Spiritual Trading Cards

It is a good thing to have things in common with your kids.  When I was a kid, I used to collect baseball cards. I would save up my money and ride my bike down to the corner store and buy as many packs as possible.  I will never forget the anticipation of paying for the cards and rushing outside and opening those packs, grabbing the concrete piece of bubble gum that was inside each pack and shoving it in my mouth to begin the cavity process.  4 out of 5 kids recommended Donruss bubble gum, but I was a Topps man!  I would then smell the cards…yes, I was a weird kid.  I loved the smell of the cards with the scent of the bubble gum.  I remember looking through the cards in search of my heroes.  It would only be a few days and I would have them ordered, alphabetized and put in my shoebox for proper storage.  I would then memorize the stats on the back of each card and do the math to check to make sure that Topps didn’t make any mistakes figuring out each player’s stats.  I was a stat junkie!

My son, Cole, has started collecting cards.  In fact, I don’t remember myself being this excited about cards.  However, he is searching Ebay and looking up values and if we ever get separated at the store, I can always go to the baseball card section to find him.  He has them all separated by team and in a binder with protective pages. He takes his cards and trades them with our neighbor’s kids and rushes home to ask me if I have ever heard of such and such a player.

Cole loves the history of the older cards and the players that are depicted on them.  He has a respect for the game and realizes that there are those who played baseball long before he was even born.  He asks why Jackie Robinson’s number is retired at the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, TX, because he knows he never played for the Rangers. I love it!  His passion for those cards and collecting them take me back to a place when I loved being a kid.  The only thing I notice about today’s cards are that they don’t smell like bubblegum…what a tragedy!

I was reading in Romans and cam across a series of Scripture that reminded me of trading cards.  The passage is found in Romans 1:21-22 & 25.  This is what Paul wrote to the Romans…

21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused.22Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 

 

25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.

When Paul was addressing the Romans, he spoke to them like the people had knowledge of God.  However, just knowing  about God doesn’t imply worship or facilitate the implementation of worship.  People have a will, that means they have a choice to worship God or not.  They would not even return thanks to God, much less worship Him.  They began to concoct their own interpretations of who God is and what He was like.  This takes place today.  Some may refer to God as a woman or say that God is in everything or God is who you want Him to be.  Some may even believe that all gods, Allah, Buddha, Hare Krishna, the various Hindu gods are all the same.  This is called polytheism.  As a result of these beliefs, people’s minds can become confused and darkened to the light of the Truth.  In their wisdom that they feel the gain from this wide spectrum of religions/gods, they instead become fools.  A fool is one who says in his heart that there is no god.

As a result of these actions, people traded the truth about God for a lie.  The Truth was in the form of Jesus Christ and the lie believed is the lie that there are many ways to heaven so worship whatever you think to be god.  Instead of worshipping the Creator, they worshipped creation.

The first commandment that God wrote on the tablets for Moses on Mt. Sinai was,

“Thou shall have no other gods before me.”

This is the most important commandment.  You must always put God first.  Many times you will be confronted with ‘possibilities’ that God is found in all and in everything.  However, don’t buy in to the lie that there are many ways to heaven.  There is one way, that is, through Jesus Christ (Romans 10:9-10).  Make sure that idolatry doesn’t creep in and focus is diverted to the attention of what man has created over the Creator himself.  Remember, confusion doesn’t come from God.  Worship God for who He is…first and foremost…the Creator.

What is that “thing” you are trading for your reverence to God?

How can one find comfort in the realization that there is ONE way to heaven, that is, through Jesus Christ?

What are the things, idols, that you are putting in front of God that competes for His rightful place in your life?

The Problem with Air Conditioning

I have been thinking a lot about my next door neighbors. They are an elderly couple whose kids live over an hour away. Mr. George and Mrs. Pat are as good as gold! The other day, Mrs. Pat was out for her morning walk and tripped and fell face first on the concrete…YIKES! She was hurt pretty badly. The sad thing is, 3 cars passed her in our neighborhood without stopping to help her. She was even trying to flag them down!

One time a Pharisee asked Jesus, “What’s the most important commandment of all?” You see there were 1,613 commands. That’s a lot of commands. Jesus took these 1,613 and He narrowed it down to an absolute focus, and He replied. He said,

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.‘ Matthew 22:37-39

Herein lies the problem…it all boils down to the air conditioner. Think about it. Go back in time before there was the air conditioner, where did people hang out? They would hang out on the front porch. Right? “Hey, neighbor!”

With the air conditioner, people went inside. Add to it the attached garage. Before there was an attached garage, what would people do? They would drive into their detached garage and have to get out and walk. Now, with the attached garage, they can pull right in. Add to it the garage door opener, ziiiipppp brrrrr, pull in the back cave, shut it down before you have to see anybody.

Now add to it the gated neighborhood so we can actually gate people out. The fenced in back yard so we can play without having to see those crazy, weird neighbors. My personal favorite way to avoid people was the answering machine. Beep … “Tommy, are you there? If you’re there, pick up.” “I know you are there! Why are you not picking up?”

And then, there’s caller ID. Cell phone rings. Think about the way technology has influenced our, taken us away from relationships. You go to the bank, you don’t have to talk to anybody. You can go to the ATM machine. Shopping, I don’t do it. You will rarely ever see me at a mall, unless I’m going to a movie trying to sneak in and sneak out. I do all of my shopping online. Movies, they’re delivered to my mailbox with no late fees, Praise God in Heaven Above.

All these ways to avoid people, avoid relationships, when Jesus said out of 1,613 commands, let’s boil it all down to this. You are to know God and love Him personally and reflect His love, loving your neighbor as yourself. And yet, most people today say they don’t have time. I did some research this week for fun. I looked up some phrases in the Bible that said the words one another, and I wanted to see just what happened. I listed a few of them for you. There are many, many more.

Love one another… John 13:34 (wouldn’t you agree, in reality a lot of times what we are doing instead of loving one another is, we are avoiding one another?) If you have ever been in a grocery store and you’ve seen somebody you don’t really want to see and you take your little cart and you kind of take your buggy in the opposite direction, avoiding one another.

Be devoted to one another… Rom. 12:10a But wouldn’t you agree that a lot of times, the heartbeat of what we are trying to do is not to be devoted, but to be independent from one another. “I don’t want to need you because you may let me down and I’ve been burned before, and so really, I want to be strong and stand on my own, and I just don’t want to need people. I want be vulnerable, and I don’t want you to be needy around me. Instead of being devoted, a lot of us are trying to be independent.

Honor one another… Rom. 12:10b
Accept one another… Rom 15:7
Serve one another in love. Gal 5:13
Be compassionate to one another… Eph 4:32
Submit to one another… Eph 5:21
Encourage one another… 1 Thess 5:11
Spur one another on toward love… Heb 10:24
Live in harmony with one another… 1 Peter 3:8
Offer hospitality to one another… 1 Peter 4:9

We are told to do all these loving things to one another and yet, right now at this moment, you can be surrounded by people and yet with people all around you that are relationally empty and lonely. You can be married, laying in bed next to your spouse and be lonely, because we have ignored the heartbeat of God, and that is relationships. That’s why He created you, because He is love and He needed someone to love. You are the object of His affection, and He wants you to share that love with other people … and we’re too busy!