Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Mind your Manners!

Please and Thank you. These are the basics of manners, and are taught to us as children early on. When someone is generous to us the correct response is “thank you.” If you are in need you say “please” its simple, and easy. But, what if the gift is too big, grandiose, excellent, expensive, or overwhelming. What happens when the gift is too good? My response to gifts that are so kind, and thoughtful is shock, awe, and being overwhelmed by someone’s extreme generosity. The please and thank you system is easy for small things, but the larger the ask the harder these systems are to us. 

Now is the time of year when we ask God “please renew our faith in your son Jesus as he goes toward the cross”, and we say in soft muttered words, “thank you for taking my place on the murderous Roman cross.” As I prepare for our Palm Sunday service I am overwhelmed with the, “Thank you.” Don’t make fun, but, every time I say it to God for the gift of His Son. I get choked up, and it becomes more surreal that Christ would take my place on that bloody cross. 

This weeks blog is simple, and easy in the ask. I am challenging all of us to spend the next week to get down on our knees, and tell God “Thank you!” That’s all. Simple, but what will happen afterward is what I am excited about. They say attitude is everything, and with your heart in the proper place any task become more focused, and enjoyable. What I am praying happens over the next week as we pray, and say thank you over, and over, again is our hearts will be aligned to the story of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. So that Good Friday is more that “TGIF”, but that we are broken with our Lord, and cry over his death. It’s ok you manly men, its a great thing to cry, especially when you realize that the celebration of Good Friday is being forgiven by God above, and that it was all paid in blood through Jesus. Why do I want you to be broken on Good Friday? 

Because, if you are able to handle the weigh of Jesus’ death, and if it crushes your Spirit. When we all come together for  Easter Sunday you will have something to resurrect. The celebration of God’s Son overcoming the grave will be thunder and lighting to those who have taken the weight of His death on their shoulders. What I want for Easter this year more than anything else, is not a church full of people, its not some new crazy good candy. Nope, I want our hearts to be broken with the weight of God’s gift, and the transformation that comes with the understanding of God’s resurrection. “Please”, and “Thank you.” Can we say it to God until our hearts are changed? Until,our lives are filled with more of God than anything else? I think so, what do you say we try? Amen.

Strive on my friends, Strive on!


Pastor Richard