Author: Jon Gauger

Mutts Gone Nuts.

That's how they billed the evening.  Five dogs—all rescued from animal shelters and trained by Scott and Joan Houston and Sam Valle—delighted the audience with their antics and agility. 

We smiled as the dogs scampered on rotating barrels.

We chuckled as these furry friends danced on two legs. 

Then trainer Samantha Valle—who has appeared on Kelly and Ryan—introduced us to the greyhound that holds the record for the highest jump of any dog in the world.

But the thing that blew my mind was watching one of the dogs jump rope and then do Double Dutch jump roping!  I can't imagine how long that training took.  Amazing to think that these dogs have gone from shelter to show biz. 

Remarkable as the performance was, I couldn’t help but notice the immediate rewards doled out to each dog after every trick.  Tasty snacks of some kind. I'm sure the dogs are plenty good-natured (and certainly hard working). But, they did not do what they did out of a sense of animal altruism. They did it for the treats.

As those mutts finished their performance, I felt a gnawing in my soul (and no, it wasn’t a dog!).  Exactly how much like those dogs are you and I? I’m not speaking of our agility—I’ve never been good at jump rope!  I’m asking—do we do what we do for God only because of the “treats” we expect Him to give us?

Do we spin and jump through hoops only for the hope of an immediate reward, a spiritual buzz of some sort?  Or worse, do we secretly do what we do merely to keep up appearances?  Are we trying to impress fellow Christians (in a “golly-it-wasn’t-much”) fake humility?

There is nothing wrong with the hope of eternal rewards. We should be thinking about them, even motivated by them.

But there is everything wrong with a soul that demands instant pay-outs, instant affirmation, instant treats.  God forbid we try to hammer grace into gratification on the anvil of our need.

 

Lord, help me do what I do because I love you.

Not so that you’ll give me something more.

Amen!

 

You probably never met Manish Sukhadev.  He recently succumbed to the Coronavirus wave sweeping over India. But before he died, Manish lived.  Really lived.

He was an Awana missionary in central India, and that’s where I met him back in 2011.  Born a Dalit—India’s lowest caste—he was a short guy with a big smile and an impish laugh.

Manish was one of those guys who was “on” 24 hours a day.  He was never not a missionary. Flipping through our India photos, one of my favorites is a shot of Manish parked on the cement floor with someone he had just met—and was trying to witness to. Because this guy sat on the floor, Manish sat on the floor.  Anything to show kindness and the love of his Jesus.

Manish was as tireless as he was fearless.  He thought nothing of riding crowded trains for hours or days to “sketchy” locations to teach or preach or lead Awana meetings. And he was bold to ask for prayer. Here are a couple of reports he shared on Messenger:

• This week we had an amazing time ministering to Children in two different churches of Indore.  During VBS, God gave us an opportunity to lead ten children and seven youths to Jesus. What a joy in heaven when we see those souls follow you!

• This week our ministry is in an orphanage with children affected by leprosy.

• Had the privilege of meeting a servant of God who was put in jail for the cause of the Gospel. In a couple of hours, our family will be traveling to Neemuch to minister to girls rescued from prostitution. May I request you to keep us in prayer? Thanks.

• Had an amazing meeting with first-generation Christians who are also church planters.  They have never been to Sunday School. When they heard about it, they got so excited about it. They have a plan to do Awana and Sunday School teachers training in the next couple of months.

Given a chance to sum up his life, I think he might use the exact words he shared in a report to his prayer partners:

• Was a joy to share the Gospel which changes the life of many.

Don’t you want to grow up to be like Manish?

I do!

Did you watch the American Country Music Awards last weekend?

Despite having fewer viewers than last year, the ACM awards show still drew a larger audience than its network competitors combined.

Though I like a lot of modern country music, award shows are not my thing.  But I’m so glad Diana was watching. I was working on a sermon in my office when the sounds of Amazing Grace echoed down the hall.

Sauntering into the family room, I watched Carrie Underwood proclaiming, "was blind, but now I see!" Then gospel music legend CeCe Winans joined her for a stunning rendition of Great is Thy Faithfulness. As the hymn medley continued, a choir joined in on The Old Rugged Cross, which transitioned into a spectacular performance of How Great Thou Art.

Was this really happening?  A playlist of choice hymns sung on the CBS network—not some Christian cable channel?  It was hard to believe. 

Against the powerful current of a culture that (to my ear) seems to be shouting its rejection of Christianity, here was this island moment of worshipful hymns.

It’s easy to grumble about the direction in which our country is headed.  Easy to be a pessimist.

There is much which ought to alarm us about our culture. Still…still…for five minutes, the nation watched (more than six million of us) and listened to a message that stands timeless against all the hate and violence of our day.

Yes, America is broken.

Yes, we’re on a dark path.

But somehow, we ought not to let things like this pass us by.

Let’s not forget to celebrate the good things.

This good thing.

Me?  I stand with Carrie Understood and sing to our God, “How great thou art!”

Do you enjoy routine maintenance?
 
I don’t, for two reasons: “routine” and “maintenance.” There is nothing fun about either one.
 
In my experience—and perhaps yours as well— routine maintenance is rarely routine. Drive your car in for a "routine" oil change, and they invariably present you with an $850 list of "critical" issues you "absolutely must address!" Stroll into the dentist's office for a "routine" check-up, and you walk out with a $1,500 quote for a crown.
 
Last weekend, we decided we'd be good homeowners and clean out our dryer vent—routine maintenance recommended at least annually. But the cleaning brush never made it out to the vent, no matter what I did. Creeping across our cobweb-covered crawlspace, my worst suspicions were confirmed. The dryer duct lay on the cement—connected to absolutely nothing. Was it ever fastened to the outside vent?  Maybe. But shoddy workmanship had created a new headache.
 
Two hours—and one trip to Home Depot—later, the dryer duct disaster was finally over. Routine maintenance—yeah, right.
 
I suppose that same avoidance attitude might well hamper me when it comes to spiritual maintenance. For those of us who went to the school of If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It, the Bible has instructions otherwise. What if we emulated David's schedule for heart maintenance? In Psalms 139:23-24, he prayed, "Search me, God, and know my heart; put me to the test and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there is any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.”
 
That doesn’t sound like a five-minute task, does it? Inviting God to do His routine maintenance—to search my heart—could get very messy very quickly. I'm smart enough to know there's stuff there that shouldn't be there, but not smart enough to know the full extent to which I'm offending the Almighty.
 
Like I say, routine maintenance is rarely routine. But what’s the alternative, spiritually speaking?

• A heart of stone.
• A soul adrift.
• A wasted life.

 
Routine spiritual maintenance may not be fun. But neither was Calvary.
 
Got any spiritual maintenance scheduled?

How big does something have to be for you to consider it giant-sized?  For cereal makers, the answer appears to be “not very big.”

Consider two boxes of cereal in my hands (see photo below). On my left is what Quaker calls a “giant” sized box of Life cereal. In my right hand is what Kellogg’s considers a “mega” sized box of Frosted Shredded Wheat (don’t judge our cereal choices, please—that might be another blog).

I’d say that one box is certainly full-sized—-maybe even large. But mega? No way! The “giant” box of Life cereal weighs in at 24.8 ounces. Yet a quick bit of research shows the average cereal box weighs 25 ounces  In other words, Quaker is trying to tell me its slightly smaller-than-average cereal box is giant!

But if something is “giant size” or “Mega size,” shouldn’t that be obvious? Do we need a label to tell us? Beware bold and braggadocios claims.

That same warning holds for our spiritual lives. I confess I’m guilty of labeling my smallest sacrifices, my tiniest obediences, as giant size. Even if I never verbalize these thoughts, they exist nonetheless, somewhere not too far off in my unholy subconscious. Those inflated claims of our spirituality permeate most everything, don’t they?

Wonder how often my words are bigger than my testimony. The love I have for Jesus, I assert, is King size.  But is it? Or is it something smaller—something way less?

The real measurement of my spirituality is not the distance between my waving arms during Sunday worship but how close my steps are to Jesus on Monday. And Tuesday. And beyond. The greater the distance between our steps, the smaller the true size of my love for Christ.

 

Lord, help the labels I put on my life match the love I’ve placed at your feet.

Flipping through The Ultimate Book of Randomly Awesome Facts, I stumbled upon the following statistic:

The total amount of money in the world adds up to 60 trillion dollars.  That’s a 60 with a whole lot of zeroes!

John D. Rockefeller was the world's first billionaire and, at one point, the world's richest man. Since he was a billionaire in the early 1900s (when a billion was actually worth something), he is still regarded as the wealthiest person in modern history. When a reporter asked him how much money it takes to make a man happy, Rockefeller famously replied, "Just one more dollar."

Michael Norton, a Harvard Business School professor who has studied the connections between happiness and wealth, published the results of an intriguing study. He and his collaborators asked more than 2,000 people who have a net worth of at least $1 million (including many whose wealth far exceeded that threshold) how happy they were on a scale of one to ten, and then how much more money they would need to get to ten.

Norton commented, "Basically, everyone says they'd need two or three times as much to be perfectly happy."  Really?  A millionaire needs two or three to be perfectly happy?  Someone with 10 million “needs” twenty or thirty million?

Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was right when he said wealth is “like seawater: the more you drink, the thirstier you become.”

But lest we sneer at Rockefeller's ingratitude, we'd best inventory our own hearts.  Greed and ingratitude are twin sins that find shelter in nearly every crack and crevice of our twisted souls.

In 1Timothy 6:6,7, Paul reminds us, "But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it, either.”

How much money does it take to make you happy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The phone screen says the same thing every morning. As I swipe to look at yesterday's step count, it speaks of the new day just begun, "No data." Meaning, I haven’t taken a single step (okay, not technically true—it’s about 50 steps from my bed to the phone in the office). The point is, there’s nothing to report. Hence the statement, “No data.” But that doesn’t last for long.

Like many folks, I’m hounded by the daily drive to get those magical ten-thousand steps in. So when working at home, having finished early morning devotions, I’m off for a 40-minute walk.

That’s a great start. But it doesn’t get me to my goal by any stretch. So, like you—though maybe you use a Fitbit—I’m constantly checking in to monitor my step count.

If you were to accuse me of being a bit obsessive on the step count thing, there would be little in my defense (did I mention I manually add those 50 steps from the bed to the phone—to make sure they’re tallied?).

In the world of heart health, counting your steps is huge. But when it comes to spiritual heart health, the metrics are different. The question is not how many, but what kind.

Look at your life—today's schedule, for example. Where will those steps take you—toward serving self or serving your Savior? As you look back on yesterday, did your steps lead you to “the least of these” or “more for you”?

Jesus is not looking at the quantity of our steps, but He is very concerned about the quality. Ultimately, the issue is one of destiny. Am I walking toward the kingdom of God, or walking toward the kingdom of me?

Back to the phone (or your Fitbit) for one last thought. Once I turn out the light and fall into bed, that day’s steps are “done.” No chance to add more. The record is there.  A thousand days—or a thousand years—from now, the steps I take today will be what they are. Same is true spiritually. Better walk wisely!

 

Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me.

-Psalms 119:33

Call it a case of nostalgia.  Or maybe it’s proof of our advancing age.  Many of us miss the America that was kinder and gentler toward folks who revere the Bible and its Author.  We miss the old country.

That’s well and good to a point.  The problem is, I want that country too much.  Maybe you, too?  We’re not the first. 

I'm pretty sure believers in the first century longed for the "old country" of safety once persecution broke out. But that didn't stop them from taking a stand for Christ. Noting their legacy of endurance, Hebrews 11:16 says of them, “they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”

I suspect that for many of us, the real problem is, we want heaven down here—not up there.  Of course, as Christians called to be salt and light, we should do whatever we can to preserve what is right and good about America. But not to the extent we forget this earth is just a stopping place, a campsite for a season.

Sadly, many of us seek the continuance of our comfort and the certainty of our safety more than the hope of heaven. We want our old country more than the new country, heaven. We must set our sights higher!

The antidote is to read about heaven, ponder heaven, talk about heaven, invest in heaven, look for heaven—and live for heaven.  That’s the new country—where your forgiveness, your salvation, your rewards, and your Savior can never be canceled!

Where is your heart set—the old country or the new?

 

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.   —Hebrews 11:16

Who would believe it was even there?

In the first week of March?

Under a pile of melting snow?

A weed!

Not just any garden variety nuisance, this was a tuft of the dreaded Creeping Charlie, the wicked weed that battles us for lawn supremacy every summer.

Diana and I were raking off the flower beds in our front yard when we spied the modest growth. With no small sense of grim and grit, I pried the thing out of the soil. Satisfaction was mine!

Until I found another. And another. Yanked those out, too. The war against Creeping Charlie is not to be taken lightly. Yet, I am firmly resolved, totally dedicated. Let the turf wars begin!

I wish my sense of battle were as strong when it comes to our struggle with sin. But we are not alone. Puritan John Owen wrote an entire book on "The Mortification (killing) of Sin." He asks,

Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it while you live;

cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.

Like the Creeping Charlie I think I’ve eradicated from the flower bed, sin comes back. It always does. There is never a day when you or I can rest from the task of “killing sin.” But to cease the fight is to lose the fight.

Former Moody Radio Pastor Donald Cole once told me, “the fact that you struggle with sin is not a thing for discouragement—it’s evidence you’re on the right track. It’s when you stop fighting that you have a problem.”

John Owen’s words are worth repeating: Be killing sin—or it will be killing you.”

Let the turf wars begin!

 

“For if you are living in accord with the flesh, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”   -Romans 8:13

It juts 165 feet into the sky and has lit the coastline since 1874.

The St. Augustine lighthouse is more than just a landmark. It is a tower of living history (its light is still in use today!).

One bizarre chapter of that history unfolded in 1986.  Bullets fired from a .30-06 rifle aimed directly at the light. Those shots ended up shattering 19 prisms in the Fresnel lens. Hank Mears, who served as the caretaker of the light from 1968 to 1989, immediately called the FBI.

After carefully combing the area, agents discovered powder burns on a nearby palm tree.  Eventually, they traced the shooting to a fourteen-year-old kid. The lens needed repair, which required two years of painstaking work.

You have to wonder, who would want to shoot at a lighthouse? Turns out, people have been taking shots at the light for a long time.

Consider the prophet Jeremiah, whose unflinching prophecy got him tossed into a cistern, where Scripture says he sank into the mud. Daniel spent a night with lions. Stephen was stoned outside the city.  For his unwavering beam of light, John had his head cut off. Consider all the shots that Jesus took throughout his three-year ministry—all before being crucified between two thieves. 

People have been taking shots at the light for a long time. And the darker it gets (and the brighter we shine), we can expect to take our share of shots, as well.

But lights were made for nothing other than the darkness!

No point in having a lighthouse for mere decoration. 

I’m not suggesting a hideous fate awaits every one of us. But a proper reading of Scripture demands a certain sobriety. 

Consider Christ’s assessment: “And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light; for their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).

What now? Shall we dig a hole somewhere and hunker down? Here again, the words of Jesus are compelling: "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 4:16).

It’s time to shine!