June 30 - America’s Greatness

America’s Greatness

            Well, put another candle on our country’s cake.  The good ol’ U.S.A. is turning #238 this week.  In comparison to some veteran countries like China, Egypt, India and others, we’re just rookies on the roster.  But unlike any other country in history, we’ve had a breakout season that has made us the global MVP over two centuries now.  We have had greater blessings in a shorter time than any other country in recorded history (apart from possibly Israel) and in terms of prosperity, advancements and production, there is no country that has ever compared.

           

            In 1826, Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, visited the United States to discover her secret.

He wrote, “I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors, and her ample

rivers, and it was not there; in the fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines, and her vast world commerce, and it was not there.  Not until I went into the churches of America, and heard her pulpits, aflame with righteousness, did I understand the secret of her genius and power.  America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”   

           

            When Alexis de Tocqueville talks about greatness of our righteousness, he is referring to the

fact that this nation was founded in Godly living from day one.  Consider these:

1)    Greatness in our heritage.

Patrick Henry, the great patriot and leader said, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.”  Add to that, 52 of 55 Founding Fathers who worked on the Constitution were members of orthodox churches.

2)     Greatness in our government.

In 1892, the Supreme Court stated:  “Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind.  It is impossible that it should be otherwise.  In this sense and to this extent, our civilizations and our institutions are emphatically Christian.” 

            3)   Greatness in our educational system.

106 of the first 108 colleges formed in America and 123 of the first 126 universities were formed on Christian principles including Yale, Princeton, and Harvard.  By 1900, it was hard to find a University President that was not a clergyman. 

            Unfortunately, our modern society refuses to acknowledge that our greatness has come

from a system that has placed Christ above all else.  And unlike de Tocqueville, they’re attempting to find America’s greatness in the harbors, rivers, fields, prairies, mines and commerce and anywhere else besides God for that matter. 

Proverbs 14:34 says, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.”  Put another way, we’re living off the borrowed bounty of those who have planted before us and only more planting will reverse the trend.  And if you’re still not convinced, there are plenty of countries to prove what happens if we forget the recipe.

Terry Risser

Consider reading the Word today:

Copyright 2014 – Terry Risser

June 29 - When Dreams Go Up In Smoke

When Dreams Go Up In Smoke

Would I have given up?  I hope not.  When Thomas Carlyle, a noted 19ht century historian, was struggling and broke, he poured his life into writing a massive history of the French Revolution.  The book, he felt, would make or break him.  After finally finishing it, he lent his handwritten manuscript – many hundreds of pages- to a close friend, who carelessly left it lying about his apartment.  Incredibly, his maid thought it was a scrap-paper and used it to light a fire.  (To make matters worse, Carlyle had a habit of destroying his notes after completing a work.)

               

 How can you start over after you’ve lost something very precious?  When a long anticipated dream or a long worked-for accomplishment goes up in smoke, what should you do?  God’s Word directs us to do this:  do what Abraham did.

For more years than most of us can expect to live, Abraham and Sarah yearned for a child of their own.  God promised them a son, but even after that, they waited 25 more years before Isaac was actually born.  Isaac means laughter, and the joy he brought his folks is a matter of historical record.  But that joy must have been eclipsed when God commanded Abraham to “take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Genesis 22:2)

Early the next morning, despite what must have been impenetrable bewilderment, he set out to obey the Lord.  On the third day, he saw not only the site of the sacrifice but apparently the hope of the resurrection, too.  He told his servants to wait there while he and his son went to worship the Lord and to return.   Here is what God’s Word says to do when, like Abraham, you don’t yet see through the smoke of your circumstance…

1.        Obey the Lord.  Do whatever He says to do; be whatever He says to be.  Vetoing or ignoring His commands is always disastrous.

2.       Worship the Lord.  Humble yourself before the Lord, acknowledging His superior wisdom, justice, mercy and might.  We destroy anything we refuse to let Him rule; we release to God’s miraculous touch, anything we surrender to Him.

3.       Trust the Lord.  Remember that the Lord’s purposes extend far beyond our eyesight or understanding.  We react to our small perceptions; the Lord sees not only the beginning, but also the end of our situation.  He knows how to use it to bless multitudes of people for many generations.

God, of course, gave Abraham a substitutionary sacrifice at the perfect time.  And Thomas Carlyle, by the way, believed his “invisible schoolmaster” was saying to rewrite it better.  He did. And it became his first bestseller.

Terry Risser

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Copyright 2014 - Terry Risser

June 28 - Giving Thanks

Giving Thanks

I give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endureth forever.  It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto Thy name, O most High.  I will give Thee thanks in the great congregation:  I will praise Thee among much people.  So we Thy people and sheep of Thy pasture will give Thee thanks forever:  we will shew forth Thy praise to all generations.

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.  I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority.  Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.  Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.  But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you.  Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.  As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him; rooted and built up I Him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.  And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;  giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us in every place.

And He took bread, and gave thanks, and broke it, and gave unto them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you:  this do in remembrance of Me.”   Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.

In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.  And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.  By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.  We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the One who is, and who was, and who is to come, because You have taken Your great power and reigned.

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Psalm 118:29;  92:1;  35:18;  79:13;  Daniel 6:10;  1 Timothy 2:1;  2a; Colossians 4:2;  Philippians 4:6;  1 Corinthians 15:57;  Colossians 1:3;  3:15;  2:6,7;   Ephesians 5:18-20;  11 Corinthians 2:14;  Luke 22:19;  11 Corinthians 9:15;  1 Thessalonians 5:18;  Colossians 3:17; 

Hebrews 13:15; Revelation 11:17;

Consider reading the Word today:

 

Copyright 2014 Terry Risser

June 27 - Let Us Pray

Let Us Pray

            Recently, I read an article from Rick Reilly, lead columnist for Sports Illustrated, that sheds light on a growing trend in our culture.  Being a big sports fan, it caught my attention.  If that’s true for you, I’m sure you’ll appreciate it as well.

            “ANOTHER EASTER Sunday in the Cathedral.  Hushed voices, amen’s, people holding hands and praying.  At the end, all of them rising as one and screaming, “My Lord, it’s a miracle!” Church? No.  Augusta National.  It was Phil Mickelson’s win at the Masters.

            Sports has nearly swallowed Sunday whole.  Every pro sport plays on Sunday.  The big day in pro golf and tennis is Sunday.  College football started playing bowl games on Sunday.  Here’s March Madness:  10 NCAA Tournament Games were played on Sunday.  Now more and more youth sports teams are playing on Sunday, when the fields are easier to get and parents are available to drive.

            It’s that kind of stuff that has really torqued off Pope John Paul II lately.  In March he decried the fact that Sundays are losing the “fundamental meaning” to “such things as entertainment and sports.”  It’s not as if he’s anti-jock.  The Pope was a goalkeeper, skier, and kayaker in his day.  Hey, he just blessed New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s right arm.  He’s just hacked at the way sports are crowding God right off the list of Sunday passions.

            The first people he might want to crack down on are the Christians themselves.  Think he knows that the Santa Clarita (California) YMCA has youth hoops on Sundays?  Think the Pope would be down on Notre Dame if he knew its softball team will play more games on Sundays in May, than on any other day of the week?

            He’s not the only one who’s chapped about sports becoming this country’s main religion.  Priests and pastors across the country have noticed something lately:  God is competing more and more with Sunday sports—and losing, especially with youth sports.  “It’s only happened the last two years,” says Rich Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals.  “Coaches never used to schedule games on Sunday.”  Says the Reverend Julie Yarborough, of Summit, N.J. Christ Church, “You see kids coming to Sunday school late and their parents coming early to get them for games-if they come at all.  Sports are really eating into our time.”  Her colleague at Christ Church, the Reverend Charles Rush, knew there was a problem the other day when his 12-year-old acolyte lit the candles at the front of the church wearing his soccer cleats.

            I’ll tell you exactly what’s going on here:  the upping of American youth sports.  For some reason over caffeinated parents feel they have to keep up with the Joneses.  They used to do it with their cars, now they do it with their kids.   Upping means putting little Justin into not one soccer league, but three; not one soccer camp, but four.  Upping also means playing up, forcing a kid to play one even two levels above his age-group, so that little Benjamin, age eight, can sit on the 10-year-old’s bench, play three minutes a game and whiff in his only at bat.  But, hey, he is playing up!  And upping means moving up.  The local team isn’t high-profile, so little Amber has to switch to an elite team, usually in another town.  That means extended drives to and from practice plus traveling three or four or six hours to play in Tony Invitational Tournaments on weekends.  This way parents from far-flung towns can flaunt the status symbol of spending beautiful warm weekends in a freezing ice rink watching 14 mind numbing hockey games.

            “I admit, we’re guilty from time to time,” John Burrill, head of the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Association, says of playing on Sundays.  “We don’t feel particularly good about it, but with today’s busy schedules Sunday is the only time some of us have to do these things.  And if you’re going to travel two states away, it doesn’t make sense to not play Sunday, too.”

            Well, religion bosses have decided that they’re not going to take it anymore.  Spiritual leaders in Summit got together recently and appealed for sports leagues to stop scheduling games before noon on Sunday.  A meeting between them and area youth coaches is set for May.  We’ll see who kneels first.  Don’t bet on coaches doing the right thing.  If they could, they’d have your kids running stairs on Christmas morning.  What has to happen is… the parents have to start saying no.  Not to their kids – to their kids’ coaches.  “I told my boys coach he wouldn’t be playing on Sundays,” says Cizik, “He looked shocked.  I said, ‘You act like nobody’s ever said that to you before.’  And he said, ‘Honestly, they haven’t.’”

            I’m with the holy men.  Not that I’m the Reverend Lovejoy, but I just feel sorry for these kids who get nothing but organized sports crammed down their gullets 24/7.  Even God took a day off. Kids might weep with joy to get a day off from sports.  Hey, you do what you want.  Just remember, “When little Shaniqua has two free throws to win or lose a game on some Sunday morning, good luck finding somebody who’ll answer your prayers.”

Terry Risser

Consider reading the Word today:

Copyright 2014 – Terry Risser