Years ago, drinks came in glass bottles. Not everyone saved their bottles but through them out on the side of the road. Those bottles could be returned for cash. As a kid, that was a gold mine. One of the memories I have of growing up was looking for bottles so that we could take it to the store to get some money. Of course, that money went to buying penny candy. When you were looking for bottles, you had to keep a sharp eye out for them. You would walk beside the road, looking for something shiny. When you saw it, you would try to get it in bushes, briars or whatever you had to go through to get it. A broken bottle would break your heart, but a whole one was a jackpot. I wish I could say that all of the bottles we picked up were discarded, unfortunately some of them may have been found on a back porch or two. For the most part, however, it was the hard work of keeping a watch out for bottles.

The bible tells us that we are to keep watch. 1 Peter 5:8 says “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”  We have to have a sharp eye to keep watch for the devil’s schemes. He disguises himself as an angel of light to deceive us. He will try to make us question our faith and trust in God’s promises. He uses various temptations, such as lust, pride, power, and discouragement, to lead us astray. He tries to create feelings of discouragement, doubt, and fear to weaken our resolve. He may use past mistakes or failures to make us feel hopeless and unworthy of God’s grace. He may promote anger, bitterness, and resentment to tear down bonds of friendship and unity. He can use his influence to sow seeds of conflict and strife. 

As Christians we must have a sharp eye out for the devil’s schemes by staying alert and aware of spiritual battles and temptations. We must  actively resist evil, and staying close to God through prayer, scripture, and fellowship. We need to pray regularly both by ourselves and with one another for  wisdom, discernment, and protection from temptation. We need to allow the bible to shape our thoughts and actions through regular bible study and meditation. Ultimately we must seek first His kingdom, by making a conscious effort to make our relationship with God and our spiritual growth a priority.

I grew up in a military family. For much of my childhood, we lived far from our extended family. When I was about ten years old, we moved to Fayetteville, NC, which was about an hour and a half to two hours from where my parents grew up and where my extended family lived. One of my favorite places to go was to my Uncle John’s store. Uncle John had an antique furniture store in an old building. For me, it was a maze of mystery filled with rows upon rows of furniture and other oddities, most of which I could not see over. As a child, it was an adventure.

Now that I am older, I realize that I did not appreciate all the hard work my Uncle John did. He went all over the country finding old pieces of furniture that often times people threw away. Some of it was damaged, all of it was worn with age. But my uncle was able to take the time to repair and restore old furniture until it became valuable again. It was hard work and as I child I missed the true wonder of his store. I wish I could have gone to learn from him how to bring about the wonderful restorations he did, but unfortunately, years late a tornado went through the area and destroyed his store.

The good news is that we can all be a part of wonderful restorations. When a person becomes a Christian, they become a new creation in Christ. God begins the process of restoring each of us to what He created us to be. The good news is that at the moment we are saved, God sees us as saints because He sees Christ in us. As we grow as believers, what God sees us on the inside begins to work its way out in the way we live. We can be a part of God’s restoration by telling people about Jesus and when they are saved by helping them grow in the Lord.

Someone asked me recently how many schools I attended, since I grew up in a military household. I told them that I had gone to 3 elementary schools, 2 junior high schools and 1 high school. I cannot remember every one of the teachers I had, but one stands out. Coach Sisk was my 8^th grade history teacher. He also coached basketball. I tried out for the team but did not make it, but that did not give me a bad opinion about Coach Sisk. The one thing that he did that made him memorable was that he took an interest in me, He listened and even as a thirteen-year-old, I could tell that he genuinely cared.

Coach Sisk did not have to do great things in order to be memorable and to make a difference. It was the little things; he did every day that made a difference. As Christians, God has called us to be His witnesses. It is not the big things that we do as Christ’s witnesses that will make the difference but the little things we do every day.

If we take an interest in people, if we truly listen to them. If we can demonstrate that we really care about people, we can make a difference in their lives and we can tell them about Jesus. It is often said, people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. We can demonstrate care and share Jesus. This is everyone’s responsibility. Elton Trueblood said, “Evangelism is not a professional job for a few trained men but is instead the unrelenting responsibility of every person who belongs to the company of Jesus.”  What little things are you doing to help others know Jesus.

That is not the way it is supposed to be. Early in the book of Acts, when the Christian church was started, it was custom to meet on the seventh day, the Old Testament Sabbath. But later Christians switched to the first day of the week. They met each Sunday  to celebrate the day that Jesus was raised from the dead.  The day came to be called the Lord’s Day (Revelation 1:10).

Every Sunday is in a sense, Easter Sunday. Every week, we remember that we have been rescued from our sins. We are united with a risen, living Lord. We also gather with our new family created through our mutual faith in Jesus. The Bible calls us to meet regularly gather each Lord’s day to gather, to celebrate Christ in worship with joy and thankfulness, as well as to encourage and help one another to grow in our faith.

We should have the same excitement every Sunday that many feel on Easter Sunday. Sunday worship should be the highlight of our week. It should be something we look forward to and something we hate to miss.  Is that how you feel?

Romans 8:28 is one of the most precious promises of God but is often misunderstood. We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose (CSB). The passage does not teach us that all things are good, nor does it teach us that the bad circumstances of life will turn out good. It does not teach us that we will understand on this side of glory everything that happens to us. If you do not believe me ask Job.

The passage is a promise that in the end, we will discover that all things work together for our ultimate good. Most of my friends know that I love chocolate. In fact, chocolate has been a vice for me for as long as I can remember. My mom used to make chocolate cakes from scratch. One of the ingredients was cocoa powder. I saw the name Hershey’s on the cocoa powder in the pantry and thought, this must be good.  Long story short, it was not good, in fact it was terrible. How in the world could something so bitter be an ingredient to make something so delicious. It has to be worked together with other ingredients.

God takes everything in our lives both good and bad and He works them together and He brings something good out of them. It is not the good that we think that God should bring but our ultimate good. In fact, the very next verse tells us what the ultimate good is. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29 CSB). God uses everything in our lives, and He works them together so that we might become more like Jesus.

As we approach Easter Sunday, we are remined that Jesus’ death was not an accident but what God had planned from the foundations of the world. Jesus had set his face towards Jerusalem. He had an unwavering determination to follow His Father’s will to go to Jerusalem for there He would be crucified. On his way, he made his way to Jericho and as was leaving a blind man named Bartimaeus began to cry out, “Jesus Son of David have mercy on me.”  He cried out loud and he cried out non-stop.

The people around him kept telling Bartimaeus to be quiet. He was socially insignificant who had to live on the mercies of others. Jesus was popular and to the crowds Bartimaeus would have been considered a disturbance. But Jesus heard a cry of faith, not believing that Jesus would give him alms to sustain his pitiful life, but for healing of his blindness. He called Jesus, son of David. Which is to say, Jesus the Messiah, the anointed one of God. Bartimaeus had the opportunity to further express this faith, when Jesus asked him what he wanted Jesus to do for Him. He said, I want to see. Jesus touched him and healed him.

This Easter season, you may feel insignificant. You may feel that there is no hope. You may even feel that you are nothing but an interruption to other people’s busy lives. You are not any of these things to Jesus. Cry out to Him in faith, believe and Jesus will come to you, just as He came to Bartimaeus.

I grew up in church, in fact, I tell people that I have been in church since 9 months before I was born. I grew up singing hymns and spiritual songs. My dad led our family in devotions after we ate and some of my earliest memories were pretending I was the music minister leading my family in a song after the Bible reading and prayer.

Throughout my life there have been songs that expressed my faith and helped me grasp the truths of what we believe as Christians. I am grateful for churches who made sure that I was singing songs that did this and not just taught us to sing songs just because they were popular. Hymns such as Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, and the Solid Rock helped shape my faith. Songs like Rise Again by Dallas Holm and Praise the Lord by the Imperials helped me express my faith in my youth. Throughout my years in ministry songs like Holy Ground, Shout to the Lord, In Christ Alone, and now The Goodness of God have helped me to worship and strengthen my faith.

I am so glad that God said, Sing to the Lord a new song (Psalm 96).Yes, I still love singing the old songs, but I enjoy signing the new songs as well because they help to express my faith in new and deeper ways. Keep singing but also keep singing with all your heart for the songs help us to express what we believe, but how you sing it expresses how much you believe it.

When was the last time that you cried? Did you cry over good news? You found out you were going to be a new parent or grandparent. Did you cry over bad news? You found out someone you loved has cancer, or a friend died. We cry when we’re sad, and we cry when we’re joyful. We can cry when we are in pain or even when we are overwhelmed. When was the last time that you cried over your sin?

Luke 22:62 says that Peter went out and wept bitterly. He did so after he had done what he said he would never do, He denied knowing the Lord. That truly was a grievous sin but aren’t all our sins grievous. David prayed in Psalm 139 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me. Every sin grieves God and should grieve us.

Our problem to often is that we compare our sins to others and so we can say I am not that bad. But every sin that I commit is as R.C. Sproul said, an act of cosmic treason against a holy God. We live by singing, I did it my way instead of what we should, live His way. Because we take our sin so lightly, and we choose to feed our sin rather than kill our sin. We excuse our sin rather than weep over them.  The quickest way to kill our sins is to think about Jesus. When we truly understand that Jesus took the hell we deserve for every sin I commit, so that we can receive the heaven He deserves then we will weep for the pain that we caused Jesus. So when was the last time you wept over your sin?

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is healed the man possessed by a legion of Demons. This story is found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This demon possessed man had gone wild. The demons kept him naked and forced him to live in the tombs. No one could contain him or control him, that is, until he met Jesus. With just a word, Jesus cast the demons out of Him and immediately he was himself again. I do not know how long, he was in this condition, but he was driven away from family, friends, and all of society. But now he was whole and able to return home. But this young man’s desire was not to return home but to go with Jesus. Yet, Jesus told him, “’Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.’ And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him” (Luke 8:39).

God has called you and I to be His witnesses (Acts 1:8). A witness is someone who tells others what they have seen or experienced. If you are a Christian, you have a story of what God has done for you. Too often, we think that if our story is not flashy, or if I am not famous then my story does not matter. That is a lie. Your story matters and it can help connect someone with God.

Your story can be summarized by sharing about your life before Christ, how you came to Christ, and what Christ is doing for you today. My story is simple. I was raised in a Christian home and in church. At a very young age, I heard the gospel that Jesus Christ died for my sins according to Scripture, that he was buried and on the third day he rose from the dead. I trusted Jesus for my salvation. But for a long time, I was not trusting Christ alone for my salvation. I was looking at my performance and because I kept sinning, I doubted my salvation. But one day, I came to understand that my salvation is based solely on Jesus’ performance and not my own. Since then, I have not had a doubt, and because I know how much He loves me, I want to serve Him. That is my story, what is yours.