Roger Bothwell

I am so thankful for the option in my email program that allows me to preassign certain senders to the junk graveyard.   I along with you probably receive over a hundred emails a day, of which 80% are unwanted.  It would be awful if we had to decide on each one each day whether or not to read it.  I love getting email from my friends and I love being able to only pay attention to the emails that matter.
 
In II Corinthians 3 Paul refers to us as letters.  He wrote, “ You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”
 
I love the concept that we can be a letter from Christ to our friends and family.  How utterly awful to be junk mail.  We all know people who, when showing up, make us groan inside because we know some unpleasantness is about to descend upon us.  That’s junk mail.  But it is so grand to think that we can bring genuine joy and peace to people merely by showing up.  When that is the case we are letters from Christ.
 
Some of you might be thinking, “Did he just say some people are junk?”  No.  That’s not what I intended.  But, I did intend to say that the message some people bring is junk.  With Jesus in our hearts we can light up a room and chase the gloom of ridicule away.  Jesus makes us positive and it just spills out.  We can’t help it.

When we need to fly somewhere my wife always buys our tickets early enough so she can select our seats.  She prefers the aisle seat while I like the window seat.  She doesn’t feel so confined and I can sleep with my head against the side of the plane.  It works pretty good but there is a problem. More times than not we alienate the person sitting between us.  It’s not because we are talking over them.  We try not to be so rude.  It happens when they first arrive.  You should see their faces light up when they realize we are together.  How could they be so fortunate?  This is an opportunity for them to be noble and offer to change seats so we can sit together.  We won’t mention that they will not have to sit for hours in the middle seat.  When we decline their generosity they go hostile on us.  There is an instant disappearance of their smile and a humph.  They plop down into the seat of discomfort and rarely will they ever again say a word to us.  It is like it was our fault they bought their ticket too late to get a decent seat.
 
Now being the nice guy that I am I sometimes try to warm them up with a smile or a greeting but it rarely works.  I know what Jesus would do but I am not yet that sanctified.  Jesus said, “Do unto others what you would have them do to you.”  The Golden Rule indicates I should give up my seat.  But I revert to the Silver Rule of don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.  I never awaken them so I can crawl over them to get to the restroom.  I can wait.  After all I am a nice guy!

Happy Birthday to my dog who keeps me safe from rabbits, skunks and foremost the mailman.  She is 49 years old today making her menopausal, but we fixed that a few years ago, so her temperament is as predictable as sunrise.  Her super hearing and her sense of smell give me a sense of comfort when I awaken during the night as I hear her softly moving through the house.  Should the marauding raccoons cruise through our nighttime yard she warns them and alerts me with a very low ever so deep rumbling sound.  She makes me feel welcome when I come home from school, sometimes even when I am only returning from the mailbox.
 
I have a friend who quotes Revelation 22:15 to remind me that I better get my fill of dogs now because there will be no dogs in heaven.  My friend thinks God is a “cat person.”  Obviously this verse is a solid argument against Biblical literalism. 
 
I cannot remember never having a dog.  Jazz, my current canine, is my number twelve.  While I do not believe Jesus died on the cross for animals, I do believe Jesus wants to personalize heaven for us by making my home better than yours and yours better than mine.  Therefore, because of God’s great love for us He will do all He can to make heaven the best place ever for us.  Thus, I await opening the front door of my heavenly home and being besieged by a dozen dogs so happy to see me because I returned from going outside to get the mail.  (There will be no junk mail in heaven.)
 
So Happy Birthday Jazz.  We are off to Burger King to get you a Whopper.

Have you ever wondered what it means when the emcee of a contest tells the finalists, “Good luck to all of you”?  Only one of them is going to win. Saying “Good luck to all of you” is meaningless.  If the emcee said good luck to just one of them, that would have meaning.  However, he/she would be violating any appearance of being impartial and make it appear the contest is rigged. 
 
At first I wanted to say God says to us, “Good luck to all of you.”  That would have meaning because we can all win.  However, that doesn’t work because the word luck denotes chance as in rolling dice.  We are not saved or lost because of chance.  We are saved as a gift and lost only if we do not accept the gift.  There is no luck involved. We do not win salvation at the expense of others being losers.  However, I get the feeling that many people think luck is involved.  If asked if they are saved, many people say, “I hope so.”  Somehow, that seems to include a hesitancy that includes a bit of chance. 
 
I love what John wrote in I John 5.  He said, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”  Please do not fail to notice the word “know.”  Assurance of salvation is the difference between an abundant life and a so-so life.  This weekend we flew back and forth from Mass to California.  Without assurance of salvation I would have been listening for any strange noise coming from the aircraft.  With assurance I settled in knowing whatever happened wouldn’t change eternity for me.  That’s a done deal.

Yesterday we talked about our being imitators of God as Paul counseled us in Ephesians 5:1.  One of my really good and smart friends wrote back with the following, “Saw the subject line.  And between my old age and dyslexic eye sight. . . I thought it said ‘Limitators’!   I thought—WOW—what a fantastic new word to describe certain personalities. I could just imagine where you were headed. . . Then I saw what the word should have been. . . But, I still like ‘limitators’. . . We limit God’s love. We limit His work.”
 
His misreading was an amazing idea.  We are limiters of God.  We call ourselves Christians, meaning Christ-like, and so often are not Christ-like.  Others see us and think, “So that’s what Christ is like.”  It is appalling.  Gandhi once said he would have been a Christian except for all the Christians he met. 

My friend went on in his response by quoting a verse from the old hymn, There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy.
 
“But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.”   By Fredrick W. Faber in 1854
 
I am envious that I did not write this.  It is so on-target.  We are so quick to condemn the lost and to make excuses for ourselves.  We condemn other’s music because we don’t like it and on and on we go.  What an incredible challenge it is for us to rightfully show others what Jesus is really like.  If we do that we will have shown them what God is like because Jesus said, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.”  John 14:9

The New King James Version translates Ephesians 5:1 as “Therefore be imitators of God.”  And I respond, “Really? Can Paul be serious?”  Just what is he saying?  There is no way I can imitate God and speak worlds into existence.  There is no way I can be a source of life by saying, “Lazarus, (or whoever) come forth.”  God is morally perfect.  I cannot be so other than by allowing Jesus to stand in my stead.   Part of the problem here is I haven’t considered the milieu of Ephesians 5.  It’s dangerous to lift any text or sentence out of its context.  If we look carefully at Ephesians 5 Paul is telling us to walk in love for others.  Even that is difficult.  To love one’s friends is one thing but to love one’s enemies is another.
 
Often we hear people say, “I only attack people who attack me.”  And that is the reason the world is in and has been in a mess for all of recorded history.  The eye for an eye Old Testament philosophy leads us into a nowhere future of just more of the same.  Paul goes on in Ephesians 5, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.  Therefore do not be partakers with them.”  
 
The wrath of God Paul is speaking of is not a vengeful God pouncing upon us when we do evil or just plain stupid things.  God’s wrath is passive.  He merely allows us the tragedy of reaping the fruit of what we sowed.  If when attacked we return the gesture with a turned cheek and a “I’m sorry I agitated you” we will then begin being imitators of God just as Paul counseled us. 

I don’t know what she saw but it initiated a full scale attack.  All 100 pounds of our beautiful black lab hurled toward the dangerous object.  Unfortunately there was a thick glass storm door in her way.  I have never heard such a sound before as she lay crumbled on the floor.  It was a pain-filled wail.  Fortunately, it only lasted a few seconds. She is okay but her nose took a horrendous hit.  I am sure she will never do that again.  She is a fast learner.
 
Just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.  And of course the opposite is true.  Just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean it is there.  We need to sense other factors.  Paul wrote in Ephesians 6, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
 
There are some who love conspiracies and think some evil plan lurks behind every event in their lives.  Actually, we are quite capable of inventing ways of self-demise. I doubt if the world would be any better if Satan died today.  Humans are quite adept at creating and doing evil.  Yet, we should not be so quick to write off conspiracies.  In his first letter Peter wrote that Satan is like a prowling lion seeking to devour us.  Fortunately, there are other unseen beings.  Psalm 91:11 assures us there are angels assigned to guard us.  The fact is we are not alone.  Just because we cannot see them does not mean they are not here.  Hopefully, we will be fast learners and be aware.

I had a chore this morning that needed two extension cords for extra distance.  I plugged them in and started across the yard.  However, I ran out of cord before arriving at my destination.  Looking back to see what was wrong I discovered instead of plugging them together I plugged the end of the second one into its own receptacle.  It was a loop.  It was plugged into itself. It was hopelessly powerless.
 
At this point I can imagine you know what I am going to say.  You think I am going to say that cord is just like people.  As long as we are plugged into ourselves and not into a true power source we are hopelessly powerless.  If you thought that, you were absolutely correct.  Now, we might not be totally powerless.  We are like batteries that have some self-contained power and can accomplish some things.  But all batteries no matter how good eventually run dry. 
 
If we want to accomplish great things, if we want to exceed our expectations, then we must plug into real power.  In Matthew 19:26 we read, “But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”  As long as we think we can do it by ourselves we are destined to be so much less than what we were created for.  Paul wrote, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, . .”  Ephesians 3:20.   God has great plans for us and they will happen if we cease being plugged into ourselves.  Then and only then will our Father’s dreams for us be fulfilled. 

Lots of prayers and some very good doctors have been responsible for my recovery from leukemia.  I am going on three years of excellent health for which I am deeply grateful.  However, there have been some undesirable remnants.  One of which is I have been left with a very low tolerance for bug bites.  The tiniest of creatures can create on my arms or wherever swollen, itchy patches that take days to subside. Springtime is wonderful but in Massachusetts May skies fill with little black flies that swoop in like Kamikaze pilots.  Finally, we got a 90 degree day that should take care of them for another year.  In a few days I can stop scratching as long as I avoid mosquitoes and ticks which will be with us all summer.
 
Our bodies are wonderful at repairing themselves, yet scars and other annoyances are usually left behind to remind us.   We are never quite as good as new.   Our souls are the same.  We mar them with sinful deeds.  We ask for forgiveness.  God is gracious, merciful and good to us and He cleanses us.  See I John 1:9.  Yet, we are never the same.  Sin diminishes us.  That’s why something is labeled sin.  If it enhanced us it would be labeled a blessing.  
 
God gives us a new start, record-wise.   But our brains don’t.  We are never quite what we could of, should of, been.  God looks at us as if we had never sinned.  But the person looking back at us from the mirror always knows better.  So flee from sin as we would from a roaring lion.  While we might survive the lion’s attack, we will always be scarred, at least until this mortal puts on immortality.  See I Corinthians 15.

This afternoon I called one of those Papa places to order a pizza.  I told the girl I wanted a large with two toppings and asked her the price.  She told me it was $16.00.  I then said I was sure she could offer me some kind of special.  “Oh yes,” she said.  “You can have a large four topping for $9.98.”  So I said, “I want a large four topping pizza with onions, green peppers, pineapple and mushroom.  Oh, could you please hold the green peppers and pineapple.”  “Great,” she said, “That will be $9.98.”  I just love talking to teens.
 
It’s natural for us to want things as cheaply as possible.  Often we wait to purchase something until it is on sale or if we can find a coupon. If eternal life was offered for sale I’m sure we would do our best to get it as cheaply as we can.  The rich young ruler asked Jesus what he had to do to be saved.  When Jesus told him to give away all his goods, the young man went away sorrowfully.  The cost was too much. In Luke 14 Jesus told us to count the cost before embarking upon a project. 
 
So just what is the cost of salvation?  It’s free.  But there’s a rub.  It cost everything you are.  The issue is love.  We can’t buy love but once we experience love we would give everything – even your life.  Notice I said everything we are and not everything we have because God isn’t interested in what we have.  He only cares about what we are.  He wants us to be His child.  He wants us to be like Him.  It’s because He knows if we are like Him we will live the most abundant life possible and that makes Him happy – Very Happy.