The Center of it All

A recent study on keeping Christ in the center of our lives got my brain working.  I actually taught this lesson to my Sunday School class, and I’m not sure I got through to them I’m not sure they heard what I wanted them too.  This is not a carbon copy of the lesson (except for 1 and 2) but it is what I want them to understand.

 

Object Lessons:

1.  Draw the circle.  Draw the best circle you can (with only paper and pencil).  Compare circles and vote for the best.  Show how to make a circle with an actual or home-made compass (string and a pencil).  Talk about how having the center point of the compass helps us make the perfect circle.

2.  Walk the dog.  This one is done in the mental realm, but one could have an actual dog and leash.  When the owner of the dog has him attached to a leash, the owner controls how far the dog can go.  The dog may think he’s an 0n-his-own-big-boy, but he can only go as far as the master allows.

3.  Tootsie Pops.  Talk about what they expect to have in the center of their tootsie pop, and what would happen if they got to the center and found a snail or something else instead of that tootsie roll.  Disappointment was given as a mild reaction and absolutely disgusted as the strongest reaction.

 

And….?

1.  Keeping Christ at our center helps us to have a “perfect,” balanced life.  There are no places where we have bumps going outside the circle or places where we don’t go far enough.  Everything in our life is tethered to Him.

2.  Tethering leads to walking the dog.  When Christ is at the center of our lives, it is like He has control over how far we can go.  I have often prayed that God would take ahold of my hand and never let go.  Then, even if I start to pull away because I see some shiny object that looks interesting, I can only go as far as His arm allows me to go.

3.  Tootsie pops should have a tootsie roll in the center.  Right?  Can you imagine biting into one and finding something gross in the center instead of that tootsie roll?  Can you imagine even biting in and finding gum instead of the tootsie roll.  It’s still edible, but it’s not what you were expecting.  It is disappointing at the very least.  Then imagine biting in and finding nothing, just a big hole where the tootsie should be.

 

 

More on 3

My father had all but given up on finding the way to Christ by the time he entered the army.  He had been baptized; he had been asked to ‘pray through’, but no one had actually told him how to accept Christ as his Savior.  Along with that, Dad had found the Christians in his life to have something else in the center besides Christ.  They were like the tootsie pop, offering something on the outside that looked good, but having a disappointing center or no center at all.   After he left for the army, his mother, my grandmother, accepted Christ.  They moved to Sandusky, Ohio and started going to church.  My mother also attended church there.  My grandmother decided Phil (dad) just had to meet this woman.  She kept asking my mother to write him.   My mother kept refusing.  She was a Christian and didn’t date non-Christian boys.

Finally Grandma brought a stamped, addressed envelope and paper and asked her to just write him one time.  If he did not respond, she was no longer obligated.  The letter basically said, “I’m a Christian.  I don’t _______, ________, or _________.  If you’re ok with that, I will write you.  If not, this is your last letter.  She also enclosed a picture (which didn’t hurt).

When my father opened and read that letter, his first thought was, “This sounds like a real Christian.”  He put her picture in his locker and wrote her back.  His letters were often searching, asking, seeking to know the Christ that my mother knew so well, the one who lived in the center of her life.

They wrote for a year and a half.  The Sunday he came home, he went forward in church and asked to join.  The pastor asked, “Have you joined Jesus yet?”   Dad told him no and someone finally showed him how he could join Jesus.  Obviously, my parents were eventually married and one year later, I was born.  My father surrendered to the ministry during this time and they struck out to live a life with Christ at the center.  Were they perfect at it?  Not! But they always sought to keep Him at the center of their lives.  I believe they have touched many people over the years because of this.

 

 

 

Our intimacy with God — His highest priority for our lives — determines the impact of our lives.”

Dr. Charles Stanley – Life principle 1

It’s all about the intimacy

Keeping Christ at the center is all about our intimacy with Him.  How do we develop intimacy with Christ?  We do it the very same way we develop intimacy with anyone.  We:

Spend time with Him (quality and quantity).

Read His love letter (the Bible).

Talk to Him (Prayer).

Learn as much as we can about Him (Experience, sharing with others, Bible study,…).

Talk to others about what He’s doing in our lives (witnessing, fellowshiping,…).

Trust Him (just as the dog trusts the master or the child trusts the parent).

Run life through His filter (what does He say/think about it vs. what the world thinks).

.  .  .

Have you ever met a Christian who could talk the talk, but was really empty inside?  (Not really a Christian)

Have you ever met a Christian who got it partly right, but Christ was off center in their life?  (Some things right, but still under strongholds of sin)

How did it make you feel?   What impression did it make on you – about the person?  – about Christ? - about Christians? – about Christianity?

Now go back to the first two questions and change out met with been.   Have you? 

We may be the only Christ others see, and keeping Him at the center of our lives brings balance to our life and glory to Him.

What’s in your center?

Something to think about

“Life is not the way it’s supposed to be.. It’s the way it is..

                The way we cope with it, is what makes the difference.”   –Unknown

Last Words

Last words

 

Spoken as she breathed her last,

Her words would always haunt me.

As the death rattle gripped her,

“Thank God, at last I’m free.”

 

Words spoken in the heat of ire,

‘Ere he walked beyond the door.

“I hate you!” flung from anger.

Now he’s gone to hear no more

 

Last words, yes we may never know,

When words spoke will be our last.

So make them soft and well thought out.

For our time goes by so fast.

 

Last words entombed forever there,

In our minds for joy or regret;

For these words can be a heritage,

Or these words can be a debt.

 

Copyright 2/7/2010 Angela Masters Young

 

This poem was created in response to a Poetry Challenge by ClownRhymes on his(?) blog.  There is still time to join in if you wish.

This challenge, different to each person entering a poem, started the cogs moving.

 

Last Words as a Heritage

When we talk about last words, we often think of words spoken by a dying person to someone at his or her bedside.   We listen carefully to these last words, spoken by one we love.  We know we will hold on to them as long as we hold on to the memory of all this person means to us.  It is the cap on the heritage of a life.   Not all of us will have the opportunity to speak, or hear, the last words of our loved ones.  We never know when the words we speak will be our last, the last ones we leave with the hearer in this lifetime.

Last Words as a Horror

In the second stanza of the poem, a person screams words he or she cannot recall.  These turn out to be last words because the other person is gone (death in this case) and can no longer hear the words of regret pouring out of the screamer’s heart.  We never know when will be the last time we see someone, what will be the last words spoken.  This should urge us to always make sure the words we leave someone with will not leave us with a heart full of regret.

 

Do you keep in mind that your words may be “last words” to someone or for someone?  

What other kinds of last words do you think we can have? 

What do you want your last words to be?

As life has taught me this lesson the hard way, I want to always say, “I love you!” because they may be the last words that person hears or that person hears from me.

Name the bars

To sum up previous posts, the conclusion is:  Yes, all sin is sin is sin.

Just because we may not see the consequences of some sins, does not mean it is not equally sin.

All sin destroys; all sin leads to death.

Jesus heals; He leads to life.

A prison of our own making

If you commit a heart sin, you may not wind up in an earthly prison, but you will be in a prison of your own making, Christian or not.

Maybe you have not committed a murder of another human being, but have harbored hatred in your heart.  Hatred, when taken to it’s natural conclusion leads to murder.  In God’s eyes, it is murder, but before it leads there overtly, it leaves a path of destruction in the life of the person and in those around him/her.

 

Where does it lead?

On a radio program, I recently heard the story of a man who found himself in prison for murder.  He was a good man.  He was only trying to protect his two step-daughters from their abusive biological father.  However, he harbored hatred in his heart and it led him farther than he ever intended to go.  Don’t delude yourself that you could never find yourself in that position, because we are all capable if we allow the heart sins to grow and fester in our lives.  The end result may have protected the girls from their biological father, but it took a good man away from them for life as well and left them with trauma and no dad at all.

This man, in his determination to protect his step-daughters, allowed his heart to harbor prison bars.  What were they?  Possibly believing lies, bitterness, not seeking God in the situation, and much more.  It is the seemingly small things that spoil our hearts and lead us to paths we never intended.  The same is true of all heart sin, be it lust, bitterness, hatred or more.

What do you suppose the actions of these fathers has planted into the hearts of the children?  The damage is extensive and while it can be healed, cannot be removed.  There will be plenty of scars in the lives of these children.  The families, friends, communities, and even society will also pay a price.

So what bars make up your prison? 

Can you name them?

What would you be willing to do to get out of prison? 

Are you in denial about the consequences of your pet sins?

Some of the bars that keep us from living fully as we should:

Guilt (real and false)

Hatred

Bitterness

Ruined Relationships

Believing lies

Denial

Judging

Unintended consequences

Planting hatred, bitterness, sin, in other hearts

Hatred, bitterness, other sin planted in my own heart.

The good news:

Jesus stands with the key, purchased with His own blood, but will not force you to allow him to open it.

“Jesus paid it all,

All to Him I owe;

Sin had left a crimson stain,

He washed it white as snow.”

Elvina M. Hall (public domain)

Can you name more bars that imprison us?

The same or different?

As I was teaching my Sunday School class one day, a topic came up and discussion took off.  We were talking about the consequences of sin.  One girl asked, “So aren’t all sins the same?” sparking my teacher thoughts to ponder an answer.  The answer to that question is YES!  and NO!  But how do you explain that to an 8th grader?  I hope you guys will chime in.

Is all sin the same?  Yes

1.  There is no victimless sin.  All sin has consequences and all sin hurts others.

2.  All sin is missing the mark.  When it comes to our worthiness for heaven, one sin (of any kind) causes us to miss the standard of holiness needed to be accepted.  Whether we miss by an inch or a mile (human thinking), we still miss.  That’s why someone who did meet the standard, Jesus, had to pay for sin in our place.

3.  All people sin.  Yes, even you and I.  If there’s anyone out there who thinks they have not, let me know.  Then give me the numbers of the people who know you best so I can validate your perfectness.

4.  We are all “born to it.”   We are all born with a sin nature.  That means our tendency is to sin.  If anyone has ever been around a 2 year old (of any age), you know exactly what I mean.  We are born with a “my way” in our genes and seek “my way” the rest of our lives.  Hopefully some of that my way is tempered as we age, but it’s always with us.

5.  Sin’s eternal consequence is determined by accepting or rejecting Christ’s sacrifice/payment for sin.  All of us have the option to invalidate the eternal consequences of our sin.  When we accept Christ as Savior and allow Him to make the payment (He already took the punishment), we are no longer responsible for the eternal consequence of breaking God’s laws.  If we do not accept Him, it’s like having your brother take a spanking for you and still asking your Dad to give you a spanking too.  Why?

6.  We all make excuses for it.  Yes, we do!  We all have this tendency to justify our own sin.  ‘I can’t help it’, ‘I was born that way’, ‘It’s harder for me than others’ (the “I’m special” syndrome), and so many more.  Of course we’re ‘born that way’; it’s called a sin nature or the flesh.  All of us have different sins that beset us most.  The devil knows exactly which sins will take us down and seeks to keep us off our game in that/those areas by feeding us with lies.

7.  The only remedy for sin is Jesus.  This is covered above, but I wanted to add it and remind about the previous posts on feeding the flesh.  When 6 happens, and we are giving in to it repeatedly, we are feeding the flesh.  We need to starve the flesh and feed the spirit.  Thank you God for sending the remedy for our sin sickness.  Even though we may attempt to become more like Christ, none of us will accomplish it in this lifetime.

8.  We all minimize our own sins and maximize others.  In other words, we want everyone to believe that we’re special and have reasons we behave as we do.  However, we are not so open when it comes to other’s sins.  We tend to judge them more harshly than we judge ourselves.

 

Is all sin the same?  No

1.  The non-eternal consequences are different. 

►Some sins have more victims and deeper hurts than others.

For example:  Having a beloved spouse cheat on you hurts way worse than having an acquantance gossip about you.  By hurt, I mean heart-hurt, but the hurt can be in other areas as well.

►The depth of the consequences depends on the relationship with the person, our own emotional state, previous life experiences, what we tell ourselves about it, how public the sin is, and how chronic the sin is.

For example:  Murder takes a life.  Does not our own justice system parcel out consequences for sin according to it’s nature and harm?  Breaking a traffic law generally has less consequences to self and others thank murder.

 

HOWEVER

The Bible says that if we hate our brother, we have committed murder; if we lust, we have committed adultery; . . .   Doesn’t that negate all the stuff about sin not being the same?  No it doesn’t;  in many ways, it confirms it.  A sin of thought – i.e. hatred  hurts for sure, but if not taken to the extreme, it doesn’t take the life of the person.  {In many ways it takes the life of the hater, but that’s another post.}  The point of that is that we are all sinners.  Look in John 3 and Matthew 5 for more about this.

One of the points of reminding us that we are all guilty, even if only in our thought life, is to remind us that we are not to judge people’s motives.  We cannot cast the first stone because we are not guiltless.  We are not better than anyone else.

 

Due to time constraints, I am leaving this post at this. (I had to write this on actual paper and with a pen!)

 

I hope you will all read, cogitate and add to this post by giving other ideas for why sin is or isn’t all the same.  You can ask questions or post links to information about this topic.  How would you explain this to an 8th grader?   Do you believe there is any point in which all sin is not alike?   The comment box is yours )