The Good ole Days

“Why were the former days better than these? For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.” Ecclesiastes 7:10 Longing for the good old days? According to this passage there is no such thing as the good old days. They may be old but they were not good or at least not any better than any other day. Good is simply an illusion we cook up to make us think things were better than they really were. Let me give you a couple of examples. Funerals. That’s right funerals. We immediately forget all the bad and remember all the good. I’m not saying that is bad but there is something a little unrealistic about it. I remember one lady who suffered terribly under her husband. He was mean. He was unfaithful and he wouldn’t hold a job. When he died I’m sure it was a huge relief to her. However, it was strange to me when she began to talk about him as if he were some sort of hero. I’m sure she was trying to protect his memory to her five young children he left her to raise by herself. As for me I was just thankful I didn’t have to do the funeral and tell the truth about him. Growing up. It was always better when we were growing up. Of course growing is just another way to brag about everything. We brag that it was worse when we grew up, “Up hill both ways to school.” We brag about it being better than today, “Everyone got along in those days.” It is wonderful to have great memories, but there is no need to canonize them. The good old days were just that, old days where good and bad lived together just as they do today. Evil existed then just as now. God’s grace and mercy abound just as much today as they did in those days. Regardless of whether the good old days were good or bad there is no way to go back, we have to go ahead. The best days are not behind us but ahead of us according to scripture. There is much grace ahead of us as well as behind us. The promises of scripture are not just for us but also for our children, Acts 2:39. I hope you are looking forward to what God will do in your life ahead. The Christian life is exceedingly positive. We believe that we will experience more of Jesus in the future than we did in the past, Philippians 1:6. We believe one day we will experience him completely face to face, 1Corinthians 13:12. We have every reason to rejoice and to hope in the goodness of the Lord. So then I would encourage you to encourage one another. We have a lot of families going through some difficult times who need to know that God is working out some good things on their behalf and they can’t see it right now due to their circumstances. Hope in what the Lord will do among us. Trust the Lord knows what He is doing and be glad for how He will work it out among us. Our best days are yet to come.

Which Old Testament Laws Should I Keep?

What Laws Am I Supposed to Obey? Over the last couple of months I have been asked the question, “What Old Testament laws am I supposed to obey?” I can answer that fairly simply. You only need to obey one law. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.” (Mark 12:30) Jesus does add, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but really that is just part of loving God. If you love God you will love your neighbor, because God loves your neighbor, (John 3) and if you love your neighbor you love God. (Matthew 25:40) Jesus makes it clear in the “Sermon on the Mount” that our actions need to reflect a deep love for God from the heart. So, for example, the law says that we should not murder, but if we go deeper and love God from our heart, we will not hate, which is the root of murder. (Matthew 5:21,22) The law says that we are not to commit adultery with our bodies, but if we go deeper and love God from our heart, we will not lust, which is the root of adultery. (Matthew 5:27,28) So, love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. It doesn’t take much to realize that God is pursing us in a deep, profound, complete way. Mere actions are not enough. God wants actions motivated by love and affection for Him. That still does not answer the question as to what we do with Old Testament laws, such as the prohibition of sewing two different kinds of cloth together or an ox falling into the ditch on Saturday (the Sabbath). So here is how the church fathers have looked at this question. The law has been divided into three different categories. There is the ceremonial law, which are laws pertaining to worship and the tabernacle. There is the judicial law, which would be laws pertaining to everyday life of the nation of Israel. And there is the moral law, which is summed up in the Ten Commandments. The ceremonial law, we believe, has been completed. Jesus came and fulfilled all of the ceremonial law by his life, death and resurrection. There is no need to offer a wave offering of the first watermelon in your garden or sacrifice your prize sheep for your sins. Jesus was that gift to God for your sake. We believe the judicial law was given to the nation of Israel for a particular purpose at a particular time. You will notice from a close reading that even some of the judicial laws changed as the circumstances of national Israel changed. While wandering in the desert, the Israelites had no need of laws concerning boundaries or building homes. When they entered into the land and became farmers and merchants, instead of nomads, then they were given laws pertaining to their new situation. For example, the laws pertaining to homes or boundaries of property are not given until the book of Deuteronomy. The laws changed to reflect their new situation. The point is simply that the Biblical record demonstrates the judicial law was for a particular time and place. The moral law, the Ten Commandments, is the heart of the law from which all the rest of the law is taken. We believe the moral law to continue as God’s will for us. If you need a law to obey, other than love God, the Ten Commandments will do well. Now some would say that the law of Sabbath has been fulfilled in Jesus and we need not obey it. I think the law of Sabbath is still very much part of God’s desire. Clearly the New Testament writers thought it was very important for God’s people to continue meeting each week. They believed it necessary to be flexible with those from pagan backgrounds whose circumstances or obligations might prevent them from observing a strict Sabbath, (Colossians 2:16) but nowhere do they encourage the early believers to stop gathering and worshipping God. (Hebrews 10:25) Summing all of this up. I believe that the center of the law is to love God and love our neighbor from the heart. Our best external guide to help us love God and love our neighbor would be the Ten Commandments. Our best internal guide is the Holy Spirit. In Galatians where Paul is addressing similar questions about what laws we should keep, he says in Galatians 5:16 “But I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” So what laws am I supposed to obey? The answer is the law of the Spirit, which is to love God and love people from the heart.

Five Reasons Jesus gave a gift

After some reflection on Sunday’s sermon about Jesus giving the better gift as our perfect high priest. I’ve decided to include five reasons why Jesus gave the better gift. Here it is.



1. He knows God better than we do. (Matthew 11:27) Jesus knows God the Father more intimately than anyone else in the universe. He knows exactly what He needs and wants in a gift. Not to imply that God needs anything, but the one who knows what God needs from us to be reconciled to Him, the one person who knows that better than anyone is Jesus.
2. Jesus knows how impossible it is for us to give the right gift. (John 2:24,25) We are stingy, resentful, poor, inconsistent, cynical, distrustful, and an even longer list of unpleasant things. Even at our best we are so limited by our shortsightedness and resourcelessness we haven’t a chance. Do we really think we could come up with a decent gift for the King of the Universe? I don’t think so. Who knows our nature even better than we do? Jesus. He hung out with us long enough to get more than just a taste of humanity. He knows we don’t have a chance to pick the right gift.
3. The only one who can afford this kind of gift would be Jesus the son of God. (2 Corinthians 8:9) A one time gift that would cover our debt to God is going to be an immensely expensive item. Apparently even Jesus had to voluntarily exhaust his resources (became poor) to be able to provide for such a gift.
4. Only Jesus had the access necessary to deliver the gift. (Hebrews 8:1) If a gift is given the gift must be delivered and not everyone can just walk into the inner courts of heaven and drop a gift. Jesus seems to be the right one given he came into the very center of the highest court in the universe and just sat down.
5. Jesus wanted to give a gift that would guarantee you would have the Father’s undivided attention. (Hebrews 9:11,12) Jesus had the resources and the ability to provide an airtight gift that would completely capture God’s attention. He took that gift, his own life, and placed it before the throne of God the Father Almighty for you.

Suzanne, ( my wife for those of you who might not know) has put up with a lot of undeserved grief from our children. She was a cheerleader while they think of themselves as “true” athletes. It is all done in good fun. Since the kids travel through life blissfully unaware that their mother is much tougher than they think, I thought I should bring to their attention that their mother hiked twenty miles through about 6000 feet of elevation change, with a 30 lb pack on her back without complaining. The summer between our freshman and sophomore year of college she came out and backpacked with our family in the White Clouds, a mountain range north and west of Sun Valley Idaho. The first night we camped in the shadow of Castle Peak towering 11,814 feet above what is called the Chamberlain Basin. Our camp was about where the photographer took this picture. We woke up to the sun climbing over this peak each morning. As I was explaining to my children about their mom hiking this rugged country and washing her hair in the frigid waters of mountain lakes it made me think about God’s majesty. In Psalm 8:1 we read O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. The word for “majesty” means “wide.” The idea is something like standing on the edge of the ocean and thinking, “This is much wider than me. This is amazing.” That feeling of smallness you get standing on the edge of the ocean, or the Great Plains, or in front of a mountain like Castle Peak, or watching the night sky in clear Colorado air, is what we call majesty, a sense of bigness and smallness all at the same time. The second day I climbed Castle Peak and was able to see miles and miles in every single direction I looked. The vista was huge. My feeling was smallness.

There is something healthy feeling my smallness and the largeness of that space. Scientist look at the vastness of the universe and feel proud that they can kind of measure it. They say, “This is so big how can there be a god in here.” David looks at that enormous space and thinks the opposite. He thinks, “How can there be a man in this huge space.” (vs. 4) The feeling of majesty is healthy to us. Feeling our smallness gives us the opportunity to see the “wideness” of God and know our place. When things are too wide for us, we can feel the wideness of God, the majesty of God and know that God is very mindful of our tiny place in the universe. When we are feeling small we can look to the largeness of God. When we are feeling too big we can look to the largeness of God. There is something about the contemplation of God’s majesty that puts everything in the universe in its place. That is called worship. Each Sunday as we come to worship God I would encourage you to leave your worries, your burdens, your need even to see and hear from God, and simply spend the time giving glory to God in Majesty. One hour and fifteen minutes a week to put all aside and just acknowledge the majesty of God and nothing else. My guess is that everything else that you were worrying about will begin to fade away in the “wideness” of God.

Ten signs of self effort

Someone asked me Sunday after the sermon, “How do I know when I am using self effort instead of working in the power of Christ?” That is a great question. I actually had a list before I cut it out of an already long sermon. So here is my list of possible ways to tell if you are living out of self effort. Before I jump into my list just remember we are wired to self effort as a duck is wired for water, or as Tim Keller likes to say, “We still believe we are living under the covenant of works rather than the covenant of grace.”

So here goes, ten signs you might being living out of self effort.

1- You act first and pray second. Prayer is a second thought. “Oh Lord, I guess I should have asked
you first but here is what I did. Bless it, please!” (finish with your best sheepish grin)
2- You have a lot of ownership in your action. You are devastated when it fails and you are very proud if it succeeds.
3- You find yourself very anxious about the details of life, friends, money, whether something is “successful” or not. Frustrated with your inability to control all of the little things of life.
4- You find yourself laboring under and unlimited sense of obligation. You have a hard time laying down issues or problems that were not yours to pick up in the first place. And you have a difficult time discerning the difference between the two.
5- You find yourself like a man with a sword. If a particular move doesn’t work you think that the same move only swinging harder will work. Putting more energy into an action that didn’t work the first time surely will work the second time.
6- You find yourself cursing more in your head (or out loud) than giving thanks to God.
7- You have an overpowering need to list your accomplishments or what you did right in any given situation. You have a very poor ability to assess your actions and motives.
8- You find yourself not very flexible or teachable in a given situation.
9- You find yourself under almost satanic temptation during periods of difficult effort. You cannot say, “no” to yourself. It is almost as if you feel entitled to sin, because you’ve been so good.
10- You lack a real passion for God, life and grace. When others talk about God and His grace you find yourself being cynical or bitter.

So what do you do when find yourself living out of self effort? Admit it. Stop pretending and acknowledge it to God and let Him pour out his love on you which He poured out in Jesus His Son. Receive that blessed forgiveness and grace. Know that you are perfectly free without any obligation to anyone but God in His wonderful love and grace. Pray without ceasing as you embark on a new journey of reliance upon God.

Eli Masech, Losing a great friend

Eli Masech

The saying is )trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 1 Timothy 2:13

21 years ago I walked into a small Sunday School room in a church in the northern suburbs of Chicago for an interview. It was an interview to be an associate pastor of two small churches yoked together in south central Wisconsin. Sitting across the table from me, asking me questions about what I thought about Sunday School programs, was I ready for small town life, and was my wife interested in the ministry, was a white haired mustached man who looked like a close personal friend of Santa Claus. That is where I met Eli Masech. Suzanne and I were hesitant about taking the job, small town, small salary, but Eli said to us, “It may feel like you are out on a branch but we won’t let you fall.” And he was right he never let us fall. He started by personally subsidizing our rent to help us through that first year. When the transmission went out on our car he lent us the big grey Lincoln to drive home to Michigan for the holidays.

Some of my favorite memories of Eli, besides that first meeting, are Easter egg hunts at the house on the hill. Coming into the lower level of that house on the hill after sledding to the stoked woodstove, hot chocolate and Christmas cookies. Eli always presided over these events with charm and generosity. Our children fondly remember the trains and player piano and looking from the deck where you could see the whole town of Pardeeville.

He was a very frugal man all of his life and I remember him beating his chest and groaning every time the church spent more money than he thought we should. I remember going out to Ella’s Deli with Eli a few months after he had open heart surgery. I ordered a cheese burger and fries then I looked over to see what Eli had ordered. He had on his plate a piece of low sodium turkey on a leaf or two of lettuce. He laughed and shrugged and eventually went back to eating Doris’ great home cooking.

I remember taking Eli with me to visit a particular parishioner. The man was very nice and polite and knew all the correct words to say, but had no sense of sin or the preciousness of the blood of Jesus. As we drove away Eli said, “I don’t think that he is a Christian.” When he said that my estimation of his wisdom, which was already exceedingly high, bounded off the charts.

There are so many things I want to say, could say, but time and space does not leave room, so I would like to finish with this. When our consciences burned hot enough for our congregations to leave the PCUSA, it seemed to me that Eli and Doris had the most to lose. They had many friends that remained behind. They had invested a great deal of their time and money into the Church downtown. About a year after we left Eli and I were together, probably in the church office looking over expenditures, me explaining. and him beating his chest, and I asked him how he was doing since our departure. He said, “I can’t believe I’ve had the privilege to see such a remarkable event, where people were willing to give up so much for what they believed. I’m just thankful I was able to be a part of it.”

It is with great joy and sadness that I say goodbye to such a warrior, and know that heaven is welcoming such a saint.

Patsy Manning Part 4

What happened to Patsy. Here is what she said. My real life began that day. I had a hunger for God’s word that has never gone away. I felt that I loved everyone (that lasted for 6 months and then God began to bring people into my life to love) But God continued to draw me and convict me and change me even to the extent that the relationship in my family that had caused so much pain and bitterness was healed that I could truly love this person.

Her relationship with her step mom that had been so difficult and painful, that had estranged her from her father, was healed. She found that God gave her forgiveness and peace and joy. He brought healing to a relationship that no one else could heal.

Now just to give you an idea how deep that healing went, God had also done a deep work in the heart of Patsy Dad and Stepmom so that they had embraced Jesus Christ, and when the reconciliation began to take place, Patsy let her kids begin to spend time with their grandparents. During one of these visits Patsy’s stepmom led her son Bill to that same place of rest at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Disney can create great stories about wicked stepmothers but only God can create true stories about step mothers becoming beautiful mothers and friends.

Two things let me say in closing: Today if you truly wish to put Patsy to rest, the best thing you can do is find your rest in the same place she has found her rest, in her Lord. I’d love nothing more than to talk with you today about finding that rest.

Second, we labor for the moment in our grief and sorrow. It is very hard to think that she is gone. Sometimes the grief will feel like it is going to overwhelm you and that’s OK. Her influence on us has no correlation to her size. She will leave very large shoes to fill behind her. But as a wise woman once told me, grief is like the tide, when it comes it sometimes it feels like it is going to overwhelm us, but when it goes out it leaves lots of little treasures in the sand behind, lots of beautiful memories which you will cherish forever. Let ‘s pray.

Patsy Manning Part 3

How did she find herself in the Lord? She describes it from Hebrews 11:6 where it says the Lord rewards those who earnestly seek him.” She says, “I did not always earnestly seek the Lord.” So you say, she discovered church.

If you know anything about the Mississippi delta and the little farming communities living off the fertile soil there, you know that every town is rich with churches and you know that it is rich with people who go to church. Everyone goes to Church in Mississippi. But here is what you may not know, going to church and trying to do lots of things for God may make you look good outwardly but it will do nothing to slake the dry thirsty soil inwardly. Here is how Patsy says it in her own words.

Although others may not have been able to see through the mask I wore. I had no faith to begin my journey to God—just a church habit that had not satisfied my inner longing—and I was so miserable that I began saying in my spirit “There has to be something more to it than what I have seen and experienced.”

So I’m wondering if you find yourself in the same place as Patsy. Working hard trying to do good, trying to please whatever benevolent being might be out there and finding it empty and meaningless. Do find your labor all pain and struggle with little or no reward? Then I would invite you to find what Patsy found to be true. She found that she didn’t have to labor that God had done it all already through his son, Jesus Christ.

Let me explain: Take forgiveness. We all know we are supposed to forgive, even people who treat us poorly. But when someone takes something from you when already you have very little. When you already have very little love and appreciation from those who are supposed to give you love and appreciation, and instead they are mean spirited and ugly toward you, then forgiveness is a complete impossibility. It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t feel right. Instead it feels like a terrible painful labor with no fruit, no reward.

Here is what the scripture says in response to our inability to labor for the right thing.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

For those of us who grew up on a farm or have been around farm work like Patsy you know what happens when you put your hand to a shovel or a hoe. When you put yourself to the task of hard labor what comes out? Sweat and blood. It gives us a measure with which to test the intensity of Jesus labor, what came out? Sweat and blood upon the cross for you. He poured out his life in the ultimate labor for you so that you could rest. No more struggle to please God, just simply resting in his struggle for you. No more trying to do for God, simply realizing and receiving what he has done for you.

Patsy Manning Part 2

It says, the voice commanded John to write, to put down in black and white, to make this event an indelible part of history; to write so that none will ever forget what God has to say from heaven. “Write this.”the voice from heaven said. “Blessed are the dead, the ones who have died in the Lord…”

“Blessed are the dead,” says the voice and then quickly explains. The ones who have died in the Lord. For it seems pretty clear that there are many who are not blessed in death just as there are many who are not blessed in this life. There are many for whom this life is a dry rocky shore and there is no hope for the life to come. There is no hope for a voice from heaven.

It is a sad tragic day when people die apart from the Lord. It is a sad and tragic day when people live apart from the Lord. And yet believe it or not there were many such days in the life of Patsy Sloan Manning. She was born on the Louisiana side of the Mississippi delta in 1933. Although the soil in the delta is rich the people there are not always, and life can be difficult. Patsy mother died when she was nine years old and her father quickly remarried, perhaps too quickly. The woman he remarried didn’t care much for the two precious little girls left behind in the passing of Hazel Weisner Sloan. The difficult relationship with her stepmom, combined with the emotional distance of her father left Patsy on a dry rocky shore of deep bitterness and resentment. Her own marriage to Douglas Bowden Manning instead of helping only compounded the problem of her bitterness as she spent much of her life and energy nursing him through several major health issues. By the way I’m not just saying this. I’m actually just parroting Patsy’s own description of her life before discovering the blessedness of being in the Lord.

Why are those who die in the Lord blessed? “Because says the Spirit from that time on they rest from their labors and their works follow after them.”

Just a little note of explanation about these two words "labor" and "works". There is a difference between the two. "Labor" speaks of the trouble, the pain, the agony, the toil and "works" speaks of the finished product, the joy, the satisfaction, the completion.

Let me illustrate it this way. If you've never dined at Patsy's table you've missed out on one of the truly great experiences of glorious southern hospitality. As her hairdresser described Patsy, a classy southern lady with a little tobasco, that was what eating at her table was like. Sumptuous southern fare spiced up with rousing conversation. She wasn’t afraid to talk about anything and if you didn’t bring up the subject she would, her contagious laughter echoing like bells down the halls of her home.

So let me explain these two words from Patsy’s hospitality. There is a deceptive amount of hard labor that goes into the perfect pecan pie. It takes a great deal of effort to create something that goes down so effortlessly. There is a long tedious process that goes into the perfectly tender, precisely crispy piece of Southern fried chicken. But the long hard labor is worth it for the end. Because Patsy knew the end of her labor meant joy, laughter, and delight in good food and good company. She knew the magic of making a home. She had the gift to take the common things of life and turn them into the uncommon. She somehow, in the midst of bitterness of resentment found joy. Where? Well it says it right here. In the Lord.

I Heard a Voice From Heaven

Patsy Sloan Manning September 14, 1933 – December 30, 2011


And I heard a voice out of heaven… The apostle John was incarcerated on the Isle of Patmos, a spare rocky Island off the coast of modern day Turkey right where the Agean sea opens into the Mediterranean. A sparse dry lonely shore, the kind of place that certainly could use a voice from heaven. John, near the end of his very long life, was longing for home. Not the bustling streets of Jerusalem nor the sandy shores of Galilee, or the green valleys of Nazareth, but a place far from his home, a place far from this rocky shore John was longing for his eternal home. There was no better time or place to hear a voice from heaven.

Here we are gathered today to mourn the loss of a dear dear lady who has gone to her eternal home. As many of you know life had been sliding down hill for this classy southern lady. A horrific fall a couple of years ago, a stroke, in the last year had rendered this beautiful articulate woman a shell of her former self. For some time she had been standing on a sparse dry rocky shore longing for home. Not the lush foliage and rich soil of the Mississippi delta where she grew up and raised her own family, nor the quaint little house on Brighton Avenue, but the long wide streets and eternally comfortable rooms of God’s house.

Death is such a strange experience for those of us who remain, we are thankful and grateful for a life well lived, for the shortened time of debility, and yet the leaving can leave us wistfully wishing for a little more time, just a little more time to speak of love, and of life, a little more time to lay aside regrets, a little more time to draw closer to enjoy her presence one, maybe two more times.

Death has left us thinking about life, thinking about death, realizing that as good as life is there must be a better home far from this rocky shore, yes, yes, it is a good time and good place to hear a voice from heaven.