Month: January 2020

“Love means never having to say you are sorry.” The famous line from the movie Love Story. If you were alive in 1970 you probably either wept or yawned your way through this film about a young couple from different worlds. He the rich boy, by the name of Oliver and she a baker’s daughter named Jennifer. They meet in college and are quickly attracted to one another. The story takes the normal twists and turns, as the rich kid’s father cannot accept that his son has fallen in love with a girl so below his station. But love prevails even as Ollie is disowned by his father, they marry.

Struggling through, Jenny works as a teacher to help her husband to get his law degree. Once he graduates with honors immediately firms are offering him good paying positions. All seems so wonderful, love will prevail.

But soon it is learned that Jenny has leukemia and as Ollie seeks to find ways to pay for her treatments, he turns to his father. More plot twists and turns but the final scene has Jenny passing away, as Ollie looks on. Enter the now grieving father, who can only apologize to his son. All comes to a Hollywood type climax with Ollie, saying the line once spoken by Jenny to him after he reacted to her in anger and tried to apologize. Now the son says to his father, “Love means never having to say you are sorry.” Fade to black.

Love, Hollywood style. Many of us have watched it and too many of us have accepted it as truth. When it is not being packaged by script writers, then it is being lamented or praised in song. In fact, I found a blog page by the name of “Toronto mike” that lists 1187 love songs, I bet there were some sleepless nights listing all of those! When it comes to movies, well the best list I found had over 1000 titles but could not claim to be complete.

So, if we watched every one of those movies and listened to every song, would we know what love is? If not, then maybe we could go on to read the 242 books listed by “Goodreads” as the top good reads about love. We would have to be experts by then, right? My advice is don’t waste your time. I have one book that will do much better and I am sorry to say it didn’t crack the list of top 242 best reads, the Bible.

According to the King James Version stats I could find, the word love appears 131 times in the Old Testament and 179 in the New. That sure doesn’t seem to compare with the numbers we have just been looking at. Maybe the concept of love in not important. Maybe God doesn’t understand love as well as we claim to. The fact is, the Apostle John say he not only totally understands it He actually is love itself, “…God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.” (1 John 4: 16b)

If this is true why are we so lost when it comes to expressing love in our movies, our songs and even our lives. Maybe it has something to do with the last part of that verse. It says “…whoever abides in love abides in God…” and if you do so “…God abides in him.” To live in love, we need to live in God and then he will live in us. But to completely understand that we need to back up a verse, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God.” (1 John 4:15) True love, what the Bible calls agape love, is shown in Jesus Christ. When we accept Him then we can partake in the pure love that is from and is God Himself. God’s love is not stuff of movie and song. It is the real thing!

And we come to know that love when we see the extent that God has gone to save us. “God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. God did not send His Son into this world to condemn the world but to save the world through Him.” (John 3:16-17) But is knowing this enough?

We can see the love of God as shown in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But it is not enough. Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to make our home with them.” (John 14:23) It seems contradictory to love as we portray it to be based on obedience but not when we understand the triune God’s form of love. The son obedient to the Father, The Holy Spirit obedient to the Son and the Father willingly sacrifice His beloved Son. Each willing to serve the other. Love in its purest form.

Ok then, can we hope to have this kind of love? Not alone. Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit and about that Apostle Paul speaks of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5: 22-23. On top of the list of gifts the Spirit offers to us is, love. The thing is that these fruits have been misunderstood as characteristics that believers can manufacture in their lives. But remember they are called “Fruits” which mean they can grow in us but not by our own striving but by the power of the Holy Spirit. The fruit of love may be the best example. We cannot produce the type of love God desires without the leading and the strength of the Holy Spirit. It takes surrender and prayer. But the cool thing is we can have real love that changes our lives. It is the real “Love Story” and it is found in the cross of Jesus Christ.

There most certainly have been a ton of movies and songs written about love. But one song I know might express a love that is beyond our ballads and show us love in its essence, called: “How deep the Father’s Love for Us” by Stuart Townsend, let me end this with one verse:

How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss-
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory.

That is the love that saved a wretch like me. May today I share it with you.

Blessings

John

1/28/20

 

Don’t you love the commercials expounding the wonders of living in our ‘golden years’? If you watched these parodies you could almost believe that life after 60 is so wonderful that it puts being young all to shame. There is only one problem, at least in my experience, I am not one of those glowing grey hairs portrayed on the screen. No, my life as a senior has left many things to be desired.

Like most of us who live in the real world, most nights I struggle with sleep and most days I struggle staying awake. After years of Ironwork, my joints are somewhat worn. They seem to creak and crack almost in a sad kind of rhythm. And I do not know if it is a result of the gallons upon gallons of booze I drank or the myriad lines of drugs I snorted or just that my brain is old, but it doesn’t work as well as it once did. Don’t even get me going on the joys of living with cancer with all it’s lovely hot flashes and night sweats. No, my golden years are certainly not an advertisement for the joy of aging. So, with all that being said, why do I live with more joy today than I did as a healthy youth? Aww, now we come upon the one true advantage of age for hard headed and hard-hearted guys like me: living long enough to know better! Through the grace of God, I have lived long enough to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. So, in fact, I am in my golden years after all.

The truth is some people come to the realization of their need for a Savior at an early age. When I was first coming to the Lord, I could be just a little bit jealous of these folks. Their lives seemed so perfect. Their kids were happy and healthy. How come they are so blessed, I would think. Why did I have to struggle all those years to come to a place they knew from the get-go? For more than a few years I did not understand God’s timing or reasoning about this, and yes, I was a bit… no I was a lot resentful. But like so many things with us as hard headed humans, it took a tragedy in my life to finally allow me to see that I have been blessed beyond all reason. Let me explain.

I had slowly come to the Lord since 2009 and by 2012 I could say I truly believed in Jesus Christ and the Word of God as my plan for salvation. You could say I was ‘head’ saved. I knew all the stuff it took to be a Christian and for the most part I was living as one. I was no longer the scoundrel I had once been. Gone was the filthy language. No more drinking or doing drugs. I prayed every day and read my Bible come rain or shine. Yep, I was a bonafide Christian for sure or at least my head had been saved. Not so for my heart.

Then came the tragic year 2014. My already ailing wife went through one devastating health set back after another. Until shortly after Christmas she succumb to the cancer, she had lived with for over 14 years. All of a sudden, I was alone. Not just physically but emotionally and even more importantly, spiritually. Now it was time to sink or swim. I could no longer wade in the shallow end of the pool of faith and I knew it. But how? How could my ‘head’ salvation travel that 12” journey to my heart? The fact was it was time for my Romans 8:28 moment.

That verse says this: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) God was about to take the tragedy of death and use it to work good in my life as promised.

In March of 2015 still lost in the blackness of grieve and spiritually scared to death, a young pastor asked me to become his co-leader in Wednesday night prayer meetings. At first, I thought, man, this dude is crazy. Why would you want to put a guy who is doubting everything in front of a bunch of praying folks? This is a formula for disaster. But I went along just because I didn’t have the strength to fight it. And by the end of the first meeting I led, I was sure I had been right. I was not cut out for this. But the strangest thing happened. After the meeting I wanted to just sneak out, but I was surrounded by people thanking me for the powerful testimony and prayer time. My testimony was powerful? My prayer was meaningful? I wasn’t convinced but as it continued to happen, I saw God’s affirmation of who I was in his eyes and that led to deeper prayer and meaningful Bible study. I finally realized that all my life led to this place, this special relationship with Jesus Christ, a special relationship only we could have. I was all in! My hard heart melted!

I now feel blessed that I was allowed to live long enough to see God’s plan of salvation for me. I share my testimony wherever I can. God has shown me my lostness was a fertile ground of examples of how he never lets us go. We can never do anything so terrible that it cannot be washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. I am finally in my golden years and as many as I have left will be spent sharing his love and mercy as displayed in this man who was lost and now is old but found! Can I get an Amen!

Blessings,
John
1/21/20

“You are saved!” the TV preacher’s face filled the screen. Tears rolled down his cheeks and as the camera panned out others surrounding him were in a manic ecstasy also. He continued, “I am giving you the Holy Spirit, will you receive him today?” In the background all hands were raised, and the tears continued to flow. I shook my head in disgust and switched off the TV.

Dropping back down on the old couch, the dark enveloped me. I said into the empty room, “There is no Holy Spirit here and all the Amens and Halleluiahs in the world isn’t going to save anyone!” Looking at the glowing clock it was now 4:23 in the morning. Soon I would have to get myself together and be on the job. I found the bottle of whiskey I had avoided the night before. Looking at it in the dimness I knew the only spirit that would ever be in me was in this bottle, so I might as well drink my fill.

Two hours later I was ‘brassing’ through the gates of the Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant near the border of Indiana and Kentucky on the Ohio River. The booze I had absorbed was now in full affect. I wasn’t staggering but I sure wasn’t ready to face a day working 50’ about the river on the containment building. As I entered the dry shack and dropped my gear, I intended to stay as far away from the bosses as possible. My boss Tommy was three tables over playing a game of sheep’s head with Little Mickie and Paul Johns. I needed something to sober me up fast.

As I sat contemplating, I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard a voice crackle with a southern drawl, “Johnny, Johnny, look here atch you, my son! Likely, youse under da weather today agin!” I looked up to see Terri LaMatt. Scrawny and old but tough as nails and always filled with the fire of his evangelical zeal. I raised my hands in a motion for him to lower his voice but instead he kept on going, “I have told you before, son, that there is only one way to beat the devil and that is to fill yourself with the Holy Spirit. Come on down to our church down yonder, near Bowling Green. Pastor Gene will fill you so full you will be saved and won’t be able to touch a drop of that stuff that be killin’ you.” Terri had talked so loud and long that now Tommy was looking my way. Great. The only saving I needed today, was my job. Terri’s eyes blazed and Tommy’s glowered. There was no salvation in my life!

I have made some terrible choices in my life! That is surely an understatement. I only say it because most of us have. For years I chose to fill my life and others with pain through the addictions that destroyed almost everything in their path. The strange thing is that I now see that even during those times, God was striving to find a way to save me. That morning even though I knew the TV preacher, who I watched because he seemed to be such a phony, for a moment was used by God to talk to me. Maybe you, don’t believe that. That is a choice you can make. But I remember how I felt. I was uncomfortable. The Holy Spirit had drawn near but I pushed him away.

It was no coincidence that same morning that Terri was the one who found me sitting alone trying to avoid everyone. Again, the Holy Spirit reached out, but I was not willing, and he wouldn’t work against my free will. But I can tell you so many other times in places where God should not be, I know now the Holy Spirit was there! He was offering me his saving power. And you know what? One day I said, “Yes, Lord I am willing!” I don’t think it was as verbal as that, but it was as real. Little by little I have been saved. Thank you, Jesus!

Over the last 6 nights I have joined in with my worldwide church in a season of prayer, it is called “10 days of Prayer”. This is an annual event that allows millions of us around the world to pray together and this year it has centered on the Holy Spirit. Each night a speaker has delivered reflective messages about how the Spirit is working in our lives. It has given me much time to reflect myself on how he keeps the promise God makes to us, “And the LORD, he [it is] that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.” (Deuteronomy 31:8)

The Holy Spirit never leaves you. He always goes before you, if you know it or not. He is with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you. Today, my friend, do not be afraid and do not feel lost. If the Holy Spirit can work for over 45 years to save this man, he can and will do it in your life right now. Just remember, “So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…” (Hebrews 3:7 part.) You just have to be willing, HE will doing the saving!

Blessings,

John

1/15/20

 

The bitter cold morning had left me chilled to the bone even with heavy Carhart coveralls and felt lined Sorrel boots, I was cold as I could remember being.  Forty some feet above the Ohio River working on the containment building, the early morning frozen mist had risen like a cold knife that was now cutting through us all.

My crew had been complaining all morning about the workload that had been laid on us and the cold weather just added to the misery. My boss Tommy had been pushing us to the limit for weeks and now the crew was in open revolt. My buddy Jim Hart was on the platform next to me grumbling, “I tell you, John-boy, if this guy doesn’t let up a bit I am heading south. I heard there is a ton of work in Orlando, they are building something called Epcot down at Disney World. It certainly has to be warmer than this and I won’t have to listen to Tommy on my case all day!” I shook my head in the affirmative but was just to cold to speak. My teeth were actually chattering.

I also heard Jared Melon’ on the other side of Jim swearing and mumbling a bunch of Cajun words I did not understand. But then he leaned around and yelled over the job noise, “Don’t listen to this cooyon, bon ami! I told you before come down to New Orleans with Jac and me. Mardi Gras is happenin’ soon. Mama be cookin’ so much Debris you will need a shovel to eat wit!” Jared and his twin brother Jacques had been trying to get me to head south with them for weeks, but this was the first time I was really tempted.

As this conversation was still happening Tommy came around from the other side of the building. I could tell he was about to cut loose on us again about talking when we should be working. But before he could Jim moved around me and stood square in front of him. Both men were big, and years of working rebar had chiseled them into guys you did not want to mess with. As Jim drew close into Tommy’s space he chomped on the chaw of Red Man tobacco he was constantly chewing and spoke in a tone the sent even more chills through me, “Tom, my son, you and I have known each other a long time. You called me down here to work this nuke plant with you. I told you I wasn’t going to put up with your garbage (not the word used but, you know). If you don’t lighten up on us and let us get the work done, boy, I am going to throw you off here into that river below or maybe I might just shoot you!” With that he pushed past him and headed for the ladder platform, saying over his shoulder, “Never mind, I quit, killing you aint worth it!”

Have you ever been that angry? I know I have. I am writing this about another man’s anger, but I could just as well tell you story after story where I was angry enough to say these exact words. I truly wanted to kill someone.

Anger and rage were always a major problem in my life. Whenever I was confronted, be it man or woman I wanted to fight. As I look at it now, I see how all of it came from both my insecurities and my pride. I mean, I guess I could blame it on my upbringing. I was taught to stand up for myself, but I can tell you I took that to the extreme. It got me into more trouble than I would like to recall, but even more it led to a miserable life filled with addictions that I thought could drowned my anger but just inflamed it.

You know the one thing I never expected as I accepted Jesus as my Savior was that he could take that anger and turn it into something positive. Psalm 27 says this, “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret-it leads only to evil. For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.” (Psalm 27: 8-9) God is not threatening here that if I am angry all the time, he will destroy me. He is telling me it is MY anger that eats away at my ability to love. When I realized this, it did not change my passion or me as a person. No, knowing God’s love took that anger and turned it into action to share with others the joy that has replaced the insecurities and even my pride.

I can tell you today, my friends, God wants that for you too. Here is what He seeks for all of us, “The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even-tempered.” (Proverbs 17:27) God wants us to KNOW his Word and, in that knowledge, HE will give us the understanding that leads to patience and joy. What do you think today? Are you angry? Are you lacking the simple joy of a love filled life? Seek Jesus with all your heart, he will change that!

Jim’s anger was like an infection. Even though that day Tommy convinced him to stay on the job, our crew was broken. It was all settled because the project was shut down because of problems with the design and we all went our separate ways. The hate and discontent of that time stayed with me. I did go to Orlando but left there soon because it was not all it was cracked up to be. I spent Mardi Gras in New Orleans with the Melon’ brothers, eating Mama’s food. But under it all I was angry. Years would go by and that anger would be my trademark. I have another now, it is called joy in Christ. My prayer for you today is this same joy for you!

Blessings

John

1/6/20