The Boomerang Effect

When I was a kid, Uncle Keith, who traveled a lot because he was in the US Air Force, brought me a crazy gift - a curved piece of wood which he called a 'boomerang.' He took me out to our yard and showed something that made my mouth fall open in amazement. He took that curved thing, threw it, and - low and behold!! - it ended up nearly hitting me in the head as it made a big loop and came right back to us!

Last night, while watching The Apprentice, (http://www.nbc.com/nbc/The_Apprentice_3/) a reality show that is essentially a 16 week long job interview in which a candidate is weeded out each week, I saw the boomerang effect in play. Two candidates are left vying for the job with Donald Trump's organization. As a final qualifying project, Tana and and Kendra were given an event to produce and run. They were each given 3 people who had already been 'fired' from the program to be their assistants and the ones brought back were those who were most difficult to manage! Tana quickly established a hostile atmosphere by referring to her team as 'the 3 stooges' and observing a 'boss and employee' protocol. Kendra, did exactly the opposite. Despite her personal misgivings, she reached out to bring her team members onboard, giving them meaningful jobs and inviting their assistance. Tana's hostility quickly boomeranged back to her only making the job harder. Kendra's team served her with their whole hearts and at the conclusion of their successful event, embraced her with joy, sharing the win!

I thought about that and wondered, 'what am I throwing out there that will come back at me?'

The Bible doesn't speak of boomerang effects, but the wisdom of the Word reminds us that 'what a man sows, he will reap.' If we plant kindness, love, gentleness, and respect; these blessings will come back to us.

Here's the kicker for the Believer, we are to break the cycle when others hurl insults and hatred our way. With the help of the Spirit, here's the challenge for us.

• "Live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. For, “Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it." (1 Peter 3:8-11, NIV)

Today -- as you interact with others remember the boomerang effect. Throw out the kind of words and actions that you want to receive in return. ... and God will bless you!
_____________________________

Phil Keaggy will be in concert at Washington Assembly this Saturday evening at 7:30 PM.
Tickets are still available. Inquire about purchase by calling 908 689 6727

Jerry Scott 

Hotel Rwanda and being a neighbor

If you have not yet viewed the film, Hotel Rwanda, get it this weekend and view it. If you have children who are older than 12, have them watch it with you. The film recounts the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who works for a Belgian firm in the Rwandan capital of Kigali. It tells us of his heroic and ultimately futile attempts to save lives during that nation’s 1994 civil war and large-scale massacre. Without being overly sensational or splashing blood in your face, the film's producers manage to disturb you and if you have a conscience, they compel you ask - "who is my neighbor?" If you're looking for easy answers, this is not the film to watch!

As the world looked on, the Hutu people of that nation slaughtered about 1 million Tutsis, another ethnic group. In one of the film's most compelling moments, Paul urges a reporter to put some graphic footage of the killing on air to rally support for military intervention. He is told by the Western reporter, "People will be eating their dinner in the West when this footage airs. They will pause for a moment and say, 'isn't that awful?' and then go back to their meal." And that is exactly what happened. What makes the war even more tragic is that the divisions in that African nation were exacerbated, if not caused, by European colonialism, yet neither Europe nor the U.S. felt any need to try to stop the massacre! This TFTD does not intend to suggest that the United States, Britain, France, and/or Germany should be the developing world's policeman. Those are global issues that demand a great deal of information that I am not privileged to know.

What I am trying to do today is to cause you to think about how you are connected to other people - whether they live across the street or on the other side of the world. Jesus told a story, compelling in its simplicity. When you start to read it, I'm sure it will be familiar. Read it anyway, slowly, like you're discovering it for the first time....

The man said, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
“Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”

The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus replied with an illustration: “A Jewish man was traveling on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes and money, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. By chance a Jewish priest came along; but when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt deep pity. Kneeling beside him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two pieces of silver and told him to take care of the man. ‘If his bill runs higher than that,’ he said, ‘I’ll pay the difference the next time I am here.’

'Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?' Jesus asked. The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”" (Luke 10:27-37, NLT)

We separate ourselves - by political party, by religion, by economics, by ethnic distinction, by race, even by sex. Somehow we convince ourselves that the 'others' - however we are divided- do not demand the same compassionate concern as those who are inside of our circle. Unless we have a compelling self-interest we shrug off the needs of those who are left bleeding by the road as being of no personal concern. "Let someone else care for them." Even worse, we invent reasons not to become involved, saying things like- "they deserve their plight, just look at the decisions they made." Or, "it's always been that way, I can't change anything." Or, "I've got my own problems and nobody's helping me!"

When you read those lines in print, they don't stand up as well as when we think them, do they? Jesus Christ taught that the world is our neighbor. If we have experienced His love, we have an obligation to actively love others. How we do that is beyond the scope of this short TFTD, but a good way to start the dialogue is to watch Hotel Rwanda with some friends and spend some time talking it over.

"If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see?" (1 John 4:20, The Message)

Big ears, little mouth!

As I headed off to a meeting with the Deacons, I asked my wife to pray for me - a simple prayer but an important one: "Lord, give Jerry big ears and a little mouth!" Perhaps it strikes you as a strange construction but I was acknowledging that I needed God's help to listen closely to the conversational flow. I knew that in our meeting we would be talking about some issues on which some of us seemed to have differing ideas. The key to avoiding conflict was to understand the positions of those who share responsibility for leading this Assembly with me. So I wanted to listen -something it is quite easy not to do especially when we feel we need to make our point!

Listening to others is the #1 way we show that we love them. "Being listened to is so close to being loved that most people cannot tell the difference." - David Oxberg. A very real curse of our busy, highly mobile society is a feeling that millions of people have today - 'I don't matter. My ideas are ignored."

That sense of being marginalized or alone is all too often real particularly for those who hold service positions, who have some kind of physical disability, or who are very young or elderly. Counter clerks in retail establishments tell awful stories about how people treat them as though they were simply an extension of the cash register, not a real person. Disabled persons recount how many speak past them like they are invisible, even talking about them like they can't hear! Little children respond with delight when we bend down to look directly into their face and listen intently to their stories. Why? Because often adults just don't pay much attention to them.

Did you know that the way to find happiness in your marriage is communication? Many couples point to sex, money, or the kids as the challenge in their relationship, but actually it is a failure to understand each other's needs and expectations. A torrent of words is not the same as communication. Genuine communication is a two-way transaction- listening and speaking. A good listener offers a gift that affirms the worth and personhood to the other. Dean Rusk, former U.S. Secretary of State and a Washington, DC power broker, observes - "One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears- by listening to them."

Listening demands our full engagement. Bev, my wife, sometimes says, "Look at me!" during our conversations. She doesn't like talking to the top of my head while I continue to read. Even though I can repeat her words back to her, she wants eye contact, my full attention. Is she just insecure? Of course not. My body language, if I continue to read or work at my computer while she's talking, says - "I'm not really interested in this conversation." I may well be hearing her, but unless I give my full attention to her, I am not actually listening!

Paul directs us to selfless lives, to actively seeking the good of others, and I am convinced that includes learning to have big ears and little mouths!
He writes
"... we cannot just go ahead and ...please ourselves.
We must be considerate of the doubts and fears of those who think these things are wrong.
We should please others. If we do what helps them, we will build them up in the Lord.
For even Christ didn’t please himself. " (Romans 15:1-3, NLT)

Today, let's make it a goal to actively engage with the people around us. Take note of the bent shoulders that might reveal a burdened heart. Look around for the person who has withdrawn to the safety of silence and invite them back into the conversation. When you ask, "how are you?" really pay attention to the person you're speaking to and they might just tell you instead of politely saying, "fine."

And in a real way, if we do this, we will be fulfilling Jesus' command to love others!

"Lord, give us big ears and little mouths.
Help us to learn to love in more than words, with our whole person.
Give us your gentleness, your kindness, your patience so that we will
have many opportunities to share life - even for a few moments-
with those who are alone, afraid, or powerless.
Help us, Jesus, I pray in Your name. Amen."

PS- God answered that prayer and we had a great Deacons' Meeting, filled with good decisions.
We left encouraged and together as a leadership team. Praise God!

Jerry D. Scott, Pastor
www.WashingtonAG.net
908-689-7777
33 Brass Castle Road
Washington, NJ 07882

Keep it pure and clean...

Imagine being parched, terribly thirsty, after some hard work on a hot day. An old fashioned well nearby invites you to be refreshed. Picking up the bucket next to the well's head, you drop it into the shaft to pull up a cool drink. The water that you draw from the well sparkles in the sunlight, is cool, and as you drink it; you can feel its reviving effect immediately. Contrast that beautiful picture with another scenario. As you pull the bucket back to the top of the well, instead of the sparkling fresh water you expected, what pours from the bucket is is filthy and stinking! You discover the well has been polluted with the carcass of a dead animal. A revolting scene, isn't it?

Now move that image into the spiritual. You are in great need of compassion, seeking for answers to the thirst of your soul. There is a person in your circle of acquaintances whose life appears to be together. He seems to live a purposeful, whole, and godly life. So, you approach him to develop a friendship in which you hope to find refreshing.... only to discover that he is a shallow, sensual man who offers nothing of any value for his heart is a fouled well! OR, as you spend time with another, you find that she leaves you feeling joyful, hopeful, and challenged to seek for the God that pours from her like a drink of fresh water.

Which kind of well are YOU?

The Bible says, "guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." (Proverbs 4:23, NIV) What a challenge for those of us who would live in a way that is Christ-honoring! Watch what you put in your heart, and what you allow to stay in your heart, for what is hidden away there will either be refreshing or polluting, life giving or death dealing.

Let me state the obvious; we need to take care about the kind of information and entertainment that we put in our hearts! "Oh, come on, Jerry, I'm an adult. I can handle that stuff." A steady diet of godless, sexually immoral, profane, or self-oriented material will have a deleterious effect on a person, no matter how mature or resilient they believe themselves to be. We are only fooling ourselves if we think we can consume great quantities of what flows out of our current culture and escape the pollution's effects.

Then, too, we need to work on cleaning out the pollution that is thrown onto us from other sources. Harmful words that are spoken to us in unguarded moments, or even when we are children, can turn our heart into a source of bitter water, brackish with self-pity, sour with cynicism. We can rob those words and actions of their destructive powers IF we are willing to clean them out of our heart. It may require a counselor/friend to help us. It will certainly involve forgiveness and the healing that comes with a deep experience of God's great love.

The, there are the demons that surround us will do their best to plant their poison in us! We must resist their efforts with the weapons of the Spirit. For example, yesterday as I worked in my yard on my day off, seemingly from nowhere came thoughts of resentment and anger. I found myself agitated, then feeling an 'oh, what's the use of trying to go on?' emotion that was more than a passing mood. When I realized what was happening, I began to pray for the Spirit to rise up in me. I offered thanks to God for the situations and people that had come to mind. It was a struggle, but after a time the attack failed and my heart was at peace again.

Here's a word from the Word to take with you today -- "Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “If you are thirsty, come to me! If you believe in me, come and drink! For the Scriptures declare that rivers of living water will flow out from within.” (When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him....)" (John 7:37-39, NLT)
_____________________________

May the Spirit of God
prime the well of my heart
with living water.
And, may I 'guard the well' so that
what overflows from my life
is a refreshing drink to those who thirst.
In Jesus' name, I pray.
Amen

img src=http://img.heartlight.org/cards/g/1thessalonians4_3.jpg

The Heart - Who Can Know It?

Human beings are wicked and wonderful creatures! (Just for the record, what follows in this TFTD isn't just about 'others' for I most certainly share this trait of duplicity, too.) People confound me, in ways good and bad. Over and over, just when I thought I knew who someone was, they did something that amazed or disappointed me - acting in a way that was totally out of sync with who I thought they were. For example, the most loving individual, who gives of herself unselfishly, will make a most hurtful statement revealing a deep streak of selfishness. A person who appears to be completely self-absorbed and incapable of caring for someone else, will make a costly and generous gift of himself.

I will confess to a certain level of credulity in this area of life. I want to believe that the people I meet are who they appear to be! I want so badly to think that everyone who claims to love Jesus is really intent on following His ways. I want to think that all Believers live in a way that puts the work of God and the good of the Church over their own agenda. And... time and again, I am disappointed by people whose actions, despite the profession of best intents, reveal that they are guided by baser motives. Lest I seem overly negative, let me note that I've been equally amazed by the discovery of a genuine heart that hungers for God hidden under layers of habits of what I would consider 'sinful' behavior!

How do we account for this? Jeremiah wasn't very complimentary about human nature. He observed, [17:9 MSG] “The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out." Paul admits that he was a person torn between righteousness and wickedness! Who among us cannot identify with the angst in his words? He admits, "It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me." {Romans 7:21-23 NLT}

We cannot trust our hearts! We are fools to put much stock in all of our best intentions. "But, Jerry" you may object, "that is such a terrible view of human nature!" The inescapable conclusion I draw from the Scripture is that in every saint, there is a sinner that is struggling to express dominance. It helps to account for the lapses into sin that we observe in the lives of Believers. The most loving husband may fall prey to a wandering eye. The most devoted mother can become a cruel antagonist to one of her children. The most selfless Pastor may become a self-serving manipulator of those who trust him as their shepherd!
-- IF they look to their own inner strength to protect them from the temptations of the world, the flesh (sinful nature), and the Devil.

Paul, after spilling out the ugly confession of the duplicity of his heart, goes on to tell what makes a holy life of integrity possible -- the intervention of the Savior and a life intimately lived in the Spirit's power. He writes, "Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death." [Romans 7:25-8:2 NLT]

This is the miracle of the Christian life! Spiritual transformation is not the result of religious acts or harsh and punitive deprivations. We are changed by entering the Presence of the Holy One, allowing Him to change us from the inside out. To be sure, we are cooperative in the process. By faith, we practice the spiritual disciplines that are a part of the Christian life, not because they earn us the approval of God, but rather that they create conduits for the Spirit's life to course through our lives. Regular intake of Bible truth, consistent times of meditation and worship, faithfully gathering with other Believers for corporate worship, giving of our time and resources, and confession are among those choices we make that allows the work of the renovation of the heart to proceed. (thanks to Dallas Willard for that great phrase!)

Are you disappointed in yourself or another today? Are you ready to condemn that person as inferior or terrible? Are you ready to crawl into a place of personal shame, feeling the awful ache of condemnation? Don't! There is no solution in that response to your sin or the sins of others. Instead, look to the Spirit, invite Him into the situation. Let Him reveal the sin that is causing the dysfunction. And pray earnestly that Jesus Christ will come with the power to defeat the world systems, the seductions of the sinful nature, and the deceptions of the Devil. Rest, don't wrestle!

For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Life and Light. Only God can grant us the life of His Holy Spirit that consistently defeats sin that seeks to dominate us. So, since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (Gal. 5:25 NIV)
_____________________________

Change my heart, oh God,
Make it ever true.
Change my heart, oh God,
May I be like You.
You are the potter,
I am the clay.
Mold me and make me,
This is what I pray.

Change my heart, oh God,
Make it ever true.
Change my heart, oh God,
May I be like You.

© 1982 Mercy / Vineyard Publishing (Admin. by Music Services) CCLI License No. 810055