With this handout, we’re half-way through the book of Acts. We hope you are enjoying these and that they are helping you. By the way, it will be a couple of weeks before we continue, so look for the next handout on June 2.
Acts by the Numbers Chapter 14
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A few weeks ago, we were involved in a blog hop concerning podcasts that we enjoy listening to. If you go back and look through that post, you can see that I listen, via subscription, to a lot of podcasts. In fact, there are a couple more I’d like to subscribe to, but I just don’t feel I have the time right now.
But even if you aren’t a podcast person, today’s post is for you. I recently discovered a free online tool for all those random audio files you find online that you’d like to hear, but you don’t want to keep running around the internet to find them. How can you get them all in one place so you can listen to them whenever you might like?
Enter Huffduffer.
Yes, it takes a couple of steps, but it’s free and very easy. Here’s how it works in 5 simple steps.
1. Create an Account. Visit Huffduffer and sign up, just like you would for any other website. It’s free and I’m not sure they could make it any easier.
2. Add the Bookmarklet. Yes, that’s tech speak, but simply go to the bottom of the Huffduffer homepage, and you will see this text:
If you are using Chrome, I highly recommend the extension. Any other browser, just drag and drop as it says.
3. Surf the Web. Duh. Just like normal.
4. Saving an Audio File You Want to Listen to Later. So, you’re visiting the Lebanon Road Sermons page and you hear their preacher has delivered a masterpiece (must have been when JD or Harry was preaching), but you don’t have time right now to listen to it?
5. Give the file a title and the other information, and that’s it! Now you have that audio file in your Huffduffer account.
Once you have added that file, you can go back to your Huffduffer page and listen any time you want, of course.
Or, you can subscribe to your own feed and have these “random” posts delivered as a podcast! You can do so via iTunes, the new Apple Podcasts app, or just in rss (like I do).
So now, you don’t have to run all around the internet to re-find that one sermon you wanted to hear. You don’t have to subscribe to a podcast to test it out. Just add these files to your Huffduffer account, and you can create your own mix and match of random audio files to listen to whenever you want, however you want.
If you want to see my feed so far on Huffduffer, click here. And, by the way, you can subscribe to other user’s Huffduffer feeds as a podcast, too, if you would like.
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I still remember the conversation. When we lived in Haleyville, funerals were an event. You didn’t plan to just “run into” a funeral visitation, because you were going to be in line. People showed up in droves.
At this service, I was standing in one of those visitation lines and talking to the folks around me. In front of me was a young lady whom we knew very well. At the time, she was about 15 years old, and we were just talking about school and life in general.
Finally, after about 5 minutes of talking, she just said, “This is the first time I’ve ever been in a funeral home.”
I was floored. This was a Christian young lady who was in a town where funerals were an event, and she had never even been in the building! Of course, that led to a conversation about how she was super nervous and didn’t know what to expect.
Now, of course, I have been in funeral homes hundreds of times, sometimes as “the preacher,” but often just as a Christian or family member. Even so, I admit that I still get a little nervous. Preaching funerals is very hard on me, but I am honored to speak. Going to a funeral home doesn’t bother me the way it used to, but it still isn’t totally comfortable.
As much as we possibly can, we take our kids with us. And, before you even think this, we don’t do it because they are the “preacher’s kids” and it’s just what they are expected to do.
It’s because they need to learn Ecclesiastes.
What?
The Preacher of Ecclesiastes wrote, “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart” (Ecclesiastes 7:2).
But our society turns that idea on its head, and tries to hide our children from death, showing them “feasting” (entertainment) as the best way to spend each day. Parents, we need to avoid that.
Keep in mind that Scripture does not teach that we should avoid all forms of having fun and being entertained. There is nothing wrong with enjoying fun activities, and doing so with our children. If that’s all we ever do with them, however, we are doing our children a great disservice.
These reminders of our mortality may cause some struggles and even tears, but they are a grand teaching opportunity for parents.
Teach them…
1. How to be respectful to the grieving.
2. How to show respect around a casket, graveside, or in a special service (like a military service).
3. That life is short.
4. That heaven is promised to the faithful.
5. That it is okay to be nervous…
6. …but we can’t let that keep us from doing what is right.
Parents, please take your children to visitations, funeral homes, and the graveside. As you do, you are building into their lives lessons that are far more important and long-lasting than if we just entertain them all the time.
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Photo credit: Jonelle B. on Creative Commons
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The report out of Cleveland late Monday night was staggering, but joyfully so. As more and more people began to get familiar with the specifics of the story, there was an interesting mix of bliss and horror. After all, how could someone possibly not be found for 10 years when they were right in a populous neighborhood? The families of the victims had every right to think these three young ladies were dead.
Stories like this draw me in. I am amazed when someone who has been lost, especially for an extended period of time, is found. It always makes me feel good for the families. But there is something truly remarkable about stories like this one, where the victims are right in the middle of civilization–right in the heart of a neighborhood–and no one knows about them.
They are hiding in plain sight.
Of course, these young ladies were not “hiding,” in the sense of wanting to be there. They were kidnapped and forced to be in this place for a decade. They were hidden by evil men, and I don’t want to begin to consider all that these women have experienced in the last 10 years.
But stories like this make me think about my own neighborhood, and I think it should cause each of us to think, as well.
No, I am not suggesting that someone in your neighborhood is keeping prisoners in a basement or attic. I’m also not suggesting that we should look at all our neighbors with suspicion because of stories like this.
What I want us to ask ourselves is this: Would I notice if anything different was going on in my neighborhood?
How well do I know my neighbors?
The time was when neighbors did not just take care of each other, they knew each other. If someone was sick or struggling, neighbors were there to help because they knew that something wasn’t right.
As Christians, we may not “catch” everything that goes on (especiallyif you live in a very crowded neighborhood like I do), but should we not be at least trying to know our neighbors? Should we not at least keep an eye out, so that we can be there if a trouble comes?
It could be that we are concerned about being too nosey. Or maybe we don’t want to embarrass ourselves by asking about something and it not being the case.
I think, more often though, we are just too involved in our own little world to care.
Ouch.
We are so busy (and so are our neighbors) that we just don’t make the time to get to know people and get involved in their lives. Yes, I’m writing to myself here, too! I could tell you of a couple of struggles that happened on our very street that I didn’t know about for weeks, and I’m embarrassed by that. Since, I have at least tried to keep up with cars on the street! I can at least know who is home!!!
What neighbor needs some food?
What neighbor just lost a job?
What neighbor has a marriage hanging on by a thread?
What neighbor is lonely?
What neighbor could use someone to run an errand?
What neighbor needs Christ?
You see, you have people who may be hiding in plain sight. Your neighbors need Jesus, but we can be too busy to notice…
…or care.
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Photo credit: Angie Garrett on Creative Commons
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It’s cancer.
We’re going to have to let you go.
There’s nothing more we can do.
We lost her.
I just don’t love you anymore.
When these statements are made, time stands still and everything becomes a haze. And often, if you are normal, the next question in your mind (or even out of your mouth) is Why, God?
In one of my favorite songs, we sing the answer. Carolina Sandell Berg wrote “Day by Day,” in which she placed this wonderful insight:
He whose heart is kind beyond all measure
Gives unto each day what He deems best
Lovingly, its part of pain or pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.
Did you notice the word “lovingly?”
Did God cause the cancer? the divorce? the death?
No! But will God allow us to go through trials in our lives? Absolutely, and He will do so for many and varied reasons. And, if we are honest, we may not see those reasons for a long, long time.
When that news comes that shakes your world to its core, it is perfectly normal and fine to wonder aloud. It is fine to question, so long as we remember that God allows trials in our lives.
Why? Here are five quick reasons that I hope will give you encouragement.
1. To refine us. “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, as was necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith–more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire–may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7).
2. To chasten us. “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? … For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:7, 12:11)
3. To walk with us. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff comfort me” (Psalm 23:4).
4. To give us a way to help others. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
5. To cause us to desire heaven. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there by mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
May we praise God in the midst of trials, since He is able, through His providence, to “mingle toil with peace and rest.” And may we praise Him that we can go to a place where there will be no more toil, but only peace and rest!
And that is exactly what Carolina Sandell Berg wrote in the entirety of her hymn. Here is the entire first verse:
Day by day and with each passing moment,
Strength I find to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,
I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.
He whose heart is kind beyond all measure
Gives unto each day what He deems best
Lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.
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Photo credit: Ishan Manjrekar on Creative Commons
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