Month: December 2020

RESOLUTIONS – BE ATTITUDES
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RESOLUTIONS – BE ATTITUDES

RESOLUTIONS and The BE ATTITUDES

Later this week will Celebrate the coming of new year. We will no doubt be grateful for the end of 2020 and the hope that comes with 2021. It will be the traditional day of making our new year’s resolutions. They will be lose weight, or maybe gain weight. They might be exercise and run a marathon. It may be get married or don’t get married. It may be change jobs. It may be relocate, it may be retire. Just about in some way or form most of us, someplace in our minds will contemplate  our RESOLUTIONS.

As I was reading the other day I came across an interesting thought suggested by a sermon offered up by Jesus when he climbed up a short “mountain’ to speak to a large group of people who were excited to hear him speak after being told from others about this unique itinerant preacher.

There were no sign-in sheets required, no tickets to be purchased, no offerings to be given. There were no restrictions. The joy of it all for me centered around what may your resolutions look like. Every year there was a new year. I would be surprised if even back then, with no New Years programs, or tv, or streaming NEW YEARS was a day of reflection. We had to learn it from someone. This sermon was going to be a new years type of discussion.

AFTER doing 2020, this SERMON FROM THE MOUNT may help you appreciate the wisdom of a simple carpenter/itinerant pastor spreading the GOOD NEWS to the people and how familiar it will feel to you in light of 2020.

Matthew 5: 1-11:

And seeing the multitudes, he (Jesus) went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him and he began to speak. This is what he taught them:
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.
 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.
 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see GOD.
 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of GOD.
 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the  Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.  
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in Heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets      which were before you.

There is much more in his discussion, but I was the most taken by this initial series. It is why I call this the BE… ATTITUDES. (It is referred to in the New Testament as Beattitudes).

I can not help but read these as having been written last week about what we all have been through in 2020. And much will spill over into 2021. All those entities above represent us in some way, shape, or form. All This is from a book written 2,000 years ago. This does not have to be left untouched on a shelf because it is a religious book, but it is a life book. All those mentioned are affected by the pandemic and the loss of loved ones or more. I see those affected by racism, I see those protesting peaceably, I see those trying to protest peaceably. I see those risking the loss of a hard earned business. I see all those calling for HELP!! Many do not feel that they can trust GOD. Many ask GOD “What did we do to deserve all of this?” Many have no trust in their government, anywhere in the world. Many are trying to be peaceful, and others celebrate their evilness.

GOD is love. Love is at its most powerful when it is shared by a great crowd of prayers to feed it. This book is a book of what is life. It is an attitude of how to live and how your attitude intersects with those around you. GOD IS LOVE. GOD SAYS PRAYERS FOR YOU. ORDINARY PEOPLE YOU DO NOT KNOW PRAY FOR YOU EVERYDAY. ORDINARY PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING THE SAME THINGS. ORDINARY PEOPLE FIT THE ABOVE PROFILES. GOD WANTED YOU TO KNOW IT. YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN AND YOU NEVER WILL BE.

I have attached a song I wrote many years ago to share GOD’S Opinion of you, for you to know.

Have a wonderful NEW YEAR and may your RESOLUTIONS reflect your ATTITUDES.

dw.

Click the link to the song below.

Iamworth onejesus

 

RESTORES MY SOUL
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RESTORES MY SOUL

RESTORES MY SOUL 

The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside still waters
He restoreth my soul.
He leadeth me in the paths of right-eousness for His name’s sake.
(Psalms 23 kjv)

Years ago I read the 23rd Psalm over and over again and felt it was talking to me. I just couldn’t seem to relate. For me it was missing a few things for me to relate to. What was it saying to me. The above is just a part of the 23rd Psalm, but it will apply for this discussion.

The Lord is my Saviour and my guide. I shall have all that I require. (Not all that I want, what I require. I will still have more than many do).
(When the fields that I have been tilling have become brown and barren), He bids me to lie down in green pastures.
(When my Faith has been sorely tested and I am ready to give up) He restores my Faith (and my Soul to me).
He leads me along the right paths, (those of your own choosing, that I may serve you there).

At some point in time, every day, I offer this prayer up to GOD (and the rest of Psalm 23) Whoever, whatever, and However GOD happens.

(When my Faith has been sorely tested and I am ready to give up), He restores my Faith (and my Soul to me).

The accumulation of writings called the BIBLE is so much more than a “Religious” writing. The Psalms are in the history of the Jewish faith. For me they are the story of life is. I chose it for today because I have seen much in my life but none that compares to 2020. It is a book that teaches a history lesson of a people struggling, as many do, of what is the purpose of GOD. GOD has been a creator, fighter of wars, a judge, a jury, and you name it. But here in 2020,   WHEN MY FAITH HAS BEEN SORELY TESTED AND I AM READY TO GIVE UP HE RESTORES MY FAITH AND MY SOUL TO ME.

FAITH believes that there is something greater than the times. There is hope. There is LOVE. There is caring. There are thousands around the world who put their lives at risk so that I can have (ALL THAT I REQUIRE). HE RESTORES MY SOUL that my FAITH is on solid ground. GOD does not require a church, GOD does not require follow the leader. Your own choices determine your own locations.

GOD does RESTORE FAITH which RESTORES MY SOUL. It may be In the smile of someone passing by. In the “Can I Help you”, at the store. In that feeling when you yell “GOD” And GOD whispers, “I’ve got your back”. 2020 has made many of us wonder where the world has gone. 2020 instills a risk of pain, loss and change for sure. All of us know someone whose future is changing dramatically. Know one thing from GOD. You ask, and GOD will RESTORE YOUR FAITH and your SOUL. 

AMEN

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2020
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MERRY CHRISTMAS 2020

We are well into the Holiday Season. In all my wanderings I have had the opportunity to do Christmas in a few different retail settings. I have unloaded and put up Christmas trees, much of the merchandise as a dock manager for a couple of large multi state retail chain stores over 15 years. I helped with the decorations, and in the 70’s what used to be traditional Christmas programs with a train in the special Christmas shows that used to fill up very large department store auditoriums for thousands of customers every Christmas. On the 8th floor the auditorium was half of the 8th floor. The hall had all kinds of Christmas vignettes to walk through or ride through depending on the theme of the year.
I have been smothered now with years of Christmas shows on TV with Santa Claus and Snowmen, and such.

For you that have tuned in here to Unorthodox Christianity, a little different Christmas song I wrote years ago.

Enjoy the Season, from ME

Click on Below.

The Reason For The Season   

(All rights reserved by the writer)

INTO THINE HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT
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INTO THINE HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT

INTO THINE HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT
And Having Said thus Jesus breathed His last. Luke 23: 46

After over 30 years of Unorthodox Christianity and music about Jesus, and sermons about Jesus, and Prayers to and From Jesus, I have always missed one thing. The stories of the young Jesus and the young adult Jesus.. Jesus died at about 33 years of age. He was recognized as a Rabbi or itinerant Preacher for but 3 years. He began educating himself as early as a young boy seeking out the stories of the prophets in the synagogues and from those people he felt as wise. That leaves about 30 years of stories and his relationships with family and friends and acquaintances that molded Him on the way to this last comment:
“INTO THINE HANDS (GOD), I COMMEND MY SPIRIT”.

What were the younger years like.
Did Jesus wonder about the moon and the stars?
Was he perhaps bullied as a child within the town he had lived in?
Was he the nicest kid or was he the prodigal son?
Did he sit under a small grove of trees and study nature, or the animals, or the neighbors, or the enemies?

We probably know less about the life of Jesus as a normal child growing up and as an adult 30 year old than we know of any other human in history. Most of the life of Jesus that we do know of did not exist until roughly 70 years later and then some in books written by those who knew him as the Messiah, The Christ and a miracle worker. There were no TV, No Cell phones, no social media, no twitter account or movies. And from their lack of knowledge of Jesus, the person on the bench next door, or under the tree with friends, His death became His Beginning.

What do we know of Jesus?

Was He a GOD when growing up? Did He learn from life the lessons He would carry to the crowds that came to hear him and watch him as a man? The sermons I have heard so many times in my life say He was perfect.
He was without sin.
He was GOD’S only son.
Jesus was GOD on a mission to teach.
He was without blemish.
He was GOD incarnate from birth.

“ Him? Isn’t he Joseph’s boy, Jesus? Nothing ever good has come out of Nazareth”

I have never known a young boy to be perfect. I was not, far from it.

Jesus, in the midst of Love One Another, had some pretty harsh words for the Pharisees and the Sadducee. Over turned the tables in the temple. “A brood of vipers”.

I read into Jesus a human being, on a mission, and driven by a force within him to preach a good news rather than a same old same old.

When everything was said and done I recognized that I was not perfect. I was not GOD? I was not a special divine child or man. I did not perform miracles. I did not feel as though I was good enough for Jesus, let alone GOD. So of what value was I to GOD. Not divine, not perfect, not without sin. Jesus was divine. Jesus was special.

DO you ever find yourself questioning how one would ever expect you to achieve all that Jesus did in but 33 years? Would you believe them?

Too often we feel as though we are not good enough to be a disciple of Jesus.

I do not believe it. Even Jesus, at the end of His ministry asked “Take this cup from me, but not my will but yours”. And at the very end, “INTO THINE HANDS (GOD), I COMMEND MY SPIRIT”.

Many times you have been chosen to be the messenger, the coach, the prayer, the savior. You are the first responder, the teacher, the nurse, the doctor, the care giver. More than you think you have made the choice to perform that function and be the hands of Jesus whether you believe in Jesus, GOD, or not. If you simply reflect on your own past, how many times have you chosen, no questions asked, to perform a task that you accept to do and do not debate it for the sake of love. You very much have answered in the very way that Jesus did.

You have performed a request without thought of whether or not you were perfect enough, good enough, knowledgeable enough or even loved enough. In Unorthodox Christianity it was said of this by Jesus “ BY THIS THEY WILL BE SEEN AS DISCIPLES OF MINE” (no denomination required). And you do not recognize it for what it is, represents, and for any great reward beyond a hug and a smile. GOD has worked through the you that you are for the person that you are. NEVER think less of yourself, GOD does not and never will.

INTO THINE HANDS , I COMMEND MY SPIRIT.

GOD BLESS.

Scared To Death
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Scared To Death

I had occasion to be traversing the roads of ruralish Iowa. On this particular day there was an inordinate number of deer lying by the side of the road.

I have seen this often as a road warrior salesman covering a rural territory on back roads. Many deer; lying by the side of the road with no discernible wound. When one hunts and shoots at a deer it is the most common thing for the deer to take off running. If hit it can take time until is succumbs. When hit by a car the carnage is often visible, but at least detectable, and usually the carcass is a ways off the roadway, the animal’s momentum carrying it a certain distance from the point of impact.

In every case this day it was as though the animal died immediately upon seeing the car. It was as though it were “scared to death”.

It is an interesting phrase “scared to death”. When I mention to people that I sing in public or in churches, playing my own accompaniment on my guitar a reply that I often hear is “That would scare me to death”.

When I was a salesman, making innumerable cold calls, the phrase often came up, “That would scare me to death.” It really doesn’t necessarily scare them to die, but like the deer, perhaps it truly does in their mind’s eye. Have the challenges of life that you are afraid of, scared you to death? Have you felt a message to move in a new direction that you feel is a call to you from Jesus? Or from a similar source? Have you been afraid to test the waters of Jesus’ challenge to love one another because you have been afraid of being hurt again, or rejected or refused? Has this fear incapacitated you as much as the deer lying beside the road? Have you been so afraid that you have been a carcass on the roadside listening in a stupor as the relationships of other people’s lives pass by you on the roadway?

How many dreams do we fail to follow because we are afraid they won’t turn out the way we wish until one day we found we have ‘died’ to the life that the dream originally represented?

I know that I have been scared to death before. I have found myself feeling dead to living and patiently waiting for whatever day of my death appears to receive my earthly reward. Then one day I discovered that I had squandered the gift of the blessing of living this life out of fear of the unknown that comes with it.

The Robert Frost poem “The Road Less Taken” is about choices. Two roads diverged in a wood, one was well traveled, and one was less traveled. At the end the statement, for the poet, how much better it has been for him in taking the road less traveled. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”.

I think which road one takes depends on the person. The well-traveled road is well traveled because it works well for most. It satisfies and fulfills. Sometimes it does not. The dreamer is driven and beckoned by the road less traveled. Whatever it is down that road, it is a road the dreamer eventually chooses. That is the essence of the challenge of “Scared to Death”. One had missed the opportunities that lied along the road less traveled.

Jesus, a carpenter’s son, at a time when father and son forged the same future quite often, Jesus chose a road that very easily could Scare Him To Death. All the prophesies that had garnered His attention had a future that would have deterred the choices of others. Death on a Cross in a fight for social justice and a change in the thinking of most. At the final stage of the prophesy Jesus prayed.

“My Father” Jesus began, “if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Nevertheless, let it as you, not I, would have it”. Jesus’s Faith believed that GOD, under whatever name, is a GOD that prepares the way. Faith is knowing that the gift of this life is as rewarding and fantastic in its living as the reward we seek after its tenure. And that “Do not let your hearts be troubled, Trust in GOD, still, And trust in me.” Many times in your life you may find yourself “Scared to Death”.

So here I my be, chugging along the road less traveled. How much different would life have been had I chosen this road at the outset, instead of the comfortable and familiar. I believe I have always been moving on the right path. It actually doesn’t make much difference, for this life is a book of travels. And, for now, this journey is on the road less traveled. Trust in GOD, still, And trust in Jesus”.

Matt: 26: 39-40
John: 14: 1