Lightkeeper's Journal

Holy Week and the Love of a Savior

 

 

Photography and Article by Norma Beaird 

 

Holy Week and the Love of a Savior

 

Sunday, March 24, 2018, we celebrated Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week on the Christian Calendar.  Palm Sunday marked Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-11).  As we enter into Holy Week, this is a time of great reflection for Christians all across the world. No matter your current situation.... No matter how stressful, fearful, sad or lonely your corner of the world may be right now, allow JESUS to touch your life by laying your hopes, fears, prayers and burdens at the feet of the cross.

JESUS CHRIST paid the ultimate price for our sins. He gave His life so that we may live free from the burden of sin and shame. He died so that we might have eternal life. He endured a heart-wrenching crucifixion so that we may be free from the worldly entrapments that keep us in bondage.  

As Isaiah 53:5 says, ".....and with His stripes we are healed".  We can be healed spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. The cross represents love, peace, healing and deliverance.

Let us be encouraged to seriously reflect upon where we are in our Christian walk with the Lord. Maybe you don't know JESUS as your personal Savior. Maybe you need to confess JESUS as your Lord and Savior and repent of your sins so that you may know the freedom of forgiveness. Forgiveness will free your mind, heart and soul.

Right now, we're living in a very tough and unforgiving world. People are more stressed than ever. People are rude, impatient and angry. They are dysfunctional and living in a spiritual fog, not knowing which way to turn for help. In other words, people need JESUS.

Isaiah 53:5 will reach deep into your soul and allow you to feel the love of a Savior Who wants to free you from the burdens of a sin-filled world. Money or material possessions will not save you or give you peace. Strong drink or drugs will not satisfy that void that lingers in your soul. A successful career will not give you eternal life in Heaven. Only JESUS can bring you the peace and contentment that you need to live in a world of chaos and confusion.

 

Isaiah 53: 5

"But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities:

the chastisement of our peace was upon Him;

and with His stripes we are healed."

 

This coming Holy Week, let us be constantly reminded of the love of JESUS and His sacrifice at Calvary. Let us continually be praying and reading scripture. Let us honor the Lord by attending church and participating in the Lord's Supper. Let us be examples of the love of Christ by having a heart of gratitude and reaching out to those in need. Let us be reminded every day that we need to praise Him, thank Him and serve Him with our "whole heart".

If you are not a Christian and you want to know a Savior who will love you more than you have ever been loved and Who will guide you and fill your life with joy, repent of your sins and confess JESUS as your Lord and Savior. He will change your life forever.

 

Romans 10: 9-10

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,

and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead,

thou shalt be saved.

For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness;

and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."

 

 

Copyright 2018, Curtis and Norma Beaird.  All rights reserved.

Sermon or Emotional Massage?

 

 

Article By:  Curtis Beaird

Photography By:  Norma W. Beaird

 

If you’re not a minister, you are free to skip this read.   Or, read it and find out how your minister functions.

Ministers, preachers, priests, and those claiming to be part-time prophets seem to come in two styles today; those who take the preventative approach to ministry and those who take the therapeutic approach.  The first is more aggressive.  The second leans toward the suggestive and is passive with the message.

The more aggressive minister takes a preventative approach to ministry.  They raise questions that are the constant "elephants in the room" that few care to address.    While they sing Softly and Tenderly, they are as eager to sing ….Up From the Grave He Arose.  They believe everything that is Biblically based can be included in their message and ministry.  Initiative is their middle name. 

When they see someone standing on a railroad track facing an oncoming train, they don't mind shouting a warning, "Get off the track!”  They spend as much time announcing that folks should "prepare to meet their God" as they do meandering through the lilies of the valley.

The more passive minister takes a therapeutic approach to ministry.  Basically, once we have a spill, they rush to do the obvious……clean up the mess.

Until she is pregnant, we don't talk about fornication.  Until Bud gets his third DUI, we don't mention the disastrous effects of alcohol abuse.  Until adultery or pornography ruins a marriage, we focus on locating the lost Jebusites or setting dates for the Second Coming. 

The list of religious dodges is a long one.   Why trouble a congregation?   Ignore the suggestion that there are consequences of bad choices.  Sidestep the pain associated with self-induced problems.  Promise them that God will give them the desires of their heart.   Promise them that a wave of blessings will follow in the wake of the offering plate.   Dismiss as negative anything that illuminates the ambiguous nature of living.

The rules of engagement for the passive, therapeutic minister are simple:  Wait, wait and wait.  Let circumstance force action.  

Aggressive ministers who engage in the preventative approach are not popular.  No one questions their presence or wonders whose side they are on.  They speak the name of God, not as a possibility, but as though all life flows from that one Name.  Safety is not their first concern; proclamation is.  They announce good news.  But, that announcement makes clear the need for change.  ....What?  ....Change?

These awakeners raise the disturbing questions.  They insist on Spirit as the presence of God rather than offering a simpering nostalgic hope for a bygone day of religion.  When inevitable grief cracks open our illusions, the aggressive minister, even in tears, will assert the presence of God.  "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord."

The aggressive minister makes us uncomfortable.  They are the ones with a dream.  While they can and will use the language of inclusion, that language includes the name of Jesus at the top of the list.   We will find a reason to avoid them and their ways.  They have little or no capacity for the politically correct approach.  They ask too many questions.  They may join your club, but they never actually belong.

The more passive minister who follows the therapeutic approach waits with hands quietly folded on the mop handle until the mess runs under the office door.  The wait is seldom long. 

He is wonderful with people and always understands everything.  Drawing explanations from the language of inclusion, conversations tip toward the more psychological.   The name of Jesus may not be included in the message of consolation.  It will always be implied that we have the ability to manage.   The capacity to nurture and listen is unparalleled.  He is such calm in the storm.  If their presence doesn't bring peace to the valley, it will, for a moment, insulate us from the wreckage we are left to pick up as soon as he is out the door.

While we would hope that a minister would recognize the need for both the preventative and the therapeutic, the prophetic and pastoral, it's just plain safer to wait for the mess. 

Unfortunately, the Apostle Paul didn't get the memo.

 

II Timothy 4: 1 – 8 (King James Version)

¹I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;

 ²Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.

 ³For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

 ⁴And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

 ⁵But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

 ⁶For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.

 ⁷I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:

 ⁸Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing

 

Copyright 2012, Curtis Beaird.  All rights reserved.

Tears and Trauma

 

 

Article By:  Curtis Beaird

Photography By:  Norma W. Beaird

 

It is an easy thing to list the fears and failings, the mistakes and disasters of every day.  Tsunamis and bank failures, kidnappings and government corruption have become the stuff of our daily life.  Turning first to the obituaries and police blotter are old habits for more than a few.  Our color TV’s offer us a ringside seat at a safe distance to view mudslides and human suffering as though it were a spectator sport.

But, is there a more excellent way?  Is there more do to with our minutes, hours, days, weeks and our life than watch the parade of sorrow? Is there something better to do with our energy than fight the sneaky little fear in the back of our mind, "What if that happens to me?"   Is there something more to do with ourselves than complain, and call it living, when by fits and starts we spend ourselves in a cloud of nostalgia, longing for a day lost and long gone?

Nope, there isn't.  That's the best we've got.  Tears and trauma and more of the same are on the way.  Stay tuned, it only gets worse.  "Those poor people, and how long will it be before it's my turn?" 

You got it right; the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.  The glass is half empty.  It will never be the same.  I sure wish it was like it used to be.   And, on and on and on, all the way down into the bottom of the dark valley.

You might believe in darkness, but the Apostle Paul believed in the light.  "...forgetting those things which have gone before, I press on toward the mark of the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus.”   Paul had better things to do than complain and live in fear. He apparently believed that there was no way to modulate the human voice in such a way as to make a whine acceptable to God.

So, a man whose days knew whipping, stoning, imprisonment and the fear of being hunted, offers us his counsel to have a bad memory.  “Forgetting those things which have gone before.”  That’s what the man said - Forget.   Instead of Paul locking himself into the bad bind of regret and grief or the pathetic sticky goo of nostalgia, he chose to look toward the better day in Christ's high calling.  

Let's face it.  There are many voices out there.  Most would gladly take us down.   Why not listen to the Voice that would guide us toward the light and the better way?  Listen for the high calling of Christ.

 

Philippians 3: 13 - 14

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 

I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

 

 

Copyright 2011, Curtis Beaird.  All rights reserved.

 

Values of Hope

 

 

Article and Photography

By:  Curtis Beaird

 

Values, community, neighbors, friends.  Not all things reduced to a price point and all humans viewed as a potential market.  Our curse seems to be that we have managed to commodify everything.  Relationships don't matter unless we have business with each other.

If there is no potential for commerce, financial gain or some other personal advantage, we don't seem to have any reason to talk with each other anymore.  "Nothing happens," as one old store manager told me, "until somebody sells something."

We network, make contacts, build strategic systems, develop alliances and coalitions without once giving notice to the fact that this vertical or horizontal construct is made of people, human beings, flesh and blood souls who are one of a kind and will never pass this way, or our way again. 

Fascination, wonder, and the mystery of simply being alive is lost to the matrix.  Curiosity, compassion and an anger worthy of the name, and laughter deep down, born of the joy of breathing in and out the clean fresh air of life, disappears into the system's chilly abyss.

The driving question of life "Why am I here?" is answered for us by the kings of cash ---- to make and move money.   The prophets of profit are easy to spot.  Their eyes are dark, set deep in their sockets and hard. The corners of their mouth turn down like the horns of a mad bull.  They don't speak; they glare.  They expect their will to be known ahead of any comment.  They don't relate; they measure.  They don't move; they occupy space.  They fill in what's left with their ego.

They gain power by taking yours.  Without yours, they have no power.  Yet, men gladly offer up their manhood to the insatiable appetite of the hollow, hard-eyed one.  

If the profit-maker is a profitess, she is cold.  Simply cold.  She proudly and alone seeks to fill her void with bricks made of gold.  She has an edge, an edge either blunt or sharp.  But, an edge.  Her's is a ruthless power born of a taste for blood and a striving made of a need to win.  Her score is kept not as a total, but a string of those left behind and lost.  She achieves through subtraction, even elimination of all things bright and beautiful, unless it is gold.  

Creation trumps culture.  Spirit and soul outlasts envy, greed and the hollow power they produce. Dead men walking move through time heavy laden with their stuff.  The light of grace outshines the glint from the hood of their polished chariots. 

The song of the soul sings with the wind in the trees.  The culture of death will collapse.  Ashes are the home of the phoenix.  Rising and resurrection, empty tombs and promises, build future and hope. 

Today belongs to death.  Tomorrow belongs to God.  Promises sustain.  Consumption consumes and empties.  Faith fires the imagination and powers the soul.  Our restless spirit finds direction and a horizon made of hope.

Hand finds hand.  Neighbor finds friend.  Love lifts and moves.  Prophets of doom fall silent.  Their tongues cleave to the roof of their mouths.  The obvious comes true and the lion lies down with the lamb.

The Four Horseman ride.  Swords look better as plowshares.  The silence of His presence becomes comfort found at dawn.  The cloud of unknowing opens to the sunrise of hope.

A child smiles.  The earth stops.  The proud are brought low.  The last are made first.  The least are discovered to be the greatest.  The poor are found to be rich and the rich are abandoned to wander alone in an eternal, hungry search for more.

The Alpha and the Omega.  The beginning and the end.  The first and the last.  All that comes between and follows after is called Life.

 

Copyright 2011, Curtis Beaird.  All rights reserved.