The Bottle, or What’s in the Bottle?

 The Talmud is the comprehensive written version of vast Jewish oral laws and the subsequent commentaries. It is a challenging religious text, but contains some very practical advice. I ran across one example years ago that has remained in my memory banks. It says, "Examine the contents, not the bottle." We hear the same difficult challenge in our more contemporary idiom, "Don’t judge a book by its cover." Several years ago I experienced first-hand insight into that idea. An acquaintance with whom I shared a mutual interest in the history of the Civil War loaned me, one book at a time, each volume of author Shelby Foote’s three-volume series on that awful war. Foote is famous for this compelling and comprehensive non-fictional narrative history of that war that threatened to literally rip America into two separate nations forever. Written between 1958 and 1974, the three volumes contained a 1.2 million word history of the American Civil War. When I first saw the three books (all first editions), they were dusty and the covers were torn and ragged (I actually ended up attempting to make new covers for them). They just weren’t much to look at. But once I cracked the first volume open and set my eyes on the first line, I was hooked! I found the books to be the most fascinating and thorough and enriching thing I had ever read about that great civil cataclysm that tore

 

American culture to threads for four bloody and bitter years. I’m glad I didn’t judge those books by their covers! The content was excellent although the "bottles" (that is, books!) were aged and worn. Later, a closer friend (and a great brother in Christ) learned of my interest in Civil War history and found and provided for me (as a gift!) a beautiful complete set of all three volumes – again all first editions. This time the books themselves and their covers were in much better physical shape than the first set I read. Both sets of books tell the exact same story – same content, but very different looking bottles. Americans are into judging bottles and books (people, that is) by outward appearance, not content. As a culture we spend gargantuan amounts of money and efforts seeking to beautify and decorate the body. We measure beauty not on the basis of character but clothing. Many believe the false notion that the beauty of the bottle is more important than its contents. We augment body parts and spend tons of money on hair. We paint and pierce parts of the anatomy from head to toe. Several years ago TV celebrity Ellen Degeneres was in an ad for "Simply Ageless" Cover Girl makeup. In that ad she came out loud and proud with what millions of Americans, including some Christians, believe. She crooned into the camera, "Inner beauty is important, but not nearly as important as outer beauty." But that’s a lie. God has something very different to say. Hear the words of the Lord in 1 Samuel 16:7 as Samuel vetted a possible replacement for King Saul – "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Now God wouldn’t have any of us to misuse or not be concerned about our bottles – that is, our bodies (see 1 Cor.6:18-20). But He admonishes us the soul is more important than skin, and character more important than clothing. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who are pure in heart, For they shall see God" (Matt.5:8). It is the "hidden person of the heart" that is most precious in God’s sight (1 Pet.3:5). The Lord’s chief concern is how we adorn and beautify our souls, not our bodies. If you desire His favor, be sure to examine the contents, not just the bottle.

    by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

Don’t Run Out Of Whack!

 A lady named Jacqueline Power said, "A sign on the elevator door in the building where I worked said, ‘This elevator is out of whack.’ Later someone had penciled in, ‘More whack is on order.’ " Do you ever feel like you’ve "out of whack?" The phrase just means something is not working properly or, as we say with another idiom, "not up to speed." A big challenge facing every Christian is to not run out of whack! And a big problem is, many do. The apostle Paul addresses the problem in a single little verse of Scripture in Romans 12:11. The verse lays out a simple, clear challenge that has proven difficult for many Christians to consistently practice: "not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." I like the King James Version in this verse – "Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord." The "business" referred can properly stand for the Lord’s business and / or the business of living the Christian life, in whatever capacity that might be. Elders can, and do, run of whack when they began to take their God-given role as overseers and shepherds lightly, and when they fail to properly and zealously keep watch over God’s flock where they serve. Preachers can run out of whack if they take their eye off of the Christ and the cross and begin to grow discouraged by a lack of visible progress or by sin and setbacks in the lives of people in the congregation where they preach and serve. Deacons can fail to "deke" – that is, they grow lukewarm about the charge they have been given by the congregation to serve and take care of some responsibility in the church. Every member of the church is daily engaged in the good fight of faith and is the target of a relentless foe who never runs out of diabolical whack – the devil – who "walks about as a roaring lion Bible, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8). Bible class teachers can lose their enthusiasm for the God’s word and get lazy and sloppy in their preparation. In the face of that perpetual possibility, Paul’s words in Romans 12:11 challenge every Christian: "Don’t run out of spiritual whack!"

 There are ten words in Romans 12:11 (King James and New King James Versions). In them Paul acknowledges it is easy to get discouraged and dispirited or distracted as we strive to live the Christian life. Like a physical muscle grows tired after long, hard exertion, so we, too, can grow weary while doing good (Galatians 6:9). The danger is not necessarily that we get tired, but that we tire to the point we faint or lose heart and lose all our spiritual whack. Someone observed that you may be on the right track, but you will get run over if you just sit there. That is certainly true of the Christian life. One of the most acute dangers in the spiritual life is that a person is baptized into Christ and is on fire with love and zeal, but then they begin "lagging in diligence." Like a flame that flickers and burns out, the initial commitment and enthusiasm for Bible reading, worship, and serving cools off to the point we just sit down and cease serving the Lord! A lady named Carol Leifer said, "I’m not into working out. My philosophy: No pain, no pain." But my friends, we can’t do that as Christians and please God! And we can’t be like Robert Hutchins who said, "Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes." And we can’t be like Jo Bran who commented, "My favorite machine in the gym is the vending machine." No, my dear friends. The reward we seek is not for those who run out of spiritual whack, for Jesus promised a crown of life to those who are "faithful until death" (Rev.2:10). As a Christian, whatever you do, you must see it through. Don’t run out of whack!

      by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

The Book That Bares Our Souls!

 

A "cover-up" is an attempt to prevent people from discovering the truth about a serious crime, mistake, or sin. But the truth has a way of eventually coming to light. Like a robbery suspect who couldn’t help himself in a line-up. When detectives asked each man lined up to repeat the words, "Give me all your money or I’ll shoot," the guilty man shouted, "That’s not what I said!" While it’s sometimes difficult to always know the truth about others, Rita Rudner reminds us it’s pretty hard to hide the truth about ourselves from ourselves. She said, "I work for myself, which is fun. Except for when I call in sick – I know I’m lying." Is there something you know about yourself that you don’t like? Are you attempting to keep something secret about your life that makes you miserable? Have you lied to a friend, held out on the IRS, stolen from a neighbor, cheated an employer or employee, been sexually unfaithful to a wife or husband, mate, etc.? History books are peppered with examples of people ranging from average, everyday citizens to presidents, preachers, policemen, teachers, and CEO’s of huge corporations who did something slimy and sinful and depraved and then sought to hide their actions. Of course, there are criminals who lie and cheat and rape and rob and even murder who think they "got away" with it. And sometimes they succeed in covering it up, at least for awhile. But cover-ups are hard to keep covered up forever. To borrow a 3,400 year old phrase in the Bible from Numbers 32:23, "be sure your sin will find you out." Note now, not that your sin will always be found out, but be sure it will eventually find you out, even if that moment doesn’t come until "the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ" (Romans 2:16).

 Cover-ups are not new. Adam and Eve attempted one in the Garden of Eden, but it didn’t work(see Genesis 3). After they did what God said don’t do, they were ashamed and afraid and did what a lot of us do when we do wrong and are afraid and ashamed – they covered their heretofore naked bodies with fig leaves and hopelessly sought to hide from God. When God called them to account, they tried to play the "blame game." But God didn’t buy that either. Other memorable attempts to hide something in the Bible are the accounts of Achan (Joshua 6-7), David (2 Samuel 11-12), Jonah (Jonah 1), and Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). The narratives all send the same message – God sees through our flimsy and futile attempts to hide from Him! In our modern age of medical marvels, doctors and medical professionals can send a scope through our mouths, up our noses, down our throats (and through a couple of other places) to see deep into our bodies. These scopes and imaging devices bare the inside of our throats, brains, bladders, stomachs, and intestines to health experts. But long before these devices bared human bodies to doctors, human souls have been bare before God. He "sees through us." Hebrews 4:12-13 declares that God’s word bares our souls – "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." That thought either thrills or chills, depending on the nature of our thoughts, motives, deeds, and whether or not we are in Christ. The naked truth is cover-ups never fool God. He sees past all our attempts to hide who and what we really are. The Bible is truly the book that lays our souls bare.

     by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

Hanging With Jesus!

 You may want to "hang" me after your read the next sentences. I warn you ahead of time I am going to be "hung up" on the word "hang" for a few moments. Like many other words in the English language, the word "hang" can have several different meanings according to context and usage. In days gone by to "hang" somebody meant to kill them by tying a rope attached from above around the neck and removing the support from beneath. When used as a form of capital punishment people referred to it as " a hanging." But to "hang" does not necessarily refer to putting to death. We "hang" clothes in the closet, pictures on the wall, hats on a peg or even a nail. Then, some people identify where they reside as the place where "I hang my hat." To "hang up" commonly means to end a phone conversation. But wait – to be "hung up" on something is to be extremely interested in or worried about or preoccupied with it. A jury can be "hung" meaning that they are unable to agree on a verdict. Ever found yourself "hung up" in traffic on the interstate? Then there is the slang usage of "hang" as in "hanging with" or perhaps "hang out with." According to the Online Slang Dictionary this use of "hang" is a verb and means "to relax, usually with friends; to chill." The parallel to this verb is the noun "hang" which means "a place at which one relaxes, as in, "Come see our new hang?" If you are older, you might better recognize this usage as a "hangout."

 Let us shift directions. When Jesus was crucified, Luke 23:32-33 tells us, "There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left" (Matthew 27:38 calls the criminals "robbers"). Luke 23:39-43 relates an astonishing conversation between the three men as they suffered on their crosses. "One of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, ‘If You are the Christ, save yourself and us’ " (vs 39). Matthew 27:44 relates both robbers had earlier reviled the Lord. But now, one robber, clearly undergoing a change of heart, defended Jesus, rebuking the other criminal, saying, "Do you not even fear God, seeing we are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward for our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong" (vs 40). Both criminals were "hanging" with Jesus on their own cross. But one was "hanging" with Jesus in far more than a physical way. Even as he inches toward certain death on his cross, this desperate criminal clearly knows enough about Christ to believe there is hope beyond death. Desperately he pleads in vs 41, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." We don’t have space to consider all that he had in mind. But something mind- boggling happened that day – Jesus promised that penitent criminal in vs 43, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." Whoa – who’d have thunk it?! Where would you have thought that thief would end up judging from appearances at the cross? Christ had power on earth to forgive sins (Matthew 9:6), and He clearly forgave this thief before he died and took him to Paradise later that day! Careful now – this side of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ you and I must exercise faith and obey the gospel in order to receive forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 2:8-9 * Hebrews 5:9 * Mark 16:15-16 *Acts 2:38; 22:16). All that being said, let us "hang" our hopes on Jesus. If He could and would save a penitent thief who hung with Him in death, surely He will save you and me if we hang with Him in life! Hallelujah! Hang with Jesus!

    by: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

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