My story

I was walking in the Light
I stumbled
I failed
I fell flat on my face
It was not a pretty sight

But He wanted me whole
He rescued me
Forgave my sin
Healed my heart
And is restoring my soul

“You’ve nothing to say
You failed, you fell”
This would be true
If my story was ‘me’
But my story is grace

He never gave up
He never let go
He wooed me
He won me
Amazing love!

Two great quotes on Watch

I was blessed to have the opportunity to preach the last two weeks. My second message was from Colossians 4:2 …and watch in the same with thanksgiving. There are two quotes that illustrate what I believe the apostle means by watch.

The dictionary definition of “watch” is “to stay awake” but the Bible uses it to encourage not simply wakefulness but alertness, vigilance. In his book, The Annals of Rome, Tacitus describes a legion of soldiers after a battle and a day of difficult and dangerous travel,

"the men lay scattered along the intrenchments or wandered from tent to tent, wakeful rather than watchful"

All of us can testify of being unable to sleep because of fears, worries, anxieties, or our minds racing with too many thoughts to allow sleep. We know what it is to be “wakeful rather than watchful.” We need to avoid this, being awake but not watching.


This longer quote captures what we want to cultivate. This is from Adam Clarke’s commentary on Colossians 4:2

Continue in prayer - This was the apostle's general advice to all; without this, neither wives, husbands, children, parents, servants, nor masters, could fulfill the duties which God, in their respective stations, required of them.

All might, power, and life come from God; his creatures are continually dependent upon him for all these: to earnest, persevering prayer, he has promised every supply; but he who prays not has no promise. How few wives feel it their duty to pray to God to give them grace to behave as wives! How few husbands pray for the grace suited to their situation, that they may be able to fulfill its duties! The like may be said of children, parents, servants, and masters. As every situation in life has its peculiar duties, trials, etc.; so to every situation there is peculiar grace appointed. No man can fulfill the duties of any station without the grace suited to that station. The grace suited to him, as a member of society in general, will not be sufficient for him as a husband, father, or master. Many proper marriages become unhappy in the end, because the parties have not earnestly besought God for the grace necessary for them as husbands and wives. This is the origin of family broils in general; and a proper attention to the apostle's advice would prevent them all.

Watch in the same - Be always on your guard; and when you have got the requisite grace by praying, take care of it, and bring it into its proper action by watchfulness; by which you will know when, and where, and how to apply it.

With thanksgiving - Being always grateful to God, who has called you into such a state of salvation, and affords you such abundant means and opportunities to glorify him.

I love how precise he is: You need specific grace from God? ask Him for it.

And the attitude of expectation: “and when you have got the requisite grace by praying” Amen! He fully expected and it was his experience, when you ask something of God, He will give it to you.

Amen!! Father, grant me grace to be better at watching in the same with thanksgiving.

The New Christian Faith

I have noticed a new version of the Christian faith growing in popularity these days. There are three main tenets to this new faith:

1 God loves you no matter what you are doing so whatever you are doing is OK because God loves you no matter what you are doing.

2 Whatever is hateful or offensive is to be rejected. So, away with words and concepts like Repent, Sin, Hell, Judgment – anything that hurts people’s feelings. Jesus loves you is our only message. Our authority is now the court of world opinion. Whatever they deem hateful or offensive is to be re-interpreted.

3 The only people who can be called wrong are those backward Christians who still read their Bible the old way. And, of course, the prophets, and apostles, and even Jesus when they speak in that unenlightened manner.


I’m not talking about old fashioned liberalism, they adopted this creed over a hundred years ago. I’m referring to a trend in evangelicalism. Self proclaimed Bible believing churches are changing the Gospel before our eyes.

An Entertaining Thursday Night

A few entertaining encounters from last night that were too many for fb posts. So I offer them here in chronological order.


A man came in and said, “You still here? You been here a long time.”
“Yeah, I’m the guy who won’t go away.”
He said, “You consistently need money like everyone else. Them bills just keep coming.”
Truth.


The first customer in line told me that he got laid off tonight. I asked him where he worked and he said, “NASA. I worked with Captain Kirk exploring the universe.”
I said, "I know that’s not right. Capt. Kirk had a ‘Federation Starship’ not a ‘NASA starship’."
He was caught, so he admitted that much! On his way out I said, “Kangaroocareers.com”!
“Thanks a lot”
“Yeah it kinda adds insult to injury, doesn’t it?”
The man behind him  was the manager of the next door Pizza Hut. I said, “You didn’t tell him how to get on at Pizza Hut.”
He replied, “He can go to ' [expletive]pizzahut.com. ' He can have my job.”
I laughed and asked, With all the money you’re making over there?”
He said, “You need to get you a different job. You a d____ good comedian. D___ good!”


A man and a woman came in and made their purchases separately. After she paid for her beer, he came up with his. In a reply to me he used an expletive and said, “I’m sorry.”
She said, You’ll have to forgive him, he grew up on the Rock Hill High side of town!”


Four young men came in and they all headed for the rest room. And they all went into the rest room! (It’s a one seater.) I kept watching them because I had never seen this before. Three were inside and one was holding the door open. He saw me watching this spectacle and explained, “We’ve been fishing and needed to wash out hands.”
[Oh…….]
One of the young men had on a shirt that said, ‘Athlete of the Week.’
I asked him about it and he explained that he went to Westminster-Catawba and had just been offered and accepted a scholarship to play basketball at Erskine. “I am the first one from my school to ever get a scholarship.”
He didn’t really seem very excited so I made the observation, “You don’t seem to excited.”
He said, “It’s OK. It’s still school.”
[Yeah, it is.]

Seven times in a day

This is an excerpt from my Bible Study this morning on The Kingdom Principle of Faith

Luke 17:5 And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.
6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.

It seems this was one of the Lord’s favorite figures of speech.

It is followed by the standard “you can do great things”. (I have been stressing trusting the Lord for great things.) But this morning we are not going to talk about miracles (making the lame to walk, the blind to see, or casting out demons) and other great answers to prayer. No, we are going to talk about something far more important than a miracle. And this “something” is so fundamental to being Christian that failure to have it can be deadly.

The disciples make an interesting request, increase our faith. Where did that come from? The context helps!

17:1  Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe [unto him], through whom they come!
2  It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
3  Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.
4  And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.

Aha!! THIS is why they made that request. It is as if they said, "Uh Lord, we’re gonna need more faith for this."

Let’s look at this

1  Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe [unto him], through whom they come!
“offences” is the word skandalon - to put a stumbling block or impediment in the way, upon which another may trip and fall; metaphorically: to offend: to entice to sin; to cause a person to begin to distrust and desert one whom he ought to trust and obey; to cause to fall away

These things are going to come, they are all around us, but don’t be the offender
2  It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

17:3  Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.
Right here is the beginning of the point. Forgiveness. This is one of the chief virtues of the Christian life.

If thy brother trespass against thee – the word trespass means sin.
If a brother or sister sins against you, hurts you deeply, Jesus gives two instructions:

Rebuke him – tell him in no uncertain terms

If he repent, forgive him – right here is where we have difficulty. We are to forgive him. Forgive him when? When he repents. BUT, we have invested so much emotion into the word repent that we now expect him to cry crocodile tears to prove he is really sorry, write a report on why what he did was sin and the steps he will take to not do that again. The Catholic idea is penance. We practically demand penance only we don’t use that Catholic word.

When Jesus says if he repent all he means is he acknowledges that he sinned against you and asks forgiveness.

I will show you how I know this to be the case

4  And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.
What?!? seven times in a day??!!?? OUR teaching today would be, after the 2nd or 3rd time, "Brother, I don’t believe you have repented at all. You come back to me when you’ve truly repented."

And yet, Jesus says, seven times in a day, all he has to do is turn to you and SAY, I repent and you are to forgive him!

This is revolutionary! The Jews taught you never forgave more than three times. Jesus says seven. In another place, he says 70x7!

“Revenge is natural to man, i.e. man is naturally a vindictive being, and, in consequence, nothing is more difficult to him than forgiveness of injuries.” ~ Adam Clarke

The kingdom is at odds with natural man – "I’ll get you for this" – and religious man – "You gotta prove to me you’ve repented"

One of the characteristics of a Christian is his readiness and willingness to forgive and the ease with which forgiveness is granted

All that we require of the offender is he turn and say, I repent. Or, since repent is not a frequently used word among us, “I was wrong, forgive me.”

And we forgive!

Look what I found!

I was sitting on the lanai, enjoying a Louis L’Amour novel on my Nook and a White Owl when a bird flew in real close. Real close. I think he was a young Mockingbird. He grabbed at something in the yard, but dropped it. Since it kept moving I figured it was a snake. The bird kept dancing around it. Then he was joined by another bird. Then a third. These other two were brown and a little larger, but I don’t know what kind. And then by a bright red Cardinal. Cardinals are real skittish, but he was so interested in this that he stayed close. Up in the tree, then down on the grass. All four of them. Keeping a wary eye on me, on the snake, and on each other. I watched the snake crawl right up to the lanai. Finally, the birds flew away.

When they did that I got up and went searching for the snake. I found him and caught him. After taking these photos I let him go again. I sat back down to read some more and finish the White Owl. A bird flew back and rested on the branch above the grass. I gave him permission to catch the snake, but after a few minutes he flew a little bit away, squawking at me.

Great morning so far!!

I dropped him into the bucket so I could run inside and grab the camera

He must be 6 ft long! Not really. 2 or 3 ft maybe (??)

Observations from behind the counter

This is a post that began on Tuesday night!

Tuesday nights are supposed to be slow. But not tonight.


Pay day used to be Friday. Today people get paid on Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Maybe as late as Thursday. Friday seems to be the day the fewest get paid. Except for me. Most of my co-workers get paid Wednesday night or Thursday morning. I don’t get my money until Friday. How unlike me to belong to a bank that is out of step with the majority!


I really dislike being called “boss” or “boss man.” And I get called that all the time.


There is a common parting expression, “Have a good day.” I like it. But I don’t care for the shortened version, “Have a good one.” And I really don’t like, “Have a goot one.”


I was talking to ‘Lt. Dan’ (I’ve met some important people while working here!) when a man came in and asked me, “Do you have a rest room?”
I answered, “Yes, we do.”
The man looked a little confused and didn’t move. I said, “Oh, you want to know where it is. I thought it was a test. Second door on the left.”
When he headed off to the rest room I said to Daniel, “Sometimes I mess with people.”
He said, “And you enjoy it, too!”
“Yeah, I do.” ☺


A little while later the same man returned. His entrance dragged me from the cooler. When he saw me he asked, “Have you seen a young woman with blond hair and blue eyes wearing a black T-shirt?”
“No.”
He explained, “We took her to the ER because she fell down the stairs and busted her lip – she was drunk. We left and when we went back to the ER they said they had discharged her and that she had gone looking for us. We must’ve spent the last 45 minutes driving around the hospital parking lot looking for her, but can’t find her.”
I’m thinking, “You left her at the ER???” but I said, “If you can’t find her in the parking lot you might want to start driving up and down Ebenezer and Herlong (the streets by the hospital) looking for her.”
“Oh OK. If you see her, tell her that her brother and boy friend are looking for her.”
I’m thinking they were as drunk as she was…


A friend that I met while working here came by tonight. I have not seen or talked to him in a long time. His greeting to me was, “Has the Lord not delivered you from this h___ hole yet?” Greetings to you, too, brother! ☺


Wednesday night was not quite as busy, but not slow. This whole week has been busy. Then came Thursday night.


Thursday night was ridiculously busy. Like a Friday and Saturday night combined. I had to come in early and I was going strong until about 3:30. Then I hit the wall. But, I did have a couple of wonderful encounters.


A young man came in who I hadn’t seen in a long time. “Man, I haven’t seen you in a long time. Where ya been?”
He replied, “You want the truth or do you want me to lie to you?”
“I want the truth.” So he told me a sad tale of drugs and homelessness and rehab.
(A side note. I just talk to folks. When I was pastoring the Lord told me to love the people: ask about them, their lives and cares etc., just love on them. That’s what I do as a clerk. I just love on people by asking them about their lives and cares etc. And a lot of folks respond to that. They tell me stuff about their lives. And they come back like this young man, just to tell me things.)
But then he told me that he had come out of this and that God had done this for him. Amen! We talked a while longer and i tried to encourage him in a variety of ways and as we parted I spoke a blessing over him. And he responded, “May God shower you with the blood of Jesus.” Amen!!


A little while later another young man came in. A few nights ago I asked how he was and he told me a story of a struggle he was having (told you, man, when you love on people, they tell you stuff). Seems he loves two women and was trying to decide on one. We talked about it (imagine that, me a relationship counselor!) and I mentioned pleasing God as a motive. He said, “Yeah, that’s what I want to do! I was saved about four weeks ago…” I counseled him some more and he left. He came by tonight and told me, “I made a decision but you’re not going to believe what I decided.”
“What?”
“I chose God.”
Amen! God is good.



C.T. Studd said, “Some wish to stay within the sound of church or chapel bell. I'd rather run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” I’m no C.T. Studd and I don’t actually run a rescue shop, but I do try to bring the love and light of Christ to my corner of this “h___ hole”.