Matthew 22:37
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

I take second place to no one in my love for sports, especially those games I can still play in this my 8th decade of life. But I also have a great love for football and baseball. I used to do chapel services for my beloved Cleveland Browns before they were unceremoniously hied away to Baltimore. To sit in old Lakefront Stadium in December, with the winds howling outrageously off Lake Erie, indicates that one truly is a supporter of the team.

But some fans cross the line of sanity! Take for example the fellow who follows a professional football team (whose name I shall not indicate here) who decided to have his bald head tattooed to match the helmets worn by the players. He had his hairless pate painstakingly (underline “pain”) turned into a facsimile of his team’s helmets, including the quarterback’s jersey number stenciled onto the back of his neck. Little children, upon seeing this apparition, will run for their mothers! So why did he do this? In his own words “I’m a fan!”

Not long ago, 72,000 fans sat in an outdoor, uncovered football stadium where the temperature at kickoff time was -4 degrees with winds at 20 mph! Now if people came to church in that kind of weather, critics would say, “Those people are crazy!” Depends upon where your heart is, doesn’t it? Why, I know some professing believers who are ashamed to say grace before meals in restaurants.

Isn’t it sad that some folks don’t seem to love Jesus as much as some fans love football? I wonder if that doesn’t break His heart.

Prayer: O God, may I never – never! – give any indication of being ashamed of You or the Good News bought at such dreadful price! May I ever be a true “fan” – a follower of Him Who redeemed me! Amen.

John 20:25
The other disciples therefore said unto him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said unto them, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

I love to visit India, where the nation is seeing a great spiritual awakening among both Hindus and Muslims. Many of the evangelical leaders there point back to July 3, 72 AD when an enraged Hindu Brahmin speared the Apostle Thomas to death. They say it was the blood of “doubting Thomas” that fertilized the soil of India for the Gospel. In one church where I have spoken (Channai) the attendance that Sunday exceeded 40,000. One denomination alone plans to launch at least 25,000 new Christian churches before 2020!

To understand the greatness of the harvest in India, one has to try to comprehend the out-of-control population of there. At this moment, 1.2 billion people reside in the land. (In my own state of Florida we now have 19 million residents. If we had the same density of population as India, we would have over 190 million Floridians among us!) Each day there are 100,000 births in India versus 20,000 deaths. Thus the population of India increases by 80,000 each day. 800 million are Hindus and 200 million are Muslims. The poverty is breath catching: 77% of the population live on less than fifty cents a day.

Into this maelstrom of humanity come Spirit-filled Christians who are fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission: (Mark 16:15) “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” As you read this, 25,000 potential pastors are being trained in three-year Bible institutes. Each one will be required to start a church before being credentialed. The Thomas Factor is a reality in this strange land of strange people and even stranger gods. The apostle’s blood was not shed in vain.

Prayer: O God, may my heart be pierced today by the need to take Your Gospel to the ends of the earth. I have no right to hear the Gospel over and over until everyone has heard it at least once! Make me a missionary of supply and intercession! Amen.

Matthew 28:5 6
I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

Red Square in Moscow is a must-see for world tourists. It is not named “Red” for any connection with the Communist “Reds.” Rather the word “Red” comes from an old Russian term for “beautiful.” Red Square truly lives up to its name in that regard. In the center of the square is the mausoleum which houses the mummified body of Vladimir Lenin, the Communist tyrant who overthrew the czars and put in place the brutal regime later headed by Stalin. It was on top of the mausoleum, a dark marble block of a building, that Stalin and Khrushchev and Malenkov and other Soviet leaders stood for so many years to watch the famous military parades.

Inside the mausoleum lies the body of Lenin who died in 1924 after a series of strokes. The lines of tourists waiting to see him are still long. You can wait for hours for your brief and very brisk walk through the tomb, or you can find an English guide, give him ten bucks, and go directly to the head of the line. That may be one of the best ten-spots you ever invested. No one is allowed to take anything inside, not a purse, not a camera – nothing. And you have to keep moving! You may be inside for two minutes, total. But there he lies: Vladimir Lenin, dead as a beached carp.

Compare that to the marvelous announcement of the angel at the tomb of Christ: “He is not here! He is risen!” A short 72 hours or so is all our Lord spent in His earthly repose before He was quickened by the Holy Spirit and resurrected. Ephesians 2:1 reminds us that we, too, have been quickened (resurrected from spiritual death) by the same Holy Spirit. We receive life through our Lord Jesus! Now – which tomb makes your heart beat a little faster? The full one? Or the empty one?

Prayer: O God, how grateful I am to know and understand that quite empty tomb just north of Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate. Your Son lay there once, for a short time, but death could not hold Him. Jesus was the prototype, the first-fruit, of all of us who will be quickened by Your Spirit! We encourage and comfort each other because of this promised future. We bless Your Name for this reality. Amen.

Proverbs 15:22
Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counselors they are established.

A person doesn’t get too far along in life without realizing that disappointments are a part of life. Life is not one big fairy tale, is it?

Just up the road a mile or so from our house is the winter home of the great inventor Thomas Edison. His laboratory is still there as well. I’ve been through both of those facilities several times and it was always encouraging. I have heard, although I cannot attest to its being a fact that Edison made over a thousand experiments before he got an electric light to work. One thing is sure: he didn’t succeed on the first attempt. We baseball fans remember with joy the great “Sultan of Swat” Babe Ruth, who for years held the major league home run record of over 700 round-trippers. (My father actually saw him hit one of those homers.) But what we don’t remember about Babe Ruth is that for every home run he smacked, he struck out twice! In my own life, there have been some resounding victories; but I must tell you I have also struck out any number of times. Bitter losses! Dim paths ending in the swamp lands of life.

A person has to make a decision. Am I going to allow disappointments to earmark my life? Or will I make these “failures” nothing more than iron sharpening iron? See, everyone will have disappointments. They are quite frankly inevitable. But it is how we react to those disappointments that mark us as failures or winners. The champions will make bitter seeds yield fragrant flowers later on even while others will allow those unfortunate days to negatively mark their lives forever. We each make our own call.
I am not a counselor; but I believe some of the best advice I could give a “valley-walker” is this: Get over it! Get on with life. As long as there is still breath in your body, the fight is still on!

Prayer: O God, as I read Your Word, I am struck by the number of times Your great heroes of faith had bitter disappointments. But they overcame those obstacles to win life’s battles for You. Help me in my down times to keep my eyes upon You and continue striving for the prize of my high calling in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Matthew 28:19
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

On January 20, 1937, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his second inaugural speech as President of the United States. John Garner was his vice-president. On the very next day, my mother gave birth – to me! Boy, was it ever a different world from today! The nations were gearing for the global maelstrom fomented by Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo. Sixty million people would die because of war-related causes within the next eight years. The average annual American income in 1937 was $1,788. A new car could be purchased for $750. A new home could be bought for around $4,000. At the grocery store you’d find a loaf of bread for nine cents and a gallon of milk would set you back fifty cents. A gallon of gas? A dime. Remember, America was just emerging from the Great Depression. Life expectancy in the United States was a mere 59 years. The shifting of social sands have almost blotted out remembered yesteryears.

Now we come to this day and time. This is the era of space travel, of computers in every home, of iPods, of criss-crossing interstate highways, of cars that sell for tens of thousands of dollars and homes that cost at least fifty times more than they did when I was born. It’s a different world, my friend! Face it! Yet many churches still operate as if we were still in the 30s or 40s.

It has been observed by social scientists that the typical church shows change in methodology every half century while the average business changes every three to five years. I do not refer here to tinkering with the timeless message of the Gospel; I speak of the antiquated delivery systems still employed by far too many churches. “This is the way we’ve always done it,” comes their cry. Small wonder the percentage of Americans attending church regularly is in decline. We’re in mule-train methodology in a space-station society.

Prayer: O God, as I grow older, don’t allow me to grasp tenaciously to things of the past that are no longer relevant. I will enjoy their memory even as I go from victory to victory through the power of the Holy Spirit, grateful that You have allowed me to live to see this very day – and to be a participant of it. Amen.