The other day, my air conditioner stopped working and I had to schedule a repair.
I was going to have to wait at least two days as the repairman had a number of calls ahead of mine.
With the forecast calling for unseasonably warm temperatures I decided to purchase a new fan.
I felt I would be more comfortable with at least some air circulating in the room.
I stopped by the store and looked over the selection of fans that they had in stock.
One model in particular caught my eye because of both its features and its price.
It happened to be the only one like it that they had in stock.
When I picked the box up from the shelf I noticed that it had been opened before and very carefully taped back shut.
There was a sales clerk in that department so I asked him about it.
He apologized for the box having been opened and he was nice enough to explain the situation to me.
It turns out that someone had purchased the fan and taken it home.
They opened the box and saw the amount of assembly required and the size of the instruction booklet that came with it.
They decided not to invest this amount of effort.
They promptly returned it to the store and exchanged it for a simpler model.
The clerk assured me that every component originally in the box was accounted for.
I purchased the fan and took it home.
I unpacked all the parts and got out my tools.
Then, before I so much as turned a single screw, I did something very important.
I read the assembly instructions.
Once I had familiarized myself with them I began to assemble the fan.
I kept the instructions close at hand and within an hour I had it assembled.
I plugged it in and tested it to make certain that it worked.
Having done that, I next read the operating instructions in order to familiarize myself with all its features.
As I write this in the comfort of its cool and refreshing breeze I am struck by the similarity this has to our faith.
Salvation is God's gift of grace to us but after we accept it there comes a certain amount of effort on our part.
We are to do the things which please Him.
We are also to refrain from doing those things which displease Him.
Fortunately for us, He gives us the tools we need to do this.
He also gives us a marvelous instruction book to help us make sense of it all.
That book is the Bible and we should make reading it a regular part of our lives.
2 Timothy 3:16 (NIV) - All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.
It is said that the Bible is the best selling book of all time.
It does not fulfill its purpose when it sits on a shelf unread.
We have choices.
We can accept God's gift and all that comes with it, or, we take one quick glance inside the box and return it.
The hardest and most painful work has already been done for us.
Shouldn't we be willing to do our small part in return?
Blessings,
Jim Pokorny
The Other Brother Jim
Look for me at http://faithfulfeetteam.blogspot.com/ on Friday, May 2, 2014.
I’ll be back here on Friday, May 9, 2014
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Thursday, April 10, 2014
There Is Hope for Everyone
There once was a boy who dearly loved his mother.
His mother was diagnosed with a terrible disease when he was ten years old.
The boy prayed to God for his mother to be healed.
She was not.
The boy's mother died and as a result he blamed God for her death.
That blame then grew into a genuine disbelief in God.
By age thirteen he became quite "worldly" and declared that he was no longer a Christian.
In the plainest of terms, he had given up on God..
By age fifteen, he began to hate the school he was enrolled in and begged his father to take him out of it.
Although he had an aptitude for literature his lack of ability in mathematics caused him to fail in school.
When war broke out, he was recruited into the army and found himself on the front lines on his nineteenth birthday.
After the war, he returned to school and resumed his education.
At age thirty-one, he fell on his knees and confessed that "God is God' and became a theist.
Although he believed in God, he still did not believe that Jesus was who He claimed to be.
Two years later, at age thirty-three he went on a thirty mile motorcycle trip to the zoo with his brother.
He later said that when the trip began, he still did not acknowledge that Jesus was the Son of God.
By the time they arrived, he did.
The man about whom I write is C. S. Lewis.
He was known as one of the most famous defenders of Christianity in the twentieth century.
As a boy, Lewis had given up on God.
God never gave up on Lewis.
Throughout the remainder of his life, Lewis composed a large body of work which not only defended the Christian faith but explained with complete and flawless logic why it is the only faith that makes sense.
In recent years his Chronicles of Narnia series have been made into full length motion pictures.
Among his works was a series of radio lectures which he broadcast on BBC Radio during World War II.
These were eventually compiled into one book entitled Mere Christianity.
We are now studying that book in the adult Sunday school class I am privileged to teach.
Lewis died on November 22, 1963.
That was the same day President John Kennedy was assassinated.
News of the assassination greatly diminished the newsworthiness of the passing of C. S. Lewis.
Considering the life of C. S. Lewis leads me to remember another life that was changed permanently.
Paul, who penned the letters that make up such a large part of our New Testament, found his life forever changed.
Be it a road to Damascus or a road that leads to an English zoo, lives can be completely changed at the time of God's choosing.
For as long as we draw breath, there remains hope for meaningful and eternal change.
That means that there is hope for everyone.
Blessings,
Jim Pokorny
The Other Brother Jim
Look for me at http://faithfulfeetteam.blogspot.com/ on Friday, April 18, 2014.
I’ll be back here on Friday, April 25, 2014
His mother was diagnosed with a terrible disease when he was ten years old.
The boy prayed to God for his mother to be healed.
She was not.
The boy's mother died and as a result he blamed God for her death.
That blame then grew into a genuine disbelief in God.
By age thirteen he became quite "worldly" and declared that he was no longer a Christian.
In the plainest of terms, he had given up on God..
By age fifteen, he began to hate the school he was enrolled in and begged his father to take him out of it.
Although he had an aptitude for literature his lack of ability in mathematics caused him to fail in school.
When war broke out, he was recruited into the army and found himself on the front lines on his nineteenth birthday.
After the war, he returned to school and resumed his education.
At age thirty-one, he fell on his knees and confessed that "God is God' and became a theist.
Although he believed in God, he still did not believe that Jesus was who He claimed to be.
Two years later, at age thirty-three he went on a thirty mile motorcycle trip to the zoo with his brother.
He later said that when the trip began, he still did not acknowledge that Jesus was the Son of God.
By the time they arrived, he did.
The man about whom I write is C. S. Lewis.
He was known as one of the most famous defenders of Christianity in the twentieth century.
As a boy, Lewis had given up on God.
God never gave up on Lewis.
Throughout the remainder of his life, Lewis composed a large body of work which not only defended the Christian faith but explained with complete and flawless logic why it is the only faith that makes sense.
In recent years his Chronicles of Narnia series have been made into full length motion pictures.
Among his works was a series of radio lectures which he broadcast on BBC Radio during World War II.
These were eventually compiled into one book entitled Mere Christianity.
We are now studying that book in the adult Sunday school class I am privileged to teach.
Lewis died on November 22, 1963.
That was the same day President John Kennedy was assassinated.
News of the assassination greatly diminished the newsworthiness of the passing of C. S. Lewis.
Considering the life of C. S. Lewis leads me to remember another life that was changed permanently.
Paul, who penned the letters that make up such a large part of our New Testament, found his life forever changed.
Be it a road to Damascus or a road that leads to an English zoo, lives can be completely changed at the time of God's choosing.
For as long as we draw breath, there remains hope for meaningful and eternal change.
That means that there is hope for everyone.
Blessings,
Jim Pokorny
The Other Brother Jim
Look for me at http://faithfulfeetteam.blogspot.com/ on Friday, April 18, 2014.
I’ll be back here on Friday, April 25, 2014
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