Life Lessons

It is Sunday, January 31, 2010 and I am at home all morning. Yesterday we got snowed in and for the second time this winter we had to cancel the Sunday services. As I was reading this morning I came across an interesting story.

On January 29, 2010, ABC news ran a news story under the theme of "Still No Church." The point of the article is that after one year President Obama still has found no church to attend. They point out that he attended church only three times in the past year.

What is said of Obama could be said about millions of American. Millions of Americans seldom or never attend the meeting of the church. Since it is not unusual this story is not about our president skipping worship worship, but about what those close to him said about it.

ABC news reported, "Sources familiar with the president’s personal life say Obama remains a faithful Christian while in the White House."

There is is! People just do not get it. Christ died for the church. The Holy Spirit commanded us to gather for worship with the church.

You can ignore the church, but you cannot be a faithful Christian while doing so.

Look it up – Hebrews 10:25.

A snow storm or a sickness may make you "providentially hindered," but choosing not to worship is being unfaithful to the commands of the Holy Spirit.

Lonnie Davis
 

A man or woman can work a lifetime to build a reputation and yet have his or her life defined in a single act. On January 14, 2009, few people knew who Chesley Sullenberger was. He was just another unknown airline pilot. On January 15

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all of that changed. He was the pilot in charge of US Airways Flight 1549 as they flew over the Hudson River in Manhatten, New York. Things went wrong and Captain Sullenberger landed his passenger jet in the Hudson river. There was no loss of life and the previously unknown pilot became an instant national hero.

This article is not about his flying skills. In the months that followed this event, Captain Sullenberger wrote a book called “Highest Duty.” In his book he tells of what life is like with his new hero status. When he speaks over the intercom on flights, after he says his name he has to pause because the people on the flight clap for him. Experiencing this, he wrote,

"I flew thousands of flights in the past 42 years but my entire career is now being judged by how I performed on one of them. This has been a reminder to me that we need to try to do the right thing every time to perform at our best because we never know which moment in our lives we will be judged on."

As you read this passage again, think of two short verses from God’s Word.

(1) Ecclesiastes 7:1 – “A good name is better than fine perfume.”

For all those times when you get it right there is a great reward. It is not someday in the sky, but now. Because you did the right thing, you have a good name.

(2) Ecclesiastes 10:1 – "As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor."

For those times when you get it wrong, for those times when you act out or make poor choices, there are always consequences. A dead fly in the perfume runs everything.

Be on guard to how you live your life. You reputation here and eternity there hang in the balance. A moment of folly or a moment of greatness can change everything.

Lonnie Davis

A Can of Corn

When Liz and I first married we learned many things from each other. She was a country girl and I was a city boy. I was from Houston, Texas (Population 1,000,000 +). She was from Jack’s Creek, Tennessee (Population 100+).  That is a cultural clash. My first church was in a farming community. One day my country wife told me that we were going to go get corn and took me to a farm where we picked our own corn. We shucked it, cut it off the cob and made our own cream style corn. I did not say so at the time, but I thought it was not very good. I liked canned corn. I was very young and very, very ignorant.

Growing up my mother made corn often. She would go the pantry, get a can, open it and pour it into a pan. When the temperature was right she would serve it to us. Hmmmm, good! (I hope I did not give away her secret recipe).

Over the years I have learned the difference between superior and inferior corn. Taste is a funny thing. One can get used too things that are not very good. One can even learn to think that inferior stuff is superior stuff.

It is a principle that is as old as the world. Cain thought inferior worship was better than faith worship (Genesis 4). Demas though the world was superior to serving with Paul. (2 Timothy 4:10). Judas thought 30 pieces of silver was better than walking with Jesus.

Unfortunately it is a principle that still allures people today. Everyday people choose the world over the spirit. Everyday people choose sin over righteousness. Everyday people choose lies over truth. Everyday we all have to make those same choices. Joshua challenged Israel:

“If serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:15).

“No one can serve two masters,” Jesus said (Matthew 6:24). We must learn to choose the superior ways of the Spirit over the inferior ways of the world. This choice should be a “can of corn” for a Christian (That means easy). Choose to follow Jesus.

Lonnie Davis

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Approaching eighty years, he had been frugal and had provided well for his financial needs. He came by my office to say hi. It was not the visit that surprised me, but how he got there. Sidney had a can route that he ran every day. He put wire baskets on his old fashioned bicycle and would ride up and down his self-appointed route and pick up cans on the side of the road. He was not doing it to keep the highways clean. He was earning money, as meager as it might be.

One day I went out in front of the church building just as he rode up. His bicycle was what I would call a piece of junk. It was at least twenty years old, had only one gear, and wobbled as he rode. Since I knew he could afford anything he wanted to buy, I asked him, “Sidney, why don’t you buy you a new bike, a ten-speed bike.” He thought for a minute and then answered, “Well,” he said, “I can barely use the one gear I have.”

Sidney grew up in a time when one-speed bikes were the norm. It had been that way for seventy plus years and he was not going to change something that worked. He was right, his bike did work. It worked, but there was something better. A few years later, Sidney died and he still had that one speed bicycle.

It has been many years since that event, but every so often I remind myself about Sidney’s one-speed bicycle. I think about it when I get stuck in how things used to be. I think about it when the leaders gets stuck in how thing used to be. We love “how things used to be” because we know how things worked out when things were like they used to be. The future is unknown and in an effort to bring comfort to it, we cling to “how things used to be.”

You cannot go back in time. Well adjusted happy people are people who can look to the future and embrace whatever changes it brings. As Christians we do not know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future. That is enough for us.

Sidney’s could have had a better bicycle, but he just would not challenge his old thinking when presented with something new.

Lonnie Davis