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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
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 Nazareth
In another town a woman called out, “Lord,
Lord,” and received back from the grave her son. But not in Nazareth 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
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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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