Rheostats and light switches

Mark 4; Lamentations 3:19-23

Life is like a rheostat where the Gospel is concerned. It's also like a light switch. Think about it.

Sunday morning, you attend church. You hear a wonderful Sunday School lesson and a brilliant sermon from your pastor. You walk out of the building feeling wonderful - bolstered up Spiritually and mentally for the week to come. But by the time you get home, you're having trouble remembering what the lesson was about and the points you thought were so wonderful in the sermon are fading. By mid-week, the fade is even worse, and you have only a dim memory of the insight you thought was so wonderful on Sunday. And by Saturday, the rheostat of life is all the way down, and you're walking in total “mental darkness” again.

And the light switches of life.... they can turn off the light in seconds. The alarm clock that doesn't go off, causing you to have to rush to get to church... angry and frustrated and distracted. The child in the row in front of you who keeps squirming, taking your mind off the sermon. And the other sermon detractors - that bill you don't know if you'll have the money to pay... the teenager who didn't come home last night... the good looking woman next to you who is visiting this Sunday... the call you got yesterday from your ex about changing his visitation... the thunderstorm raging outside, and did you leave your windows down in the car or did you unplug your computer?

The list can go on and on. And it's not new. Jesus talked about these distractions - these rheostats and light switches - in Mark 4. Take a look at the whole chapter and see which seed you are ... the one the birds eat up… allowing distractions to overcome your ability to grow spiritually... or the seed with no firm root that receives the word with joy, but without firm root so that the growth is only temporary... or the one sown among the thorns that allows the worries of the world to make them turn away... or are you the seed sown in good soil... recalling to mind everything you hear and see and read about our Lord and His Gospel, staying in the Word daily to make sure it takes root? Think about it.

"This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope." Lamentations 3:21

Don't let the light go out this week,
Pastor Mike
















*Parrot Skills*

A man entered a pet shop, wanting to buy a parrot. The shop owner pointed out three identical parrots on a perch and said, "The parrot to the left costs 500 dollars."

"Why does that parrot cost so much?" the man wondered.

The owner replied, "Well, it knows how to use a computer."

The man asked about the next parrot on the perch.

"That one costs 1,000 dollars because it can do everything the other parrot can do, plus it knows how to use the UNIX operating system."

Naturally, the startled customer asked about the third parrot.

"That one costs 2,000 dollars."

"And what does that one do?" the man asked.

The owner replied, "To be honest, I've never seen him do a thing, but the other two call him boss!"