The Bottom Line

Have you ever been guilty of disobedience? Did your parents or a teacher ever tell you to do something and you didn’t do it? Maybe you just didn’t want to do it or thought you had more important things to do.

Disobedience to those who have God-given authority over us is a serious thing. “So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished” (Romans 13:2) This is a really bad situation because it’s actually disobedience to God. In fact, disobedience to God is the definition of sin. Sin is the root cause of all the pain, suffering, and death in the world. “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23). But physical death will not be the end of it — there is still hell to pay in eternity. We need to realize how serious disobedience (sin) is.

Since everyone has sinned and is under the curse of sin, God tells us in the Bible how He sent Jesus to die as a sacrifice for sin. We can be forgiven of our sins if we will trust what Jesus did and submit to His authority. It’s a wonderful experience to be out from under the curse and burden of sin and death! We will still die physically, but go to a heavenly home in eternity.

What does God want us to do after we are free from the curse of sin? He wants us to live a life of obedience to His voice and do what He teaches us through the Bible. Did you know that obedience is the highest form of worship we can give God? He doesn’t care as much for our praise songs as He does for our obedience. Partial obedience is not obedience at all (read the account of King Saul in 1 Samuel 15). God knows we’re not able to obey Him using our own willpower. We’re too weak and our old habits are too strong for us to break. So He promised to give us His Holy Spirit to live in our spirits to help us. If we’ll cooperate with Him, together with the Holy Spirit, we can be obedient to God.

The longer we live in obedience the more we understand God and how to walk with Him. We learn His priorities, how to hear His voice, how to pray and understand His Word. You will learn that His first priority is not our comfort. He is not our genie in a bottle. We are His servants in His kingdom. We’re to be doers of His commands to accomplish His will on earth. With that perspective, we see that many of our prayers are selfish, so we shouldn’t wonder why they’re not answered. “And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure” (James 4:3). 

When we’re confronted with the truth, there are two ways we can respond. We can become angry and reject it, or we can become humble and repent. Repentance will raise us to a higher level of godly character.

The Bottom Line: Make obedience your highest worship to God every day.

Pastor Jimmy Tucker

Diamond Community Church

On The Go

“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Mark 16:15

Lois is a secretary. She was recently laid off. She worked for a business that shut down because the government said it was “nonessential.” Because she lost her job, she can barely make ends meet. Her husband left her. She has a son in rebellion. Her life is spinning out of control. She cries out for help. We don’t hear.

Stan works in a local factory. Even though he has a job and is surrounded by people, he feels alone. The mask that his employer requires him to wear makes him feel even more isolated. He longs for a friend. We are deaf to his cries.

Ed owns a gas station in town. His wife died last month. Because of COVID-19, the family couldn’t even have a funeral. Ed has struggled with depression since his wife passed away. His eyes echo his loneliness, but we don’t see. He misses her listening ear. If only there were someone who would talk to him, but our ears are closed.

Hattie lives in a local assisted care facility. She has lived through so much in her eighty-five years, but she has never seen anything like what is happening in the world today. For the past two months, she has felt like a prisoner. Hattie has been locked away in her room. Even her meals are brought to her. The only people she sees are the nurses and orderlies that come by two or three times a day. At first, a few family members and some friends from church called to check on her, but those calls have stopped. Secretly, Hattie longs for death, but we don’t care.

We saw our neighbor, Lois, sitting on her porch across the street, but we didn’t say, “Hello.” We saw Stan at work, but because of “social distancing,” we didn’t even speak. We filled up the car at Ed’s gas station, but we were in too much of a hurry to chat. Hattie is our grandmother, but who has time to call. We had to hurry home to have the “perfect” ending to our self-centered day. So, we kick back in our chair with a bag of Doritos and binge-watch “Tiger King” on Netflix as we pat ourselves on the back for “staying home and staying safe.”

Jesus told us to, “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to everyone.” However, we are in such a hurry to “go,” that we miss the very ones whom God brings into our path. All around us there are hurting people who are longing for a “cup of cold water” in Jesus name.

You see, this world has a problem that is much worse than the coronavirus. This world has a sickness called sin. Sin has a one-hundred-percent mortality rate. Each of us has this disease and it is killing us. However, there is a cure. God was “socially isolated” in heaven where there was no sickness, but He came to earth in the Person of Jesus Christ. Jesus entered a pandemic – a sin-sick world. He was crucified and died on an old rugged cross. His dead body was buried, but three days and nights later, Jesus rose from the dead. And the cure for sin-sickness is the gospel – the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The point is: If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are to “go” and share the gospel, but you don’t have to be a missionary overseas. Open your eyes to the people God has put in your path. Speak to your neighbor. Be a friend to that guy at work. Pay attention to the man behind the counter. Call your grandma.

You could be the person God uses to change a life, forever.

James Collins is the pastor of Fort Scott’s First Southern Baptist Church. For more information on his ministry, go to the website www.fortscottfsbc.com.

A Catholic priest and a Methodist pastor from two local churches are standing by the side of the road, feverishly pounding a handmade sign into the ground with a large rock. The sign reads: “The End is Near! Turn Yourself Around Now Before It’s Too Late!”

As a car speeds past them, the driver yells, “Leave us alone, you religious nuts!”

From the curve they hear screeching tires and a big splash. The pastor turns to the priest and asks, “Do you think the sign should just say ‘Bridge Out’?”

Have you ever met a person who has a knack for complicating things? The other day, as some of us were visiting-while-distancing on our deck, a woodpecker began thumping away on a nearby tree. “Jon” was the first to locate the intruder. “He’s right there,” pointing to where he spotted the bird. None of us could follow his finger’s guide. “Right there. Go up to the first branch. Then it splits a little and goes a different direction. Follow that aways and then go right. To the left of that is the bird, hiding behind the leaves.”

T.M.I. Now it was my turn. I simply followed the sound of the pecking…and put on my teacher hat. “Follow the trunk to the height of our deck. Where the first branch splits to the left, follow it about five feet…” Specifics.

You get what I’m saying if you ever have tried to learn a new card game when the explainer cannot start at the beginning or dumb it down. My frustrations are in high gear whenever we play games with a certain, unnamed family member named Dave who has a tendency to assume that we get what he is saying. Although I’ve played the game 100 times, even I am confused. Most times, our kids or grandkids or friends will turn to me and ask for an interpretation…a dumbed-down interpretation. (I do not take that personally.)

Recently, I’ve been asked to give my opinion on a doomsday video that is circulating, prompting people to question if we are in End Times, and last night a friend forwarded an email in which a leading doctor proposed the Covid-19 is a conspiracy to depopulate the world. Both were way above my retired paygrade, so I forwarded them to brilliant friends who could “dumb them down” for me and give me their take on what they heard.

I quickly learned that some people are incapable of simple explanations. There was one, however, whose brilliance did not deter her from speaking at my level. (No comments necessary.) Line by line, she presented facts opposing what the reader had presented. Analysis such as “a sweeping generalization without one shred of evidence” or “If truth is subjective then each group has their own truth,” etc. were specific to the writer’s critique. Perfect! I copied and pasted her response to my doubting friend…who answered, “So what if truth is subjective?” Round and round we go.

After several days of watching videos, seeking experts’ opinions and attempting to explain the fallacies in what I was seeing/reading, I knew it was time for something drastic. The “bridge is out” story gave me my answer. People needed to “turn themselves around before it’s too late.” Period. I would do what I do best, dumb down my answer and share this: “I want to focus only on Jesus, and every minute I spend analyzing end-of-the-world theories is one less minute I have to think about him.”

Actually, that’s not dumbing it down at all. That might be the smartest thing I’ve said in my entire life.

“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Matthew 6:14-15

My mother died on Mother’s Day. I was only a child when she died. It’s been over forty years now, but I still miss her. I suppose that as long as I am on this earth, I always will.

When I think back on that time, which I inevitably do every year around Mother’s Day, one thing sticks out in my mind. I remember on the day my mother died, family members came to our home and divided up her things. Everybody wanted a family heirloom following Momma’s death. Since I was just a child, I was left out. Nothing of my mother’s was given to me. There was, however, one item that I really wanted – Momma’s cookie jar.

The cookie jar was nothing special. It wasn’t an antique. It wasn’t valuable. But, like a treasure chest, so many of my most precious childhood memories were locked away inside the cookie jar. Momma always kept my favorite treats inside – Nutter Butters, Nilla Wafers, Nabisco Famous Cookies, Keebler Cremes, and my all-time favorite – Momma’s Homemade Snickerdoodles. We didn’t have much money and times were tough when I was a kid, but there were always delicious goodies in Momma’s cookie jar.

I watched as an aunt walked out the door with the cookie jar. I thought, “That should be mine. I hate her for taking it.” As time passed, those feelings grew, and I resented her. So, I avoided my aunt. One of the few family ties in my life was broken over a cookie jar.

Years later, I was in the kitchen with my wife, Amanda. She said, “I want to get a cookie jar for the kitchen counter.” When she said that, I told her about Momma’s cookie jar and what it meant to me. Amanda lovingly asked, “Why don’t we try to find one just like it?” I thought that was a great idea. So, we logged on to eBay and ordered a cookie jar identical to Momma’s.

A few months went by and my cousin came to visit. She noticed the cookie jar and asked about it. I said, “It’s a replacement for the one Momma had when I was growing up.” I didn’t know it, but my cousin had the original at her house. Not long after, she gave it to me.

The Lord Jesus Christ once said, “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:15). For years, I refused to forgive a relative for something as silly as a cookie jar. Besides, my aunt didn’t even know that I wanted it in the first place. Looking back now, I realize how childish I was to be so angry and upset. Too many years were wasted being out of fellowship with God and family. Too many years were wasted living in a state of bitterness and unforgiveness.

How many “cookie jars” are there in our lives? How many things, as insignificant as a ceramic cookie jar, in light of eternity, separate us from fellowship with God? How much does a lack of forgiveness keep us from fellowship with other people?

The point is: Let go of your “cookie jar.” I can tell you it’s not worth hanging on to. Forgive and find forgiveness.

It’s what your mom would want you to do.

James Collins is the senior pastor of First Southern Baptist Church. Sunday Service starts tomorrow at 11 am. For more information, go www.fortscottfsbc.com.

We all need a little help every now and then, and sometimes it comes from the most unexpected places. It might be the Walmart employee who wipes down our cart before handing it off to us, or the hardware store salesperson with curbside service so we can buy the shovel to work in our garden, or even a picture like this to lift our spirits.

Let’s face it. Times are tough…uncertain…maybe even a tad bit discouraging. Chances are, if you’re like me, a little spirit-lifter won’t hurt.

But before we get to that, maybe we need to understand where discouragement comes from. The following story explains it well.

It was advertised that the devil was putting his tools up for sale. When the day of the sale came, each tool was priced and laid out for public inspection. And what a collection it was! Hatred, envy, jealousy, deceit or pride…the inventory was treacherous. Off to one side was a harmless-looking tool priced higher than all the rest, even though it was obviously more worn than any other tool the devil owned. “What’s the name of this tool?” asked a customer. “That,” the devil replied, “is discouragement.” The customer asked, “But why have you priced it so high?” The devil smiled and explained, “Because discouragement is more useful to me than all the others. I can pry open and get inside a man’s heart with that tool when I can’t get near him with any other. It’s badly worn because I use it on almost everyone, since so few people know it belongs to me.”

Discouragement does not come from God. It comes from you-know-who, and it shows up in many forms: rejection; impatience; anger; sarcasm; lack of energy; ingratitude; fear; blame, etc. The list is endless. Some people go to bed, put the covers over their heads, and try to sleep it off. Others put on a happy face and play super-Christian. (“Why no, nothing is wrong. Praise God, I’m fine.”). But those who seem to deal with it best understand the source of their discouragement and turn to the One who can make a difference. They find the answer in Ps. 42:11 (MSG)

Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul?
Why are you crying the blues?
Fix my eyes on God—

soon I’ll be praising again.
He puts a smile on my face.

He’s my God.

Our eyes cannot be focused on ourselves and God. When we need a little pick-me-up, it would be nice to have someone pull us from the front and push us from the back, like the toddler in the picture. But there’s a better solution: Begin praising God for His goodness and His blessings, an easy thing to do when we realize Who initiates our “lifting.” As Ps. 30:30 says, I will lift You up, O Lord, for You have lifted me up.

“Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself.” Isaiah 44:24

My life feels like an HGTV show. Our church has been going through a building expansion and remodeling. We recently added a new Family Life Building which is not complete. Construction is currently underway on the interior. The church kitchen and a couple of Sunday School classrooms are torn apart in various stages of remodel. New built-in bookcases are being added to my office. Everywhere I turn, I am tripping over tools and lumber.

At home, it is no different. When our family moved to Southeast Kansas, we purchased a Victorian house which is over 130-years-old. My wife, Amanda, watched a couple of episodes of “Fixer Upper” and somehow the thought got into her pretty head that I have all the skills to renovate our house. Last week, Amanda came into where I was working and said, “Since you have been working on this house, I have really grown closer to the Lord.” I said, “Is that because the beauty of my work makes you think of heaven?” She said, “No, not heaven. Your work makes me think of the other place.”

The problem is our house is crooked – out of level. You can see it in the floors, the ceilings, the roofline, the door jambs, even the window frames. Since I am trying to keep as much of the original materials as possible, it is difficult to use reclaimed wood which is twisted and broken.

I have always admired how a master carpenter can take pieces of salvaged wood and out of them build something beautiful. If you’re human and living on this planet, pieces of your life are twisted and broken. Chances are you have seen parts of your life break apart – dreams, relationships, promises, and hearts. We’ve all experienced broken pieces. Our lives need the hands of a carpenter.

I don’t believe that it was merely coincidence that the Lord Jesus Christ was a carpenter. After all, since the beginning of time, He has been a builder. His hands built the planet on which we stand. His hands built the sky on which we gaze. His hands even built us in the womb. And those same hands that built the universe can take all the twisted and broken pieces of your life and build until your life turns out to be something beautiful.

Your part is to let Him have all the pieces. Bring to Jesus all your brokenness – your sorrows, losses, frustrations, hurts, and wounds. Give Him your broken dreams, relationships, promises, and broken hearts – all of it. Put them all into the Carpenter’s hands. You don’t have to struggle with your life. You can put your life into Jesus’ hands because His hands are the hands of a carpenter. He is the Master Carpenter of life. So, let Him be the Carpenter of your life.

The point is: Today, give the Lord any part of your life or heart that is or has been broken. Then let the Master Carpenter redeem the broken pieces and build your life into something beautiful.

Let Jesus be your Carpenter, and you will be sure it’s built right.

James Collins is the senior pastor of First Southern Baptist Church where “Drive-In” Church will be held tomorrow at 11 am. For more information, go www.fortscottfsbc.com.

When I read that 10,000 New York Covid-19 victims had died, I could not stop thinking about who logs the names of the deceased and tries to find their relatives. About how long the bodies could be stored in semi-truck freezer vaults. About what kind of burial they would receive. To think that this was playing out 1200 miles from where we live in the Midwest seemed unfathomable. A little research led me to Hart Island, the largest municipal cemetery in the United States and burial ground for over one-million deceased.

Since New York law does not allow for the cremation of unclaimed human remains, the mass-grave site near the Bronx is where “indigent,” Coronavirus New Yorkers (who were not claimed from a morgue within 15 days of their death) are now being buried. City officials hope that when this virus ends, families will retrieve their bodies.

Fresh trenches for the deceased are dug with backhoes in a large pit holding 150 pine boxes that are stacked three-high in two long rows. Hazmat-suited workers lift coffins, some with a name and others with “unknown” written in permanent marker and a carved grave number on the lid.

After April 3rd, paid landscaping contractors buried the bodies. For years before then, jail inmates had the unenviable job. What I found most inspiring was that these inmates, themselves knowing the stigma of being “indigents,” had found ways to honor the dead when they asked correction officers to switch the portable speaker from drum and bass to Mozart.

According to the “Washington Post,” Saxon Palmer, a former inmate who spent four months at the end of 2019 burying bodies on Hart Island, shared how he and his fellow grave diggers dignified the bodies they were burying. “As they moved the coffins out of the coroner’s truck, they’d say ‘rest in peace’ or draw a cross on the pine box, or say goodbye. We’d say, ‘Mr. Rothman, this is going to be your last trip here, we’re going to make it easy for you, nice and slow,’” Palmer said. “We just had a conversation with the coffins in a kind of gentle way.”

I admit, up to that point, I had been rankled that several articles used the word “indigent” to describe the dead, knowing that in God’s kingdom, there is no such thing. No one deserves that label. But then I thought, maybe that’s why the inmates showed such compassion. They knew, first-hand, what it was like to be rejected. They knew, first-hand, what it was like to be treated with no dignity. Perhaps some of them even knew what it was like to be innocent yet be victimized by things out of their control. For some of the deceased, it might have been the first time they had been shown that kind of respect.

So, what do we take from this? We need to see others as God does, He who has “crowned us with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5), in spite of how we all are sinners and fall short of His glory. (Ro. 3:23) If He can dignify us (yes, you and me), the undignified, maybe it’s time we learn from the “indigent” inmates. Saxon Palmer gave us a great place to start. Maybe we just need to “make it easy” for others less fortunate than us by striking up a conversation “in a kind of gentle way.”

Before it’s too late.

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Jeremiah 29:11

During the COVID-19 quarantine, I have been going to work each day. However, my wife and kids have pretty much been stuck at home. It seems like they are developing “cabin fever.” Over the weekend, they seemed to be a little cranky especially when I started rationing the remaining toilet paper. They became even more upset when I started cutting their hair. By the way, my wife looks great with a bowl haircut.

In order to alleviate their boredom, I put the kids to work. For the past few weeks, they have been peeling old wallpaper and painting. That seemed to make them even angrier. Since they didn’t like painting, I made them clean out the garage. Guess what? They hated that too.

Because we couldn’t go anywhere, I did my best to come up with a stay-at-home activity the whole family would love. I tried boardgames. I quickly discovered that kids who have spell-check on all their electronic devices are easy to beat at Scrabble. After my forty-second consecutive Scrabble victory, they got frustrated and quit.

Since all the churches are closed, every preacher in America is now a televangelist. So, I thought it would be fun to check out some of the other pastors on YouTube, and I made my wife and kids watch with me. The experience was, well, interesting… If your pastor wears skinny jeans when he shouldn’t, you might want to get a new pastor. If your pastor says his favorite hymn is Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” you might want to get a new pastor. If your pastor is over 30 years old and frosts the tips of hair, you might want to get a new pastor. If your pastor gets more theology from Joel Osteen books than the Bible, you might want to get a new pastor.

Anyway, after watching three or four bad internet preachers, my wife and kids were really agitated. My ten-year-old son, John said, “I’m so bored. I just want to go someplace. I just wish this mess was over and the world would reopen.” I looked at John and said, “I do too, son.”

My family, like most people today, just wants to go somewhere. Right now, it feels like the world has stopped, but that’s not really the case. Every second the earth is moving 18.5 miles in its journey around the sun. Every tick of the clock, you are 18.5 miles away from where you were before the last tick. If you count to 10, you are about 200 miles away from the place you were when you started counting. The earth is always going places. Since you are on the earth, you are always going places too.

Not only is that true physically, but it’s also true spiritually. Every soul is moving either toward God or away from God. You are going someplace. You are meant to go to heaven. That is why God says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you… thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11). God wants to bring you to a good place. Since you’re going places anyway, make sure you’re always moving toward God and not away from Him.

The point is: Even under lock-down, you are going places. It is impossible to stay put. But you have a choice on your direction. You can either move toward, or away from God.

Where do you think you’re going?

James Collins is the senior pastor of First Southern Baptist Church where “Drive-In Church” will be held this Sunday. Find out more information at www.fortscottfsbc.com.