THE POUND
PROCLAIMER
Volume II
June 2007
Number 8
Sing
to the Lord, bless His name; proclaim the good news of His salvation from day
to day. Psalms 96:2
THE CIRCLE OF
LOVE IS EVERYTHING!
“As a physician who has
been deeply privileged to share the most profound moments of people’s lives,
including their final moments, let me tell you a secret. People facing death
don’t think about what degrees they have earned, what positions they have held
or how much wealth they have accumulated. At the end, what really matters (and
is a good measure of a past life) is who you loved and who loved you. The
circle of love is everything.” Bernadine Healy, M.D.
Doctor Healy’s observation,
if not profound, is at least enlightening. It challenges us to direct our
attention to God’s teaching about love. Not only does God give instruction on
this matter, but love’s power is observed in life experiences.
I have for sometime felt
that those who face imminent death shed their ties to this world. Hence, their
perception of what is important changes drastically. One would be hard pressed
to convince someone who can feel their life force waning that they need to put
money in an IRA. On the other hand, those of us who are alive and well at
sixty, feel an ominous foreboding because we have failed to develop a portfolio
for retirement.
John teaches us in his
first epistle that who we love and who loves us is vitally important. “Anyone who does not love does not know God,
because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that
God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In
this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son
to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:8-10). God is love and has
manifested that love by sending His Son into the world to save mankind. Who
loves you? God, that’s who!
Knowing that God loves us
is not enough, we must love! “We love
because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother,
he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love
God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves
God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:19-21). Who do you love?
God and the brethren, that’s who!
John also deals with love
in the negative. “Do not love the world
or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father
is not in him. For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the
desires of the eyes and pride in possessions--is not from the Father but is
from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but
whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15-17). How
sad it is to come to the final moments of one’s life only to realize they have
loved the wrong things. And to realize that because they have loved the wrong
things, God rejects them.
God has given you and me a most precious gift. The gift
is a life to be lived. What we do with that gift has eternal consequences. As
the doctor observed, when we have used up God’s gift, nothing will matter
except who we have loved and who has loved us. Do you love God? Does God love
you?
The Editor’s
Page
There is a vicious rumor
going around. I am going to use the editorial page this month to put a stop to
this wild babbling. It is being told that I am sixty (60) years old. I deny
------- what, what did you say? I am?!! Who says?! My mother! But I don’t feel
sixty. How can I be sixty years old? Yes dear, I am sorry I doubted you.
When I awoke this morning, I
noticed there was something different in the air, things were changed, somehow.
I rubbed my eyes and scratched my head in bewilderment as I looked into the
bathroom mirror. And then I saw it, looking back at me, a sixty year old man.
Where has the time gone?
Sixty years of living are
behind me. Sixty years of joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure with success and
failure. My life experiences have given me understanding, yet, I still feel
inadequate as I blunder through my morning ritual at the bathroom mirror. Shouldn’t
I be looking into the eyes of one who possesses the wisdom of the ages? One who
is a leader of men? One who can leap tall buildings in a single bound and stop
runaway locomotives with his bare hands? After all, is this not the time of
life when wisdom manifests itself? But all I see is someone whose hair is
thinning, whose back aches and who is tired after a night’s sleep.
How does a man evaluate his
sixty years of life? Do we look to a man’s secular accomplishments? Just what
is it that determines the worth of a man? There are men who have accumulated
great wealth by this age. Others have become famous through note worthy deeds
by age sixty. Are the lives of such men of greater value than others? I say
not. The true worth of a man is measured one way and one way only, through his
relationship with God.
While speaking in the
synagogue of Antioch of Pisidia, Paul states that God said of David that he was
a man after God’s own heart and one that would obey Him (Acts 13:22). Solomon,
the son of David, after searching for meaning in life, came to the conclusion
that the whole duty of man was to fear God and keep His commandments (Ecclesiastes
12:13). Paul said of himself that it is no longer I who live, but
Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20).
As I think of my life and its
worth, I reach out to the thread which links these verses together and I ask
myself, “Has my sixty years been worthwhile?” It is the question which all
thinking, rational human beings must ask themselves at some point in their
lives.
Over the past sixty years,
have I nurtured a heart that is truly a heart like unto God’s? Is my heart a
heart that loves like God loves? (C.f. John 3:16; 1 John 4:7, 8, 9-11).
Is my heart one that loves the world? (1 John 2:15-17). God forbid! I pray
that it can be said of me as was said of David of old.
In my sixty years, have I
come to understand that which Solomon understood? When the trials of life come,
do I truly pray, “Nevertheless, not my
will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).
Have I truly decreased and
let Christ increase in me? It is my desire that Paul’s statement about himself
be one I can make concerning myself. “I
have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who
lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of
God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
The Lord has blessed me with
a good life. I have had the pleasure to assist precious souls in baptism as
they completed their obedience to the gospel. I have also prayed with wayward
Christians who repented and came back to God. I have held studies with new
Christians to help establish their faith. Truly my life is good!
Oh yes! I thank you Lord for today and
for my sixtieth birthday. I could not have made it without you! I praise You and give You all glory and praise.
THE LAST WORD
ENTHUSIASM
You
can do anything if you have enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your
hope rise to the stars.
Enthusiasm
is the sparkle in your eye, it is the swing in your
gait, the grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of your will and your
energy to execute your ideals.
Enthusiasts
are fighters.
They
have fortitude.
They
have staying qualities.
Enthusiasm
is at the bottom of all progress.
With
it there is accomplishment—Without it there are only
alibis.
By Henry Ford
SENTENCE SERMONS
To
err is human, but when the eraser wears out before the pencil, you’re over
doing it.
The
Christian must have “won’t” power as well as “will” power.
He
that ‘tooteth’ his own horn, ‘runneth’ down his
battery.
Faith must have
adequate evidence or else it is mere superstition.
