if you were to buy a home that had everything you needed, but wasn’t necessarily your “dream home,” what would it have?

Worry?

You’ve been there, right?  Worried about something, someone…

You try to get your mind off of it.  But you can’t.  You try to push past it, but you can’t.  You try to shake it out of your head, but you can’t.  Everything you do to push it aside, but it keeps coming back to the front of your mind.

Maybe it is worry.  Maybe it is guilt.

Or, maybe it is the devil.

Jesus tells us not to worry, that He’s got things under control.  He said in the book of Luke that if he cares enough to make the grass that’s just going to get eaten, isn’t he going to take are of you and your issues?

Why is that so hard to understand?

Because, there’s a peace that comes that we don’t understand.  Paul told us that in Philippians 4.  He said “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”

Don’t worry about anything.

Pray about everything.

Talk to God about it.

Experience peace.

The sermon writes itself, right?  But we have to understand that this only works when give it to God.  God can’t release us of the worry if we don’t let Him.

I tend to overthink things a lot.  I struggle with worry, and guilt, and anxiety.  I second guess myself.  And 9 times out of 10, i’m doing that because I haven’t given it over to God.  May the God of love and peace and mercy take all our worry away, and may we understand we serve a God that can.

I’ve got a lot going on.  Closing on a house sale in TN.  Buying a house in FL.  Lots of stuff in between.

If you don’t mind, throw up a prayer for the Widick family.  There’s a lot going on.  Thanks everyone!







Slowly working on the office redo. Paint color is changed. New bookshelves are now installed thanks to Mr. George and Keith!  Now to wait on the rest of my stuff!!

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robefilled the temple.  Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.  And they were calling to one another:

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

We’d love to have you join us tomorrow morning at the Northwest Tampa Church of Christ.  Our service begins at 9am, and we have class time that follows.

We’d love to have you.

Have you noticed that on all the Hillary Clinton ads, they are using pictures of her from at least 20 years ago, maybe longer.  I then started to notice that seems to be the trend.  Run for office – start the lying by using pictures from when you looked your best.

So here’s my younger, skinny Lane pic – running for office sometime soon.

Tough loss last night, but I stayed up to watch the end!  Bounce back and get em next time!!

Its easy to love people who treat you well.  However, how do you love someone who doesn’t treat you well?  The kid in school who makes fun of you?  The boss who takes credit for your work, or blames you for things going wrong?  Those people are a bit harder to love.

Jesus tells the Pharisees in Matthew 5:43-48 they are to love their neighbor, but also love their enemy.  The King James goes on to say “bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.”  We know Jesus wants us to love our neighbor, that’s for sure.  He tells us over and over again.  However, the Jewish Rabbis taught that their “neighbor” only applied to fellow Jews.  This worked out well because the Jews pretty much hated everyone else.  The Romans actually accused and charged the Jews with hatred of the human race.

The problem is that the Old Testament, or no where else in the Bible in fact, tells us to hate our enemies.  There are places in the Old Testament where God hates evil, and may not care for the evildoer, but he never commands his people to hate their enemies.  We are to shower them with unconditional kindness.

I heard a story about Wade Boggs, former third baseman for the Boston Red Sox.  He hated playing at  Yankee Stadium while playing for Boston, not because of the Yankees but because of one particular fan.  This fan would heckle him, yell out insults and profanities.  One day, Boggs had listened to this enough.  He walked over to the area where this guy was, looked at him, and asked “Are you the guy that is always yelling at me?”.  The fan responded “Yeah, what are you gonna do about it?”

Wade Boggs took a new baseball, signed it, and threw it up for the guy to have.  The guy never heckled Boggs again.  In fact, he became one of his biggest supporters.

That’s what we are urged to do with our enemies.  Find a way to show them love, especially the love of Christ in all we do.  God is going to bless everyone on this earth, whether they believe in him or not.  He sends the rain and the sun to bless even his enemies by common grace (vs 45).  We need to love people without discrimination like God loves us.  We also need to love our enemies because we need to show there is no greater love than Christian love.

(Reposted from July 26, 2011)