Biblical Christians are quite aware of the battle with the flesh. Paul describes it very clearly in Romans 7:7-25. His description is pretty well true of at least a portion of all of our daily lives. When you hear the words “gratifying the desires of the flesh,” very possibly the more heinous sins come to your mind; the ones that too often  irrevocably destroy relationships, families, people, trust, or leave one in ruin. What is often overlooked, or for which we make the excuse, “this is who I am,” are the “little” battles that take place hundreds of time a day; the battles that are so often lost that we strike it up to who we are; it is simply a manner of living, thinking, talking, and behaving that you seemingly can never change.

“The flesh” is used in a number of different ways and contexts in the Bible; but here and in much of Scripture it simply means human. We are all flesh, because we are all human. However, humanity in the Garden of Eden before sin entered the world is not the humanity as it is now. Innately you are a sinner from conception; it’s in your genes. Apart from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit from the time of your rebirth in Christ, you will always sin; can’t help it, because it is who you are. But the born-again believer continues both to sin and obey, practice unrighteousness and live righteously. The flesh is still with us; which is often why we say “I’m only human!” This attitude to life is simply making provision for your flesh, your fallen humanity. We get irritated, speak gruffly, lose our temper, speak without thinking, yell; the list goes on indefinitely. But you chalk it up to the fact that you are human, or you’re sick, or you’re tired, or whatever.

While you may think it is a battle not worth fighting, or with little chance of any success, it is the essence of the Christian life; it is the marathon of sanctification; it is what Christ is calling you to do and be every day.  It is what our text is all about.  Just as you most likely have the same clothes on that you started the day with, “putting on the Lord Jesus Christ” is a way of life for the entire day; day after day.  But it is exactly where most Christians fail! The battle is lost not in the repeated and many failures; it is lost in not fighting the battle at all because you don’t think it is winnable, or not worth it. And the truth is that all the “little” lost battles when accepted as the way it is build up to the “big” lost battle in which the results are ruinous.

The Bible gives direction in myriad ways to make provision for the spirit, and not the flesh. If you don’t plan for it and prepare for it and commit to it in the power of the Spirit, it isn’t going to happen. It’s a daily discipline. Every day I HAVE to take pills, injections, eye drops and prepare frequent small meals of the right stuff to remain healthy. The spirit needs the same daily discipline or the battles will be lost. Don’t feed the beast; feed your soul.

Both too much and too little can be read into the parables of Jesus. He tells this parable in conjunction with his discourses on His coming and the end of this world as we know it. It is a story aimed at your being ready by doing something now, not later when the time may be more convenient to your liking. Five of the subjects were wise, and the others were foolish in their thinking and behavior. The whole world is divided into these two groups. Everyone who ever lived is in this story.

Five were wise because they had prepared for the coming of the bridegroom. They had oil to keep their lamps lit when the time was right. They had either purchased or made their oil earlier. I prefer to believe they made it, because the process of making oil from olives is not accomplished in a moment. Read sometime how olive oil is produced, as it has been for centuries; it is not accomplished instantly. These five wise virgins had made sufficient preparation, and they were not caught off-guard. The five foolish virgins can be characterized as the short-cutters. They came unprepared thinking there will be some short-cut I can take when the moment demands it. They do not have time for preparation of their character. There is always a short-cut, they think, without putting in the work necessary for real character; I’ll just buy some when mine won’t suffice. This is the nature of Jesus’ story. Unfortunately, when their lamps went out at the crucial moment, time ran out as well. The lack of preparation was fatal!

You may think that a certain amount of your own works must be done in your life to produce the oil that allows you into the bridegroom’s chamber. That is not the point of this parable. You do not have enough money to buy the oil to keep your lamp lit, nor are you able to produce enough work to get this oil. What you need is to hear the words of grace from Jesus’ lips and life, and allow this grace to so transform your life that the Spirit of Christ is genuinely manifest in you. It was true of the thief on the cross, who manifested that Spirit for a very brief time. Nevertheless, when he died he had all the oil he needed to enter the bridegroom’s chamber. Jesus said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” What Jesus is saying is when He comes, when the bridegroom arrives, like a thief in the night, in a lightening flash, is that the time is too late to respond to His offer of grace and redemption. It is there already and has done its work or it is not there.

I know that many will stand before a permanently closed door one day, and their first response will be “Oops!”, but I can’t imagine the next thought that enters their mind. “Oops” or “I didn’t know” won’t cut it at the judgment seat of Christ.

Jesus says after listing a number of things that have characterized the last two millennia, “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: as soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Matthew 24:32-34. If you read the text plainly without any pre-conceived notions, Jesus meant “this generation” to be the generation who could read the fig leaves, the generation who had seen “all these things happen.” The last things do not need a lot of time to occur, unlike the “gospel of the kingdom being preached in the whole world”; that has taken some time like the other things mentioned here with it. “The great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again” (Matthew 24:21) has clearly not yet happened; but it could happen in a generation, and Jesus says it will be cut short, else no one will survive. This is why Jesus says these last things will happen in “this generation.” He is giving hope to those who see the “unequaled distress” that this distress will be cut short for those who do indeed experience it. This can take place quickly when the time is ripe for it, which could be now or very soon, certainly in the next two decades considering the speed at which the present world is moving.

The point is that many believing Christians are being lulled into thinking that the Lord’s return cannot be that soon for any number of personal reasons and plans, not necessarily the signs Jesus speaks of in this Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and 25. Quite clearly, we cannot and do not know the day or the hour of His return, not even He knew it by His own admission. But it is precisely an event for which many will be totally unprepared. The thrust of Jesus’ words (now and in the following parables of Matthew 25) were not that we might find out the day or the time, or try to fix it precisely. The whole intent of His warnings is that we might be concerned about the nature of our actions and priorities today! What are we about, and what does our behavior and what we are doing with our daily lives say about who we are? Our actions, our works, signify who we are; it fixes our identity.  In Jesus’ own words, are we “sheep or goat, and do we show it by how we are living and thinking today; for there is no time to make up for it or create it “out of whole cloth” when the lightening begins to flash. That moment is a split second, and that time frame is the time frame of Christ’s return.  It is sudden; in the twinkling of an eye.

Let the reader of Jesus’ warnings beware; “Now is the day of salvation” we read in Hebrews. And it means that you need to begin in this moment, if you have not done so yet, to utilize the talents He has given you (see the parable of the talents in Matthew 25). They must be put to work, not hidden, or “saved.” My stroke came without any prior or immediate warning.  The “halt” that Jesus’ coming brings to our moving world will come suddenly without any immediate warning. Use what little time is left to be about the work your Master has given you, so that He finds you doing it when he says, “Halt!” to the world, and there really is no more time!

Waiting on shore was a charcoal fire going strong with cooked fish ready to eat. The Lord Jesus was different, as He was to the two disciples walking to Emmaus the afternoon of the resurrection day, yet He was the same! Recognition was not immediate, but they knew who this was.  No doubts whatsoever. Awe, yet certainty filled their eyes. No need to ask, “Is it really you?” There were other appearances between the resurrection and the ascension; over 500 people could attest that Jesus was alive! The proof of His resurrection is irrefutable; except for the blind who will not consider the evidence. It is not that they can’t believe it for lack of facts; it is that they will not believe it. It is their voluntary choice to remain steeped in ignorance.

He had the scars of the crucifixion in his body.  What He said brought back memories, yet opened their minds to understand all He had taught them in a new and powerful perspective. It so cemented the truth in their hearts and minds that they would willingly die in spreading the message of life to a dying world. His body was different in that it was incorruptible, yet the same in that they knew it was the Lord whom they walked with for about 3 years; ate and talked with, and touched (I John 1:1). Here in this account is the living proof and visible expression of Paul’s description of a resurrection body in I Corinthians 15.  It is a difficult passage to visualize, the difference between an earthly body and one that is like the man of heaven, as Paul writes. But this is what the Lord shows the disciples on the shore of Galilee, and in all the appearances before the ascension. Here we see glimpses of the resurrected body we shall have one day; different, yet the same.

What kind of body do you want for eternity? In any case the body you now have has a glory fit for an earthly body. The resurrected body has a glory fit for eternity. Though you cannot now know or see what yours will be, two facts are clear: you will be known as you, and you will be satisfied with the body God gives, just as He gave you a body for this life. You should be satisfied with what He has given you in this life simply because He chose it for you. You will be satisfied with your body for eternity because the glory of it is like the man of heaven, who walked several days ago (a thousand years is as a day, and a day is as a thousand years) along the shore of Galilee and enjoyed fellowship with His friends as they talked and ate fish and bread together.  I do not think you have to worry about what you will look like for eternity; it’s in the right hands!

• Children should say hello, goodbye, thank you and please. It helps them to learn that they aren’t the only ones with feelings and needs.
• When they misbehave, give them the “big eyes”—a stern look of admonishment.
• Remind them (and yourself) who’s the boss. French parents say, “It’s me who decides.”
• Don’t be afraid to say “no.”  Kids have to learn how to cope with some frustration.

Remember, you are the parent.  Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.  You are the one in charge.  Through your guidance, instruction, and loving command, your child learns safety, security, and what it means for their home to be their shelter from the world around them.

To read the full article, follow this link:  Why French Parents are Superior

YOUR THOUGHTS
What tactics have you learned about parenting over the years?  We would love to hear your thoughts.

Of the roughly 4 million students who enter high school each year, about 1 million will drop out before graduation. That’s 7,000 every school day.

The problem is even greater in large cities. Nearly half of all students in the nation’s 50 largest school districts drop out before graduation, CBS News reported.

In fact, just 25 of America’s 11,000 school districts with high schools accounted for one out of every five dropouts in one recent year, according to the Washington Post.

The U.S. rate compares poorly to the dropout rate in most of the countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the group of 34 advanced nations with economies most comparable to the U.S.

For example, in the U.K. the rate is 8.9 percent; in South Korea, 7 percent; in Japan, 5.3 percent; Ireland, 4 percent; Germany, 2.8 percent, according to OECD figures reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Among the countries with a higher rate than the United States, Canada has a rate of 23.7; Portugal, 37.1 percent; Mexico, 56 percent; and Turkey, 73.8 percent.

The OECD average is 20 percent.

Dropouts cost American taxpayers more than $8 billion a year in public assistance programs such as food stamps. They earn about $10,000 a year less than workers with high school diplomas, CBS reported.

They are also more likely to be unemployed. And nearly 60 percent of federal prison inmates are high school dropouts.

One of the prominent articles in the news this past week was about the display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. of Thomas Jefferson’s “bible.” However, it isn’t a Bible you would particularly recognize; and if you read it not knowing the Bible as God has given it to us, you would find a mish-mash of incoherence. You see Thomas Jefferson, allegedly influenced by “Enlightenment” thought and his own anti-supernatural belief, cut out every miracle passage from Genesis to Revelation, and pasted what was left to form “his personal bible.” I would imagine that would include cutting out the beginning chapters of Genesis and the entire Book of Revelation, and much of what is in between to include the resurrection of Jesus Christ spread throughout the New Testament and prophesied in the Old; rendering Jefferson’s results an incoherent book, which, with stupefying incredulity he still calls an “admirable” and “useful” book. The Apostle Paul, if the resurrection is a fraud, calls this a religion of futile faith, and its adherents are to be pitied above all men. Knowing the spread of the Gospel among the slave population in the South, I am sure that some of Jefferson’s own slaves were far more knowledgeable of truth than this man who sat in the White House for eight years. I find in this comparison, of Jefferson and his Gospel-believing slaves, a great similarity to Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16.

One present-day Jefferson scholar says that the former President was “a man of reason. Miracles would upset the lawful universe he believed in.” But reason is never incoherent. It adheres to the system and structure of creation and “what is” in which humanity lives, observes, and investigates. Miracles are created by the Creator and Sustainer of this universe and do not violate the laws of reason which are derived from and reflected in His character. Those who deny the history and viability of miracles and the super-natural tend to live and think in an incoherent manner; even though they believe themselves to be people of reason.

Those who claim they set the right thought for a reasonable society today while vociferously defending feminist and pro-homosexual advocacy support Muslim and Palestinian purposes over Jewish or Christian. How can that be? Activist animal rights groups such as PETA will go to their death to insure animals are never mistreated or killed, even a fly swatted by the President on national television, but will never lift a finger to protect a human being in the womb. Their thought is contradictory and incoherent because their view of God and the universe He created is inconsistent with what is and will be. Thought that fails to recognize the God who is and and what He has told us about His creation will always grab hold of what in essence is incoherent, because it refuses to acknowledge what God has revealed to us in Jesus Christ and His Word.

The one who knows and seeks to live in accordance with this fact from Acts 17:28, “In Him we live and move and have our being, for we are indeed His offspring,” have the opportunity and privilege to live coherently and consistently within this world when they walk in the light of Jesus and have fellowship with Him. (I John 1:5-9) The alternative is to live in a mish-mash of incoherence. In such a remarkably beautiful creation it is so sad to live out your life in such fashion. Thanks be to God that in Christ we are not consigned to live incoherently!

The following article regarding the use of prescription drugs among teenagers is just one of many that has been coming out in the past few months.  The avalanche of information regarding prescription pill abuse further supports the data we have been measuring and analyzing among our young men and their experiences with drugs.

While the primary drug youth first try remains marijuana, there is an increasing trend showing that at earlier ages, the first drug youth try are presciption pills.  Through “pharm parties” or “trailblazing,” parents need to see this as a supply and demand issue.  The supply of pills is enormous and the demand to have a new experience is very real in this generation.  As youth experiment, often, their first experience is through pills.

Here are a couple of great comments from the article:

• A recent nationwide FDA study among 13- to 17-year-olds suggests that 28 percent of teens surveyed admitted to taking prescription drugs that were not prescribed to them, said FDA spokeswoman Dale Slavin.
• “Prescription drug abuse is the fastest-growing drug problem the DEA deals with,” said 28-year veteran DEA agent Ava Cooper Davis. “Prescription narcotic pain relievers, especially opioids such as Hydrocodone, are more of an epidemic than illegal narcotics in the Northern Virginia, West Virginia and [Washington] D.C. area.”
• “…the prescription stimulant Ritalin sells for $10 a pill, and kids are getting them from each other.”

To read the full article, follow this link: Fairfax Times

There is far greater horror in the parable Jesus told of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16, than in any slasher movie or mutilation of a human victim. There is no blood and gore in the parable, just the worst horror one can imagine; consciously experiencing utter misery and not being able to do one thing to free oneself or end the pain. Yet the acknowledgement of the real potential of this does not even stir fear in the minds of those who have set a course for just such an irrevocable predicament.  To have no fear of what Jesus has clearly spoken means one of two conclusions: (1) He is a deluded liar. (2) Even if you knew He said it, it doesn’t matter. This is exactly the case of the Rich Man in the parable; he had no concern for the truth Jesus spoke prior to his “untimely” death. Where he would end up was not even on his radar screen.

This is why the celebration of Easter means little more for many people than the celebration of July 4^th or Labor Day, or casual Friday. In fact, these other holidays may be more exciting. What does it matter to me if Jesus rose from the grave or He didn’t? Or, if one goes along with the crowd and gives unwitting acceptance to the resurrection, but it makes no difference on how they live their life; how are they any better off than the hardened unbeliever who thinks it is all so much hocus-pocus? Both are on a path to the horror of the Rich Man in Jesus’ parable.

The resurrection of Jesus, surrounded as it is by unassailable facts, even if willingly ignored, is the guarantee of the truth of everything Jesus said, to include the horror and the glory of this parable. If Jesus rose from the grave the truth of this parable is locked in concrete. For those who know they will be on Lazarus’ side of the chasm, Easter is one great “hallelujah” in their soul, a celebration of unmitigated joy and promise.  Yet it is also an indictment on the poor soul who rejoices not in the resurrection, who continues in his blind stupor, and lives a predictably sad life headed toward a far sadder ending, because his ears are stopped up, and his eyes are covered.

For those of you who see the truth of this parable, even though it brings tears to your eyes for those who will not hear, you cannot help but rejoice in Resurrection Sunday! “He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord. Up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph or his foes, He arose a victor from the dark domain, and He lives forever with His saints to reign. He arose, He arose, Hallelujah, Christ arose!” No matter what your circumstance this Sunday, if you know Jesus as your Savior you are blessed beyond all measure. Rejoice!

Video games are fun that way.  They are entertaining and now, very interactive.  For this generation, you might even say they are addictive.  So without getting into the negative impacts of video games (and there are plenty) humor me in this analogy and let’s note 10 things that video games can teach us about raising our children:

1. Keep it simple:  It doesn’t matter if it is Madden 2012 or Call of Duty: video games are easy to understand.  Give your children simple instructions that are part of your larger goal.  If you want to teach your child pride, then start simply with training them to take care of their room and toys by putting things away.
2. Give honest feedback:  When you kids play video games, if they mess up, they simply die or start over.  The concept of trying again is a good one and helps your child understand that life is not that clean.   Make your expectation an objective…just like achieving a high score.
3. Establish clear and realistic goals:  Getting to the next level is often the goal in video games.  Have a clear and realistic goal for your child to reach or fail to reach.  Either way, if the goal is clear, then your child will learn from the experience.
4. It’s okay to fail:  So often we want to protect our children from failing.  But making mistakes and failing is a part of life, so give your children a safe place to fail.  In a video game, you have to try multiple times to reach the next level.  It is part of the process of improving.
5. Try again:  The more we repeat things that, there more proficient we become.  Expertise and knowledge comes from experience.
6. Set limits:  Budgets, restrictions, etc. all teach us the same thing that, there are limits.  In a video game, when time starts to run out, the pressure begins to increase and we work faster and harder with greater efficiency.  Setting limits for your children teaches them all of those things.
7. Involve them in solving the problem:  In video games, you cannot move on to the next level until you have developed the skill necessary to progress.  Use this same idea to focus on a particular skill that your child is weak in.
8. Celebrate improvement:  It feels good to accomplish something.  Praise the positives.  Develop in your child a belief in achievement!
9. Recognize success:  Publicly and privately praise your children whenever you have the chance.  Being recognized is a powerful motivator.
10. Encourage doing better:  Consistent improvement over time is really the goal.  Life brings more challenges as we grow older.  Build into your child a mindset that each step is important and that the growth process is actually more important than just winning and losing.

As a parent, your goal is to watch for the many valuable opportunities to train and teach your child every day.  In doing so, your relationship becomes a stronger and stronger one that will stand the test of time!

Your Thoughts:  After reading this article, what are your thoughts?