Richard Craig, Author at GraceAndWorks - Page 44 of 59

I just finished reading a fine article by a brother about the dangers of cloning and the sin involved if it is ever done for the wrong reasons. But part of his article made me think of one way in which we have a great need for clones in the church. In the article he said, “Especially pertinent is the question of human cloning. Newsweek asked the question, `Today the sheep tomorrow the shepherd?` Yes, clone the Shepherd!!”

Too many in the church are cloned from other sheep or those in the world. We want to LOOK like everybody else, DRESS like everybody else, SPEND like everybody else, BE like everybody else. When others change, we change. We do everything we can to fit in with the Smith’s and keep up with the Jones`. We are simply cloning ourselves after sheep.

There are examples of those in the Bible who had a choice between being cloned after the sheep or the Shepherd. In 1st Samuel 15 Saul had a choice to make: utterly destroy the Amalekites as the Lord instructed (vs 3) or spare the best as the people desired (vs 21). We know his choice (vss 9, 24). He was cloned after sheep. We also know the result–he was rejected from being King over Israel.

The rulers in John 12:42 faced much the same decision. They heard the word of the Shepherd proclaimed and believed it. But would they be cloned after Him? At present they were cloned after the Pharisees. They decided to stay as they were, “for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God” (vs 43).

It is time to clone the Shepherd!! The Apostles were His clones. In Acts 5, they are being persecuted for following Him, but in verse 29 they boldly say, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” Oh, for more people with that attitude today!!

Paul makes it clear after whom he is cloned. In Galatians 1:10 he says, “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.” Notice that Paul admits at one point in his life he was cloned after men (“if I still pleased men”). But in Acts 9 the Shepherd comes into Paul’s life, and he becomes a changed man. In 1st Corinthians 11:1 we see the cloning of Paul to be like the Shepherd when he says, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.”

Can we speak like Paul to others? Are we imitating the Savior to that degree? Have we cloned the sheep or the Shepherd? CLONE THE SHEPHERD!!

This is shared from the Desert Church of Christ bulletin. Pahrump, Nv.

Awww you say. What’s this all about? If you are a farmer, chances are you know what Black Rust is. If not, you probably have no clue. So let’s learn a little today. As you learn about Black Rust, I want to tell a story.

My Dad was a farmer and every  year about 10 days to 2 weeks before wheat harvest, we would go to the Rocky Mountains for a vacation. It was in the summer of 1963 that we took that trip to the mountains and when we got back home Dad was told that Black Rust had gotten in the wheat crop. There are 2 types of rust that hits wheat, Red and Black. Red Rust is not much of a problem, whereas Black Rust causes a lot of damage. You see, Black Rust is a fungus. Wheat normally weighs 60 pounds per bushel. Black Rust causes wheat to dry up and hurries the final stages of filling the berry. Thus causing the berry to shrivel up and lose weight. When we harvested this wheat the weight was only 48 pounds per bushel. Needless to say it wasn’t worth very much money on the market at the time of harvest. Being that the value was next to nothing, we put the wheat in grain bins that were located on the farm. In January, the wheat market was such that there was some profit in selling the wheat that we had put in the bins. As the bins were becoming empty, Dad and I were inside scooping the wheat to the augers. There was a lot of dust and we were not aware how dangerous it was. Remember, Black Rust is a fungus. Long story short, it put Dad in the hospital with dust pneumonia with long term affects of scarred lungs. Dad passed some 30 years later with congestive heart failure due to the scarred lungs. We had no idea in 1964 how dangerous this Black Rust was and the fungus it produced.

I told you all of that 1st) so you could learn something and 2nd) the dangers we encounter without even knowing. As we go through life, we have things that happen that may scar us as the Black Rust had done to my Dad. Satin can get to us as the Black Rust did to the wheat. He can take a good plant and shrivel it up and make it worthless and priceless just as the Black Rust had done to the individual kernels of wheat. The difference is that God can heal us against what Satin has done whereas there was no hope for the scars my Dad incurred.

When you get scarred and have that shriveled up feeling, instead of throwing your hands in the air and giving up, let God be your Doctor. He will heal you!!

SMILE God loves YOU!! Have a good day all.