Family Traditions

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I waver in the area of traditions, unsure whether I like them or not. My problem is that traditions and ruts are close relatives – the first being good, the second an evil twin – and I have trouble telling the difference. And once the purpose is lost the first can transmogrify into the other.

Our family has a very good Christmas Eve tradition. We spend Christmas Eve with the Barnabys – three generations of us and of them. We’ve done this now for several years and it’s a tradition we intend to continue. Family traditions are good when they bring families together.

What brought us together at first was the Polish emphasis on Christmas Eve and the Barnabys’ willingness to do something with us. Poland has serious traditions surrounding this particular evening. We’ve watered them down considerably, but enjoy what we do as we do it.

For example, an authentic Polish Christmas Eve meal must have twelve different items. We didn’t actually count and no doubt fell short, but since we were all ready to explode anyway, we didn’t care. My apologies to Polish purists, but we left out the carp completely, a Christmas Eve essential. No sense exploding over an overly bony fish that would be hard to find in Indianapolis anyway.

And we sang a few Christmas carols. And we enjoyed just being with the Barnabys. Family traditions are good when they bring families together.

Eliza i Kuba BarnabowieWigilia2007 Wigilia2007

The Importance of a Good Memory

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Why do we ever forget important things? We might imagine that simply because something is important we should remember it – yet that is clearly not always the case. Birthdays, anniversaries, people’s names; the list goes on and on. We might never declare these things trivial, but they continually slip our minds causing us frustration and embarrassment.

In the spiritual realm, our ability to remember carries greater consequences. Moses, after teaching the children of Israel God’s laws and reminding them of His goodness toward them, added the following admonition:

Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren. – Deuteronomy 4:9 (NKJV)

If they forgot what the Lord said and did, they would soon forget God Himself, or simply assign Him a place in their national trivia. And this might ultimately lead to their demise. So, how did these hearers of Moses do? Not all that well, really. We soon read:

So the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God, and served the Baals and Asherahs. – Judges 3:7 (NKJV)

The consequences of this national, collective Alzheimer’s disease were devastating. Much of the Bible is dedicated to the details, as the nation went through one enormous memory lapse after another. It’s safe to assume we’re capable of the same.

As a personal application, I intend to use many of these journal entries to tell and retell the stories of what the Lord has done in my own life and in the corporate life of Horizon Central. He has been exceptionally kind to us as a church and me personally. We dare not forget His goodness.

Not Guilty

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1 John 4:9-10 (NKJV) 9In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

All of us know what it’s like to feel guilt, some of it unwarranted, some of it genuine.  As to the false guilt, it’s, well, false.  We never really had to worry about that at all.  In the case of false guilt, that sense of feeling guilty was always a lie. 

The beautiful thing that God has done for us, by the offering of Christ for our sins, is that He has removed our real guilt.  When we, in our hearts, reject our sin, turn to Him and ask for His forgiveness, He cleanses us.  He declares us not guilty in His eyes. 

Christ is the offering that removes our guilt.  He is the propitiation for our sins – the offering that reconciles us to God.  If God views us as not guilty, then we truly are not guilty; no higher standard is needed.  There is no higher court that we will ever be tried in.  So Christ takes care of our all-too-real guilt.  And that is the kind of Savior we truly need.

Day One – The Title

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Palmer St. is the address of our beloved Old School #18, the 100+ year-old building owned by our church. It’s where so much of our ministry happens.

Parentheses are qualifying or amplifying words, phrases, or sentences. They can also be asides or tangents or irrelevancies.

I hope the things I write here won’t be irrelevant. If successful, these will be “amplifying sentences”. Certainly, they won’t be the main thing. Jesus Christ will always be that. If anything I post here can cause someone to think about Him, then these little asides will have accomplished something worthwhile.

OK, so I’m just starting at this, but eager to learn. Expect more in the near future. For right now, though, there are a few pages to view on the right, including two with notes and mp3s from Sunday mornings.