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February 2002
Dear Saints,
Maria and I were upstairs in our house enjoying a rather pleasant Saturday. When Maria asked where was Hershey (our dog)? He had been downstairs by himself for over an hour not making a sound. This is usually a bad sign. No noise is not good coming from a 63 lb. boxer. When we went down stairs to check on him I was terrified at what I saw. He had mistaken the t.v. remote for a new toy and had chewed it up to the point of no return. After Maria revived me , a rush of emotions came flooding into my soul. I felt like an extension of my right hand had been torn off. Now I would not be able to enjoy watching twenty programs at one time. I would now have to sit next to the t.v. where I could reach it with my hand because the urge to change the channel would be uncontrollable. I knew like a smoker trying to quite smoking it would be difficult to let it stay on the same channel for more than 10 seconds. I would need help. Then it came to me, just by a new remote. They had invented a new animal called a "universal remote". It was an amazing invention it was a remote that could be programmed to more than one brand of appliance and to more than one item. These amazing remotes could be used on your t.v. as well as your VCR. Wow ! ! ! a man must have invented it for only a man could truly appreciate a device that could such wonderfully operate your t.v. and VCR.
When Maria and I returned with the new remote in hand I put in the old batteries from the old one in it for they like the black box from a plane crash was the only salvageable parts from the first one. I pointed it toward the t.v. and pressed the on button ready to release my anticipated joy of the t.v. coming on and nothing happened. It was as quite as when we were upstairs. Silence shouted at me. How could this be? I went through all the rituals of programming it, but with no luck. Maria suggested that it might be the batteries. Please how could the batteries be bad? The little light comes on the remote, they may be old but they should still work. Well after hours of trying guess what the problem was. Yep Maria was right (as usual) I needed new batteries for a new remote. We often try to do that with our Christian life. We try to stuff old batteries (life forces) into our new life that we have through Jesus. But they don’t work. It is like what Jesus said new wine needs new wine skins. If you put new wine into old wine skins they bust and the wine is lost. Well if you try to put your old style of living into your new life in Christ. It doesn’t work. With a new life you need a new energy source and that source is the Holy Spirit that now lives inside you. Don’t try to make it in this life in your old strength you will fail. Let Jesus give you his strength. It will make your new life work, just like the new batteries did for my new remote.
Here’s to new life with power to live it,
Pastor Rick
