ZIGGING AND ZAGGING

ZIGGING and ZAGGING

This writer was in a large public relations firm, Brooklyn, NY. There was a large sign in the lobby which read, “Perception is Reality”.

I pity the person who does not have memories. Particularly memories of good times that will help you get through your bad times. If you have not had any bad times, relax, they are on the way.

Particularly, on this Mother's Day weekend, memories of my mother and grandmothers. I am fortunate enough to have known all three. Remember there are children in this world who have never known their parents, much less, their grandparents. A miss is as great as a mile. The thing I remember most about these matriarchs of my family the word which Aristotle and the Apostle Paul used as “moderation”. (Phil 4:5). The word really means contentment...have you reached a place that you can have joy regardless of circumstances? Does your faith determine your circumstances or do your circumstances determine your faith? Do you find happiness in bad times? It took the church 15 centuries to discover that “we live by faith”. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. (Romans 1:17).

You can know that you have reached the greatest gift of God, “liberty”, when you can live with joy amid bad circumstances, disappointment, discouragement, even disability.

The maternal influences on my life are wonderful memories because they never “zigged or zagged”. Their's was a constant faith.

Faith is a verb, “action based on belief, sustained by confidence”. I believe faith is 90% raw courage. When times are bad, (Great Depression, WWII, sickness and death), people of strong faith can do remarkable things. Can we even imagine the 1^st century Christians such as the Apostle Paul? He did not fall in love with prison cells, stocks, beatings, shipwreck. When shipwrecked on the island of Malta (and I have walked all over this island) there was probably not a snake within a hundred miles except the one that bit him there. The example of Paul's faith transformed the world. There is not a square inch of soil on earth where one of his epistles is not read almost every day. When anyone calls Christians hypocrites, you can always point out the Apostle Paul, solid, never zigging or zagging.

From Romans to Philemon, the constitution and message of the church, you will find that most of these letters were written while he was in prison...the prison in Rome, attached to a Roman soldier, just a cistern of sorts in the ground, he had spent just a short time at Phillipi but for 11years that church sent him gifts. No greater words have ever been spoken than his message to the church at Phillipi. That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death. (Philippians 3:10).

The great preacher, Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, was asked to leave his pastorate in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he had been pastor for 23 years, his father before him 58 years, because he insisted that young people in the church not be served communion until after they had made a profession of faith in Christ. The vote for his dismissal, 220/23, even though he was renowned as a great preacher and later President of Princeton University. Later, Boston papers, full page apologies.

The time has come for churches to decide “who's side they are really on”. This matter of not being able to decide, looking up and down the pews, if people are Christian or non-Christian, if dressed for a nightclub or church. This matter of abortion. This matter of homosexuality, same sex marriage. This matter of gays and lesbians in the pulpit. The gays do not have numbers but they have money and influence (Hollywood, Wall Street). The population is about 4% gay yet homosexual men have an infection rate of 50% with HIV AIDS. 1/5 of gay men who are HIV positive do not know it. Their life spans are about half that of the “normal” male. Everything from adultery to child rearing, Christ's first miracle, tells us that marriage is between a male and female yet, the church, taken over by the “tares” of this world is being strangled, influence diminished, “messing around with God”, the average church just a country club with a steeple.

God has chosen those whom He will parade around in Eternity to live a separated life. You can be sure that separation is a definite part of God's instructions. Just as a few apples in a barrel, if not separated, will cause the whole barrel to rot so God, starting with one tree in the Garden, established the fact that He is “Boss”, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent. In giving, tithing, His demand for commitment, He shows His parameters, just as with the tree in the Garden. Christianity is not hard to understand, not easily conjured for our convenience.