The Construction Principles of the Carpenter

(Click to listen)

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

(Click to listen)

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

(Click to listen)

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

(Click to listen)

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?

(Click to listen)

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

(Click to listen)

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

(Click to listen)

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.