Bible

Laughing With Sheep is Good, Just Be Careful Who the Shepherd Is

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Seek the Balance of Humor and Seriousness

This past Sunday we were privileged to have Keith Anglemyer give us the message. Keith grew up in Tisdale UMC and now is the minister at Beloit 1st UMC. It’s exciting to see fruit that came from planting seeds.

He started by sharing his testimony and how his experiences in this church helped to shape him into who he is today. He told us the importance of attending church every week that his parents instilled. How his love for music grew out of the church, leading him to be a music teacher before God lead him to becoming a minister.

Keith’s message was titled “Laughing with the Sheep”. He told us how as a kid in the church we were expected to sit still, be quiet, and behave. Then he shared a story of a youth trip where Melvin drove down the highway for miles with his turn signal on and the laughter that was had. These two seemingly opposing positions lead to a bit of a struggle.

Are we supposed to laugh in church?

This is a struggle that has been going on forever. There is “high church” that emphasizes formality and resistance to a modern contemporary worship style. On the opposite side there is “low church” that focuses less on rituals and liturgical contexts. These differing worship practices often times lead to confusion, misunderstanding and sometimes churches splitting.

You’ve probably heard it said of sheep, that, “Get one to go and they will all go”. Let me tell you, this is very true. I used to have sheep and there were multiple times when I watched one sheep jump over something that wasn’t there and every following sheep jumped in the same spot.

Because of this follow the leader behavior, sheep have been called stupid. This isn’t the case. They act the way they do as a way of protection. Their moving together collectively is a survival instinct.

The Bible is full of examples comparing us to sheep and the importance for us to follow the Good Shepherd. We are easily persuaded to follow crowds and do the things that others are doing. Whether this is worshiping in the way that we always have or something else.

The key to this is to know the Shepherd and follow Him…not other sheep.

I think Satan knows that we tend to act like sheep and he uses this to get us to follow along, often going the wrong way. Don’t blindly follow other sheep.

Get to know the Good Shepherd by reading about Him who He is and how to worship.

Remember, even though we act like it, we aren’t really sheep.

It’s Okay to Embrace the Busy, it’s Part of God’s Plan

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“Work” Isn’t a Bad Word, and it Shouldn’t be Used That Way

Last week I wrote about the topic of being busy and it’s current prevalence in conversations. This frequency was confirmed in a recent Ray Edwards podcast, “5 Reasons Why You Need to Take More Time Off”. My intent is not to throw Ray under the bus, on the contrary, he starts off by saying, “Make hay while the sun shines.” Having grown up on a farm, I can totally identify with this.

Growing up on the farm explains a lot about my work philosophy.

I think the issue of being busy, working too much, or taking time off, comes down to a couple of things. First is a societal push to have life goals of long weekends, vacations and retirement. Second is the meaning of words and how we use them.

It seems the subject of working less is being pushed more and more. I’ve heard Michael Hyatt speak of taking long sabbaticals. The internet, books and social media are full of ideas for working less and less, some say the goal should be 4 hours per day.

I don’t know but this just seems crazy to me.

I think the key to this issue is in understanding ourselves and finding the balance in what we do. This will be different for everyone. Balance doesn’t mean resting the same amount of time that working. It means resting proportionately to working.

I base my work/rest balance on God’s 6-1 ratio. He worked six days and then rested one. He completed His work and then rested. His focus wasn’t on resting, it was on accomplishing His goals. When that was done then He rested. And He loved what He was doing.

We definitely need rest…the question is what is rest and how much is needed?

I remember when people would say they were bored, I never understood that. How can someone be bored when there is so much important work to do. I think boredom is rooted in not having found a purpose. That or they were just lazy.

God’s Word makes it very clear that we are instructed to work hard and put our best effort forward. The Bible, especially in the wisdom-filled book of Proverbs, speaks often of the cause and effect relationship of hard work and rewards as well as laziness and ruin. Bible Study Tools, Bible verses about laziness, Knowing Jesus, Open Bible.

Part of the problem is in the misuse of words.

Like the word “work” for example. People use this word as if it were a punishment. It’s as if they’ve been bad so now, they have to go to “work” rather than being able to play. The definition of work is activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.

Sign me up…this sounds like something I would like to do.

Work becomes a problem when it causes us to become so focused on one thing that we lose sight of other things in life. (Take it from a recovering workaholic.) Work hard on all the different areas that make up a well-balanced life not just a job.

  • Build my relationship with God (Spiritual)
  • Build a family legacy (Family)
  • Help people build their dreams (Vocation)
  • Build wealth (Financial)
  • Build the best me (Personal Well-being)
  • Help others build a better them (Ministry)
  • Help build a better world (Social and Community)

The key is to find the work that you love and do it. This is where the real problem lies. Most people have settled for a mondain existence rather than finding their God given purpose.

Get clear on what God wants you to do and get BUSY, WORKING on that!

It Is the Bible in A Nutshell

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John 3:16 is the Summation of the Whole Thing

John 3:16 may be the shortest Cliffs Notes ever. This verse is the whole Bible in one sentence. God loved us so much that he gave His Son to pay for our mistakes with his life. In return, our love for God is believing this to be true. Everything in the book points to this one thing and this one thing covers every other thing.

Real love is simple but hard.

Love is treating others the way God would treat them. We don’t do this very well. He’s had millions of reasons to condemn the world, but He hasn’t. The number of times we have given Him reasons to erase this whole thing and start over from scratch are too many to count.

“God is love. Those who live in love, live in God, and God lives in them.” 1 John 4:7-21 Love comes from God. We are given opportunities to exhibit this love, but it doesn’t work if we don’t “do” it. We must choose to be different, to do different.

Rene Denfeld experienced a difficult childhood. She lived on the streets to stay clear of her registered sex offender stepfather and the long line of pedophiles that came in and out of her life. She grew to become a Chief Investigator for the public defender’s office, an author and an adoptive parent of three children from foster care.

She wrote about her kids in a New York Times essay “Four Castaway’s Make a Family”. “I had come to believe that the most important therapy is permanence. Children can sense when they are in a temporary home. All my children grew rapidly once settled, going from below the fifth percentile in height and weight to close to average. More important, they grew emotionally.”

“It is love that feeds the soul, allows us all to flourish.”

Love is serving. God loved us first and His never ends. We have been given talents and abilities that are specific to us. If we love God and love others, we’ll use them to make other’s lives better. In 1 Corinthians 13 it says that if we use these “without love, we are nothing”.

Our human nature is to be selfish. Loving others is about placing their needs above our wants.

John R. Fox sacrificed his life in World War II when he called for an artillery strike on the very position where he and his men were located. Fox was behind enemy lines and was surrounded by German soldiers. When he called for a strike right where he was, the soldier who got the message knew it. Fox was informed and he said, “Fire it.” After some further questions by the artillery operator Fox confirmed his coordinates and stated, “There’s more of them than there is of us.” His actions led to a halt in the German offensive.

The instructions given to us in John 3:16 are simple. We’ve heard this scripture used so much, we often take it for granted and don’t give it the significance it’s due. Most of the time we try to make things more complicated than they need to be.

Don’t over complicate this simple thing.

God loves you; I love you; go out and share that love.

The Internal Battle Between Right and Wrong

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Are You Conscious of Your Conscience?

Each of us has an ongoing internal battle of right and wrong. To make this internal conflict even more difficult, we’re bombarded by external forces pulling us in different directions.

How do we determine who’s going to win this battle?

What makes one thing right and another wrong? How do we know which is which? Ultimately, it comes down to what you use to measure right and wrong.

This battle is difficult, but no one said it was going to be easy.

As a Christian, I use the Scripture, the whole Scripture, for this. If I’m going to base my rights and wrongs in the Bible, I need to be careful to not pick and choose only small pieces but use the whole thing.

Just like a blueprint for building, if I don’t use the whole plan the building won’t be what it was designed to be.

The Bible is the blueprint for building my life.

We also have a built in right and wrong meter called a conscience. This meter is a sense of moral goodness for one’s own conduct, intentions or character together with a feeling of right or good. We can choose to listen to it or not.

Someone was asked if they knew the difference between conscience and conscious. They answered, CONSCIENCE is being aware of what’s right and wrong, CONSCIOUS is wishing you didn’t.

The battle of right and wrong doesn’t begin where we think it does…IT BEGINS WHERE WE THINK.

If decisions are choices…and our thinking determines our decisions, then we do what we do because of our thinking. It’s up to us to make the choices wisely. I would recommend following the blueprint.