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One definition of transition is: ‘A period of time when change is taking place.’ Musicians and singers experience it quite frequently when the music has a key change. It occurs as an almost immeasurable period of time.

Most transitions last longer. The transition from a child to an adult doesn’t seem to happen fast enough for the child. From the adult standpoint it happens much too fast.

Some transitions are happy and some are sad. Moving from one job to another for a pay raise is good. Losing a job and finding one which pays less, is not so good. The loss of a friend or loved one can be a difficult transition period whether they pass away or simply move away. Another trying transition period is moving your family to a new place to live. It often means losing old friends and acquiring new ones.

Whether simple or complex all transitions have to be dealt with. How we deal with them is a real test of our Christian character. Those transitions we view as adverse are the most difficult to cope with. During difficult transitions we need to:
* Seek to understand why the transition has taken place. No transition occurs without purpose. Knowing and accepting the purpose as rational will prevent us from becoming angry or morose.
* Ask God to give you His peace during the transition period. God’s peace will help us to not deal with it in an irrational manner, but as He desires.
* Go to God’s word. Rom. 8:28 is a good place to start.

Most people today find very little in life to laugh about. With the economic recession, which has affected us all, life has taken on a more serious note. Guideposts magazine once quoted Zazu Pitts as saying; “Laughter is God’s hand upon a troubled world.” If the saying is true that ‘Laughter is the Best Medicine’ then we need to learn to laugh more.

Grenville Kliester wrote in the New York Inquirer; “What this country needs is not a new national anthem, or a Wall Street boom, but the ability to laugh spontaneously.” There was a time when you could go to the movies and expect to leave the theater having laughed ‘till your sides split.’ But not many movies are made like that today. With some movies, you come out more despondent then when you went in.

I don’t claim to have any solutions to our present day circumstances. I’m not sure that anyone can solve the American dilemma which we face today. I’m almost certain that man does not have the moral fortitude to do what needs to be done. Man’s moral character is corrupted by sin. As the Apostle Paul observed in the 7th chapter of Romans. “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” (v.20)

Laughter, in and of itself, will not cure the world’s ills. But I believe the ability to laugh comes from a right relationship with God. And with that, we can, GO AHEAD AND LAUGH!

Remember the Porky Pig cartoons? They would always end with Porky stuttering out those words. When he said that, we knew the cartoon was over, there were no more expectations. In a song by Peggy Lee, life seems to end that way, with no more expectations. She sings of all the things she has seen and done and in the end she says, “Is That All There Is?” She goes on to sing that if that’s all there is, in so many words, let’s ‘eat, drink and be merry’.

Many people go to church on a Sunday, and they see three-piece suits, golden crosses; people sing songs, participate in the offering, big choirs, and a message, hopefully about God. They think ‘Is that all there is?’

There is more to life; there is more to church than what happens on a Sunday morning. The ‘more’ to life is conditional to the ‘more’ on Sunday morning. And the ‘more’ on Sunday morning is conditional on our relationship with God. Is your relationship with Him on your terms or is it on His? As Christians, we are in church on Sunday morning because God changed our lives. That change is reflected in our daily living.

He changed our lives because we received Jesus as our Savior. Life takes on new meaning. Church takes on new meaning, because we’re no longer the person we used to be.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold. All things have become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17)

Moses would not respond to God’s call to serve Him. To get his attention God created a burning bush. Only when Moses saw the burning bush did God get his attention. After reading the account in Genesis about this burning bush, I wrote the following:

SO WHO NEEDS A BURNING BUSH
ONCE I HEARD A MAN SAY I WISH I COULD SEE A BURNING BUSH,
AND LIKE MOSES. BE CALLED TO SOME IMPORTANT TASK.
I WOULD BE QUICK TO RESPOND AND PUT ALL OTHER THINGS BEHIND,
IF ONLY IN HIS PRESENCE I COULD BASK.

BUT IF HE WANTS TO USE ME, WHAT MORE CAN I SAY,
JUST LET ME SEE THAT BURNING BUSH AND I’LL BE ON MY WAY.

DO YOU NEED A BURNING BUSH?

Once a year on Feb. 14, the world is enamored with the idea of love. But the world’s idea of love is overrated. The world only knows three kinds of love. One, ‘I love you for the way you make me feel.’ Two, ‘I love you because I like the way you look.’ Three, ‘I will love you if you act the way I want.’ All of these fall short of the way the Bible defines love. Biblical love is the love God has toward us and the love we are to have toward one another. It is ‘I love you in spite of how you make me feel, or how you look, or what you are able to do for me.’

Biblical love is expressed not in a feeling, but in action. Love is not given because it’s deserved. Love is given even when it’s not deserved. God loves us even though there is every reason for Him not to love us. The Bible tells us that as an act of God’s love He died for us while we were yet sinners. Unarguably, the greatest verse in Gods’ Word is found in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

On this Valentine’s Day may you receive the fullness of God’s love by believing in His Son, Jesus Christ.

Some people live in the past. They spend their life either wishing things were the way they used to be or regretting things that happened that haunt them. People who live in the past have no life in the present.

Then there are those people who live only for the future. They either have no satisfaction in the present and hope that tomorrow will bring better times, or they have no peace because they fear the future. Their lives are filled with ‘What Ifs.’

People who live in the present ignoring the past and the future, live as though life is all about them. Their philosophy is ‘Eat, Drink, and be Merry for Tomorrow we die.’ They seek to fill their lives with things that they believe will make them happy. But the more they get, the less fulfilled they feel. So they constantly seek new things and sink deeper in debt.

The way people live reveals their belief about God. Without a belief in God, people are dead in trespasses and sin. They live under the control of the god of this world, the devil. (Ref. Eph. 2)

When we respond to God’s invitation to have relationship with Him through Jesus, His Son, we find our lives are transformed. We are no longer puppets of the devil.

We find that we can live in the present, without dwelling on the past, making preparations for the future.

“FOR TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST” (Phil. 1:21)

There was a time when young people were taught the necessary things that all people held in common. Things like:

COMMON SENSE
-If it says “Wet Paint,” don’t test it with your finger.
-If it says “Danger,” avoid it.
-If someone says, “It’s hot,” don’t touch it.
-If you drop it, pick it up.
-If you take it, put it back where you found it. Etc.

COMMON COURTESY
-If you offend someone say, “I’m Sorry.”
-If you want something say, “Please.”
-If someone does you a favor say, “Thank You.” Etc.

COMMON MORALITY
-If it’s the law, obey it.
-If it’s not yours, don’t take it.
-If it’s not true, don’t say it. Etc.

At least three generations have passed since these things and many more like them were regularly taught in the home and in the classroom. They have long-ceased from the classrooms and also from most homes. All of these ‘common’ things have their roots in God’s Word. God’s Word is no longer commonly found in the classroom and has ceased being read in most homes today.

This may explain why we now live in an era where few practice common sense, or common courtesy or common morality.

Isn’t modern society wonderful?

Have you made any New Year resolutions? Were they the same ones you made last year and the year before that? When it comes to living up to our New Years resolutions, most of the time we fail to keep them. Our resolutions may be good, but we’re not strong enough in our flesh to keep them.

The Bible tells us that our flesh is weak and focused on the wrong things. We do not rule our flesh, our flesh rules us. The Apostle Paul tells us in the 7th chapter of Romans that ‘no good thing dwells within us’ and ‘that which I would do, I do not and that which I would not do, I do.’ The flesh is evil.

Our sinful flesh cannot be reformed by a resolution. It must be transformed by a commitment. That commitment is found in Romans 12:1 where God’s mercy implores us to commit ourselves to God as a ‘living sacrifice.’ When we do, we will find that the flesh no longer controls us. As we read God’s Word and allow the Holy Spirit to quicken it to our hearts, we will find ourselves transformed. Jesus explains it as ‘born again.’

Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:22-24 that Christ has taught us to ‘Put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And that you put on the new man created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness.’ Start the New Year right. Make a commitment to God.

No, I’m not asking for directions to Santa Fe. I’m asking, do you know the way to find true meaning in life, the way to inner peace, the way to hope for the future, the way to forgiveness for the past, and the way to purpose in the present? Everyday life presents opportunities for us to choose which way we will go. A poem by John Oxenham challenges us to make correct choices.

“To every man there openeth a Way, and Ways, and a Way.
And the High Soul climbs the High Way,
And the Low Soul gropes the Low.
And in between on the misty flats, the rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth a High Way and a Low.
And every man decideth the Way his soul shall go.”

Perhaps you are like Thomas and unsure about the way you should go.
He asked Jesus in I John 14:5b; “…how can we know the way? Jesus answered him in verse 6; “Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Which way will your soul go when this life is over? Choose the high way;
choose Jesus.

James 4:14 says; “Your life is like a mist, you can see it for a short time, but then it goes away.” Nobody lives one moment longer than what God allows. In Psalms 139:16 David declares; “All the days planned for me were written in your book before I was one day old.” Only God knows how long anyone will live.

This makes life very precious. No matter how many years we live it is but a moment in eternity. Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3:8 that; “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.”

Psalms 90:12 says; “Teach us how short our lives really are so that we may live wisely.” In Ecclesiates Solomon tells us that the way man lives is vanity. There is no profit from labor, the eye is never satisfied, there is nothing new under the sun and that those who come after us will not remember us.

In God’s eyes no one lives longer than they should and no one dies untimely. What is important is how we live the time that God has given us and our relationship with God when we leave this earth.

Solomon concludes therefore in the last chapter of Ecclesiates; “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandants, for this is the whole duty of man.” The wise way to live is as God’s adopted son or daughter through believing in Jesus Christ as our Savior.