March 26, 2007

APPLAUSE
by Charles R. Swindoll

Matthew 6:1-18

If a modern Rip Van Winkle were to awaken from twenty years’ slumber and stumble into today’s world, I suspect he’d be amazed. Some of the changes, even in worship, would make the old gentleman wonder about us.

Picture him sitting on a pew, connecting with God in worship. Then to his amazement, he hears folks clapping! Frowning, he feels suddenly and strangely interrupted. Why are these people applauding? Wasn’t that music an offering of praise to the One they have gathered together to worship? Isn’t silence—just the awesome sound of silence—sufficient?

Continuing to observe, he finds inconsistency in it all. Why don’t these people applaud everything? How come a singer receives applause and the one who reads Scripture never does? And why don’t they applaud the sermon?

Besides, he concludes, he prefers to do his applauding in his mind and heart.

But then, doesn’t the Bible talk about God’s people clapping their hands? Yeah, it does.  Several times in the psalms. But it also mentions shouting and dancing and groaning and playing on instruments we don’t even have today. Obviously, God doesn’t want us to be stoic and grim all the time. There have to be occasions when such spontaneous bursts are prompted by the Spirit within us. To cap off all such expressions would not only be unfair, it would be unbiblical.

Maybe, then, what these people need is to be sure that their responses in corporate worship are prompted by the Spirit and not by a small group of people who are ready to clap at anything . . . for any reason.

What I would tell our visitor is that it all has to do with the spirit of God’s truth rather than the letter of the Law. If anyone can show me from Scripture the uptight, airtight guideline for putting a stop to all spontaneous applause, I’m ready to listen. But let’s also remember that when we come together to worship we’re not an audience watching a show where entertainers expect applause.

And no offense, but I tend to agree with old Rip. I’ve never seen a group of people applaud a snowcapped mountain range or an exquisite, priceless painting or a breathtaking sunset.

Silence befits the profound, the awesome.

Think before you applaud. Is it the best way to give God your praise? Is it appropriate? Is it necessary? Would silence be better?

Taken from Charles R. Swindoll, Day by Day with Charles Swindoll (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2000). Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved.

March 23, 1743 George Frideric Handel's oratorio ''Messiah'' had its London premiere. The first performance of "The Messiah" was at a charity concert in Dublin. It got great reviews, but Handel wasn't satisfied with it, and spent almost another year revising parts of the score. It finally had its London premiere, in the audience of the king, on this day in 1743, and it was a great success.

During the famous Hallelujah Chorus, King George II was so moved by the music that he involuntarily stood up from his seat. The audience, out of respect for the king, also stood up. Ever since, it has been a tradition that the audience rises during the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus.

GLORY BEYOND THE GRIND
by Charles R. Swindoll

Exodus 15:2

Even though the song was composed before I was born (which makes it a real oldie), I often find myself humming it in the shower at the beginning of a busy day, between appointments and assignments in the middle of a hectic day, and on the road home at the end of a tiring day. Somehow it adds a soothing touch of oil to the grind: “Without a song the day would never end . . . without a song. . . .”

True, isn’t it? The right combination of words and melody seldom fails to work its magic. And given the pressures and demands we are forced to cope with on a daily basis, we could use a little magic.

The homemaker with children at her feet who faces fourteen or more hours a day in the grind of an endless list of chores. The professional who deals with the grind of people, people, people. The truck driver who heads into the grind of traffic snarls and monotonous miles. The athlete who lives with the grind of unending hours of practice. Students and faculty who face the cynical grind of daily preparation and assignments, exams and papers.

Fact is, no matter who you are or what you do, the grind ain’t gonna go away! The sales person has quotas. The performer has rehearsals. The therapist can’t escape one depressed soul after another. The preacher is never free of sermon preparation. The broadcaster cannot get away from the clock any more than the military person can escape the hassle of red tape. Days don’t end . . . roads don’t bend . . . help!

The question is, how do we live beyond the daily grind? The answer is, a song. But not just any song! Certainly not some mindless, earsplitting tune yelled into a microphone. No, not that. I have in mind some songs that are really old. We’re talking ancient here. In fact, they are the ones inspired and composed by our creator God. They’re called psalms.

These are the timeless songs that have yielded delicious fruit in every generation. Not silly ditties, but strong melodious messages specially designed to help us live beyond the grind. That’s right, beyond it. “We’ll get along as long as a psalm is strong in our souls.”

Those age-old compositions drip with the oil of glory that enables us to live beyond the grind. Songs of victory, affirmation, and encouragement, of confidence-giving strength, of hope, of compassion.

Without God’s song in our soul, our long days will never end and those wearisome roads will never bend.

God’s Book is full of songs—150 of them. Let’s sing them frequently and allow their time-tested lyrics to oil our days.

Adapted from Charles R. Swindoll, Day by Day with Charles Swindoll (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2000). Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved.

RESTORING COMPASSION
by Charles R. Swindoll

Matthew 25:34-36

As one understanding soul expressed it: “Compassion is not a snob gone slumming. It’s a real trip down inside the broken heart of a friend. It’s feeling the sob of the soul. It’s sitting down and silently weeping with your soul-crushed neighbor.”

Parceling out this kind of compassion will elicit no whistles or loud applause. In fact, the best acts of compassion will never be known to the masses. Nor will fat sums of money be dumped into your lap because you are committed to being helpful. Normally, acts of mercy are done in obscurity with no thought (or receipt) of monetary gain.

Compassion usually calls for a willingness to humbly spend oneself in obscurity on behalf of unknowns. How few there are in our fast-paced, get-rich-quick society who say to such a task, “Here am I, use me.” Truly compassionate people are often hard to understand. They take risks most people would never take. They give away what most people would cling to. They reach out and touch when most would hold back with folded arms. Their caring brings them up close where they feel the other person’s pain and do whatever is necessary to demonstrate true concern.

If God’s people are to be living examples of one thing, that thing ought
to be—it must be—compassion.

Taken from Charles R. Swindoll, Day by Day with Charles Swindoll (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2000). Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved.

A man came home and saw his children along with a group
of the neighborhood children gathered around the front steps.  He asked
what it was they were doing. 
"We're playing church." one said.  The puzzled Father inquired further and was told, "Well, we've
already sung, prayed and listened to the sermon. Now, we're all outside
smoking."

Today is Valentine's Day, the day on which we celebrate romantic love. Every February, florists in the United States import several million pounds of roses from South America. About 36 million boxes of chocolate will be given as gifts today (From the Writer's Almanac).

Secret Agent Man by Joyce Sutphen.

You looked so good at the top of the stairs
that I wonder if you might consider

standing at the bus stop near Franklin
and 22nd at about 6:30 AM,

wearing a dark overcoat and a red
scarf, nodding (just slightly) when

I pass, and I wouldn't mind looking
Out my office window at about

10 AM and seeing you (so small I
couldn't be sure) waving from

the far corner of the parking lot,
and then, at lunch, you could be

the mysterious man sitting in the bar,
the one who never turns around until

I am almost out the door with friends
who would have no idea who you are,

and it would be wonderful to see you
disguised as a UPS man, coming in

at 3 PM with a large package
full of various useless things

and a note, telling me exactly
where I could find you later on tonight.

Abraham Lincoln was born on this day near
Hodgenville, Kentucky (1809). Though he's generally considered possibly
the greatest president in our country's history, fairly little is known
about his early life. Unlike most presidents, he never wrote any
memoirs. We know that he was born in a log cabin and had barely a year
of traditional
schooling. His mother died when he was nine, and he spent much of his
adolescence working with an ax. But when he was in his early 20s,
Lincoln apparently decided to make himself into a respectable man.
Residents of the town of New Salem, Illinois, said that they remembered
Lincoln just
appearing in their town one day. People remembered him because he was
one of the tallest people anyone had ever seen, about 6 foot 4, and the
pants that he wore were so short that they didn't even cover his ankles.

As people got to know him, they found he had a wonderful sense of
humor. And he was a hard worker, taking jobs as a miller, storekeeper,
surveyor, and postman. Meanwhile, he joined a debate society, read
books on grammar and rhetoric, and studied to become a lawyer. But he
suffered from wild mood swings. He once became so depressed that he
considered suicide.

Lincoln had grown up at a time when politics seemed like a truly
noble profession, and he thought that maybe he could achieve the
greatness he'd dreamed of as a politician. He served a few terms in the
Illinois State Legislature, and then he was elected to the U.S.
Congress. But
while he was in Washington, he couldn't get a single bill passed. After
two years, he left office, assuming his political career was finished.

So he went back to his law practice and became an enormously
successful lawyer. He handled more than 5,000 cases over the course of
his law career, making him one of the busiest lawyers in the state. And
then, in 1854, he heard about the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, sponsored by
the
senator from Illinois, Stephen Douglas, which would have allowed for
the expansion of slavery into territories in the North. Lincoln hadn't
ever been an abolitionist, but he saw the Kansas-Nebraska Bill as a
great wedge issue that could help him make a real mark in the world.

His campaign for senator of Illinois in 1858 turned him into a
national figure, and though he lost the race, two years later he
managed to maneuver himself into the nomination for president in 1860
and he won. Lincoln spent little more than four years serving as
president,
and for most of those four years, there weren't many people who thought
he was doing a good job. The Civil War went on for longer than most
people thought it would, and it was far more brutal than anyone
expected. Lincoln had a hard time getting his generals to aggressively
pursue the enemy, and
the Confederates came close to capturing Washington, D.C.

It was only in the last few months of his life that it seemed the North
would win the war and the Union would be preserved. In the second week
of April 1865, he received word that that Robert E. Lee had surrendered
his army. On the afternoon of April 14, 1865, Lincoln took a ride in an
open
carriage with his wife, and he was the happiest she'd ever seen him. He
told her, "I consider this
day, the war has come to a close." That same night, he and his wife
went to the theater, and Lincoln was murdered by John Wilkes Booth. - The Writer's Almanac.

It's the birthday of the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, born in Tampico, Illinois (1911). His father suffered from alcoholism,
and Reagan was only 11 years old when he first came upon his father
drunk and passed out on the front porch. Reagan wrote about the
incident in his 1965 memoir, Where's the Rest of
Me. He
said, "That was my first moment of taking responsibility. ... I bent
over him, smelling the sharp odor of whiskey from the speakeasy. I got
a fistful of his overcoat. Opening the door, I managed to drag him
inside and get him to bed. In a few days, he was the bluff, hearty man
I knew
and loved and will always remember."

Reagan went into broadcasting and then got a job as an actor in B
movies. He loved acting because, he said, "So much of our profession is
taken up with pretending, with the interpretation of never-never roles,
that an actor must spend at least half his waking hours in fantasy."
But by the mid-1950s, Reagan's career as an actor had stalled. He spent
eight years as the host of a TV show called "General Electric Theater."
But he was slowly growing more interested in politics. He became a
Republican in 1962, and in 1964 the Republican Party asked him to give
a half-hour
address at the convention to nominate Barry Goldwater. The speech was
so good that a group of Republicans got together and persuaded Reagan
to run for governor of California, and that was the beginning of his
political career.  (From "The Writer's Almanac.")

????  Thank God we live in America

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Associated Press) - A Saudi Arabian judge sentenced 20 foreigners to receive lashes and spend several months in prison after convicting them of attending a party where alcohol was served and men and women danced, a newspaper reported Sunday.

It's the birthday of the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, (books by this author) born in Breslau, Prussia (1906). He came from a family of Lutheran theologians and pastors and decided when he was 16 that he wanted to study for the ministry. He chose to study at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He had a maverick professor there who taught theology by way of the Harlem Renaissance, assigning books by Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, and James Weldon Johnson. Bonhoeffer was inspired to start attending a black church in Harlem, where he began to teach Sunday school, and he also witnessed his church's struggle against racism.

In 1931, when Bonhoeffer returned to Berlin, he suddenly saw the anti-Semitism that had been brewing in his county with a new clarity. When Hitler took power in 1933, other pastors and theologians in Germany chose to ignore it, but Bonhoeffer joined a plot to assassinate Hitler. The assassination plot was a failure, and Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943.

He spent his last months in prison writing letters to his fiancée, a young woman named Maria von Wedemeyer. The correspondence between the two was collected in the book Love Letters From Cell 92 (1994). - From "The Writer's Almanac."