Monday, June 26, 2017

SEEING PAST THE FOG

by Rev. Jack Hulsey

Keep your eye on the ball, your shoulder to the wheel, your nose to the grindstone, your feet on the ground, your hand on the throttle, your back to the wind.  Do all this, and you’ll have to call 911 to get the first-responders to come out and untie you from the knot you’re in.  Or I should say the knot you’d be in if you tried to follow all the bits and pieces of free advice people dole out. 
Back in the 1940’s, there was a famous distance swimmer named Florence Chadwick who said something very important about reaching goals.  In 1950, she later became the first woman in the world to swim the English Channel in both directions. Earlier in her life she set several other lesser known records.

One of those records was a speed record for swimming from the California mainland to the island of Catalina.  Two months before Florence set the record she had a failed attempt that ended only a half mile short of her goal.

On the day of the failure, it was cold and miserable, and the fog was thick enough to cut with a knife.  The conditions took their toll on Florence as she tried to make the goal, but the main reason she quit (she later said) was that the fog kept her from seeing land.  Had she been able to see, she probably would have made it.  In fact, when she did make it two months later, she attributed her accomplishment to the fact that she could clearly see land.

We see something similar in scripture.  Matthew 14:22-33, is the account of Jesus walking on the water and what happened when Peter asked to walk out to him.
Peter said to Him, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”  And He said, “Come!” And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”  Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and *said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to make it to a goal if you don’t keep your eyes on it.  Life sometimes fogs us in with all kinds of barriers — financial difficulties, personal relationships, bad habits, and worst of all, losing sight of the one whose hand is always out to help us when we are most in need, our Lord Jesus Christ.



Monday, June 19, 2017

When Children Go Wrong



by Rev. Jack Hulsey

Woodlake Baptist Church Praise & Worship, June 18, 2017

It has been said losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to a parent and while I have never experienced losing a child, I have been there for parents who have. Over many years of experience I have found there is something that might rival the loss of a child for parents.  These parents undergo torturous introspection. With such questions as: "Where did we go wrong? What did we do? What didn't we do? We loved our child. But things didn't turn out the way we planned, our child has gone down the wrong path and we don’t know what to do.”
I would like to share with you the following article by Rev. Mark H. Creech, executive director of the Raleigh- based Christian Action League of North Carolina. He says, “Granted, most children who end up on the wrong path in life got there because their parents failed them. It may have been they were too busy and lived unbalanced lives. Maybe they were absorbed with their work or careers and neglected to give their child the proper attention. Sometimes children turn out bad because their parents failed to discipline them.”  He continues, “Children who never experience firm correction are generally headed for trouble. Other children devoid of necessary parental emotional connections act out in various forms of rebellious and anti-social acts .But there are circumstances when mothers and fathers did the right things and they lost their children anyway. The Scriptures record a number of cases where children ended up on the wrong side of the tracks and it wasn't the parent's fault. Think of Joseph, he was a very godly man, raised by a less than perfect father, Jacob. Yet his brothers were nothing less than scoundrels. Joseph turned out good and his brothers were less than virtuous, but the Scripture doesn't hold Jacob responsible for the differences between them. Samuel, the great prophet of Israel, a man of impeccable character, raised children who turned out bad, and he was never incriminated for their actions.
Jesus told the story of the Prodigal Son who took his inheritance from his father and left home for "riotous living." His father, however, who gave his child at the proper age the freedom to choose, was never charged with raising his son unsuitably. In fact, the story conveys just the opposite truth – the way the father was exemplary in the treatment of his son.  Sadly, children can turn out rotten despite their parents. This doesn't mean parents shouldn't be diligent in child rearing. They should make every effort to make the home their priority. Children should be disciplined, loved, and given proper attention. Nevertheless, this is the hard fact of the matter: there are no guarantees a child will become a good and responsible person.  Some may be quick to disagree, pointing to Proverbs 22:6, which reads: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Nevertheless, this proverb was never meant to be taken as an absolute, but only to convey a probability of things likely to occur.
In other words, every child reaches an age to where they either choose or reject the heritage of their parents. In the final analysis, it's up to them. Nonetheless, at least for those parents who were scrupulous about providing their children with godly training, there is the assurance that what was taught will always be with them, and it will continuously be in them calling them home.
He concludes, “There is no pain quite so excruciating as that of a parent watching a child falter in life. Nonetheless, the cause is not always the parent's fault. And, some parents needn't take responsibility for things they can't control. Their children have minds of their own and are ultimately responsible to God for their actions. Therefore, they should turn their children over to God in earnest prayer. Furthermore, they should take comfort in knowing that God himself identifies with their heartache.”



Tuesday, January 17, 2017

From the Pastor's Study by Rev. Jack Hulsey

Love Solves It All

Christ said all the world’s problems can be solved with love. Many today believe the world’s problems can be solved with loud. (That’s another article for another time.) Lets get back to love…When asked by a Jewish legal expert which of the 10 Commandments was the most important, Jesus without hesitation said to love God and love your neighbor. "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

The phrase "the Law and the Prophets" is how they referred to the Bible in Jesus's time: The Old Testament, in other words. He was saying that the whole message of God is love. If you love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself, you'll never have any desire to lie, steal, covet, curse, commit adultery, kill, cheat, idolize or dishonor – all those corrupt things that make up sin. With love, you would be a living Bible practicing righteousness, and acting justly before God and man.

The Jewish scholars of Jesus’ time thought God became clearer by complicating Him. For example, they had created a list of about 800 rules derived from the command to keep the Sabbath holy. Jesus went the opposite way. He summed up the totality of the law into simple concepts – love God, love your neighbor. This is why people intuitively understood Jesus knew more about the law than the lawyers did – he knew not just what it said, but what it meant.

Then, at the Last Supper, he told the eleven disciples (after Judas had left) that he was giving them a new commandment: "love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples." (John 13:34)

This is the passage of the Bible I believe tends to be greatly misunderstood. I have heard many people use this as if it means Jesus wants us to unconditionally accept everyone and everything, because that's what He did for us.

That command was aimed at Jesus’s loyal and committed followers – the tiny group that was basically the church. Therefore, it is aimed at those of us who still make up the church, meaning you and me, or to say it another way, meaning Woodlake Baptist Church (WBC). He said for us to let our love for each other be the face WBC shows to the whole world. How we treat each other within the WBC family could determine whether anyone desires to become part of it or not. Ultimately, the goal is to bring a lost world into God's family.

We can't out love Jesus because he loved us enough to die for us. We can return that love by living for him. And we can live for him by loving each other – not just with our words, but with deeds.

That is how Christ loved us. Not only by what he said to us but in what he did for us. We show our love to Him in the way we love one another.