A man went to his medical doctor with alarming symptoms and, after the examination, the doctor had bad news. He told the man he’d probably live only one more year and then asked, “What do you want to do?” The patient promptly replied, “I want to get a second opinion.” Sometimes, we need to get a second opinion about something. The first oncologist Sharon went to told us Sharon’s disease was incurable. We went to another one and I said to him, “I understand what Sharon has is incurable.” He replied, “I never use that word.” Sometimes, we need to get a second opinion about something.
Some of us—a lot of us—perhaps most of us, sometimes, need a second opinion about ourselves. It is not a change of environment we need but a change of opinion about ourselves we need. We don’t think of ourselves as God thinks of us, and that gets us in trouble. We underachieve because we undervalue. We squander talents, fail to nurture skills, pass up opportunities, don’t give our best to relationships because we don’t know who we are. God knows, and we need to know what God knows.
In a novel I mentioned last week, In the Beauty of the Lilies by John Updike, Teddy repeatedly passes up opportunities. In high school he has a talent for baseball but won’t go out for the team. Later, he works at a local drugstore and the owner says he’ll send him to pharmacy school but he doesn’t go. He is offered the job of local postmaster but turns it down. Updike makes it clear that Teddy has nothing to do with God and it is because of this that he misses God thinks of him. Teddy has an opinion about himself but he needs a second opinion. He needs God’s opinion.
That is what Old Testament Gideon needed. He told the angel God sent to confer with him that his family was the weakest in the tribe and he was the least in his family. Gideon didn’t think much of himself but, then, he was not yet aware of what God thought of him. In Gideon’s time, for seven consecutive years, Israel’s enemy, the Midianites, rode in on camels and devoured the nation, and in the eighth year Gideon was defensively crouching down in a wine press threshing he wheat, hiding for dear life from the Midianites. Broken in spirit and failed in courage, Gideon is in desperate need of a second opinion. He needs God’s opinion. In Neil Simon’s play, Laughter on the Twenty-Third Floor, two television writers talk about their boss Max. Lucas asks, “Does Max have any enemies?” Kenny says a strange thing to Lucas, “Besides himself, I don’t think so.” “What do you mean?” Lucas asks Kenny to explain. Kenny replies, “Nobody hates Max the way Max hates Max.” Max needs a second opinion about himself. He needs God’s opinion.
We all need that second opinion because sometimes, the first opinion of our environment is inaccurate. Gideon’s was. His environment was dominated by Midianites who used camels to wage war. You’re a nobody, Gideon’s environment told him, because you don’t have a camel. Our environment, and by that I mean our context, says you’re not as good as us because you don’t have what we have or know what we know or didn’t come from where we came from. When that is what our environment says to us, we need a second opinion—God’s opinion. We need that second opinion because sometimes the first opinion of our family is inaccurate. Gideon’s was. Somehow, from someone, he’d gotten the idea that he was the least important member of his family. Some people get that idea from parents who are impossible to please, wives and husbands who put each other down, children who disrespect their parents. When that sort of thing happens in our families, we need a second opinion. We need God’s opinion. We need that second opinion when the first opinion we have about ourselves is inaccurate. Gideon’s was. How can I deliver Israel? I can’t do anything about this problem? Not poor, little old me. Gideon was ineffective because he spent too much time down in the wine press having a pity party for himself. Reading Martin Luther’s works before editors get hold of them, we see he frequently uses a certain four letter word to refer to himself. He was scatological as well as theological. In fact, he compares himself to human excrement so often psychologists utilize him and his writings to illustrate the personality who has an “anal” complex. When we put ourselves down, we need a second opinion. We need God’s opinion.
God’s second opinion about us is actually a first opinion. The first opinion of creation. We are made in the image of God. We are not mass produced. We are handcrafted. As my Wisconsin acquaintance John Powers says in his musical play, Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Reflect Up?, “There are no cookie cutters in heaven.” God’s second opinion about us is actually a first opinion. The first opinion of redemption. Jesus died for us, and that means we are worth dying for. The next time somebody tells you you’re not worth much, get yourself in front of a cross and say, “That’s how much I’m worth.” God’s second opinion about us is actually a first opinion. The first opinion of resurrection. Christ defeated death, his and ours. Nothing can kill us. That’s how valuable we are. After every crucifixion, there’s a resurrection. After every funeral, there’s a festival. Black Friday’s upon us but it’s okay because Sunday’s a comin’. God’s second opinion about us is actually a first opinion. The first opinion of visitation. We are filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, the contemporary presence of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, keeps us company on a daily basis. We never go anywhere alone. God’s second opinion about us is actually a first opinion. The first opinion of eschatology. Jesus is coming again, on that occasion for His Church. He is coming for us. The next time you feel low, get yourself in front of this thought—I am worth a return trip.
God’s opinion helps us wake up to ourselves. That’s is a glorious awakening. That is what happened to Gideon. “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior,” the angel said to Gideon. Mighty warrior? Cowering in the wine press, hiding from the Midianites. Mighty warrior? Yes, mighty warrior. After Gideon heard God’s opinion of him and believed it to be true, he took only three hundred men and beat the stuffins out of the Midianites who outnumbered him forty to one. Environment was wrong about Gideon. Family was wrong about Gideon. Gideon was wrong about Gideon. God was right about Gideon. God is right about you. God is right about me.
In the stage play, The Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote is such an incomparable idealist we now have in our language to describe such a characteristic the word quixotic (kwik-sot-ic). Don Quixote meets a harlot named Aldonza. He says to her, “You will be my lady.” She is shocked. “Yes, you are my lady and I give you a new name—Dulcinea.” She laughs in his face. But Don Quixote regards her much the same way Jesus regarded Mary Magdalene and, undaunted, affirms her and declares to be who he perceives her to be. The play continues, and the stage is empty. It is night. Offstage a woman scrams. It is Aldonza. She is being raped in the hay. She then appears on stage, hysterical, terror flooding her eyes. Loudly and clearly comes the voice of the Man of La Mancha. ‘My lady!” She can’t handle that and shouts back, “Don’t call me your lady. I was born in a ditch by a mother who left me there naked and cold and too hungry to cry.” “My lady!” “Don’t call me your lady. I am a strumpet men use and forget. I am only Aldonza.” She whirls and runs out in the night as Don Quixote calls after her, “But you are my lady, Dulcinea.” The curtain drops but rises to the death scene of this one who dreams the impossible dream. He is dying of a broken heart. Like Jesus, he is scorned, laughed at, despised, and rejected of men. Suddenly, to his side comes one who appears to be a Spanish queen who is dressed in lovely and lavish lace. She keels and prays. He opens his eyes and asks, “Who are you?” She rises and stands tall. She is beautiful. She speaks softly. “Don’t you remember who I am? I am your lady. I am Dulcinea.”
Let us listen to what God says about us. Let us hear who God says we are. Let us think as much of ourselves as God thinks of us.
Your belief will structure reality. Your attitude will shape what is. Your expectations will shape tomorrow’s events.
William James once wrote: “To believe that life is good is to make it so.”
Wayne Dyer, guru of self help books, released a book a few years ago entitled “You’ll see it, when you believe it.”
So your belief will structure reality!
If not: Why did our Lord say things like:
“All things are possible for him who believes.”
“Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:24)
“All things are possible for him who believes.”
That’s why our people have sometimes sung: “Only Believe, Only believe, all things are possible, only believe.”
Therefore, the early Christians, like the Apostle Paul, would write in what is one of the “Prison Epistles”, Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always, again, I say: Rejoice.
Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer, let your requests be made known to God.”
Here the Apostle is in prison, and this was not a federal prison, not even a state prison, it was a hole in the ground. Some years ago when a group from the church toured Greece, we viewed a 1st century village where the Apostle Paul was kept in prison for a time, and it was nothing but a dark, damp, deep hole in the ground. Ruth Braden at the time stood beside me, and said: “They might put me in that alive, but I would be dead when they pulled me out.”
And yet, Paul wrote from the dank and darkness of prison: “Rejoice in all things.” Paul would often write of some physical problem as a “thorn in the flesh”, but he would affirm, “But I have learned to be content in all things.” And it was Paul who wrote from prison: “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.”
You figure it. He was one of the first the recall that Jesus had said “All things are possible for him who believes.” His belief shaped either reality itself or his perception of reality. Even prison becomes an opportunity for blessing. You never know!
There is an old Indian story told among the Creek Indians who lived on this land long before we started building our forts and condominiums…One night, A long time ago, an old man who lived with his son, the old man’s horse – the only horse he had – wandered away, and his neighbors all came to say how sorry they were about his misfortune. He said, "How do you know this is ill fortune?" A week later the horse came home, bringing with him a whole herd of wild horses. The neighbors came again, and congratulated him on his good fortune. The old man smiled and asked, "How do you know this is good fortune?" The old man’s son took to riding the horses; one day he was thrown and ended up with a crippled leg. The neighbors appeared again, like the proverbial Greek chorus, to tell him how sorry they were about his bad luck, but the old man asked, "How do you know it is bad luck?" In less than a week, along came the chief of the tribe conscripting all able-bodied men for his private war, but the old man’s son, being crippled, missed the draft. Once more the neighbors came to rejoice with him in his good luck, and once more the old man said, "How do you know this is good luck?"
I have lived long enough to realize that you never know what is good luck or bad, so it is best to rejoice in all things, believing that God has a hand in the light and the dark sides of our lives.
I have looked back over my own journey and will sometimes remember the hard, challenging times: years we were in graduate school working on a doctorate and slowly starving, the year I was hit by the car and had to learn to walk again, the experiences when individuals betrayed my gift of friendship, the loss of both of my parents and my brother. I now look back and rejoice that my understanding of Jesus Christ and my belief in his resurrection has sustained me and shaped a reality of victory.
In some very physically painful experiences in life, I would recall Jesus’ death on the cross and thank God that I could feel pain, for it was my living link with the pain which Jesus must have felt when he was betrayed and was crucified on the cross. I was able to rejoice in the hard times for I focused not on the problems, but on “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, and whatever is gracious.”
One’s inner life and thoughts, one’s beliefs, will shape reality.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the author of “The Cancer Ward” and other works, tells of a moment when he was on the verge of giving up all hope as a prisoner in a Soviet prison camp. He was ill, starving, and yet was still having to work shoveling sand every day twelve hours a day. Another prisoner, a fellow Christian, working beside him, reached down and made a mark of the cross in the sand. In that brief visual moment, Solzhenitsyn felt the hope of the gospel flood through his soul. He recalled Jesus’ experience on the cross and his victory over the cross and was strengthened to endure the hard days of his imprisonment.
In the late 1970’s, after bogging down in the Viet Nam War, our leadership declared victory by saying we had done what we had come to do and pulled out of the area. The nations in Asia sort of went on as they had before we arrived, which will probably happen in the mid-east, when we pull out of Iraq. In the late l970’s the small nation of Cambodia was undergoing and agonizing ordeal of genocide and millions of people were massacred by the Khmer Rouge regime.
One group of Westerners decided to do something about it and under the leadership of the Jewish novelist Elie Wiesel, they organized a convoy of food and medical supplies in Thailand and drove to the Cambodian border. They demanded to be allowed to enter on humanitarian grounds, but the Khmer Rouge did not even allow the food and medical supplies to pass the boarder. They turned back in disappointment.
A cynical reporter later asked Wiesel whether he really believed that his little group could have made a difference with their action and whether they really thought they could change the world. And Wiesel’s reply was classic:
He said, “Perhaps we cannot change the world, but we can prevent the world from changing us.”
I absolutely refuse to allow the world to make me a selfish, depressed, hateful, mean spirited, unforgiving, violent person. I invite you to join with me through a commitment to Jesus Christ.
Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, think about these things; and your belief will shape reality!
Moses had led the Israelites for a long period of time from slavery in Egypt across the Sinai Desert. There would have been in excess of a million people in the traveling nomads divided into 12 tribes. At times they had been hungry and always thirsty. Do you realize that it would have taken every day a train of 45 railway cars, filled with supplies, to have fed, clothed and provided water to take care of those kinds of numbers? No wonder the phenomena of the quails that could be gathered in the evening and the bread like substance which could be gathered in the morning, was understood as a miraculous gift from God. The people were hungry and thirsty. It was a miracle that the Hebrews survived at all.
We saw in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, how the anger fuse of those in Louisiana and Miss. was very short, when no one came to help them leaving the poor on the inner state highways and in the broken houses of a destroyed city. At times the former slaves of Israel complained to one another and in Exodus there is the record that the people said: “Why have you brought us to this desolate place for we are starving but at least around the flesh pots of Egypt, we had food to eat.” The anger and anxiety fuse is short when things don’t go right.
At long last the Hebrews came to camp on the edge of the Jordan River poised to enter what would later be referred to as “The Promised Land”, a Land flowing with Milk and Honey, the products of herds and agriculture. But it was then that our scripture recalls Moses saying to God: “Show us Thy Way.”
“Let us know that we have found favor in thy sight. Consider the fact that this nation is thy people.”
God’s response reveals His nature. What is not recorded here is of equal importance.
God had been with the grumbling Hebrews through an entire generation, for 40 years the Bible says. Those who had left Egypt as slaves, those who had witnessed the parting of the waters of the Red Sea, those who had seen the cloud encircling the mountain of Sinai when Moses went up to meet with God, and the glow on Moses face when he returned with the stone tablets, those who had received the first impressions of the 10 Commandments, had all died on the way through the desert and Moses would even die in site of the Promised Land but would never enter the Promised Land. So here is a new generation of people.
From day one of their young lives, born in a tent, under the canopy of the starry night of the desert, they had been taught, but had not learned. God could have said, but did not, “What have I told you about The Way?”
Once again, God could have said at their gatherings:
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother.
Do not kill.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not take the name of God in vain.
Here is the way, you thick headed, stiff necked numbskulls.
Once Jesus said to
his disciples at the end of his life, “Have I been with you so long, but you
have not known me?” Could have said: Let me remind you:
“Go the second mile. Turn the other cheek. Blessed are the merciful, the pure in
heart, the peacemakers.”
“Show us the Way? Said Jesus: “I am the Way, the truth and the Life.”
Do you want to know the Way? Have you lost the way? Have you become confused and lost? It is easy to happen at every stage along the way from adolescence, to old age. The path is not always easy to follow.
Years ago when Jane and I were into backpacking, we went into the Shining Rock Wilderness in the Blue Ridge Mountains and when the trail became overgrown, we got totally loss, until we ran into some other campers and followed them back onto the carefully marked trail. Thereafter we stayed on the carefully marked trail.
Let me identify some carefully worked ways:
Keep God’s word.
And what is God’s word? The Commandments, The Beatitudes. It doesn’t take a
PhD in Biblical studies to read and understand the Biblical Word of God. “Do
not steal.” Now what is it about this that you don’t understand? “Love God
with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and your neighbor as
yourself.” Seek first the Kingdom of God.
Secondly, follow the example of exemplary persons whom
God has given to show us the way. You have Jesus. And some of you have
marvelous parents, friends, and older friends here in the church.
Jesus said: “Follow me and you won’t get lost.” ‘I am the way.”
Find someone who is a leader in the church, who tithes their income, who takes
Bible courses, who worships every week, and start following in their way, and
see how your life will change.
For Methodist people, John Wesley wrote about “The General Rules” Do all the good you can, do no harm, and keep the spiritual disciplines.
Summary:
Now when Moses, in a weak moment, said to
God: “Show me thy way.” God didn’t strike him with a lighting bolt, nor call him
bad names. He didn’t say: “I have already shown you the way.” No, verse 14 of
Exodus 33 records that God said to Moses in response to his query, Show us thy
Way?
“My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
I got lost in a back hall of Baptist Hospital the other day, and this particular hospital has been remarkable in training their people to be “people sensitive”. And I asked this lady with a mop in her hand, where the entrance of their MINU was, MINU is an intestine care area for really sick folks. And the cleaning lady started to point and then said: “I tell you what, it’s kind of hard to fine, so come on with me, and I will show you the way.” On the way, she picked up a partner and both of these kind ladies were escorting me down the hall like I was really somebody, rather than a dumb, lost Methodist preacher. They walked me to the very entrance door and I thanked them both. And I asked before they left, “Do you know where there might be a men’s rest room near? And both of them said: “Sure, come on we’ll show you. And I said: “No, No, I’ll find it myself.”
The good news of this O.T. story of the conversation between an anxious Moses, anxious not for himself, but for he was dying, but anxious for his people, is that the ever-present God, said, “I will be with you. I will give you rest.” It was the same response of our Lord when he said, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Hear his invitation today.
In the scripture for the day, Jesus is presented with a dilemma as the Jewish authorities attempt to discredit him before the people, asking him concerning “the paying of taxes to the Roman Caesar.” They knew what they were doing. If Jesus said yes, the common people would turn against him in a heartbeat, as Rome, this foreign ruler nation was hated. The Hebrews put the Romans in the same historical category as the Egyptians in slavery days, and the hated Assyrians, and Babylonians in their day. Pay taxes to Rome? Forget it.
But if Jesus said you should not pay the taxes, he would be guilty of treason and the Roman soldiers had a way of dealing with treason.
So Jesus, not willing to fall into their trap, asks the question of his questioners “Do you have a coin?” Now it was against the parasitic teachings to handle anything with a graven image. This had been true in Deuteronic Law since the time of Moses when one of the commandments read: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, you shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.” So the Jews were not to handle these coins with the image of Caesar stamped on it, this graven image. So Jesus asks the Pharisee “Do you have a coin?” And before the Pharisee realizes the content of the question, he produces from his own pocket a coin. I suspect that the Pharisee in handing the coin to Jesus, realizes that he has been had. You know when you are caught.
When I was a kid, my mother had made a big plate of cookies for some women’s meeting that she was going to, and a friend of mine and I went through the kitchen and helped ourselves. My Mom came out into the yard and asked me if we had been in the kitchen. Immediately I said “No mama and I didn’t get any of those cookies”. As I blabbered on I realized that I was caught having violated both commandments of stealing and now lying.
In an act of divine grace, she did give me a hard time about lying and stealing, but she did say, “I made extra ones for you anyway.”
When the Pharisee produced the Roman coin out of his own pocket, he realized that he had made a mistake, but Jesus passed up the opportunity to comment on that but did say: “Render to Caesar the things of Caesar and to God, the things of God.”
This week I have been considering what things do belong to God. Among an extensive list, I have been reminded that time is a gift of God, abilities are a gift, and possessions, if not everything we claim as our own, are but gifts of God. And these gifts are given to us on loan for a only a little while and then they are passed to someone else. You can’t take possessions nor time with you, you can only use them.
Time is one of the most precious gifts of life.
We have a limited time upon the earth, and the use of the gift of time is of crucial importance to me and people like us. We don’t want to waste it and we don’t want to be unhappy with any part of how we use it. I, for one, refuse to be frustrated or vengeful. No, we are not going to waste the gifts of God, especially the gift of time. We desire to use the gifts and resources, which God has given us and to do great things in a limited time.
Stephen Covey writes in his book, The Eighth Habit, of his desire to move from effectiveness to greatness. In a book on aging, the author writes of a cosmic shift from success to significance.
Just think about; just imagine what it would be like if:
You didn’t waste your time being mad, or hurt, or feeling inadequate or afraid.
Imagine if you didn’t think of yourself as being inferior or unable to do something. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.”
Imagine if you didn’t waste your time worrying about things or being angry with people, or being unhappy.
Barbara Frederickson, PhD, has spent fifteen years studying happiness and she has reached the conclusion that happiness comes from finding positive meaning in the things that happen to us.
So you get a flat tire which looks like a bad experience, but then you have a great conversation with the mechanic who comes from AAA to fix it. A bad experience or a good experience?
I once had an airplane delay and in the frustration of the loss of time, I met one of the neatest individuals I have met in a long time. Airline delays, bad or good?
If you believe as the Bible teaches “Everything works for good for those who love the Lord”, then it is sometimes hard to figure out what is a bad experience or a good experience. You learn to take it like it is, as it comes.
I have been given reasoning powers and the gift of creativity, and to waste either would be a sad result of a life time. A few years ago, The Black College Fund, which is a Foundation which raises money to support Black Colleges across America adopted as their motto: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste. And so it is. Are you wasting yours?
Time is a gift of God. Don’t waste it. Use it and God will bless it.
We who are created in the image of God give evidence of this gift when we use our imagination. Just imagine and good things will happen in your life.
In the scripture read today, Moses, the great prophet of the Hebrews, now an old man is standing face to face with death. He is on the top of Mount Nebo, which overlooks the Jordan Rift Valley beyond which lays the Promised Land. He knows that the decisions and choices he has made over the years has now laid the foundation for the future of his people. The dream of the future in the Promised Land would not die with him, because of the foundational gifts which he had given to Joshua and Caleb and others. Moses had received the faith from his ancestors, and had now passed it on to yet another new generation. Joshua would lead the Hebrews into the Land flowing with Milk and Honey. One generation to another.
Today God has placed in the possession of today’s church a vision of a world yet to come. Whether this vision is called “The Promised Land,” “The Kingdom of God,” or “The Kingdom of Heaven,” matters very little, but what does matter is that the church is faithful to sow the seeds of belief that will germinate into a future of a people who love God and neighbor.
Our task is not to worry about what is to be, but we are to do all within our power and means to accomplish our tasks and pass the faith on to the next generation.
As the church grows, as pastors come and go, as the faces in the pews change, as the years and decades and centuries roll by unrelentingly, two things seem to be constant:
First is that the past will always be here as a foundation for who we are and what we do. We want to give our children something to live up to!
The Biblical tradition of the commandments define who we are and the Beatitudes describe us as a part of our foundation for today.
We were birthed by a Lord who said “I am among you as one who serves.” And service is our most important product. Among all the varied tasks of the Church, our helping, caring ministry is of most lasting value.
We were reborn in the 16th Century when Martin Luther held strong to the position that we are saved by God’s Divine Grace, Freely Given, and Freely Received. You may do great things in your faithful life, but the first step is to simply accept the fact that you are accepted by a power greater than you can imagine. You may not yet accept yourself, but God does. Why don’t you just catch up with him. He loves you.
We were again reborn in the 18th century through John Wesley who expected that believers would be spiritually disciplined and would be obedient to The General Rules—do no harm, do all the good you can, practice the spiritual disciplines.
Once again we who are here in this church in Pensacola,
were reborn in 1821 with a spiritual leader who was not just a preacher, but
was also a missionary doctor to the Indians. Consequently we build homes for
the elderly, homes for the poor and schools for the children, Thank God the
church of today reflects fairly accurately the church of yesterday. Yes, the
past is the strong foundation of all that we do today.
The second constant dimension of our life is that God will always be calling us to become more than we have been, to grow, to change, to be better, to improve, to reflect the character of God so that the future will be more in tune with the world. As the Lord Jesus Christ said: “You must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
And let me tell you, you are something, but perfect you are not. Let us not miss opportunities to grow in Christ. To step out of our hiding places, to step forward and to grow in Christ. Let us not miss opportunities which come to us, such as a pledge to the church, a greeting to a stranger, an act of kindness over and beyond what is expected.
I often think about the poignant words of John Greenleaf Whittier: “For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: It might have been!” Let us live a life of “No Regrets”. Sure we will make mistakes, but even in mistakes we can grow with new resolve in God’s likeness.
Rabbi Zusya, a Hasidic master teacher, posed a question just before his death which we will all have to answer when he said: “In the coming world, they will not ask me, “Why were you not like Moses?” They will ask me, “Why were you not what you, Zusya, could have been?”
The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we live under the Lordship of one who said: “It is never too late for us to become what we might have been.”
Today is a day for doing new things, to grow, to change, to improve, to become what God offers us to be.
The First thing you want to remember is that the past is the foundation of the present, and in our time we will step forward to improve our lives, knowing that soon tomorrow will be today.
Therefore, let us begin to imagine great things for God. World Peace, A community with no substandard houses, a nation where medical care is available for all who live and visit here, where ignorance, poverty, and scarcity are forgotten words like polio, yellow fever, the black plague…
When this generation dies on the top of its Mount Nebo, will we have done our job of preparing the next generation to see beyond their horizons? Will we have modeled the Christ like life?
The answer to this resides in each of our souls as we consider what we are doing and will do now and every day. “Today is a day of new beginnings!”