The Four-Letter Word God Wants Your Child to Learn!

Life is exciting around a small child. School is always in session – sometimes for the child, and sometimes for the parents and grandparents! Children consider no question too silly to ask. Hector Bernasconi of Kingston, Canada reminds us that a child’s brain is full to the brim with questions just waiting to be asked and answered. He wrote: “Our six-year-old daughter, Terra, has a need to ask questions ... lots of questions. Finally, one day, my wife had had it. ‘Have you ever heard that curiosity killed the cat?’ my wife asked. ‘No,’ replied Terra. ‘Well, there was a cat, and he was very inquisitive. And one day, he looked into a big hole, fell in, and died!” my wife told her. Terra was intrigued: ‘What was in the hole?’” (Reader’s Digest, 4/11, p 61). Like I said at the top — school is always in session, and often it is the parents who learn from the children! No wonder, then, that our parents seem to grow wiser as we get older! This is a truth all young people need to learn. Under normal circumstances, in a home that operates the way common sense and Scriptural wisdom tells it is ought to, difficult as it is for some young people to believe, parents are smarter than their children! At least when it comes to things that you can learn only from the school of hard knocks and long experience at living. And if your parents are sincere and especially if they are devoted Christians, trained in the ways of God, they will give their children the very best advice and counsel and guidance they could possibly receive, even when you may not disagree with them. That’s why the Bible has this direct word for children: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Ephesians 6:1).                                             

 There’s the four-letter word God wants your child, yea, every child to learn – “OBEY.” Especially your parents. Why? Because God said, “This is right.” It’s just the way it’s supposed to be. It is not right and it’s not good and it’s not healthy for kids or parents or families or schools or societies when children are allowed to disregard authority. Children should obey parents because it is right to do so. It is right to do so because this directive has been revealed by God — “Honor your father and your mother” is the very centerpiece of what we know as the 10 Commandments (Exodus 20:12 & * Deuteronomy 5:16). It is noteworthy that when Moses cane down from Sinai with two tablets of stone containing ten fundamental commands for the physical and spiritual safety,

security and well-being of Israelite society, smack dab in the middle of the list was the command to honor your father and mother! This is a central part of God’s Old Testament revelation to mankind, reiterated a number of times in the New Testament. The long and short of it is you really don’t respect God if you don’t respect your parents. Children need to remember — when you obey your parents, you please not only them, but you also please the Lord. A woman from Georgia named Marguerite Provost told about her three-year-old granddaughter, Beverly, who was playing with her toys. Her mother was folding laundry across the room and noticed Beverly’s shirt was dirty and needed to be changed. After calling twice with no response, her mother gave the full three-name call: Beverly Elizabeth Provost, did you hear me?” Beverly answered, “Yes, Mama. My ears heard you, but my legs didn’t.” Parents need to teach, and children need to learn the four-letter word God wants every child to know — “OBEY.”  It’s still the right thing to do.

              Dan Gulley, Smithville TN 

Cracked Bible or a Cracked World!

Fred W. Cropp, past President of the American Bible Society was asked, “What do you recommend for keeping the leather on the back of Bibles from cracking and peeling?” His reply: “There is one oil that is especially good for treatment of leather on Bibles.

In fact, it will ensure your Bible to stay in good condition. It is not sold but may be found in the palm of the human hand.” Sadly, not nearly enough Bibles are cracked open these days. Many people simply do not read or respond to the Bible’s life-changing and soul-saving message. The result? Un-cracked Bibles lead to a cracked world. America’s (and the world’s) greatest problems are not technological or material ones. We have put footprints on the moon and are now aiming to send humans to explore Mars. Medical marvels continue to astound us. Amazing communication and travel technologies have shrunk the world and made it a neighborhood. We daily enjoy creature comforts and use devices and live lifestyles that ancient kings never experienced on their very best days.

In spite of these and many other truly spectacular achievements, the immorality, irreverence, vulgarity, violence, and overall moral and spiritual callousness and coarseness of our culture clearly proclaims that a footprint on the moon may not be as important as a thumbprint on the Bible. The Bible reveals God’s love and concern for us, and teaches us to love God supremely, and very closely behind that to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:28-31). The apostle Paul writes that “love does no harm to a neighbor” (Romans 13:10). The harm he had in mind includes the nasty stuff we read about in the two verses preceding that directive — not committing adultery, not murdering, not stealing, not being deceitful and untruthful, and not being stingy and greedy (Romans 13:8-9). These are the very things that continue to cause cracks in countless lives, marriages, homes, and communities around the globe. They are proof that while technology, research, science and education make us smarter, they cannot make people better.

America’s ongoing moral and spiritual confusion cannot be traced to or blamed on too much Bible reading, preaching and practice. It’s easy to oversimplify, but generally speaking, people who read and hear and then actually heed (that is, put into practice) the Bible’s teaching will be made better. “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves . . . But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing” (James 1:22, 25). Thomas Jefferson didn’t believe everything the Bible says about Jesus Christ, but he was honest enough to admit the Bible’s unique and positive influence in human lives. In the flowery language of his time he wrote, “The studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make better citizens, better husbands, and better fathers” (quoted by H. I. Hester, The Heart of Hebrew History, p 9).  Abraham Lincoln said, “I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a better man” (Ibid). The Bible, when put into practice, makes the best people in the here and now and prepares us to be acceptable to God in the hereafter.  Here’s a statement worth thinking about: “A Bible that is cracked and coming apart is usually owned by someone who isn’t!” Crack your Bible today!

       Dan Gulley, Smithville TN      

Inconvenient Truth About Marriage!

Helen Rowland said, “Marriage is like twirling a baton or eating with chopsticks. It looks easy until you try it.” So it does. But it’s not easy. The prevalence of divorce proves that. Al and Tipper Gore stunned many when they announced in June 2000 that after 40 years of marriage, they were calling it quits. Publicly they claimed that the decision was a mutual one and that the former Vice-President and Second Lady of the United States would remain friends even though they no longer wanted to be married. That kind of talk always leaves me scratching my head and remembering the joke about two cannibals who ate a clown. Afterwards one of them said to the other, “Did that taste funny to you?” Marriages that last a lifetime seem in danger of becoming very rare if not extinct. Once upon a time, the key word as it related to marriage was “commitment” – the “crazy” idea (as many in the world now see it) that a man and woman pledged to take each other for better or worse, for richer or poorer, and to love each other “until death do us part.” Jesus expressed the idea of lifelong commitment in Matthew 19:4-6 — “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” Al Gore was famous for his movie about climate change entitled “An Inconvenient Truth.” In it he asserted the earth is becoming warmer due to irresponsible human activity and that failure to “go green” will prove catastrophic to our world. That “inconvenient truth” is still being debated by experts and denied by some. What is not debatable or deniable is that the Gores, and millions of other men and women, found Jesus’ teaching about marriage and divorce “inconvenient.” As a result, culture invented and practices a much more “convenient untruth,” insisting marriage is not primarily about commitment and mutual needs. Rather, many say, it is about “what best for me.” Not “till death do us part,” but “till desire and delight departs,” not “for better or worse,” but “till the good times are gone.” But if the marriage cools off, if I tire of my responsibilities, or find someone else who makes me “happy,” I am free to bail on my marriage vows — no matter who I hurt or how much — just so long as I am happy. That very convenient and self-centered but still wrong-headed and unbiblical view and practice of marriage has proven to be catastrophic for millions of America’s marriages and families.

 Have you ever seen a marriage based on convenience and selfishness last very long, or be very happy? Brother Ken Joines (now deceased) once wrote that two people in a marriage “for what they can get out if it” is like having two ticks and no dog! Christians follow One who faced the inconvenient truth that doing God’s will meant denying Himself and dying on a cross. The Bible still says, “Love suffers long.” I don’t mean to oversimplify complex problems or painful situations, or to sound unkind. But I wonder if one thing behind so much marital failure and unhappiness today is that many simply find it too inconvenient to love the way God teaches us to. Inconvenient as it may be at times, the truth is marriage still requires commitment, every single day till death do us part. I pray you’ll think about it.

 Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:6) 

     By: Dan Gulley, Smithville TN

Gratitude For God’s Grace!

Amazing Grace – That’s how John Newton summarized the good news of what God has done to transform sinners into saints. The apostle Paul declared in Titus 3:7 that because of and through Jesus Christ the potential exists for sinful people to be “justified by His grace.” The word “justified” in this verse is a legal word, and here means that in spite of our sin, God can declare and view us as being righteous in His sight. Our aim here is not to dig into when and how that happens (covered by Paul in the tightly packed words of Titus 3:3-7). The aim here is to illustrate what it means when we sing or hear preachers say, concerning our sins, “He paid a debt He did not owe. I owed a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sins away. And now I sing a brand new song – Amazing Grace! Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay” (American Folk Hymn, verse 1). The following incident, quoted at length from a book entitled, Experiencing the Passion of Jesus (by Lee Strobel and Gary Poole, Zondervan, 20024) might help us. 

They write:

       An acquaintance called with what he said was an embarrassing request: His little girl had been caught shoplifting from our church bookstore. He wanted to know if I would represent the church so she could come and apologize. He wanted to use this incident as a teaching moment. I agreed—but I had a much bigger lesson in mind. The next day, the parents and their 8-year-old daughter trooped into my office and sat down. "Tell me what happened," I said to the little girl as gently as I could. "Well," she said as she started to sniffle, "I saw a book that I really wanted, but I didn't have any money…" Now tears formed in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. I handed her a tissue.  "So I put the book under my coat and took it. I knew it was wrong. I knew I shouldn't do it, but I did. And I'm sorry. I'll never do it again. Honest!" "I'm so glad you're willing to admit what you did and say you're sorry," I told her. "That's very brave, and it's the right thing to do. But what do you think an appropriate punishment would be?" She shrugged. I thought for a moment before saying, "I understand the book cost $5. I think it would be fair if you paid the bookstore five dollars, plus three times that amount, which would make the total twenty dollars. Do you think that would be fair?" She nodded sadly. "Yes," she murmured. She could see the fairness in that. But now there was fear in her eyes. Twenty dollars is a mountain of money for a little kid. Where would she ever come up with that amount of cash? I wanted to use this moment to teach her something about Jesus. So I opened my desk drawer, removed my checkbook, and wrote out a check on my personal account for the full amount. I tore off the check and held it out to her. Her mouth dropped open. "I'm going to pay your penalty so you don't have to. Do you know why I'd do that?" Bewildered, she shook her head. "Because I love you. Because I care about you. Because you are valuable to me. And please remember this: That's how Jesus feels about you too. Except even more." At that moment, she reached out and accepted my gift. I wish I could find the words to describe the look of absolute relief and joy and wonder that blossomed on her face. She was almost giddy with gratitude. (Story ends)

 Jesus paid our sin debt, friend. Are you grateful for God’s grace?   

 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” – Romans 6:23 

By: Dan Gulley, Smithville TN