Forgiven - To Heal

They sat on the drug store shelf in identical brown glass bottles about 3 inches tall with white screw-on caps that had small applicator brushes attached. Their contents even had the same dark reddish orange color and consistency and were both labeled as an antiseptics and analgesics to treat minor cuts, scrapes, and scratches, but that’s where their similarities ended. I’m referring to Merthiolate and Mercurochrome, and if you were a child growing up in the 60s, you probably knew both of them well. You or your mom could brush a little Mercurochrome on a finger cut or a scraped knee and it felt like water was being applied. Brushing on some Merthiolate to that same cut or scrape though felt like a combination of acid and alcohol was being applied. I’m not sure if the burn was to make you think it was working or to try to make you forget about the pain from the cut or scrape and do what your dad said and go back outside and rub some dirt on it and get back to what you were doing. Either way, kids these days should be grateful that they are growing up in a Neosporin and Polysporin world of first aid treatment instead of dreading to see the dark brown Merthiolate bottle come out of the medicine cabinet. Both of the labels on the little brown bottles, as well as those on Neosporin and Polysporin, say that they are antiseptics and analgesics that are used to “promote healing.”

The Bible contains an ingredient that promotes healing too, but with no burn and no need for a Band-Aid. It’s called forgiveness. God’s forgiveness of us was and is designed to heal us from the guilt and hurt that sin has brought on, just as our forgiveness of others should bring about those same results. Perhaps the hurt you have been lugging around for years is tied to your learning that you have been completely and totally forgiven or that healing that hurt hinges upon your forgiving someone who has hurt you or someone you love.

Forgiven - To Rescue & Redeem

A number of years ago our Basset Hound, Anabelle, needed rescuing and didn’t even know it.

I had propped the back gate of our fenced in back-

yard open to load a few things from our studio into

the back of my pickup truck and didn’t notice her

gone until I was finished loading up. I called for her

several times to no avail then decided to walk back

to the alley behind our studio to look for her. That’s

when I saw that she was already to the next cross

street away jogging at a brisk pace with her nose to

the ground, clearly following the scent of something that had been through the alley. I called out again but got no response, so I jumped in my truck and headed down my street toward Central Avenue, a busy 4-lane street that she was headed for. I wheeled into the parking lot of a convenience store, jumped out of my truck and headed for the alley. I was about 50 feet or so away from the alley when I saw her, nose still to the ground, walk out of the alley and into the oncoming traffic on Central. With a van about 30-40 feet from hitting her, I yelled “Anabelle!!” as loud as I could, at which she looked up to see both me and the van bearing down on her. She let out a panicked yelp and ran to me as fast as she could, finally realizing the danger she was in and seeing me as coming to her rescue.

According to the Scripture, forgiveness is designed to do that too, to rescue us and redeem us from our sins, our failures, and ourselves. I hope you will invite froends and will join us this coming Sunday as we continue Forgiven with a look at how great our need is for Rescue & Redemption.

Forgiven - To Forgive

Ever been forgiven for something you didn’t deserve to be forgiven for? Me too. I was 18 years old and driving home from a date with the lovely lady that is now my wife and looked at my watch to see what time it was. Not being able to see my watch inside the car in the dark, I stuck my arm out the window to see if the street lights would provide enough light to see it and BAM! I ran our car into a power pole. I tried to start it back up but had no luck so I left it there and walked the 6 or 8 blocks to my house and woke my dad up to tell him what I had done. During that walk home I was running scenarios through my mind of how long I was going to have to work to save enough money to get the car repaired and even after that whether my dad would let me drive it again. After convincing my dad that it was safe where it was, he said we would deal with it in the morning and went back to bed. I went to school the next day fully expecting when I got home and my dad got home that I would hear how much it was going to cost and how long it was going to take to work off the debt from my, “It’s your responsibility to pay for your own mistakes,” dad, but that never happened. In fact, he never even asked me how it happened. He just said, “We’ll see what the insurance company says about the damages and decide what to do about it.” A couple of days later I offered to pay him a little each month until the damages were paid for and he just smiled and said, “Have you learned a lesson from this son?” “Absolutely,” I said, and he responded with, “Then let’s just forget about it.” What? Forget about it? This can’t be the same man that says, “If you’re not willing to work for it, then it’s not worth having.” He wiped the slate clean, and I definitely didn’t deserve it.

Though I never asked why, he probably did that because he knew I would be a father one day and would likely find myself in a situation that deserved judgment but would end up better with forgiveness instead. I was forgiven so as to learn when to forgive. Join us this Sunday as we launch a new fall series, “Forgiven.” Life’s a wreck without forgiveness.

Suit Up - Our Will

In what’s referred to as the “Miracle on Ice” during the 1980 Winter Olympics, the difference between winning and losing, for the huge underdog USA hockey team playing against the Soviet Union, came down to one thing: will. The same is true for Apple, a company on the verge of bankruptcy in the late 90s when Steve Jobs returned to the company he gave birth to, retooled and reshaped its product line and how it did business, turning it into one of the most successful companies in the world simply with the will to not let it fail.

In our sometimes daily struggle with our enemy, the devil, the difference between winning and losing often comes down to our will to harness the power of our Advocate and our arsenal and face him with the power of God’s word and the power of our testimony. Telling him the real truth about who he really is and Whose we are. According to the scripture, our will initiates in our mind, where the battles begin, and moves from there into what we desire. Consequently, the first mental step is desiring victory more than defeat and then using the tools at our disposal to make that happen. Now this may all sound like motivational speak to some, but to ignore the power of the mind and of our will in the process of gaining victory over our enemy and his game of deceit and guilt, is not only foolish, it’s a recipe for failure. We’ll examine what real mind-control is, a mind controlled by God, and no there’ll be no Kool-aid involved.

Suit Up - Our Armor

When I was a kid we used to play Army by walking up and down the alleys around our houses a week or so after Christmas and collecting the discarded Christmas trees (back when folks used real trees) to stack them up to make forts. Then we would get a bucket of water, a shovel and some dirt and start making mud balls to “bomb” our enemies on the other side with. The bigger the mud balls, the more damage you could do to the “fort” and expose the enemy. To move the process along, we would occasionally slip a rock inside the mud ball to wreak a little more havoc on the enemy and their fortress. Hey, if there’s no blood then you really haven’t had a legitimate Army battle! We also had pump up pop guns that we would stuff mud into the ends of and shoot our opponents with as well (our moms loved all this by the way) and those two pieces pretty much summed up the arsenal of weapons at our disposal.

Just like Army, walking into a spiritual battle (and they sometimes occur daily) with little to no arsenal is not only crazy, it’s dangerous! You see, as we learned a couple of weeks ago, our enemy, the devil, is creative, deceptive and tenacious. And, unless we are armed and armed well, we have little chance to come out victorious against him at the end of the day. So, anticipating and preparing for his attacks with the arsenal that God provides is not just wise, it’s essential. This week we’ll look into the weapons cache in Ephesians 6 and see what’s at our disposal as Christ followers... and no there won’t be any mud balls.

Suit Up - Our Advocate

If you were being charged with a crime and had to go to court, would you rather have Ben Matlock or Perry Mason in your corner? They both have very different styles but are very effective in defending their clients. Matlock, with his “aw shucks” southern charm disarms the would be perpetrator and then he goes in for the kill. Mason brings several people to the stand that, by process of elimination, points to the guilt of the final individual with a series of questions that begin with, “Isn’t it true that...” In the end, the guilty parties feel surrounded by the evidence and the pressure that comes with the guilt, and both prove their client’s innocence by uncovering the person that’s actually guilty of the crime. Bottom line is, whether it’s Perry or ‘Ol Ben, you’re going to be okay because they never lose.

Last week we looked at our enemy the devil and how he continually works to accuse us in every situation of failure or even uncertainty, how even the name Satan literally means accuser. How he is tireless in his pursuit of us and is relentless at turning footholds into strongholds. So, how do we win against those constant accusations and attacks? Well, we have to have an advocate and, according to the scripture, the believer has two. We invite you to join us on Sunday as we unwrap who and what is in our corner to not just turn down the volume of our enemy but to silence him altogether. Why is that important? Because the conflict is real, the enemy is relentless, and the stakes are growing higher and higher month after month and year after year. You need an advocate that will look you square in the eye and say, “I’ve got this, now let’s keep moving.” This advocate not only does that but will make you stronger and better in the process.

Suit Up - Our Enemy

When the guys growing up in our neighborhood decided to congregate in our backyard for a game of football or at a goal in someone’s driveway for a game of hoops, a couple of guys would usually volunteer to pick sides. After the teams were picked, and depending on the time of the year, we would either flip a coin or one team or the other would volunteer to be either “shirts” or “skins,” meaning one team would leave their shirts on and the other would take theirs off. In a backyard game where you are passing the ball from one team member to another that’s about the only way to tell your team’s members from the other one, especially in a fast moving game of football or half-court basketball. “Shirts” and “skins,” in the absence of uniforms, or at least matching jerseys, was our way of managing who would guard whom as well as identifying the enemy -- those on the other side.

No one can deny the struggles, battles, the war, if you will, that’s going on in our culture today with addiction or over values and beliefs, but you ask someone on the street who their enemy is and you’ll get everything from the folks in Washington, to the media, to Donald Trump, to Al Qaeda or even China. In other words, it’s not real clear to most as to IF there is an actual enemy and, if so, who that might be. As we come out of the gates with Suit Up this coming Sunday we’re going to let the scripture tell us first of all who the enemy really is, and then how to see the attacks coming. Going into any game, conflict or battle of any kind, if you don’t have a strategy, in all likelihood, you are going to lose. Suit Up is going to equip you with the tools necessary for a winning strategy so I encourage you to not miss a single week!

What’s In Your Hand? - John

I like a good pen as good as the next guy but I must admit there’s a lot I don’t know about them. Oh I know there are ballpoint pens, gel pens, roller ball pens, felt tip pens, and probably a lot more, but the king of pens is undoubtedly the fountain pen. Pen collectors value the fountain pen above all others and certain varieties can fetch serious money. An Omas Ellas Nib model M, for example, goes for about 18 grand! I know, who knew there was that much value in a fountain pen. Leave your jaw on the floor because, according to Pen Collectors of America, the most valuable pen out there is the Montblanc Blue, which is valued at a mere $1,392,500.00. That’s right, over a million, three for a fountain pen! So if you are lucky enough to have a CrossPoint pen in your possession, you’ll probably want to hang on to it. Who knows, in 25 to 30 years it could be worth 5 or 6 bucks!

Whoever said there is power in the pen made perhaps the greatest understatement ever, especially when you consider the one that was in the apostle John’s hand when he penned the gospel of John and the book of Revelation, while exiled to the Island of Patmos. He was a fisherman by trade but walked away from that profession to become a leader in the church at Jerusalem and was a mentor to the church at Ephesus, as well as several other smaller churches in Asia Minor. His written record of the Revelation though, is, in my opinion, his most important kingdom contribution. As he entered adulthood I doubt John would have ever given thought to the idea that the most significant work of his life would not be with a net but with a pen. What about you? If you are like most, there is a written record somewhere of your life insurance or retirement account documents but what about a record of your values, your beliefs, your faith journey, for others to reference and replicate? If not, it’s probably time to pick up a pen.

What’s In Your Hand? - Saul

There’s probably a little sleuth in all of us. If that weren’t true all the police and detective shows on television would be replaced by another sitcom or reality show of some kind. At our house, we like to watch Blue Bloods, which is a show that is really more about family than law enforcement. Anyway, like you, we think we can figure out the “who done it” before the episode is half over. Sometimes we’re right, other times, not so much. A recurring situation in a number of episodes involves Danny Reagan, the detective, going to his sister Erin, the assistant district attorney, to ask for a search warrant. He seldom has more than a gut feeling to go on and is consequently usually rejected by his sister and told to go get some evidence first, which only feeds the sibling rivalry between the two that surfaces in about every episode. A warrant gives that officer or detective both the access and authority to search for enough evidence to bring charges and make an arrest.

Warrants are nothing new. We’ll see this coming Sunday how Saul of Tarsus, warrants in hand, was using them to search for, arrest, incarcerate, and in some cases kill Christ-followers in the early church. Then after Saul gets “arrested” by Jesus on the road to Damascus, his mind, heart, and life’s mission is radically changed. So much so that the court that was giving him the arrest warrants began issuing warrants for his arrest, even trying to have him killed on multiple occasions. The point is that God used what was in Saul’s hand to stop him in his tracks and get him to reverse course.

It doesn’t matter friend how long you have been walking in a direction that takes you away from God. It’s never too late to turn around and find your way back. And the motivation to do just that can often be found in What’s In Your Hand.

What’s In Your Hand? - Moses

As a woodworker myself, I enjoy watching a real craftsman at work. Couple that with the fact that I have played guitar for a number of years and you’ll understand why I really enjoy watching guitars being made. A guitar craftsman is called a luthier and several years ago I was captivated watching a start to finish video that was released by Taylor Guitars, where a luthier walks the viewer through the step by step process of crafting a guitar from scratch. The first step was selecting the various pieces of wood for the top, sides and back, neck, bridge, nut, bracing and so on. Then, as each piece was cut to exact specifications and assembly takes place, you can see it start to come together. Once assembled, sanding and finishing takes place, then finally the hardware is installed and it’s ready to string up, tune up, and try it out to see what it sounds like. Each guitar is a piece of functional art, meaning, you can hang it up on the wall and admire it if you want but a guitar is intended to be played, to be used, to be enjoyed.

Moses carried around a shepherd’s staff that he very likely crafted himself from a tree branch or exposed root. Most of them had a crook/hook at one end, either naturally shaped that way by the tree or soaked in water for several days and bent into that shape. The crook was there to reach and grab the neck or back legs of a sheep that might be wandering off from the flock. The other end of the staff was usually sharpened to a point that would be used either for correcting the sheep or defending the flock against a predator. What Moses didn’t know as he was crafting the staff was how God would later use it to do some miraculous things. Most of us would think we probably don’t have anything in our hands worthy of a miracle but you just might leave surprised.