Tuesday, September 18, 2012

A LEFT OVER GOD (Continuaton)

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       The sermons found on this blog are selected sermons preached by Rev. Wyrick during a ministry of over 50 years.  This syndicated columnist/minister thanks you for visiting.

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I know I keep talking about camping, but I have done a lot of it so here I go again. 

       As a Boy Scout, I learned to make a fire using a magnifying glass, or a piece of flint, or rubbing two sticks together.  It was a fascinating study in patience and perseverance.  There would be smoke and then a teeny, tiny flame and if I fanned it and feed it I would end up with a roaring campfire. 

       I think faith is like that.  A new Christian is a tiny flame seeking to grow bigger and stronger, but at the beginning it can too easily be blown out, or kept weak by the slightest adversarial breeze.  It certainly won’t grow very fast or very much if we don’t give it proper attention and fuel.  

A good prayer life, an on-going spiritual study – these are the magnifying glass, the piece of flint, the rubbing of two spiritual sticks that make “this little light of mine” not little anymore.     These are what make one more on fire to the presence of God.  

Do you practice an inadequate faith?  A faith struggling to survive with only ere-now-and-then prayers prayed by an ere-now-and-then practitioner?   

       A left-over faith and attitude toward a left-over God denying the importance of fulfilling a personal destiny?  An inadequate belief system invites the Lord to come into one’s life, but with built-in restraints.  It loudly whispers that it is nothing to get excited about it. 

But what the Bible teaches, who Christ is and how your destiny and mine fit into the great scheme of things, really is something to get excited about.  We are personally created by a divine plan.  We are not an accident.  He is the Maker.  We are the clay.

I said the Bible teaches…did I say it because as a preacher I’m supposed to say it? 

No. 

I said it because we need the Bible to under gird our faith.  Without it you may have trouble backing up your faith to yourself and to others.  Without it people are running on low octane spiritual fuel, aptly named assumptions or surmises.

“In the beginning was the Word, (which is Jesus) and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  (John 1:1)  “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”  (John 1:14)  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)  We need these WOW phrases.  They are vitamins for our souls.

Did you ever consider that the whole Christian belief process is a come-as-you-are-party?  He doesn’t ask that we be clothed in perfection, just that we believe in Him and accept His forgiveness for our sins.  And, if we really believe, we will work harder at not having so many sins to be forgiven. 

What is faith?  Certainly it is more than just a feeling.  It is complete trust.  A consciously made decision, not a wishy-washy maybe.

Sometimes one of the best ways to describe something is to name some people who didn’t just know but followed.  Take Noah in the book of Genesis for example.  While all around him were those who were rebellious toward God and the idea that God had spoken directly to him, but not Noah.  Even though the sun was brightly shining and continued to shine, he went ahead and built the Ark anyway. 

Belief systems get things done. 

Abraham was declared “right with God” not because of a list of human achievements he had accomplished, but rather because of his belief system. 

Moses gave up the riches the Pharaoh of Egypt offered him to devote himself to his faith in God.  A belief system created a leader who took his people to a promised land.

Bottom line, your faith is what you believe in.  There was a man who was very rich and when he knew that he soon would die, he negotiated with God that when it happened he would be able to bring all that he could cram into one suitcase.  And so it happened, and there he was standing at the pearly gates with his huge, extremely heavy, suitcase by his side.  St. Peter walked up to him and looking at the suitcase asked how it was that he had managed to come all this way with “that bundle with a handle.”  

“God said I could,” the man explained. 

“Very unusual,” said St. Peter, “but if you have been given special permission then I suppose it is alright.  May I see what is inside?” 

The man opened his suitcase and there they were, one gold bar after the other.

St. Peter shook his head and said, “This is the wealth you brought from earth?  You bought pavement?” 

Everyone has a belief system.  Where they aim that belief system is the difference between a rainbow-life or one that is tattletale gray. 

The atheist, because his belief system demands he believe in something, believes in himself.  Or he believes in what he accomplishes, or his psychic well-being is tied to his bank account.  Saddam Hussein believed in his power over the tiny kingdom of Iraq.  

Some CEO’s believe in their little kingdoms that get them listed among the world’s richest men.  Power, pride, greed, the list is long.  Oh, yes, everyone has a belief system.  And yes, I ask the expected, what is yours?

I remember a physician friend of mine telling me that in his experience almost everyone prays before they die.  A left-out, left-over God becomes very important when eternity may be only a heartbeat away. 

It is to this innate longing I have been speaking, and the need for each of us to give Him our all rather than give Him our spiritual, emotional and mental leftovers. 

To not fall victim to what I call “The Hometown Syndrome.”  What do I mean by that?  Well, remember how it was when Jesus went back to His hometown and their response?

 He had fed 5000 people from a meager measure of food.  He had healed sick people in Capernaum.  Enormous crowds had followed Him with great faith and hung on His every word.  And then he came back home to Nazareth where he was met with a complete lack of enthusiasm.  In these hometown folk he found no praise, no acceptance, only cynicism, and what happened is duly recorded, “He could do there no mighty work because of their unbelief.”

In another town a woman called out, “Lord, Lord,” and received back from the grave her son.  But not in Nazareth.  Elsewhere a woman reached out and touched his garment and was healed.  But not in Nazareth.

All those who have written the mighty hymns we sing, is it because they reached out to the Lord and He mightily touched their souls?  The great hymns you have sung and been moved by, can you really believe they came from someone who gave God the leftovers of their lives?  Is what you feel in direct proportion to how much you have given of yourself to God, a kind of spiritual boomerang effect?

While Rome fell the church grew, conquered the conquering barbarians by bringing many of them to the Lord.  And what of the church in our 21st century?  I will tell you what of.  It is still a great force, often despite rather than because of us.  And why?  Because it teaches what is true, that “this earthly life is an intermediate stage in a threefold life.”  (Bruce Barton)
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CLICK ON  www.go60.us   IT WILL TAKE YOU A NEW WEBSITE FOR SENIORS....click on "Voice" on the home page and then on the list of authors click on Neil Wyrick 

Recent articles Rev. Wyrick has written for this web site are:  


·         Here Comes Summer (July 2012)

·         Spring (May 2012)

·         Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow (April 2012)

·         Wayward and Windy (April 2012)

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