I hope your day is well thus far. I imagine many of you will spend the day at picnics or engage in some other activity involving friends and family. As a child this holiday was known to me as Decoration Day. I remember we would leave Cincinnati as soon as Dad got home from work and travel about 7 hours to Harlan County Kentucky where my parents were born. Back then there was no such thing as I-75. Mom and Dad went to see family still living there and to decorate the graves of loved ones. Precious memories!
Today, the Coopers will enjoy the day with Sister Brenda Conley coming over and grilling out. She is bringing my favorite dessert --- Pineapple upside cake!!! I’ll have two pieces and forfeit my steak. Better yet, I’ll dub my meal Steak & Cake and forget the salad, corn on the cob, and baked potato. Who needs all those carbs?
Do you like the new web site? This is the best way to communicate with a group. Monday Morning With Pastor Vic has grown to over eighty people, and to send it meant entering each E-mail address one at a time. I didn’t mind, but my daughter Michele, who is a web designer, told me there is a much more efficient and better looking way to send these out to you. As I learn these things, there may be a few bumps in the road, but hopefully things will go smoothly, and we can meet each Monday morning.
We had a good day in Church yesterday. As I have told you, May was Mother’s Month from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of St. James City. Yesterday we looked at the mother of Timothy, a dear lady named Eunice. Scriptures do not tell us too much about her; at least not directly. We can, however, look at the result of her parenting as we see what kind of man her son Timothy became. We know that from an early age she taught Timothy a life long love for the Bible. The Scriptures were dear to her and were not just ancient words on paper. To her, and subsequently to Timothy, these words became personal convictions because they had been experienced. This is called experiential learning. Not experimental, but experiential. Experimental learning is where you try the Word of God to determine if its teachings are really true. Jesus said in John 5:39, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” As you experiment with the Scriptures and see that indeed they are of great value in your life, that experimental learning becomes experiential learning. For example, believers are taught that as you pass through the storms of life, Christ will be with you and will sustain you. When you first heard that, you might have believed it simply because you were taught you had to believe what the Bible says, and right you should. However, once you had actually passed through a storm and could sense the presence of Jesus upholding you and lifting you up, you became convinced. It happened to you, it was real! Eunice taught Timothy to assurance. She did not teach him assurance for that cannot be taught. Assurance has to be learned by experiences. She taught him to assurance. She taught him the sources of his experiences were two: Scriptures, and living in them. What a remarkable legacy she left for not only her son, but for believers of all ages. Timothy’s name, evidently selected by Eunice, means, “one who fears God.” That is exactly what she taught him to do and to be.
My car saga continues. Carl’s service told me my intake manifold would be $782.00 parts and labor. They said it would be a major job. I hate spending that kind of $ on a car with 160 thousand miles. I would buy another if I could, but at this time that will just have to wait. Hopefully things will hold on while I save for the repairs. It is going into the shop tomorrow for brakes and an oil change, plus I have a slow leak in one of my tires. Hopefully that is not such a big deal. If these were the good old days of horses, mine would probably be sick and old, so I guess things aren’t so bad! Oh well…..
Don’t forget, write me back. I really enjoy hearing from you, even just a few lines.
