesus Christ!

I do not know you

In The book of Luke Chapter 13 we come across some scripture where Jesus is traveling through the cities and streets on his way to Jerusalem, when someone asks him a very important question. (Luke 13:23 NKJ) "Lord, are there few who are saved?" Another way of putting this question would be to ask; (NLT version) Lord, will only a few be saved?"

Today I wanted to focus on what it means to be known. You see the key to our having eternal life is to be known by Jesus. If he doesn't know you on judgement day, well then you'll be locked outside of his kingdom away from God's love forever. So I ask; "does Jesus know you?"

In my career and my involvement in church and other events around the community, I come across people all the time who know me, but I really don't know them. Has that ever happened to you? Someone comes up and says, "Hi, how have you been?" and even calls you by name, but you just can't place them, you can't remember where you have met them. It was probably at work and they were one of my customers, or maybe at church or a religious function or event. Maybe I met them through my interaction in the community with music? Who knows? But the point I want to make is that just because they know me and know my name and may have even visited with me or heard me speak or sing or teach doesn't mean that I know them.

After this person asked Jesus this question, "Lord, will only a few be saved?" Jesus told them a parable or story that explained the way to heaven or salvation. The way is narrow, meaning very specific. Let's look at the following verses...

The Narrow Way

22 And He went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem. 23 Then one said to Him, “Lord, are there few who are saved?” And He said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open for us,’ and He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know you, where you are from,’ 26 then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.’ 27 But He will say, ‘I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.’ 28 There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out.

So we see now, it's not enough to know Jesus. He must know us! Jesus is the narrow way. He is the specific and only way to have eternal life in God's Kingdom. Please do not make the mistake that so many of the people did in this parable when they thought that to know Jesus was enough. It must be sad for those people to be standing before Jesus pleading and desperately trying to jog his memory in some way hoping that he'll remember them, when they know deep down they never invested a genuine interest before now.

For Jesus to get to know us, we must spend time with him. First we need to recognize that our sinfulness, our lostness, keeps us away from God. We must respond to the leading of His Holy Spirit and say to Him, I don't want to live this way anymore, I want to give my life to you Jesus and make you LORD of my life. It's when we do this, that Jesus knows who we are. We've established a way for a right relationship and over time Jesus will teach us and shape us into his likeness through the power of His Spirit. Then on that day of judgement... because Jesus knew us, we will be locked inside the Kingdoms gates rather than outside! Trust me friend... you do not want to be left outside. Be sure that you develop a first name basis relationship with Jesus. That means... it's personal and intimate.

My prayer for you is that you will known by Jesus. May God bless you,

Steve

Now that's Faith!

One of my favorite stories in the bible is the story about the Centurions servant being healed by Jesus. I think the reason I like this story so much is because I can relate to it and understand it. Like this Centurion that has been placed in a position of authority, I to have been placed in a position of authority. I was in a position of authority while serving in the US Army, and I'm currently in a position of authority in my retail career. This centurion knew what it meant to be a person of authority and when he went to Jesus to ask him to heal a servant of his, he knew that all Jesus had to do was say the word, and his servant would be healed. He had so much faith that Jesus had all power and authority. This centurion knew that since he was also a man of authority over other soldiers, when he told them to do something, those soldiers did what they were told. They obeyed the one with all the authority. He knew that Jesus only had to speak it, to command it, and whatever he spoke would be done. Now that's faith in Jesus. This kind of faith impressed Jesus so much that he turned to the crowd around him and told them that he had never seen anyone with as much faith, even in all of Israel!

The Faith of the Centurion

1When Jesus had finished saying all this in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 2There a centurion's servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. 3The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, "This man deserves to have you do this, 5because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue." 6So Jesus went with them.

He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: "Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. 7That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."

9When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel." 10Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well.

Let me ask you... Do you have faith in Jesus? Faith first of all that he can save you from an eternal separation from God's love? Faith that he died on the cross for you and rose again three days later to provide a way for us to be made righteous in the sight of God?
Then why do we worry? Why do we not live in joy and peace? Why do we not take everything to the Lord for his help and guidance? Why? Because our faith is weak.
This Centurion should be an example for all of us. He KNEW who Jesus was and because of that understanding and knowledge there was no doubt in his mind that Jesus could do whatever he said he would do.
You know the bible is full of God's promises, full of his commitments to his believers and followers. Time after time were told in the bible to simply ask in the name of Jesus and it will be given to us.

So what is it you need from God today? What have you asked for that only God can provide? Jesus is just waiting to show you want he can do when you put your complete faith and trust in him. Remember, the Centurion knew the power of Jesus and went asking for help knowing full well that if Jesus agreed to help, then his servant would be healed. Do we have that same expectation? Do we have that same faith?

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, my prayer today is that I would have the faith that this Centurion had in you. A faith that is expectant and confident in you and what you can do. Help me Lord and increase my faith each day as I see you working in my life. Thank you Jesus! Amen.