Last night I finished a study leading up to Easter on the ministry of Jesus from the upper room to the empty tomb. We started six weeks ago by studying the Thursday night before Jesus went to the cross. Today we traditionally remember that day.

On the Church calendar, this is called Maundy Thursday. The word Maundy comes from a Latin word meaning “command.” This was the day that Jesus commanded his disciples to “Love one another, as I have loved you.” It is also the day that Jesus celebrated the Last Supper and instituted the Lord’s supper. While this whole week is considered “Holy Week” today moves us closer to Jesus sacrifice on the cross.

Today many Churches across the world will gather for special communion worship programs to remember the events of this night. Some Churches I know are celebrating the evening by having a Passover meal recreation to help people fully understand that night. The group of Churches I serve have gone a different direction in their emphasis. We take communion every week and remember the last supper and Jesus death on the cross whenever we worship.

Communion is the interesting time in any Church. Each place does it a little different. Some chose one loaf of bread and one cup. Other Churches like us use little-precut pieces of bread with little individual cups, mainly for hygiene reasons. There are dozens of variations on these methods. The beautiful part of this little celebration is that God gives us the freedom to take it in our own way as long as our emphasis is correct.

Quite often when I speak of communion, I hear someone quote a verse of scripture from 1 Corinthians 11:27 that says, “Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.” This quotation is usually followed by some sort of explanation that we need to be careful about having our life right with God before we take the bread and the cup. The problem with that understanding is that it is not a very good interpretation of Paul’s words.

Please let me explain. The passage is about a Church that comes together for a fellowship meal, and at the end, they were to take communion. The Church had people showing up ahead of other people and eating all the food. There were even those who were getting drunk. At the end of their meal, the people took a piece of bread and a cup just like it was another part of the meal without ever thinking about Jesus. Paul writes to remind them to focus on Christ and his work on the cross at communion. The bread is to remember his body broken. The cup is to remember his spilled blood. We celebrate the Lord’s Supper in an “unworthy manner” when we forget about what Jesus did for our sins on the cross.

Paul is not telling them to clean up their minds and actions before they take communion. If that were the case, no one could take it. He is telling them to focus their thoughts on Christ. The emphasis is not on us and our shortcomings, rather on Jesus and his overcoming.

If you are a believer and tonight, you take communion for Maundy Thursday, or if you take it tomorrow at a good Friday program or if you simply take it on Sunday morning as part of your Easter celebration you need to know that no one is good enough to take communion. We take communion because Jesus did an excellent work on the cross for us.

Today and this weekend may Jesus love for you be ever close to your hearts as we meet to worship him.

There is something I need to say. It has bothered me for a long time, and I see it creeping into the Church more with every passing year. This is not true of everyone I know. It is honestly not a generational thing because I see it happening with all age groups. Here it goes, “I am tired of people being self-centered and acting like the world revolves around them.”

I am continually convicted by the behavior of others. I notice people who regularly give no regard to other people or their things. I used to call these things “common sense,” but I now realize these actions are not so common. As followers of Jesus, I think we need to lead the way in putting others above ourselves.

With that said, let me make a few suggestions –

-Hold the door open for other people.
-Share your umbrella.
-Open car doors for the elderly.
-Pick up your own trash and throw it away.
-Then pick up someone else’s trash and throw it away.
-Empty the trash can (at home, the Church and anywhere possible) when it is full.
-Say please and thank you.
-Let other people in front of you in line who only have a couple items to purchase.
-You don’t have to be first in line.
-Don’t eat all the best food and leave the leftovers for others.
-Take care of your own dishes after a meal.
-Leave the last piece of pie for someone else.
-Let someone else pick the restaurant and the TV channel.
-Give a good tip.
-Write cards to those who do something special.
-Keep quiet at concerts, movies, and Church when someone else is speaking.
-Ask other people what you can pray for on their behalf.
-Ask people how they are doing and then listen to their answer.
-Don’t take anything without asking.
-Offer to help.
-Give.
-Flush the toilet.
-Turn off the lights when you are done.
-Clean up after yourself.
-Speak kindly to anyone in the service industry.
-Be willing to help people move.
-Go above and beyond what is required.
-Smile.
-Tell other people how much they mean to you.
-Never act like anyone owes you anything.

I know this is not a complete list. It will get you thinking. Some of these will come naturally to you and others will be difficult. I know some of them seem minuscule, but I believe it is most often the little things that change the world. A selfish and self-centered attitude has never moved the work of God forward in the world. When people of faith begin to value others and their stuff the world becomes witness to the kingdom of God in everything we do.

One of the things that might surprise you about being a preacher is how lonely it can sometimes be. Through the years, I have noticed that no matter what Church I lead very few people to have me into their home. It is not that people don’t like me. Occasionally people ask me to go out to eat, and several people love to stop by my office, but few people want me in their home.

I used to take offense to this truth. Was it my table manners? Was it my lack of people skills? Was it my children? Then one day the truth hit me, it is not that people didn’t like me personally, rather they do not like me professionally. Most people are not comfortable with “the preacher” in their home.

If the preacher comes into my home, he will see how I live. He will see how messy my house is all the time. He will see projects that are not finished. He will see the real me.

If the preacher comes into my home, he will see my priorities. He will see my collection of shot glasses highlighted nicely by my Budweiser mirror. He will also see my dusty Bible hidden on the shelf.

If the preacher comes into my home, he will see how my children actually behave. He will see their bedrooms and their stuff. He will see how they are not little angels but closer to demons. He may hear them say inappropriate words or phrases. He will know all about my parenting.

If the preacher comes into my home, he will see how my spouse and I relate to each other. He might hear us yell or get angry. He may see us ignore each other as we live separate lives. He may see how awkward we are when we are not at Church putting on a show.

If the preacher comes into my home, he may see how little Jesus has anything to do with my daily life.

It is a frightening thing to have the preacher into your home. His life and work represent God. It is easier to keep him away than to change our life in some way.

Here is the thing, as a believer, God already sees your lifestyle. He hears what you say and how you interact with your spouses, your children and guests. God sees every minute of your life with all its flaws. God knows all about you.

I once heard a preacher challenge his congregation with a simple question. What if you lived every day as if the preacher were in your home?

Would your life be any different if the presence of God walked into your home?

Honestly, God is already there, and you have just forgotten.

In the past three months, the Church I lead has grown by over 20 people in average weekly attendance. It has been a time of excitement as we see many new people coming every week. This has also been accompanied by a season of spiritual growth. People are attending small groups, I am counseling several people, and weekly I hear stories of life change as people trust Jesus more completely. Wonderful things are happening around this Church, and I am thrilled to be a part of it.

The interesting side note to this story is my own personal issues. The past three months have been very hard on my emotionally. With my father’s death, I have struggled weekly with the weight of loss. Each week I seem to have a moment where I break down at my desk and start crying. His importance to my life and my relationship with him molded and shaped me as a man. It really hurts to say goodbye for now. The result of this personal struggle has been less time and emotion invested in sermons than I typically give each one. Few of my sermons during this period have “felt” right to me. I definitely would not call this my best season of ministry. Yet, during this time the Church has grown.

Yesterday I looked out the window thinking about my life and ministry, and a couple of verses of scripture came to mind very clearly. The Apostle Paul wrote the Church in the city of Corinth, and he was speaking of his ministry. In chapter 11 he tells of all the things he has suffered for the gospel. At the end of the section he pens these words in 2 Corinthians 11:30 “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.”

In the next chapter, he writes about this “thorn in the flesh” and how it hindered his ministry and then he adds this secondary thought. 2 Corinthians 12:9 “But (God) said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” The Apostle Paul saw his weakness, not as a place of shame rather a place where God’s strength could work.

This year has not been my best performance as a minister, and I am okay with that. In fact, I will boast about it, because in my toughest season of ministry God’s power has been doing amazing things. Whenever I feel like I do not have the power to get through another week, God shows up and does his work. The glorious truth is that the God I serve is greater than I am and how I feel at any given time.

This truth is not just for the minister but for all of us. When you feel like you do not have the strength to do the tasks that lie ahead, God meets you there to do more than you ever imagined. Most of us shy away from our weaknesses, and God says that at those moments is where his power is its greatest.

Keep working and serving, and God will take your feeble efforts and mine and couple them with his power to do more than we ever dreamed. Just remember, give him the glory in return.

Here is my thought for today. Keep going.

Here are the best posts I read this week. Enjoy.

Why Your Kids Can Spend 600-Plus Hours in Church and Not Get Much Out of It – I found this very thought provoking as a church leader and especially as a parent

Followership – a great article about being a follower.

12 Habits That Lead to Divorce – are you destroying your own marriage?

Do This And Watch What Happens In Your Marriage

A church opportunity called “The Epidemic of Loneliness”

Been thinking about my dad this week. I suppose it is because fishing season is upon us and with every trip, I want to call dad and tell him about it. As my thoughts turn toward his life, I am reminded of several memories I have that were spiritual in nature and helped to shape my life.

1. Sitting in the Old Green Truck. Dad had an old Ford pickup that I spent countless hours sitting in as we drove to hunt, trap and fish. I always sat in the middle, and my brother sat by the door. Never a great place if you are looking for comfort, but I never had to get out and open the gate. It was there in that truck that my dad explained the gospel to my brother. He spoke of the cross, salvation and eternal life in heaven. I don’t know if dad was aware of how I hung on his every word. It was sitting there that I decided I wanted to give my life to Christ. Sure, I went forward on Sunday morning and made a confession of faith and was baptized, but sitting in that truck with my dad is where I made those fledgling decisions of faith.

2. After my Baptism. Two events happened minutes after I was baptized. My brother and I had gone forward together after hearing dad speak. First, my dad came into a little room with us and shared communion. The three of us took the bread and the cup and had a moment of silent reflection on the decision we had just made. Then we walked out of that room, and my brother began crying. Dad grabbed him and held him there in the back hallway of the Church. I asked dad why he was sad and he said, “One day you will understand this.” He was right, I did not at that moment understand the complete gravity of our decision, but dad did, and so did my brother. It was one of the most beautiful moments I witnessed with my dad and brother together.

3. Baptizing My Son. My oldest boy was very close to his grandfather or Pappy as we called him. It was really no surprise to me when he decided to follow Jesus and be baptized that he wanted his Pappy to be a part. There in my home Church, the family gathered, and my dad baptized my son. It is one of the greatest days of my life.

4. Looking at His Old Bible. After his first stroke, I sat in his chair and saw his Bible. Picking it up I saw page after page of handwritten notes. His cursive writing made many of his notes hard to decipher. Flipping through the pages, I noticed there was not a section untouched. The edge of the New Testament was stained with the dirt of hundreds of uses. Dad had spent hour upon hour in God’s word, and it showed in his life and on that Bible.

These are just some of the thoughts that bubble to the surface about my father. I guess I share these with you to remind everyone of the impact you have on your children. You have the potential to shape the lives of the next generation. You want them to be good people, then you need to first set the example. You want them to be Godly people then you must be living, learning and sharing your faith. My life is marked by several people, but my father’s imprint is the deepest. Where will your mark be left?

Over the last several years I have noticed a recurring theme in my preaching and in my writing. This topic I describe as holding on tight to my faith when I feel like giving up. This issue has been stirred by numerous conversations with people of faith, especially men. I keep finding people who claim to have faith but refuse to do anything with it because of some painful story. As a result, I keep reminding people that real faith will make it through anything no matter how difficult it may seem.

1. Hold onto faith in the face of loss. This year I have faced the loss of my dad. It has been one of the most difficult experiences in my life. I know I am not alone in this. I am sure some of you have wondered how there can be a good God when someone you love is hurting or even passes away. Hold onto Jesus as the resurrection and the life.

2. Hold onto faith when Christians hurt you. Christians are deeply flawed people. I make no pretense that this is not true. We are sinners saved by grace. The cross removes all our sins, but it does not remove the possibility that we will sin again. Unfortunately, our old ways occasionally rise to the surface, and we say and do things that hurt other people. Sadly, it happens more often than you think. Real faith understands that only God is perfect and all of us need grace upon grace.

3. Hold onto faith when people criticize you. Maybe you have not been hurt by the sins of other Christians, but you have been hurt by their cutting words. They had tried to rebuke you or offer correction when they were wrong or misunderstood the situation. Faith does not put all of its trust in other people. It listens for the nugget of truth and throws out the rest.

4. Hold onto faith when you feel bad. There are times that life just gets hard. I don’t feel well, and I am hurting. When pain enters our life in any form, it has the possibility to push us away from faith. Hold on even when you hurt.

5. Hold onto faith when life is hard. Often our struggle is not because of one thing in our life. It is the result of a dozen little things. I was once told that termites destroy more homes than tornadoes. Many times, all of the little things eat away at our faith and do far more damage than some catastrophic event. Hold onto your faith no matter what is eating away at you.

I wish faith were an easy project for people. The reality is that nothing in life worth having is easy. Faith is no different. Sometimes having faith takes demanding work. Other times you have to hang onto your beliefs in spite of an ugly situation. I firmly believe that the Christian life is full of blessings upon blessings, but only if we hold on through the dark nights until the light of morning.

I spend a large section of my day inside my own head. Honestly, sometimes it is a dark and scary place. Inside my brain failures can take up permanent residence, evil thoughts reappear regularly and lust, anger, and pride try to distort my every thought. With all this ugliness inside my own mind, I must continually remind myself of the truth of my faith.

1. God Loves Me Anyway. I am sure there are times God is disappointed in my actions or angry at my mistakes. He is our father, and like any good parent, he gets frustrated with his children. Also, like a good parent, those irritations do not diminish his love. God the Father loves us and seeks the best for us even in our failures.

2. Jesus Paid the Price. Quite often I feel this need to punish myself mentally. I feel I am not worthy of God’s goodness in my life. He must be angry with me and my continual mistakes, and if he is not disappointed, then I am with myself. I deserve any mistreatment I receive. The good news of the Bible is that Jesus took up our sins upon the cross. He paid the price for my trespasses, and I do not have to wait for his angry hand to punish me and I do not have to punish myself.

3. My Past Does Not Define My Future. The great Apostle Paul was at one time the evil Saul who gave approval to murder. Yet, God saw something different deep inside him. Once Saul started to follow Jesus his life was never the same. The change was so great that even his name changed to represent his new life in Christ. I believe God sees the same potential in all of us. I do not have to be limited by the mistakes of the past.

4. The Power of God is Stronger than the Power of Evil. When the dark thoughts overtake my mind, I frequently stop and say a little prayer. In those moments, I ask God to give me the power to overcome the evil inside me. I believe the power of God is greater than anything that evil can throw at me whether that be ugly thoughts, guilt and shame or personal fantasies that seek selfish pleasure. “God give me strength at this moment” is a prayer I know very well.

5. Focus on the Good. Paul told the believers in the city of Philippi to focus on “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8) Whenever dark thoughts enter my mind, I have to force myself to flip things over and see the good. Sure, I made mistakes, but those mistakes made me who I am today. Sure, I sin and fall short, but I worship a God who offers forgiveness and grace. We, as Christians, have been blessed in so many ways. Don’t ever lose sight of the blessing you have received in your life.

I often wish there were some magic words that I could recite to make all the darkness go away. There simply is no effortless way to fix my messed-up brain. Every day I have to make an effort to renew my mind and tune it to the sound of God’s word.

Through the years, I have learned that I am not the only one to struggle in with these thoughts. If you struggle too, maybe these words will help you today.

There are two sides of faith.

One side is our belief system based on our knowledge of God’s word. This is an essential piece of faith. We need to believe the right things about God. To this end, we are not left to our own experiences or imagination. God gave us 66 books that have been collected into one volume we call the Bible.

Believers are encouraged to read and study these books to learn more about God and his desire for us. Therefore, many followers of Jesus set aside not only time to read the Bible, but also to read books that explain the Bible. They also sit and listen to sermons, lectures, and lessons on a regular basis. Christians have a quest for knowledge of the things of God.

The other side to faith is our actions based off of what we believe. The knowledge of God is given to us to shape everything we do. It has been said that to know what a person really believes, just look at their actions. Jesus himself challenges his followers at the end of the Sermon on the Mount to put their faith “into practice.”

Those of us who call ourselves Christians need to be constantly reminded of these two sides of faith. I have seen numerous people who have erred by living only one side of their beliefs. They either spend all their time learning, and it has little effect on their actions. Yet another group of people want to do great things but have little knowledge of what God really wants. They do good works but can end up doing them for all the wrong reasons.

Both of these are essential to faith. Jesus taught his followers the truth and then told them to go and do it.

Here is the weird twist. Many times, before people are interested in the Bible and what it says about God, they want to see Jesus in our actions. You are the only version of Jesus that many people will see.

People are watching you to see if this thing we call following Jesus is worth their time and energy. The words you use, the actions you do and the attitude in which you do them are all under examination.

I know that can leave us feeling great pressure to be perfect. In my experience, I have found few people looking for perfection. Most people are interested in grace. They want to know it is okay to fail and still be loved. What if today you told someone, “God loves you, and so do I, no matter what you have done.” Maybe for a few minutes, you will be Jesus in Nike shoes.