A good reputation passes the sniff test

by Barrett Vanlandingham

June 6, 2017

          The smell of sugar cookies, cigarette smoke, horse or cow manure, you name it!  Every car at the salvage yard my daughter, Gracie, and her friend Blake looked through had a distinct smell. They were shopping for a car for him to fix up and drive temporarily.

          Gracie said it was fun to see (and smell) all the stuff people left behind in their junked cars. Our reputations are sort of like that. Wherever we go, we leave a “smell” in our wake, not necessarily an actual smell, but one of either good or bad character. The Bible is full of examples of both kinds.  

          Luke tells of a woman named Tabitha who died, but who Peter with God’s power brought back to life.  We often focus on the fact that she was raised from the dead. Yes, that’s important, and it helped people believe Peter’s preaching. But what is more important is what we find out about this woman in the very first verse of her story. Luke describes her as “always doing good and helping the poor” (Acts 9:36). You probably know people today who fit this beautiful description.

          In the story of Jonah, we tend to focus more on the fact that he was swallowed by a giant fish after he ran from God and refused to go preach to the people of Nineveh. But in the very first verse of his story, it says that the wickedness of the people of Nineveh “has come up before me” (Jonah 1:1). How would you like to think that your wickedness was so bad that it would go down in history as basically a bad odor that made it all the way to where God himself resides?

          Paul told Timothy that men who oversee the church should live the kind of lives that result in people thinking respectable thoughts about them (1 Tim. 3:7).

          Solomon says that a woman of noble character lives a life that results in her husband being respected by his peers, and her children calling her blessed (Prov. 31)

          We are eventually seen for who we really are, not just publicly, but also privately, and that reputation lingers for a long time.  Have a great week!

Christ-like aroma or odor depends on perspective

by Barrett Vanlandingham

May 30, 2017

          Smells are incredibly powerful.  It was 1973. I still remember sitting in Mrs. Waterfield’s 2^nd grade classroom at Cherokee Elementary in Tahlequah. There was no air-conditioning. Just a bunch of sweaty kids. The windows were open to catch the occasional slightly refreshing breeze. But sometimes it could only be described as a stench.  Those were the hot days when the roof repair crews fired up the old noisy tar kettle right outside. The machine made a low rumbling growl, and emitted smoke that was beyond repulsive to me. I just hated it.

          Then came my teenage years of taking hot summer trips to Six Flags and Silver Dollar City.  The freshly re-surfaced asphalt paths through the parks, the railroad ties and exhaust from the trains and other rides had that same odor I remembered from 2^nd grade! But it didn’t take long for my brain to re-define the smell of tar to almost aroma status! My new memories made me think of happy times, fun rides, friends, and laughing til my stomach hurt.

          The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church about how Christians and the Gospel message we live and teach smell to other people.

          “14 But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. 15 Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. 16 To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?” (2 Corinthians 2:14-16)

          Paul is not saying we should try to be repulsive. He is simply stating the Bible truths we carry will be received in two very different ways depending on whether someone is open to truth. Consistently showing a loving spirit and the heart of a servant will not always immediately translate as an aroma to everyone you meet, but it’s a good place to start.  Have a great week!

Graduation is only the beginning of life's tests

by Barrett Vanlandingham

May 23, 2017

          This past week my son, Britton, was licking envelopes of graduation gift “thank you” cards when I heard him say, “Ouch!  Did I really just cut my tongue on a piece of paper?”  Then he said, “Dad, you should write an article about how one minute life can be just wonderful, and the next minute you cut your tongue!”         

          With as many problems as this world seems to have, it is not because we lack knowledge or wisdom. Sometimes, that information is simply not passed along, at other times we may not take seriously the warnings we receive. We may not apply what we already know. Any of these scenarios set the stage for something bad to happen.

          On top of that, when we cut our tongue (or worse), figuratively or literally, we allow ourselves to be tossed into despair by the fact that too much of our foundation was built on earthly things instead of on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

          You may know the children’s song about the wise man building his house on the rock, and the foolish man building his house on the sand. As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, when the rain and wind came, the wise man’s house stood firm, while the foolish man’s house went “crash!”  (Matthew 7:24-27)

          We know the devil is the great deceiver, and we know our own fleshly desires unchecked can cause us to fall right into Satan’s traps. Temptation is a strange thing, though. Most of the time we can clearly see those things we need to stay away from. The problem is, the devil’s workshop is constantly re-building and re-packaging “gifts” meant to trick and inflict optimum spiritual pain. Sometimes the devil uses our busy-ness and distractions to cause unintentional sins, or even willful sins that we need to confess to God.

          Many things are uncertain in this life, but we can know for sure that none of us will escape dealing with those “gotcha moments”. If you are a Christian, you should already be prepared to react. If you are not, I pray that you will turn your life over to Jesus Christ, and let Him be your unshakeable foundation.  Have a great week!

There are some great spiritual benefits to graduating

by Barrett Vanlandingham

May 16, 2017

          Our little town is about to become a little smaller. 159 seniors will graduate from Fort Gibson High School this week, 17 from my church alone. I know other churches also have larger than normal numbers of seniors, since this year’s graduating class is one of the biggest ever for Fort Gibson.

           If there is a silver lining to having to turn loose of your children, it has to be that our loss is someone else’s gain. It was the same back in Old Testament Bible times when hostile governments would scatter Jews here, there, and everywhere outside of Israel. I am sure it did not seem like a blessing to them or anyone they cared about at the time.  But the scattering of Jews to different cities, regions, and countries would actually set the stage for later, when Christians like Stephen were being persecuted.

          “On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria” (Acts 8:1).

          What a blessing, and the Christians didn’t even realize it at the time. They had an audience already in place who had been scattered before they were. So even as the Christians were running for their lives, relocating to other places, God had provided for them a people who were already well-studied in the Old Covenant, and that met every week in synagogues. The church grew rapidly in the first century even in the midst of persecution.

          I am not under any delusion that every single graduating senior is a believer in Christ Jesus. But I do believe that God’s Holy Spirit is alive and well, and is putting people in just the right places to make a difference for the next generation. Free will always plays a part in specific outcomes, but if the past and present are any indication of God’s creativity for drawing people to him, I have no reason to doubt that many of our children will play a significant role in God’s plan to save as many souls as possible before he returns. Please pray this happens, and have a great week!

Good character lessons from Willy Wonka

by Barrett Vanlandingham

May 9, 2017

          I never really noticed just how many good Bible lessons there are in the story of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. But it became very apparent as I was watching some very talented and energetic Fort Gibson Middle School students perform this musical last week.

          Eighth grader Kinley Wilson, who played the part of Willy Wonka, did a fantastic job with his singing and lines. But there was one line that caught my attention more than any other. It was when Willy Wonka had just finished giving a tour of the factory to several bratty children who had won the tour by finding one of five golden tickets inside their purchased chocolate bars.

          What the children did not realize was this was no ordinary tour. The child who showed good character and followed directions would inherit the entire factory. One by one, each of the five children were disqualified for disobeying instructions.  At the end, only one child admitted their wrongdoing and apologized for it. That’s when Willy Wonka told the child named Charlie that even though he disobeyed, it was admitting the wrongdoing and apologizing that made the difference. So Charlie won the prize.

          Christians mess up just as often as anyone else. The difference is that there is a plan in place so that we are not eternally lost. We all sin (Romans 3:23) though sometimes we are not aware of it. That is when God’s grace comes into play.

          1 John 1:7 says, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

          This cleansing from sin is ongoing. God has qualified us to share in a heavenly inheritance (Colossians 1:11-14).  However, when we choose to sin, and intentionally leave God’s light in exchange for darkness, we put our souls in jeopardy. We are instructed to get back on track, apologize to those we’ve offended, pray for each other for healing (James 5:16), and ask God’s forgiveness (1 John 1:9). In the end, the prize is worth much more than a chocolate factory.  Have a great week!