“What Does Christmas Mean?”
To Download the song, Right-Click HERE, and choose “Save Target As…”
A song I wrote last week for the close of our Christmas production. Not finished yet…but I wanted to share a quicky recording of it with anyone who may want it. Hope it contributes to the Christmas spirit!
And…thanks to my good friend of nearly 20 years, Rich “Saxaphone” Stone! (He makes any song worth listening to).
Merry Christmas!
tom
http://www.MercySpeaksConcert.com
Mercy Speaks Concert Helps Rescue Orphan Children and Destitute Families
On September 17th, I had the privilege of presenting the Mercy Speaks concert and worshipping with amazing musicians, friends, family and people from our community. We did Mercy Speaks as a free concert and the proceeds from the DVD, CD, and individual songs will go to People for Care and Learning to help save orphans and needy families from dying in disease-ridden garbage dumps and slums. People for Care and Learning is involved in a project to build homes with clean running water for these deprived people existing in the world’s worst poverty. Would you purchase the music and help us save the people dying in those garbage dumps? We want them to know that Jesus has come to rescue them. www.MercySpeaksConcert.com
Very early this morning I lost a mentor, a spiritual father, an encourager, and a friend.
His name is John Nichols…he fought the fight and like Paul…he won. Now he’s home.
He lived redemptively.
When I say I don’t know many men like John Nichols…I mean that I don’t personally know three more.
He was a constant declaration of God’s strength…even when he was old and gray…
And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me,
Until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to all who are to come.
Psalm 71:18 [show]Psalm 71:18 [18]So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.(NASB95)
John Nichols did that.
He was a spiritual father in a time when it seems there are few… He spoke words of forceful correction to me…full of grace and truth…grace that pressed back against the self imposed limitations of reaction, unprincipled passion, and youthful impetuousness…and he declared truth that “revealed” not only my weaknesses…but also potential in me that he saw.
He was Pentecostal … He believed that you were never too old to dream…and never too young to see! And he would include and empower anyone who would dare to do either.
He was not threatened by new ideas…nor the fear of releasing a success of the past that may stand in the way of a present potential.
He cultivated an uncertainty. My uncertainty. I think he cultivated (very much on purpose) my inability to resolve and be certain whether or not my connection to him was born of the shared passion of pastoral calling that was a generation apart…or whether it was the common ground of two Marines from a different time. Maybe it was both. (He certainly had no problem using terms and language from both of those worlds!) He assured me there was…and always will be things worth fighting for. He convinced me that there were more who were willing to fight if someone would just start the fight.
Along that same line of thought…last year we sat on the front porch of my house in rocking chairs. He had listened to me run my mouth for a long time…and then it was his turn. He told me if I felt that I was called to start the fight, then I should expect scars. But he told me that the danger of that was the temptation to begin to define life by the scars…and when the scars become our primary point of reference we will lose sight of why we fought in the first place…that we will lose sight of the joy of the victory…and we would lose perspective to understand with clarity where the next fight will be.
He was a collision of values that could be seen in his eyes. His were eyes readily filled with tears over the broken-ness of the world and the plight of the disenfranchised…and yet the same eyes would, in an instant be filled with fire and anger should he discover any semblance of apathetic complacency on the part of those who alone held the power to change those circumstances…namely, the church of Jesus Christ.
One of the last things he said to me was that he was not afraid of death. For him death would be the final victory over the last fight. He said that he had recently heard a statement that Charles Conn had made regarding a life lived. I don’t know if it was paraphrased on his part but he said it this way: “When I leave this world I don’t want to leave anything on the table.” He said that if he had any fear it would be that. He said he did not want to leave as a legacy any unused stuff… unused love, unused words of affirmation, unused influence, unused mercy, unused encouragement or unused dreams. His eyes had that slightly-filled-with-tears look that I had seen many times. We paused and then I responded back to him and told him I had a favorite, albeit slightly modified line from the movie, “The Gladiator.” I said, “Regardless of cancer…you will most certainly die. But not today.” He laughed, pumped his fist in the air and said, “Yeah! I like that!”
Oh yeah… He still held hands with Norene…all the time. I loved that. The “wife of his youth,” as the Bible says…married for a hundred years I think. They still had “the look” in their eyes. You know, when it comes to the love he had for her…he left nothing behind. There was nothing left unused.
He left nothing behind……for a lot of people. I want to try and do the same.
My childhood was in the 60’s and 70’s…the middle child of five children. Though we lived in several places the majority of my childhood was spent in Fort Myers, Florida. I loved it. Icky sticky hot and humid. It was great…I think.
We were a family of seven with my dad as the sole wage earner most of the time. I don’t know exactly what income “class” we were in but I would often wear hand-me-downs from my cousin and there were no trips to McDonalds. We had to stretch every penny. That’s where “S&H Green Stamps” enters my memories. “S&H Green Stamps” were given to shoppers who purchased groceries at U-Save Supermarket. And we shopped there every week. S&H Green Stamps were cool. And they came with little books to paste them in. I would lickem’ and stickem’ and dream about what we might get with S&H Green stamps! (Someone told me that the glue on the back of the stamps can cause brain damage. After hearing my S&H Green Stamp stories and living with me my wife says she thinks it’s true. I’m not sure what she means.)
On Fowler Avenue in Fort Myers there was the, “S&H Green Stamp Redemption Center.” What a great place. It was there you could take your S&H Green Stamps and get…stuff. If you saved enough of them you could get lots of stuff. You could even get a car! Every time we would go I was absolutely fascinated.
At six years old I learned that these stamps weren’t good for much else. The mail man would never take my mail or post cards with S&H Green Stamps no matter how many I placed on any single piece of mail. It was frustrating for both of us. It seemed the only place they were any good was at the “S&H Green Stamp Redemption Center.” Imagine that. But there…they were worth something. At the redemption center they had value.
What a wonderful and simple picture of redemption. It is the act of becoming…of becoming valuable…of having definitive worth. The Bible describes the acts of Jesus Christ as that of a Redeemer. As One who provides the place and opportunity for humanity…for me… to find and to have “worth.” Everyone He encountered was exposed to the potential of a greater worth than they had believed or known. The sinner, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the Pharisee, the wealthy, the marginalized…each had the opportunity of redemption…of realized value and defined worth. I’ve determined I want to live that way. Not just for myself…but to others.
Make no mistake, living redemptively is not just living a nice life as a nice person saying nice things so that people feel…nice. Redemption has everything to do with a focus on recovering God’s intentions toward mankind and the resulting fullness and whole-ness that is possible for every human being. What a great way to live. To, in some small way, help reveal or expose some measure of worth or value that God has placed in every person and in every situation that somehow may not yet be seen.
To live and lead redemptively is a journey and an adventure. Few “comfort zones” allowed. I pray the life I live and the church I serve would be known as a “redemption center.” You’re worth something here.
