"My mom is 86 years old and she still hasn’t forgiven me for something I did when I was 16. She brings it up from time to time, say at Thanksgiving and Christmas. She and dad were leaving town for a week, and mom wanted to make sure that her blessed flowers would be cared for in her absence. She had beautiful flowers. She also had four servants — I mean sons — who helped her in the yard. Well, she took me by the T-shirt and told me in no uncertain terms that there were some weeds from Hades who were trying to kill her beloved flowers. She pointed them out to me. “This one and this one and this one. Kill them! Do you understand? Everyday, kill them and their kin.” “Yes ma’am.” I was 16. And in the 40-plus years since then, I haven’t learned to listen to females. I thought, “Any dummy can tell the difference.” And so, in her absence I started pulling, destroying — yes, with glee — all the weeds I could find in her beloved garden. Well, they all kind of looked alike. So, I flipped a coin. “Heads it’s a weed.” Some weeds look like flowers, you know. So, I pulled some flowers and left some weeds. And when the landowner returned, it was not pretty. Why is it that flowers sometimes look like weeds and weeds sometimes look like flowers? Emerson said, “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues haven’t been discovered.” And who decides which is which? It is probably the same person who decided that annuals don’t bloom every year. Say what? Then, why call them annuals? It is sad that Christians and non-Christians can look so much alike. When I was growing up you could tell because Christians, especially Baptists, were the ones wearing leisure suits. Remember those? One Sunday my dad put on his yellow one. “Dad you wear that and I’m not going to church.” Now that leisure suits are out of style, how can people tell the Christians and non-Christians apart? Oh, I forgot, we are the ones with bumper stickers. How would your neighbors tell, really? Could they tell because you live your life with such gratitude? Could they tell because you don’t run down other people? Or might it be because of the way that you handle wealth, choosing to live moderately and give generously? What if the difference is how you treat the down and out? Could they discern the difference because your heart overflows with love? Can your neighbors hang around you and your family and tell that there is something different and good about how you live? It’s a fair question for those of us who say that we have been “saved.” When I worked on a college campus with students, every year they would come with the same request: We need a campus revival. “What do you mean?” “We want you to bring in a preacher and we will have services every night. People will repent and start living for God,” they would say. “How might the revival affect you?” I would ask. “What do you mean?” “If we had revival and it affected you, then how would it affect how you live your life?” I would explain. I continued, “Would it cause you to spend more time reading your Bible instead of playing vide games?” “Yes sir,” they would say. “Then why don’t you start now doing just that?” “Would it cause you to be more loving and kind to your roommate?” I would ask. “Yes, sir,” they would sheepishly respond. “Then why don’t you go ahead and do that now,” I would implore. It just seems to me that there should be a clear difference between those of us who profess faith in Christ and those who don’t. What will that difference be? And what would it look like?" - Steve Davis, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Carrollton/Times-Georgian /August 22nd 2013
Posted on: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 01:21:38 +0000
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