What’s Really Important?

What’s really important to you and I?  Our possessions?  We certainly don’t want to lose them.  Our health?  We’ve got to have that too if you want to have any quality of life.  How about our family and friends?  It sure would be a lonely world without friends and family and I’m not talking about our cell phone circles either.  So where does our relationship with our Creator fit into our lives?  Did He create us to wind us up like a top and see how we spin, or did He fashion each one of us in His own mind before we ever became a living creature with a plan and purpose for our existence?  So many live their lives discouraged and disillusioned with no hope of things ever changing.  What’s the answer?  Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” 

This is why Bible Study is so important.  God’s Word has the answers!  God gave us His Word to study and prepare ourselves and our children, for the spiritual battles and conflicts that we face each day.  We need the knowledge, strength, and purpose for our lives that we find when we study His Word.  We need the grace and mercy that Jesus provides to sustain us in our daily duties.  We need His help to love and forgive one another, and to be loved and forgiven. 

August 19, we are going to have a ‘Back to School Day’ for Sunday School.  Our kids and families will be finished with vacations and summer activities.  Many have drifted away from Bible Study due to all the summer outings that we love and enjoy.  It’s time to ‘round up’ everyone and get all of us back to School!  Sunday School that is!  Make the calls, send the cards, take time to visit, text, email, skype, facetime, make contact in whatever way you chose!  Let them know they are important to God’s Kingdom and make sure you are there yourself!

We have adopted a new motto for our church that you have probably already seen.  It’s this, “We are Second, where He is First!”  Is He first in our lives, our families, our church?  God has a plan for this world and you’re a part of it!  His plan is revealed in His Word.  You’re important to Him, so don’t miss out on what He has for you!  He is First!

When It Doesn’t Make Sense

Most of the things I write are to encourage, challenge, or just to uplift the name of Jesus, but sometimes you just want to share what’s on your heart.  This has been a sad time for many of my dear friends in East Tennessee and I’m sure I don’t know the half of it.  Let me explain.

On the evening of the fourth we saw a post from some of our Facebook friends in Morristown that there had been a tragedy at Cherokee Lake right outside of Morristown.  As the news began to hit the internet we learned that two little boys, ages 10 and 11, had been electrocuted while swimming around their houseboat at German Creek Boat Dock (see the story http://www.citizentribune.com/?p=15872).   Noah Winstead was dead at the scene and Nate Lynam died Thursday evening from his injuries.  As I read the accounts my heart went out to the families, their church, and the community as they were faced with one of those unexplainable heartrending tragedies that hit us sometimes. 

A picture of the boys together at school with arms around each other and smiles that could light up a Christmas tree began to be posted on Facebook Walls Friday morning.  I sent an email to my dear Pastor friend Dr. Dean Haun to let him know I was praying for the families, him, and the church as one of the moms was on staff at First Baptist and both families were members there.  Both boys were baptized there too.  I asked him to not worry about responding since I knew what the church was going through, but he sent this back to me, “Thanks buddy, it’s been tough….”.

‘It’s been tough…’.  What words of depth and heartache.  The families asked that this statement be published in response to the outpouring of love by the Community.  “The family of Nate Lynam is overwhelmed by the outpouring of love, prayers and support from family, friends and the community. It is the family’s wish that the tragedy that claimed his life, not be what defines it. Nate was a loving son, a loyal brother and a kind and respectful young man.

“If there is anything newsworthy in this tragedy it is this: Nate and his friend Noah loved Jesus and trusted in Him. The families find great comfort in knowing that they will be reunited one day in Heaven.”

When it doesn’t make sense we do have a hope, a bedrock hope, and faith that Jesus does know our heartache and pain, and that He is working a far more eternal weight of glory for those who trust in Him.

His Word says, in 2 Corinthians 4:18 “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Pray for the families, their church, Brother Dean and the staff at First Baptist as they minister to them.

Until He comes we walk by faith……