Actions Speak Louder then Words

I grew up in that noted time when”everyone” my age and my age group was trying or encouraged to be individuals. We were the last of the “hippie” group, that group which is now

(the oldest of the group) hitting social security. We were all trying to be individuals so we all grew our hair a little or a lot longer! (Ha) Certainly today there are young adults trying to be individuals just like we were so they dress a like. What I have discovered is we are all individuals and we are all SHEEP as well! Maybe, instead this discovery being part of the deep meaning of galaxy, it simply tells us we were made that way by our creator, The only God of heaven and earth!

Let me give you a couple of examples, one person likes the East side of the mountains, the simple quiet shades of the brown that dots our mountains and hills. Another prefers the bright blues of the Puget Sound and the deep greens of the fir trees. One likes the East side of the state the best and other likes the West side the best. Some are hunters and outdoor people, others prefer indoors the best. Some prefer one kind of food, others wouldn’t even touch. Politics, shows us we are for most part one kind or another individuals and or group! Look at the sports teams and their supporters, whether we are Gonzaga or Seahawk fans! We dress up in their colors and chant their slogans (cheers). WE even do that as a society, look how many have become Starbucks followers even to speaking their (Starbucks) lingo? I don’t think this is bad or good in of itself! I think this is just human and the thing we need to watch about being human is not to be extremist!

Soooooo, Dave why write about this? It has to do with our lesson this Sunday morning out of 1 Corinthians 1-3! Two things I know, we’re always watching other people! And other people are always watching us! Remember you are being watch and what you do or say is being conveyed to others somehow; be sure as Christian you are communicating what Christ would want you to communicate. Second, as you watch people watch them to see their need for Jesus and if you can help them find Him do so! Dave

The Painter

The Painter of the Coulee

Sunday we were returning home and notice there seem to be a little more snow on the shoulders of the road from Bridgeport south to Leahy Jct., Then from there to Grand Coulee it was very evident that there had been light frosting of snow while we were at church services.

We live in such a beautiful place in this land; it is hard for me to understand when people cannot find beauty here. When it snowed in the Coulee last time and this time I was overcome by the beauty of The Painters strokes!

The Painter took the white of the snow and matched it with the dark gray of the slide plies of crumpled rock, some far up towards the rim and others some distance from the rim of the Coulee to make a soft gray that stands out in the Sun. With white of the snow in other places, He had the snow stand out white against the lighter big rocks that dot the roadway. If you look out my back door, the one out of our bedroom, he added the deep green of huge evergreen trees that line the mid part of the cleft. Down in the Coulee on the water in the bay by Electric City He lined a then layer of ice that even the ducks could not have walked on that shimmered in the sunlight. Have you ever noticed, when it snows that every road or path, paved or dirt shows up instantly? He then contrasted the snow covered south walls of the Coulee with the Southwest side of Steamboat rock where there is very little or no snow at all, and with the blue water, there is simply not a better masterpiece to be found except maybe in the next Coulee where Dry falls is located.

I am convinced God is willing to be “The Painter “in our lives. He still gives us the choice to let him paint in our lives’; never does He take that away! He would paint us using only the best or choicest paints. He would paint our faces with both the yellow, bright yellow of Joy and sky blue of peace, calm soft sky with no wind in it. He than is willing to paint us a patient green you know the green from evergreen trees that last hundreds of years. Next it is the pink if kindness and the orange of goodness. Pink is so soft and so is kindness! Orange is alive with color Orange just shouts good for you! Then there is the gold of Faithfulness, it shines in your eyes and almost blinds one to everything else that a goes on! Don’t forget the soft purple, that royalty that shouts gentle, gentle, gentle and then the Black and white of self-control! Don’t ever forget the God promises that we can run away from evil any time we choose too! It is pretty black or with the choice always being ours! The question is; Who is painting you? Will you be masterpiece or simply a water color? Dave

love

I mentioned last week that I bought a Barbra Streisand CD and one of the first songs is a number called “Down with Love”. In the song is the wording such as, down with cupid and it mentions all the “romantic” associated words, settings such as moonlight. The song is of course supposed from a broken – hearted victim of another’s rejected love. In the end she comes back to all the wonderful words used when love is returned. Can you imagine this world without love? It is impossible for me to really imagine a world without human love, let alone the Love from God! The Bible tells us that Love comes from God, that He loved us first! That God is love and that we are modeled (made in His imaged) after Him! We are of course are familiar with the ups and downs of human love, simply because we are human! Maybe you love someone who doesn’t love you, maybe you have been hurt because you gave your heart away and didn’t receive any love in return. Maybe you have experienced some one who broke their vowel of love to you?

Because we are humans we measure everything as we as humans can see or feel it. Sometimes we measure God’s love for us wrongly because we measure it and understand it only by human thought. I have heard from people who are disappointed in God because thy have troubles in this life. They suppose that if God loves us so, and we say that we love God that nothing bad or wrong will every touch us? This is misunderstanding of the promises God makes to us. In fact just the opposite is said by Jesus in John 15. “If the world hates you keep in mind it hated me first…Remember the words …No servant is greater than his master, if they persecuted me, they will persecute also.”

Maybe more so is our understanding or misunderstanding of God’s love for us? It is actually God’s love that He lets us be tempted. Jesus has told us that there is no temptation that we can’t say “no” too and can’t escape from. The ability to go through temptation allows saying no to Satan and yes to God. When we say yes to God, He pours more blessings in the form of Spiritual growth and I believe sometimes that includes physical blessings! You see God’s love is deep, mature love that takes working on. You can not love God and enjoy His love unless you are willing to put in the time, effort, heart… The marvelous answer is God will provide you and I help and understanding if we will preserve! I really believe we have difficulty in our human love relations with persevering. I don’t think we have as many troubles with human love in stop loving, but in persisting and not growing discouraged. You see I think we have the same problem with God’s love, in order to feel God’s love as we grow we must persevere in following Him! We as human being are sometimes not very good with perseverance, so God made us to help each other! You cannot go to heaven without help from other Christians! You cannot go to heaven by yourself. That is why God made us a family. Maybe, if you are having trouble feeling God’s love, it is because you are not loving God’s family enough? Dave

Singing to one another

I like all kinds of music! Admittedly the Polka maybe at the bottom of the list along with some others, but most music I like. Some styles are again at the bottom of the list while others are at the top. Recently I bought a Barbra Streisand CD, some of you may be already saying Barbra who? If truth is known, I like the back –up Orchestra as much as Barbra’s singing, although I like her singing. Another recent acquisition was a Dean Martin CD where someone had cut out the real “named” star Dean sung with in a duet and replaced them with a lesser known artist. But! More than just listening to them I like to sing with them. While, I enjoy just listening to music I love it when I can sing alone with it.

Most of us are closet singers I’m afraid, while studies show that the Car is the place most of us gather to sing along especially when we are alone in the car. It seems a shame that people in the world have convinced us that only people with “good voices” should sing in public. I have found that most folks have voices that are not too bad. There is something about people singing the “Star Spangled Banner rather that just hearing the music played. To hear and to see the folks standing in a ball park singing the national anthem is just inspiring! Maybe, that is why Paul writes in Ephesians 5:19, and Colossians 3: 16-17 that we are sing to one another and God! While these verses have been used wrongly in saying that they prohibit singing with instruments which is incorrect in the contextual reading, they do not! What they say speaks only to singing to one another and God. That is why I buy a Streisand CD and not just a Boston Pops Orchestra only. There is something about hearing people sing that is different to just listening to played music.

One of the wonderful things about Christmas is hearing people sing! I am convinced in my own heart that people singing the Carols together is the draw that makes them (Carols) special to the holiday! Christmas Carols just are meant to be sung together! Another example is “Jesus loves me”, I just can’t imaging singing that song without children singing? Another example of the power of singing to someone is a mothers or father voice singing to our little children as they go to sleep. I sung to ours and whether they liked it did wonders for me to sing to them, Of course when they were teens and I would sing in the shower early in the morning it wasn’t such a hit!

Obviously there is something that God enjoys when we sing to Him and I believe that He created us to like that also! There is just such encouragement when the people of God sing out loud to one another and in the Praise to God that gives encouragement! After the Americans were driven out of The Philippines by the Japanese, they gathered all the allied prisoners and march them to an area of the Country called the Bataan Peninsula. One of the reasons those prisoners made it, was they sang as they marched! Keep on singing for Christmas, for others and God!

Dave

Thankful

I am thankful to Randy and Erica because they are raising four great kids, for Don and Marilou for sharing Caleb with us this year, I am thankful for Dale and Joella for their hospitalty and friendship, for Magen Allen and her committment to be a Godly teen, For the Harding’s Mike, Kathy, Sam and Tim for the meal and family gathering we shared not too long ago, for Laura and John and how they take care of her aged parents, I am grateful for Marcell because she is so up! What a great attitude! For Casey and Joni and their love and compassion for children who are hurting, and Caton for the great joy you are as a great kid, for Sheldon and his love for scripture for Becky for Kathy and Andrew. I am thankful for Grace and Art and their family, Grace matches her name, for Dale and Joni (Nana), and their success in overcoming… for Michele and Dave Rogge for sharing Chase and McKenzie with us! For Norma who’s name should have been Grace also! For Doug and Sandy for all the love they have for this congregation, neighborhood children and teens. I am thankful for Frances who loves the Lord! For Jeff and Audrey who stand in the gate and say we will serve the Lord personally and in community! For Jim and Ellen, Ellen has opened doors in the trailer park for us on Wonderful Wednesdays. For Carolyn, for being such a good example of a Christian being happy! For Dave McCarter who loves God and teens. I am grateful for Mike and Michelle that they love God’s family here so very much, for my granddaughters who bring so much joy. I am thankful for Brent and Sarah and their commitment to Christ, for June for being the best mother –in –law still! For Betty and her maturity and love for others, For all our teens Magen, Kari, Katherine, James, Patrick, Madeleine, Dustan, Aaron, Grace, Daniel, Andrew, Synnova, Shawna and Karsten ( I know he is grown up now) you bring me great joy as I watch you growing in Christ! Last but not least my great lady Kathy! She is my Spiritual partner as well as partner in life! I am grateful for the church, Kingdom family at Pateros! Thank you for letting me be a part here! Dave

Our Witness

Will you lay down your life for me? Would you be my servant? Do people know you are/we are God’s people by the way we love each other? Three questions that are asked in this week’s text in John 13! What would your answer be? Oh sure Jesus I will be your servant, you can tell by what I do when I …., Yes my Lord I will lay down my life for you, but first let me go bury my ___________! (father, friends, mother, education, what I am doing today, my plans for life, my hopes my goals, my dreams) How can people in community know we love each as Christ loves us if we don’t ever spend time with one another or be willing to set aside what we would do to be with our brothers and sisters? There was a time when in our belief that churches of Christ might have been accused of that, because we were always ‘At church”! But, I doubt that could be used as a reason in our present time in this Country! Extremism by humans is never a witness for right in our Country or Church. Christianity is always a balance not a chaotic approach or action. If we need to fight against evil then fight, if we are at peace then be peaceful, if we love one another then be committed!

Being, I think a realist most of the time, I realize that church attendance or even sharing times together in out of “church” time is not going to be a witness to most people in general that in God’s kingdom we love and/or trying to love each other as Jesus loves us! BUT, I do think there is witness to family members or maybe all folks, one at a time. It is difficult to balance our lives with the purposes of our hearts and yet God calls us to do just that! I would imagine it was difficult for the Apostles to do that, especially after the church was driven out of Jerusalem after Stephen’s death. They didn’t have text messaging or IPhones. So, Preacher tell us how we do this? After all that is why you have written the first part of this article?

Well since you asked! The WORD scripture uses is COMMITTED. I expect Kathy to know that I am committed to her first because I said I was in exact words! I want her to see it in the way I look at her! The tone I use with her is one way to communicate to her that she is first in my life under God! Sometimes I have had to ask her forgiveness because the words and tones didn’t convey what is truly my heart. My touch whether it is physical or just a brush, or a look

or…….. You see the same way I expect Kathy to see from me my commitment to her is the same way I expect you to see my commitment to you as a brother or sister in the kingdom. It is our witness to a sinful world. Give it a thought! Dave

Harvest Outreach

Wednesday is our “Harvest Party “we are having at our building in order to reach out to the neighborhood children and families as well as the families of Marylou’s Day school. Please be praying for a good number of families and kids! Time is 6:00 to 8:00 so we need you to be there at 5:30 to be ready to help. Yes we still need help with different games and food service. We are serving Hamburgers. On Sunday we need to take quick 30 minutes and pass out more flyers to neighbor’s doors and cars.

I hope you saw the ad in the Quad-City Herald this week! (Bulletin board) I want to thank Jeff and Audrey for providing this service in their paper and Cheryl for the writing. We are working with the Bridgeport Community church in a combined effort to serve our communities. Our teens and theirs will be helping in the operation of the Harvest Party at both locations. I appreciate our teens as they see we can join with other church groups to do community serve.

If you are not in one of our two life groups let me urge you to get in one and be involved with other church family members during the week. Doug and Sandy’s are Sunday night and Jeff’s and Audrey’s is Thursday nights. Check the times and invite a friend or family to come with you! Kathy has a ladies class at the building on Tuesday’s at 1:30 if you would rather go there.

We had 6 little girls and 1 boy last Wednesday night as we studied about the Angel appearing to Joseph. As you might have guessed we are working our way to Christmas. The last five girls are there because Ellen talked to them at the trailer park. There may be someone in Pateros you can talk to and tell them about our one hour program were we feed them and teach them about Jesus and do a craft. Time is 6:00 to 7:00 Pm. Marylou picks the five girls up and walks with them over to the building and Kathy and I walk them back. Laura is coming to clean-up while we move into the story and craft, which helps us to be able to accomplish what we can accomplish in the hour’s time. I want you to know that my sister Betty Whiting is paying for all the food we serve. Betty lives in Colorado Springs and was looking for a

Mission project and decided to help us. Be sure to thank God for her and hr help in this program!

Let me remind you that “Daylight Savings time ends next Saturday night. We are to “Fall back” or go back an hour! Everyone remember to set your clocks! Dave