LET HIM PAINT HIS MASTERPIECE

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Avis became one of America’s success stories by hiring one of the top advertising firms in America. The advertising firm said, “…give us ninety days to learn enough about your business to apply our skills, and then run every ad we write where we tell you to run it…If you promise to run them just as we write them, you’ll have every art director and copy writer in my shop moonlighting on your account.” Wow! They said run every ad we write where we tell you to run it and Avis did it even though they were skeptical. All the advertising firm could come up with was that the company was second largest and that the people were trying harder. That’s it! The rest is history. The Avis Rent A Car agency is now the nation’s number one car rental service.

Moral: Don’t hire a master to paint you a masterpiece and then assign a roomful of schoolboy-artists to look over his shoulder and suggest improvements.

POOLING OF IGNORANCE

Monday, March 17, 2008

As a pastor for fifty years, I was involved with many committees. Few, if any of them, worked well. It’s sad to say, but I found most of them to be a pooling of ignorance. This doesn’t mean that the people involved were ignorant—at least not all of them. It means they were generally ignorant most of the time on the topics of discussion.

There is only one way to survive when you find yourself serving on a committee. You have to have courage, humor and energy. As a general rule, when it comes to committee meetings—the fewer the better. This applies to the number of meetings and the number of participants. Another general rules is, that unless the meeting is worth several hundred dollars—don’t have it. You are wasting time and money.

My philosophy is: Get on with it and get the job done!

IF I COULD BE IN CHARGE

Sunday, March 16, 2008

You probably have read about the little boy that says what he would do if he could be in charge of the world for a day. He would do things like make ice cream a vegetable. I say three cheers for that.

Well, if I could have been in charge of Walk Worthy Books and Music book store at our church a few weeks before Easter, I would have sold hundreds of copies of, The Passion of Jesus Christ by John Piper. Wow, what a book. John gives fifty reasons why Jesus came to die. He gathered these reasons from the New Testament. Not fifty causes, but fifty purposes—in answer to the most important question that each of us must face: What did God achieve for sinners like us in sending his Son to die?

If I could have I would have advertised this book on the churches’ web site, the monthly paper, every week in the worship bulletin and every week on the two large screens in the sanctuary. Every week over 6,000 come to the church. And at Easter that number will increase by several thousand more. I would have had tables stacked high with this splendid book. And then I would have asked the preacher to mention it from the pulpit. That’s all he would have had to do and the books would have just “flown” off the tables.

Well, guess what? I am in charge of this blog. So I am telling you, it doesn’t have to be Easter that you read this book—just read it. Fifty reasons why Jesus came to die!

RUINED LIVES

Saturday, March 15, 2008

“People ruin their lives by their own stupidity, so why does God always get blamed?”
Proverbs 19:3

THE SURPRISES OF LIFE

Friday, March 14, 2008

In a splendid article for Christianity Today, J.I. Packer talks about the surprises of his life and what a blessing they have been for him. God surprised him in many ways over the years and he is now looking back and counting those blessings.

I believe that all Christians can and should look back at their surprises. I know that when I look at mine—I have been blessed indeed.

God surprised me when I was 13 years old when he brought an 11 year old, blue-eyed blond into my life. Now, after fifty years of marriage I look back on that day and smile.

God surprised me with a call to full-time ministry that lasted over fifty years and gave me some of the happiest days of my life.

God continues to surprise me, that even in retirement; I can continue to find joy in living. I have no idea what God has for me to do next. But I know this—whatever it is, I will probably be surprised. But then later on down the road, I will look back, see His hand in it all—and smile.

“Count your many blessings. Name them one by one and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.”

HOW IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR?

Thursday, March 13, 2008

The times in which we live are affecting my attitude and outlook and I don’t like it. I can feel my joy slipping away. Solomon says that if we lose our sense of humor that we will have a broken spirit, a lack of inner healing and dried-up bones (Prov. 15:13,15; 17:22). Not good!

Charles Swindoll says that a healthy sense of humor is determined by at least four abilities: The ability to laugh at our own mistakes. The ability to accept justified criticism—and get over it! The ability to interject (or at least enjoy) wholesome humor when surrounded by a tense, heated situation. The ability to control those statements that would be unfit—even though they may be funny.

I like this pray by Dr. James M. Gray: “…Lord keep me cheerful. Keep me from becoming a cranky, old man!”