Scuba Diving and Boating For God

Mike Hosey, Elder

I remember well the first time I entered the ocean in scuba gear twenty years ago. It was in the depths of the Gulf.  I can’t recall exactly where in the Gulf I was, or how far from shore I was. But I do recall very vividly what I felt. The fact that I can remember it so well is because what I was feeling was entirely novel to me. My experience did not feel like the springs, and it certainly did not feel like a swimming pool. The best way to describe my experience is that I felt as if I were in an alien world, surrounded by alien creatures, and governed by alien rules. I was completely immersed in a universe that did not know me, and one in which I did not naturally belong! And while it was a beautiful experience, I would be irresponsible if I didn’t tell you that it was full of danger.  Predators lurked about. My gear could malfunction. I could become so enamored with the experience that I could get lost, or worse, run out of oxygen. Vigilance was vital.

If I had lost my vigilance, I would not only be in that world. I would be part of it in the sense that I’d be dead, and fish food.

This is a bit like what Jesus tells in John 17:14-19. In these verses He tells His disciples that they are not of the world. They are not born of that secular world that rejects God. They’re reborn to a real and spiritual, heavenly world that love’s God. The world that hates God, also hates them. Jesus sends them into that hostile world to which they do not belong, and He prays that God will keep them from the evil one.

We’re in the same place as those disciples.  If you are a follower of Christ, then you are bobbing along in a boat, floating in a world to which you do not belong. Jesus has sent you into this watery world that is hostile to you, and He’s given you a mission to complete. If you are not vigilant, you will find yourself lost, out of supplies, or the prey of predators, or the temptations of the evil one.

Thankfully, God has given us many tools to keep ourselves safe in this hostile world.  We have prayer to keep us in tune with God.  We have a Holy Spirit to lead us, guide us, and comfort us on our mission.  We have a manual – the bible - to prepare us and give us knowledge. So let’s use these tools and be in the world, and not of it!

If You Knew You Were Dying . . .

Mike Hosey, Elder

If you knew you were dying would you hold back? 

Most of us easily answer that question with, “No, I wouldn’t hold back.”  We wouldn’t hold back on a whole bunch of things. Some of us would sky dive, and some of us would climb mountains, and some of us would love more, and some of us would be kinder, and some of us would study our bibles, and too many of us would indulge sinful desires.   

The reason is simple. Whenever we have a limited resource, we make a great effort to use that resource to the fullest. When time is the limited resource, you simply can’t hold back on those things that you need to get done.  Think about the last time you were at work, and your boss gave you a mountain of stuff to do before a deadline that seemed as impossible to meet as roller skating up Kilimanjaro by lunchtime.   Or think about the last time you were on vacation and you only had a few days to do all the things you wanted to do. In both those cases you prioritized rather efficiently. And then after you prioritized, you didn’t allow yourself to be distracted by silly water cooler gossip conversations at work, or wasteful diversions on your vacation – you knew that doing so would rob you of precious and finite time necessary to complete the tasks at hand! 

By LetsgomusicStyle, via Wikimedia Commons

James tells us that we don’t have time to waste by spending all of our wealth on self-indulgence at the expense of hardworking poor people. In other words he tells us not  to hold back our blessings (James 5:1-6).  He also tells us not to hold back our patience (James 5:6-11), or our integrity (James 5:12), or our prayers (James 5:13-20).  

All of those things are bound by time, and the truth of the matter is that we have a limited amount of time to complete the tasks that God has given us here on earth. So, let me ask you again, if you knew you were dying would you hold back?  Before you answer that question, think about this fact:  you are dying! At the moment of your birth, your body began a march toward death. Some of you will reach the end of that march in decades, but some of you might reach it tomorrow. Are you holding back from those experiences and tasks that God wants you to have and complete? Because you really don’t have time for that.

Is God Resisting You?

Mike Hosey, Elder

C. S. Lewis once wrote that “A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.”

Lewis didn’t mean that listening to Bach or reading Plato was bad. He meant that listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride was bad. After all, Bach was a great musician, and there is nothing wrong with enjoying the great music he produced.  Plato was a great thinker, and mankind has benefited from his thinking. There is nothing wrong with studying his works. What Lewis meant was that placing one’s self over others out of a state of self-righteousness was bad. The poor, uneducated man who goes to sleep in a state of humility is of higher rank than the one who thinks he’s better than the poor man because he’s educated in Plato’s philosophies. Nobody has time for that kind of pride. In fact, the bible is pretty explicit about the evilness of that kind of pride. Proverbs 16:18 tells us that pride comes before destruction. It is pride that got Satan kicked out of Heaven (Isaiah 14:12-15). And it is pride that will make you an enemy of God.

James 4:6 NKJV says that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. God resists the proud! That word “resists” is a military term in its original Greek. It means to move in battle against. So here it means that God will come against you with force because of your pride! Proverbs 8:12-13 clearly says that true wisdom hates pride. And Paul twice lists pride in a string of terrible sins (Romans 1:30 and 2 Timothy 3:2).

So what makes someone who is humble higher than someone who is not? Well, James 4:6 NKJV hints at it strongly.  God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. The proud person is unable to see the state that he is in. He thinks he is bigger than he is, and decides in his heart that he doesn’t need God (Psalms 10:4). He continues to behave in ways that displease God and His natural order. God is going to resist that!  But a humble person, who realizes his sin and shortcomings welcomes God.  Therefore God extends to him a favor that he has not merited.  We call such unmerited favor, grace.  It is the person who has been humbled that becomes saved, and not the person who is proud.

Remember, only YOU can prevent a wild tongue

Mike Hosey, Elder

In 1944, Smokey the Bear was created by the U.S. government to educate its citizens on how they could prevent forest fires. Three years later, in 1947, Smokey got his most famous slogan: “Only YOU can prevent forest fires.”  His image and his slogan are recognized by 95% of American adults, and 77% of American children.  The ad campaign was highly effective. It needed to be, because the U.S. government realized that just one small unattended campfire, or one small cigarette, or one small match could wreak havoc and devastation on whole ecosystems and thousands of acres of forest, killing untold numbers of plants and animals, and wasting untold numbers of dollars. Carelessness was a destroyer.

In the early church, James understood the same thing that the U.S. government understands today. He argued in James 3:1-6 that an untamed tongue is like a deadly wildfire. He recognized that its destructive power can spread rapidly through the whole body of believers.  He likened that tongue to a carrier of deadly poison, and a restless evil (James 3:8).

If you’ve ever seen a fellow Christian drop a careless word, or say something in a moment of unexamined anger, or who just wasn’t getting his or her way on something, and so vomited a bit of negativity in the wrong place at the wrong time, then you know how quickly a body can be burned, poisoned or damaged! And this phenomenon is not limited to the church. You will find that it is also true in your work place, your biological family, or any group in which people communicate and are banded together!

Luckily James tells us how to remedy this problem. He tells us to seek wisdom from above (James 3:13-18).  In teaching this, James was simply expanding on what Jesus had already said: “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). If your heart is full of hatefulness and a destructive kind of criticism, then you will speak hatefulness and evil criticism. And your words will burn and poison the body to which you belong.

So get Jesus in your heart, and purge selfish ambition, evil, bitterness and jealousy (James 3:14). Remember, only YOU can prevent wildfires.  And you do that by letting Jesus tame your tongue.