Spending the Treasure We Call Time!

 John Randolph said, "Time is at once the most precious and the most perishable of all possessions." We often talk about "spending time" and that is a very accurate phrase. Besides meaning to pay out money, another definition of time is "to concentrate one’s time or energy on an activity; to pass time; to use up." Each day each of us spends 24 hours which is 1,140 minutes which is 86,400 seconds. Like money itself, time can be spent and invested in that which is necessary and good and wise and wholesome . . . or it can be spent foolishly on that which is cheap and tawdry and harmful. Someone observed that time is a daily treasure attracting many robbers. Consider the following few sentences about time from Lloyd Cory, quoted by Charles Swindoll in his book, The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart (p 71): "Time is significant because it is so rare. It is completely irretrievable. You can never repeat or relive it. There is no such thing as instant replay. That appears only on film. It travels alongside us every day, yet it has eternity wrapped up in it. Although this is true, time often seems relative, doesn’t it? For example, two weeks on a vacation is not at all like two weeks on a diet. Also, some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week! Ben Franklin once said of time, ‘. . . that it is the stuff life is made of.’ Time forms life’s building blocks. The philosopher Williams Jones said, ‘The great use of time is to spend it for something that will outlast it.’ " No wonder then, that God’s timeless word admonishes us, "See then that you walk circumspectly (that is, carefully), not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is" (Ephesians 5:15-17). 

The year 2021 now stretches out before us. This year "time will fly" as swiftly as ever. For some it will seem to go faster than for others. As a good brother in Christ once told me, "Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes." Not really, but older people will tell you it feels that way. An unknown author said, "When as a child I laughed and wept, time crept; When as a youth I dreamed and talked, time walked; When I became a full grown man, time ran; And later as older I grew, time flew." Soon I shall find while traveling on, time gone." Like coal and oil, each moment of time is a non-renewable resource – once used up, gone forever to never be replaced. And our time on earth will run out. In the words of the ancient inspired wise man Ecclesiastes 3:2 there is "a time to be born and a time to die." Death, of course is not the end, for the Bible further declares that "man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment" (Hebrews 9:27 NIV). Since 1939, the beautiful but haunting words of "Into Our Hands" (Ruth Johnson Carruth) have urged Christians to think about how we are spending the treasure we call time: "Swiftly we’re turning life’s daily pages, Swiftly the hours are changing to years; How are we using God’s golden moments, Shall we reap glory, Shall we reap tears?" The year 2021 will be filled with 525,600 golden moments. Each will hold potential for prayer, kindness, sharing God’s love, and serving others. Where will you spend eternity? The truth is, you won’t "spend" eternity. In the hereafter you will live somewhere forever – with God or apart from Him. Whether we reap glory or tears depends on how we use the treasure we call time. Remember – you are spending your time, and can never get it back. Think about it, and spend it wisely.

          by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

 

 

 

Forgive, or Forfeit Forgiveness!

  The great English poet Alexander Pope [died in 1744], published his "Essay On Criticism" in 1711. That poem is the source of the familiar saying, "To err is human; to forgive is divine." The saying echoes the Bible’s teaching that all accountable human beings sin (even those who are Christians – Romans 3:23; 1 John 1:8-10), and that God forgives sin when people meet the conditions He has laid out in the Gospel (Acts 2:37-38; Colossians 2:10-13). Pope’s saying hints at something Jesus taught clearly and forcefully – those who claim to be His disciples must work at having a forgiving spirit. The Lord said in Matthew 5:14-15, "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you." That’s pretty blunt stuff. And the Lord didn’t leave much wiggle room. He didn’t qualify what kind of trespasses. He didn’t say, "You have to forgive other people of the lightweight stuff or the stuff that’s really not all that serious or the stuff that is easy to get over." He just jars us with one of the heaviest demands He ever laid out for those who would be like Him – if we forgive, God forgives us. If we don’t forgive, God won’t forgive us. "That’s hard," you say? Indeed. But before you decide God will let you off the hook for being unwilling to forgive, recall the cross where God’s bloodied and battered and blasphemed Son, with not a single sustainable charge of sin against His pure and innocent soul, prays from a cross to which His hands and feet are nailed – "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do" (Luke 23:34). A few weeks later the Father did forgive many of them who complied with Gospel conditions (see Acts 2:36-41). Does what you see at the cross suggest to you there was anything easy as God, through His Son, brought to completion His ages-long plan to be able to righteously and justly forgive your sins and my sins and anyone else’s sins? All of this is why William Arthur Lloyd is right when he says, "We are most like beasts when we kill. We are most like men when we judge. We are most like God when we forgive."

 Elizabeth O’ Connor reminds us, "Forgiveness is a whole lot harder than any sermon ever made it out to be." One clear message from the cross is that forgiveness is horribly difficult and costly. To forgive us cost God His Son, and cost the Son excruciating physical torment and agony, let alone the unimaginable spiritual pain and torture He suffered there in His soul. If it proved that costly to God and His Son to forgive our sins, why would we expect it to be easy to forgive others who have trespassed against us? By the way, before I forget to say this, can you imagine how costly it would have turned out for us if God and His Son had been unwilling to pay the price to forgive us? Yes, to forgive is sometimes very, very difficult. As some sage noted,"To err is human, to forgive is unusual." It may be unusual for those who don’t know Christ to offer forgiveness. But the call for those who claim to follow Jesus could not be more plain or direct – "And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you" (Ephesians 4:32). Burton Coffman’s commentary on this verse provides a succinct if sobering summary of the New Testament’s teaching on God’s demand that we be forgiving – "The watchword for Christians, and for all people, is, ‘Forgive or forfeit forgiveness.’ " Think about that when you struggle to forgive. 

         by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

 

Talking About Jesus!

 A six-year-old boy stirred his parents interest on the way home after church one Sunday. The child said, "My Sunday school teacher must be Jesus’ grandmother." When they asked why, he replied, "Because she talks about Him all the time." As my wife and I prayerfully and joyfully await the arrival of our first grandchild, I am being told by veteran grandparents that "there’s nothing like it" and, "You’re going to love it!" I already know grandparents love to talk about their grandchildren! They are extremely evangelistic about them. They will talk to you about a grandchild as long as you will listen, and sometimes after you’ve already quit listening! I’m already talking about my first one, telling everybody about his arrival and his name, and he’s still in the process of getting here! Anyway, the subject of this little piece is not grandchildren or the grandparents who talk about them. My subject is Jesus, and how the apostle Paul would not stop talking about Him! Paul was all in all the time, when it came to preaching Christ. His sermons and letters to congregations are saturated with teaching about Jesus Christ. He was, as we sometimes say, "bent" on preaching Jesus. To use his words in 1 Corinthians 1:2, "I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." In 2 Corinthians 4:5 Paul wrote, "For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake." Acts 26 records the sermon Paul preached to King Agrippa. The centerpiece of that sermon is found in verse 23 where Paul proclaimed to the king that Christ had suffered and risen from the dead. Near the end of that sermon, the powerful king told Paul in verse 28, "You almost persuade me to be a Christian." In Romans 16:25 Paul asserted that God is "able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ" (Paul’s gospel in the sense Christ committed to him the task of taking the gospel of Christ to the Gentiles).

Then there is this statement in Paul’s writings at Colossians 1:27b-28 – "... which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." This wasn’t a part-time or past-time activity for Paul, or some- thing he did for 30 minutes on Sunday mornings. Because he was convinced Christ alone was every person’s "hope of glory," Paul gave himself completely to the task of preaching Jesus. Verse 29 makes clear his intentional goal and unceasing aim is to preach Christ – "To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily." What came out of his mouth was a result of a work he credits God was doing in his heart. When Paul opened his mouth, Jesus and the gospel spilled out because that’s what Paul was full of! In Colossians 3:4 he refers to Christ as "our life." Paul filled Colossians with Christ! "Jesus" occurs 5 times in chapter 1 plus two more in the book (total 7 times). "Christ" occurs 9 times each in chapters 1 and 2, eight in chapter 3, plus two more in chapter 4 (total 28 times). "Lord" occurs 13 times in the book. Combine these references to Jesus and the grand total is 48 times, in a total of 98 verses in the letter. Wow! – on average Paul made a reference to Christ in every other verse! According to tradition, Paul did finally quit preaching Jesus – when they cut his head off outside Rome about 68 A. D. Everybody needs Jesus and the hope He alone gives. God bless us to talk about Him to everybody we can anytime we can!

 by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

A Better Bible?

 A better Bible? Let me shout, "No, NO, NOOO!" We not only don’t need a "better" Bible, it would be impossible to write one. Inspired men refer to the one we have as "given by inspiration of God", profitable for doctrine, reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"– and the result is "the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16). Another inspired writer described God’s word as "perfect," and declared that people are blessed by the Bible, not just because they hear it, but when they are "doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves" (James 1:21, 25). The Bible tells us the earliest Christians "continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine" (Acts 2:42), and that they were taught to "remember the words which were spoken by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jude 17). But, as Willard Collins, former president of David Lipscomb University, once said, "A lot of preachers try to find something wrong with the Bible. When they can’t find anything wrong with it they try to find something new [in it]" (at a seminar at the Madison church of Christ building, 10/18/97). His words bring to my mind a catchy little quote a fellow-preacher taught me years ago – "If it’s new, it ain’t true, and if it’s true it ain’t new." That hasn’t stopped many churches and preachers and "reverends" and theologians from having "new" insights after "re-imagining" Bible teaching on the plan of salvation, the organization of Christ’s church, worship in spirit and truth, and practically every aspect of the Bible’s moral / spiritual content. The result is widespread ignorance, confusion, and division in the religious world today, and a world at large so open-minded its moral brains have fallen out.

 But wait. Calls for a "new and improved" Bible / gospel, more in keeping with man’s thinking, are not new. Consider these jarring words from a riled-up apostle Paul in Galatians 1:6- 9: "I marvel that you are turning away so soon from who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed." The rest of GALATIANS reveals some wanted an "App" or "add on" of circumcision to the inspired gospel Paul preached. Paul vigorously opposes that idea throughout the rest of the letter, even as he vigorously contends for salvation through faith in Christ (see 3:26-29). Paul described himself in 1 Corinthians 9:[19-]22 as one who was willing to "become all things to all men, that I might save some." But when it came to adapting and amending and adding to and "improving" and making the inspired content of the gospel "better," the apostle dug his heels in and resolutely refused, and "did not yield submission, even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you" (see Galatians 2:4-5). A better Bible? It has been pointed out the devil wouldn’t have written the Bible even if he could, man couldn’t have written the Bible even if he would, so God is its source. Christians listen up – our first calling is not to be ambassadors of good will – our highest duty is to be ambassadors for God’s will. "Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?" (Galatians 4:16)

            by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN 

 

Have Faith in God!

 I want to begin this little meditation with four simple, one-syllable words we hear Jesus speaking in Mark 11:22 – "Have faith in God." Do you have faith? What do you have faith in? Jesus said, "Have faith in God." Careful study reveals Jesus is within five days of His death on the cross in this text. Scholars explain "the morning" referred to in verse 20 is Monday morning before Jesus died on Friday. The Son of God was moving inexorably toward the cross like a moth to the light. Back in Mark 10:32 we are told Jesus and the apostles were "on the road, going up to Jerusalem," and the Lord went on to remind the apostles that betrayal and mistreatment and death were waiting on Him there, but that "the third day He will rise again." In the space of a few short days not only will Jesus suffer, but His disciples’ faith will be severely tested. The faith of all the apostles will fail and they will temporarily abandon Him out of fear for their own safety. Eventually all of them save Judas will recommit themselves to Jesus. With all that ahead, the Lord speaks these four challenging words: "Have faith in God." Somebody observed that God makes bends in the road because He doesn’t want us to see that far ahead. That’s where faith comes in. Scripture teaches the road of life has many bends. We are extremely limited as to how far ahead we can clearly see. Proverbs 27:1 says, "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth." Again we are admonished, "whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow" (James 4:14a). What will happen tomorrow?" God’s word says, "you do not know." Because of that Jesus’ words still speak to our hearts – "Have faith in God." Speaking of our eternal home in heaven versus the temporary tent (body) we live in here, the apostle Paul declared, "For we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). Faith in a good and great God gives us confidence and hope even when we can’t see around the bends in the road ahead. We may not know what will happen tomorrow, but we have faith in God that He is already there, and that no bend in our road catches Him by surprise. Have faith in God!

Scripture never teaches we can know all things, or that all things that happen to us are good. It clearly teaches this: "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Rom.8:28 NASB). God is good ... all the time. If God can take something as awful as Jesus’ suffering on the cross and use to it bring about good, we can have faith that He is with us through the painful things in our own lives. Have faith in God! A story tells about a group of scientists exploring remote regions of the Alps in search of new species of flowers. One day, through binoculars, they spotted a rare, beautiful specimen never seen before. Its value for scientific study would be incalculable, but it lay deep in a ravine with cliffs on both sides. To get the flower someone would have to be lowered over the cliff with a rope. A curious boy was watching nearby, and the scientists offered to pay him if he would agree to be lowered over the cliff to retrieve the flower below. The boy took a long look down the steep, dizzy depths, and said, "I’ll be back in a minute." A short time later he returned with a middle-aged man. The boy told the scientists, "I’ll go over the cliff and get that flower for you if you let this man hold the rope. He’s my dad." As Christians, we can trust our Heavenly Father to never let us go. Have faith in God!

             by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

 

The Power of the Tongue... and the Thumb!

 

A man saw a friend named Fred. Fred had a bewildered look on his face. When the man asked Fred if he had a problem, Fred said, "I certainly do. I’ve misplaced my dictionary, and now I’m at a loss for words." Being at a loss for words is not a problem for millions today. Words are everywhere. They fly off our tongues. And now, thanks to modern technology and social media, they fly off our thumbs! Our problem is not a loss of words. Our problem is that sometimes our words are not very wise and sometimes not very kind. And even worse for those who claim to be Christians, not very Christ-like. Three thousand years ago, the inspired wise man Solomon dished out some very straight talk about the way we talk (or write or post) in Proverbs 15:28 – "The heart of the righteous studies how to answer, But the mouth of the wicked pours forth evil." The implication is that if you don’t think about what you are about to say and how it ought to be said and how widely your words might be read, you will likely end up speaking or posting something that is "wicked" and "evil." Earlier in the same chapter Solomon wrote, "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly, But the mouth of fools pours forth foolishness" (verses 1, 2). Strong’s Concordance defines the Hebrew word for "pours" (verse 2) and "pour" (vs 28) as meaning "to gush forth; to emit a foul odor; belch out, flowing, pour out, utter abundantly." Was Solomon reading social media?! He wasn’t. And yet the wise man observed in his own day and time a problem that continues to plague contemporary culture – an unwise, unfiltered, unrestrained gushing forth and belching out of words –via tongues and technology. "Belch" is defined "to emit gas noisily from the stomach through the mouth." A belch emits a foul, odious smell resulting in an odoriferous atmosphere! If you need help translating that, think about the last time you were near a big belch (your own or someone else’s)! Surely you get my drift! Who in their right mind wants to ingest that smell?!

 

Laura Akins spoke to the serious issue of the Christian’s use of social media in the October 2020 Christian Chronicle magazine ("This election, can we tame our digital tongues?"). She told of friends whose Facebook and Instagram posts gave her a sick feeling because they tend to drive friends apart. She wrote, "And Christians are no different. Sadly, many tear down their opponents with quick keyboard strokes on Saturday night and lift those same hands in worship on Sunday morning." She quoted from Daniel Darling’s book "A Way With Words: Using Our Online Conversations For Good." Darling asserts that many Christians are fueling online incivility. He cites Proverbs 18:21, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue," then adds, "And, we might say, in the power of the thumb." Akins observes, "How quickly we use those thumbs to share our every thought." My intent here is not to suggest that you disengage from technology. My aim is to remind Christians who engage on social media to "mind your manners." Don’t be guilty of adding to the wicked, evil, irresponsible, foul things people say. Remember the words of the Holy Spirit in 1 Peter 4:11a – "If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God." If you call Jesus Lord, let Him be Lord over your social media posts. Don’t add fuel to the already over-heated fire of hatred. State your case. Seek to persuade others. But be Christ-like online, too. Remember, "Death and life are in the power of the thumb."

               by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

Your Goat Needs a Guard!

 

What does it take to "get your goat?" The phrase "get your goat," like the expression that it is "raining cats and dogs," is an "idiom" – a phrase commonly used but having a meaning not deducible from the literal meanings of the individual words. The common understanding of "get your goat" refers to someone becoming intensely agitated and angry. One popular (though uncertain) idea about the origin of the phrase "get your goat" is that in days gone by, a goat was placed as a stall-mate with a thoroughbred race horse. The goat supposedly bonded with the high-strung horse and soothed the horse’s nerves before a big race. Gamblers sought to turn the odds in their favor by stealing a thoroughbred’s stall-mate, hoping to greatly agitate the horse so it would run a bad race. According to this idea, to "get one’s goat" came to mean upsetting and angering a person to the point they "blow their top / lose their cool."

 

Now, if the "goat" in the idiom "get your goat" refers to human anger, the message of Scripture and human experience cannot be denied – all of us need a guard for our "goat!" The apostle Paul spoke to the complex human emotion of anger in Ephesians 4:26-27 – " ‘Be angry, and do not sin’: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil." I am encouraged but also sobered by those inspired words. I am encouraged by the first part of the passage (quoting Psalm 4:4) – "Be angry, and do not sin." Here Paul acknowledges and even directs "normal" people to sometimes be angry. Actually, in the passage, he is directing Christians, disciples of Jesus, to be angry! "Be angry" is not all of the command given here, but it is most certainly part of it. Here the Bible acknowledges what modern social science has demonstrated and documented – anger is as human and normal as grief and gladness. To be human is to sometimes be glad, sometimes sad, and sometimes mad! To never be angry about anything, anywhere, in this sinful, messed-up, off-course world is not normal. Mark 3:5 records remarkable words about Jesus Christ as He encountered stubborn, close-minded religious people who cared more about human traditions than helping hurting human beings. Mark says Jesus "looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts." I am encouraged to know anger can, if correctly controlled and directed, make me more like Jesus Christ.

 

Yet, I am sobered by the rest of Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:26-27. After "Be angry," he continued, "and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil." The devil is out to "get your goat!" Prolonged anger makes it much easier for him to gain a "place" (opportunity or foothold) in your life. His goal is not just to make you mad but to use anger to make you sin. Through Paul the Holy Spirit urges us not to "give" him that advantage. Instead, make his job more difficult. Don’t be chronically angry and "let the sun go down on your wrath." That’s difficult to do these days when the devil is using so many things and so many people to "get your goat." As noted earlier, anger is not wrong in every situation. But like a fire, anger must be carefully contained and controlled. If not, widespread heat and hurt and harm are the result. Anger is at a fever pitch in the political, cultural, and social air we breathe, and shows no sign of abating. The devil is having a heyday. Many are leaving their goats unguarded. If the devil gets (and keeps) your goat, he can much more easily get your soul. That’s why your goat needs a guard. Think about it. 

            by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN