Monday, March 20, 2017

gone but not forgotten
























We see signs of life along the road as we travel, but it is the signs of death and struggling to just get by that are found off the highway exits.  Where life may have once begun, where it once thrived, and now sits, waiting to die, and in some cases, dead already, just too poor to know it.  How many old towns have we traveled through in the Midwest, where old buildings and houses are boarded up, and the lots in decay.  Once proud and full of life, they now sit as a testimony to neglect and empty wallets as they are too poor to live, but also too poor to die.  “Why doesn’t someone tear them down, or rebuild them?  They were cool old places years ago?”   But in some cases the cost to raze them isn’t there, if they had the money they wouldn’t be in the shape they are now.  Some cases, the old Packard plant in Detroit comes to mind, the back taxes are so high you can buy the places cheap, if you can afford the taxes.  And the clean up, which many times exceeds the value of the land.  Add to that if it is deemed a historical landmark, it must meet certain criteria....and the list goes on long after the money is gone.
Empty car dealerships dot many old towns, acres of asphalt where once shiny new cars sat waiting for new owners, now the dust and weeds occupy the lot.  Plywood has replaced the showroom windows which were broken out, and graffitti covers anything that can be covered with spray paint.  Artifacts found inside where when the owner finally closed the door, he just left behind.  Old memories of what once was, with only dreams and visions of what they had hoped to be.  Shopping centers, dealerships, businesses, and finally the people who supported them all moving first to the outskirts, then out of town for good.  To places that promise what their old town used to, a life and a future.  Hope and promise, and the old properties just sit, with each year less desirable as the time and weather take a beating on them.  With only our imaginations left to wonder how it once was...and that it will never happen to us.
My Grandma used to think Bangor, Pennsylvania was the best place on earth.  Once rich in slate and covered with mills making clothes, today it is like a town on life support.  Proud old buildings lay in decay, when they stopped using slate for blackboards and roofs, when the clothes were cheaper made overseas, the town lost its purpose and its people, who had to go elsewhere to find work.  Who even though the products made elsewhere were cheaper, couldn’t afford them.  A scene repeated over and over across America.  Towns and people who never started out to end up like this, but who did anyway.  All within eyesight of prosperity and new, but not welcome, for they cannot even afford the ticket price to enter.  A new and different poor that grips America, like scenes once seen of Europe after WWII, the Big One, we believe it can never happen to us.  NIMBY, Not In My Back Yard, we believe.....
But someday the places that are destitute will be bought and new buildings and towns created.  But what of the lives left behind?  What of the poor who cannot clip the coupons for the new market?  Who cannot get financed for the used car?  Who cannot find work in the new businesses, because they are too old, too poor, or too something that society has no use for.  And while they sit begging at the entrances, the fortunate go by and and curse them, “get a job...”  OK,  you hire them.  and drive off safe and secure it will never happen to them.  Roll up the window, turn up the sound and drive away.  Your town could never get like that, or your church.  Could they?  Yet Jesus tells us the poor will always be among us, and we don’t have far to look.  With over 5000 homeless kids on the streets of San Diego, you may pass them and not know it.  But they are not lost to God, only to his people.  To his church, who he condemns in Matthew 25.  While the church, us, is bragging on how many demons they cast out, or how rich they were, the trips to Israel, and the numbers they brag about, Jesus tells them “be gone I never knew you.”  He goes on to tell what true ministry is, giving water to the thirsty, food to the hungry, clothes to the naked, visiting those in jail or hospitals, and welcoming strangers, those not like us.  It means getting your hands dirty, maybe driving someone to  job interview.  Inviting them into your home for a shower.  Yet a church I know of brags of the thousand saved on Easter, yet when I asked them to name 10, 5, or even one, came up blank.  Forgetting it was the one lost sheep left behind that Jesus went back after.  They are rotting from the inside, and not knowing it, bragging on numbers and their back account.  More common than you would think.  Yet Jesus remembers every one of them, and asks us to also.
Did you ever wonder why Jesus threw up because the church was accused of being lukewarm?  It was because it made him sick.  Are we causing Jesus to get sick with our religion?  Have we become like an empty building that once was prosperous but lost its purpose?  God’s purpose for us is to know Jesus.  To become godly, to show his love in all situations.  To be imitators of God, godly, not for show, but from the heart.  He wants us to be godly, not a god, but to show the things of Jesus in our daily lives.  Both good and bad, as all things work together for those who love him, and are called to Christ, his purpose for us.  To be saved.  And when we are, we take on godly qualities, we are strong like him, there is no strength like his.  We get power, quiet and strong, for he is powerful.  We become mighty in him, and get wisdom that comes from above, not from a process, procedure, program, or meeting.  We get it because we have Jesus, and we get all of him, and his blessings.  Blessings that show up nowhere on any balance sheet, except in heaven.  And there we are reminded of Jesus’ “that whoever does these things listed above to the last of them, does them to me.”  That’s godly living...
You can only resurrect that that was once alive.  No matter your condition now, Jesus is with you.  He knows your future, and has plans for it.  To give you hope, to pass it on to others.  Look at your life, and see where it is going.  After looking behind.  Jesus promises these things shall follow them that believe.  Love, joy, peace, and patience.  Things that no money can buy.  While it is true some places are too broke to even be torn down, Jesus has the resources needed for you now.  It is called grace, not a church concept, but God in action.   Grace that gives us life, and teaches us how to live in a fallen world.  Grace is the gift a loving father gives to his children.  The same grace that Jesus says “I give to you.”  Available only from Jesus Christ.  Where life begins and continues long after the outer man and the buildings we live in have gone away.  A pretty face may conceal what is inside, but God knows our hearts.  And he never forgets.
Many buildings are falling apart, but not forgotten, just waiting to be resurrected.  Lives are the same way, why should you wait?  For God so loved the world, that never forgot the individual.  Have you?
love with compassion,
Mike
matthew25biker.blogspot.com