C.H. Spurgeon was known as the “Prince of Preachers,” and he once said, “Every Christian is either a missionary or an impostor.”   Someone else said that, “a non-ministering Christian is a contradiction in terms.

God does not call everyone to be a pastor or a preacher; however, He does call each of His children to minister.   While we can minister to the needs of one another inside of the building we call First Christian,  our main area of focus is what lies outside of the doors of the church—this is our mission field.

In John 4:35, Jesus said:  “Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!”

To work in the harvest is to embrace the missionary mindset of Jesus.  He said His purpose was to seek and to save the lost.  This task was not reserved for Him alone.  His expectation was and is that we would join Him in this effort:  “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21).

Are you satisfied to just set on a pew row or are you willing to get up and GO with Jesus to the mission field?  Engaging people was the goal and purpose of Jesus’ ministry, and it is His desire for each of us.

Ask yourself some questions:  How am I engaged in the work of Christ?  How does my life compel people to embrace Jesus?

I’ll end this post with a quote from C.S. Lewis:  The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.

As I was updating the message on the church’s electronic sign to promote the annual Super Bowl of Soup (February 2), I made a minor mistake in my spelling.  Mind you now, some minor mistakes can really have a major impact on the meaning of a message.

My typographical slip of the tongue had the message reading Super Bowel of Soup—not to appetizing is it?

According to Psychology Today, “Slips of the tongue are almost inevitable. For every 1,000 words spoken, we make one or two errors. Considering that the average pace of speech is 150 words a minute, a slip is bound to occur about once every seven minutes of continuous talk. Each day, most of us make somewhere between 7 and 22 verbal slips.”

I remember an incident several years ago that involved Ted Kennedy.  Education was one of the many passions of the now deceased senator.   During the speech, Kennedy said:  “Our national interest ought to be to encourage the breast.”  There was some nervous laughter from the audience, and Kennedy quickly corrected himself—“I mean the “best and brightest.”

I remember Frank Marley, a rock solid individual and man of character, telling me one day: “Don’t take a man for what he says, take him for what he means.”  We need to be careful when we speak, so that our words are appropriately meaning-filled.

In Matthew 12:36, Jesus said:  “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.”  I wonder how a slip of the tongue will be considered?

I’m reading through the book of Psalms this month.  To accomplish this task, each day I read every 30^th Psalm.  As an example, on the 15^th, I read Psalms 15, 45, 75, 105, and 135.

When I read my Bible, I follow a thought or theme from one Scripture or book to another one.  One day this week, my journey eventually led me to Psalm 115.  Even though I’ve read this Psalm many times, verses 15-18 really caught my attention this time:

The idols of the nations are made of silver and gold.
They were made by human hands.
¹⁶ They have mouths, but they cannot speak.
They have eyes, but they cannot see.
¹⁷ They have ears, but they cannot hear.
They cannot breathe.
¹⁸ Those who make idols end up like them.
    So does everyone who trusts them

Typically, idols were chiseled from rock or crafted from metal.  Does verse 18 mean that a person’s heart can become as hard as a rock or as cold as a piece of metal?

Perhaps we need to inventory our lives and see which possession, hobby, or habit best defines us, and what it says about our relationship with the Lord.

Just a thought that I thought was worth sharing.

My mom was fussing about some aches and pains, so I started teasing her with an old folk song called the Old Gray Mare.  A repeated line in the song says, the old gray mare ain’t what she used to be.

After I sang a line or two of the song, I came to realize there is some theological significance to those words; and, fortunately, I’m not what I used to be.

There are several places that Paul speaks of this change.

• Ephesians 2:  But now through Christ Jesus you, who were once far away, have been brought near by the blood of Christ . . . you are no longer foreigners and outsiders but citizens together with God’s people and members of God’s family
• 2 Corinthians 5:17:  Whoever is a believer in Christ is a new creation. The old way of living has disappeared. A new way of living has come into existence.

The Old Gray Mare has a focus on how the old horse is wearing out and breaking down.  Our focus should be on who we are in Christ.  Paul tells us:  God’s kindness overflows in the lives of many people, and it will produce even more thanksgiving to the glory of God.  That is why we are not discouraged. Though outwardly we are wearing out, inwardly we are renewed day by day.  Our suffering is light and temporary and is producing for us an eternal glory that is greater than anything we can imagine.  We don’t look for things that can be seen but for things that can’t be seen. Things that can be seen are only temporary. But things that can’t be seen last forever (2 Corinthians 4).

Let’s endeavor to renew our minds, so we can be renewed day by day.

Among the many gifts given this time of year, I often see people wearing a new necklace or bracelet.  Some people wear a specific type of jewelry as a sense of identity and others wear another kind that identifies them as someone with a special health concern.

There is another type of locket that can be worn around a person’s neck.  Solomon described it in Proverbs 3: Don’t lose your grip on Love and Loyalty. Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart. Earn a reputation for living well in God’s eyes and the eyes of the people.

Of all the gifts that we give and receive, love and loyalty are two of the most important.  When correctly worn, we are easily identified as a child of the King.

Loyalty is not something we wear for special occasions, nor is it a word to be casually spoken; instead, it is a lifestyle to be embraced; furthermore, our loyalty to our Lord should always be an ! and not a ?

Zig Ziglar was known for his wit and wisdom, and he once said:  The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.

As we move into 2014, I hope each of us can embed these characteristics as jewels and, tie them around our necks, and carve their initials in our hearts.

Forgiveness is not a word that we often associate with Christmas; however, it was the unseen herald that attended the birth of Jesus.  When a joyful Mary laid her innocent child in the hay-lined crib, I imagine His impending death was beyond her imagination.

That was, however, the very reason Jesus was born:  It was to die, so we could find forgiveness in Him.  Real forgiveness is God pardoning the unpardonable, and for forgiveness to be appropriated, sinful man must believe the almost unbelievable.

I can believe that I might give my life to save another person, but I cannot fathom the possibility of me giving the life of one of my children for the benefit of another.

And, it is because God gave His son, that we have the gift of Christmas—hope.  At those times when things seem so hopeless, the eternal gift of God is ours to claim.

After all the packages have been opened on Christmas morning, the wrapping paper has been trashed, and the batteries in the new toys have lost their charge, the hope of Christmas will still reign supreme.

I encourage to take some time to consider God’s gift, and to embrace the hope of Christmas we find in the person of Jesus.

Have you ever given more than a single thought to the many thoughts of Mary? I do, when I read an interesting verse in Luke 2. It causes me to wonder: “Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

When Mary pondered the message of the angels, and the words of the shepherds, was there really anyway she could fully comprehend the meaning of that first Christmas? When she looked into the eyes of her innocent son, could she mentally grasp that she would emotionally gasp 30 years later when he took on
the sin of the world?

How could she know that the son created in her womb would have such miraculous power over creation? When he changed the water into wine at the marriage supper in Cana, was this an ”Aha moment” for her?

What did she think when she realized her son had a leg up on the religious charlatans of the day and healed the legs of a crippled man?

When Mary saw a crowd of hungry faces suddenly satisfied by a sack lunch that was multiplied 5,000 times, did she realize that her son would also satisfy the spiritual hunger of the world?

When her son of a carpenter was dying an excruciating death on a wooden cross, did her anguish confound her comprehension of God’s ultimate plan?

How fast did her heart beat when she heard that her three-days-dead son had removed his grave clothes, rolled away a massive stone, run off a squad of soldiers, and became the resurrection and life to all who would believe?

There are some things that I ponder in my heart:
• How could Jesus understand everything, but be misunderstood by most everyone?
• Who was his best childhood friend? Could it have been a boy named Judas?
• What did he and his cousin John (later called the Baptist) talk about?
• Did his brothers and sisters see him as unique or annoyingly odd?

What thoughts fill your mind during the season of Christ’s birth? Some thoughts are worth thinking and some songs worth singing. I’ve included a couple of them here:
Mary Did You Know
Do You Hear What I Hear?