Author: Peterloeffelbein

I was at church this morning helping the worship team set up. We sat down to pray, and I was suddenly remembering a Barney Miller episode. It was the one where the sweet older lady was arrested for writing bad checks. She was in the early stages of dementia. She was confused about why she had been arrested. One of the officers patiently explained to her that she owed several thousands of dollars to various people and businesses. She acted as though she understood and said, “well let’s take care of that right now, I’ll just write you a check….”

That is where we all are morally. We are bankrupt but keep writing checks, asking for something or someone to cover us. We think that doing good deeds fills our checking account but according to the Bible, in God’s eyes our good deeds are like, this is kind of gross, like used menstrual clothes, used sanitary devices. Our good deeds are worthless to God, yet we hope to fill up our moral checking account with them, to balance the bad we do with some good deeds. It doesn’t work. It’s like writing a check on an overdrawn account to cover the overdrafts.

There is good news in all this. God himself has said that he can and will and has completely covered our debt. He did this in Jesus, in his death and resurrection. That is why his coming to earth is so important. It continues God’s plan forward.

The apostle Paul said this in his letter to the Christians in Rome, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Romans 5:6-11

He says this later in the same letter, “But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”
Romans 10:8-11

At this time, no matter what the season God is waiting and wanting all of us to receive his gift, the best gift ever, forgiveness of sins, welcome into family and eternal life with him in a place where there are no tears or pain, only love and joy.

I originally posted this on Facebook at Christmas time. God’s gift to us is available 24/7/365. Will you receive his gift to us, to you, today?

If you read stuff I write you will eventually encounter a reference to my truck which I named Rusty. It’s a unique story and the way it came about always reminds me of God’s goodness. I hope you enjoy.

This is the story of how I grew a 57 Chevy pickup from a horn button.

If this were a movie I would start out with a view of Rusty (my pickups name) in his current state and then I would do a fade out to me as a 15 year old checking out my dad’s 55 Chevy 2-ton flatbed. That is how my story started.

My dad worked in auto salvage. Growing up we were never allowed to call his place of business a junk yard, it was a wrecking yard. He never made a lot of money but the one thing he did do was provide each of his kids with a car, our first car, (or truck as the case may be).

My oldest sister was first. She got a 62 Buick Skylark. Next was my brother. His first was a 64 Chevelle Malibu. Sweet ride. My second oldest sister had some trouble with her cars. Her first was a 59 Fiat four door sedan. It had a bent drive shaft so instead my dad got her a 72 Fiat but it kept catching on fire. On a scale of one to ten, that’s not good. Her final first car was a 68 Mustang notch back. This is where people start to wonder what this has to do with a truck and a horn button. Well I was next. I am the fourth of five kids and after I turned 15 I knew what was coming. I started looking around for a vehicle that I would like to drive. At the time my dad had a 55 Chevy 2-ton flatbed truck. I really liked the way it looked but I realized that it would be really hard to parallel park so I asked my dad if Chevy made a pickup that looked like his truck. He enthusiastically said yes. I will always cherish the memory of stepping into my dads world and getting him excited about something that we would share and the look on his face. It was a look that said, “You have chosen well my son”. I didn’t get a lot of those looks so this memory stands out.

My dad was working out of town at the time but it only took a couple of weeks before he called to tell me about the great truck he had found. It was a 57 3100 1/2 ton short wheel base. It had a 283 V8, a four speed tranny and it was a deluxe package truck which meant that it came with the better heater, stainless steel trim around the windows, chrome grill and front bumper. But wait, there’s more, it also had a tube style AM radio, the kind that when i turned it on, it took so long to warm up the tubes and start making noise that i usually forget about it and jump out of my skin when it finally started working.

One draw back to the truck was the color, it was construction yellow. It was another couple of weeks before dad could bring the truck home. In the meantime he tried to clean it up by taking a pressure washer to it, inside and out. He found out pretty quickly that not all of the yellow paint was of the permanent variety, it started peeling in sheets. when he was done the truck was clean but it was also about 7 different colors.

It was a Saturday morning when I first saw it. The morning was bright and sunny and the truck? It was looking leprous. I walked around not sure how I was going to tell my dad that I didn’t want it. He had me get in, the seat was shiny black naugahyde with a wide red stripe up the middle. It was getting better. Dad said to start it. A funny thing happens to a young man when he is suddenly in control of something that is powerful. The truck roared to life and then settled down to a growly purring idle. Something stirred in my chest. I was in love. I kept the truck.

It would take me 2 years to get around to refurbishing the poor thing. I ended up painting the interior and exterior, installing a new wiring harness from JC Whitney, adding some chrome to the engine compartment that my dad had salvaged from a Corvette and throwing on some new tires and wheels. The outside I painted a metallic rootbeer color and the inside, I just took it back to the original gray with a brown dash. I put nylon covered black 72 T-bird bucket seats in it. The drivers had 6-way but I didn’t get a chance to connect it to power.

I didn’t think to take pictures of the finished product. I guess I just assumed that this truck and I would always be together. Unfortunately just two weeks after the paint dried a friend borrowed the truck to do some errands and totaled it. He ran off the road into a ditch and did a rolling flip. The only parts left that were salvageable were the left front fender, the right rear fender and the drive train. Even the frame was bent.

I was devastated and my family and friends mourned my loss along with me. Even my ex-girlfriend (now my wife) was sad for me. My dad immediately started trying to locate parts to rebuild. We found two 57 Chevy parts trucks along with some other assorted parts. The cab proved the most difficult. My cab had been pristine, no rust, no dents, door hinges good but the roll had tweaked it in a spiral where nothing was straight. Finally we found a GMC cab but the dashboard was different in Chevy’s and GMCs so my brother, brothers-in-law, dad and friends set about sectioning a Chevy front half and GMC back half. We were successful. After the surgery the doors opened and closed and all the body pieces fit back together.

I had a roughly assembled shell but I just couldn’t get excited about getting it back on the road. It frustrated my dad so he eventually he started looking for a different truck for me. First he found a 58 1/2 ton with a tired 6 cylinder and a 3 three on the tree. We nick-named him Gus. Gus was very cancerous, the sheet metal resembled Swiss cheese. I decided Gus wouldn’t do. My dad kept him but he kept looking for a suitable replacement. Next he found a 55 Cameo that had had the drive train replaced with early 70’s Chevelle parts, 350 small block and a 3 speed along with the rear-end. I bought this one but it wasn’t really what I was hoping for either.

Eventually my soon to be wife’s cousin offered to buy my original truck and I reluctantly agreed. Maybe a new owner would give it the life it deserved. So I had the Cameo and dad had Gus.

I got married and we got pregnant on the honeymoon. I was attending college at the time so I decided to sell the Cameo to pay for the doctor bill for our firstborn. All I had left of my 57 was a horn button and a hood ornament and I’m not exactly sure how I ended up with those.

We moved several times, had 3 more kids and everywhere we went I took along the horn button and the hood ornament. My kids would ask what they were and would explain that they were off of a truck that I used to have and that they were seeds. Their next question was always “why are you keeping them?” my answer was , “some day I’m going to grow a truck from that horn button”.

Many years passed, the kids went away to college, the girls all found husbands and during the last daughters reception at our house my uncle Jerry saw my “truck seed” horn button sitting on my garage work bench. He got very excited. At the time he was building a 57 Chevy LCF (Low cab forward, aka COE) flatbed to haul his homemade airplane. He had purchased a parts truck to complete his project but both his parts truck and the project truck were missing a horn button. He asked if he could buy it the button, I told him what is was and why I had it and I gave it to him. I thought that that was the end of my 57 Chevy pickup dreams.

Another few years passed and just before my 50th birthday I received a letter from uncle Jerry. He had completed his LCF truck and wanted to get rid of his parts truck. He wanted to give it to me. It was a 57 Chevy 2 ton 6500 with a 261 inline 6 cylinder and a 5 speed with a 2 speed rear end. It was almost complete, he had taken off the light switch, the glovebox door latch and of course it was missing the horn button. I gladly accepted, (my wife not so much). We arranged a weekend to tow it from his place in Cashmere Washington to my house in Ephrata. My son and I showed up and before we chained the truck to the tow rig uncle Jerry took me into his palatial garage and handed me a round silver object. It was my horn button. He had found another one and didn’t need mine.

After towing it home I realized what a big job it would be to get my behemoth bock on the road. The tires alone would cost a small fortune. Months turned into years as I vacillated between selling and keeping the truck. I advertised it several times on Craigslist and on Stovebolt but no takers. As I pondered what to do my wife was getting increasingly impatient for me to get it moving, either driving or towed away.

In order to make any improvements on my truck, (I named him Elmer) I was going to have to come up with some sort of currency. I have never had a lot of extra cash to spend on hobbies but one day I came upon a brilliant solution, I would try to trade for stuff. I went onto Craigslist and found a guy selling a rolling 55 Chevy SWB frame. I had some guns that I didn’t need and my wife didn’t want around so I offered to trade. He took the bait and soon I was the proud owner of 55 frame.When he arrived I immediately notice that the rims were 5 lug, 57 Chevy pickups are 6 lugs so the front hubs and the rear end had been updated. This was a shock but I wasn’t going to let that deter me. I knew from the internet that many guys had mounted their trucks on other frames, like Chevy S-10s but that required fabrication and I am short on fab skills. I saw this frame as the perfect solution. The cab and front sheet metal would be a direct transfer along with the drive train.

I called around and found someone who would recycle the big frame and even offered to help move the cab over from the old frame to the new. A good friend, Steve Argo offered to help swap over the drive train and then a couple weeks later my brother-in-law Kelly Ledgerwood and the recycler team lifted off the cab and switched the frames. A couple of weeks after the parts moving around the frame was hauled off to be turned into 5 or 6 Hyundais and maybe a Kia or two.

The next issue was that the steering column wasn’t going to fit, the big truck parts were just too big. I went back to craigslist and found a steering column. The owner was asking $225? Again short on cash I offered to trade an acoustic base guitar that I had sitting around. The guy went for it. the column had recently been rebuilt and worked well. I had to buy the electrical stuff, horn and signal light switch (thanks LMC) but I soon had a complete steering column and the crowning piece was the seed that I had used to grow a 57 Chevy pickup, a horn button. I renamed my newly created 57 Chevy pickup Rusty. And he is all of that.

There is still much to do. I recently purchased all new wheels and tires from Les Schwab and mounted them. I have a refurbished gas tank that I also found on Craigslist that is awaiting final mounting and connection. (Done that) The seat has to be rebuilt (Found buckets seats from a Yukon).and someone somewhere will have to help me build a driveline but it’s coming together. (Drive line was built by Chris at Pioneer Metal works in Quincy WA). I have the brake system all connected and bled. I’m using the slightly larger master cylinder from the Big truck and had to concoct a connector to the brake lines but its all there and doesn’t leak.

I plan to leave the paint alone for awhile and also leave the 22000 gross weight signs on the doors. Eventually I would like to find pickup front fenders to replace the large wheel well units from the big truck and find a pickup bed. (Found it and it is on there) If I ever find the fenders I also found a pickup grill with upper and lower valances on Craigslist, (of course) to go with them. . My goal is to have it drivable by June so I can parade it in our town’s annual summer festival. (Didn’t make the parade but I’m driving Him now, that’s what really matters).

Kind of like the old French fable Stone Soup where an enterprising young soldier makes soup from a stone and the town’s people all proclaim, “soup from a stone, imagine that”, I want to proclaim, “a truck from a horn button, imagine that”.

UPDATE: 1/09/2015

I didn’t make the parade deadline. All vehicles needed to be licensed and insured. I did everything I could but fell a few days short. He’s licensed and insured now.

Another difficulty came with bolting a car rear end to a truck transmission. I had Chris from pioneer Metal Works in Quincy WA fabricate a driveline out the 3 pieces of truck driveline. It works great.

I found bucket seats out of a 90’s out a Yukon at a wrecking yard in moses lake.

They are tan. The driver 6-way works.

I bought some indoor/outdoor carpet at Home Depot. It’s blue. Meh.

I’ve replaced the windshield with the help of a neighbor who made the mistake of walking into my back yard. (thanks Steve Horner) and the window glass.

The gauges mostly work. Speedo is off by 50%. Gas gauge and voltmeter are erratic.

I’ve replaced the door gasket on the drivers side. I’ve painted the door interiors. (I know, now they’re not rusty anymore but they look nice).

Currently I’m rebuilding the heater. I’m waiting for parts and time and an inertia busting event (TBA) to complete that.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you stop by and meet Rusty The truck from a horn button.

(December 1st is the anniversary of the day in 1968 that I was burned. I shared my story at church last year. I would like to share it here. It is long but I hope that you will read it to the end).

While we were in Italy we sang worship in Italian. We sang the song Cuore Puro, written by our friends. Part of the refrain is Purificami, which in English means purify me. It got me thinking about a purifying process that I went through as a child.
Some of you may know this already, I have burn scars on my face. I will to tell you the story of how it happened. I hope to use my accident and the experience to show you something that God showed me about how he longs to purify us.
The day I was burned, it was a cold and snowy Sunday, December 1st 1968. I was 8 years old at the time and my older brother Mick was 12. My dad decided to go down to his work place, Lindell’s Auto Salvage and work on his car. He was restoring a 59 El Camino. I wouldn’t normally have gone with Mick and dad to work on his car. In my later years I’ve tried to figure out what my motivation would’ve been to go. I didn’t like grease, or getting dirty, I didn’t like loud noises, I didn’t like extended periods of cold, I didn’t like being separated from our T.V. My best guess is that it was the Sunday after thanksgiving and by then all of the goodies from the feast had been eaten up. I knew there was a vending machine in the lobby of dad’s work that sold hot chocolate with marshmallows. It cost a dime. As luck would have it, I had a dime. So that’s how I ended up at Lindell’s that night. Brought there by my sweet tooth. Sadly, I never did get the hot chocolate.

The events that led up to the accident were, not having a better way to describe it, the perfect storm. Everything had to be exactly the way it was or it wouldn’t have happened. Change any one element and the evening would’ve ended with the family watching “wonderful world of Disney” and eating a big bowl of popcorn.

That is not what happened.

It was cold that day. Cold enough to need a space heater in the garage where my dad kept his car. The space heater was empty enough to require a refill of white gas. The white gas was in a drum outside that was upright and had a hand pump on it. And it was cold enough to keep any white gas (kerosene) that might get splashed onto someone during a bucket filling from evaporating. I was the perfect size to hold the bucket under the spout during the splashiest part of the fill. And then too small to hold it for the entire time or to carry the bucket back into the garage so my dad wouldn’t think twice about whether or not my coat was flammable. My dad was at the perfect spot in his renovation of his El Camino that he could be distracted long enough for my brother to swipe 2 Dixie cups of paint thinner, one enamel and one lacquer. My brother was at the perfect age to be curious and informed of at least the flammable qualities of those two liquids but also the perfect age to not know or to not care about the dangers of using them out of context to their purpose. I was at the perfect age to think my brother knew everything. And be inquisitive enough to follow him outside so he could show me how the two different liquids, which looked the same in the cups, because of their chemical properties produced very different colored flames once they were ignited. Even at this point, the stage being set for tragedy if I hadn’t been afraid of my dad catching us, if I hadn’t told Mick to stomp out the cups of flaming liquid because I thought I heard dad coming, if we would’ve just watch them burn out, what if. But it was the perfect storm. I was afraid of my dad catching us, I did tell him to stomp them out. The first one died out instantly. And then? I was at the perfect distance and in the perfect location so that when he squished the second cup, instead of it extinguishing, it squirted a perfect flame directly toward me. The flame found the awaiting vapors of white gas that were on my coat and suddenly, I think it sounded like “FOOM”, I was engulfed in flame.

Through some quick thinking Mick saved my life. I don’t know how I would’ve handled it if the tables had been turned. He was standing within inches of his little brother being burned alive. He told me to lay down and roll around. I did lay down but I guess I didn’t understand the roll around part. I was on the ground but still in flames. Mick went to plan B and took off his coat and smothered the flames.

My dad must’ve heard some commotion because he came outside and saw me and asked Mick what happened. All he could say was “oh my God, oh my God” over and over. My dad ended up slapping him and it kind of snapped him out of it and he was able explain most of what happened.

It was the perfect storm. Everything had to be exactly the way it was or it wouldn’t have happened. Change any one element and the evening would’ve ended with the family watching “wonderful world of Disney” and eating a big bowl of popcorn. But that’s not what happened and my family and I would be changed forever.

The trip to the hospital seemed to take forever. There were a lot of unexplainable delays. We were at the wrecking yard where my dad worked, Lindell’s. He tried to get his car to start. It wouldn’t. He tried several others cars. None of them would start. After a few minutes of frustration he called my mom. Meanwhile I remember just standing in the gravel parking lot. Mom drove down the hill from our house which was about a mile away and picked me up. There were 2 hospitals in Pendleton at the time, St Anthony’s which was about 3 minutes away or there was the community hospital, 10-15 minutes away. My dad chose to send us to the community hospital. Mom put me in the car and started driving. She kept asking me questions. I guess trying to keep me conscious. We had driven about 2 miles when her car started to stall. We were almost to the intersection where the two hi-ways out of town meet when her car stopped completely. It was out of gas. Traffic started to back up behind us and a state trooper stopped to see if he could help. I don’t remember if he looked in and figured it out or if mom had to explain it but we were taken to his squad car and he drove us to the hospital. On the way we passed St Anthony’s. The officer asked if she was sure about going to the community hospital and she said yes and we sped past St. Anthony’s. There are parts of the drive I don’t remember but I was alert and awake when we arrived. I didn’t feel a lot of pain. Mostly it was a ring of intense stinging, like a string of bee stings around the perimeter of my face, and a lot of pressure. I guess my head started to swell up. It took a long time for the doctor to arrive. I think that I stayed conscious. I remember asking for an analgesic. (I think that I had watched too many doctor’s shows). I remember that I got a laugh but I was serious. They wouldn’t give me anything until the doctor was there to prescribe it.
When he did finally get there he looked over my condition. I don’t recall what he said but I did get something for pain. The next thing he did was to start pulling off the dead skin. I had second and third degree burns on my face and hand. I watched them slide the skin off my hand like it was a loose rubber glove. They just threw it away. In My eight year old kid brain I was thinking “aren’t I going to need that later?”

That’s about all I can remember of the emergency room. I woke up the next day and I couldn’t see, my eyes were swollen shut. It would take a week for the swelling to go down far enough for me to open my eyes. The room smelled like chemicals and burnt hair. The hair on the back of my head was melted and brittle and kept breaking off. My pillow was crunchy with it. I was in the hospital for twenty-one days. I received daily treatments which will I talk more about later and I received skin grafts from my thigh and my neck.
I was released and got home right before Christmas.
We have a picture of me soon after my homecoming. It might even be Christmas morning. It’s a black and white Polaroid. I look pretty rough. Not all of the burns had healed over yet but the scars hadn’t formed either. I had been in bed for so long that my leg muscles has atrophied. I wasn’t able to walk right away. My siblings carried me for a while but my parents thought I was milking it so they stopped all that. Left on my own I quickly got my legs back under me and was walking before school started back up after Christmas break.
Post hospital stay the tip of my right ear got infected. They tried to fight the infection and eventually beat it but not before it destroyed the cartilage that kept my ear upright so my right ear folded over on itself.
My hand had been bandaged with my fingers curled. While the burns healed webs of scars formed on the palm side of each digit. The doctors worried that I wouldn’t regain full use of my hand but by that summer, just regular boyhood play was therapy enough to overcome the scars and I have full use of my hand and fingers.
Ok, that is the background story of how I got burned but this message is more about the recovery process than the trauma of the accident. The thing that started this trip down memory lane was that word Purificami (purify me). We sang the song a lot. That word, Purificami stuck out and started this chain of thoughts and memories.
Purificami, being cleansed, cleansed of our filth. Not just dirt but filth, filth that if we leave it on we die, the damaged part of us that sticks to us, like the skin of my hand that they slid off like a glove.
So far I haven’t told you about the worst part of being burned, the worst part of being burned is recovery, and then the worst part of recovery is being cleaned. The cleaning process went something like this: every morning 4 of the staff would come in and hold me down, one on my right arm, one on my left arm, one each on my legs while 2 others would remove the bandages and “clean” the wound. They had to keep the dead skin from rotting on my face and causing infection so it had to be scrubbed off. There are Elements of this experience that we can apply to all of our Christian lives. It was the most pain that I have ever endured. I would beg and plead to skip a day but they were doing their job, helping me recover, saving my life by purifying me. If we skipped a day, it could have killed me.
In spiritual recovery from the damage brought on by a broken world, like in my incident, first there is the emergency room experience where we are brought from death to life, salvation. After we are saved there is still much to do, there is the ongoing work, the daily cleansing that helps us recover from our wounds, purification or Sanctification.

When we come to Jesus We’ve all been hurt or damaged in some way. We’ve been burned by the world. In order to heal us Jesus, the great physician will need to gently, yet persistently cleanse us, washing away our putrid flesh, the sin and its effects on us and then slowly he will heal us.

The bible shows us how this works. We are washed by the word.

Couched in a word to husbands of how we should treat our wives, in Ephesians 5:25-27 Paul talks about how Jesus treats his bride the church “husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make holy, cleansing by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but holy and blameless.”

We are washed by exposure to the Holy Spirit by reading and applying the word of God. David says in Psalm 51:2 “Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from sin” and later in the same Psalm he says “purge me with hyssop and I will be clean, wash me and I will be whiter than snow”. In Hebrew vernacular he was saying, scrub me God, Brillo pad me God.

Purification. It hurts. Without it I would have slowly died. With it I stand before you today. Gods cleansing of our spiritual wounds can hurt too. Spiritually With it we are transformed from death to life. Molded and shaped to be more like Jesus.

Let’s take this a little further.

I want to say that there is a difference between reading the bible and eating the bible. Ezekiel 3:1-3 God told the prophet to “eat the scroll”. I’ve had so many mornings of bible reading, just me scanning over the words on the page but they just stay there. They register in my brain as being English and they all make sense but honestly and sadly, they don’t make a difference.

In my hospital story only the scrubbing that touched me was effective. The closer it got to me the more it changed me. God’s word will change my life only in the relationship with how close I let it come to me.
My Recovery process was actually two-fold. There was the therapy every morning of being cleansed from the outside. Then there was the ongoing work of antibiotics cleaning me from the inside. There is the time that we expose ourselves to the word through study and fellowship, but that’s like a doctor’s office visit. Do we want Gods cleansing to happen once a year, once a month, once a week, once a day or do we want the ongoing work, like an IV drip or a time release antibiotic? If so we need to keep it with us and let it touch us. One more time back to my hospital analogy, yes I was scrubbed but I was also hooked up to IV that fed me and pumped medicine into me. God’s word can be that same thing in us spiritually. Be a steady drip into my heart.
I want to add one more verse with II Thessalonians 2:13-15 “But we ought always to thank God for you brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this though our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then brothers stand firm and hold to the teachings passed on to you whether by word of mouth or by letter.”

God wants to finish the work that be began in us. He wants to purify us. It might hurt but one way we can participate in this is to lean into his gentle cleaning of our wounds, to keep those tools he needs available in our hearts, to have them working constantly in our lives like a spiritual I.V..

PURIFICAMI, Purify me Lord Jesus.

February 18th is the anniversary of the day that I died.

The date was February 18, the year was 1972.

There were 5 of us in the old crewcab truck. My foster brother Rodney was driving, my sister Judi was sitting in the middle of the front seat, my sister Kitti and her boy friend Steve were in the back seat and I was riding shotgun. The truck was a Forrest service surplus. Seating for 6 and under the hood each passenger was represented by one cylinder, the long way to say it had a small 6 cylinder engine. It was not fast.

The night was foggy and cold. It was February fog, thick and sticky. We were driving from Milton-Freewater to Pendleton. The Loeffelbein’s had started a great adventure in leasing Curl’s Drive in in Milton-Freewater but were having trouble selling the house in Pendleton. The trip was supposed to be a chance for us kids to see our friends and help pack up the house. We didn’t make it very far.

Just outside of town there is a long steep grade that at that time had only two lanes. (I believe it’s 3 lanes now). I don’t know the ladies name in the slow car that was in front of us, I think she was driving a Rambler. Rodney thought it would be safe to pass. We were slightly ahead of her car when we saw the lights of the on coming car, they weren’t headlights, just park lights but it was a car in the lane in front of us. Rodney tried swerve back into our lane, there just wasn’t enough time.

I’m not sure which car hit us first but both cars did. I’ve heard that by the time it was all over there were 17 cars involved. The impact tore the cab we were in free of the truck frame.

When my dad who was at work in Pendleton heard about the accident from the state patrol all he knew was that his kids were in an accident and that there had been a fatality.

When he and my brother arrived on the scene our crewcab was in pieces strewn around the hi-way. The cab was upside down just off the road.

I don’t know the sequence of events except from my experience so that’s what I’ll tell you. When I woke up I was laying on the ceiling of our truck. People were all around, there were flashlights and people were asking me questions. I tried to talk but the lower half of my face felt like jello. I would find out later that my jaw was broken in 5 places. Somehow all 5 of us stayed in the cab. None of us were using seat belts (seat belts?).
Rodney had been pushing so hard on the brake that his foot had gone through the floor. His femur was shattered. Judi broke her wrist. Kitti broke her ankle. Steve was the worst of us. He had a skull fracture. At that point we were busted up but alive. The driver of the oncoming car had died on impact. My condolences to his family.

Somehow they got me out of the truck and into an ambulance. As I lay there on the gurney I started to panic but I heard a voice in my head that said “Jesus will take care of you”. I relaxed and either passed out or fell asleep or died. I don’t know. I just know that I’ve never known rest like that before or since. It was blissful.

At the hospital things were a little hectic. My gurney was in the hallway and when my mom arrived the doctors in triage were working on me. When My mom arrived she saw the doctors walking away from me she asked if she could talk to me, one doctor answered, “well it doesn’t matter now “. She started gently rubbing my leg and I started to cough. The doctors spun around and started working on me with renewed vigor.

I remember this scene but I remember it from a view above my body. As the gurney was wheeled into a room I remember sort of sqooshing back into myself.

All of this kind of got shoved aside as the crisis of all of us was being taken care of.

My jaw was set with a plate. They were going to wire it shut but my burn scars were too tough to cut through so they went with the plate. At a follow up orthodontic appointment the doctor who had been at the hospital when I arrived told my mom that I was clinically dead when I arrived. She almost fainted. After we got home we talked about all the details. I remembered the weird way that I recalled the event, from above my body.

I’m not sure how to close this. I’ve given the facts but it doesn’t seem complete. Dying and coming back to life. It happened. It changed me I’m sure but since I was so young (11) I don’t know how different things would be without the experience . One thing that happened because I had the plate in my jaw. Mary and I broke up
My senior year. I was trying to get out of town so I signed up to join the air force. I was going to leave early, before graduation. I had scored pretty high on my ASVAB so they were excited to get me. Everything was a go until during the medical questionnaire they asked me if I had any pins or plates. I told them
About my jaw and everything came to a screeching halt. Due to the plate I would not be joining any of our armed services. I stayed in soap lake. I graduated in June of 1979 and eventually (August of 1979) Mary and I went to a movie and before the sun rose the next day, we were not only back together, but engaged. The rest of the story is our marriage and family.

I died, I don’t know how long I was gone. I have no other memories from that experience. I don’t know why it happened. I do know this, God works all thing together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. I do love him and he has brought good to me even though life, at times was very rough.

Jesus never said that, but he came close.

Refused.

Rejected.

Odd man out.

Unclean.

Unacceptable.

Unloved.

What do you do when you feel this way?

Ostracized. That’s the word I was looking for.

“21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.”

Why did Jesus refuse her at first? Was it to make her make her point? What is her point? She was not a Jew, not one of Gods chosen, and yet, she was one of Gods children. We are all Gods children.

Even the dogs, lowly creatures that they are, get crumbs from the masters table.

Ostracized people everywhere listen to this and keep pressing into Jesus! He is our hope and our salvation! He is the way, the truth and the life! (John 14:6). No one gets to God except through Jesus. Jesus is our way back into relationship with God.

Do you want the good news or the bad news? The bad news is we are all ostracized from God. The good news is that God has made a way back, a door back into fellowship with him, the door, and there is only one, is Jesus.

Ostracized will you, open the door today?

If you have already opened the door, will you take today as an opportunity to show someone else the way in?

Doctor God, report to surgery. Doctor God, report to surgery.

I quote large chunks of scripture when I post. I want to show what I’m reading so it can be seen in context.

The Bible is no ordinary book. It is the very words of God. It is alive and powerful. It can heal. It can save.

“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

By reading his word we open ourselves up to being changed by them, changed by him, made better, healed and repaired by God as we read his word.

Who is this Jesus? He is both fully God and fully man. In the Christmas season we will sing about Emanuel, which means God with us. This God whose words can heal us has sent his son to us to be with us, live as one of us, experience our life, and live it without sinning, and then die for us to pay for all of our mistakes, misdeeds and failures.

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,[f] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

So far I’ve only read four chapters of Hebrews and the writer has already quoted Psalm 97 3 times. It may be become my anthem.

““Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts.”

Guess what day it is? Correct! It’s Today. What will we decide to do about Jesus today? Will we accept his gift of forgiveness today?

It was late at night or early in the morning. I was sitting in my 62 Mercury Comet station wagon outside my apartment. The dash lights were illuminating the inside of the car. The street light on the corner behind me dimly lit the outside.

I had blown it again. I knew the rules of Christian living. I’d spent the last 19 years in church at least once a week. I knew what the rules were. I just couldn’t keep them.

I was remorseful. I repented…again. It felt like it wasn’t just what I’d done that night. I was weighed down with what I had done on all the nights. All the nights and all the days. All the rules that I had broken. And now add one more to the pile of my sins. It felt like I was seeing it all at once. It also felt like God was sitting next to me staring at the huge pile of mess Then he asked me “what are we going to do with all of this?”

I was crying pretty hard at this point and I answered, “…I don’t know God…”

He said “Peter, someone has to pay for all of this. You know the rules, someone will have to die for all these sins…”

I said “ok” assuming he meant me.

I wiped away my tears and snot and went into my apartment and went to bed, expecting to wake up dead.

But life went on. I didn’t die, and life returned to normal.

In an animated version of my life, there would be a map of my spiritual journey and on that map would have a cartoon bubble that instead if saying, “you are here” it would say “for this someone must die”.

What did it mean that someone would have to die? How could God require a death?

Let’s look back to the beginning.

Not my beginning, but OUR beginning, the garden.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:15-17

Adam and Eve broke the only rule. They ate the forbidden fruit. They sinned and fell short of the glory of God.

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” Genesis 3:6-10

There were consequences to Adam and Eves sin. Among them was being cast out the garden.

But God did two things. First, he made a promise to them (and so also to us) while speaking to the serpent , “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15

God promised a helper, a savior. Someone who would be bruised in the fight, but that would crush or destroy Their enemy (and so our enemy) the serpent.

Second, God provided a covering for their nakedness.

“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” Genesis 3:21

Adam and Eve were covered by the skin of animals after attempting to cover themselves with plants.

Unlike the cartoon world of Wile E. Coyote, where Wile E. can unzip his skin, in the real world of Adam and Eve, (the same world we live in), the animals died to provide their skins. This is the first recorded death in creation, and it took place in order that Adam and Eves nakedness would be covered.

Sin caused Blood to be shed.

Sin must be paid for. I guess that is not entirely true. Sin doesn’t have to be paid for. But if we want to undo the damage that sin does, and the worst of the damage is the separation between us and God, we can go on without the sin being covered. If we do that, we die separated from God. Our inclination tends to be to want to even out the score. Do good stuff so we can outweigh the bad. It doesn’t work like that. We can’t pay for it with good works. Our good works, our best possible behavior appears to God looking like filthy rags.

Sin causes death, it must be paid for with a sacrificial death, life for a life.

The pattern of sacrificial death to atone for sin is throughout the old testament. We see it in Abel’s good sacrifice of the firstlings of his flock. We see it in Abraham offering Isaac and God intervening and providing the lamb. We see it in the lamb that was sacrificed on the eve of the Exodus, and then God used animal sacrifice over and over throughout the tabernacle worship that was prescribed for his people in laying out how to worship.

But I was in modern times. Animal sacrifice had faded away. Besides, God had said to me not something, but someone. Someone would have to die to pay for my sins.

My spiritual journey continued. I was trying to pay for my sins with good works and Christian service. I planned on becoming a Lutheran Pastor. Those plans were waylaid, and I was left wondering how I would ever clean up my mess. Then early one Sunday morning, I was alone in the back room of my parent’s cafe, getting breakfast for myself and my very pregnant bride and God continued our conversation that he had started sitting next to me in my car about a year earlier. I had left school to take over the café so I could support our little family. It seemed like I would never finish school and become a pastor so how could I ever right the wrongs that I had piled up?

“Peter, Your sin problem, I took care of it”.

“How God? You said someone would have to die? I’m still alive, I’ve tried to pay for it by being good and doing good, but that’s not working either, I just keep failing…..”

“Peter, I sent Jesus for you. I sent Jesus to die for your sins, it’s my gift to you and for you”.

And then he reminded me of the verses in Ephesians 2;

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:8-10

I would later read and understand that over and over again God says in his word that he loves us so much that he sent Jesus to die in our place. From the garden and even before, he had a plan to redeem us, us his beloved fallen race.

Another of my favorite verses is in Romans chapter 5.

“6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” God has brought us reconciliation, he has restored the relationship between us and him through Jesus. That night, the night of tears, it was so hard and yet it was a stepping stone on the pathway back to my God. Jesus didn’t just die for me. He died for everyone. His one death covers all of our sins. He is waiting and wanting for all of us to return, through his gift of love, his gift of sacrifice, his gift of his own blood to cover our nakedness.

What will you do today about this gift? Will you receive it?

Jesus did not stay dead. Once his work was accomplished by his death, 3 days later he rose again and now he is busy preparing a place for us and also interceding for us. Going to his Father and now our Father and reminding him, that we are covered by his blood. Our sins are now forgiven.

There is room for all of us in his house. Will join Jesus and me in our Fathers house and in his family?

The door was closed.

She couldn’t get on her flight.

She missed and no one could or would help her.

I was at Seatac. I was at my gate early. Not bragging, just saying I was there early. Next to my gate was another gate flying somewhere far away, Texas maybe? I had seen this lady on the other side,the main terminal. She was being seated in a wheelchair by an airport worker. When she showed up at her gate she was walking. Earlier I had seen the airlines hostesses walking the length of the terminal calling out names of missing passengers and heard multiple announcements asking for passengers to go to the desk, announcing boarding and then final boarding. Then they closed up the desk, walked through the doors and boarded the plane. After all of that happened the lady showed up. She was at the right gate but she was late. She couldn’t find anyone to help her. She walked through the seats asking for help, loudly asking for someone, anyone from her airline to help but they were all in the plane already.

She tried crashing the door. She could see her plane still parked at the gate but she couldn’t get on.

When she crashed the door an alarm sounded and security personnel arrived rather quickly. But they couldn’t get her on the plane either. It didn’t seem to make any difference why she was late or how loud she got with her protests. She could not ride that plane. Even with a boarding pass she could not get aboard the plane.

It was a scene that played out in my life that I️ watched like it was a performance for me. It made me wonder and now over 2 weeks later I am still pondering it. As the character Scrooge says in the Christmas Carol, “why was I privy to this conversation?”.

At the same time I have Been reading 2 Peter. In chapter 2, Peter mentions some times when God’s timing and the peoples time ran out.

“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority. Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse on celestial beings;”

2 Peter 2:4-10

So did God show me this so that I would present it as a cautionary tale? As a culture we are constantly exposed to and driven by schedules and time tables. Is it a surprise that God also has a schedule and a time table for his plan for us. Not one of us knows his time table and schedule. Not even Jesus knew when it would be. Can we say that God is a meany head for having a schedule? Or can we say thank you to him for his patience thus far?

Further into his letter Peter had this to say,

“Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

2 Peter 3:3-9

My wife Mary calls me Debbie Downer because I see the dark side of things, I really don’t want this to be that.

God loves us. He sent Jesus to us not Just to say I love you, but to do I love you. Jesus came to die for sins we cannot pay for or erase. Then he rose from the dead to lead us into God’s heaven. He made a way for us.

We get today. We have today to choose.

I don’t know the outcome for the poor lady who missed her plane. I do know the outcome of everyone who missed Noah’s boat. I do know the outcome for everyone who misses God’s grace in Jesus but I would rather talk about the splendor waiting for those who receive God’s great gift of forgiveness in Jesus.

Today, all aboard.

It must’ve been hard to do.

Make the change from being a follower of Jesus to a teller about Jesus. From having him there with them to having him pop in and out of life unexpectedly.

This next bit is a paraphrase told from the perspective of the once disciple, now apostle, Peter.

I remember that day…

What to do? Let’s go fishing. Fishing is what we do, Simon and Thomas and Nathaniel, James and John. Fishermen. It’s what we do, it’s what we know, it’s how we provide for our families. Fished all night and got nothing. Some guy on the beach shouting instructions on how to catch fish…we’ll try it.

Whoa! Wow! So many fish, almost too many fish. One fish, two fish red fish, 152 fish. (Plus one).

This all seems so familiar, I’ve had this happen before. It was Jesus on the shore.

A quick swim, some breakfast, fish hauling ashore and then the “chat”.

For 3 years we’ve hung out with Jesus. On meeting me he said he would change my name. Now, after the denial, ( three denials, if you’re counting) and the resurrection we are back to Simon son of John. Not Peter. Simon.

Then the questions, do I love him more than these? Do I️ love Jesus more than my fishing buddies do? At one time in the not so distant past I️ claimed that I️ did.

Then the questions come. Jesus could’ve used 4 different words for the word love in his questions. He went straight to the highest, the strongest, the purest, do I Simon, love, agape love, Jesus?

It may be my failures and denials but all I can muster is “you know I love you like a brother, I️ phileo you Jesus”.

He gives me a job. “Feed my lambs”.

Then he asks me again, do I Simon, agape him, Jesus?

“Jesus, I love you, like a brother” is my answer.

“Take care of my sheep”.

He asks again, a third time. I didn’t get why he asked me twice but it becomes clear as he asks the third time, my mind went back to that horrible early morning, my third denial, “I tell you I do not know the man”….and then began swearing like a fisherman.

The third and last question Jesus asks, “Simon, son of John, do you love me….like a brother?”

I’m hurt and frustrated, so my answer is terse, “ you know all things, you know I love you like a brother..”

Again, “Feed my sheep…”

And then I get the prophecy about my death.

“18 Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”

John 21:18

There are 2 things that encourage me here. “When you are old,” it isn’t eminent, and “old” I will continue to follow Jesus for the rest of my life.

This is one of the memories I think about as I write to those followers of Jesus who will continue after I’m dead. They will continue to tell others about our Jesus.

Add to your faith…brotherly love, and add to that, Agape love, God kind of love, selfless, others first, die in your place, kind of love. Add that to your faith in Jesus. Then you will be able to be fruitful and productive in your faith.

Jesus welcomed me back, I fell, I fell further and harder but his love covered my failures. His love will always do that. It will always cover over our sin.

Jesus has an exclusive. It is Jesus plus nothing, and Jesus or nothing.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched —this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

1 John 1:1-4

There is no one else who can truthfully claim to be the Word of life.

Jesus said in John’s Gospel “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 14:6

Our culture wants to downgrade Jesus, to make him one of many ways to God, but that is not what he said. He said we can’t get to the Father without going through him. Can Jesus lie and still be perfect? Can he exaggerate and still be sinless? Can he be mistaken and still be trustworthy? It looks like I have a choice to make, he can’t be one of many if he said he is THE way, THE truth and THE life. I choose to believe what he said about himself.

John also said this about Jesus in his Gospel “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

John 1:1-5

I can’t imagine how cool it would be to hang out with Jesus. John, the writer of this Book was a close friend, maybe the closest friend of Jesus. “We heard him, seen him, touched him…” He’ll say it again, “seen and heard”. John was an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry. He was one of 3 who got to see him transfigured on the the mountain top.

“Make our joy complete. “ John’s joy was to see people believing in Jesus and being saved. Our family, my dads side, us four siblings, any cousins and aunts and uncles we can gather will be meeting again this year. Loeffelbein’s are descendants of German immigrants. Our family has a history of being hard working industrious people. We know how to work. We don’t know as well how to play, how to relax. We are learning. We do enjoy getting together. There is sweet fellowship. There is family love.

Fellowship with God will be like this except beyond it, way way beyond it. Love that knows no boundaries or limits. Love that knows us completely, faults and fears, failures and foibles and still loves us completely. Engulfed in love, like the security of a warm newborn swaddle and the freedom of a moonlight skinny dip, blended together in perfection. I believe that I cannot fully comprehend what fellowship with God will be but I think it will be like the garden of Eden, fully exposed and unashamed. We receive Jesus not only to escape hell and avoid its tortures but to gain fellowship, with each other, the family of God, and with God our Father.

Jesus knew that sweet fellowship before he left heaven. He left that to come here to earth, to to live and love and serve, and in completion of that service, to suffer and die for our sins, for my sins, then raise to life again and go to back to heaven to intercede for me and make ready a place for me to spend eternity.

Today the Word of life is reaching out to each one of us. What will we do with his offer of forgiveness of sin and eternal fellowship with a God who loves us more and better than we can know or deserve?

Was it my fear of the dark that eventually led me to become an electrician? It could just be a coincidence. It still thrills me to go through the process of wiring and conduit and termination of devices, to get to the reveal-drumroll- -click- then let there be light!

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 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, purifies us from all sin.

1 John 1:5-7

Electricians participate in what God started at the beginning of creation. He said “let there be light” and there was light. Since God is light, does that mean he just entered the void where nothing was and just him being there brought light? Or did he create light that would be part of creation?

I don’t know and I suppose it doesn’t matter. What matters is that God is light, his character is light. That’s one of the scary things about him. We can’t hide in the shadows, we can’t cover or shade ourselves AND be in his presence. He is light, exposing us his exposure is not intended to shame us, (shame not being the impetus for repentance) but to make us aware of our own condition, our own direction, so we can repent and get set right and get cleaned up.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 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, purifies us from all sin.

1 John 1:5-7

I get dressed in our basement in the morning. I dress in one room then turn off the light as I leave and head for the stairs up and out. Many times the darkness disorients me, I can’t find the stairs or the switch for the lights and I have walked into the walls and or tripped. What if once I found the switch and could see the way up and out, I refused the updated information and continued on my misguided path? that would be silly. So it is when we meet with God and refuse the information that his light of revelation brings us.

Jesus, being God also has character of light.

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

John 8:12

This quote comes directly after Jesus defended a woman caught in adultery. His light exposed her sin but did not condemn her for it, instead he forgave her.

Someday this light will light the earth , until that day…? What will we do with the light we have experienced that did not condemn but forgave, forgives us? Will we share it? Will we use it? Will we spread it as we share the good news of what Jesus has done in us and can do for anyone else who will confess and believe?

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.

Revelation 21:22-24

We love our stuff. Americans, we love our teams, our beers our coffee, our political parties, our birthday parties, our jeans, our sneakers, our car brands (or truck brands). We love our stuff. I love my stuff.

I love watermelon and I love pepperoni pizza and i love sitcoms and crime dramas and tools and toys. I love cars and trucks, some more than others (wink-wink Rusty!) I love my wife and kids and my grandkids. (This is not a prioritized list).

To not love stuff, well it’s downright unamerican. Who doesn’t love stuff? Who shouldn’t love stuff?

As it turns out… me. I shouldn’t love stuff.

“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

1 John 2:15-17

Everything in the world is good, God declared it so at the end of creation but it has in it an enticement that can lead me away from my love of God. My little human heart has only a certain amount of love. How will that be divided?

If I love God first and foremost it opens the chambers of my life to more love. Like when I see my wife from across the room my pupils dilate. They open up as if to get more of her visage and likeness into my head and heart. When I love God first, my heart is opened up to allow more love for people. When I understand that God is creator of all things then things take on a different level of respect and admiration. I see things as part of a creators creation and I start to see people differently. I start to see Each one as a person created to spend eternity in fellowship with God but just now separated from him by sin.

Unless.

Unless we meet Jesus and accept his gift of reconciliation.

This is how that reconciliation happens: “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile —the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Romans 10:9-13

Say out loud “Jesus you are now my Lord, (master-boss-king-ruler-leader) and I believe that you rose from the dead. “

Can it really be that simple?

Yes, but try it and see.

What changes? Down here? Not much. In heaven? There’s a party, in your heart? Sin is forgiven. And the driver seat of your heart is now occupied by the Holy Spirit.

Buckle up. You are beginning a new adventure.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

We live in a desert. Eastern Washington state is a desert. It lies in the rain shadow of the Cascade mountains. Our annual rainfall is around 10″. There is very little water here naturally. My Grandpa Loeffelbein’s property in Cashmere, out on Pioneer Ave had a Tiny little stream. It was so small that I could jump across it. The odd thing about it that it was always flowing, and it flowed fast. It was not a lazy little trickle. Put your foot in and it would try and knock you over. It took strength to stand in the flow. The water was cold, and the force was steady and strong and constant.

Sometimes my life feels like a desert, arid and dry. I need a source of refreshing.

Gods love is like that little stream in some aspects. It’s steady, strong, constant, refreshing, water in a desert. It just isn’t little. Nathan Dowd quoted someone recently who said “Gods love is an ocean without shores and without bottom.”

“17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Lord I need to know your love today, not just know it but feel it. I need your wisdom and understanding, I’ve got things to do today that go beyond me. Help me Jesus. Fill me up.

Easter. It’s not about a dead guy. It is about a guy dying. Same guy. A guy died. He just didn’t stay dead.

“What’s that? The church doors are open? Well then, we must attend. “ My mom.

Optional for guests. Mandatory for minor children.

Tradition tells me, We will be late. When we do arrive, We will smell of French fries, coffee and cigarette smoke. It was the perfume of the cafe my parents owned and operated.

We attended a Lutheran Church so the services were predictable; 3 hymns a 20 minute message and liturgy.

Sometimes there was a bonus.

Sometimes there was food in the fellowship hall in the basement.

Good Friday service In 1978 was just such a night. The service was somber but then there was food and noisy fellowship downstairs afterwards. The noise was quieting down, the food was being put away, the evening was winding down and my family was getting ready to leave. I had left something in the pew above us so I clambered up the stairs to grab it. The lights in the sanctuary were off, just the back lights by the alter and the cross on the wall. This year someone had added a rough wooden cross and it was standing on the platform between the pulpit and the lectern. The ladies of the church, two of them were ceremoniously draping the cross with a black cloth.

It suddenly hit me. This guy Jesus? The one we talked about, the one that had performed miracles. He healed. He delivered. He set free. He forgave. He brought back to life. That guy. He seemed so friendly. But tonight, for me in my understanding, he was dead.

He was dead. Even though there had been almost 2000 years elapse since it happened, the weight of the news hit me as though it had just happened that afternoon. I was washed over with grief and sadness.

I don’t recall the rest of that years Easter holiday. If I’m remembering it right, Our Pastor, a fantastic old school bible preacher didn’t use the term Easter, he called it resurrection day. If I had been listening, maybe the Good Friday service and the resurrection day service would’ve brought me into faith sooner. I had other things to preoccupy me though, I had guys to hang out with, a pretty girlfriend, a 57 Chevy truck that wasn’t going to restore itself. I was busy. Too busy to connect the two pieces.

a few years went by and it all started to make sense. Well, not in a worldly way of making sense. But i understood that i was a sinner. God hated sin but he loved me. He sent Jesus to die, and that death, Jesus sacrificially dying for me, brought God and I back together. All of my sin was washed away by the blood that Jesus spilled dying for me.

Then 3 days after he died, death could not keep him any longer and he rose. The tomb was emptied by him, walking out of it.

“For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time.”

Jesus died. I am so sorry and yet so grateful. Jesus died But he didn’t stay dead. He rose from the grave.

Easter Sunday is a few days away. Resurrection day. We celebrate this event and would love for you to join us. We attend Ephrata Foursquare Church. Our service is st 10am. Most Christian Churches will be celebrating this Sunday so if you can’t make it to our service, please just pick one and join us in the celebration.

Whether or not you come to church, I hope that you will come to understand and believe the truth about Jesus.

“Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

1 Corinthians 15:1-8

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton