The Gospel in Real Life

My oldest daughter gave my bride a fantastic Christmas gift that I wanted to share with all of you. Husbands, steer your wives to this site for some good eats! Isn’t that in Ephesians somewhere? Oh wait… my mistake. Check out

My Mum’s Kitchen.

Tastefully and wonderfully made!

http://mymumskitchen.com/

Mike

A voice speaking from the grave. It’s Deja Vu all over again. From the 1961 Operation Coffee Cup Campaign against Socialized Medicine as proposed by the Democrats, then a private citizen Ronald Reagan Speaks out against socialized medicine.

Ok, yes, I know, the title’s not original, but it fits. Today’s our 35th wedding anniversary, and it has been a walk to remember. Yep, the big “three-five.” If you want to know how old we are, you may need a calculator. I was 19 and my rib was 17 when we got married. I’ll let you do the math. And no, we didn’t have to get married. In fact, it would be 5 years before children began to arrive. This picture of us was taken soon after we were married – maybe within a year. We got the Dodge Power Wagon at a government auction. I think it was a 1968 – only 4 years old if I remember right. Check out the KC-HiLites on top of the cab. All the rage. Those were a status symbol. This baby had a CB radio and everything!

Here’s a glimpse of what life was like then.

• Cassette tapes were new and all the rage.
• My Akai reel-to-reel tape deck was “boss” and we could listen to over an hour of continuous music on it. An hour!! Amazing technology. It was an early iPod.
• I still had all of my vinyl albums and 45s and some of them were brand new.
• Turntables for the vinyl records were becoming cutting edge.
• Auto-reverse cassette decks were cutting edge.
• Some TVs had hard-wired remote controls. Again, cutting edge.
• Internet? What’s that?
• Pong hadn’t been thought up yet.
• CB Radios were hot. “Breaker, breaker, meet me on channel 19 good buddy.” Primitive IM.
• Video cameras were big things on wheels inside TV studios.
• 8-track tapes were the CDs of life.
• CDs and DVDs? What are those?
• VCRs – Huh? Never heard of it.
• Corner video store? Why?
• Net Flix – What, what?
• Antenna vision rocks! Rabbit ears with selector switches: high tech.
• High definition – something lofty in a dictionary?
• Cell Phones: phones in prisons?
• 300 BAUD modems were high tech business solutions.
• Google wasn’t a verb. It wasn’t even a word.
• Component stereos: what will they think of next?
• 23″ televisions? Color too? Are you serious??
• Wii meant us and it was spelled “we.”
• Star Trek was late-night cutting edge sci-fi re-runs.
• 7-11 rented black and white TVs. $5 for the weekend.
• I worked on my own cars because computers were huge things in large, cold rooms.
• Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in was prime time. Sock it to me!
• So was Hee-Haw.
• There was a military draft, and I don’t mean beer.
• 65 VW buses weren’t old. Neither were 66 VW buses.
• Muscle cars weren’t collector’s items. They weren’t even muscle cars.
• Twitters and Tweets were things birds did.
• Birds were mammals and then a movie; the Byrds were a rock group.
• Facebook would have meant you had your face in a book and read a lot.
• Web browser – something only spiders did. Spiders were living things.
• Chat: something that had to be done face-to-face, or not at all.
• The Doobie Brothers were hot. But we didn’t say hot back then. They were far out.
• Elvis was alive. So were John Lennon, Keith Green, and my mom.
• Astronauts walked on the moon 5 years before we were married.
• The Cold War was a reality.
• The missile silos in southern Arizona weren’t museums.
• The movie Jaws wasn’t a movie yet.
• Clint Eastwood was still a cowboy who liked spaghetti.

So now that we’ve had this little trip down memory lane and you’ve had a glimpse into life in the early 1970s, tell me what you think. Oh, by the way, thanks babe for 35 rich years! I wouldn’t change a thing! It really has been a walk to remember!

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. – Ephesians 5:25-33

I’m making the leap! Actually, I’ve already made it, but it takes some getting used to and there is an adjustment period. I’m switching from the NIV Bible to the ESV Bible. The notes in the ESV Study Bible are amazing. But the hard part is that after using the same Bible for 15+ years, it’s kind of like an old shoe – it just fits good and you know where everything is. You know where on the page a particular verse is supposed to be and sometimes your Bible just falls open right to where you need it to. Verses that you frequent are like an old familiar friend that you keep coming back to, not just because of what they say (and that’s important!), but because of where they are on the page.

As much as I’m liking my ESV Study Bible, everything’s out of place – at least until it gets used and abused as much as my old NIV, and I learn where everything moved to. I suppose in another 15 years or so, I’ll be blogging about how I’m abandoning my beloved and familiar ESV in favor of what ever happens to be the latest and greatest thing at the time. We’ll see.

I get asked these kinds of questions a lot. You probably do too. What will heaven be like? Will we remember this life when we’re there? Will I recognize you? Perhaps more importantly, will you recognize me? Will I recognize Paul when I see him so that I can walk up to him and ask him to clarify a few things for me, like what did he mean by being baptized for the dead and the head covering thing? How about Peter? Will I be able to corner him and ask him to clarify what he meant in 1 Peter 4:1-6? Would he even know what “1 Peter” is?

I’m currently reading through the book of Revelation and there are glimpses of believers in heaven in several spots. Revelation 15:1-4 is one instance:

I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues–last, because with them God’s wrath is completed. And I saw what looked like a sea of glass mixed with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and over the number of his name. They held harps given them by God and sang the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb: “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the ages. Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

What stood out to me in my reading was that in each glimpse of believers in heaven, John never draws our attention to who’s there. I think the book of Revelation was written at the close of the first century and that John was probably the last of the Apostles to die. That means that some of these believers around the throne were Apostles just like John but John never pauses to say, “Oh look, there’s Andrew!” Or, “Check it out – there’s Peter! We used to hang out together!” Nowhere does he say, “Did you notice Paul, Moses, and Abraham?”

Instead, our attention is always drawn to what really matters. The Lamb of God is the focus of heaven. Jesus is our reward. In his presence nothing else matters. If you don’t recognize me there, you’ll get over it quick.

I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb . Therefore, “they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Revelation 7:14-17

I guess it was just a matter of time. With all of the talk of “going green” and saving the planet, I guess it was only a matter of time until we got a green Bible pushed on us. Now we can take comfort in knowing that we are saving the planet whenever we read the Bible. I know I’m going to sleep a lot better at night from now on, knowing that. Have you seen it yet? The green Bible I mean. It’s out there and it’s being pushed, and pushed aggressively. Not only is it purported to be “earth friendly”, but it’s also a “green letter” edition. I guess red letters somehow hurt the trees and plants. Maybe it just hurts their feelings. I used to like the color green (but never as much as blue – let’s be honest), but now I’m thinking of giving up on it. I am starting to like green less and less for some reason. Why can’t there be a blue-letter edition of the Bible for those contemplative, introspective moments? I’m just grateful that Al Gore invented the Internet and that we get to constantly hear about Read more…