My mind goes back from time to time to a two-week mission trip I took to the poverty-stricken country of Haiti. I remember the culture shock of the absolute absence of abundance. Growing up in a comfortable, middle-class home I had heard of poverty, and even thought I had seen it, but I realized my misinformation in the capital of desolation, Haiti. To be sure, when I returned to my home in America, I had a new perspective entirely on the material blessings God had wrought in my life. I learned that unless I see true poverty, I’ll forget how “rich” I am.

It is this same sense concerning the material blessings in my life that God has recently worked concerning the spiritual blessings in my life. As I have been studying and preparing some old-fashioned Gospel messages and refreshing my contemplation of the Old Old Story, I find myself deeply moved, even shaken within, as if my introduction to Christ and the Cross was a recent one. I was saved at the tender age of six and grew up with Jesus. And in the same way that I took so much of my material blessing for granted before Haiti, it has been easy for me to take my spiritual blessings in Christ for granted as well, seeing as how I grew up with an abundance of both.

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(This article was written during the impeachment hearings of President Clinton)

?It doesn?t matter what he does in his private life, as long as he gets the job done.? Sound familiar? It has become obvious in recent months that we are living in a culture that believes it can divorce personal life from public duties. The general consensus is that someone?s lack of character is none of our business, that character doesn?t matter. Frankly, that?s seriously wrong, big time. The integrity of one?s personal, private choices, that is, one?s character, affects every other area of his life and all those whom he influences. In other words, character does matter. And we all know it.

Character matters when a person applies for credit. Character matters when an individual borrows the possessions of another. Character matters when a person signs a dotted line. Character matters when a dad makes a promise to his child. Character matters when a person stands at an altar and pledges life-long marital faithfulness to another. Character matters when a man stands and swears to uphold and protect the Constitution while he occupies the highest office in the land. (And if his character does not dictate that he keep the former of these vows, we cannot be sure that he will keep the latter.)

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In a department store a young husband was minding the baby while his wife was making a purchase. The infant was wailing, but the father seemed quite unperturbed as he quietly said, ?Easy now, Charlie,? he murmured, ?keep your temper.? A woman passing by remarked, ?I must congratulate you! You seem to know just how to speak to a baby.? ?Baby nothing!? came the reply. ?MY name is Charlie!?

Negative emotions are often the greatest challenge to our self-control. Surely you?ve had the experience of some emotion welling like a pregnant volcano, as if the containers of body and soul would burst, unleashing the monster that morphs from situation to situation always pointing it?s finger at your will, demanding to be allowed expression. Though often we may pride ourselves on our ability to ?keep our head,? we are often betrayed by the tell-tale signs of our emotional colors. Perhaps you?ve heard someone say, ?he was green with envy.? Maybe you?ve been so mad, you were ?red as a beet.? Ever had ?the blues? in the aftermath of disappointment? Or, maybe you?ve known the jitters of fear and you retreated to a safer situation. Let?s just say you were ?yella.?

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?O taste and see that the Lord is good.?

We believe the much-quoted statement, ?in every man is a God-shaped void that can only be filled with Him.? And indeed that is true. It?s the heart of the gospel. Had we not believed it was true we would have never trusted Christ for salvation and invited Him to fill that void. Yet it?s so easy to reduce that fact to a trite phrase that merely smiles at our conversion experience but has little relevance to our present day-in, day-out experience.

Every day, I get out of bed with a void in the pit of my stomach. Hunger. The night is long and the previous night?s dinner has been absorbed into my body?s various systems. The stomach finished doing it?s job somewhere around 11:00 last night. This gnawing in the center of my physical being is reminding me that a particular digestive cavity needs to be filled with something and food is the only thing that will satisfy it. The hunger is the pertinent subject. Food is the pertinent complement.

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?I just want to be like Jesus.? Have you ever said this statement? The noblest of all Christian aspirations is to be like Christ. We know this. But if asked to describe what that means, many would find the notion of being Christlike difficult to describe. The Bible urges us to walk ?in His steps,? and ?to let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.? In our commitment to obey the Scriptures, we must have some understanding of the characteristics of Christlikeness. Though it would be impossible to exhaust this subject in one brief article, allow me share some insights on the characteristics of Christlikeness that the Lord has recently shown me.

First of all, Christ was FREE. He was free from the bondage that comes only through yielding to the temptation of sin. He was ?tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin? (Heb. 4:15). Christ always enjoyed the protection and the provision of the Father because He refused to trespass moral and spiritual boundaries. Because of this, Christ was at all times free from guilt, emotional scars, regret, misdirected desires, or any other consequence of sin. Being free, He freely did the will of His Father at all times.

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Everybody likes new stuff. We always want the one that looks, feels and smells the newest. It?s funny to go to Wal-Mart and watch someone open a package to see if the contents are what they really want, then put it back on the shelf and pick up the one that they didn?t open. People are hilarious. Why do we do that? Because we like the one that gives the best sense of newness. New cars (don?t you love the way they smell? There?s now ?new car scent? available at the auto parts store!), new homes, new restaurants, new fishing poles, new lipstick. New years.

And now we have one, labeled ?1997.? Can you believe it? At this new year, 1997, we are reminded that it?s been about one thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven . . . well, almost two thousand years since Almighty God stripped Himself of His glory and became a servant, Jesus Christ, leaving the splendor of Heaven to ?tabernacle? among sinful men. You know the story. It?s a story that?s very old. Actually it is the ?Old, Old Story,? but more beautiful and precious than anything new than I?ve ever known.

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?I?ve confessed my sin to the Lord, but why do I still feel so guilty?? Have you ever felt like this, believer? Emotions are like fire, they can be a great blessing or extremely destructive. God intends to use our emotions constructively, while Satan?s intentions are only destructive. But know this, our emotions play a significant role in how we function as individuals. Feelings of guilt can come as a nagging thought or, for some, it can be crippling at times.

Guilt in and of itself is not a feeling but a state of being. Without Christ, one is in a state of guilt before Holy God because of sin against others and sin against God. There is a need for justification, which comes only through Jesus Christ, the propitiation of our sins. When a person puts their trust in Jesus to be saved, they are declared justified, or innocent, as if they had never sinned at all. Hallelujah! The believer?s sin, past, present and future is transferred to the cross of Jesus, and His perfect righteousness is transferred to our spiritual ?account.? ?For God hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him? (2 Cor. 5:21). In other words, as far as salvation is concerned, God sees us as if we are as spotless as His own Son, Jesus. Guilt is a thing of the past. ?There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus? (Romans 8:1).

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I was having lunch recently with a new pastor friend of mine who served on the mission field of Liberia for 26 years. Liberia is a third world African country that has been ravaged by poverty and war. In passing, he mentioned that the country had been given grants of money by the U.S. and neighboring countries to build large corporate complexes, housing and hospitals. As a matter of fact, in the capital city, Moravia, you will find the John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital, built with United States funds. However, in recent years these magnificent buildings have descended into disrepair, often to the point of disuse. Even entire hospital wings have been shut down, no longer the vital, bustling restoration stations they once were. As great as the gifts of these building have been to the Liberian people, the current result stems from one basic thing: the people have never been taught the importance of maintenance.

Just as machinery failures occur when not regularly checked, fueled and greased, maintenance is just as vital to you and me in every important relationship of life. Marriages often fail from lack of proper, consistent nurturing and care. The parent-child relationship can devolve into one of distance and resentment due to simple neglect. Our relationship with the Lord as well will suffer if not regularly maintained. As necessary as proper maintenance is, we often neglect it. Why? I believe because we tend to live by the urgent rather than the important.

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I was sitting with Scarlet today, who is 5 months pregnant with our first child. I have had many emotions over the last 5 months, along with my bride. Each month we read up on what to expect at each phase of pregnancy. Weird things happen to a woman when she?s with child. Once, while we sat together today, she looked at me and tried to communicate on the most simple of matters but her words uncharacteristically fumbled around inside her mouth. Giving up, she said, ?Oh forget it. If you wanna know what?s going on, just read chapter five in that pregnancy book over there.?

I?m glad that we have a Book that helps us to understand why we do the things we do in life, because sometimes we humans make little sense. The Bible, our manual for belief and practice, tells us why sometimes we don?t do the things we want to do and yet often do the very things we hate. I?m probably already striking a cord with you to some degree because we all have that in common. We all desire to please God yet often find ourselves shaking our head wondering why did we just did or said what we just did or said. Been there? Done that? What?s the problem? In Romans chapter seven, the Apostle Paul names the culprit. He calls it the ?flesh? (Rom. 7:18). The flesh is the old ways that we used to try to get our needs met apart from the Lord. Its how a person thinks and acts minus God.

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On May 28, 1999, a new and tremendous responsibility came into my life. Scarlet and I now have a baby girl, Gianna Corinne. As Scarlet and I sat on the bed musing over our new little treasure, I remember audibly noting the fact that Gianna was the cleanest of ?slates.? She had just come into the world, fully a person, but nevertheless having no baggage, no regrets, no scars, dysfunction, nor hang-ups. Sure, she has a little sinful nature that soon enough will rear its ugly head, but whatever part ?nurture? will play in her life to produce the adult she will become, she?s got none of it yet. She arrived as a lump of clay ready to be molded and shaped for good, for bad, or both.

And the overwhelming part is, that?s where I come in. I?m the influencer, the shaper, the God-called potter for this sweet little ?lump,? if you will. I?m a parent, along with my wife, responsible for this little life. I?m responsible to do one thing: to raise my child in the nurture (discipline) and the admonition (instruction) of the Lord.? Eph. 6:4

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