Changing your Bait

I went fishing the other day and I must confess that I love to fish. I enjoy all types, but mainly, I enjoy bass fishing. Now, any good fisherman worth his weight in salt will not spill his beans on his lures he uses to catch his fish. However, I will share some insights on what happened yesterday while fishing with a relative.

I had my "favorite" lure attached to my favorite rod/reel combo. I was casting and casting and casting and absolutely nothing happened. Well my fishing partner was fishing with his favorite lure and he was catching them left and right. So, guess what I did? Nothing! I kept on using my favorite lure to no good.

Here is my point.

Sometimes we have to change to catch the fish we desire to catch. I had some people from El Salvador attend our restaurant church this past Sunday. I now have to learn Spanish. Now, you may say they need to learn English. Well, that is true and that would be nice. But, they told me they have been living in my town for 7 years and not one time have they been to church. 7 years with no church. Someone has to reach them for Christ. I think that I will start to learn Spanish.

I will change my bait.

What do you value?

I was recently watching a re-run of M*A*S*H the other night and something Hawkeye Pierce said struck a thought in my mind. We as Americans have lost our value system. Hawkeye was the attending Physician to a wounded soldier. This soldier was wounded in his knee. His dad was a General and was visiting him. The next day Hawkeye came into the Generals trailer and told him his son had died. The conversation that followed is amazing. The General asked Hawkeye if he had any children. Hawkeye said, "No, i'm not married."

There use to be a time when we all said that. Children were associated with people being married. A Man and Woman united and then the children were born. Today it is not that way. Our society is littered with people who desire to experiment with living together first and if we have kids, no worries. Our values have changed.

According to this website, http://www.fatherhood.org/media/consequences-of-father-absence-statistics 24 million children live without a Father in the house. This same website says that between 1989 and 1990 217,798 children were born and infants without a father's name on the birthday certificate were 2.3 times more likely to die the first year of life compared to infants with a father's name on a birth certificate.

It is not an acceptable lifestyle to live together.

It is not an acceptable lifestyle to have children out of marriage.

Now, you cannot change what has happened. However, you can surely change once you have opened your eyes and seen the truth. Hawkeye may have had a whiskey distill in his tent, but man, he sure told us what he valued.

The behind the counter worker

I am sitting in a local restaurant this morning writing this article. This particular restaurant is on the local highway which connects two small cities together. It is well traveled by “outsiders” who are passing by as well as the locals. Today is no exception to the crowd. There is a mixture of outsiders and locals dining in this morning.

I am sitting here trying to figure out which ones are Christians by their actions. I see five sets of tables being utilized by these various groups. One table, the elderly man asked one of the elderly women to pray over their food. Does this constitute them being Christians? I see a middle age man and woman eating their food and discussing God, but yet, they did not pray. Are they Christians? The others are just eating and not talking. So, who are the Christians?

One man is at the front counter now complaining about his order. Is this man a Christian? The worker at the counter is definitely not a Christian (her works before coming in prove that) and she is smiling at the young man as he is complaining. I wonder if she saw him praying over his food prior to walking up to the register to complain. I wonder if she is not a Christian because of this young man’s actions.

Two bicycle missionaries come walking in now. Are they Christians? They have their black pants, white shirt, ties, and their satchels as they order their food. I got distracted and couldn’t see if they prayed over their meal. Others around them are ignoring them with the exception of one table. They are “whispering” and laughing about them. Does that make them Christians because they are riding around on bicycles sharing their gospel? I wonder what would happen if other denominations rode around on bicycles? Would our community see that as being Christian?

A boisterous child comes running in now. His mother is scolding him for being so loud and unruly. Some of the tables are murmuring among themselves stating how they would handle the situation. The mother is frustrated in her attempts to get her child to calm down. He is still very active. She is saddened in her eating. Not one person went to her and spoke. Several murmured to their eating partners about the situation. Is that mother a Christian? I wonder if she saw the praying eaters talk about her.

The prayers got up and walked out the door. They left their trash on their table. The worker behind the counter saw this. She turned and talked to another worker and both workers stared at the table. The behind the counter worker walked over and cleaned the table off. No tip due to this being a fast food restaurant. Just a disgruntled worker who isn’t a Christian cleaning the trash from a table where people prayed over their food.

A nice couple walks in. They greet the behind the counter worker with a smile and “how you doing?” She smiled back and said she is fine. They give the order and politely say thank you to the behind the counter worker. They walk by some other eaters and smile and speak. They sit down and join hands and say a small prayer thanking God for their meal. They talk some small talk and just as quick as they sat down, they were standing up. They clean up their mess. They walk up to the counter and ask the young lady at the counter for a rag. The behind the counter worker asks why. The young couple said they spilled some coke and they would like to clean it off. The behind the counter worker smiled and said she would clean it off. She walks over to the table and cleans the spill. The young couple waits with her and apologizes for their error. They share pleasantries with each other and depart. The behind the counter worker walks back and goes to fellow worker and talks. They both look over toward the table and smile.

I wondered if the behind the counter worker saw Christ today in the restaurant? Another group of travelers are arriving in now. In fact these are very intriguing to me. One is a set of women who are wearing long dresses, no make-up, and their hair all standing very tall. The other is a group of teenagers wearing tee shirts that has some sort of biblical connotation writing on it. They are in a “church” van. One of the tee shirts kids walks up to order. This young person is a teenager of color. One of the long dresses and long hair and no make-up look at the teenager and…

The cycle starts over again with this behind the counter worker.

Why churches should have "color"

Our society is filled with all kinds of woes. People are losing jobs on a daily attitude. Just today, I was told of a 40 something year old man that lost his job due to lack of business. He has worked in the same field for 24 years. This is heart wrenching for this man and his family. What will he do?

Television is making a mockery of what normal families should be like. Hollywood is showing the world that Christ isn't that important. Fill all of this with schools acting like idiots and you then have to look at our churches.

Drive by any normal typical church and look at the racial atmosphere of the churches. Why are churches, both white and black afraid to have people of color sitting in the same congregation? We can go to any restaurant in America and work with any race, but for whatever reason, we cannot worship the same God together. Why?

It saddens me to know that we have people who will openly say that they will not sit in the same church with someone who is a different color than them and be happy for saying such things.

My idea of a true heaven is anyone who is saved (born again). Not only the ?'s and the ?'s

If you have asked Christ in your heart, then you are it my friend.

So, I ask again, why can't churches have people of different color worship together? Because they don't want to do such a thing is the nice way to say it. I am more concerned about our young people today. Will they grow up to act the same way?

Look at your church my friend and ask a simple question. If someone of a different color walked in, would their be gasps and aw or would their be "welcome?"

The devastation of sin

We are all guilty of committing sins that are outlandish in nature. We are all guilty of doing things that we painfully regret. It is not why we do such acts, but how we feel when we do such acts.

I will not take time to quote scriptures in this blog, but instead just paraphrase such scriptures. We all know the story of how Peter denied Christ three times. We all know how his boldness made him stand out and say he would never. Well, how did he feel after the third time and he heard the rooster crow? He was utterly miserable. The Bible says he wept. He was miserable and since none of us was around, we cannot for certain actually say how he felt. I think I know how he felt by what Christ said. Do you recall when Christ told the followers to go and tell the disciples and Peter where he would be waiting? Christ knew that Peter was hurting or more importantly, suffering from his denial. Peter was afraid and in the moment of fear he gave in to his sin. His denial was more than he could stand. Sin may look pretty for a moment, but in reality, it is so ugly that it destroys not only your life but your way of thinking. You cannot focus on doing what is right when you have the devastation of sin in your life.

Take someone who is running from the law. They can never sleep at night in peace. They are always looking over their shoulder and they can never trust anyone. The devastation of sin is the same. We are always wondering what will be the outcome of such action. Even when Christ is walking with us, we at times take our mind off of Him and we succumb to the temptation of sin. The consequences of such actions lead us to live in regret and misery. However, we must establish ourselves to the point that when we accept the action that comes from our actions, we can go on and walk with Him again. I saw a little boy fall down the other day. Man, he cut his knee and he was screaming in pain. However, his mother made him stand up. She made him after a few moments of mothers love toward him continue walking. Sin is devastating, but let's keep walking. You will make a mistake. That is certain. Just don't stay down in that pit when you make such mistakes.

Tests in High School is a waste of time

The minimum school days in Alabama is 180 days according to this website that was accessed on January 14, 2012 ( http://teaching.about.com/od/ProfilesInEducation/a/Alabama-Schools.htm ). Let us do some math and we can show just by doing math that taking tests will use up valuable time in our schools that could be used for more study.

Let's say for talking purposes that you have 7 periods each day. For argument sake, you have tests each Friday. If you have 7 periods a day, you in essence meet 180 times minimum for each subject. Let's do some subtraction.

The average school will lose one day per school year for Homecoming activities, Christmas parties, some kind of assembly or field trip. Just those days will add up to at least 5 days. That now leaves you with 175 days.

Some more subtraction. Tests on Fridays will subtract 36 days of study time to write answers down. You have now lost 36 days plus 5 days plus an additional 3 days for unforeseen circumstances. That is a grand total of 44 days. That gives you now only 136 days of school learning.

Here is my proposal to offset such waste of time. Throw away the idea or notion that you have to test everything you teach. That is totally ludicrous and it is almost barbaric to keep this tradition going. Here is another alternative for tests. According to Lynn Jacobs and Jeremy Hyman from http://www.delaneykirk.com/2008/10/how-to-take-goo.html, taking notes for yourself is the single best way to engage in and remember the lecture.

The key to this is remembering the lecture. The idea is for our students to remember what was taught to them. Therefore, grade the notebook and see if they are taking notes. The idea that you have to test the student to see if they remember the material is asinine. What if that student had problems in the car before attending school? What if they had problems with parents, or siblings and their mind just isn't into the test? A student studies all week and then has one bad day and gets a bad grade and we label them by the test.

Throw away the tests and grade the notebooks.

Alternate lifestyles are kind of wrong

It is not ok to live a lifestyle that is separate from God. You deceive yourself when you think that because you attend church or throw a few pennies in the offering plate, you are committed to Christ. It is sad or sickening; depends on which way you want to flow with this for people to parade around the world claiming their relationship with Christ is solid when in fact they are far from Him. There is forgiveness for all sins. However, you must come out from among the dead and start living with the living. What you use to be when you were in sin should change when you come into Christ. When a man marries a woman, he doesn't continue to see his past girlfriends. Our relationship with sin should be the same way. When we come into Christ, we should try and walk the way that Christ walked.

Do you recall the story when the rich ruler came to Him and wanted to serve Him? Christ told him to honor the commandments. The rich ruler said, "great, I am doing these." (paraphrasing) and then Christ told him to sell all he had to give to the poor. The man walked away from Christ due to this. HE HAD HONORED THE COMMANDMENTS but gave up God because of a little money. Sad!

Now, we live in a world that says Homosexuality is acceptable. In spite of the growing secular humanist trend to think "it's ok to be gay," it's not a righteous lifestyle. Most vocal Christians are not homophobic, but are trying to share Christ's love for homosexuals and trying to keep them from horrific judgment. (http://www.allaboutgod.com/is-homosexuality-a-sin.htm)

Our world is littered with people who claim to be something their not because they honestly don't want to change their lifestyle. It is not McDonald's fault when a person is overweight. It is not Marlboro's fault when a person gets cancer from smoking. It is not the local car wash problem if your car is still dirty. You were born into sin for the Word teaches us that. However, once you know the difference, then you choose to continue that lifestyle is your choice. God created us in His image and if you think for one second that God was a ? because you are one, then you are mistaken my friend. You are a ? because you desire to be a ?

Now, on the day of judgment and I am not your judge. I will stand before my Father for my actions, but let's be clear on this. Christ loves you and he desires you to change. You can change if you want to change, or you can continue to live the same way. Judas went to church for three years with Christ and you know what happened to him. Change my friend, change.