Yes James 1:5, but in the Meantime Proverbs 4:5

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

You can’t just sit on your rear end and do nothing.

“But Doug, James 1:5 says, ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.’”

Yes it does.  I’m a huge fan of James 1:5, and I’m asking God for wisdom daily.  

But I’m also a big fan of Proverbs 4:5.  Do you know what that one says?

It says, “Get wisdom!”  In some translations that comes with an exclamation point.  Get it!

So yes, James 1:5, but in the meantime Proverbs 4:5.  In other words, yes, ASK for wisdom.  Then don’t just sit there.  Rise up and go get wisdom!

Proverbs 4:7 says, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom.”

One way to get wisdom is to find someone who already has some and ask them to share it with you.

Of course, reading the Bible is going to give you a lifetime of wisdom.  Psalm 19:7 tells us that the Word of God can make even foolish people wise.

Daily I’m asking God for wisdom in every area of life, but then I don’t just sit back and wait for wisdom to come slap me upside the face.  I take Proverbs 4:5 seriously when it says to “get wisdom.”

So yes, James 1:5.  James 1:5 all day long!  But in the meantime, Proverbs 4:5…rise up, take the initiative, and go get it!

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

A Tale of Two Broken Windows

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

It was like a shotgun of glass in my eyes.  Would it ruin my vision?

It all started on a typical Wednesday when I packed our baby in the car seat and went to pick up a little old lady for church.  It was a winter evening in Illinois and already dark.

As I was driving down the highway, suddenly there was a blast of glass as my driver’s side window exploded.  I don’t recall much about what happened after that.

It turned out that a deer had been streaking across the highway and slammed his head right into my window.  It was like a shotgun of glass to my face and eyes, and the baby was covered in glass but uninjured, thank God.

Someone rushed me to the hospital, and they spent a good amount of time getting the glass out of my eyes.  Just blinking felt like my eyes were full of gravel.

Finally, they sent me home with an appointment to come back in the morning.  My wife was driving me home, and I just sat there in the passenger seat with my head leaning on the window, drained.

And God met me there.

I just felt His grace and presence so sweetly.  I was thinking, “God, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it doesn’t matter.  Even if I go blind, I’m going to follow You and do whatever You want me to do.”

God’s grace and peace and presence were so powerful in that moment, it was truly like the Bible says in Philippians 4:6, a peace that passes understanding.

Thankfully my eyes healed, and everything turned out fine, but at the moment BEFORE I knew how it would turn out…God met me there, and it was beautiful.

I’m calling this message A Tale of Two Broken Windows, so what’s the other one?

It’s the story of a much cooler car than my little Toyota Tercel.  It’s about a 1966 Chevy Chevelle which my friend Rodney Rowland completely restored.

I mean, that car is a thing of beauty!  He fixed it ALL up.  It was perfect.  And he was taking it to the 2023 Barrett-Jackson auction in Palm Beach, Florida, which if you know anything about car auctions, the vehicles at this event are incredible, I mean millions of dollars of amazing vehicles, all in perfect condition…and very shiny.

They don’t get that way by accident of course.  Rodney had spent countless hours bringing that car from basically a crusty shell to perfection.

April 2023 rolled around and he loaded it up on his trailer and hit the road for Palm Beach.  He submitted this super cool Chevelle to the auction inspectors, and uh-oh.  What did they just say?  The windshield…is broken?  What???

It was perfect when it left Tallahassee, but now it was cracked at exactly the worst moment, right before going on the auction block at this huge, worldwide sale.

Does that mean all that time, all that investment was going down the drain?  Did it mean pulling out of the auction altogether?  What should he do?

This is where the grace of God settled on Rodney in a powerful way.  He felt the peace to just go ahead and put it into the auction, even with the cracked windshield.  He said, “God, I’m going to praise You no matter what happens.  If it sells for a lower dollar amount than I need, so be it.  God, You are my provider and I will praise You either way.”

No, it’s not natural to say such things.  It’s not natural to face maybe losing your vision and saying, “God, it doesn’t matter, I’m following You.”  It’s not natural to face potential financial disappointment and say, “God, it doesn’t matter, I’m praising You.”

It’s not natural.  It is supernatural!  It’s what happens when the Spirit of God gives you His grace and peace and presence.  All the usual values and concerns fade in the presence of God!

I was raised in the Lutheran church, and at the end of every service the pastor would quote the benediction in Numbers 6:24-26, “The Lord bless you and keep you.  The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you.  The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you His peace.”

That is exactly what happened in this Tale of Two Broken Windows, for both Rodney and me.  We lived it.  We experienced it.  In a time of stress and potential loss, we felt the Lord’s presence, His grace, and His peace.

And God can do this for you, whatever you are facing today.  How?

I like what it says in Isaiah 26:3, and I like the majesty of the old King James, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee.”

As we keep our heart and mind turned towards God and His Word, trusting in Him, then He blesses us with His peace and grace and presence, even in the middle of our trials.

ESPECIALLY in the middle of our trials.

And that is how we can have peace, even when the glass is breaking, and say, “God, I’m going to follow You and praise You, no matter what.”

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Give the Gap

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

“I will NOT be taken advantage of.”

That’s what we say.

“I will not be made to look like a fool.  If someone’s going to get the short end of the stick, it’s not going to be me.”

No one wants to get the short end of the stick, but in almost every human interaction you could easily say, “Wait a second.  I’m giving more than they are, and I’m getting less.”

The short end of the stick.

It’s hard to imagine Jesus complaining about getting the short end of the stick, which He certainly did when He died for me.  So the example of our Lord is to give, to go the extra mile, and to even find joy in it. 

But how can we do that?  No one wants to feel ripped off or taken advantage of.  It’s demeaning, even humiliating if you think about it too much.

Well I have a plan, a new way to look at it that really flips it on its head.  I call it Give the Gap.  What does that mean?

I’m holding my hand up here in front of my chin.  This is how much I think I am getting.  Now I’m holding my other hand up to my forehead.  This is how much I’m giving, so as you can see, there is a gap between how much I’m giving and how much I’m getting.  

The gap is the problem.  Marriages have been ruined over the gap.  Families have been wrecked; whole wars have been started over that gap.

So what can we do when there’s a gap between how much we are giving versus how much we are getting?

Give the gap.  And here’s an example.

A friend of mine wanted to sell his truck.  A friend of his wanted to buy it.  He told his friend the price, and his friend tried to bargain him down.  That made the first man angry because he told his friend the price and his friend didn’t take his price seriously but wanted a lower price.  There was a gap between their prices.  

I watched as their relationship became seriously damaged over that gap, but it could have been solved if either one of them would have been willing to give the gap.

Both of those men were good Christian men and members of the same church.  They both gave a lot of money to their church and other good causes.  They were givers!  But for whatever reason they didn’t extend their giving ways to this truck deal.  Neither one of them wanted to be taken advantage of, and it damaged their friendship.

It could have been avoided if one of them would have been willing to give the gap, and here’s how it works.

You say you want $5,000 for that old truck, and I only think it is worth $4,000.  Instead of wrecking the friendship, I can go ahead and pay your full price, and that one-thousand-dollar difference?  Instead of feeling cheated, I’m going to GIVE it to you!  I’m going to Give the Gap.

Let’s say you are at work and the boss asks you to do something and you don’t think it is your job.  Yes, you could start a big brouhaha, or instead you could give the gap…the gap between what you think you should give and what they think you should give.  Now instead of it being part of your job, you are giving it as a gift!

The Bible has much to say about giving, like it is better to give than to receive, and “give and it will be given unto you,” God loves a cheerful giver, and even, “go the extra mile.”

Hebrews 13:16 says to do good and share, “for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”

Philippians 2 says we are to have the same attitude of Jesus who, though He was God, humbled Himself to becoming a human, a servant, even dying as a criminal on a cross.  

So when we see a gap between what we are giving and what we are getting, we can simply convert that gap into a gift!  Our attitude switches from, “I’m getting cheated,” to, “I freely give this as a gift, knowing that God wants me to give, and that when I do give, I will receive back and even more, as Jesus said in Luke 6:38, “pressed down, shaken together, and running over.”

No one wants to be taken advantage of, but everyone is called to give, so when you start to see a gap between what you are getting and what you are giving, instead of getting mad…Give the Gap.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

The Bathtub Drain

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

Have you looked down your bathtub drain lately?

It’s probably just a black hole, and as long as the water drains you don’t even think about it.

But you know what?  A lot of things had to be done just right for that drain to work.

Think of a typical ranch house here in Florida built on a concrete slab.  An architect designs the house and creates a blueprint.  Then every person that works on the house works off the blueprint.

One thing on the blueprint is the plumbing.  Before they pour the concrete slab, a plumber has to install all the pipes in the exact right places, including that bathtub drain.

That drain has to be in the perfect spot.  He can’t just eyeball it.  He can’t just say, “This feels right.”  He has to put the drainpipe EXACTLY where the blueprint says to put it.

Why?  Because they are going to pour concrete around it.  It will literally be set in stone.  Yes, it can be moved.  I was part of a drain moving operation at a church one time, and it involved jackhammers and sweat and grumbling.  No one in their right mind would choose to put the drain in the wrong place so that they could move it later.  It would be what we call in the south “ig-nernt.”

That bathtub drainpipe has to be in the exact right spot because one day a guy is going to walk in carrying a bathtub.  He’s going to set it down, look down that drain hole, and he’d better see nothing but a black hole, perfectly lined up.  

Can you imagine how well the plumber has to do his job for the bathtub drain to be perfectly lined up?  It’s a marvel!  But that’s what the blueprint is for.

The plumber doesn’t go in and try to figure it out on his own.  He doesn’t ask his buddy, “Hey, does this look good?”  He has to follow the blueprint. 

And now listen.  We have a blueprint for life.  Life on this planet was created by the Architect, with a capital A, and He has a blueprint for how everything goes together.  If we follow the blueprint, our life works properly, and if we ignore the blueprint, it doesn’t work right.

Jesus used a construction analogy at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter seven.  He basically said that if we follow His blueprint, His teachings, then we are like a wise man who builds his house well.  But if we don’t follow God’s blueprint, we are like a man who builds his house foolishly.

For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said to forgive.  Our blueprint for life is to “forgive men their trespasses.”  Forgiveness works!  It’s in the blueprint!  But what if we don’t feel like forgiving?  What if we have a hundred reasons to not forgive?

The plumber might have a hundred reasons to put the bathtub drainpipe somewhere else, but he MUST put it where the blueprint says to put it or it won’t work.  He will have missed the mark.

What is another word for “missing the mark?”  Sin.  

In the original language, the word sin comes from the Greek and Hebrew words which mean “to miss the mark.”  To sin is literally to miss the mark.  It’s putting the pipe anywhere but where the blueprint says to put it.

If we don’t forgive, we are missing the mark, ignoring the blueprint, and building our life poorly.  This applies to everything God told us to do.  His words are the blueprint.

What if you don’t like words like sin and obedience.  Well, think of it in terms of Jesus’s construction analogy.  Sin is missing the mark, which is not following the blueprint, which is putting the pipes wherever you feel like. 

Obedience is hitting the mark, following the blueprint, putting the pipes right where the blueprint says to put them.

For some reason we think of obedience to God as optional, but we sure don’t want the plumber thinking of the blueprint as optional when he’s building our house.

Why not?  Because we want it built well, not poorly.

And the same is true for our life.  We want it built well not poorly, and for that, we have to follow the blueprint of the architect, with a capital A.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

By the Power Vested in Me

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

“And God I forgive everyone for everything, past…present…and future…”

That’s my daily prayer.  I pray through the Lord’s Prayer and when I come to the part about “…as we forgive those…” I stop and say, “God, right now, I forgive everyone for everything, past, present, and future.  I preemptively forgive everyone for everything they might do or say, so that I’m free to love them like You want me to love them, with the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through me.”

Yes, we know we are supposed to forgive people, but it doesn’t end there.  The big goal is to love people.  Forgiveness gets all the offenses out of the equation which sets us free to love people.

I often say this.  I forgive people so that I’m free to love people the way God wants me to love them, to want God’s best for them, and to even rejoice over them!

My friend said, “Well, I’m not going to rejoice over the man that just murdered my daughter.”  No, his daughter wasn’t murdered.  He was just making a point.  And I get the point.  But nonetheless, Jesus told us to love our neighbor, and our enemy.

I’m not sure you can properly love someone you haven’t forgiven.  And what’s this idea of rejoicing over them?  

The Bible talks about God rejoicing over His people.  Zephaniah 3:17 says, “He will rejoice over you with gladness…He will rejoice over you with singing.”

That was a prophetic word for the future, because at the moment God’s people were rebellious and disobedient.  God was certainly not rejoicing over their sin, and we don’t rejoice over other people’s sin.  So what are we rejoicing over?

We rejoice over the potential in people!  God really does have beautiful plans and possibilities for people who will turn their lives over to Him, and for that, we rejoice over them!  And we love them toward their destiny in God.

And yet it is so hard to love people, right?  For the most part it seems impossible to love everyone.  So how can we do it?

“By the power vested in me…”

I love that little phrase.  You often hear it at weddings.  “By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife.”

Well we, as Christian believers, have the Holy Spirit inside of us, and listen to what Second Timothy 1:7 says about that Spirit.  It says, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

By the power vested in me, the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of power and love and a sound mind, I can love everyone God brings into my path.  

Galatians 5:22 says “…the fruit of the Spirit is love…”

God has given us a spirit of love!  And of power.  He’s given us the power to love!

And to clear room for that power to work, we have to get all offenses off the table and out of the equation by forgiving everyone for everything…past…present…and future.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Taste and See That the Lord Is Good

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

“You must have a lot of faith to believe in God like you do.”  

Actually, I don’t think I have all that much faith.  Think of it like this.

Last night I was working in the yard, pulling weeds and picking up sticks.  Suddenly it dawned on me that I was really thirsty.  Thankfully I had prepared a nice cup of ice water before I went out to work.  So I went and took a big drink and it was so refreshing!

How much faith did it take to drink that water?  Not much because I have had many great experiences of drinking cool, refreshing water when I was thirsty!

That pretty much describes my faith in God.  In the early days I would read something in the Bible or hear something from another Christian and I would try to put it into practice.  I would also hear things from the Holy Spirit, and I would put those things into practice.

It didn’t even take all that much faith in those early days because I would hear something and try it.  

For example, I read in the Bible that we are to forgive people, so I started forgiving people.  It didn’t take a New York minute to realize, “Hey, this is refreshing!”

So how much faith did it take the next time I needed to forgive?  Hardly any!  I had already tasted and seen that forgiveness is a great way to live.

The other day we had a bunch of grandchildren at the house.  They were running around and playing, and then my wife pulled out a beautiful, fresh watermelon.  The kids stopped in their tracks and flocked to the watermelon.  Why?  Because they had already tasted and seen that cool watermelon on a hot Florida day is wonderful!

See, it doesn’t take all that much faith to trust an experience you’ve already had a good experience with.  And that describes my walk with God. 

Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good…”

I HAVE tasted, and I HAVE seen that the Lord is good, over and over!

So while it may look on the outside like, “Gee, that Doug Apple has a lot of faith,” I would say no, not really.  I have just tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and after that it doesn’t take much faith to keep walking with Him, knowing that even more good things are on the way!

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

One Tip for Teachers

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

“I’ll walk you to your car.  I need to ask you something.”

That’s what the man said as he caught me leaving the church one day.

He said, “They’ve asked me to teach a class in a few weeks, and I was wanting to get your advice.”

I’ve been teaching adult Sunday school classes and Bible studies for over 30 years, so I should know a thing or two, right?

He said, “What is one piece of advice you would give me as I prepare for this class?”

Well, how would YOU answer that?

There are many good answers, of course, but here’s what I said.

Like the Old Testament prophets, stand in the presence of God, then deliver His message to the people.

Instead of thinking of creative ways to teach a Bible lesson, get alone with God, sanctify yourself to Him, set yourself apart for Him.

This means get alone with God.  Have regular quiet time with just you and God and the Bible.  Ask Him to lead you and show you things while you read the Scriptures.

And part of sanctifying yourself to God is setting aside some things of this world.

“What things?  You mean, like, sin?”

Of course, sin.  You should repent of all sin and come clean with God whether you’re a Bible teacher or not.  That’s a given.

To really press in and seek God and sanctify yourself to Him, it means denying yourself some things.  It means setting them aside to clear out time and space in your life for more of God.

Jesus said that if we want to follow Him, we must first deny ourselves.  

You can deny yourself watching TV.  You can deny yourself social media.  Deny yourself secular music or books or whatever.  And you can pray and ask God, “Lord, how can I sanctify myself for You?”

The point is to pull ourselves a little more away from our “usual” in order to seek God more diligently, knowing that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, as it says in Hebrews 11:6.

Jesus said go into your room, shut your door, pray to your Father.  In other words, get alone, shut out distractions, talk to God.

If you want to be a better Bible teacher or preacher, that is one tip.  Instead of trying to be more creative or witty or modern, my one tip for you would be to get alone with God and His Word, diligently seek Him, sanctify yourself to Him and see where He will lead.  

Then you will be able to come out of your time with Him with a calling, with an anointing, and what the old timers called an “unction” to speak God’s words to God’s people in the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through you.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.