Category Archives: Christian

What Was That Song? October 14, 2019

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

My church is going through change, as are most churches across the country. In fact, if your church isn’t, it is probably dying. It’s part of the life cycle of every living organism, including churches. If they are not changing, evolving, adapting to the needs of those around them, they are no longer necessary and just go away. 

The problem is that some of us who have been around for a long time would really like things to be like they were when we came into the church a long time ago. We want what brought us in. We love the old preaching, the old furnishings, the old music. Ah, there it is. The one thing that seems to divide more people than any other single item in most congregations. The music. 

But we can’t go back. Do I like the newest stuff on the market? Let me read you a letter to a pastor to which I think some of you might relate. 

“I am no music scholar, but I feel I know appropriate church music when I hear it. Last Sunday’s new hymn – if you can call it that – sounded like a sentimental love ballad one would expect to hear crooned in a saloon. If you insist on exposing us to rubbish like this – in God’s house! – don’t be surprised if many of the faithful look for a new place to worship. The hymns we grew up with are all we need”

And another:

“What is wrong with the inspiring hymns with which we grew up? When I go to church, it is to worship God, not to be distracted with learning a new hymn. Last Sunday’s was particularly unnerving. The tune was unsingable and the new harmonies were quite distorting.”[1]

Surprisingly, these letters date back to 1863 and 1890 and opposing the introduction of the songs, “Just As I Am” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” See, we don’t like things to change. Yesterday’s hymns disrupted centuries of chants, which disrupted centuries of psalms. Today’s praise choruses disrupt our couple of hundred years of hymns. We just don’t like change. We like things the way they’ve always been. 

As I said earlier, though, change is necessary if we survive. Without change, we die. And we can’t go back to the way things were. The past is gone, and the past can never return. As much as we might long for “the good old days,” they probably weren’t as good as we thought. For sure, they were not good for many, as the letter quoted early pointed out. We also have a tendency to remember only the good and not the bad when we remember things dear to us. 

The Israelites had the same problem. The northern kingdom went into exile in the eighth century BC because of their apostasy. You’d think the southern kingdom would begin to listen to their prophets but think again. Two hundred years later, the southern kingdom fell to Nebuchadnezzar’s army, and the nation’s most notable, wealthy, and young found themselves carted off from their homeland into exile. 

The exiles longed to return home. They bellyached to God about their pitiful plight. They complained about losing everything. The Israelites prayed and whined and cried. Then God sent a message through Jeremiah that the Israelites didn’t really want to hear. The words come from a letter to the elders that we find in Jeremiah chapter 29. We like to use verse 11 out of context and use it to talk about the prosperity God will bring to us. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'”(NIV) 

But in front of those words, Jeremiah had a little more to say from the Lord. God had plans, alright. They would stay in exile for the next 70 years. His plans didn’t include a short stay in Babylon and then freedom from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. God didn’t intend for the Israelites to own the promised land again for a long time. In fact, it wouldn’t be until 1948 that Israel would be self-governed once more. 

Before verse 11, which we use so poorly, Jeremiah wrote these words: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”(NIV)

So what does that have to do with music and change? A lot. God told the Israelites to be content in the place he put them. They didn’t like Babylon, but they would be there for a long time. They didn’t like the food, but if they didn’t eat what grew there, they would starve. They didn’t like living under the oppression of a pagan government, but that government offered them protection from other marauding nations. 

I’m sure those who came from Jerusalem would love to go back to their old ways of doing things, but it just wasn’t possible. God said to get on with life and worship him where they were. Give him praise and honor and glory where they lived to enable those around them to see that he was still the unchangeable God of all creation. 

So what does that mean for you and me as we face changes in the church? I don’t like the music. So what? If God can reach out to the next generation through music they are more comfortable hearing, then that must become my favorite worship music in the services. It’s not about me, it’s about worshipping God in the community of believers. I want more of the next generation present in those services. If Lazy Boy recliners become the next thing instead of pews, that’s okay. Do I like it? No. But if it helps bring the next generation to worship, it’s the best thing since sliced bread. It’s not about me, it’s about worshipping God in the community of believers. I want more of the next generation present. Do I like sandals and shorts and t-shirts as the standard dress in worship? I didn’t grow up that way and think it’s okay to dress for God the way we would dress for work, but if more of the next generation will worship with me in sandals and shorts and t-shirts, the dress code doesn’t matter as much as the presence of God in our service. We would probably be offended by Jesus’ appearance if he walked in the door, too. Ancient Mideastern clothing would be a tad out of line for us today. 

So what is important? Not the style of music. Not the traditions and rituals that create barriers in worship like the order of service, the form of prayer, the furnishings, and decorations. None of those matter in the long run. Those are just fads, maybe centuries old, but still not crucial. What is essential to worship is meeting God together with other believers. Lifting his name in adoration and praise in whatever way is meaningful to the group as a whole. However, we elicit his presence among us for a time of celebration with him is what matters most. The rest of it might make me more or less comfortable, but I can suffer through just about anything to be with my Christian brothers and sisters in holy fellowship for a little while. After all, Jesus hung on a cross all day so we could do just that. Don’t you think we could suffer through a song or two without complaining? Our mission reminds me of an old hymn title that might be appropriate in closing, “Bring Them In.” What will it take to do that? Change is sometimes necessary. 

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV):
Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright©
1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

[1] Charles Keown, The Controversial Organ, March 4, 2014

What Happened to the Storytellers? October 7, 2019

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I’ve read a couple of books lately by John Walton that describes the thinking of the ancient people of Israel as the nation began. He also writes about what people of Jesus day might think when they heard scripture. It’s interesting reading as he describes what they would have known of the stories of the people around them. 

We forget sometimes, they grew up in Egypt after Jacob took his family there to escape the famine in Canaan. They heard the Egyptian tales of the beginnings of mankind and their thoughts on who and why we worship the pantheon of gods they held sacred. We forget Egyptian idols and rituals surrounded the Israelites every day until Moses led them out of slavery and into the wilderness toward the promised land. 

The Israelites probably didn’t tell many stories around the dinner table about Moses’ version of creation, the call of Abraham, or the rescue from famine for Jacob and his family. After 400 years, more than 10 generations since Joseph sat next to Pharaoh, I expect most of the Israelites never heard anything except the Egyptian version of ancient history.

Then Moses comes along and incites Pharoah to end the slavery and let the Israelites return to their homeland. I expect the elders tried to carry on some of the traditions Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob shared with their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But I suppose many more of those two or three million sojourners never heard of Jehovah and certainly didn’t worship him. More followed God’s command to observe the Passover out of fear than obedience. They watched all the other plagues happen just as Moses said they would and wanted no part of this one. 

Maybe that’s a little too cynical, but I’m watching our country, and I don’t think I’m too far off the mark. Just about 400 years ago, a boatload of Pilgrim brought Christianity to form a tiny little settlement in this new nation. For a while, we became known as a Christian nation. Now, recent surveys of high school students show most don’t know the stories of the Bible. They’ve never heard of Cain and Abel, Daniel or Elisha, David and Goliath, unless as a motivation speech somewhere. They haven’t heard the miracle stories of the New Testament as Jesus turned water into wine, fed 5,000 men and their families, or raised Lazarus from the dead. 

Why is that? Why do our children not know the stories from the Bible? I think there are two simple reasons. 

First, we don’t read the Bible ourselves enough to know the stories. We would have a hard time telling the story of Jael and Sisera when Deborah served as the judge over Israel. We might not do well answering questions about who replaced Judas as the twelfth apostle and how he was chosen. We might be really confused as to which missionary trip Paul planted the church at Corinth. 

Second, like the ancients and those who walked the earth around the first century, we are primarily aural learners. We don’t think we are because we spend so much time reading books or emails or websites to gather information. But think about it. When someone sings a song you’ve heard several times, and changes even one word or one or two notes in the melody, you recognize it immediately. But in a paragraph you just read, do you know when a word changes? Or can you even see that someone removed a sentence from a section or two? Most people can’t from written documents, but can easily from music. 

That’s part of the reason so much of the ancient texts are poetry. Storytellers passed on the history, the commands, the songs, the stories from generation to generation orally. People couldn’t read and write, and those that could wouldn’t have access to books or materials to write them.

The point? In ancient times, parents, elders, storytellers told stories to their children to pass on the vital information within the tribe. When is the last time you share stories of Jesus or what he is doing in your life to your children or grandchildren? I’m pointing fingers at myself as I share this. I’m guilty also. We fail to use the gift of stories to spread what is most important to those who are dearest to us. Listen to what Paul wrote from prison to the one he groomed to take his place. This, from his second letter to Timothy:

For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.¹

Did you notice Paul’s letter refers to teaching Timothy heard from Paul. I can see the two of them talking as they shared meals, traveled down the road together, mended tents, Paul’s other trade. I think Paul shared with Timothy whenever he had the chance about what he believed, the stories told to him about Jesus, his personal experience on the road to Damascus. Timothy soaked up the lessons, and they weren’t written. That came later while Paul sat in prison. 

We remember the stories in our lives, not the words on paper. Even the words on paper are remembered because we turn them into pictures in our heads. That’s how our brain works. So when we tell our kids stories about God’s work in the world, past and present, they stick. We just don’t do it enough. 

So, how about it? Are you ready to make memories the way Jesus did, telling stories, sharing word pictures to be remembered forever? Are you ready to just talk to those you meet about the story of your life and what God has done for you? No one reads and remembers anymore if they ever did. Take a look at our world. If we remembered what we read, we wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes over and over. But we do. Partly because we don’t tell the stories that impact our sons and daughters, our friends and neighbors. We don’t let them see and hear the change God makes in our lives. We’ve lost the art of storytelling. Maybe it’s time to bring it back. 

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

¹THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® NIV®
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society®
Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Be Shrewd, September 22, 2019

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

Being a pastor in several churches, you get to see some of the best and the worst in society. And honestly, sometimes it’s easy to get a little jaded if you’re not careful. You watch a small segment of society try to take advantage of the generosity of churches that try to reach out to those in need. Their stories tug at your heartstrings and make you want to do anything you can to help because of the sad plight they find themselves. 

Then you happen to see them getting into their brand new BMW in the next county. They are a little surprised you’re there, but not embarrassed in the least as they have discovered a way to make lots of money through the generosity of others. And it’s all tax-free. No one knows about it. The church seldom keeps records or reports it to the government. They certainly didn’t. And so it goes. Money. Wealth. Things. 

Jesus warns us about it. He said these words after a story that, to us, can be a little confusing. “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

The confusing story is about a dishonest manager that got caught and was about to be fired. So he goes out and begins slashing the bills his master’s debtors owe. He hopes by doing so, he will gain favor in their eyes and have some means of survival after his discharge since he has no other skills. One bill is reduced by 20% another by 50%. His master finds out and gives this report. “The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.”

Jesus goes on to say, “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.  If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”[1]

I’ve got to tell you, it’s easy for me to see the logic in the last part of Jesus’ teaching. Why would God entrust us with great riches if he can’t trust us with little things? I talk about that to the people that work with me all the time. 

New people that come to the team are always scrutinized until I get to know them. It’s not that I don’t trust them, but we all think differently. We understand words in different ways and have different experiences, talents, and skill sets. So until I know how my instructions are received, understood, and carried out as a leader, responsible for the outcome of some project, those working with me to help complete that project are under some level of scrutiny to make the end result what it is meant to be. If I’m not sure the capability of one of the team members, I have to watch that team member more closely than those with whom I’ve worked  in the past whose strengths and weaknesses I already know, so that I can make whatever needed adjustments early so work doesn’t need to be redone or a project fails because I fail to give appropriate guidance. 

It’s all about communication. Learning how to trust and when to trust. And if one of the team members never learns to move in the same direction as the rest of the team, that member will never get critical pieces of the project. The outcome is too important to put critical pieces in the hands of someone that is not trustworthy. And if that goes on too long, that team member will disappear from the team. It’s just the way it is. Those who refuse to be trustworthy, dig themselves into a hole they have a hard time climbing out of.

So this trust part of Jesus lesson is pretty simple, especially when it comes to money. A few questions get to the root of it all. Whose money is it? Yours or Gods? All it takes is a quick peek at your bank account, and you can tell. Do you think you are a steward or an owner? Are your palms turned up or down when holding the funds God entrusts to you? Simple, but very tough questions we must answer when we read those last verse in this discourse.

But what about those earlier verses? “The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.”

Does God want us to be shrewd the way the world is shrewd? Does he want us to make friends with unrighteous wealth? What does that really mean? 

I’ve been thinking about that the last few days since I read those verses and starting putting together my thoughts about this podcast. At first, I was going to skip over those words and just do what most of us do and go straight to the “you can’t serve two masters” part. But something stopped me from doing that. 

First, the word used for wealth is the Semitic word mammon often also translated as money or possessions. It reminds us that whatever we have in this world is not really ours. We are just stewards. It doesn’t go with us into eternity. It’s not the eternal treasure that lasts Jesus talks about elsewhere. But we must have possessions here. We can’t survive with nothing. 

Yes, most of us have more than we need. We live in a culture that pushes us to accumulate more and more and more. The motto “the boys with the most toys win” is alive and well in our culture. We seem to strive for that extra pay that bigger house, that newer car. But do we need those things? No. We want them, but we don’t need them. Our culture demands we have them. Our need does not. 

Our need demands we have our daily bread. Enough to sustain us for another day. Enough clothing to stay clean and dressed appropriately for the climate in which we live. Not necessarily fashionable according to the cultural fad, but dressed comfortably for the environment. We need housing to protect us from the weather. Not mansions and not cardboard boxes, but housing sufficient to protect us from the weather in our particular locale. That’s about the extent of our real physical needs daily; food, clothing, shelter, and not much else. 

Look around you at all the extras God has entrusted to you. And none of it lasts. It all goes away. It all requires time and energy and more resources to take care of it. And every single item you add to the list of things takes a little more time, a little more energy, a little more resources to care for it that could be used for something else. All of our time-saving devices …don’t. Even as I write this, I’m thinking of the time I have to spend removing the deck from my riding mower that is supposed to save time. It has a bent shaft, and so I’ll spend a couple of hours removing it, taking it to be repaired, a couple of hours putting it back on, and a bunch of dollars that could have been used for something else. What happened? I hit a hidden rock in my yard that is too big to mow with a push mower and probably too big for two people. But the culture caught me like it catches most of us. 

So what does the scripture tell us? I think it says be smart with all that stuff. Use it the same way the world does. Don’t hold back. They use it to make friends. They use it to invite others into their piece of the world. They get people into their fold. They use their possessions, whether money or things, to capture the interest of those around them for some purpose.

Sometimes the purpose is nefarious. Sometimes it really is just to make friends. Sometimes it’s for business, to lure you into one of those pyramid schemes or something. But shrewd people of this world will use their possessions to capture the attention of those around them. 

I think Jesus is telling us, God entrusted his followers with the same worldly possessions unbelievers use for their purposes. Why not use those same tools, those same kinds of possessions for holy purposes? Why not recognize those possessions as gifts from God and use them just to make friends? Or capture the attention of those around you to show Christlike behavior? Why not use the possessions at your disposal to do good in a world that has evil intent on its mind? Why not recognize as shrewd followers of Christ, we can use the same possessions, the same money, the same mammon the world treats at tools to tempt as tools to win people to God. 

It’s incredible to me how many things God created that we have perverted. Why not turn the tables? If there is something we think we created (we probably didn’t, but that’s another story), why not turn it around and use it for God? Use the skills and talents and processes the world might have taught you in business and use them to build the Kingdom of God. Bring others to Christ with the same tools you use to bring others to your business. Christ will sell himself, we just need to make the introductions. 

Be shrewd, not worldly, but shrewd. Use what God has put in your hands. And if he can trust you with the little things, you’ll be surprised how your life will change as you become a steward in his Kingdom. 

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

[1]Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Learn Patience, September 16, 2019

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it seems the world keeps gravitating to the darker side of things. Our news reports never seem to share the good news, only bad. Our advertisements tell us how we might get better with their products implying we are in a sad state without them. Our bodies are never fit enough, lean enough, young enough, pretty enough, energetic enough, something enough, so there is some product out there that will help that. Well, not really. You just can’t push a button or take a pill and expect to look like whoever you see on the screen. Biology doesn’t work that way. 

And the good news doesn’t sell. No one gives the salesman money for a product when he tells you, “Hey, you look great. Why don’t you get some of this miracle stuff that will help you look good.” His commission would be pretty small. Or what newspaper would sell if it only told about the boy scouts helping ladies across the street? Unfortunately, we gobble up the murders, robberies, and rapes, but don’t pay much attention to the bright news in the world. At least, it isn’t advertised very much. 

No, we live in a culture and a world that seems to grow darker every day. And it’s really a shame because there are some really good things happening around us if we would open our eyes and see it. In fact, right this moment, I’m performing a minor miracle or two or a dozen. I’m sitting at my MacBook typing notes for this podcast, looking out the back door of my very comfortably conditioned home in San Antonio. Inside my home, it’s 72°. Outside, it already feels like 82°, and it’s not 10:00 yet in the middle of September. 

The fact that I can even put the words on paper almost as fast as I can talk is something people 100 years ago would never think possible. Manual typewriters were around then, but not computers, not laptops, not the ability to dictate to a machine and have words appear as you spoke them. It would appear as a miracle to them. 

And I’m enjoying my favorite beverage as I’m putting this together. Coffee from my Keurig. It took less than a minute to have a steaming hot cup of coffee in any of dozens of flavors. Go back to that 100-year-old spot again. Fifty cents for that cup of coffee would seem a little outrageous to them, but less than a minute from start to finish for a hot cup of coffee? No way! Impossible. 72° in the house? Words appearing on a screen that looks like paper as soon as you speak them? Madness! 

Today though, I tapped my fingers on the counter impatiently waiting for that cup of coffee. I can’t believe it takes a whole minute for that stupid machine to get through the process. And my MacBook makes so many mistakes sometimes misunderstanding my Tennessee-Texas-Georgia-North Carolina-Louisiana-German-all those other places I spent too much time accent. I have to go back through and correct all those mistakes. It takes me five or ten minutes sometimes. And why does my air conditioning fluctuate those three degrees between 70° and 73°? Why can’t it stay a perfect 72° all the time? 

And I spent a whole 8 minutes in line at McDonald’s waiting for an order of fries and a milkshake, too. Can you believe it took 8 minutes to get such a small order ready? There was only one person in front of me, so I just don’t understand why it took so long! 

We have become so impatient, haven’t we? Fast food. Fast news. Twitter, Snap Chat, Instagram, and whatever the newest stuff to get instant information from our friends. We just can’t wait. Time rushes past, and we don’t think we have time for anything. But then…

There is this verse from Numbers 21 that says: “but the people became impatient on the way.” That starts the story of serpents God let loose in the Israelite camp because of their grumbling and complaining about their wandering in the wilderness, a problem they created themselves because of their disobedience. Remember, God barred the Israelites from the promised land because of their disobedience, just as he banished Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden because of their disobedience. And because of their griping and whining, serpents came into the camp, and people started to die. 

God told Moses to erect a brass serpent on a cross and put where people could see it, and anyone bit by a serpent who looked at that serpent would not die. He did. They did. People didn’t die. The cure worked. Later, Jesus used the narrative imagery to indicate his death and the redemption, the cure for sin, that would come for all who believed in him and his sacrifice for them. 

Impatience led to many deaths in Israel’s camp. Impatience leads to all kinds of problems today. We get anxious for no reason. Our impatience gets us in trouble. We stopped projects or rush through them haphazardly because of our impatience. We accept shoddy work instead of excellence because of impatience. We want things now instead of understanding the best most often comes for those that are patient enough to wait.  

Instant gratification is the name of the game in our culture. We become more and more like Veruca Salt in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” a selfish, rotten brat who shows her wealthy family no mercy and has absolutely no regard for other people’s property. She wants anything and everything, and she wants it now. But what does it do to us? Veruca Salt lost. The Israelites lost. Impatience causes us to lose much more often than not.  We need to stop and take inventory of our emotions every once in a while and make sure we are not acting like Veruca Salt and her compatriots. I need to remember than a minute for a cup of coffee is okay. Eight minutes for a milkshake and fries is really fast compared to a hundred years ago. And spending a few minutes correcting mistakes because of my poor pronunciation is a lot better than trying to read my poor penmanship that would take a lot more time to write by hand.

Why have we become so impatient? Maybe because we think we know so much. Knowledge or I should say information is doubling every 12 months. Before 1900, it doubled every 100 years or so. Some say the volume of information will soon double every 12 hours because of the digital age. Julian Carver of Saragram created an infographic that gives a visual comparison of digital bytes to physical lengths. First, remember that a megabyte is a million bytes, a group of eight zeros and ones used to replicate a letter or number or character in the digital world. A million megabytes equals one terabyte, and a million terabytes equal one exabyte. He shows that if an ant is a megabyte, the diameter of the sun is an exabyte. An exabyte is a million, million megabytes. The total sum of information on the internet today is about five exabytes. So if a megabyte were the length of an ant, the internet would be the diameter of five suns side by side. And that doubles faster than every 12 months. 

Or maybe we have become so impatient because we know we move so fast. 100 years ago, cars were still a luxury. Horsepower even meant something to those who heard the term because they used horses routines to pull plows or wagons or to carry loads too heavy for men to bear. Speed, even with the new horseless carriage, didn’t top fifteen or twenty miles per hour. Those speeds only came in short spurts. Now 50 is about the slowest interstate speed in cities and in west Texas 80 to 85 mph speed limits are not unusual. 

Then there is that astronomy stuff we learn about in school and on television documentaries. The earth doesn’t stand still either. Depending on where you’re standing, the earth spins at different speeds since the whole thing spins together. Standing at the equator, you’re moving at about 1,037 mph. At my house just north of San Antonio, I’m moving at about 900 mph. The further north or south you go the slower you spin until you get to the poles that take a whole day to turn in a circle. Then we’re traveling around the sun once a year. To make that 584 million mile journey, we are moving at about 66,627 mph through space. But then our whole solar system is moving inside the Milky Way at about 448,000 mph. On top of that, astronomers tell us the Milky Way is on a collision course with its nearest neighbor galaxy at about 157,000 mph. 

So in this fast-paced world that keeps spinning at mind-boggling speeds, we need to stop and take a deep breath, pause, and consider God, the creator of the magnificent world in which we live. After all, he put all of this in place so we can survive on this tiny rock hurtling through the vastness of the universe. We need to stop and enjoy its beauty every once in a while and learn patience. 

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

The Debt We Owe, September 9, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

Bill-paying weekend, don’t you hate it? Of course, the banks and creditors have made it so much easier than it used to be. Maybe that’s why, as individuals and as a nation, we are in so much more debt than we’ve ever been. On bill-paying weekend you used to stack all the bills on the table, pull out the checkbook and painfully write out that check to each creditor, stuff the check and bill stub into an envelope, write your return address in the upper left corner, put a stamp in the top right corner, and then grab the next bill to do the same again. 

Now, it’s just point and click, and in about two minutes, all the bills are paid with the bill-pay convenience most banks give you today, and most creditors are happy to subscribe. In fact, creditors will happily enroll you in auto-pay to let you no longer worry about even doing the point and click business. They’ll just collect the minimum amount due so they can collect the maximum amount of interest. Progress – maybe. 

We are up to our ears in debt as a nation, and it’s easy for us to swallow that because most of us across the country are up to our ears in debt individually. It’s become a normal part of life. Finance a car, mortgage a house, finance school, clothes, vacations, even groceries. We are a debt ridden society. It’s no wonder we let Congress get away with putting us in trillion-dollar debt. So, if we were to pay off the debt today, my two-year-old granddaughter’s bill would be about $65,600, as would yours, and your neighbor’s and every other person living in the US. Pretty sobering when you think about what we’ve done in those terms, doesn’t it? $65,600 – not per household, but person. Do you have a family of four kids, five? Now the bill is over $325,000. Sorry about that. 

I digress. What got me thinking about bills and debt and those things are tied to the scriptures from the lectionary. In Luke 14, Jesus talked about the owner making sure he had enough money to build the house before building or else people would make fun of him when he ran out of money after the foundation was done. Or the king would count the cost if he only had 10,000 soldiers against his enemies 20,000 soldiers. He’d send a delegate to try to start some peace negotiations instead of losing his kingdom in battle. 

Paul writes to Philemon and asks him to take back his runaway slave, Onesimus as a brother without punishment. Under Roman law, Philemon has the right to punish Onesimus any way he chooses, up to and including death. But Paul reminds Philemon of the debt he owes Paul for bringing life to him through the gospel. Paul calls in the debt and asks Philemon to treat his slave as a Christian brother. Hard words in Roman culture. 

Then we come to the scriptures from the psalmist in chapter 139:

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

Have you thought about the fact that God made you with a specific purpose in mind? It started at the very beginning with Adam and Eve. He gave Adam the charge of naming every plant and animal. In the ancient world, naming something or someone gave it purpose, meaning, usefulness. So, God entrusted to Adam the task of giving purpose to everything else he had created. 

Why would God give such a monumental task to Adam? Because he made us in his image to be co-reagents, stewards of the world he created. This place is his world; we are its caretakers. Our purpose is to propagate the world and be caretakers of it. We haven’t done such a great job of doing the task God gave us to do, but that is why we are here. 

What does that have to do with debt? We owe God everything. We owe him the life he gave us. We owe him the talents he built into us. We owe him for the sustenance he provided in his creative acts that we might survive on this third rock from the sun. We owe him for the order he brings to the chaos around us. How can you put a price on what he has done for us? We owe him everything. 

Compare what God has done with the other debt you might have. Is your soul worth more than your house? Your car? Those vacations or presents or nights out that still plague your credit cards? How about that $65,600 the government has racked up for you? Is what God has given you worth more than that? I expect the answer is pretty simple. 

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. 

No matter what your state in life at the moment, God gives life and breath and hope. His kingdom is here for all who are bold enough to receive it. When we do, he gives his Spirit to those who ask. He empowers us to live a life of hope because we know this world is not the end. This world is in labor pains of giving birth to a new earth, a new heaven. One in which chaos and evil and pain and suffering will be removed. We will once again be positioned to carry out the task God intended for us from the beginning, to tend to his holy place. A new earth where he comes to commune with mere humans in the cool of the day. Where we can bask in his presence and enjoy his company as caretakers of the space he allows us to share with him throughout eternity.

Do I have debts to pay? Oh, yes! I realize it every month at bill-paying time. But I also know I have debts to pay every time I read God’s word, view his handiwork, hear his creation sing his praises, share with him my innermost thoughts. God made me with a purpose. He gives me life to fulfill that purpose. Each day brings me closer to the hope of spending eternity with him in a renewed world. I just need to keep living for him and obeying his commands. 

Is it easy? Not in this world. There are lots of conflicts and competing voices to filter out. Is it impossible? No. God gives us his help, his Spirit, his empowerment when we trust him with all we have and all we are. Is it worth it? Absolutely. There is no better rest than knowing regardless of my present circumstances; my eternal destiny will be with him. 

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

 The lectionary selections on this site come from the Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005. Consultation on Common Texts, Augsburg Fortress Publishers. Reproduced by permission.

Humble as the Son of God? September 2, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

You’ll find something interesting about military members who return from combat with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Sometimes it can be pretty severe causing a person to be unable to function well because of their experiences. Sometimes it’s a mild case that just causes a few hiccups and peculiarities in their behavior. One of those peculiar behaviors can be seen in most of those returning from combat zones.

I admit I’m one of those trying to recover from some of the things I’ve seen in some of those place the Army chose to send me over the years. It’s not always easy and I don’t always know what will trigger those memories, but one thing that I really don’t like and most of my military friends who have been in combat share my aversion. I don’t like to sit with my back to public doors. I want to see the exits when I’m in public. 

In restaurants, I prefer booths against the wall and I want to face the entrance. In theaters, I like the back rows. They are high and I can see everyone else in the place. I’m not very good in large crowds and have a tendency to creep to the edges, not into the middle. I get anxious when I end up in positions that put me in opposition to my preferred spots. I’m working on it and know the likelihood of something happening is slim, but still, the brain works in strange ways after facing some of those past experiences.

What’s really fun is putting a bunch of us in a room together and watching to see who gets the prime seats first and watching the reactions of those who didn’t quite get there in time. I know my PTSD is not so severe as some of my buddies and in those instances try to make sure their needs are met, but I can’t say I’m always comfortable with the idea. 

The lectionary from Luke chapter 14 reminded me of those seating peculiarities. Jesus told a parable about a wedding feast that goes like this:

Now Jesus told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of hone, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you. ‘Give you place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

I remember in one of my dad’s pastorates one of the ladies in the church told us how she “humbled” herself. She had hair down past her waist when she let it down. Of course, she would never do that in the church in those days, she always had it tied up in a bun. But every week, she let her hair down and dunked it in the commode to show God she loved him. We didn’t ask if she flushed first. Sometimes when you stood too close, I’m not sure she did. 

And I’m not sure why she felt the need to tell us how humble she was by trying to flush her hair down the toilet. I’m not so sure God really cared much about that. And I’m sure he didn’t care about her proud attitude of her faithful ritual. My dad usually had a hard time keeping a straight face when she proudly announced her weekly ritual. The kids sitting around the church didn’t even try. We giggled and laughed as you would expect.

I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant by taking a lower place and being pulled up to a place of honor. I’m pretty sure Jesus didn’t want us to stuff our heads in toilets to let him know we were humble. That’s pretty ridiculous in my book. And for all of us who heard it and knew her, we knew she took a lot of pride in her ridiculous ritual. She wouldn’t miss that dunking for anything…even her son’s graduation! Can you imagine? I don’t think God can either. He did make an incredible zoo. 

We should strive toward a life of humility, though. Jesus is described as humble. He was God, but didn’t flaunt it. He could have. He could have grand-standed and shown off a lot more than he did. We have a few instances where he did some amazing things. Feed 5,000 men plus their families with a boy’s lunch. Make new eyes for a blind man. Fix legs that had never walked. Raise kids from the dead. Call a man out of the tomb who had already started to smell in the Mideast heat. Yep, those are pretty outlandish kinds of acts. But in most of those instances, he told them not to tell anyone. Just go about your business. Leave my name out of it. Give praise to the Father, don’t mention me. And I think he meant it. 

Of course it didn’t work. People saw those miracles or the results of those miracles and wanted to know how they happened. And the recipients couldn’t help but tell their stories. Jesus was at the center of every one of them. He didn’t ask for recognition, but he got it. In fact, he got so much of it the religious leaders decided he needed to die. Interesting how it was okay for them to break the rules because they thought he was breaking the rules, huh? 

So what does it mean to be humble? Jesus knew he was the son of God. God gave him an incredibly important mission. Yet he was humble. We define the word as: having or showing a modest or low estimate of one’s own importance. If we look at some synonyms of the word, we find these: meek, deferential, respectful, submissive, diffident, self-effacing, unassertive; unpresuming, modest, unassuming, self-deprecating; subdued, chastened

But he was God incarnate. How could he be meek and submissive and modest and unassuming as God incarnate. I think the answer lay in his relationship to the Father. Jesus was fully God, but set aside the glory of heaven to dwell in this space with us. He assumed the same flesh and blood we have and leaned on his heavenly Father for actions that seemed so miraculous. 

He told us we would do more than he did after he returned to the Father and he sent the Comforter to be with us. The same power that raised him from the dead is available to us to do the work the Father has in store for us. What is that work? Redeeming the world through him. We are instruments of his love and we can tap into the power source, his spirit, to enable us to fulfill the role he planned for us. 

But we must remember it is not us. Paul reminds us, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” That is true, but I must remember it is through him, not through me. Jesus fed the 5,000 through the power of the triune godhead. He raised the dead by the power of the triune godhead. He rose on Easter by the power of the triune godhead. Our finite brains can’t really wrap our minds around what that means. God is one, yet three. He did all those things recorded in the gospels and empowered others to do incredible things recorded in Acts and the epistles. 

When we accept Jesus as Lord of life, King of all, the creator who brings order out of chaos and forgives us for our sins. He empowers us to do the works he set out for us. Will we do the kinds of miracles recorded in the New Testament? Maybe, maybe not. For sure, we can love those around us with a love that transcends that which the world knows or understands. We can demonstrate God’s love to those around us and cause them to wonder what happened to us to make us different from the rest of humanity. 

I mentioned at the beginning a lot of soldiers end up with PTSD as a result of combat. I’m appalled at what humans can and will do to other humans whether in combat, as terrorist acts, or just through plain acts of evil. I’ve seen some of it that I would like to forget but know I never will. God destroyed humanity once with a flood because all our thoughts and intentions were evil from the time we were youths. 

Jesus’ death and resurrection changed all that, though. He makes it possible for our minds to be transformed and for us to begin a better journey. One filled with his love for one another. One that because of his empowerment, can show the world a piece of the new heaven and new earth that awaits his adopted children. 

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Treasures in Heaven, August 5, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

A few days ago, I sat at my desk and saw one of those plastic Rubbermaid boxes sitting under it. I opened it and began to pull out the tangle of wires, connectors, chargers, plugs, and other assorted electrical contraptions associated with computers and their peripherals. 

The tangle of wires stared up at me like the hair on Medusa’s head. I felt paralyzed for a few minutes, then decided the time had come to de-clutter that box. I started through the mess of stuff, trying to figure out what I still owned that needed those cables or chargers or connectors. 

It finally dawned on me that the stuff in the box lived there for untouched, well, growing, never shrinking for at least two or three years. I couldn’t remember the last time I actually took something out of the box and used it. Into the trash went 85% of everything from the crate. The other 15% made up part of my travel kit, so I don’t have to switch cables and chargers when I decide to go somewhere. 

Piles of stuff. Drawers of junk. Closets of clutter. Rooms of rubbish. I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a house that doesn’t have at least a few of those around. I know I have more than my fair share and get a little overwhelmed at the thought of de-cluttering the physical stuff that takes up space in my life.

You probably know what I’m talking about. You are probably thinking about that closet or that drawer you need to go through but just don’t have the courage to rummage through the contents without a decent dose of pain killers or antidepressants. 

Jesus gives us a parable that talks about the accumulation of stuff in our lives and how dangerous it can be. In many Bibles, the parable bears the title “The Rich Young Ruler.” Luke records the parable in these words in Chapter 12.

 “A person in the crowd got Jesus’ attention.

Person in the Crowd: Teacher, intervene and tell my brother to share the family inheritance with me.

Jesus: Since when am I your judge or arbitrator?

Then He used that opportunity to speak to the crowd.

Jesus: You’d better be on your guard against any type of greed, for a person’s life is not about having a lot of possessions.

(then, beginning another parable) A wealthy man owned some land that produced a huge harvest. He often thought to himself, “I have a problem here. I don’t have anywhere to store all my crops. What should I do? I know! I’ll tear down my small barns and build even bigger ones, and then I’ll have plenty of storage space for my grain and all my other goods. Then I’ll be able to say to myself, ‘I have it made! I can relax and take it easy for years! So I’ll just sit back, eat, drink, and have a good time!’”

Then God interrupted the man’s conversation with himself. “Excuse Me, Mr. Brilliant, but your time has come. Tonight you will die. Now who will enjoy everything you’ve earned and saved?”

This is how it will be for people who accumulate huge assets for themselves but have no assets in relation to God.” [1]

My collection of stuff in that box under my desk cost a few hundred dollars if bought new. It was pretty worthless to me or anyone else tangled up in that box hidden away under my desk. And even though the cables, chargers, and connectors may have been costly originally, now they were very much like the possessions of that rich young ruler. They have very little value to me or anyone else. 

It’s easy for us to get caught up in material things. Our culture gears our brain to attract us to the glitter and gold of this world. We like stuff. We want stuff. We desire to be like that 1% at the top. We want our yachts and second homes and “our people” to submit to our bidding. The young ruler may have had it all. But…

Suddenly, things came into perspective for him. His barns full of produce meant nothing. He would never enjoy the wealth accumulated through his expertise and labor. The goods which made him so proud either would rot in his barns, or the villagers would take them in just a few short hours. All that wealth could do nothing for him.

I’m trying to start ridding myself of stuff. It’s not easy. Carole and I enjoyed living in many parts of the country and world because of my military service. We have lots of stuff that give us a lot of amazing memories. But still, it is just stuff in the long run. The memories are great, but the material things that prompt the memories just take up space and collect dust. 

Do I like those things? Sure. I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t. I live in the same culture as you. I’m bombarded by the same marketing schemes you hear every day. I’m told how possessions mean success and lack of them mean failure in our culture. But don’t believe the lie. 

As Jesus told the crowd that day, things mean nothing. One day, we will all hear God say, “…your time has come. Tonight you will die. Now who will enjoy everything you’ve earned and saved?” ¹

What treasures won’t corrupt and live beyond our frail vessels that consume air and water and food? What treasures will last in heaven?

Relationships. My relationship with God. I will either be joining him eternally or separated from Him eternally. My relationship with him and his son determines that outcome. 

My relationships with my Christian brothers and sisters. I believe we will be bound together in heaven with a shared knowledge of each other with an understanding we do not comprehend at this time. I think we see only a tiny glimpse of what heaven is like in scripture. But when we arrive, I think we will know each other. We will have perfect love for each other and God. Our relationships will be perfected through him. 

Actions done in love to my fellow man. I think the things we do in love for others will follow us in our memories. Paul talks about the crowns we receive for our actions. I believe those actions will be part of our joy in remembering doing Christlike things for those who share this place. 

As part of the community of men and women of every race and nationality, when we do something for one of the least of these, we do it to Jesus. These memories bring him joy and will carry to the other side as treasures in heaven. Make sure you’re collecting the right treasures. Not the junk that hides in drawers or in boxes under the desk, but the things that will last forever in heaven with him.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

[1] Luke 12: 13-21 The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Don’t give up, July 29, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I read the headlines and was appalled. A mother drowns her kids. Another reads, “Father kills mother while children watch, then shoots three children. And another, “Parents cage two children for three years before discovered.”

How does this happen? What kind of people can perform these atrocities to innocent children? 

This morning I read the lectionary readings that will be associated with this week’s podcast and heard Jesus’ words regarding prayer. His disciples asked him to teach them to pray. Luke recorded a version of that now famous prayer that many rattle off their tongues without even thinking about it. We often refer to it as the Lord’s prayer, but it is really the disciples’ prayer. It’s the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray. 

But after that prayer, Jesus told about the necessity to maintain our vigilance in prayer. When we want something from God, we need to continue to ask. Be persistent, he says. In Luke chapter 11, verses 9 and 10, he says, “So listen: Keep on asking, and you will receive. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened for you. All who keep asking will receive, all who keep seeking will find, and doors will open to those who keep knocking.”

That tells me we should not give up on our prayers. God’s word gives us plenty of examples of godly men and women who prayed for long periods of time before they received answers to their requests. Abraham’s peers were great-grandfathers before he had his promised son. Joseph languished in prison before he became the second highest authority in Egypt. Paul prayed for an unknown thorn in his flesh to be removed, something we’re not sure what that thorn was, and God never removed it, but only told him after long supplication that he would receive grace to bear it. 

Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. 

There is another point of wisdom in these words that wanes in our society today. We give up on almost everything. My grandkids really excel in many areas. I have to brag on them. But once in a while, they will grab a new project, struggle with it a while and want to quit because it’s hard. Fortunately, they have a mom and dad that won’t let them quit something just because it’s hard. 

If it’s something that is well beyond their capability, that is different. If it’s dangerous or could cause significant damage, that’s different. But often, they will just give a tiny bit of guidance and let their kids learn how to handle hard things. Sometimes they fail the first few times at a task. But they get better through those early failures and learn to become very good through the tutelage of their parents and other adults. It might be hard, but they grow because of it. 

When we stop because it’s hard or it didn’t happen the first time, we miss great opportunities. We lose because we fail to recognize the success in learning from mistakes. It’s the problem many young people face when “helicopter” parent bail kids out of every failure and make everything right regardless of the circumstances. Sometimes, it’s good for us to feel the consequences of our failure. We learn from those instances. We figure out how to succeed when we must endure the pain and suffering that comes from our mistakes. 

You’ve probably heard the quote from Thomas Edison’s interview about his first failures in creating his electric lightbulb. He said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

I also find his observation, “We often miss opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work.” 

How much could we accomplish if we just got at it and didn’t give up? What could we do if we just stuck to it and continued to try until we did something. Instead we get tired, feel bad about ourselves for not becoming the next Rockafeller at the age of 20, and just sit on the couch playing video games instead. I sometimes wonder how we became known as the land of opportunity unless it’s now because we give up on everything and anyone who joins us has the opportunity to do all the things we give up trying.

Life is hard. Life is filled with failure and disappointment. We cannot nor should not win every time. Everyone should not get a trophy. We don’t learn as much through winning as we do through losing. In failing is really where we build our character. 

We learn grace. We learn how to pick ourselves back up and how to start over. We learn that not being at the top is okay. We learn we can survive, begin again, lean on a friend. We learn we are not alone because no one wins every time. 

Jesus says don’t stop. Don’t quit. Keep at it. Don’t give up. It’s a lesson we need to learn today.

He goes on to indict us as a society in what I mentioned as I began this podcast. Do you remember those headlines? In the next verses, Jesus asks what should have been some rhetorical questions. In verses 11 through 13 he says, “Some of you are fathers, so ask yourselves this: if your son comes up to you and asks for a fish for dinner, will you give him a snake instead? If your boy wants an egg to eat, will you give him a scorpion? Look, all of you are flawed in so many ways, yet in spite of all your faults, you know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to all who ask!”

Today, however, too many of our children grow up in fatherless homes. They don’t know what a father should be. They don’t have any idea how a loving father acts. Our kids are abandoned physically or emotionally as fathers relinquish their responsibilities as the head of the house and act like kids themselves without thought of what they do to the next generation. And the problem in the United States is that this has now gone on for two or three generations, so often, kids can’t find role models from grandfathers or even great-grandfathers in their families.

What are we to do to fix the problem? How are we to help this newest generation understand what it means to be a loving father or mother? How do we demonstrate solid family relationships when almost every family across the country feels the pain of broken homes? The only source for a solid role model is God. Our heavenly Father is the only perfect father. Scripture uses our earthly father as a model to help describe him, but the tables have turned.

I think for us to now understand who we should be as fathers and mothers, we must look to scripture and examine the life of Jesus and how he describes his Father in heaven to understand how we should build our relationships within our families and with those around us. We have so warped our roles as parents through neglecting what parenthood should be through generations of misguided relationships, that we no longer know what it means to be families. 

It’s time we look to the source of relationships and marriage and families to find what these institutions should look like. We need to go to God who created us and the foundation of the family by putting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with the command to populate the world, instituting what we know as a marriage relationship. 

It’s time we look at the good and bad fathers and mothers in scripture. We should see the consequences of the bad behavior and try our best to avoid repeating those mistakes. We should learn from the good behavior and try our best to emulate it. 

God will help us learn what we should know as good fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, if we will listen to him. He will also help us recover from our failures if we will not give up, but will pick ourselves up, ask forgiveness for our failures and our sins, and try again. He will help us through those rough places. He will give us the strength to endure. 

God can and will give us the courage to journey through this life as the people he would have us be. But we must put our trust in him if we hope to succeed. That doesn’t mean we will be wealthy. It does mean we will be rich. Our riches will come from the legacy of peace he promised as we follow his commands, do his will, learn his ways, and keep them. 

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the ene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Take care of the widows and orphans, July 22, 2019

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I’m amazed at how the lectionary grabs today’s news even though the scriptures were chosen years ago. The readings yesterday could come from the newscast today without a problem. Listen to these words from the prophet Amos.

“Says the Eternal Lord.

4 Listen to this, you who trample on the needy
    and bring the poor to ruin,
5 Who ask, “When will the new moon festival be done
    so we can sell our grain?
And when will the Sabbath end
    so we can sell our wheat?
Then we can tamper with our scales
    and make the bushel measure smaller
And the counterweight heavier to cheat our customers.
6 We can buy the needy for silver
    and the poor and their property for the price of a pair of sandals.
We can even sell the chaff we sweep up as grain.””

We hear every day about how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We hear about the middle class disappearing and it’s becoming more difficult to make ends meet for families.

The theme hasn’t changed in centuries. Even Jesus said the poor would always be with us. But we are also admonished as Christians to care for the poor. That’s where we need to be careful as we listen the words from Amos. Yes, we will always have poor among us. Societies that tried to live with redistribution of wealth failed. Marxism, communism, socialism, and other experiments that try to take from those that have and give to those that need consistently crumble over time. Those that have just get tired of those in power taking what they have and giving it away. 

Does that mean we should not take care of the poor? No. We need to help. We need to try to lift those that cannot help themselves. In Jesus’ day, it was principally orphans and widows who needed the most assistance. Orphans, no family to care for them ended up on the streets begging for anything to eat. They worked for nothing in dangerous jobs, they hired themselves out in the most despicable ways, they stole food, they did anything and everything just to survive. And the widows did the same, but often with prostitution as their only means of survival.

Still many of those orphans and widows died. They couldn’t survive the harsh conditions in Israel along with the oppressive nature of the greedy who failed to help even though commanded by the Mosaic Law. God saw what was happening. He didn’t like it. And he commissioned Amos to let the leaders know just how he felt. 

It was over. Israel would no longer hear the voice of God. He would pass by without stopping. God owned the earth, but this spot would be left alone to its own devices. The honeymoon between God and the people he set apart was over. 

It wasn’t long before the nation went into exile and it was another 2500 years before Israel became an independent nation again. God means what he says.

So, what does that mean for us today? Are the commands God gave 2500 years ago still applicable today? Do we need to listen to those ancient rules? Doesn’t live and let live work today? Should we let the government take care of the poor, so we don’t have to deal with the mess it creates when we try to do it ourselves? 

I think in this country we managed to pass off a lot of our responsibility as Christians when we started some of the social programs like Social Security all those years ago. We let others take care of what we used to do in the church, in our families. We assume taking care of the destitute is someone else’s responsibility, not ours. But that isn’t what God says. 

Can we save the world from poverty? No. There will always be poor among us as Jesus says. There will always be those among us who mismanage money, who live without thought of preparing for tomorrow, who have catastrophic events happen that destroy their fortunes, who become physically unable to care for themselves. There will always be a segment of society that prospers beyond belief, that one percent that we all look at and ask why they need that much? 

The question we must ask ourselves is what do we in the middle do with our funds? How do we manage what God has given us, so that we might help care for those that need assistance? As followers of Christ, what is our responsibility for relieving the suffering of those around us? 

I’m not much of a fan of giving money to the crowd that bombards the cars at stoplights, but I do think it’s okay to give them a bottle of water or a sandwich if God lays it on your heart. I’m not a fan of doling out money to the homeless to watch it go into the brown sacks that feed their addictions, but I am in favor of helping families get back on their feet when dad abandon wives and young children with no means of support. 

There are things we can do to be Jesus to those around us. What can you do to the helpless, the hurting, the suffering, the poor, the widows, and orphans you pass by every day? Israel fell into exile partly because they failed to take care of those who could not take care of themselves. I hope we are not falling into that same trap individually or as a nation. 

As David recalled the massacre of the 85 priests at Nob as he fled from Saul, he thought of the plight of those who stood against God. Their reward is coming. David said it this way in Psalms 52:

You won’t be smiling
    when the True God brings His justice and destroys you forever.
    He will come into your home, snatch you away,
    and pull you from the land of the living.

[pause]

6 Those who are just will see what happens to you and be afraid.
    And some of them will laugh and say,
7 “Hey, look! Over there is the one who didn’t take
    shelter in the True God;
Instead, he trusted in his great wealth
    and got what he wanted by destroying others!”

8 But my life is abundant—like a lush olive tree
    cared for at the house of the one True God.
I put my trust in His kind love
    forever and ever; it will never fail.
9 Because of all You have done,
    I will humble myself and thank You forever.
With Your faithful people at my side,
    I will put my hope in Your good reputation.

I want to be part of the David crowd, not on the side of Saul and his sidekick Doeg who used their power to destroy others because of their jealous need for more power and wealth. I want to live the abundant life Jesus promised. Filled with his legacy of peace in a world blinded by chaos. But it only comes through knowing and following Jesus, the promised Messiah, the son of the living God.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

We have no excuse, July 15, 2019

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I’ve been thinking the last few months about the fact that 160,000 people within a five mile radius of my church have no church affiliation. When asked, they indicate they belong to or affiliate with no church or no denomination or no religious group…at all. None. That’s a tenth of the population of San Antonio, but just in our little corner of the city. It’s a bigger number than the population of most of the towns and cities around the world. 

Let that sink in just a little. That number of people around my church put none as their religion. And that is the most popular answer when asked about religion in the United States today. None. People say they are spiritual, but affiliate with nothing. There is a problem with that. 

Jesus is coming. God made the rules. He said, “Believe in me and have eternal life. Don’t believe in me and be eternally separated from God in a place of eternal punishment  called hell.” 

 Those who follow and obey his teachings are called Christians. We are supposed to share his message of love and peace and inner joy. The institutional church hasn’t done such a good job of doing that if 160,000 people within five miles of my church check “none” as their preferred religion on surveys. 

If you check the people living around your church, you’ll find the same percentages and the same appalling statistics, I’m sure. The institutional church has turned inward and failed to spread the message the way God intended or we would see smaller numbers professing “none” as their faith.

So here’s the other problem with where we are in history with that particular statistic. Jesus said he would return when everyone heard the gospel. Hmmm. Has everyone heard? If you poll high schools in my city, you’ll find that many of those teenagers know little about the Bible and San Antonio is still considered part of the Bible Belt. So has the message been heard? 

I think it has. And here is why.

Yesterday’s lectionary included these verses from Deuteronomy chapter 9:

Then, in whatever you do, the Eternal your God, will give you more than enough of every good thing—children and cattle and crops—because the Eternal will once again delight to do you good as He delighted to do good to your ancestors. All this will happen if you’ll return to the Eternal your God, heart and soul, and you’ll listen to His voice and obey His commands and remember His regulations, which are written in this book of the law.

After all, what I’m commanding you today isn’t too difficult for you; it’s not out of reach. It’s not up in the sky, so you don’t have to say, “Who will go up into heaven and get it for us and tell us what it is, so we can obey it?” It’s not across the sea, so you don’t have to say, “Who will go beyond the watery abyss and get it for us and tell us what it is, so we can obey it?” No, the words you need to be faithful to the Eternal are very close to you. They are in your mouth (always talk about these laws, as I’ve commanded you) and in your heart (treasure them there).

Now what does that have to do with everyone hearing the message?

A little of everything. It’s hard to find a solid reference, but estimates range from 4 to 6 billion copies of the Bible have been sold. That doesn’t include the number given away. According to the world population clock, there are just over 7.7 billion people alive as I write this. And that only counts Bibles, not just New Testaments, or just books of the Bible. So enough Bibles have been printed and distributed to put one in the hands of every person alive. 

Now, everyone doesn’t have one. I probably have 30 or more in my house. That means 29 or more of those 7.7 billion don’t have one. But you get the point. There are more than enough Bibles to get the word around the world. 

That is just the printed word. Radio reaches everywhere. Today, there isn’t a population spot on earth that cannot be reached by satellite or some kind of air wave traffic. And all those air waves carry the message. Since the 1940s pastors and churches have used the air waves to carry the message of the gospel. 

So what does that mean?

It means no one has an excuse. It means what Moses said to the Israelites as he departed from them is applicable to us today. “After all, what I’m commanding you today isn’t too difficult for you; it’s not out of reach. It’s not up in the sky, so you don’t have to say, “Who will go up into heaven and get it for us and tell us what it is, so we can obey it?” It’s not across the sea, so you don’t have to say, “Who will go beyond the watery abyss and get it for us and tell us what it is, so we can obey it?” No, the words you need to be faithful to the Eternal are very close to you. They are in your mouth (always talk about these laws, as I’ve commanded you) and in your heart (treasure them there).”

God’s word is available to everyone in every city, every nation, every continent. No one has an excuse for not hearing his word. Our only problem is our failure to listen and follow him. But ignorance is no excuse. 

If you speed through the school zone, the police officer who pulls you over doesn’t listen to the excuse you didn’t see the sign as he writes you that $250 ticket. God will not listen to your excuses as he metes out his judgment that you didn’t know about him when he returns. 

His word is available. His message is clear. His warnings are everywhere. What he commands is not too difficult for us; it’s not out of reach. We don’t have to go anywhere else to find it. It’s in every book store, every library, almost every home. All we have to do is pick it up and read it. All we have to do is tune our radio to listen to his word. All we have to do is put forth a tiny bit of effort and we will know him.

We have no excuse today. Those who proclaim “none” as their faith are in trouble. Those of us who claim “Christian” as our faith may be in trouble, too, if we just check the box and fail to do what he commands. Remember Moses’ words, “What he commands is not too difficult for you; it’s not out of reach.” 

When we accept him as our sovereign Lord, he empowers us to live according to his commands. We just have to be willing to be subject to his Lordship. We must be willing to serve him instead of ourselves. We must understand that he is God. We are not and can never be God. 

Jesus’ return is getting closer. We have no excuse for not knowing him. Have you read his word today? It’s not too late. 

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.