Friday, January 24, 2020

Parables from a Residentail Monk #3

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)


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Parables from a Residential Monk 

Parable of the Wristwatch

God tolerates no rivals to His place in our lives.

He has commandments about it: “No one nor no thing comes before Me in your life.  No one nor no thing gets the applause, affection, and allegiance due Me alone.  I am the one and only Divine who loves you here and now and forever and you will love me back in worship, total trust, and behaviors proving your belief in Me.”

That means no one nor no thing is allowed to distract, detour, dissuade, or delude our devotion to God.

While the White Sox aren’t on the radar, that includes the Bears, Packers, Cubs, and even Yankees; though God has seemed to favor the Bronx Bombers more than most teams over the years.

God-with-skin-on Jesus said loving Him requires everything we’ve got – head, heart, and gut.

The parable of the wristwatch comes to mind.

Long before Apple, Android, IBM, Microsoft, Fitbit, and Star Wars, people wore wristwatches to tell, keep, and be on time.

Like medieval gravy rags that evolved into neckties, wristwatches became very fashionable and distinguished the richer from the poorer.

Winding up springs made the early ones work.

Then came batteries.

Some even came to life by harnessing sunrays.

Of course, like all things made by people, they didn’t always work and had to be fixed.

Skilled people who fixed wristwatches were called watchmakers.

When someone brought in a wristwatch to get fixed because the hands weren’t moving, the watchmaker would say, “Don’t look at the hands for the problem!  Look deeper!”

Long ago in a town much like yours, there was a new pastor who knew that about wristwatches and people.

He knew people were like wristwatches.

When they weren’t working right or how God wanted them to work by His directions in His manual of operations called the Bible, he knew he’d have to look deeper before fixing them.

That was clear to him when people complained about him starting worship services before they got there.

Though most everybody wore wristwatches back then to tell, keep, and be on time, there were many people that thought it was rude to be on time or that their time was more important than everybody else’s time and people should wait for them before starting.

Getting back to fashion, wristwatches come in different colors to tell, keep, and be on time.

There’s black, brown, red, white, and yellow time.

There’s also millennial time; but that’s even harder to figure out than black, brown, red, white, and yellow time.

The pastor was puzzled by people that were always late for worship because they were never late for kickoff, tee time, massage, nails, oil change, barber, beauty parlor, doctor, dentist, or supermarket sale.

So he looked deeper.

He discovered the problem wasn’t the hands.

The problem was in the head, heart, and gut.

He realized it would be hard to fix because some people have more time and energy for everyone and everything but God.

Some people are wound up about the wrong things.

Others need to change their batteries.

So they never stop ticking, everyone needs the Son.



Blessings and Love!

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