CHURCHES FOR SALE

Good day dear friends.


Matt. 21:13 - "My house shall be called a House of prayer."

Some realty company discovered my email and sent me an email with the subject line just like the subject line for today's devotional: "Churches for Sale." I opened it to see what they were offering and more importantly, where. The first was Austin, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and San Antonio. Apparently, these guys and gals specialize in selling churches. I can think of nothing sadder in real estate than to sell a church. It says a lot without one knowing the full story, but the result is the same; this church is no longer able to function as a church, and we have no other option but to sell it.

In this week's conference newspaper, The Witness, there was a sad article about the Falfurrias church, El Buen Pastor UMC, that is closing its doors. No longer able to attract enough people to sustain it financially, the conference had no other option but to close its doors.

Jesus knew the day was coming when the very Temple that He had loved and cared for and even called a "house of prayer" would one day find itself with not one stone left upon another. He knew that His church would continue in other parts of the world, but the very Temple, symbol of worship and power, was destined to close at the hands of foreign powers that would close it down.

Could it be that churches have forgotten how to pray? And as a result of losing communication and contact with God, have forgotten to love? To reach out in Christian love to others? To share the Good News with a world that needs to hear? More importantly, have those people who make up the church, forgotten how to pray?

I say dear friend, that we can never forget to pray. We can never be too busy to lift up even a thought prayer to God about our needs and concerns along with a thought of thankfulness to God! God loves our prayers and God answers our prayers. We must be people of prayer!

It was a very moving ceremony yesterday morning as Kate McWhirt presented a prayer shawl to John Morrisett. Kate and some other ladies of the church, knit a shawl and all the while they are knitting, are praying for the person recommended by the pastors and staff of the church. As I told the congregation to receive a prayer shawl does not mean one is dying or going to face terrible situations, it simply means that because of some health issues and trials, their name has been lifted up to God in prayer. Rev. Jenna Heart who comes as the new pastor here in June is having a prayer shawl made just for her. If you know of someone who would benefit from a prayer shawl, please let me know.

PRAYER: God of living prayer, we thank You for listening to our prayers and concerns. Let me never be too busy to pray. And may the day never come when I believe I have forgotten to pray. I pray for my church and the needs it may have. May our doors always be open because of my prayers and love. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!

e.v.

ON LEAVING DEAR FRIENDS

Good day dear friends.

"I call you friends..." John 15:15

It is in knowing one is leaving that the hurts and joys of church members become deeper in my soul. I rejoice with those who are rejoicing in wonderful ways, but the burdens being carried by others hurt me deeper than before. I suppose it is the knowledge of knowing I won't be pastor for much longer and while I will still carry you in my hearts and prayers, it is not the same.

While we are praying today, please lift up Preston Connelly to your prayers. Preston is being moved to a special care unit as his Alzheimer's has become worse. He will stay at Merrill Gardens but may be separated from Doris. This has caused Doris great pain as you can imagine. As we pray prayers of thanksgiving, lift up the hearts (if they can get any higher!) of George and Bobbie Gilbert, who yesterday received a new great-grandchild into their lives.

The Lord Jesus as He taught His disciples spoke about servanthood and friendship. He Himself was a servant to God first, then to us as He ministered the new way of life we are to live, but He reached a point where He knew that the servant title of the disciples had to be expanded to include the title of friends.

Do you ever see your role as a friend as a special title in your life? Do you take being a good friend seriously? I know and love dear friends who would do anything for me. I know the ones I could call in the middle of the night and they would get up and come and help me. I also know the ones who I can share the deepest and most serious of secrets and they will go to their graves with them. What a blessing to have friends, and what a more awesome blessing to BE a good friend.

I would pray we would be the friends of Jesus today. And while being the friends of Jesus we would be the friends to those in need. Jesus knew it's easy to befriend and love those who befriend and love us; Jesus calls us to love everyone and be a friend to all.

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, I thank you for the friend I have in Your Son, Jesus Christ. I pray that I might be your friend and a friend to all today. I ask this in Jesus' Name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!

e.v.

TAGGED

Good day dear friends.

Someone "tagged" our wooden fence that is located in our children's playground at church. Being wooden it lends itself to tagging, that is, the marking with graffiti. This one was done in chalk and I'm guessing it was by the hand of an older person, not a teen or a child. The tag reads, "HE LIVES!" Sunday, between services two little boys playing on the grass stopped when one of the boys saw it and pointed it out to his friend. Having been the first to spot it he read it to his friend, "HE LIVES!" The two just nodded and smiled, then went back to running and playing.

What in your life says HE LIVES? Are you a living "tag" for the risen Christ? Do people see in you the living Christ or are you a living Snopes? Snopes.com is the site one can check out the validity of those million forwards we get and send. Some of the emails contain the most precious stories of faith and warm feelings and someone will always "check it" at snopes.com and discover that it may have been a great story, but it just didn't happen.

He Lives is part of a great story that faith says did happen. It tell of God's power and ability to help us rise above our deepest challenges and setbacks, to higher ground and to higher living. He lives is an eternal story that will bless all who believe.

May your life be tagged today with the line that frees us all: HE LIVES!

PRAYER: God of life, thank You for Your power and ability to lift me above what I am facing today. I may be weeping and weak, but Your love and grace make me strong, strong enough to move forward. I pray this in Jesus' Name. Amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!

e.v.

WHEN LIFE PAID DEATH A VISIT

Good day dear friends.

Again, our thanks for your prayers for our son-in-law, Eric Cortez, as he
recovers from
his appendectomy. He should be home this evening if all goes well. I know he
must be
doing good because he ate some barbecued chicken and ribs that I made for
Easter. That
was his biggest regret about being sick, he said, not being present for the
family BBQ!

Rev. Barbara Aziz is out of the hospital and I'm sure resting today after all of
her activities
at her church in Bishop, Texas. She was hospitalized with a bout of food
poisoning this
past week, but was out on Friday.

Yesterday we had a great time in church turning folks away from our eleven
o'clock
worship and sending them to our contemporary worship service. The sermon was
called
"When Life Paid Death a Visit," and I took folks on a tour of Eden and reminded
them that
through the first Adam, death paid life a visit, and it wasn't until the second
Adam, Jesus,
that life could pay death a visit. Ours is the victory as we trust God's desire
to be in
relationship with us and to walk with us all our lives.

We talked about our reluctance to talk about our own death and how Easter is
about our
trusting God that even in our death, God is with us and we have nothing to fear.

At our Good Friday service we had someone (maybe more than one) who said that
after all
these years the idea of forgiveness did not sink in until a service such as the
one we held.
It was very Wesleyan to hear someone say, I finally realized that Christ had
died for even
my sins!

Amen. And on Sunday, He rose again to give us complete victory over sin and
death!

PRAYER: Father, for lives touched and transformed, we give you thanks. May the
Resurrection Event be ours now and forever. Let my life touch others this day
and all days.
I pray in Christ Jesus' Name, amen.

Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!

e.v.

SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

Good day dear friends.

Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday.  In fact, it's the last game of the World Series.  It is the final game of the Final Four, the final game of the World Cup (most of the world participates in that!), and the last game of any championship game you want to compare it to.  It is Resurrection Sunday.  Easter to others.  Jesus rose from the dead.  It is the birthday of the Christian Church, it is the affirmation of life winning over death.

Name it what you will, God acted on your behalf and mine, to rid the world of sin and death.

What have you done about it?

Santa, The Easter Bunny, a man in distress

Good day dear friends.

I don't know if we can attribute this to March Madness or simply keeping Austin Weird, but it was on Saturday we were at Austin's Barton Creek Mall.  Our son-in-law, Eric, is a police officer in that sector of town.  We were making our way to the mall entrance to Sears (it's part of our ritual walk that takes us to Sears' yummy flat screen tv display), and I notice that there is what appears to be a tall, slender, homeless man, walking in the Sears entrance wearing only his tidy whiteys.  As I approach I notice he is wearing pants, but they're around his ankles.  It was then I notice that there was a display of what may have been Sears credit card applications thrown all around the floor and there were two mall security officers motioning all who approached to go through their upstairs entrance.  Our daughter Carli calls Eric to see if he is the officer that certainly has to be on the way.  Eric responds that there is a call from the mall but that another officer was responding to that call.  But being a cop he wants Carli to give him full details of the situation.  Carli covered the phone and said, "He's in Cop Mode!"  We laughed because we know the Cop Mode.  Eric is a happy-go-lucky guy when he's not in his uniform and on duty.  The first time I rode along with Eric it was in Galveston when he was on duty and I was surprised and amazed, and yes, impressed with the Eric I was riding with!  Back to the situation.  We stayed for a bit longer than I think the mall cops wanted and the Austin police did arrive soon there after, but we were being strongly encouraged to enter Sears from upstairs.  We moved upstairs. From there we could sit see the situation.  What makes this even stranger was that as I looked to see who had moved upstairs to continue viewing the situation, there was, I kid you not, a man with a Santa cap looking down.  I pointed that out to my family and as I turned my gaze towards Sears, the Easter Bunny came walking out of Sears.  Yes, the costumed guy who poses with kids for their Easter pictures came walking out and I remembered I was in Austin!

Yesterday was Palm Sunday and we were so blessed to have such a great group of kids participating in the procession of palms.  So many kids waving their palm branches and a time for reflecting on what God did through Jesus during this week.  Yesterday's entrance was a culmination of all the events in which the rumored rabbi made his way into Jerusalem putting a face on the one who had done so many unexplainable things.  The sadness coming in knowing that most of the ones who shouted Hosanna on Friday cheered for Jesus' death.  The one question I had to posed to the congregation at 11 was:   If  a parade were held in your honor, how many people would line for you?  How many people have you touched during your life for the benefit of their faith?  

I also announced to all three services that Nellie and I are leaving San Marcos.  I will be the senior pastor at First UMC in Harlingen, Texas.  We have mixed feelings as we leave our grandbaby behind.  We would appreciate your prayers during this time of transition.  We also ask prayers for the new pastor who will be named publicly soon.

YOU CAN TAKE IT WITH YOU BUT IT WILL MELT!

Good day dear friends.
"But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;Matt. 6:20
Part of our Lenten Journey should be about what we have received and what we should be giving. Many of you have "given up" something, say a daily cup of very expensive coffee or a soft drink. You have, no doubt, replaced it with a spiritual discipline in its place and you are being blessed. But where has that extra $3.45 or $1.09 gone?
Monday and Tuesday I attended the last Bishop's Convocation with Bishop Joel Martinez. He invited a couple of presenters to come and speak about re-igniting our ministries and on the last morning he himself presented his thoughts on the theme. It was the second presenter that spoke of stewardship and the line in the subject of this devotional thought. After years of ministry he reached the point where he would tell his congregation, "You can take it with you, but it will melt!" Think about it...here it comes. Did you get it?
Jesus said our treasures should be "stored up" in heaven, where nothing can destroy them; to try to hold on to our treasures is to live a life where heaven does not matter and to die with our money may make our money melt. (Those of you that still don't get this, please ask somebody!).
Okay, here it is: Are you storing up treasures in heaven or will you try to take it with you to the fires of hell?
PRAYER: Loving God, You have shown us how to live and how to give. You sent Jesus to further show us and to pay the price for our sinfulness. May we not take anything nor You for granted. Let me live a life that reflects heaven, not the place where we are aliented and separated from You for all eternity. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
e.v.

WHAT WOULD YOU PREPARE?

Good day dear friends.
Here is our text for today: 1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me." (John 12 NRSV).
Entertaining guests for many is fun. For those who love to cook it is especially challenging to prepare the best you know how to prepare and with hopes that your guests will be surprised and delighted that they were invited to your home. Who your guest is makes a big difference in the kind of meal you prepare. If it is your family, it is special, but if your guest is your boss and you're wanting a promotion, that makes it a bit more special and stressful. But what if your guest was one who brought you back from the dead? Such was the case in this text up above; Jesus was in the home of Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary. I think they pulled out all the stops in preparing a meal that, I can't resist, was out of this world! Yet, here is the home where Jesus had been before and already there had been seen a difference between the two sisters. Martha was the cook and chief bottle washer. Mary was not so inclined to the kitchen as she was towards knowing more about the spiritual. On one visit, Martha asked Jesus to order Mary to go and help with household chores; Jesus replied that Mary was seeking that which was important. And now, Martha is again serving and making sure all the guests have their food and Mary wanders in with another chore in her heart.
Mary has brought in a pound of very costly perfume and began to anoint Jesus' feet with it and then dried it with her hair. This filled the house with the fragance of the perfume. I am sure Mary asked herself, "Is this enough? Have I done enough? How can I ever thank the man who talked to me about spiritual things and then brought my only brother back from the dead?" In her mind I think she knew she could never do enough.
We can never do enough for the man who has talked to us about spiritual things and who will raise our loved ones from the dead, ourselves included. But that does not mean we give up and just say, "Oh well, I can never do enough!" On the contrary it motivates us to do all we can, everything we possibly can, to show our love for God and for others.
PRAYER: Lord, I realize I can never do enough, but I will do what You would have me do. Let my life be an exercise in showing my gratitude for all You have done. I pray this in Jesus' Name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
e.v.