Easter and being resurrected

So it is Easter. People at my church often say to me Happy Resurrection Day. I always chuckle inside when I hear that. Nothing wrong with it. For me that is what the meaning of  Easter is, and always has, and will be for me.


Growing up my family celebrated Easter. As a children my sisters and I would be up early and find our Easter baskets filled with chocolate and other goodies. My parents would then get up, and then it was on to our Easter egg hunt. By then it was always time for church. I would smuggle the small chocolate candies in my suit and find them melted in my pocket as I would reach for them during church. My mother finally got wise to me and every year after I got frisked before leaving the house. 


Now that I am older....Easter has become much more than chocolate, Easter egg hunts, and smuggling contra-band into church.  As I have grown older I have a much better understanding of Easter/Resurrection Day. I guess as a child I knew that it was special, hey, I got a week off from school! And Jesus raising from the dead, hmmm, I guess I just did not quite get the significance of it. I was a child, but I believed it.  Now I have a much better understanding of it. 


Not only did the prophets write about it, Jesus spoke of it. He told His disciples this is what is going to happen. If we back up just one week before His Crucifixion, we read about Jesus riding into Jerusalem  on a donkey. The people were laying down palm branches and crying out Hosanna in the highest! But what a difference a week makes, those same people who were crying out Hosanna were now screaming crucify Him. 


Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose again. He was crucified for us, whoever would believe in Him. His blood was shed on that cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.He then conquered death and rose from the grave and is alive for evermore. We read in the Bible that without the resurrection our faith is in vain, it would mean nothing. Many today don't believe that Jesus rose from the dead. The problem then becomes, why did people in biblical times believe it? Why did they die for their beliefs? If they did not see the risen Lord, I don't think they would be so willing to suffer persecution for it. 


Easter is about Christ, His suffering, Him dying on the cross for me, Him conquering death and coming back to life. Because of it I have life in His name for evermore. I have excepted Him as my Savior. 


Like some who want to call Easter Resurrection Day, or Back to Life Day, it does not matter, what matters is what you attach to it as the meaning for it.


After Christs death on the cross, His followers ran and hid. They were afraid that they would be taken too. Peter, before the cross was already denying Him. BUT, upon seeing the risen Lord, Peter was a different person. 


So this day, reflect on what Jesus means to you. Are you still running and hiding from the risen Lord? Are you making excuses and trying to rationalize in your heart that Jesus really never rose from the dead?


Peter, the one who denied Jesus, he actually did it three times, was himself later crucified for his faith and belief in Jesus. But, but, Peter, during his crucifixion said "I am not worthy to be crucified the same way as Jesus was, crucify me upside down!"    


He died and came back to life so that we may have eternal life. You must believe and except Him as Lord of you life. You then will receive forgiveness of your sins, you will no longer be dead, but will have life, life abundantly.   In Him Preacher 

Sunday sermon 3/25 But Faith

Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him (GOD) for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.


To please God. I hear people say that they wonder if God is pleased with them. According to Hebrews 11:6 God is pleased with us when we put our faith in Him. We all lose faith from time to time, we are only human. But with each life experience our faith should grow stronger. In the gospel of John 20:24 - 29 After Jesus had risen from the dead, Thomas who was one of the twelve doubted that Jesus was really alive. When Jesus came into the room and showed Himself  to Thomas ALIVE, Thomas said to Jesus "My Lord and my God!" Thomas faith grew that day. What is God doing in your life today to increase your faith? Maybe you need to look back on times in your life where you thought there was no answer to the problem you were facing, for that moment you might have been thinking  that this situation is too big for God. At the time you allowed yourself to become a doubting Thomas. God time after time shows Himself real to us. He is alive and sits on the throne. He cares for us. 1 Peter 5:7 Casting ALL our cares upon Him, for He cares for us.


Are you in a storm right now? Are you hurting? Does it seem like there is no way out?  Place your trust in the risen Lord. Put your faith in God, not yourself, a person, a situation. Putting your faith in God is the first step. Next believe that HE IS.  When God spoke to Moses at the burning bush, Moses asked God, "And who shall I say sent me?" God answered, "I AM"   What God is saying to us today is "I AM"    "I AM YOUR ALL AND ALL"  That is who He is. AND He will reward us when we diligently seek Him. DILIGENTLY.  We should never stop, never give up. 


I was told of an elderly lady at church about when her father died back in the 1940's. She promised her dad on his death bed that she would pray for brother everyday for his salvation. More than sixty years later her brother came to faith in Christ. She was diligently seeking God, she did not lose faith, she did not give up. The reward came. 


John 20:31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is  the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.


May you have a blessed week in the Lord. Have faith!   In Christ Preacher.  

What about the comics?

Many talk to me about the future of the comic strip. They have legitimate  concerns with newspapers dying off because of the Internet.


So what will become of the comic strip? I do not know. As big papers do die off, the smaller local community papers are having success. Not all but some. In the future maybe that is where the comic strip might still be seen. It would then become a home product in that many papers will then have their own local cartoonist. 


The Internet will still be a place to go for the funnies, the trick is to make money at it for the cartoonist. The web is flooded with many great comic strips, but few make the cartoonist any bucks. 


In someways the newspaper industry needs to reinvent itself. I think the newspapers need to take a step outside of themselves and be looking in instead of being on the inside trying to figure it out. Sometimes in life we get to close to the problem that we can't see how to fix it. If you press your nose to the mirror all you will see is the bridge of your nose and your eyes, but if you step back you can see much more. The newspaper industry needs to do this I think.


So what can they do? I will list some ideas. 
1. They need to figure out how to get new younger readers. To do this I think maybe the newspapers should offer things at the high school and college level. They could show up at campuses talk to students about the newspaper, sit with them and find out from them what would make them want to start reading a newspaper instead of always going to the Internet. They could also sell them on the fact that newspapers  research their stories and therefore are more reliable.


2. Newspapers need to start listening to their readers.  when I try to sell my comic strip to newspapers many times they will say, I just don't have room. But, they make sure that they have room for their articles that they like to write. Point being, readers love the comics, and only like what the newspapers write about. Readers like The sports page, the crosswords and comics. These are the top three reasons why people read the newspaper. Crossword being #1


3. The newspapers also need to go back to reporting the news, not their bias opinion of the news. This just isolates readers. Do more stories on people, places and things in their own communities.


4. I think that maybe if they went back to having paperboys/girls would help too. They could be the ones going door to door and signing people up. They would not have to handle money anymore, let the newspapers handle the billing. The paperboy/girl would just be responsible for getting new subscribers and then delivery. Maybe we would get the newspaper placed closer to our house than down in the gutter! Neighborhoods would love to help support the young man or woman who is out trying to earn some money. It also teaches kids a work ethic. 


Enough of my rant. Thanks for reading. Bud

Sunday Sermon 3/18

Good Sunday to you all,


They say Hind Sight is 20/20, and it is. For instance if this morning you stubbed your toe on something while walking across the house. You can look back and say to yourself, I wish I would have picked that up the night before.  Easy to look back at things and wish we did things differently. "Hind Sight"  But what do you call it when you look ahead? Do you have "Hind Sight" then? If you are driving your car towards a wall you can see it coming and you can stop and turn around. That would be having "Hind Sight" But it isn't always that easy.  We sometimes choose to do stupid things knowing that it  is going to bring harm to ourselves. More "Hind Sight" Poor "Hind Sight" at that. At the time it seems to ourselves we can handle it, but then when the hammer drops we then look backwards and our "Hind Sight" has quickly become better than it was when we were looking forward. But what if we could have great "Hind Sight" for things looking ahead? wouldn't that be great? 




In the book of Genesis Starting in Chapter 37 we learn of a man named Joseph. He had some brothers who did not treat him very nice. In fact they pretty much hated him. They threw Joseph into a pit, sold him into slavery, and told their father Jacob that Joseph was killed by a wild beast.  Joseph became a slave in Egypt where he had his fair share of trials. But Joseph had great vision so to speak. Actually it is what we call faith. In 2 Corinthians 5:7 it says For we walk by faith, not by sight.    Joseph trusted God through it all.  Later Joseph was promoted by the Pharaoh to be over all of Egypt. Only Pharaoh was greater than him. 


A great famine hit the land, and before hand God showed Joseph that it was coming. Joseph stored away food for seven years before the famine. When the famine came Joseph's brothers came to Egypt to get food. The brothers did not recognize that it was Joseph until Joseph revealed himself to them. They were terrified thinking the worse. But Joseph said this to them: Genesis 50:20 "But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive." 


In Romans 8:28  And we know, that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.


And in 2 Corinthians 4:17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.


Are you going through a tuff time right now? Are you using "Hind Sight" and saying to yourself if only I.....? Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda  Put your faith In Jesus Christ, then Romans 8:28 will cover you. Quit looking back, only look back to reflect on the goodness of Christ and how He saved you from your past. Then you can give Him praise and thanks. Start walking in faith, not by sight. Peter was was allowed out of the boat and to come towards Christ. Peter got to walk on water. He was walking by faith, staring at the perfector of our faith Jesus. But then he took his eyes off Jesus, saw the waves,, the wind, the storm. He was then walking by sight and began to sink. Peter cried out "Lord save me" and Jesus saved him. 
Maty this week be one of trusting in The Lord, and not ourselves are circumstances, or what we seem to see.    God Bless  Preacher

Sense of Dogs

Last night I was watching the Twilight Zone. It was about an old man and his dog. They go on a racoon hunt together one night and end up dying. As the old man and his dog are getting ready to enter heaven, Peter informs the old man that the dog cannot go in. The dog is barking as  the old man pleads his case with Peter. Nope, the dog cannot go in. Peter tries hard to pursuade the man to just come inside. After the old man says no, then Peter starts with trying to make deals, just come on in and then I will slip the dog in for you later. The old man still said I will just keep walking on down the road. The old man and the dog left, only to be approached by The Real Peter. It is then that we find out that the first stop was hell, and the man at that gate was not Peter. We also learn that with the dog barking at the gates of hell, that the dog had sensed the fake Heaven. The story ends with the man and his dog going into Heaven together.

In life we make good and bad choices, we get conned, swindled, lied to and taken advantage of. We can learn a lot from our dogs, their keen sense of smell, their hearing.  If they are barking at something that appears not to be there, maybe it's because they smell a rat.
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Gas prices

For those of us who live on the outskirts of town, we usally have to drive further to get where we need to go. Many politicians live far away too.  Oh yeah, they are wealthy, and they get the free tax payer ride. So much can be said about all this. Here is an idea, why not start yet another reality tv show (sigh) where a politician has to live with an American family for two weeks. Not a well to do family, but your regular Joe. Paul Politician would have to live and see what it is like to go without. Sorry, we cannot go out to dinner, we have to put gas in our car. Paul can watch the married couples fight over which bill should be paid. Paul and the like just have no clue what the American family is going through right now. To make matters worse they turn a blind eye to the raising gas prices. I guess I would not care much either if I had a tax payer credit card.  The other day on tv John Stossell said that the price of gas at over $4.00 a gallon is a good deal. He went on to back up his claim by saying that it cost the gas companies lots and lots of money to give us gasoline.  He did not mention that the gas companies are making record profits. Also on the news I heard a politician say that if we were just self sufficient we would have gas down to $2.00 a gallon. Not complaining about that, but with all that is going on, we were at $2.00 a gallon two years ago. In December of 2001 gas went down to 1.00 a gallon. So I ask what has changed? Some will say it is the demand, ok, but in USA the demand is down and our supply is high!! Gas should be going down not up. One lady said to me "You Republicans don'yt want the goverment interfeaing with your lives, but now when it affects you, you think it is ok" I let her know that yes, as a conservative I do not want big daddy involved in my life. Mainly take away rights that I have. But when there are those who have a monopoly on something..like gas... and because of that they can hurt us as a nation, and as individules finacially yes, that is what the Government is for. To protect our nation.