The Unlimited Supply

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

Are you keeping your eyes on aging family members and calculating what you will get when they die?

Are you ready to fight with other people to get what you think should be yours?

Why are you doing that?

So many family divisions have happened over stuff.  People value the money and the things more than they value the family relationships.

It’s greed.  It’s a lack of faith.  It’s storing up treasures in the wrong place.  It’s putting stuff before people, which is ultimately putting stuff before God.

In Matthew 19 we read about the rich young ruler.  Jesus said to him, “Follow Me,” but the rich young ruler chose not to follow Jesus.  Why?  Matthew 19:22 says it was because “he had great possessions.”

It makes me wonder, “How great were they, really?  Great enough to literally turn your back on Jesus so you could focus on your stuff?”

You know, it wasn’t long until that man died and then what happened to all his stuff?  Did his kids fight over it?  Or maybe he didn’t have any kids because having kids would have taken away from his wealth.

Now I’m thinking of Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol.  He had no children, and when he died, the servants came in laughing and grabbing the spoils, not even caring that he was dead.

In Luke 12 we read about brothers who were in a big fight over their inheritance.  It was so divisive that one of them came and presented his case to Jesus.  I don’t know what he thought Jesus was going to say, but Jesus certainly didn’t give him the answer he wanted.

In Luke 12:15 we read what Jesus said, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”

Then he told the parable of the rich fool who horded up stuff for himself, only to die and someone else got it.  God called the man a fool, and Jesus said that’s what everyone is who “lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

In the very next verse Jesus said, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on.  Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing.  Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them.  Of how much more value are you than the birds?”

Jesus concluded by saying that our heavenly Father knows what we need, and that when we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these things will be provided.

God has an unlimited supply!

Pastor Adrian Rogers said, “Which would you rather have, a storehouse full of bread, or a Father who is a really prolific baker?”

Our Father is a prolific baker!  He will provide for us daily as we seek Him first.  And seeking Him first means loving people.  That means putting people before stuff.  It means putting our family relationships ahead of the family spoils.  

Let them have the stuff!  What are you going to do without?  God says that as we seek Him, we will NOT go without anything that we need.  

When we realize that God will supply all of our needs according to His riches in glory, we can relax!  We can let the other guy have some!  We can let the rest of the family have the spoils without us blowing up the family just to get our share.  God is our provider, and that sets us free to love others and let them have the stuff instead of fighting them for it.

So if you have your eyes fixed on those aging family members and the potential riches you might grab onto, stop it.  Fix your eyes on Jesus.  Set your eyes on things above, not on things on the earth. 

We don’t have to scratch and claw and bite and fight with the family.  We love them!  And then we trust in God to supply what we need, and the great news is…

He has an unlimited supply!

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Disappointed With God

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

“I’ve spent a good portion of my life disappointed with God.”

That’s what he said, and it got me thinking.

Am I disappointed with God?  Have I been disappointed with God?  Was I ever disappointed with God?

I can’t think of a time when I was ever disappointed with God.

Oh sure, there have been a thousand times when things didn’t go the way I wanted them to go, but that didn’t make me disappointed with God.

Why not?

I guess it is because I always just figured that if things didn’t go the way I expected, it’s because I didn’t really know how things are supposed to work.

For example, there was the time as a baby Christian when I concluded that I didn’t have to lock up my bicycle anymore because God was going to protect me from theft.  Then I came home one day and found that my bicycle was gone!  Of course, I was disappointed, but I wasn’t disappointed with God.  I was just disappointed with the situation.  I thought things worked in a way that they actually don’t work.  I just recalibrated my thinking and moved forward in my walk with God.

A more serious example is when I was a Christian radio DJ, on the air daily, playing Christian music and ministry live on the radio, taking requests, talking to people, encouraging people in the faith, etc.  I also had a wife at home, and an increasing number of mouths to feed.  And being a little Christian radio DJ is not a great way to provide for a big family.

There’s an old joke in the radio industry:  what do a DJ and a large pizza have in common?  They can aaaaaaalmost feed a family of four.

I was praying things like, “God, I believe You have called me to this radio station, and yet I’m not making enough money.  I thought You were going to provide for my needs as I do Your will.”  Meanwhile, the owner of the station wanted me to get into advertising sales to help support both the station and myself.  But I didn’t want to.  I wanted to focus on the on-air ministry as a live DJ.  

Yes, that led to some frustrating days where I was expecting God to provide more money, meanwhile I was turning down my boss’s encouragement to get into sales.  Then I finally realized, “Well, I guess this isn’t how this is going to work.  God isn’t going to suddenly drop in money from heaven.  But meanwhile, I do have this opportunity.” So in the summer of 1992, with our fourth child on the way, I went off the air as a live DJ and began working in sales.  And that turned out to be a positive change in every way, for that whole ministry as well as for my family.

Disappointment with God never took root in me.  I just figured, hey, that’s not how this works.  Let’s move on.  And I would say, yes, God provided.  I saw it over and over.  But He provided through open doors and opportunities that came our way over and over and over again, thank You, God!

Have you ever been learning something new, and it was frustrating, and at times you wanted to quit?

I remember when I was first learning graphic design, using a computer program called CorelDraw.  I didn’t go to school for this.  I was already raising my own family, but the opportunity came.  I suddenly found myself editing a small newspaper, and I didn’t know what I was doing!

I was sitting at Kinko’s in Carbondale, Illinois late one night, because they had a computer with CorelDraw on it, and I had to get this newspaper edited before the deadline.  There was a certain ad that I needed to change, but I couldn’t change it.  Every time I clicked it, the whole thing highlighted and moved, but I couldn’t click just the text to change it.

I was going out of my mind!  It was late at night.  There was no Google to ask.  The Kinko’s worker didn’t know anything about it.  Back then you couldn’t even right click for a context menu.  Plus I was so tired by then.

Finally.  FINALLY I realized that the text inside the ad had been GROUPED TOGETHER.  I had never heard of things being grouped together.  I didn’t know you could group things together.  

Did I become disappointed with the CorelDraw corporation?  No.  I was just frustrated because I didn’t know how it was supposed to work.

And I think that is how people end up feeling disappointed with God.  It’s not that God is disappointing.  It’s that we don’t know how it’s supposed to work, so we burden our relationship with God with all these expectations, and then when our expectations aren’t met, we feel disappointed with God.  Some people walk away from God altogether for this.

What if I would have walked away from graphic design just because I didn’t know about grouping?  That would have been dumb, right?  

When things don’t work the way we expect, we don’t quit.  We figure out how they are supposed to work!

The same is true in our walk with God.  Of course it’s hard to figure out.

Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Romans 11:33 says, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!”

In Job 11 it says, “Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than heaven…their measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.”

Psalm 147 says God’s understanding is infinite!

If we don’t even know how everything works in our favorite computer app, what makes us think we understand the workings of the infinite God?

There’s no room for disappointment.  We don’t get disappointed.  We just realize, “Hey, I guess that’s not how this thing works.  God, please teach me and show me and lead me.  Your ways are higher than my ways, so I put my faith and hope and trust in You.  Please help me to hear and to follow You every step of the way for the rest of my days…in Jesus’ name…”

Amen.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

I Will Walk at Liberty for I Seek Thy Precepts

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

How can you have more freedom by living with more restrictions?

It sounds counterintuitive.  It sounds like nonsense.

We want to be free to do whatever we want, whenever we want.  The more limits, the less freedom, right?  It’s a one-to-one ratio.

Yet we find a different concept in the Bible.

Psalm 119:45 says, “I will walk at liberty; for I seek Thy precepts.”

The precepts are God’s commands, His laws, His principles, His boundaries, His guidelines.  It’s God’s blueprint for how to live.

It says we can have liberty and freedom as we seek to live within His boundaries.

But there is something inside of us that doesn’t want boundaries.  Tell a man not to cross a line and some part of him is itching to do it.

And God lets us cross the line.  We have the free will to crisscross His boundaries all day long.

But there are consequences for crossing God’s boundaries, and one of the big ones is:  less freedom.

“No, Doug.  That sounds like MORE freedom.”

I know that’s what it looks like.  I’m trying to live within God’s boundaries, and let’s say someone else isn’t.  They can do things I won’t do.  They can say things I won’t say.  They can ingest things I won’t ingest, watch things I won’t watch, listen to things I won’t listen to, do things with their body I won’t do.  They sound way more free than I do, right?

And that’s what makes this Bible verse sound absurd, “I will walk at liberty for I seek Thy precepts.”

Now let’s look at what Jesus said in John chapter eight.  In verse 34 He said that whoever sins is a slave of sin.

Sin is anything outside God’s boundaries.  We are all free to exercise our freedom INSIDE God’s boundaries, but as soon as we step OUTSIDE of His boundaries we are now in a territory called sin.

And Jesus said that whoever steps into that territory of sin becomes a slave of sin.

And being a slave is the opposite of being free.

That’s why Psalm 119:45 says, “I will walk at liberty for I seek Thy precepts.”

When we seek His precepts, we are seeking to know God’s boundaries.  Where are the lines?  I want to know where the lines are so I can stay in freedom and out of sin so I don’t become a slave of sin.

Now when we think of slavery, we think of being forced to do things we don’t want to do.  Sin, on the other hand, is often what we DO want to do, so how is that slavery?

It’s slavery because listen:  sin always traps you in circumstances you don’t want to be in.

I’ll say it again.  Sin always traps you in circumstances you don’t want to be in.  That’s the slavery.

So yeah, you might think of a sin and how much you want to do it.  That’s called temptation.  It’s the treat inside the trap.  It’s the bait hiding the hook.  God said don’t do it, but you WANT to do it, and you want to be free to do it, and God seems like a killjoy when He says, “Don’t.”

You can go ahead and do it, but if you sin, you’re going to find that there’s always WAY more to it than the thrill on the surface.  Sin ALWAYS traps you in circumstances you don’t want to be in.

That’s why God gives us boundaries.  He wants us to be free, and His words help us to live free.  Psalm 119:103 says, “How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

Verse 44 says, “So shall I keep Thy law continually for ever and ever.”

And verse 45 says, “And I will walk at liberty; for I seek Thy precepts.”

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Be the Big Stroller Wheel

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

Yay, it’s time to go to the festival!

Thankfully you have an umbrella stroller for the baby.  Just unfold it, strap him in, and off you go.

Watch out for rocks, though.  And uneven sidewalks.  And sticks.  

In fact, just watch out for everything, because the wheels on an umbrella stroller are so janky that even a pebble can potentially block the wheel.

On the other end of the stroller spectrum is the jogging stroller.  You can actually run with a jogging stroller and its big wheels will easily roll over all the little obstacles, giving baby a smooth ride.

This is a good illustration for life, because as you know, life is full of little obstacles that can stop you in your tracks.  But listen:  they don’t have to.

You can approach life as a little janky hard plastic stroller wheel, or you can approach life as a big shock absorbing jogging stroller wheel.

When little hard wheels hit an obstacle there is a noticeable lurch.  It can even stop you in your tracks.  And that’s how some people are with little offenses.  They take the hit.  It stops them in their tracks.  It gets them off course.  They get upset.  They get angry.  How dare you!

But some people have learned how to be the big stroller wheel.  When little offenses come their way, they roll right over them, hardly even noticing.  There is no lurch.  They aren’t stopped in their tracks.  They don’t get knocked off course.  They don’t get upset.  They don’t angry.  They don’t scream, “How dare you!”  They just keep going because, like a big stroller wheel, they had the ability to glide right over all the little offenses.

You can tell the little stroller wheels because they are prickly about everything.  All the little offenses stop them.  And they have to stop and talk about them, over and over.  “I’ll never forget what so and so did to me.”

It’s so much better to be the big stroller wheel and just roll past offenses.  You have things to do, places to go, missions to accomplish.  You can’t be stopped by every little offense, so like a big stroller wheel, just smoothly roll right over them.

Proverbs 19:11 says a wise man is slow to anger and overlooks offenses.  That’s the big stroller wheel!  It just rolls over offenses and keeps going.

If you want to make your life so much better, get rid of the umbrella stroller attitude.  Stop getting hung up on every little offense.  It’s not worth it, and babies get dumped in the process.

Instead, be the big stroller wheel.  Be the wise person from Proverbs 19:11 who knows when to overlook an offense and just keep rolling.

You’ll get farther.  You’ll go faster.  And no babies will be harmed in the process.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

 

The Construction Principles of the Carpenter

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

“The bathtub has arrived!”

A huge man waddles in carrying a heavy bathtub.

It’s a new house.  The walls are up.  The smell of sawdust is in the air.  And it’s time to install the bathtub.

The man sets it down in the only place it can go, touching the walls on three sides.  Then he looks down the drain and says, “Uh oh.”

Uh oh.  That is something you never want to hear.  You don’t want to hear it from your dentist.  You don’t want to hear it from your potty-training toddler.  And you sure don’t want to hear it from your plumber.

What happened was, he set the bathtub down, looked down the drain hole, and what did he see?  He should have seen nothing but a black hole, but instead he saw the floor.  No hole.  No drain.

What he didn’t know was that a few weeks earlier, when his assistant was installing the tub drain pipe, he didn’t follow the blueprint.  He installed the drain where he THOUGHT it should go.  He followed his gut, not the blueprint.

That’s a disaster, right?

But we do that daily with the blueprint of life.

What is the blueprint of life?

Jesus talks about the blueprint of life at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter seven.  He actually gives us a construction analogy.

He said, “Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who builds his house…”

There’s your construction analogy.  He compares building our life to building a house.  And he compares His teachings to the house’s blueprint.  A blueprint tells you how to build a house, and God’s word tells you how to build your life.

A blueprint is drawn up by an architect.  The architect is the designer.  

In life we have an architect with a capital A.  It’s the Lord God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.  And we have a blueprint with a capital B.  It’s the Word of God, the Scriptures, the Bible.

But we often don’t treat the Bible like a blueprint.  We treat it like an optional book of wisdom that we don’t really have to pay all that much attention to.

And we pay a price for it.

To the degree that we follow God’s blueprint is the degree to which we build our life well.  And to the degree that we don’t follow God’s blueprint is the degree to which we build our life poorly.

A good architect thinks of all the details ahead of time.  He fits everything together perfectly, but the builder has to follow the blueprint or things WON’T fit together perfectly.  In fact, if the builder messes up just a few things, that building project will become a royal disaster very quickly.

The same is true for our life.  If we follow God’s Word fairly well, but we decide that we know better in just a few things, it’s not going to work.  

Some people say, “Oh, I don’t want to be all LEGALISTIC.”  But imagine this.  You’re spending a half a million dollars to build your new dream home, and your architect has cooked up a beautiful blueprint.  Do you want the builder to be legalistic about following your blueprint?  Of course you do!  This is your home and you want it done right.

And when it comes to our life, don’t we want to build well?  Don’t we want a good life that is solid and holds up under the pressure of the elements?

Jesus told us how to do that.  “Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.”

We can build our life well if we build according to the Blueprint with a capital B, drawn up by the Architect with a capital A.

And this is what I call The Construction Principles of the Carpenter.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Take Heed How You Hear

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

Jesus said something that sounds almost cruel.

He said, “Whoever has, to him more will be given, and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.”

That sounds like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

So let’s look at this verse more closely.  It’s Luke 8:18 and it says, “Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.”

This can be a hard verse to understand, but the key is in the beginning when Jesus said, “Take heed how you hear.”

The words “take heed” are a warning.  It’s saying watch out, be careful how you listen.

Are you being careful how you listen?  

You can’t just open up your brain and dump everything in!  You have to listen with an ear toward wisdom.

Proverbs 2:2 says, “incline your ear to wisdom.”

The NIV says:  tune your ear to wisdom.

On your radio you “tune in” to a radio station.  When listening we need to tune in for wisdom and truth.

Be careful how you listen.

Take heed how you hear.

So what did Jesus mean when He said, “For whoever has, to him more will be given, and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him”?

It all starts with this tiny bit of wisdom to listen carefully.  You have to be smart enough to know that not everything is true.  Not everything is wise.  Not everything is godly.  Not everything is helpful.

You have to be smart enough to know that some things you shouldn’t listen to at all.  There is poison.  There are lies.  There is foolishness.  There is evil.  You have to be careful how you hear.

If you start there, then when you listen you will be tuning in for wisdom and truth.  And when you tune in to hear wisdom and truth specifically, you will hear it!  

This is what Jesus meant when He said, “To him who has, more will be given.”  

When you listen for wisdom and truth, you will hear it, and you will learn, and you will grow.  More will be given to you.  And the wiser you grow, the more wise you will be in discerning what you hear.  It has an exponential effect.

But what about the poor guy who apparently doesn’t have anything, and even what he seems to have is taken away from him?

That’s the guy who DOESN’T take heed how he hears.  He isn’t careful about what he listens to.  He listens to any old thing and lets it take root in his brain.  

It can SEEM like he has wisdom and truth because he has a lot of DATA.  But if he isn’t careful about it, he is letting in a host of foolishness and ignorance and even lies.  Steve Taylor wrote a song that said, “He’s so open minded that his brains leaked out.”  If he keeps letting all this in, eventually even what wisdom he SEEMED to have will be gone.  Any wisdom he seemed to have will be washed away in a flood of information.

Proverbs 1:5 says a wise man will hear and increase learning.  The only way that happens is if you listen with a discerning ear.

If you are careful about what you listen to.

If you take heed how you hear.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Food Glorious Food

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

I was talking to an evolutionist, the kind that believes that everything evolved from nothing after a big bang.

I said, “Just look at food, for example.  You think it just evolved on this big rock hurtling through space after a big bang?”

“Well, it took billions of years,” he said.

“Always with the billions of years,” I said.  “Incredible complexity rising from simplicity after starting with nothing, just given enough zeros on the calendar.”

I said, “Look at this banana.”

“I’m looking,” he said.

“Look at this astounding bright yellow color.  It’s magnificent!  It’s beautiful to the eyes!  I’m so glad it evolved into something beautiful.”

But wait. There’s more!

When you pick up a banana, it’s smooth to the touch.

When you peel a banana, it’s ready to eat!  No special preparations needed.

And when you eat a banana, it tastes good!  You’re saying that by some miracle of evolution a banana evolved so that when we eat it, it tastes good?

Okay, not everyone likes bananas, but get this.  Bananas are the biggest selling item at Walmart.  Let that sink in.  

So they taste good, but here’s where it really gets deep.  Bananas are good for you!  I’ve read that bananas have actually helped keep much of the world alive.

To say something is “good for you” sounds trite, but look at what it takes for something to be good for you.  It takes a miracle!

You can eat this thing, your body receives it gladly, it goes into your stomach, your stomach perfectly knows how to handle it, and your body turns it into all the vital things that bananas provide for us.

So you would have to say that the human body evolved perfectly to have eyes to see an attractive banana, have hands to get that banana, have taste buds to enjoy that banana, a stomach to digest that banana, and then at the micro level all the things the body does after that at an increasingly smaller level to keep us alive and well.

And that’s just the banana.  We could talk about apples and oranges (by the way, Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined, just sayin’).  We could talk about potatoes and peanuts and on and on and on.  We live in a world exploding with food glorious food!  If you don’t like this or that, there’s plenty more!

All this bounty and no one to thank…except the processes of evolution times billions of years.

I don’t think so.  I want to give credit where credit is due.  I thank our Creator God for His abundant creation, so astounding in every little detail: food that looks good and tastes good and is good for us.  And our bodies that know what to do with it.

So yes, I bow my head to pray before a meal.  I do it at home, and I do it in public.  I’m just so thankful, and so impressed and amazed at how it all works together, and God did it!  Isn’t He wonderful?

He gave us food glorious food!

Thank You, Heavenly Father, for Your wonderful work in creating food for us to enjoy.

Amen.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

The Highway of Holiness

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

A highway is a road built up to make travel easier.

That’s what the footnote in my Bible says under Isaiah chapter 35 verse 8.

That verse is talking about a highway, so the footnote tells us what a highway is.  It’s a road built up to make travel easier.

You aren’t going through the mud on a highway.

You aren’t going through the briars and the thorns.  My grandma called it “the thicket.”

A highway makes travel easy.  It’s a piece of cake traveling on a highway, so smooth and level and wide.  It’s a pleasure.  It’s a joy!

On the other hand, traveling OFF the highway is NOT smooth.  It IS muddy.  There ARE thorns and thickets.  You have to slow down and stop and keep getting your bearings.  “Where am I now?”  You ask that question a lot when you get off the “hard road” as Grandma called it.  “Where am I?”

So a highway is a road built up to make travel easier, and Isaiah 35:8 is talking about a highway.  This highway has a name.  It’s called The Way of Holiness.

Sometimes we get weird with this word “holy” and “holiness,” but it’s not weird at all.  It’s a road built up to make travel easier.

What???  That doesn’t sound very doctrinal and theological.

Well what is holiness?  It’s a purity, a moral purity in the presence of God.

We get weird about the word purity, too, but put it in the highway context.

Do you want your highway to be pure, to be as free as possible from bumps and cracks and potholes?  We want the highway department to make the highway as smooth as possible.

Well on the highway of life, it is holiness, it is purity that makes the road as smooth as possible.  If you want to travel fast and light, the Highway of Holiness is the way to go.

Isaiah 35:8 says that the unclean, the evil-minded will not travel on the way of holiness.  Of course they won’t, and they suffer for it.

To the degree that you are not living a holy life, that is the degree to which you are driving off the road.  No wonder it’s bumpy and scratchy and leaves you wondering, “Where am I?”  You’re off the road.

Traveling on the Highway of Holiness means living within God’s parameters.  Highways have boundaries.  When you drive within the boundaries, it’s a smooth ride.  When you think, “I’ll be free!  I’ll drive wherever I please!” you’re asking for a really bad ride.

And if you’re paying attention, you see that it’s true.  Sin brings bumps in the road.  Big sins bring big bumps in the road.  Living a life of sin is just full of obstacles.  It’s not a highway at all, or even a road.  It’s like driving into a thicket and thinking you’re going somewhere.  You aren’t.  My grandma is looking at your car in the thicket and asking, “What are you doing?”

The highway is a road built up to make travel easier.  Isaiah 35:8 talks about the Highway of Holiness, and when we steer our life within God’s holy boundaries, wonderful things happen.  

Isaiah says there are no lions or ravenous beasts on that highway.  It’s a smooth and clear path for the redeemed.

On the Highway of Holiness there is singing and everlasting joy!  Sorrow and mourning will flee away, and the people will be filled with joy and gladness.

How can that be?  Because the Creator, God the Father Himself, is ever present on the Highway of Holiness!  He is there, full of life and love and joy and peace.  His mercy is forever.  He loves us and has created a highway for us to live on, a highway that’s built up to make travel easier.

It’s the Highway of Holiness, and when we live within its boundaries, we will find that traveling through this life has never been better.

Amen.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Why Is Home Depot on Lockdown?

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

Why is Home Depot on lockdown?

I just wanted to run in, buy a new weed eater, and go home.

But that’s not how it works these days.  Why?  Because Home Depot is on lockdown.

What I mean is, some of their stuff is now literally chained up behind bars right there on the shelf.  

Am I in one of those big cities with looters and riots?  Hardly.  I’m in sleepy Tallahassee, Florida.  And yet here I am, looking at weed eaters, not Rolex watches, chained behind bars.  I will have to wander around the store and find an employee to unchain it for me.

Now why would they do this?  Because of theft, of course.  They didn’t want to do it.  It’s a pain for them, and a pain for their customers.  They wouldn’t have done it if they didn’t have to.

That means the theft was getting so bad that they had to invest in anti-theft measures, and that makes me sad.

Now let’s talk about our local Walmart.  When was the last time you went in to buy shaving cream?  Guess what.  It’s locked up, too.  Shaving cream!

Walmart didn’t want to do that.  How many customers just said, “Forget it.  I’ll order it from Amazon before I’ll track down an employee to unlock the shaving cream.”  

And don’t think you are going to walk down the makeup aisle at Walmart without being recorded on high definition security cameras.  Why would they invest so much money to record you in the makeup aisle?  They didn’t want to.  They had to because so much of it was being stolen.

Last Christmas I talked to a security guard at Walmart who was standing near a back door, an emergency door.  He didn’t really look at me while we talked, because his eyes were scanning the people around me.  I asked him how it was going and he vented a little.  He said, “You know we have about 3,000 people in the store right now.”  No, I hadn’t even thought about it, but wow, that’s a small town.

He said, “And these people don’t realize how much theft hurts everything.  Everyone has to pay more because a few people just won’t be honest.”

I said, “Why are you standing back here where there aren’t as many people?”

He said, “Because believe it or not, people will grab items and run out this back door.  They’ll even try to run right past me just to steal something.  I have to chase them down.”

This was a big man.  I would not have wanted to test him, but apparently others were willing to.

Now let’s look at one thing he said.  “These people don’t realize how much theft hurts everything.”

Of course, when people steal, they aren’t thinking about its impact on everyone else.  They just want to have something without paying for it.  And there’s a certain thrill about getting away with the big heist.  Yes, your big shaving cream heist.

Why is this happening?  Because more and more people are willing to steal.

Why would that be?  Let’s look at the big picture.

Almost everyone in the history of the world knows that stealing is wrong.  It’s a universal concept.  No one wants their stuff stolen from them, and everyone whose stuff is stolen cries “foul!”  

Many people believe that God created the world, and that He created it to work in a certain way, AND, important for this discussion, God is the policeman and judge of His creation.

The God of the Bible says that we will reap what we sow.  What we do to others will be done to us.  Some call that karma, what comes around goes around.  And we who believe in God believe that God Himself enforces these rules.  He makes sure that they work just as He says.

With that in mind, you don’t want to steal because if you do, God is going to make sure it goes badly for you.  And that’s true whether you get caught by the human authorities or not.  If you dart out of Walmart with your stolen shaving cream, and the big security guard doesn’t catch you, it doesn’t matter.  You are already caught by the God of the universe and He is going to make sure that you reap what you sow.

If you are paying attention, you see that it really does work that way. 

But again, why is theft increasing, even if the thief reaps what he sows?

I think it is because more people don’t believe in God, don’t believe He is watching, don’t believe it will come back to bite them, and think if they don’t get caught, they are actually ahead in the game.

If you take Creator God out of the equation, and you think our life here is a random chance, then just living for today, grabbing what you can and making a run for it might make sense.

But of course stealing still doesn’t make sense.  Look at all the stores that are closing entirely in certain cities because of theft.  The idiot thieves can’t even go in and steal anymore because their idiocy killed the whole store.  And all the honest shoppers lost a good store, too.  And the business is hurt by having fewer stores to sell their wares.  And there are fewer jobs in those neighborhoods, meaning more poverty.  

Stealing literally hurts everyone, and most especially the thief.

Because God IS real.  He really IS watching.  And He really IS enforcing the laws of the universe He created.  The thief really WILL reap he sows.  It really WILL come around to bite him in the end.  And that’s bad for him, and it’s bad for all of us because we need every person doing their best to make this society the best it can be for all of us.

I’ll close with these powerful words from Ephesians 4:28, “Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.”

Amen.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

 

The Mission of Mary Magdalene

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

A man makes his plans, but the Lord directs his steps.

That’s what it says in Proverbs 16:9.

We see a great example of this when looking at Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Jesus.

Jesus was crucified.  He declared, “It is finished.”  And Mary Magdalene was part of the crowd who watched.

Joseph of Arimathea took His body down, and he and Nicodemus prepared it for burial and placed it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock.  And they rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb.

Then Matthew 27 verse 61 adds this interesting part of the story:  “And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb.”

The crowds were gone.  The sun was setting.  The great Jesus was in the tomb.  And there was Mary Magdalene, sitting opposite the tomb, watching.  Observing.  Thinking.  Feeling.

Fast forward and we find Mary Magdalene and other women returning to the tomb with spices to anoint the body of Jesus.

They had plans.  They thought it through, made preparations. set the time, got together, and went to the tomb.

But when they got there, Jesus was gone!

Mark 16 says that inside the tomb there was a young man in a long white robe who said, “Do not be alarmed.  You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He is risen!  He is not here.  See the place where they laid Him.  But go, tell His disciples – and Peter – that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you.”

Mary Magdalene had a very clear idea of what she was going to do that Sunday morning, but God had other ideas.  She had her plans, but what she didn’t know is that God had a mission for her.

And I believe God has a mission for each of us.  Yes, we are to do good.  We make plans and organize our days, that’s all good.

But watch for it.  Watch for God to intervene and give you a mission.  

Maybe you have a dream of what you want to do with your life.  Maybe you are making a list of pros and cons.  You’re making plans.

But watch for it.  Watch for God to intervene, to interrupt your plans and in their place give you a mission.    

Because a man makes his plans, but the Lord directs his steps.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Seasoned With Salt

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

Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt…”

Speaking with grace might seem obvious, but what does it mean “seasoned with salt”?

Here’s one way to look at it.  Seasoned with salt makes it delicious and people want more of it!

How do most people feel about potato chips without salt?  Yuck…that’s how they feel about it.

How about peanuts without salt?  Or meat without salt?  Or maybe worst of all…popcorn without salt!  On and on it goes.

But put a little salt on those chips and look out…you can’t stop with just one.  You want more and more.  Why?  It’s the salt, man!

So the question is…is our speech like that?

Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt…”

Ephesians 4:29 says that our speech should “impart grace.”  Does our speech impart grace?  Does the other person feel the grace when we speak?  Are we imparting grace if they don’t feel any grace?

Here’s one way we can know if we are speaking with grace and imparting grace.  People will want more!

True grace is a balm to our soul.  When we get it, we love it, and we want more.  Just like a person wants more of those chips seasoned with salt, they want more of those words seasoned with grace.

Sometimes in the church we lean on harsh words and judgment and criticism.  We think people are going to get better when we lay down the law, and yet Romans 2:4 says that God’s KINDNESS leads us to repentance.  It’s God’s grace toward us, giving us what we don’t deserve, and NOT giving us what we DO deserve.  That’s grace.

So let’s do better.  Let’s fill our speech with grace that it may impart grace to the hearers.  And instead of pushing people away, they will be drawn in and want to hear more, because speaking with grace is like adding a hint of salt.  It tastes so you good you just want more and more and more.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.