Unlike our 50.6 degree evening right now, on one 15.2 degree evening this last weekend my lab and I were out enjoying the crispest and clearest of winter nights. The sky was so deeply black I am sure one could have seen a 7th magnitude star though we are only supposed to see 6th magnitude stars with our unaided eye. But this night we were stunned by Sirius. Even having once lived on the equator in a land with no light pollution, I have never seen it brighter. Normally Sirius is -1.46 magnitude but this night it must have been brighter. It is our 6th closest neighboring sun at 8.6 light-years distance. If the moon had not been at half, I think Sirius would have cast a perceptible shadow. The light that filled our eyes left Sirius in September, 2002. It might have exploded last year and no longer be there but we will not know that until 2019.

I find myself thinking if God turns on the light and the heat it must be for some creature’s benefit other than us. To think God made the stars for us is about the most egocentric thing we could think in our self-conceit. My do we ever think WE are important! Yet, I have actually heard that from a pulpit.

Hebrews 1:2 is one of my favorite verses about Jesus. It says, “In these last days (God has) spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; . . .” Our Jesus, our creator, the one who took responsibility for us after we disappointed all heaven, made Sirius. If that was all He made He would be worthy of our worship. But He also made the other 100 trillion suns in our medium size galaxy.

It’s amazing what a dog will do for a treat. When I ask our lab to shake, as she picks up her paw she cocks her head and gives me a crazy look as if to say, “Look, this is really stupid. It serves no real function other than to make you happy, so here. Now where’s my treat?” Actually it has gotten even worse. When she wants a treat she taps me with her nose, sits down and picks up her paw. I think the psychologist Skinner would say I am the one who has been conditioned.

I am so thankful God does not ask me to do mindless things that I might receive blessings. There is no eleventh commandment that says, “Shake.” God is so practical. Each commandment comes with a blessing not as a care package from heaven but as a result of doing something very useful. For example the first command says not to worship idols. Of course that would be stupid because a piece of stone or wood can’t interact with us. The fourth commandment tells us to rest every seventh-day. If God didn’t command that most of us would work seven days a week and burn out at 35 or 40. If I honor my parents, my children will see me do this and they will then treat me the way I treated grandma and grandpa.

Everything God asks of us is sensible, practical and leads to the abundant life Jesus promises to us. Even the Old Testament food requirements in Leviticus were there to keep the children of Israel healthy and well. What a wonderful God. He doesn’t need His ego to be massaged by our behavior. He just wants us to be happy, safe and well.

In 1945 the Japanese had been fighting American soldiers for over three years. They were convinced that they could not lose the war because their gods had made them superior. They were a chosen people. Americans were a mongrel people who were not racially pure. It was unbelievable that their warriors were losing island after island. When Americans reached Okinawa it became evident that heaven had deserted them. In despair thirty thousand military and civilian personal hurled themselves to their deaths from the top of an Okinawaian cliff. They could not endure the shame.

There is something deep inside the human psyche that makes us want to believe we are God’s favorites. Young people knock on my door and tell me they are God’s elect and my baptism is of no value unless I am rebaptised by one of them. Group after group, denomination after denomination, nation after nation believe they are the chosen ones. It is not an idea foreign to my childhood. I even learned memory verses from Scripture to support this deep basic human hunger.

Could it be that God is not and has never been impressed by groups and organizations? Could it be that God is instead searching for humble individuals who deem themselves unworthy and come to Him as one willing to be used in any way God needs to further His kingdom? There is a very interesting verse in Revelation 7. John wrote, “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindred, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, . . .” It seems to be about people and not about groups.

Who can resist a good sale, especially when it is something we use? There it was a forty-pound bag of birdseed chock-full of sunflower seeds and other goodies. Best of all it was half what I usually pay. I was one happy camper until our birds deserted us. They don’t like it. I wonder if the seed was very old and stale and thus on sale. My bargain didn’t turn out to be such a good deal. I went and got the good stuff and am trying to woo them back. The squirrels will enjoy the stale stuff.

This brings me to church attendance. If one never hears a fresh idea, if Sabbath School or Sunday School lessons are just a repeat of things we have heard all our lives, if sermons seem to be a rehash of last year’s fare, it is difficult to shovel the driveway and slip down the hill on a cold winter morning. Now that I have said that, allow me to say that despite our appetite for fresh mental stimulation, the tried and true story of the cross still refreshes no matter how often it is told. I need, we need the constant reassurance that God loves us despite our ridiculous failures. “Tell Me The Old Old Story” is a pretty good hymn with a great message.

However, let’s go back to our need for something new. At the close of Hebrews 5 Paul speaks of learning on the milk of the Word but eventually needing meat. People like birds will go where they are being fed that which is nourishing and palatable. Sometimes we even need to hear things we don’t particularly like but “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”

So many organizations rushed to Haiti to supply free medical help to victims of the earthquake that already established hospitals and clinics have gone bankrupt for lack of paying patients. In Africa free American food is rushed to famine stricken nations only to have farmers, who have labored all year to produce their crops, have the price fall out from under them because of our help. Helping people can be a serious challenge. How do you help someone without harming another or harming the very person you are helping? There are times I see opportunities to help a student pass a class only to realize I have enabled their indolence and have reinforced bad habits. While supplying grace to one situation I have contributed to an attitude that one need not really work hard and learn.

And so it is with grace. How can I steel myself against sin when I know that God will always forgive? I can guess what you are thinking. God knows our hearts and knows we are working the system; therefore, we will not get the grace we need. But there is forgiveness for willful sin. We can deliberately do wrong only to discover the consequences were much worse than we had anticipated and thus enter into a genuine repentant state. Yeah. We can.

The quest to be genuinely Christ-like and to always do the right thing for the right motive is an immense challenge I have been questing for all my life. When I am totally honest with myself I know I need grace, lots of grace. So how can God help us without harming us? In His wisdom He does it very carefully because He understands our hearts are amazingly deceitful – deceiving ourselves.

Life is full of wonders. Today I had a new one. I love teaching. Students never cease to do something new. Today in my human development class, which spans the twelve o’clock hour, a young lady got up and left the room. That happens all the time. What followed does not. About ten minutes later she returned with her dinner. She had gone to the cafeteria and now sat down in class to eat her meal. I was so taken back I didn’t know what to say. My wife, an experienced elementary teacher, had the right comment. But having never taught third grade I didn’t know I was to say, “Did you bring enough for everyone?”

Now Jesus would have had an even better comment. He would have said, “Bring it to me.” After blessing it He would have passed it out to everyone and then collected the leftovers for them to take back to the dorms. The feeding of the crowd must have been very satisfying to Jesus; so much so He did it twice, once in Galilee and again east of the Jordan. It brings joy to be able to meet genuine needs.

Ephesians 2:10 says, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” To do good works is the purpose for our being. There is no real joy in those who constantly feed their own selfish nature. Real joy permeates us when we discover a meaningful task, have the means to meet it and then do it. When we do, the miracle of the feeding happens anew. Resources are multiplied and we achieve our fullest potential. That’s a grand experience.

Coming out into a busy college parking lot this afternoon I couldn’t find my car. I really looked carefully up and down the rows. No car. Could someone have taken it? Holding the key in my hand I decided to press the alarm button to see if I could hear it or see its flashing lights. The beeping horn almost rattled my teeth. I was standing right beside my car – right beside it! Early this morning my wife and I had swapped cars. Even though I had driven the beeping car to the parking lot when I came out I proceeded to search for the wrong car. Ouch. I’m seriously beginning to doubt the hype about “golden years.”

I think the real golden years are when the house is full of little kids, when you are barely paying the bills yet hear “Daddy’s home” and hear the thunder of little feet coming to mob you. My dog does that now but it’s not quite the same. It’s a dog. I wish the four legs were divided between two little boys. The problem with most of us is we don’t recognize the real golden years until the wall fills with graduation pictures and then they are over.

I wonder what I will forget tomorrow. In my human development class I talk about long and short term memory. As we age we hang on to the things we learned decades ago. Memory verses I learned as a child still fill my mind as inspiration for these devotionals. One of the best things we can do for our children is to have them memorize a Bible text each week. Decades later they will thank us for it.

We were having breakfast at Denny’s this morning with friends when I recognized a semi-famous film star eating in the booth next to us. It took my brain just a few seconds of running through its Rolodex files to identify him. Later when I looked up his bio on the Internet I discovered we are just weeks apart in age. It’s amazing what a really good face job and well dyed hair can do. I definitely show more wear and tear than he.

I wonder what it is like to be semi-famous; always the co-star and never the protagonist. Surely it has its advantages. The pay should be very good and yet he can eat a quiet breakfast at Denny’s without having people pester him for an autograph. But does he ever wish that just once he could have top billing?

There is a wonderful verse in Revelation 3 that says, “He that overcomes, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.” Just imagine the Creator of the universe personally presenting your name before His heavenly Father. This is top billing. This is being famous where it counts. This is so much better than having a Wikipedia page, an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy or whatever fleeting human award one could receive. It’s truly grand to have friends in high places and this is as high as it gets. Never forget John 15:14. "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” And what has He commanded? “A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you . . .” John 13:34

I realize that some of the people who audition for American Idol are just trying to get their fifteen minutes of fame, meet the judges and have some interesting video to someday show their great grandchildren, but one gets the impression that some of them really live in a delusional world of self-adoration. The tears that flow from the deserved rejection seem to be deeply felt. I am sometimes reminded of a man who once told me he had gone over a week without sinning. When I asked for him to explain he told me that since it was Wednesday he couldn’t break the Sabbath today. He had not murdered anyone today, stole anything, cursed or disrespected his parents. His definition of sin, or should I say victory over sin, was adherence to a code of commandments.

At first I am tempted to quote, “Wherefore let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” I Corinthians 10:12. However, I’m not sure someone living under such a narrow concept would ever be aware when he falls. He is not aware that he has yet to stand. While it is true that sin is the transgression of the law (I John 3:4) it is so much broader and deeper. Sin is selfishness that is deeply embedded into the fabric of our being. It is living for satisfaction of self at the expense of others. It is anything that harms self or others. Sin is something as simple as spitting out chewing gum on the street where others will step on it. Sin is tossing trash out the window of your car after going through a fast food drive up window.

Considering the truth about our human condition there is only one way for any of us to stand. It is not complicated. It is understanding the only goodness, the only righteousness we will ever have is a gift from the mercy of a loving God.

Sometimes I am haunted by my “good” deeds. It’s because I feel really good about them and realize that often I am doing them because I enjoy the warm feeling I get that tells me God must be very happy with me and probably added another room on my mansion mentioned in John 14. My unease grows when I read Paul’s book of Romans and am confronted with his premise that all deeds done for the wrong reason are works of the flesh. My offerings, my Sabbath keeping, my helping little old ladies across the street are in the same category as stealing, murdering and lying. Paul reinforces the idea in I Corinthians 13 when he tells us even if we give our bodies to be burned it is worthless when done for the wrong reason.

My problem is I am so tainted with self I never do anything for selfless reasons. Paul understood. He didn’t want to be that way but was honest enough to recognize the truth about himself. That’s why he cries out at the end of Romans 7, “Who will deliver me from this body of death.” If he had concluded his letter at that point I would just give up and join him in despair. But, he didn’t stop. It wasn’t Paul who put in the chapter break at this point. That was done over a thousand years later. Chapter eight verse one rescues us from the pit of self. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

My hope, your hope, my assurance, your assurance is found in Jesus. He started our saving and He finishes our saving. Ephesians 2. “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”

With over two feet of snow on the ground and another foot coming tomorrow the birds are not straying far from the feeder. However, this noon I noted not a bird in sight. Five minutes or more passed and still not a bird. It meant only one thing. They had spotted the neighborhood Sharp-shinned Hawk. He too considers our bird feeder his “bird” feeder. After he went down the street to checkout one of our neighbor’s dining area one small chickadee braved coming back to feed. Seconds later there were five and then ten and then the whole gang showed up. I’m not sure where they all had been hiding but all it took was for one brave little guy to lead the way.

And such is life among people. We too are often shy or afraid to do the right thing until someone leads the way. When we realize we don’t have to stand alone we rise to our convictions. How often as a pastor I realized if something was to be done, if something was to happen, someone needed to lead. Should we need to raise money I always was the first to contribute and also had another prepared to give. It’s called doing your homework.

But what about occasions when there is no such time for such preparation? What of moral situations that call for bravery and courage? In the classic book To Kill a Mockingbird an angry crowd sought to lynch a man until a small girl stepped out and confronted the crowd. Should we ever be in a situation that demands real courage I pray that each of us will be the first to rise to do the right thing.

If we could concoct a pill that could raise people’s I.Q.s by ten to twenty points we could soon be fabulously wealthy. Lines to get our pills would be longer than the lines to get a new iPhone. We used to think the intelligence we are born with we would have for the rest of our lives. Well, we did know we could do things to reduce our I.Q. There is all manner of mental abuse at our disposal. But the good news is we can increase our mental capacities. The secret has been with us all along. It’s found in the longest Psalm.

“O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditations. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.” Psalm 119.

There it is. The secret is time spent with God and His word. My Dad used to tell me to always pick friends who were smarter than I. By association I would gain new understanding of things. If that’s the case then who better to associate with than the One who knows everything. In Ephesians 1 Paul prays, I “make mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; . . .”

The first month of 2011 is already history but we have eleven months yet to finish the year smarter than when it started. Let’s do it.