PastorTim

YOU KNOW THAT MOMENT?

Last week I was visiting with a family at a local hospital whose loved one was undergoing a particularly serious heart surgery. As I accompanied the gentlemen’s wife form the lobby to the waiting room we passed by a poster on the wall that featured several of the hospitals surgeons posed in an advertisement. “There he is,” she said pointing to rather young looking face in the ad. “There’s who” I asked. “There in the picture is the surgeon that’s doing Jim’s heart surgery today” she exclaimed. As I looked at the picture on the wall it dawned on me in a rather sobering way, “That boy could be my kid!!!” He hardly looked old enough to drive let alone graduate from medical school! Speaking of kids, have you experienced that moment when you begin to rely on your children for driving directions? This getting older thing is for the birds! Why I’m almost to the point where I can easily figure in my head just how many years it will be before I qualify for a Golden Buckeye card! Time sure flies when your having fun… Years ago in “Bit’s and piece’s Arnold Bennett wrote, “Time is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is possible; without it, nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it. You wake up in the morning, and lo! Your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions... No one can take it from you. It is not something that can be stolen. And no one receives either more or less than you receive. Moreover, you cannot draw on its future. Impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste tomorrow; it is kept for you. You cannot waste the next hour; it is kept for you. You have to live on this twenty-four hours of daily time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul. Its right use, its most effective use, is a matter of the highest urgency and of the most thrilling actuality. All depends on that. Your happiness -- the elusive prize that you are all clutching for, my friends -- depends on that. If one cannot arrange that an income of twenty-four hours a day shall exactly cover all proper items of expenditure, one does muddle one's whole life indefinitely. We shall never have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.

The bible speaks plainly to us regarding the value of time. You see God exists in a realm that is not bound by time or space. God doesn’t wear a Rolex or even a Timex. He doesn’t have a Day-Timer or an I-Phone. He is the Creator of time, and He is greater than time. So, the first step in making time your friend is to totally immerse your life in God. In Psalm 90, we read: “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night….The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away…..So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” God says we should treasure time as a valuable commodity. You number your years (or at least some of you do), but God says every day is so precious, we should treasure it and number it.

To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.

To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby. How valuable is an hour? Ask the businessman whose flight was delayed an hour and he missed an important business deal. How valuable is one minute? Ask the man who had the heart attack in the restaurant and an EMT happened to be sitting at the next table and CPR saved his life. How valuable is a second? Ask the person who barely missed a head on w/ an oncoming car. How valuable is a millisecond? Ask the Olympic swimmer who missed qualifying by six-tenths. Time really is valuable. So learn a couple of things about what this means for you:

Treasure every moment that you have! Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is

A mystery. Today is a gift...That’s why it’s called the “present!” “You can make more money but you can’t make more time.” Someone wisely said, “We master our minutes, or we become slaves to him or her; we use time, or time uses us.” And Benjamin Franklin once remarked, “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for it is the stuff life is made of.” Time is more valuable than money, but it’s like money in that it can be spent and invested. It’s different from money though, because while money can be saved, time can’t. It you don’t use it, you lose it. Forever. In the early 1970s Jim Croce wrote a song that said, “If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do, is to save every day ‘till eternity passes away–just to spend them with you.” Those are great lyrics, and it would be nice if we could save time, but you can’t. In fact, a few months after he wrote that song, he was tragically killed in a plane crash in Natchitoches, Louisiana at the age of 30. You can’t save time. I believe that where you invest your time reveals what is most important to you. Where are you investing today?

 

STAY SOCKS STAY…GOOD GIRL

Our family was blessed to at one time own a wonderful species of dog called a Border Collie. Sock’s was her name and boy was she ever a smart one. Energetic, inquisitive and oh yeah ornery to be sure. Her antics will live on in Throckmorton family history for at least a generation or two. She was a gift to my son Joe from one of our church members many years ago. Every boy needs a dog right? But somehow Joe’s dog became the family dog. Sock’s, aptly named for the white coloring on her front legs which gave her the appearance of having a tube sock on each front paw did have a few low moments in her early days of endearing doggy life. Her deep desire to dig up things, especially those things which we would have preferred  be left UNDUG, was only eclipsed by the infamous Chicken Fiasco of 1999. The chickens were so much more expensive than the flowers by the way! After the little chicken incident we thought it prudent to invest in one of those state of the art underground K-9 fences. Those things are fantastic! You just bury a wire around the perimeter of your yard, hook up the little box that emits the electrical charge, and lastly put the handy dandy little collar around said pouch’s neck and viola, after a week or so of flag training your dogs straying days are over for good! Unless you have a Border Collie! Did I mention how smart socks was? A month or so had passed and one day Socks turned up missing in action. She was spotted outside her perimeter so I dutifully picked her up and proceeded to walk her back into her assigned territory. Let me just pause here and offer a little friendly advice to any buried fence owners or to anyone who may one day purchase one. Never, I repeat Never carry a wet dog that is wearing the afore described shock collar back across the buried fence. Whoa boy, those things will light you both up! And that nervous dog you are carrying will do all sorts of things when a healthy dose of electric current surges through their wet body! So back to the story, we were perplexed as to how Socks was exiting the yard still encased by the buried fence. I was convinced that the shocking action worked fine! Then one afternoon Terri was doing dishes looking out the back window and discovered socks escape strategy. This smart little pooch would tilt her head backward just far enough to cause the neck device to deactivate and then take little baby steps until she was free of the shock zone. Oh she was a smart one she was. But in the end the problem was someone was watching. Hence our lesson for today. Paul wrote to Titus, a student of his in the New Testament, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Titus 2:11-14 Paul here had Titus best interests at heart, as does God when we are challenged by His word to love and obey. God is not like a mean old man who will stomp you like a bug if you step out of line, but a loving caring parent that sets standards and boundaries that are best for us. Why? Because he loves us dearly! You see, it was out of Love that we wanted to keep Socks in the yard where she would be safe and cared for. We may even become uncomfortable if we try to stray, but He is close by letting us know that we need to stay close to Him.

K. Hughes, writes in, Liberating Ministry From The Success Syndrome, “It was Christmas Eve 1875 and Ira Sankey was traveling on a Delaware River steamboat when he was recognized by some of the passengers. His picture had been in the newspaper because he was the song leader for the famous evangelist D.L. Moody. They asked him to sing one of his own hymns, but Sankey demurred, saying that he preferred to sing William B. Bradbury's hymn, "Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us." As he sang, one of the stanzas began, "We are Thine; do Thou befriend us. Be the Guardian of our way." When he finished, a man stepped from the shadows and asked, "Did you ever serve in the Union Army?"  "Yes," Mr. Sankey answered, "in the spring of 1860."  "Can you remember if you were doing picket duty on a bright, moonlit night in 1862?"  "Yes," Mr. Sankey answered, very much surprised. "So did I, but I was serving in the Confederate army. When I saw you standing at your post, I thought to myself, 'That fellow will never get away alive.' I raised my musket and took aim. I was standing in the shadow, completely concealed, while the full light of the moon was falling upon you. At that instant, just as a moment ago, you raised your eyes to heaven and began to sing...'Let him sing his song to the end,' I said to myself, 'I can shot him afterwards. He's my victim at all events, and my bullet cannot miss him.' But the song you sang then was the song you sang just now. I heard the words perfectly: 'We are Thine; do Thou befriend us. Be the Guardian of our way.' Those words stirred up many memories. I began to think of my childhood and my God-fearing mother. She had many times sung that song to me. When you had finished your song, it was impossible for me to take aim again. I thought, 'The Lord who is able to save that man from certain death must surely be great and mighty.' And my arm of its own accord dropped limp at my side." Remember, God wants only what’s best for you; allow Him to have His way today in your life!

 

WHAT A STORY! WHAT A FRIEND!

I have a friend named Steve. I met Steve a few years back when at the behest of his father we began to meet often over coffee with a hearty side helping of fellowship, prayer, and study of the scripture. Learning about Steve’s life story was a blessing. He came from a good home with good values but like so many others drifted from his moorings and found himself headed in a direction that would have, but for the Grace of God taken him over the waterfall of death and destruction. I am so glad that God’s great and abundant grace extends to all, and that he still uses people, simple willing servants who hear His voice and obey. In Steve’s case God used a friend, his old friend Russ. Russ was simply obedient to the voice of his Lord and through a Godly orchestrated series of events Steve wound up right where he needed to be for just the right length of time he needed to be there. He not only came to faith in Christ, but is now graduating from a Christian University and is ministering to others. Steve was at our church this past Saturday sharing his story at our monthly Men’s Prayer Breakfast. He used a story from the Gospel of Mark to describe not only his journey, but also the journey many have made to faith. “And again he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house. And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them. And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins are forgiven thee. But there was certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only? And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.” I love the story not only because it is from the scriptures but also because it is true in the lives of so many. Everyone in Southern Ohio who is aware of the terrible scourge of drug abuse both prescription and illegal. As a Pastor I have seen firsthand the devastation it has caused in lives and how the fallout has affected family after family. But here is where I am blessed to report that God is bigger than any problem confronting communities, counties, states, or nations. Bigger than abuse, bigger that drugs and bigger than sin. Just like the crowd that was amazed because they had never seen it on this fashion, we as well are amazed when we see the mighty hand of God at work changing lives today! Remember my friend Steve; he was as crippled as the man who couldn’t walk on his own. And do you remember me mentioning Steve’s friend Russ. We not only see him in the story as the friends who carried their friend to Jesus, but there are potential Christ followers like Russ surrounding us today. Hey you may one of them yourself.  God may want to use you just as he used Russ to touch and change the life of a Steve out there who is headed over the same waterfall. Who can you be a Russ to today? You can only see Jesus change lives, change communities, changes worlds when we live by faith a life that is honoring to God and obedient to his voice.

There’s a familiar old story that’s told about a tightrope walker who did incredible stunts. All over Paris, he would do tightrope acts at tremendously scary heights. Then, he would do it blindfolded, then he would go across the tightrope, blindfolded, pushing a wheelbarrow. There was an American promoter who read about this in the newspapers and wrote a letter to the tightrope walker, saying, "Tightrope, I don’t believe you can do it, but I’m willing to make you an offer. For a very substantial sum of money, besides all your transportation fees, I would like to challenge you to do your act over Niagara Falls." Tightrope wrote back and said, "Sir, I’d love to come." Well, after a lot of promotion and setting the whole thing up, a crowd of people came to see the event. Tightrope was to start on the Canadian side and come over to the American side on this rope suspended over the falls. After a suspenseful drum roll, he came across blindfolded. The crowds went wild, and he came to the promoter and says, "Well, Mr. Promoter, now do you believe I can do it?" He said, "Well of course I do. I mean, I just saw you do it." "No," said Tightrope, "do you really believe I can do it?" "Well of course I do, you just did it." "No, no, no," said Tightrope, "do you believe I can do it?" "Yes," said Mr. Promoter, "I believe you can do it." "Good," said Tightrope, "then get in the wheelbarrow." You see, faith is never something just to be talked about. It is something that must be demonstrated in the way we live. Paul Harvey once said, “If you don’t live it, you don’t believe it.” Let’s believe it, and Let’s live it. What do you say…Friend?

 

THE OBJECT OF THE GAME

I was blessed to spend a few hours this past Saturday with my good friend Andy McGinnis playing a few rounds of golf. Oh how I love golf, how I love the challenge, how I love the beautiful and serene settings and above all else the joy it brings to a man’s soul just playing the game. I could be described as what you would call a scratch golfer. That is if your definition of the same is one who hits the ball and then scratches his head wondering where it went! Well here we were enjoying the afternoon. It was one of those Saturday afternoon golf channel moments when Andy with his trusty pitching wedge in tow chipped a ball onto the green and oh boy did it do what it was told, right into the cup! It was a beautiful shot to say the least. “Do you notice how I cautiously avoid mentioning my golf skills?” A great shot in a great game on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. It was the object of the game fulfilled right before our very eyes. Little round ball in the hole. Simple as that, right? Problem is it’s usually a little more difficult than it sounds. So is life right? Things appear so simple when a young couple makes plans and dreams about the future. Here’s the income we will have, here’s the budget plan to make it all work, and here’s the career and new house and then oops, we sure didn’t plan for that. There’s the career man who has all his investment ducks in a row, the days until retirement are even being counted down on this years calendar then, oh boy, didn’t see that coming! You say Tim that seems so sad, so unfair. Perhaps it is sad and unfair, but a problem free life and a good retirement plan is not the object of the game. Solomon once said, “And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” So this begs the question, what’s the object of your life?

 

We can get into a lot of trouble when the main thing is no longer the main thing. Out of focus living can cause us to go so far as to forget why we are even here. Pastor James Boice told the story involving Yogi Berra, the well-known catcher for the New York Yankees, and Hank Aaron, who at that time was the chief power hitter for the Milwaukee Braves. The teams were playing in the World Series, and as usual Yogi was keeping up his ceaseless chatter, intended to pep up his teammates on the one hand, and distract the Milwaukee batters on the other. As Aaron came to the plate, Yogi tried to distract him by saying, "Henry, you're holding the bat wrong. You're supposed to hold it so you can read the trademark." Aaron didn't say anything, but when the next pitch came he hit it into the left-field bleachers. After rounding the bases and tagging up at home plate, Aaron looked at Yogi Berra and said, "I didn't come up here to read." When we forget the true object of the game of life we are in danger of striking out! Which reminds me of the sign on a storefront window, which read, "Gone out of business. Didn't know what our business was." So just what is the object of the game of life?

The prophet Micah said, “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Listen closely to what the word of God instructs us. Number one, “do Justly.” In other words do what’s right. Not just when people are watching but especially when only God is aware.  Secondly we are to love mercy. Mercy, which is not getting what we deserve, is something that we are to love. We are to not only want others to know the love of God but we are to do what we can to help bring that relationship about.  And lastly we are to walk humbly with God. Do you catch the word with? Simply supposing to walk with God is of none effect if we do so without genuine humility.  A perfect love toward God can only exist when we get ourselves out of the way. James wrote, “Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” And Peter would echo, “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:” In the summer of 1986, two ships collided in the Black Sea off the coast of Russia. Hundreds of passengers died as they were hurled into the icy waters below. News of the disaster was further darkened when an investigation revealed the cause of the accident. It wasn't a technology problem like radar malfunction--or even thick fog. The cause was human stubbornness. Each captain was aware of the other ship's presence nearby. Both could have steered clear, but according to news reports, neither captain wanted to give way to the other. Each was too proud to yield first. By the time they came to their senses, it was too late. Many a life has been shipwrecked because the true object of life was out of focus or overlooked. John Wesley once said, “I want the whole Christ for my Savior, the whole Bible for my book, the whole Church for my fellowship, and the whole world for my mission field.” What is the object of your life?

 

A personal invitation to you

To all my friends I would like to extend a personal invitation to an evening of great music and memorable fellowship at Plymouth Heights church with Charlotte Ritchie. Ritchie has already enjoyed a career, which now spans more than a decade. Throughout her years with Jeff & Sheri Easter, she has shared the musical stage with such notable names as the Gaither Vocal Band, David Phelps, Russ Taff and Janet Paschal, just to name a few. She has been regularly featured on the highly successful Bill Gaither Video and Concert Series and has performed before thousands in arenas nationwide, as well as in Europe, Australia, Canada and South Africa. 

Please plan to join us tomorrow evening, Friday March 4th at 7:00 PM at the Plymouth Heights Church of the Nazarene, 25 Arnett Drive in Franklin Furnace Ohio. 

Hope to see you there! 

Tim