How Much Further Is It?

 

Have you  ever been to Manteo, NC?    It is located in Dare County on the North Carolina coast.    As you   are leaving Manteo driving west  on Highway 64, you will see a sign that tells you how far it is from Manteo to the farthest point in the western part of North Carolina.  Why, it is over 500 miles and would take over 8 hours to drive that distance in the same state.

I thought about that sign on Highway 64 and the distance from Manteo to Murphy recently as I read the following verses from  Psalm 103: 11-12 which say,  “¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,  so great is his love for those who fear him; ¹² as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”     It is a long way from  the eastern-most point of North Carolina to the western-most point of our state.  Why, it is even further when you consider the eastern-most point of the United States to the western-most point of our country.  Yet, even that distance is short when you compare it to how far God takes our sins and transgressions from us.

The next time you get in the car and sigh about how far you have to drive or you hear your child or grandchild say “How much further?”   instead of rolling your eyes or holding your breath, pause to remember that even that distance is short when you compare it with  how far God takes sin away from us.  You see, God’s love is wonderfully deep and very wide.   Thanks be to God!   Have a blessed Holy Week!-  Pastor Randy Wall 

Prayer:  O God, we give you thanks for the mighty and merciful forgiveness that is found in you.  Forgive us, we pray; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Got a Vaccine for P.J. Disease?

 

Vaccines for the coronavirus are being given  now in earnest where I live.  I am proud to say that the church that I pastor is a site where the local health department is giving shots to local residents.    I am hopeful that the combination of healthy practices and the vaccine that the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus will become as rare as polio cases. 

I wish there were a vaccine for P.J. disease.   You probably have not heard of P.J. disease so let me explain.   Many of us know that P.J.’s is a term that refers to pajamas.   In the last few years, I have seen an increasing number of folks wearing their  P.J.’s as they frequent grocery stores and the like.   When I first saw someone wearing their P.J.’s in the store, I was surprised.    While I remember times when I was young that my brother Tony and I would put on our P.J.’s before we went with our parents to a drive in movie theatre, I do not think I have wore my P.J.’s outside the house since those days.     During this pandemic, there has been an increasing number of churches that are having worship services, Bible study, meetings, and the like via online sites like Facebook and Youtube that make it mighty easy for people to participate in worship and other religious activities not only from the comfort of their home, but also while they are lounging at home in their P.J.’s.  

I  have been increasingly wondering if this pandemic is infecting folks with P.J. disease.  Are we using this pandemic as an excuse to be spiritually lazy?      Does P.J.  stand not only for pajamas, but also PRETENDING JESUS?     Are we allowing this pandemic to infect us with a spiritual malaise where we are simply sitting on the premises in our pajamas and failing to “stand on the promises” of Christ?    Do you have P.J. disease?   Are you simply PRETENDING JESUS as you sit at home in your pajamas another day or week or you giving your best to the master?     On this day of Lent, look in the mirror and look at yourself.   Are you giving the best of your prayers, presence, witness, gifts, service, and prayers to the Master?   Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor Randy Wall

 

Prayer:   O God, forgive me for the times that I am eager to receive your blessings but slow to offer you my life.   Let my thanksgiving to you be known not just in my words and my heart, but in my daily life; through Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

Taking a "Selfie"

 

Have you ever taken a  “selfie’s”?     “Selfie”  is a new word in our vocabulary in recent years.  It refers to the act of taking a picture of oneself or in a group with the camera on your phone.     One of the things that modern technology can do is to “touch up” pictures.   For example, it can take the “red eye” out of a picture of ourself or remove blemishes from a person’s face.   Lent is a time we look in the mirror at our “selfie” and face the nagging realization that we are not the person that God wants us to be.   Lent is a time when we realize that we have sinned against the Lord in thought, word, and deed and there is nothing we can do on our own to change the situation.

Romans 7: 14-25   put it this way:     ¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  ²¹ So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!       May you discover again or for the first time that grace of Christ in the days of Lent before us.     Have a holy Lent and a joy-filled week-  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:   O God, we know that it is not simple irony that the central letter in the word “sin” is “I”.    Forgive us for the times that we center our world around ourselves.  Help us to know the  forgiveness and grace that is ours in you;  through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Reach Out and Touch...

 

I read a story a couple of months ago about a man who was in Africa on a mission trip with World Vision.  One of the places they went was an orphanage in a small village in Tanzania.   There were hundreds of children in this orphanage that had a meal  that evening for days to come thanks to the gift of food from World Vision.   While they were in the process of giving food to the people of this village, the man telling the story picked up a small child and held him in his left arm while he gave food away with his left hand.   When the man took the child in his arm, the young child began to cry and continued to do so  despite the best efforts of the man to comfort and console the child.   After a bit, the many put the child down thinking that perhaps the child was frightened and did not want to be held.   Yet, the child continued to cry even when the man telling the story put the child down.  “Why”, the man asked.   He asked one of the workers at the orphanage why the child cried when he picked him up and continued to cry even when he put him down.   The orphanage worker replied,   “The reason why the child cried when you held him and even put him down is because he is not held very often.   That child was moved by your touch.”   You might have heard of the man that tells that story.  His name?  The late Alex Trebek, long time host of the television show “Jeopardy”.  

“Who touched me?”.   Jesus asks that question in Matthew 5 when he realizes he has been touched as he made his way through a crowd one day.   As we read the story, we hear of a woman who had dealt with a flow of flood for 12 years.   While it would be difficult to deal with any illness or malady for over a decade, her condition in her day and faith community meant that she was banished from religious and social life in her community.  People in her community saw this woman as “unclean”.   One day, Jesus comes that way and as he makes his way through a crowd of people she reaches out to touch him and is healed. 

“Reach out and touch somebody’s hand, make this world a better place if you can”.   Those are words to a song that Diana Ross sang many years ago.  Those words are as true now as they were 50 years ago.   All of us  yearn to touch and to be touched.   There is something healing and therapeutic about the touch of someone else.   Human touch might not heal our bodies, but they often heal our hearts and souls.   I lament that the COVID 19 pandemic has meant that so many people (especially those who live alone or in nursing homes or rest homes) have been been starved of human touch from friends and family. 

There are so many people today that yearn to be touched.   While that young child held by Alex Trebek cried tears that could be seen and whimpers that could be heard, there are so many people that cry tears that are only known in their heart and soul.   “Reach out and touch….”.   Reach out and touch in a world that is filled with people who yearn for the healing that can found as the great Physician, Christ Jesus, works even through you.   Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor Randy Wall

PRAYER   O God, thank you for the way that you have, you are, and will touch my heart, mind, body, and soul.   As you have touched, me, O Lord, use me  as your instrument  to touch others; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

How Much Do You Owe?

It always seems that the season of Lent is the time when most folks prepare to file their income taxes.   The bottom line is that most folks want to know this:  “Do I owe or does the government owe me?”     Anotherwords, is the government indebted to me or am I indebted to the government?  

We hear in Matthew 18 a story about a man who owed a huge debt.   Discharge of debt through bankruptcy was not an option in that day, so the man was facing the possibility that he and his family would  be sold into slavery.   He begs  for mercy from his master and is forgiven.   Lo and behold, the  man forgiven of debt encounters a person that owes him money and has him thrown into prison.  Listen to how the story ends in Matthew 18: 32-35,  

 ³² “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.  ³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”, is how the Lords Prayer puts it in some translations.    God has forgiven a huge debt, the debt of our sinfulness.   Oh, for the grace to be more forgiving of others.  Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor Randy Wall

 

PRAYER

Move us, O God, to being as forgiving of others as we want to you to be forgiving of us;  through Jesus Christ our Lord.   Amen.