A Good Connection

My Blackberry was on it's last legs. The screen would freeze, making in difficult to use unless you turned it off and then back on several times a day.  I am not technologically savvy at all but I decided to get a new Android phone that is really cool.  My niece works for our wireless carrier so when she brought me the new phone, she and her brother gave me a thorough tutorial.  Very soon I was familiar enough with the phone to do all sorts of cool things.  However, I failed to learn how to retrieve a call!  After several missed calls I finally got the hang of answering a call.  By now you have probably figured out that I am not always the sharpest crayon in the box.

Today in Bible study during Leah's prayer, one of our ladies' phone rang.  She had forgotten to silence it.  She managed to silence the call and then another ladies' phone rang.  She silenced her call as well and we had a little giggle during our prayer.   As Leah was praying, she thanked the Lord that he never silences our calls.  I am so thankful for that.  He always takes our calls.  He never mutes us.  He never sends us straight to His voice mail.  He never screens our calls even when He sees on His caller ID that it's me.   Our calls to Heaven are never dropped and there is always a good connection.  He is "on call" 24/7.  His network is always available.  He can "hear us now".  Praise Him with me that He always hears our prayers.

 "Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all you heart."  Jeremiah 29: 12-13

 "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."  Jeremiah 33:3

Life is Good,

Cindy

Hoarders

Some of you may have watched the television show Hoarders but  I had never seen an episode until last week.  I was flipping through the channels on Labor Day hoping for a Criminal Minds or NCIS marathon but instead I happened upon Hoarders.  And I was mesmerized.  And heartbroken for the hoarders.

 The A & E channel defines it like this : "Compulsive Hoarding is a mental disorder marked by an obsessive need to acquire and keep things even if the items are worthless, hazardous or unsanitary."  Some of the hoarders have had some circumstance in their life that triggered their disorder.  I was amazed that some of the homes had gotten to the point that they were uninhabitable.  The hoarders are embarrassed and overwhelmed.  Most of the houses had gotten so bad that the hoarders had no clue where to start and seemed hopeless.  Some of the hoarders did not realize that they had a problem.  Families had been torn apart by the hoarding.  The only way for a compulsive hoarder to change is through therapy.  It was so easy for me to be judgmental and disgusted.  But like I said my heart was broken.

The Holy Spirit began to whisper that we as Christians can be hoarders too.  What?  Did I hear you correctly Lord?  While we may not hoard possessions we can sometimes hoard our emotions.

• We hoard forgiveness when we fail to extend it to someone who might have wronged us. 
• We hoard mercy when we fail to show compassion to others.
• We hoard patience when we are easily annoyed by others.
• We hoard joy when we let our circumstances dictate how we feel.

When we hang on to these things instead of sharing them with others we are basically hoarding Jesus!  Jesus paid too high a price for us to keep Him too ourselves.  I don't want to be a hoarder.  How about you?

Different Denominations (and I'm Not Talking About Money)

Our church just began having a contemporary service in our Fellowship Hall on Sunday mornings in addition to our more traditional Sunday morning worship.   W.I.T.H  or Worship in the Hall wasn't a change in theology, but a different style of worshiping the same God.  It is an amazing worship service and it got me to thinking about different denominations and the different ways that people worship the One True God.

I think it's really neat that we as the body of Christ can choose how we worship and belong to the denomination of our choice.   It would be boring if everyone were alike.  Some prefer chocolate, some vanilla.  And so it is with worship, we have different preferences.

Sunday morning before last I turned on the television to hear a popular Atlanta pastor as usual before leaving for church.  I couldn't find him, so I settled for a different channel and different pastor.  I never did find our his name because I was listening from another room as I got ready to go to church.  But it was a very interesting explanation of denominations.

He surmised that  different denominations possibly existed in the Old Testament.  I know what you're thinking, probably the same thing I was; huh?   After the Egyptian Pharaoh released the Hebrews after 430 years of captivity, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and other laws.  He later gave him detailed instructions on building a sanctuary or Tabernacle for Him so that He could dwell among the people. The Israelites  were divided into 12 tribes and each tribe set up camp around the Tabernacle, the position of each tribe's campsite had been determined by instructions from God to Moses. 

Each of the twelve tribes had different standards or banners that they flew over their tribe.  Even though they were all Jews and they had all been enslaved in Egypt there were differences in each tribe.  Every tribe had a set of values; personal values, traditional values and core values.  Personal values could be shaped by circumstances in their lives, their jobs, etc.  Traditional values were held by each tribe, and came from traditions that had been passed down from the families in the tribe from generation to generation, like what dishes they ate their Passover meal on, whether they watched the Passover football game, etc. (I'm just kidding.  But you get the drift.)  And core values are the values that they all held as God's chosen people.   These core values were absolutely non-negotiable.  "You shall have no other gods before me, You shall not make for yourself an idol, You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, Honor your father and your mother, You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not give false testimony, and You shall not covet".

We who are Believers have our own set of personal and traditional values.  Some of us are quiet in our worship, and some of us clap our hands.  Some of us like the old hymns and some of us like the new praise songs.  We are Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, and Lutherans to name a few.  But our core values are the same.  We are followers of Christ.  We believe that Jesus died once for all, taking on our sins and on the third day rose from the dead, giving us eternal life and preparing  us a place with Him in Heaven.