Month: January 2025

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Faith Not Only Moves Mountains, it Moves Other People

Have you ever heard stories of someone’s faith inspiring others?

There’s a story in the Bible about the faith of a guy who probably wasn’t a believer, but was moved to action by someone else’s strong faith.

Acts chapter 27, verses 13-44 tell of when Paul was on his way to be tried in Rome. Along the way, the ship he was on (with 276 people aboard) got caught in a very strong, dangerous windstorm that blew the ship hopelessly off course. This late-season storm made even veteran sailors scared. These guys tossed cables and ropes around the underside of the boat to try to help hold it together. They threw extra cargo and gear overboard to make the ship lighter. Time dragged on, and after days without seeing the sun or any stars, they gave up all hope of living through the ordeal.

That’s when Paul, a passenger on this boat, bucks everyone up. He stands up in the midst of everyone and says “hey, we’re going to be okay. Last night an angel of the Lord visited me and told me what to expect; we’re going to lose the ship, but every last one of us is going to make it through this alive, as long as we all stay on the ship.”

This lifted everyone’s spirits, but there wasn’t any concrete action yet. Sailors taking depth soundings around midnight one night learned they were entering shallower and shallower water, and they dropped all kinds of anchors to slow their speed toward the shore. They were just hoping to survive until daylight. A few of the less scrupulous sailors aboard the ship prepared to use the ship’s skiff (dinghy) to pretend to assist with the anchors. In reality, they were going to ditch everyone else aboard and try to make for land in the little boat.

Here’s the remarkable part. Paul saw what they were up to, and told Julius, the Roman centurion in charge of the ship, “hey, if those guys leave, I can’t guarantee the lives of everyone else left aboard.” Julius, a professional career military man, with no hard evidence Paul was right, did something very uncharacteristic for a man of his position. He had his men intentionally cut the skiff’s ropes, so they purposely lost that asset to the storm!

What kind of craziness is that?! The smaller boat would be very valuable to have if a shipwreck really was forthcoming. The ship did run aground, and everybody got to land safely, but Julius had no way of knowing ahead of time Paul would be right. This guy was not a believer; he was merely inspired by Paul’s faith.

People want to hope; they’re looking for a reason and an outlet for it. Do you have the kind of faith that steels the confidence of others around you? It’s important not to make things up; Paul DID get a visit from an angel. Even if you don’t get similar visits, live your Christian faith in accordance with the Bible’s teachings in such a way that your belief in God’s promises motivates others to take a closer look at the faith you’ve got.

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Why Does This Whole Thing Seem so Familiar?

I don’t have a whole lot of free time, but when I do, sometimes I like to watch old TV shows. There’s a lot of demented stuff in today’s shows, or they find ways to ratchet up the tension so much there’s no way you’re going to sleep soon after watching it. With the old stuff, yes, there might be more plot holes, or the show was written for an audience with less access to information than today’s audiences, but there’s usually no problem falling asleep after (or even during) the show.

One of the old shows I watch is Magnum, P.I. (not the remake…the original 1980s Tom Selleck version). This is a show about Thomas Magnum, a former Navy SEAL doing freelance work as a Private Investigator in Hawaii. In the show he’s constantly bumming favors from his Vietnam buddies and rarely pays back what he owes them. He gets to enjoy the lavish accommodations, including the famous red Ferrari, of a famous author’s Hawaiian estate in return for providing security advice (much to the chagrin of the estate’s caretaker, Higgins). He’s often dealing with clients that can’t pay his full rate, getting cornered in an alley by some burly dudes that don’t like him snooping around, or trying to avoid Higgins’ pair of Dobermans.

As I watched one episode, there was something about the plot that seemed very familiar, like I’d seen it before. Every 4th of July, Magnum had a tradition of spending the day alone at sea in a little boat called a surf ski. (It’s kind of like a kayak, but it’s got an open top and is easier to fall out of.) While he was out at sea, a reckless boater got too close and capsized him. He got separated from the surf ski and paddle and got caught in one of the strong currents near the islands, and he ended up needing to tread water for like, 12 hours or something crazy like that. I didn’t remember what happened in the end, but I remembered that part of it.

It turns out Magnum, P.I. was a show my dad used to watch when I was a kid. Although I was a bit too young to watch the show when it originally aired, he must’ve been catching this one as a rerun while I was dawdling and trying to avoid going to bed one night. The thought of having to tread water for hours blew my mind as a young kid (and who knows…maybe it subconsciously had something to do with my becoming a lifeguard later), and left a strong-enough impression that I remembered it more than 35 years later.

You know, back before they had TV shows, and way back before paper was readily available, people had to rely on other means to pass down significant things from one generation to the next. The Old Testament Israelites, few of which could even read or write at an advanced level, used markers and oral tradition to keep alive the memory of God’s faithfulness to them. They’d build monuments to serve as reminders for times when God saved them from destruction, or recite the story of how the Lord liberated them from Egypt (the retelling of which is commanded in Exodus 13:3-10, and still today occurs at the Passover seder). Many of the Psalms themselves are written in ways that aid memorization; some Psalms have a verse starting with each successive letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Other Psalms are sung at specific times of the year to commemorate certain things.

Even though we currently have what seems like limitless information available at our fingertips, it’s important to remember and celebrate the information we already have. The Lord’s faithfulness to us is second to none, and His grace and mercy toward us far exceed anything we deserve. Despite the fact that we’re bombarded with more information per day than any generation in history, don’t forget the importance and relevance of God’s actions toward us all. It’s the most important and consequential thing you’ll ever hear about, so don’t forget it, and be sure to pass it on to those around you.

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Alright, it’s Time To Go; Everybody out the Door!

It’s funny just how much kids can teach you about God’s dealings with us.

I’ve got three kids; a girl, a boy, and another girl. They all have different approaches when they know it’s time to leave the house.

My oldest is very deliberate, and spends a lot of time planning to avoid feeling rushed. As long as she knows the departure time, she’ll work backwards from there to calculate time for clothes, time for hair, time for gathering necessities, etc.

My son doesn’t take much time to get ready. After years of urging him to prepare, get shoes on, and use the bathroom in preparation for departure, he’s demonstrated that as long as he knows what’s coming, there’s really no need to call him until we’re about 60 seconds from actually walking out the door.

My youngest is funny. We’ll warn her about our impending departure, but she’ll stay wrapped up in a book for as long as possible. When we tell her it’s time to get shoes on because we’re leaving, that’s when she goes and packs a snack and some water. We end up waiting for her because her idea of “time to go” doesn’t jive with ours.

Based on their three different personalities, we treat them differently when we know about a deadline or timeframe we want to adhere to. The three of them need different sets of guardrails to arrive at the same end state. Their approach might be to have all questions answered before formulating a detailed plan, agreeing to the task without having much information at all, or just bobbing along with whatever today brings.

Now, keeping that parenting analogy in mind, how great is it to be known by a Creator who understands us better than we do? He knows what motivates us, what overwhelms us, what inspires us, and what deflates us. He knows exactly what we need when it’s time to get us moving in a certain direction.

Similarly, we’re all offered different opportunities to take part in building Christ’s kingdom throughout our Christian lives. We’re not required to do them, but different sets of blessings and challenges come along with each one. God already knows which of those opportunities we’ll take part in and which of them we’ll decline. He offers us invitations that are easy to accept, and others which prove to be more difficult. I imagine that while He enjoys seeing us accept those easy ones, it brings Him genuine joy to see us choose to accept the hard ones.

So the next time you know God’s extending a challenge to you, even if it’s one you don’t want to accept, why don’t you take a closer look at taking Him up on it? He knows you better than you do, and He’s going to give you everything you need to take on that challenge. Either in this life or the next, there’s a special blessing for you on the other side of your obedience.

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Christmas is Over and now it’s Time To Pay the Piper

Christmas is over. Hopefully you were able to enjoy some time with loved ones. Now the other shoe drops, though. January heralds the arrival of the credit card bills.

There’s a reason stress levels are so high this time of year. The period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day is likely the period of highest spending during the whole year for most households. If you were able to sneak through December without dealing with many bills, January’s probably not going to be quite as kind to you. Depending on how much your spending increased during the Christmas season, those bills may put a major strain on your bank account.

Well I don’t have a way for you to make all those problems go away, but I might have something that can help take the sting out of it. For next Christmas, rather than running headlong into your bills using only your regular paycheck, it might help to save up for your Christmas expenses during the whole year. I bring this up now because you’ve got almost an entire year to prepare for the next Christmas. The priority, obviously, is to pay your bills from this Christmas, but if you’re done with that already, you may want to take a look at this strategy.

How much did you spend on this past Christmas? Add everything up. Include those gifts for friends and family that come to mind easily, but what about the less obvious things? Your list might include things like gifts for your kids’ teachers or members of the club you’re part of, white elephant gifts for parties at your work, end-of-year donations, etc. Don’t forget the extra electricity for decorations (indoor and outdoor), the higher electrical demands accompanying the hosting of guests, and additional heat during cold weather. Maybe you picked up some special booze as a Christmas treat. Did you have any extra out-to-eat occasions in late December? Did you have to travel somewhere (gas/tolls/tickets)? Add all of that to your list and tally it up.

After giving it a little thought, maybe that number is a little higher than you expected. Depending on your situation (mainly how many people you purchase gifts for and how extravagant your celebrations are), your total could be anywhere between $200 and $5000 or more. I’m not going to tell you what “right” is, but if you’re feeling pinched, maybe you can make an adjustment now to help prepare for the next round.

Take your total and divide it by the number of paychecks you get in a year. If you get paid every two weeks, you get 26 paychecks a year. If you get paid twice a month, that’s 24 paychecks. After dividing the total cost by the number of paychecks, whatever number you get, that’s the amount you’d need to save per paycheck to cover the same amount of expenses this coming Christmas. Wish you had a little more cash to cover this past December’s festivities? Boost that number a bit. If you did something out of the ordinary that you don’t plan on doing again, like a special trip, you can get away with saving less per paycheck to cover things next time.

Next, it’s a good idea to have a separate bank account for you to start stashing your “Christmas cash.” You could keep it all in your normal account and keep a running tally of how much of that money is set aside for December use, but unless you’re pretty diligent about keeping track of that sort of thing, it gets hard to distinguish how much of that money is just your normal account and how much of it has been set aside for specific use. That’s an easy way for the money to get sucked into other spending throughout the year. Setting up automated ways of funding this account every paycheck makes it easy for you to build your celebration fund without having to actively think about it during the year.

By way of example, if you’re paid every two weeks, $50 per paycheck is $1300 at the end of the year. If you go $60 per paycheck when you get paid twice a month, you’re looking at a total of $1440 by your last paycheck of the year. Even small additions can add up. At those two paycheck rates, saving $5 more each paycheck can mean a total of $120 or $130 more at the end of the year. By this point you probably already got your first paycheck of the new year. Even if you did, January’s still a great time to get started on setting up this kind of system with your bank, credit union, or section of the mattress where you stash your money.

Sacrificing that much per paycheck might be too much of a stretch. I totally understand that, but I’d also ask this…if that’s too much to set aside per paycheck, do you have a reliable plan for paying it off all at once if you don’t use a method like this? If for one reason or another this strategy isn’t going to work out for you, consider doing most of the year’s paychecks like this and taking a break when needed, or only saving half or two-thirds the amount per paycheck and coming up with the rest via whatever method you’ve been using. Either way will help cushion the blow if you’re not already doing something similar.

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Some Good News About Last Year and Some Hope for the Next One

Happy New Year!

It seems like January gives us hope for a better year ahead, but by the time we get to December, we’re worn out and tired. Well let me give you some good news about the year we just closed out.

A recent study of 2024 sales of print media showed that for the year, general sales were up approximately 1% compared to the previous year. At the same time, sales of Bibles were up over 20%!

I haven’t looked real deeply into the data, but it sounds to me like there’s no downside to this. I can’t claim anything for sure as a result of this one study, but I’d guess the whole “truth is relative” movement is losing some momentum as people look for something they can count on. While TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram can be fun for awhile, sooner or later people start to question the meaning of life. No matter what, the God-shaped hole in people’s souls needs to be filled, and people seem drawn to truth.

So there’s reason for optimism as we step further into this new year. Revival should always be our prayer. If you encounter someone new to reading the Bible, help them out a little bit. It’s not the most intuitive book to get started reading. Newcomers may not realize that starting at the beginning is actually starting at the VERY beginning. The really important stuff comes much later.

If you’re one of the people picking up a Bible for the first time and you’re unsure where to start, try the book of Matthew. It covers the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. (If you get done and move on to one of the next three books, don’t be surprised if it sounds familiar; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are four different accounts of much of the same material.) There are plenty of online study plans, but I can’t overemphasize the importance of getting some insight from a Bible-teaching church, especially from small group studies the church may sponsor.

As we get a new start on the calendar, let’s keep an eye out for opportunities where we can be used by the Lord in various capacities, both in ways we’re comfortable with and in ways that stretch us. Put those spiritual gifts to good use!

Lord, as we kick off a new year, help us strive to fulfill Your calling in each of our respective lives. As this hunger for truth grows within our culture, help those seekers find reliable, grounded followers to help guide them through Your word. Help us not only represent You well, but help us also be mentors for people new to the Bible. Aside from that, give us the courage we need to follow your leading in our lives; help us to actually become the men and women You put us here to be. May this new beginning encourage us to be bold as we pursue You, being willing to take the next step even when we don’t know where the journey will lead. Above all, may You be glorified through our actions. We know Your will shall be done with or without our permission, and we thank You for the invitation to be a part of Your work in this world. Forgive us when we let You down, and help us avoid wallowing in our mistakes, instead pressing on toward the life You’ve called us to. I ask these things in Your name, amen.