Clever Free Methodist

  The week of March 28 – April 4, 2021 is known as Holy Week. These eight days are the most solemn and glorious week in all of Christianity…and the world. There are several key events that take place that commemorate the final days of Jesus’ life. We’ll see before us the New Covenant, supreme sacrifice, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Messiah, and Son of God.  Let’s take a look at the events of the week following Palm Sunday : PALM SUNDAY : This great day of proclamation known as the “Triumphal Entry” is Jesus revealing himself, once and for all, to the world that He is the Messiah, Savior and Lord. Jesus is strategically riding on a donkey instead of a horse as a sign. We read in 1 Kings 1:33 and Zachariah 9:9-10 that Kings rode donkey to symbolize that they come in peace and not to wage war. The same is true for Palm trees as the branches were seen as symbols of victory and triumph. People begin to lay down their cloaks and strip palm branches off the ...

  Romans 14:5-6: “In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day is alike. You should each be fully convinced that whichever day you choose is acceptable. Those who worship the Lord on a special day do it to honor him. How to honor the “Sabbath” and what it means to “keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11) is being challenged more than ever before. The Church has struggled to provide a “right time” on Sunday morning to conduct worship services. Many Churches are simply losing people to the fact that Sunday has evolved into more like another Saturday. One of the ways to combat the “Sunday challenge” as a military Chaplain was to visit the Training Office each week to look over the “quarterly events calendar” to plan services and events for the Soldiers at various times throughout the coming three months. Why? Because I already knew that Sunday had become “just another day” and may not be the most suitable time for everyone to attend worshi...

In our Church, I wonder how many people take the time to look on the back of the Worship Bulletin each Sunday to read the short story presented there. One recent bulletin had an interesting article entitled “Fable of the Porcupine.” I would like to share this article that was attributed to an Anonymous author. Here it is : “It was the coldest winter ever. Many animals died because of the cold. The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together to keep warm. This way they covered and protected themselves.” But the quills of each one wounded their closest companions. After a while, they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen. So they had to make a choice: Either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the earth. Wisely they decided to go back to being together. They learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companions in order to receive the warmth that came f...

  Our country and even our churches are being challenged by the friction emanating from various strong emotions that are splintering us into factions and dismantling us into taking sides. The trends over the last year with the Coronavirus, isolation, masking, social distancing, election fraud theories, and events surrounding the US Presidency have us on edge, fearful, angry and confused. Who can we trust? Who can we believe? What should we do? The best place to start to answer those questions is to remember, Romans 12:1 , “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” First , we must get our heads out of the world and stop conforming our beliefs, thoughts and perspectives on progressive world views. The world has an agenda and it will never include God and will always lead us astray. We must stop following. We must stop listening to that message. Secondly , we must place our faith and trust squar...

  Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “A candle loses nothing when it lights another candle.” Sharing. Mentorship. Encouragement. Caring. Giving. Supporting. Like a candle lighting another candle, these words can be used to describe the Christian who cultivates and enriches the lives of another and empowers their local church. This is why 1 Corinthians 13:7-8 becomes so powerful for us, as it states, “[love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. love never fails.” The phrase “all things,” can mean “all-encompassing” to emphasize that love covers “everything” and does not discriminate. Love is never removed, withheld, or adjusted to fit our emotions or how we feel at the time. Love is always active. Love will always involve someone else because love isn’t independent. love is not something we keep to ourselves. Love is given away freely and generously. Love has been and always will be about expressing it towards others and within the church bod...

  Tensions are high. Conversations can sometimes become toxic. Protests. Riots. Fighting. Division. We can probably list more, but we get the point. Since the time that Cain killed his brother Able (Genesis 4:8-16), humanity has developed friction in its relationships and has put prerequisites on the ability to love unconditionally. The last year of Presidential leadership, elections and the inauguration combined with the pandemic of COVID-19, many have become anxious enough to retreat back to their groups of identity where they have become polarized into becoming angry, fearful, and willing to “take sides” against their own families and fellow Americans. Sadly, we see the same patterns developing in the Church. We have allowed the events and the ways of this world to not only distract us, but to pull us back into its ways and ideologies. May we never forget the words of Jesus in John 18:36 , “Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to...

  Santa Claus has to be, without a doubt, one of the most recognizable icons of the Christmas season. But with this status of “icon” comes the annual and seasonable tradition of thinking that this holiday symbol “overshadows” Jesus Christ who is the true meaning being Christmas. Instead of thinking of Santa Claus as some blasphemous replacement for the baby Jesus, I honestly feel we can use the characteristics of Santa to teach those who don’t know Jesus Christ is a wonderful lesson about the Divine Majesty of God. It is God’s Divine Majesty that has perplexed the world for centuries. It is hard for our human minds to fathom that a Holy God would take on human flesh. As Martin Luther was noted as saying, “The mystery of the humanity of Christ, that He sunk Himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding.” That is why we turn to jolly old Saint Nicholas. The one true God who gave us Jesus (John 3:16-17) can be discovered and the concept of Him becoming flesh, can be...