I spent most of the day Monday with my annual stone-rolling spree. In the winter the snow plow rolls down my gravel road, rolling stones, sometimes 2″ in diameter up into my law, sometimes 20′ from the road. Every spring I have this race with time to get them raked back into the road before the grass grows around the stones, making my work twice as difficult. It was an all-day, muscle-workout to roll the hundreds of stones back out into the road. And my muscles ache today because of it.

With the stones rolled away, I can now get out my lawn roller and begin to flatten the lawn in preparation for a year of lawn care. It was a great amount of work, but rewarding, as I see the green grass beginning to rise this morning.

Rolling the stone away wasn’t easy for Jesus, either. That enormous stone that sealed His grave had been sealed by the Roman guards who were on watch all night long. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning of the third day, angels appeared to the guards, rolled that huge stone away and Jesus walked out risen. The same power that rose Christ from the grave lives in you. Your stone has been rolled away! Walk out of your grave and into new life. See the Light.

My Dad was very frugal with his finances. He never had much, and he never spent much. He believed in living within his means. Once he received a warning ticket for having a loud muffler. So, he patched the muffler a couple of times (who does that?), and finally replaced it with his own home-made muffler. He used an old-fashioned steel rain downspout, and ran a pipe through it, which he drilled several holes in. Then he packed fiber glass insulation between the downspout exterior and holey pipe interior. He cut several slices in the ends of the downspout and used radiator clamps to secure the muffler to the exhaust pipes. And, man, did that glass-pack ever sound nice when revving up a Ford V-8 engine (at least to a teen-ager like me).

There are still a few of us around that will take a short cut to save a buck. There are short cuts worth taking, and there are short cuts that aren’t worth taking. There is an air of pride in anything home-made that saved us some cost (as long as it works). Spiritually speaking, however, there simply are no short cuts. Jesus had to die for us. We have to die to ourselves. We must invest in spiritual things. There are no short cuts to getting to God. There must be a cost. And home-made doesn’t get it, no matter how much of a sense of pride our works give us.

So, put away the noise-maker, and let God make you new in His way.

Paul said, “For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:8).

I’m wrestling with that statement right now. I’m asking myself why so many Christians live “ineffective and unproductive” lives when they have professed to be filled with God’s Spirit. And I see this at work in me, as well. Paul said that if we possess “these qualities in increasing measure”, we will be effective and productive. So the question is, what are these qualities that we all must develop in us?

He listed these eight qualities just before in verses 5-7. Take a minute to read through these key qualities that will save us from emptiness as Christians. Think through each quality and ask yourself what that means. If we don’t know what it means, we’ll get nothing from it. And the verb that applies to these verses is “add”. The key to Christian maturity is to keep adding these qualities in increasing measure. In other words, we don’t stop adding. Its the people who have ‘arrived’ that stop adding.

Let’s keep pressing toward the mark.

Lynette Yontz is reading a new book by Pastor Bill Hybels entitled simply Simplify. She observed that many pastors experience burn-out because they don’t know how to say no. That got me to thinking, Why don’t responsible leaders know how to say no? Or, if they know how, why do they get themselves so over-extended that they become ineffective when crises come? Not having read the book myself, here are some of my thoughts on why:

• Pastors are shepherds who don’t want to let their sheep down.
• They don’t want to give time to one type of person over another. So, they do the same for everyone, the responsible and the needy (who will never be responsible).
• Pastors know how to manage time in a small church, but as the church grows, they can’t shift their style of leadership.
• They forget their job is to equip the saints for ministry, not do it themselves. We equip but we don’t delegate.
• Some parishioners are only satisfied if they have their pastor’s time. They don’t want those called to help the pastor, they only want him/her.
• Pastors can have an ego problem that drives them to be the rescuer of everyone. They have a St. Bernard’s Syndrome that leads to over-extending themselves.
• Some people are never satisfied, they want more and more.
• Pastors don’t plan margin into their schedule. If you haven’t planned for free time, you don’t have time for the crisis that will surely come. Plan for it.

As you can see, some of the problem is people, and some is the pastor. I’ve learned one important lesson over the years: If a pastor can’t refresh and prepare spiritual food for his ministry, we will have only left overs the next week.

A young man by the name of Ze (‘zay’) is doing an internship with us here at New Hope. He was born in Haiti but resides in Belize. He wants to learn about how we do ministry so he can take ideas back to Belize where he desires to plant a growing church. And I am aware that some things that we do here will not be culturally acceptable back in Belize.

Speaking of cultural differences, he was trying to understand the divorce problem in America. He says it happens in Belize, but nothing like in the United States, where fully half of all marriages end in divorce. He was trying to figure out why. Good question.

Some of the American views I suggested were: An unhealthy striving for self-happiness; lack of commitment; an over-infatuation with “love” as presented by Hollywood; America’s insatiable thirst for lust and addiction to pornography; role models that make divorce look like trading in for a newer model; and the public acceptance as normal what used to be shunned.

The total losers are the next generation who think what they see their parents do is the way it should be for them, as well. Of all the ideas Ze takes back to Belize, I hope he doesn’t take this one back with him.

In C. S. Lewis’s book The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, he illustrates sin as winter. Winter covers the earth in snow and there is a Great Depression and Suppression on everyone in the land of Narnia. Spring never comes and fear is all around. The witch (Satan) dominates everyone and everything. Into this winter scene four human children enter. Their presence stirs excitement in the hearts of those who want to be liberated.

Once they have entered the winter, they learn about Aslan (Jesus), the King of Beasts. When they have contacted Aslan, a fierce battle ensues and the Witch is defeated as winter breaks and spring breaks forth. What a great victory when death is overcome and stony hearts are resurrected.

In our world, winter is a reminder of the bleakness and hopelessness that sin brings into hearts. But, we keep reminding ourselves that Jesus can melt the icy world we live in and bring spring into our world. Let the Son shine into your life and melt away the Great Depression with hope.