Name Your Idol

After last week’s sermon by Pastor Steve, I feel that I must disclose that I am in fact 100% Norwegian.  However, I do not look down on those of you who are Swedish or only have a very small percentage of Norwegian ancestry or none at all.  After all, it takes a lot of courage to say I love lutefisk and actually mean it! 

Sometimes we do have “idols” in our lives that can become more important than our relationship with Jesus Christ.  Do we worship our heritage, our Sons of Norway membership, favorite sports teams, or our careers more than we worship Jesus Christ?  While I love lutefisk with butter and white sauce slathered all over, I love Jesus more!  However, sometimes we worship idols and we are not even aware of it.  An idol is anything that takes the place of worshipping Jesus as the Lord of our lives.  Idols have a way of seeping into our lives slowly and all of a sudden they are there and we wonder what happened. 

What idols do you have in your life that are getting in the way of your relationship with Jesus?  Can you name them?  And now that you have named them, how might you remove them as idols? 

Remember Jesus tells us in the New Testament that we are to “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”  This week, let’s give that a try.  God will never give up on us and He seeks after us.  So even in the midst of our busy lives and chaotic choices we make that sometimes become idols, there is still hope; hope that God is on the throne and that His promises are true. 

Here’s a song from Bob and Debbie Carothers called “Seek the Kingdom First.”  Enjoy it and live it!

In His Grip!

Pastor Carol

Listen -- Who Me?

After reading Amos and Hosea last week and then listening to Pastor Steve’s sermon, I walked away Sunday thinking about what our culture’s reaction would be to both of these prophets if they showed up at Ridgedale some busy Saturday.  What if they showed up here at Calvary?  Yikes!  I wonder how we would react.  Their messages of hope and warning hold true for us today, but would we react any differently? 

I have a mug at home that has Lucy from Peanuts screaming, “I hate listening… I love talking!”  (It’s my favorite mug!)  Sadly, Lucy sums up the way many of us react.  We like to give advice, but how often do we listen to other people in our lives?  I mean, really, really listen.  I am blessed to have several people in my life whom I often go to for their sound advice and counsel on many subjects; they are my own “counsel of the saints.”  Their advice is usually right on track about 99% of the time, even if they may have to say some things to me that I may not want to hear.  Any of you have your own “counsel of the saints” that you go to for wise advice?  It’s hard to hear things sometimes from these trusted advisors, but their advice is always truthful, honest and packed full of wisdom.  Yet, despite their wisdom and their candor, I sometimes find myself choosing not to listen and to follow my own way. 

Now for the big “gulp” – how many of us are willing to “listen” to Hosea’s message through the lens of the cross?  Do we allow ourselves to be convicted and then to make changes in our lives that will lead us back to Jesus or to a deeper relationship with Him?  We often look at Jesus as our Savior; as the one who died on the cross for us, but we stop there.  We accept Him as the carrier of our sins, but we do not accept Him as the Lord of our lives.  We embrace His forgiveness and we “fit” Him into our busy lives on Sundays, but not in all that we do every day.  We “listen” on Sundays, but we may not be such good listeners on Monday through Saturday.  Can I have an AMEN?

Here’s a song by Kristian Sanfill called “Lord of All.” 

To His Glory!

Pastor Carol

I Am Being Made New!

After Pastor Steve’s sermon this past week, I found myself pondering a question he asked us: Do you have someone who is able to tell you the truth, and are you willing to listen to them?  Someone you trust who you meet with regularly, pray with, be honest with, who challenges you to grow and who keeps you on track with your faith.  Then Pastor Steve told us to write down 2-3 people who we respect and ask them if they might be willing to be those kind of people to us. 

Did you do it?  Did you ask 2-3 people this week if they might be willing to be those kind of people to you?  Did you ask one person?  What was their response(s)? 

When I was first out of college and moving up the corporate ladder in marketing, I had a wonderful senior mentor and friend who I always could count on for good advice, encouragement and honesty.  She had already “made it” to the level I aspired to be some day.  She had 20 years of knowledge in marketing/advertising.  She helped me to navigate the complexities of the corporate world in such a way to “avoid” the pitfalls along the way and to stay on the “clear path” to success, especially in a male-dominated industrial manufacturing setting.  What a gift she was to me during those early years of my business career.  Her advice saved me from making career moves that would have limited my scope and taken me off the path I had set for myself.  Listening to her wasn’t always the easiest, but her advice was solid and she truly saved me from “myself!” 

Sometimes we think we are making the best decision, but our thinking and viewpoint can become clouded.  We all need to be surrounded by one or two people who really care and who are willing to say the tough things we need to hear in order to grow as people and as leaders.  We need to be saved from ourselves so we don’t make bad decisions, as Rehoboam did.

In order to be eternally saved from ourselves, we need to have Jesus in our lives and we need to have relationship with Him, but we also need to be surrounded by other Christians who will help us to walk the walk of faith as well.  Who are you going to ask to surround you in 2012? 

Maybe that would be a great goal to begin this New Year – finding your own core group of “advisors” who encourage you, support you, listen to you, but most importantly, challenge you to hear the truth so you can grow into the person God has designed you to be. 

Here’s a great song, I Am New, to help us think about becoming the people God created us to be – we are a new creation in Him.  We are not who we were, but we are being made NEW! 

To His Glory!

Pastor Carol

Give the Grace Card Away in 2012

Welcome to the New Year!  How has the first week of this New Year been going for you?  I’m sure some of you “renewed” your gym memberships this week or vowed once again to go on that diet to lose the unwanted 15 pounds.  Maybe you even made a promise to yourself to make this New Year – 2012 – really count for something.  

I no longer make resolutions, because I have found that, by the second week of January, I’ve already failed and then I just give up on them.  I know some of you call them goals instead of resolutions because that doesn’t sound so daunting!  But no matter what you call them, for most of us, we start out great, but then things just begin to fall apart.  

We skip the gym one day and the next thing you know we have skipped the gym for a whole month.  We skip the diet one week and we throw in the towel the next week.  The word FAILURE is swirling around our minds once again.  I don’t know about you, but I hate to fail at anything!  I’m a classic only child who has always been very competitive and achievement-oriented, starting at age three!!  You see I won a tricycle race and got a beautiful little trophy.  That was it for me! I was hooked!  Winning was better than losing and failure was never a word in my vocabulary.  

Yet, here I am on this first week of the New Year, already dreading my Saturday weigh-in at Weight Watchers.  Yep, I blew it again this week!  Ugh!  I was thinking and praying about this last night and the word that came to me was "grace."  Simple word, but it’s hard to give grace and it’s hard to receive grace sometimes too.  What if Weight Watchers had a “grace” card for a week that you could come and NOT have to weigh in?

Over the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I not only caught up on my reading, but I also caught up on watching some movies on my DVD “must watch” list.  One movie really touched my heart that I watched.  It was called “The Grace Card.”  I won’t give the plot away, since I hope you all go and watch this movie, but the whole premise of the movie is the giving and receiving of grace to others and from others.  In the movie, one of the main characters uses and talks about a grace card, which he invites others to hand out to each other.  

Here’s what the grace card said:  

I promise to pray for you every day;

Ask your forgiveness and grant you the same; 

and be your friend always.  

What an awesome idea for all of us to do as well.  What would happen if we did those 4 simple things?  Grace would happen!  Why not give your family, your friends, your coworkers and even those ERGs (Extra Grace Required people) in your life a “grace card” this week?  Grace is indeed a free gift we can give to others, but we also need to “practice” being good receivers of grace too.  Let’s make 2012 a truly “grace-filled” year for each and every one of us!

Here’s a wonderful song that reminds us about the power of God’s grace to us.  It’s called “Grace Alone.”    

To His Glory!

Pastor Carol