Jesus and Me ... and the Cats

Joshua 4:1-7 I Peter 2: 1-5 In one of my favorite hymns, "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" by Robert Robinson, the second verse reads, "Here I raise mine Ebenezer."  As a child, I had no idea what that meant.  Personally, I didn't know anyone named Ebenezer, and if I did, why would I want to lift him up. Actually, it refers to I Samuel 7:12.  The prophet, Samuel, had a stone erected at the site of a victory over the Philistines and called it Ebenezer, "God has helped us so far."  In the Old Testament, there are several instances, including the one cited in Joshua 4:1-7, where the people of Israel used stones to mark places to remember what God had done for them.  They were like those historical markers we see along the road sides.  They served as reminders of the actions of God at some point in their history. They were always made of stone -- inorganic, dead materials. I Peter 2:1-5 talks about something quite different -- living stones fro

Ephesians 4:7-16 Luke 9:1-2     Scott is a teacher of theology in a high school in Louisville , KY.   A few years ago, Scott signed the papers to buy a house, proposed to his girlfriend, and told his principal that he’d found a job elsewhere and was quitting.  Within six weeks, he backed out of the house deal, broke off the engagement and asked for his old job back.  Something still wasn’t right.  He knew he should be doing something, but he just didn’t know what.  Then, he remembered that there was something in the Bible about serving Christ, so he found himself in a slum built on a city dump in Africa helping in an orphanage.  He was given charge of a six-year old boy nicknamed the Bull, because whenever the Bull was angry or frustrated, he head-butted people.  He never cried or smiled, and he rarely spoke.  The Bull, like many of the children, picked through garbage for extra food and for anything of value they could find.  It wasn’t unusual for the children to