Remember?
He was an old man by now, the weight of years upon him. Carrying a metal bucket full of fresh shrimp, every Sunday without fail, Captain Eddie made his way down to Crandon park in his Key Biscayne home. While others fished, he fed the gulls. As he walked down the pier, it was almost as if they knew he was coming.
Hundreds flew all around him, screeching loudly, causing some to wish Captain Eddie would quit. But he fed them every Sunday until just before he passed away.
He remembered.
I hadn't thought about Eddie Rickenbacker for a long time until today. He was a WW1 ace for America, who went back into the service to help anyway he could during WW2. On a last minute hop via B-17 from one island to another, his plane went down. Though the Navy searched a wide area, the men weren't found and currents pushed their rafts outside the search area.
Days went by with no food, and the men, by now hundreds of miles from land, began to wonder if they'd be rescued in time. So they conserved their energy, caught rainwater in their clothing, and prayed. Captain Eddie had covered his head with his aviator's cap and dozed off, but was awakened by a strong whisper from his friends. "There's a bird on your head!"
Quickly, Eddie caught the seagull, and giving thanks to God, the men killed it and ate, and used the leftovers to catch enough fish to survive until they were rescued. A day or two later, another gull landed and was caught. Captain Eddie asked, "Don't we have enough bait?" And in an amazing act of faith, they let it go.
Two days later they were rescued. Their lives were saved by God through a gull. Captain Eddie never forgot to say "thanks."
It's Good Friday 2004. I've draped the cross in front of the church in black, stripped the color away from the sanctuary's walls, and begun the process of remembering.
Most days, I live leaning forward. Can't get to the future fast enough.
But today, I'm looking back - way back.
Past 15 years ago when God called me into the ministry.
Past 30 years ago when I surrendered to His will and trusted His Son's love.
Back to when a man hung suspended between heaven and earth, on a cross streaked with His blood. And they call it - Good Friday.
My friend Scooter Noland, in Costa Rica learning Spanish before heading to Venezuela with his family as missionaries wondered in an email to me about whether we here in the US have some things backwards. I'm quoting him below:
Living in another culture (Costa Rica) has really opened my eyes as to how other see the USA. Other than the headlines of the USA and gay marriages, it is interesting in a land of 98% Roman Catholicism, lost by most standards, that they celebrate the life and death of Jesus in such a HUGE way.
Today life is lifeless as ALL of the businesses have closed and everybody has gone to mass to watch dramatic presentations and take part in processionals which include scripture, prayer, fasting, and the like. These days are so significant to the people here that $$ is nothing compared to thinking about the life and death of Jesus for a solid week.
In the land of "In God we Trust" we celebrate the holidays of dead presidents and liberators and think very little of the Greatest Liberator and King ever. - end quote
Have you paused today to remember Jesus Christ?
Have you taken time to remember what He did for you? On this day when He died?
When He saved your life?
Remember?
Then stop, and do something that reminds others of Christ's love. Stop and thank God for His Son's sacrifice. Stop living and remember what our life cost.
Remember?
Grace!
David Wilson
This devotional is written by David Wilson, pastor of New Hope Baptist church in Valparaiso, FL. If you find you have received this via a forward and would like to receive it regularly, or find you no longer wish to receive it, drop me an email at dwilsonfl@earthlink.net and I'll make the change to the list. If you'd like to know more about New Hope, visit our website at www.newhopevalp.org . May God bless you.
Friday, April 09, 2004
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Bring Your Crash Helmet !
I can remember bits and pieces of childhood. Great times with family, different toys that I loved, pets I grew up with, and times of terror.
That's right - terror.
You see the child's world and their understanding of it is full of holes. There's so much that they do not know, imagination has to fill in the blanks. So you get monsters under the bed, fixations about flying monkeys (okay, maybe that was just me), and all manner of fears.
But you know, I never feared God.
God, in the person of His Son Jesus, loved me. I knew that because the people who I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt loved me - told me so. We sang "Jesus loves the little children" with all our hearts in Bible School, because He did. When we sang, we were sitting under pictures of Jesus with children in His lap and hanging all over Him. Most adults I knew would freak out if that many kids were that close, so I figured Jesus must be real special.
Later, I realized just how special He is. He is God! All powerful God!
None of us can put a box around just how powerful God is, really.
Annie Dillard writes, "Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews."
It sounds dangerous.
And yet... there is Jesus. Is He dangerous?
Well, in a way, yes. Friday we'll stop and remember His death by the hands of people who were so afraid of His power to change people's hearts they had Him crucified.
Many people, including some of the Jewish leaders, believed in him. But they wouldn't admit it to anyone because of their fear that the Pharisees would expel them from the synagogue.
43 For they loved human praise more than the praise of God.
John 12:42-43 (NLT)
Something changed in a lot of my friends growing up, maybe in yours too. Growing up in church, believing in Jesus and loving Him as children, even trusting Him as Savior and Lord, but later - in their teens or young adulthood, they drift away. Why?
Because getting too close to Jesus can be dangerous. He'll change your life.
Jesus is in the life-changing business, and if you don't want your life changed - if you still want control of your life - don't get too close. As a child, you loved Him without reservations. He loved you the same way.
He still does. Do you?
Do this - take a vacation from running your life. Come to a Good Friday service somewhere and see how much God thinks you are worth. (Hint: John 3:16)
Then come to church Easter Sunday seeking to get as close to God in worship as you can. Oh and get ready for earth-shaking news. In fact, better bring your crash helmet!
Grace!
David Wilson
This devotional is written by David Wilson, pastor of New Hope Baptist church in Valparaiso, FL. If you find you have received this via a forward and would like to receive it regularly, or find you no longer wish to receive it, drop me an email at dwilsonfl@earthlink.net and I'll make the change to the list. If you'd like to know more about New Hope, visit our website at www.newhopevalp.org . May God bless you.
I can remember bits and pieces of childhood. Great times with family, different toys that I loved, pets I grew up with, and times of terror.
That's right - terror.
You see the child's world and their understanding of it is full of holes. There's so much that they do not know, imagination has to fill in the blanks. So you get monsters under the bed, fixations about flying monkeys (okay, maybe that was just me), and all manner of fears.
But you know, I never feared God.
God, in the person of His Son Jesus, loved me. I knew that because the people who I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt loved me - told me so. We sang "Jesus loves the little children" with all our hearts in Bible School, because He did. When we sang, we were sitting under pictures of Jesus with children in His lap and hanging all over Him. Most adults I knew would freak out if that many kids were that close, so I figured Jesus must be real special.
Later, I realized just how special He is. He is God! All powerful God!
None of us can put a box around just how powerful God is, really.
Annie Dillard writes, "Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews."
It sounds dangerous.
And yet... there is Jesus. Is He dangerous?
Well, in a way, yes. Friday we'll stop and remember His death by the hands of people who were so afraid of His power to change people's hearts they had Him crucified.
Many people, including some of the Jewish leaders, believed in him. But they wouldn't admit it to anyone because of their fear that the Pharisees would expel them from the synagogue.
43 For they loved human praise more than the praise of God.
John 12:42-43 (NLT)
Something changed in a lot of my friends growing up, maybe in yours too. Growing up in church, believing in Jesus and loving Him as children, even trusting Him as Savior and Lord, but later - in their teens or young adulthood, they drift away. Why?
Because getting too close to Jesus can be dangerous. He'll change your life.
Jesus is in the life-changing business, and if you don't want your life changed - if you still want control of your life - don't get too close. As a child, you loved Him without reservations. He loved you the same way.
He still does. Do you?
Do this - take a vacation from running your life. Come to a Good Friday service somewhere and see how much God thinks you are worth. (Hint: John 3:16)
Then come to church Easter Sunday seeking to get as close to God in worship as you can. Oh and get ready for earth-shaking news. In fact, better bring your crash helmet!
Grace!
David Wilson
This devotional is written by David Wilson, pastor of New Hope Baptist church in Valparaiso, FL. If you find you have received this via a forward and would like to receive it regularly, or find you no longer wish to receive it, drop me an email at dwilsonfl@earthlink.net and I'll make the change to the list. If you'd like to know more about New Hope, visit our website at www.newhopevalp.org . May God bless you.
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
I Want To
How many prayers? How many times had he begged God to heal him? Add to that the prayers of his family and friends who saw a man lose it all, through no fault of his own. It was a disease - leprosy - that changed everything.
He had lost the companionship of his wife and children, as he had to be shut out of the village and to live among others like him.
He could no longer choose what to wear, being required to wear the lepers black, torn clothing.
He could no longer look people in the eye, having to cover his face and call out "Leper, Unclean" upon a chance meeting and even then he might be stoned.
And bit by bit, day by day, he was losing his ability to function - to live. That loss brought with it two new companions that seemed to never leave - fear and hopelessness.
But he had heard about a man who could heal.
If he could only get close enough, and if the man only would - could - maybe...
1 Large crowds followed Jesus as He came down the mountainside.
2 Suddenly, a man with leprosy approached Jesus. He knelt before him, worshiping. "Lord," the man said, "if you want to, you can make me well again." Matt 8:1-2 (NLT)
How he got close enough, I don't know. Maybe he hid in some bushes and sprang out as Jesus passed. The shouts of Leper! filled his ears. He knew he only had a moment before they would find the stones that would end his life. Running to Jesus and falling before Him in worship, he cried - he prayed "if you want to" - as simple a prayer as ever was spoken.
Jesus did the unthinkable - more than the man could have dreamed. In front of the crowds who had been amazed at His teaching, who had hung on every word..
He touched him, lifting him to his feet and then said..
"I want to. Be healed!"
Everything changed in an instant - all traces of the disease were gone. The man was whole, clean, cured!
Because Jesus wanted to.
I'm sitting here this morning trying to fathom what Jesus went through this week. And even before He came to earth, the conversation in heaven when God saw Adam and Eve fall into sin in the garden, and just how much pain all of mankind would suffer through sin.
"Who will go and make it right? Who will pay the price for their sins?"
And Jesus said, "I want to."
Friend, whatever you are facing this week, the clear message of Jesus can be summed up this way - "If you give me your life, I'll give you mine. I want to."
Do you want that? Do you want His love? Do you want freedom, wholeness, real life?
Then do whatever it takes to get to Him and fall before His feet asking Him to take over your life and make you whole.
He will. It's what He wants to do.
Grace!
David Wilson
This devotional is written by David Wilson, pastor of New Hope Baptist church in Valparaiso, FL. If you find you have received this via a forward and would like to receive it regularly, or find you no longer wish to receive it, drop me an email at dwilsonfl@earthlink.net and I'll make the change to the list. If you'd like to know more about New Hope, visit our website at www.newhopevalp.org . May God bless you.
How many prayers? How many times had he begged God to heal him? Add to that the prayers of his family and friends who saw a man lose it all, through no fault of his own. It was a disease - leprosy - that changed everything.
He had lost the companionship of his wife and children, as he had to be shut out of the village and to live among others like him.
He could no longer choose what to wear, being required to wear the lepers black, torn clothing.
He could no longer look people in the eye, having to cover his face and call out "Leper, Unclean" upon a chance meeting and even then he might be stoned.
And bit by bit, day by day, he was losing his ability to function - to live. That loss brought with it two new companions that seemed to never leave - fear and hopelessness.
But he had heard about a man who could heal.
If he could only get close enough, and if the man only would - could - maybe...
1 Large crowds followed Jesus as He came down the mountainside.
2 Suddenly, a man with leprosy approached Jesus. He knelt before him, worshiping. "Lord," the man said, "if you want to, you can make me well again." Matt 8:1-2 (NLT)
How he got close enough, I don't know. Maybe he hid in some bushes and sprang out as Jesus passed. The shouts of Leper! filled his ears. He knew he only had a moment before they would find the stones that would end his life. Running to Jesus and falling before Him in worship, he cried - he prayed "if you want to" - as simple a prayer as ever was spoken.
Jesus did the unthinkable - more than the man could have dreamed. In front of the crowds who had been amazed at His teaching, who had hung on every word..
He touched him, lifting him to his feet and then said..
"I want to. Be healed!"
Everything changed in an instant - all traces of the disease were gone. The man was whole, clean, cured!
Because Jesus wanted to.
I'm sitting here this morning trying to fathom what Jesus went through this week. And even before He came to earth, the conversation in heaven when God saw Adam and Eve fall into sin in the garden, and just how much pain all of mankind would suffer through sin.
"Who will go and make it right? Who will pay the price for their sins?"
And Jesus said, "I want to."
Friend, whatever you are facing this week, the clear message of Jesus can be summed up this way - "If you give me your life, I'll give you mine. I want to."
Do you want that? Do you want His love? Do you want freedom, wholeness, real life?
Then do whatever it takes to get to Him and fall before His feet asking Him to take over your life and make you whole.
He will. It's what He wants to do.
Grace!
David Wilson
This devotional is written by David Wilson, pastor of New Hope Baptist church in Valparaiso, FL. If you find you have received this via a forward and would like to receive it regularly, or find you no longer wish to receive it, drop me an email at dwilsonfl@earthlink.net and I'll make the change to the list. If you'd like to know more about New Hope, visit our website at www.newhopevalp.org . May God bless you.
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
The Plane! The Plane!
Well, it finally happened. After almost five years of preaching in a church with a side wall of glass, underneath the approaches of Eglin Air Force base, having to compete almost weekly for the congregation's attention with all manners of high performance and commercial aircraft - I lost it - right in the middle of a sermon.
"Whoa - cool!" I believe were my exact words. (I'm not sure about what that is in Greek or Hebrew)
It was a stealth fighter coming low over the sanctuary that finally got me to notice. Of course everyone else already had. The movement of such a unique airplane did it.
Reflecting on that this morning got made me think - how can you tell when a church is moving forward? And how does the world outside notice?
With the planes, when they turn and cut against the air, their speed creates a "ripping" sound that lets you know that they are pushing through the opposition on their way.
With the church, what catches my eye is people.
When people of various backgrounds and places in life are coming to worship, and staying after to share - that's movement.
When families grow stronger and when those families grow closer to others, that's movement.
When individuals grow in the reality of their commitment to Christ, and then display that commitment by going against the culture - staying faithful in marriage, true in their words and actions in every situation to what they say they believe - that's movement.
But when will the world notice?
34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples." John 13:34-35 (NLT)
This week, that love might take the form of invitation - asking a friend or neighbor to share the Easter experience with you. From Good Friday's gloom to Sunday's exhilaration - it is a weekend to be with those you love. Bring them all - that surely will be noticed.
Grace!
David Wilson
This devotional is written by David Wilson, pastor of New Hope Baptist church in Valparaiso, FL. If you find you have received this via a forward and would like to receive it regularly, or find you no longer wish to receive it, drop me an email at dwilsonfl@earthlink.net and I'll make the change to the list. If you'd like to know more about New Hope, visit our website at www.newhopevalp.org . May God bless you.
Well, it finally happened. After almost five years of preaching in a church with a side wall of glass, underneath the approaches of Eglin Air Force base, having to compete almost weekly for the congregation's attention with all manners of high performance and commercial aircraft - I lost it - right in the middle of a sermon.
"Whoa - cool!" I believe were my exact words. (I'm not sure about what that is in Greek or Hebrew)
It was a stealth fighter coming low over the sanctuary that finally got me to notice. Of course everyone else already had. The movement of such a unique airplane did it.
Reflecting on that this morning got made me think - how can you tell when a church is moving forward? And how does the world outside notice?
With the planes, when they turn and cut against the air, their speed creates a "ripping" sound that lets you know that they are pushing through the opposition on their way.
With the church, what catches my eye is people.
When people of various backgrounds and places in life are coming to worship, and staying after to share - that's movement.
When families grow stronger and when those families grow closer to others, that's movement.
When individuals grow in the reality of their commitment to Christ, and then display that commitment by going against the culture - staying faithful in marriage, true in their words and actions in every situation to what they say they believe - that's movement.
But when will the world notice?
34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples." John 13:34-35 (NLT)
This week, that love might take the form of invitation - asking a friend or neighbor to share the Easter experience with you. From Good Friday's gloom to Sunday's exhilaration - it is a weekend to be with those you love. Bring them all - that surely will be noticed.
Grace!
David Wilson
This devotional is written by David Wilson, pastor of New Hope Baptist church in Valparaiso, FL. If you find you have received this via a forward and would like to receive it regularly, or find you no longer wish to receive it, drop me an email at dwilsonfl@earthlink.net and I'll make the change to the list. If you'd like to know more about New Hope, visit our website at www.newhopevalp.org . May God bless you.
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