Pastor’s Paragraphs: May 12, 2017

I want to commend the Celebration Singers, for leading us in a joint presentation of music Sunday evening with the Senior Choir from Heritage Baptist.  It was a joy to see the choir loft filled and such a great spirit in the service.  Thank you Keith, accompanist Peggy Kendrick and choir members!

Sunday is Mother’s Day.  In a day when the sanctity of marriage and the importance of a healthy home life are called into question, we should be reminded of God’s plan for the home and family.

I am reminded of a true story from the excavations of the volcanic ashes at Pompeii.  The excavators found the skeleton of a deformed child with his mother’s arms wrapped around him.  The mother’s jewelry still in place, according to the archaeologists, revealed her to have been a member of a wealthy class.  She had time to save herself, but apparently went back to rescue the crippled boy.  Through all the centuries since then her arm has been beneath the child she died to save.  Of what nation or race was that mother and child we do not know.  The point is not something local, but universal.  The ancient scene represents the love of a mother for her child.

While there is in virtually all women an instinctive love for their children, that’s not all there is to the role God has for mothers.  A Godly mother passes three things on to her children.  One is the aspiration to accomplish all the potential God placed within that life.  Another is anticipation.  Mothers are often endowed with unique ability to dream great dreams which become the character foundation of a great life.  Mothers also pass along the assurance of God’s love through life experiences.  A mother’s faith in spite of the trials of life can become the guiding light for a child to find his or her own personal faith in Christ.  For so many of us, our mother was a guiding light in establishing values and applying discipline as well as pointing our hearts toward Christ.    For that we will be eternally grateful.

Let me also remind you about our Eastern Hills Baptist Foundation.  Please contact our staff if you would like more information on how to continue  a witness for Christ even after this life.

Rick Marshall

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FOCUSED

One of the casualties of aging to which I find myself a victim is the dimming of the eyes.  Ecclesiastes 12 counsels the young person to remember God, their Creator, in their youth before the aging process takes over and various faculties, as listed in verses 1-7, are diminished.

Clear eyesight when we are young may be something we take for granted. However, as we age the realization that our vision is not as sharp as it once was takes hold. “Readers” become standard fare for all intricate tasks. Our once keen laser sharp focus is now blurry and in need of help to restore its youthfulness. That restoration is found through glasses or some sort of rejuvenating surgery. Especially in the early stages of this degenerative eye problem we may be able to fake it and get by, but eventually we must relent and do something to correct the problem.

There is a parallel between physical and spiritual vision. “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” was written in the early 20th century. The hymn writer, Helen Lemmel, was strongly influenced by the artist and later little-known missionary, Lilias Trotter. Miss Trotter started off as an aspiring artist but early on felt a call from God to reach the lost. She began her ministry by rescuing prostitutes from the streets of London. Later she went to Africa, without missionary funding, and served for over forty years. While there she penned a poem that would greatly influence the writing of the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”  The poem was entitled “Focused: A Story and Song.” 

The poem centers around focusing one’s attentions fully and completely upon God. She writes that Satan knows that if a person uses all their powers of concentration on being led by God’s Spirit, they will have a great intensity and impact upon those to whom they are called to minister. Lilias Trotter, writing in a more formal use of the English language than we are accustomed, shares some timeless insights which could very easily have been written today but with a different accent. She writes: “Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once—art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the ‘good’ hiding the ‘best’ even more effectually than it could be hidden downright frivolity with its smothered heartache at its own emptiness.”

The “good” hiding the “best” leads us to emptiness.  Could this be true of us today especially as American Christians? Have we sought the “good” while missing the “best”? The chorus of the hymn, which we will be singing in worship this Sunday, says it best.

                Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,                                                                                                                                        And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Keith Pate

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