I can remember growing up and hearing the phrase “Be Like Mike”. We all wanted to grow up to be like somebody. I remember adults asking me what I wanted to be when I grow up. I think they were trying to get ideas for themselves. Today my kids do the same thing. Some want to grow up and be a cop, others want to grow up and be like dad. Stop for a minute and think about what your dream was. Did you achieve it? Are you sure you missed it? You see God created us to be us, not somebody else. If God wanted more than one Mike, He could have created another one and then neither would be near as special. God says that He knew us in our mother’s womb, that He knit us together in the womb. Don’t you think that He could have done something else if He desired. As a pastor sometimes I get caught up in wanting to be like another pastor somewhere and then God reminds me that He called me because who knows me. Our desire to be like anyone should be to be like Jesus. Allow me to be frank, no really let me be straight here with you, just be you. It works for Popeye when he says “I am who I am and that is all that I am.”
It’s all my fault, is not a phrase that you expect to hear all the time. My three year old daughter will tell me this when she gets in trouble. Most of the time we hear people say it’s not my fault. They begin to blame everyone from parents, grandparents, teachers, preachers, even society in general. No body wants to accept the guilt for their own actions much less the actions of others. With society falling to pieces and the family falling right behind it, we need to start finding out who is really responsible for it. Well allow me to be the first to say I accept responsibility for what is going on in the United States. You might want to argue but allow me to continue before you turn me off. The world does exactly what it has been taught to do. They don’t know any better. We the church need to begin to take the responsibility that is ours to bare. You see we have the manual on how to live life amongst everyone. Nehemiah said it best when he was broken over the state of Jerusalem. We find these words is chapter one starting in verse six. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel which we have sinned against you. Even I and my fathers house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly again you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.(Nehemiah 1: 6-7 ESV) Did you see that. He said he sinned. Why because he didn’t do what was expected of him. We are expected to share Jesus with a lost and dying world. We should be going and making disciples. Will that fix everything that is wrong in our country? Probably not, but it sure would help. We have generations who have no clue who Jesus is. Why??? Because we the church, I as a pastor have sinned and not done what the Master has called me to do. You see it is my fault as well as yours.
I have been thinking about the journey we make to the saving knowledge of Christ. For some it is almost like they have always been saved. That is a nice thought, but not at all true. You see regardless of the amount of time you spent in the church house growing up doesn’t mean that you automatically got saved. It had to be a time in your life that you realized your lost condition and accept the payment Jesus paid for you. We don’t get saved by osmosis. Then for some of us we had a radical life changing experience. The difference in your life was noticeable to you as well as all the people around you. These transformations seem to get more glory as the story is told. We read about Paul and how he had the Damascus Road experience and it radically changed him. Those are awesome stories to hear. My point in this short post is to say that it doesn’t matter how your journey happened to Christ, the important thing is that it happened. For some it happens as a child, like for three of my boys, some not until adulthood sometime, like for myself, yet there are some that don’t make the completion of the journey until they are knocking on deaths door. However it happens doesn’t matter the important thing is that it happens. Don’t be like so many that think they have something because mom, dad, or grandma had it. Or because they walked the isle shook a preachers hand got dunked and then lived anyway the jolly well please. You see when you really get saved there is a change, you won’t want to do the same things that you have always done. You won’t want to live in a lifestyle of sin. So today before you get up from where you are make sure that Heaven is your home.
Well, my life has certainly not turned out to be anything I thought it would be. I used to always think that the perfect life would be two kids a good job and a suburban house. Working in some type of law enforcement position is what I thought I would do. Well none of that has ever been true of my life. I now have seven kids, yes I said seven and I don’t live in a suburba
Thoughts from Pastor Toney 