Essays by Gene Shelburne

From The CurseTo Set Me Free Volume 4

CHRISTIAN APPEAL 3

THE CHRISTIAN APPEAL(UPS 107-240)

November 2020, Vol. 69, No. 5. Owned and published monthly by CHRISTIAN APPEAL PUBLISHERS, INC., 2310 Anna Street, Amarillo, Texas 79106. Senior editor, Gene Shelburne. Managing editor, Curtis Shelburne. Consulting edi-tor, David Langford. Subscriptions: Free, thanks to our donors, to all who request the magazine. Free monthly bundles to churches, Bible study groups, and ministries. Send all orders to Christian Appeal Publishers, Inc., 2310 Anna Street, Amarillo, Texas 79106. (Offer subject to issue and print-run availability.) Postmaster: Send address changes to 2310 Anna Street, Amarillo, Texas 79106. Periodical postage paid at Amarillo, Texas. © 2020 by Christian Appeal Publishers, Inc.

COVER PHOTO by Curtis Shelburne; PAGE 2 PHOTO by Corel Professional Photos ©Corel Corporation

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PREFACE

A l l of us are in the same kettle of fish. None of us are exempt from the same tendencies and temptations that scuttle all human beings. Whether we’re trying to “tame the tongue” as James put it, or to “put to death the misdeeds of the body” as Paul commanded, none of us succeeds. All of us sin and fall short of God’s glory because all of us are humans who bear the curse of Eden. In his devotional essays in this issue, Senior Editor Gene Shelburne reminds us that trusting Jesus is the only way for us to be set free from the curse of sin.

“For as

in Adam all die,

so in Christ

all will be made

alive.”

The Apostle Paul1 Corinthians 15

Cur

tis S

helb

urne

*

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“That’s an old one,” my Marine son Jon remarked when I told him I was reading The General’s Daughter by Nelson DeMille. Since my son was a JAG officer and this novel deals with military law, I suspected he would be familiar with it.

We were vacationing, so I didn’t take precise notes, but DeMille’s description of the fictitious South Carolina military base his story unfolds in grabbed me.

Originally, the novelist said, this same land had been home for an Indian village that got burned down by the Spanish conquistadors. The outpost the Spanish established there got torched by the English and replaced with a fort, only to have it leveled by the French and turned into a Cajun trading post.

But the story of that parcel of real estate was not over yet. The early American settlers eventually ran off the French and erected a fort, and it stood until the British invaded that strategic plot of land during the American Revolution. Our fort got flattened and replaced by theirs, which soon became ours. And then the Yankees burned that one to the ground in 1864.

As I worked my way through DeMille’s thumbnail history lesson

about that slice of coastal territory, my focus fast-forwarded to the modern social obsession with finding somebody to blame for the mess we’re in.

Because of the evils of slavery almost two centuries ago, some would hold all Caucasians responsible for any problem that arises in a black community today.

The same ploy of placing modern blame for ancient offenses seems to be fueling the current hyper-sensitivity of some native Americans.

Just hearing Columbus’ name makes them seethe. Call it “Indigenous People’s Day,” they scream, not seeming to realize that their sad tribal experiences are only one relatively late chapter in human history.

If we use this strategy to claim victimhood and seek modern reparations, who should we penalize today for running our early settlers out of Europe and forcing them to seek new homes?

Our chain of blame for today’s troubles actually could go all the way back to Adam and Eve. And one angry author whose book I read last week goes even a step farther back and blames God for anything that goes wrong in today’s world.

Instead of blaming some ancestors for our troubles, let’s do our best to leave blessings for our descendants. CA

July 4th in 2020 was different than any we could recall. Few of our traditional events—the fireworks extravaganzas, parades, concerts, ball games, or cookouts—could take place this year due to the coronavirus safety restrictions.

But all of us know that July 4th is about so much more than firecrackers and hotdogs. Maybe the alterations to our holiday reminded us that we do indeed live in “the land of the free.”

Here in America in non-virus-threatened times we are free to roam our land without restrictions. I can drive across half a dozen states in a single day and never have to ask for permission to cross a state line. Lots of nations can’t do that.

All of my life I’ve been able to write and publish my thoughts and opinions on just about any subject without any fear of legal penalties or censorship. I’m not like the medical doctors in Wuhan, China, who vanished after warning about the virus outbreak. Nor am I like the Christian pastors in India who were beaten and jailed for teaching Bible in their homes. In the land of the free, I can write or speak without fear.

Because we Americans truly are free, we get to choose where to live, where to work, where to shop, what

to buy. How many North Koreans or Somalians enjoy that kind of freedom?

This catalog of our freedoms could go on and on, of course. But my point is that—virus or no virus—on the Fourth of July, when we are saying “Thank You” to God for so many freedoms, we would be wise to reflect that freedom does not always bless us.

God left Adam and Eve free to obey him or to do things their way. Where did freedom put them?

We have entered an era when many of our most sophisticated or best educated people in our land believe they are free to ignore the Bible’s clear moral mandates for sex activities only for a man and woman who are married. The price of the freedom to violate these rules includes not only the loss of self-respect but also the wave of social disorder in a land where too many teens can’t even identify their fathers.

Just a quick review of American history should remind us that the men who first wrote and sang about “the land of the free” also clearly stated that true freedom can exist only if we submit to the guidance and grace of God. Only then can we be free indeed. CA

The Land of the FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

Who Can We Blame?From the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

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Do you ever wonder how you’d survive if you were left without elec-tricity for days or weeks? Like folks in California were during that 2019 wildfire outbreak?

One morning not long before Thanksgiving last year I drove to the church, unlocked my office, flipped on the lights, and booted my computer. Just as I usually do.

An email reply from one of my column editors triggered me to produce a digital document. I had just opened the necessary program when my computer’s screen flickered and it shut down. Along with our furnace fan and lights and all our other electric equipment.

I hurried out to the alley to see who was messing with our power lines. No utility trucks or workmen were in sight. No damage to the overhead lines was visible.

Back in my almost-dark office I sat in the chair behind my desk and pondered my next move. Maybe I should scurry to a McDonald’s and spend this downtime drinking java and reading or working on my laptop.

Forget that. A text from my wife let me know that the power was also off at our house a mile away. The outage affected far more than the church neighborhood. And another text from a nearby church member warned me

that it might be two or three hours before the power was restored.

So I sat there in the darkness, scribbling on a pad on my desk. In my barely legible scrawl I jotted down reminders of several items I didn’t want to forget. But my usual high-volume productivity was at a standstill that morning. I did not know how to work without power.

That I could be so instantly and totally disabled by the loss of a few watts and amps surprised me.

Maybe North Korea is right. Instead of atom bombing us, so the rumor goes, they’re saying that all they need to do to bring America to our knees is to disable our power grid. That’s scary.

But electricity is not the main power we depend on. All of us who live for Jesus are able to function and be fruitful because of what the apostle Paul called God’s “power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20).

Paul said, “This power working in us is the same as the mighty strength which he used when he raised Christ from death.” We likely are no more conscious of it than we are of the electric current we thoughtlessly depend on so totally. Take away God’s power, and the life and light in our minds and bodies will blank out as totally (and unexpectedly) as my computer screen did that day. CA

One of the game warden television shows recently told the true story of several kids who stumbled across a colorful snake in their yard. Thank-fully, they decided not to play with it. That multi-hued reptile turned out to be a coral snake—one of the deadliest varieties in the U.S.

Watching that episode resurrected vivid memories of a day when I was just seven or eight, and my siblings and I discovered a coral snake inching its way down the street in front of our Kerrville, Texas, house and acting like it had the right-of-way.

With some help from our parents, we trapped that critter and hauled it to the office of the game warden who measured it at twenty-three inches long. At that time, it was the longest coral snake ever caught in Kerr County.

Snakes have been a common part of my life almost as long as I can remember.

A few months after we caught that coral snake, my brother B. and I were getting ready for baseball season by clearing the then-vacant lots north of our home. I tipped over a boulder to roll it out of what would become center field. Instantly, between my legs and on both sides of my knees flashed three small copperheads. Through no fault of my own, they missed me. But I learned that scary

day to be a lot more careful when I moved anything outdoors.

One spring a year or two later at that same house, our family mutt alerted us to a den of rattlesnakes hatching right under my bedroom. No big deal.

On the West Texas ranchland where our mother grew up, rattlers were so common that they dealt with them almost daily. We knew they were dangerous, but they didn’t frighten us because we grew up knowing how to watch, where not to step, how to keep from disturbing one. Co-existing with rattlesnakes and avoiding their deadly fangs was a life-skill we just took for granted.

If you’ve read your Bible, you know that the first snake that surfaced in human history showed up in Eden. And you also know that no human has ever encountered a deadlier snake than the one that menaced Adam and Eve.

Just as West Texas ranchers survive by learning to avoid rattlesnake bites, so all of Adam’s posterity must be trained and equipped to dodge the deadly strikes of that Eden serpent.

Far deadlier than the poison of a coral or rattlesnake is Satan’s venom of hate, lust, greed, anger, and pride. All of us have been bitten. Only because of the antidote of Jesus’ blood can we hope to survive. CA

It’s a Snake!From the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

Power FailureFrom the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

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Zelophehad died during the Exodus. As Israel drew near to the Promised Land, his daughters saw that plots of land in Canaan were being assigned only to men.

“That’s not fair,” they protested. “Just because we’re females, we’ll be homeless.” They should be allowed to inherit their father’s portion of the land, they argued.

Moses talked to the Lord about it, and the Lord agreed. As long as they married only within their tribe, that portion of the tribal real estate should be theirs.

Ever since that landmark legal case, women have struggled to be treated fairly in every legal or economic system.

Their number is shrinking fast, but we still have a few folks among us who can remember when just a century ago American women were not allowed to vote. Today they control Congress, command armies, preside in our highest courts, and outnumber the male students in most of our law and medical schools.

Don’t misunderstand where I’m going with this. I am not embarking on an anti-female tirade.

But now that I have survived more than eight decades, it does seem apparent to me that few if any

of my younger female friends have any idea what their mothers and grandmothers had to give up to reach the present level they call “equality.”

Does any lady less than half a century old remember the society (the one I grew up in) where no man ever uttered a profane or obscene word in the presence of a woman?

How many modern gals recall an age when men stood and women sat on crowded subways? Or when men always hurried to open a door and hold it for a woman, even if she was a total stranger? And women always got to go first?

Those days when females deserved and received special courtesies are gone. No longer do most of us guys obey the biblical instruction to be considerate toward women as “the weaker sex.” Now we’re “equal.”

In the 1800s, famous British novelist Charles Dickens spent time visiting our country. Later he wrote, “Nor did I even once, or on any occasion anywhere during my rambles in America, see a woman exposed to the slightest act of rudeness, incivility, or even inattention.”

That’s what American females gave up in their quest for equality. I can’t keep from wondering, ladies, if you came out ahead. Considering what you lost, was it worth it? CA

All of my life we’ve called them jigsaw puzzles. It never occurred to me to wonder why. Was a jigsaw the ancient tool first used to shape the pieces?

Every Christmas for at least the past two decades someone in our family has given me a puzzle. I think they search all year long for one that will be almost impossible to piece together. Some of those puzzles are real dogs.

Like the one we worked on last year. It was a photo taken by our son Jon and his lady, a gorgeous scene of majestic palm trees arched against the sea and sky on a Maui beach. With enough expanses of blue and identical palm tree trunks to drive any jigsaw puzzle nut nuttier.

But during this past holiday season we evidently were gluttons for punishment. No sooner did we plunk in the last piece of that Hawaii puzzle than we dragged out a cellophane-wrapped box that contained another puzzle given to us a couple of years earlier by that same son.

This puzzle featured a montage of military scenes spanning the past century. An appropriate gift from our Marine son. Two granddaughters hung in with me late into the holiday nights as we brought to life that jigsaw tribute to the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.

Somehow our niece who lives over

two hundred miles south of us found out about that puzzle. She wanted it, she yelped. She wanted to display it in her barbecue joint on a wall designed to honor our nation’s defenders.

After two weeks of late nights spent sorting out hundreds of maddeningly disconnected jigsaw pieces, you’d think that was enough of such madness. Just a day or two later, though, when I found myself dragging out a 1,500-piece monstrosity from several Yuletides past, I unlocked in my heart a new sympathy for other people whose addictions overtake them without warning.

Puzzles are supposed to be fun. But if you factor in all the lost sleep and the hours spent hunkered over a poorly lit table, “fun” might better be replaced with a term like “masochism.”

As I contemplate this subject, however, I realize that jigsaw is not the only kind of puzzle some of us are addicted to. I’ve spent most of my adult years trying to solve a host of the puzzles life dumps in our laps.

Such as deciding if our worst tragedies are part of God’s plan for us (as I heard a devout man testify yesterday), or if they are Satan’s ploy, and God’s only involvement is to comfort and sustain us when we hurt. Solving puzzles like that may have to wait until Jesus reappears. CA

The High Cost of EqualityFrom the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

The Agony of PuzzlesFrom the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

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For six decades now, every month I have mailed thousands of church bulletins and devotional magazines. Without our nation’s incredible postal service, this part of my minis-try would have been impossible.

During the 1960s, Uncle Sam still thought it was the government’s role to encourage reading and to keep citizens informed, so the bulk-mail postage rates for printed material back then were incredibly low.

With so much of my ministry mail-based, from the first day I have given thanks for those who so efficiently and affordably distribute our mail.

But also from those first days I have been frustrated by the way our postal system advises publishers that certain addresses have changed. Bulk-mailers pay dearly for every piece of returned mail, but what we get for our dollars often is worse than worthless. It’s costly, and far too often it’s wrong.

My church was a bit neanderthal. Until last summer, we mailed bulletins weekly. When one was sent to a wrong address, what happened when Uncle Sam took eight or ten weeks to return it? By the time we got it back, we’d mailed eight or ten more. And we had to pay for each one returned.

One week, for example, we got back three bulletins mailed several

weeks earlier to the same address of a fellow who had moved. Two of those we got back on the same day in the same envelope. We paid for all of them.

This part of our postal system is broken. Always has been and, it appears, always will be. I encountered it the first month when I started using bulk mail in 1961. And nobody seems to know how to fix it.

My Scotch soul hates to spend donated dollars to pay for worthless, outdated address changes, but I learned a long time ago not to complain about it to my friends at the post office. They can’t do anything about it.

All that my complaints would accomplish is to raise their blood pressure and mine. So I just pay the returned-mail fees several times every week and write it off as part of the unavoidable cost of using bulk mail.

I hope the good Lord will teach me to take this same approach to most of my frustrations. Life is full of nettlesome messes that defy solutions. Either we learn to put up with them and to work around them, or we’ll spend half of every day spouting off and venting road rage.

Only if we learn to accept the unfixable irritations in life can we obey the Bible command, “Be slow to speak and slow to be angry.” CA

Pope Innocent IV gets credited by historians as the first church leader to use the word “purgatory” officially. That was way back in 1254, twelve centuries after Jesus taught willfully wicked folks to expect the fires of hell. Twelve centu-ries too late for purgatory to be a biblical concept.

By the time the famous Czech church reformer Jan Hus came along in the early 1400s, purgatory had become a highly profitable concept. Duped into believing that they could buy relief for loved ones trapped in the torments of purgatory, wealthy Europeans poured fortunes into the church coffers as they paid for what were called “indulgences.”

Staunchly protesting this mercenary use of questionable theology, Hus found himself embroiled in the fierce church politics of that day. For his efforts to restore the church’s integrity, he got burned at the stake.

Even more famous, of course, was the renowned church reformer Martin Luther. A bit more than a century later, he began to echo the protests of Hus against the use of purgatory to frighten rich Christians into filling the pockets of corrupt church leaders.

Few of us modern Protestants have ever had to worry about purgatory. For most of us it’s as unreal as a fairy tale.

But, since “hell” seems to show up on every other page in our Bibles, we’ve heard a lot about it.

We still use “hellfire and damnation” to describe the content of the ugly-spirited preaching heard from some pulpits or spewed by some radical television evangelists. It upset Hus and Luther that priests used fear of eternal punishment to extract dollars. It troubles me when I hear preachers using fear of hell to pad their conversion stats.

Unfortunately, all through the centuries some spokesmen for the church have abused and misused the topic of hell. So it is our fault that a well-educated writer recently referred to “the medieval notions of Hell and Purgatory.”

The concept of hell is not medieval. It’s biblical. The count will vary slightly depending on which Bible version you consult, but in the Gospels we hear Jesus using some form of “hell” or eternal fire twenty times. The Savior who came to teach us about love and grace still warns repeatedly about the eternal consequences of unforgiven sin.

What a blessing it is, though, that just as he assured the thief on the cross, Jesus tells all of us who turn to him, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” CA

Too Broken to FixFrom the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

It Sounds Like HellFrom the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

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Half a century ago I wrote my master’s degree thesis on C. S. Lewis’ now-famous Narnia books. Back then they were just beginning to surface. Most of my professors had never seen them, so they were slow to let me select Narnia as my research topic. One or two of them lived long enough to see those books become bestsellers and maybe even to see some of the Narnia movies.

As I was clearing home office shelves to make room for books out of my former church study, I ran across the type-written (pre-computer) manuscript of the popularized version of that thesis. The top C. S. Lewis scholar in America recommended it to a major publisher, and it came literally within a few days of being accepted. That’s a story for another time, but I forgot I had that aging manuscript right there on my shelves.

If you’ve read the Narnia tales, you know that Lewis embodied Christ (the Lion of Judah) in his unforgettable Lion called Aslan. The deeper we dig into the stories, the clearer it becomes that Aslan is Jesus in disguise. Several generations who chose to ignore the Christ in the Gospels, without knowing it at the time, met him in Narnia.

Why “Aslan”? I wondered, as

I researched and wrote almost 200 pages before Narnia became popular. Where did Lewis come up with that odd name? He never told us. Not long ago, quite by accident, I ran across a news story about a criminal who changed his long unpronounceable foreign name to Aslan. The story explained that Aslan in Turkish means lion. Suddenly it all made sense.

Just like Jesus in the Bible, the great Lion in Narnia chose to suffer punishment and death in the place of a misbehaver who deserved it. And, like Jesus, Lewis’ great Lion then lived again to aid his followers. Anyone who knows Jesus will see him over and over in Aslan.

One of Lewis’ most famous lines in the Narnia stories is the warning to the girls when they see the goodness of Aslan and want to embrace him. Repeatedly they are cautioned to be careful because, “He is not a tame lion.”

All Christians need to hear this truth. We become so familiar with Jesus—singing about him, communing in his memory, praying in his name—that we overlook his true identity as the God who rules heaven and Earth. He chose to become like us—“in every way,” the Bible says—so we tend to think of him as a weak human. But today he sits on heaven’s Throne, Ruler of everything. “He is not tame.” CA

Back in the Age of the Hippies (the “God is dead” era) one of the most often recited axioms was the liberal assertion that one religion is as good as another.

But times and axioms have changed. In our present godless, secular culture, the most common thesis tells us that no religion is good. Not one. Unfortunately, those of us who cling to faith—almost any faith—keep providing ammo for the religion bashers.

Few things have marred the image of classic Christianity more than the delayed but devastating revelation of the number of pedophiles disguised as priests. Add to that the sexual forays and marital infidelity of highly visible mega-church pastors, and the “Nones” in church preference censuses feel sure their choice is validated.

Daily headlines provide vindication to the no-religion-is-good crowd. When they read about the Iranian man who beheaded his 14-year-old daughter in an “honor killing” (she had eloped with a man he didn’t approve), no civilized person would want to be part of his religion.

When they learn how many Christian pastors and church members in Burkina Faso have been slaughtered in the past year by radical Muslims, what do you think today’s religion-rejecters immediately conclude?

Instead of feeling defensive for the martyrs, far too many of them dismiss both the killers and the killed as participants in lunacy.

Congregations and defiant pastors who have violated virus sheltering mandates—some with devastating, even deadly results—added more fuel to the fires of those who disdain all religions and their adherents. And it wasn’t just wacky pastors. This list of religious misbehavers included several imams and rabbis. When over 70 attenders at one California church caught the virus, imagine what their anti-religion neighbors thought.

In one way, the growing no-religion-is-good cadre are just like those of us who cling to faith: they tend to see only the examples that verify their views and to ignore the copious cases that demonstrate the opposite.

Most of those who dump and defame all religion have never imagined what their world would be like without it. Without the moral and ethical and charitable standards of all faiths shaping our society, who would dare to deal with a bank or ride a bus or be admitted to a hospital?

Christ said, “Do unto others what you want done to you,” but it’s basic to most religions. Without faith, the rule becomes, “Do it to others.” CA

C. S. Lewis’ LionFrom the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

All or NoneFrom the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

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Coffee has been an important part of my world all of my life. My rancher grandfather, D. P. Key, greeted the sun every morning with a stronger-than-normal pot brewing on their kitchen stove. My city official grandfather, George Shelburne, kept a hot cup within arm’s length almost every hour of every day. By offering us visiting grandkids cups of milk flavored with a shot of coffee, they taught us to share their addiction to joe.

My coffee habits had to be modified. Before I started teaching the Bible course at the high school every morning, I drank Folgers diluted with cream and syrupy with sugar— condiments not available in the teachers’ lounge. So I began to swig my coffee straight. Black. And that’s the only way I like it now.

Two or three decades after I had to make that change, Starbucks and their imitators came to town. Marshalls’ Coffee taught me to drink flavors I’d never heard of before. But when I wander into their successors’ shops, now I tend to order the grind of the day. Straight, dark, hot, black coffee. Then Keurig invaded my world, so who knows now what flavor may be in my cup today?

Against this quasi-confession, imagine how surprised I was to

learn that when coffee came to town in London in the early 1700s, proper folks considered it unlawful and immoral. A barber named James Fair was subjected to an inquest “for making a sort of liquor called ‘coffee’ to the great nuisance and prejudice of the neighborhood.”

That description of coffee drinking reminded me of my Grandmother Key’s 1940 opinion of bowling. She was convinced that this now-popular family sport defiled good people and that the local bowling alley was a den of iniquity.

What I’m illustrating here is how standards for upright behavior change from one generation to the next. Compare the 1920 Prohibition regulations for selling and imbibing whiskey to our rules for the same activities a century later.

But basic moral principles never vary. It’s wrong to lie, steal, or cheat. Always. Murder is never okay. Violating someone else’s mate is not okay. Never. And the Bible explains that these rules always apply because breaking them always hurts both the perpetrator and the victim.

I’m glad the coffee laws changed, but I’m even more pleased that unchanging universal rules keep you and me from being victims of those who lie and rape and kill. CA

I drove some extra miles today dodg-ing road work traffic jams and look-ing for cheap gas (that I should have bought yesterday). My meandering took me past at least a dozen houses that for me are loaded with memories of friends and acquaintances I’ve lost.

In one block I drove past the former fine homes of a highly respected Rotarian buddy/dentist and a childhood friend who grew up to be a doctor. Both have been dead for several years now, but just passing their houses caused a tidal wave of rich memories to flood my soul.

Going to a post office (and while detouring to dodge a pipeline repair), I drove past a house I used to own. In that house that I literally saved from the city’s bulldozer, a tenant blew out his brains one night. Not a good memory, but one that stays with that house.

As I drove west I spied the tiny one-room house where one of my earliest, best childhood friends resided during the first months of his marriage. He was indeed “the sweet singer of Israel,” and he went by that singer’s famous name. I preached his funeral a decade ago, but just seeing that old house caused me to hear his marvelous tenor voice again. One of my sweetest memories.

Two blocks later I spotted the house

where a prison chaplain who years ago sang with me in a male quartet had lived while he was in school in our town.

Not far from the post office I passed the old home of one of the church elders who ordained me to ministry. He’s been dead for decades now, but never forgotten.

Just two blocks north is the former home of another elder in that same church. Every time I see it, my memories transport me to the time my family ate lunch in that house. Summer of 1953, but I remember it like yesterday.

In between those two houses sits the only one I ever knew Bull Lynch to live in. A former winning football coach, he became principal of one of our new high schools, but I first knew him as the assistant principal and order keeper in our original high school. I can still hear his gruff growl.

What I’m describing here are memories of the dead— memories that bless me every time they are rekindled.

Jesus knew the power of memories. For two thousand years his followers have been obeying his command, “Do this in memory of me.” Every time we break the holy bread and share the wine, we remember this One who died for us.

Few things bless us more than memories of the dead. CA

Memories That Won’t DieFrom the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

Time for JoeFrom the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

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Early in 2020, shortly after I retired from more than half a cen-tury of pastoring at the same church, I spent at least two months getting ready for my replacement.

I had to sort and empty files, clear bookshelves, empty my desk, trash a ton of archaic computer discs and audio cassettes. Much of it went straight to the garbage dumpster, but the books and files I wanted to keep needed somewhere to go, so I also worked long hours emptying closets and cabinets and shelves at home.

All of this turned into a gargantuan job, far more strenuous than I had anticipated. And on virtually every shelf and in every drawer I came across archaic tools and digital equipment. Some of it pre-dated 8-tracks and 5 1/4-inch floppies. Obviously, I hadn’t used it in years. Most of it I could not have used because the equipment it ran on is now extinct. But I had stupidly kept it anyway.

Why? Why do some of us stack up and store defunct equipment and ancient business records and mementos of events nobody still recalls?

I have several friends who are hoarders. They never throw away anything. My storage habits are not quite that bad, but the hard days of manual and mental labor it took to

clean out my home and church offices showed that I’m not far from it.

Why would any sensible person hang on to bank statements that are 50 years old, or fill a file with college notes scribbled 60 years ago and never consulted since then? I plead guilty. And I paid the price for my sins.

Do I need to tell you, though, that loading bins and shelves with tools and notes and junk from the distant past is not nearly as harmful or labor-costly as storing up anger and resentment triggered decades ago in clashes the other person has long ago forgotten?

Grudges and grief allowed to fester in the recesses of our hearts exact an enormous toll on us. They fill up soul space that should be reserved for hope and love and delight. And only those of us who stashed these negative emotions in our hearts can make the decision to clean up the mess we’ve accumulated through the years.

“Come unto me, all you who are tired and overloaded,” Jesus offers, “and I will give you rest.” It’s a precious promise, but we can claim it only when we’re ready to dump the hate and hurt we’ve hung on to for so long.

It may be housekeeping time for your soul—time to decide what to get rid of and what to keep. CA

“We need water!” the Israelites mullygrubbed to Moses. “Did you drag us out here into this desert to die of thirst?”

Complaining was nothing new for them, of course. From the earliest days of the Exodus, the Hebrew people bellyached and blamed Moses for anything they didn’t like. The older Bible versions say they “murmured.”

For years Moses patiently bore their constant griping and groaning without snarling back at his ungrateful mob of refugees, but on that morning when they blamed him for the desert’s dryness, he’d absorbed all the carping he could stand. That morning he lost it.

When Moses talked to God about the crisis of the day, the Lord told him he would give them adequate water both for the million humans but also for all the animals in the camp. “Go speak to that rock over there, Moses,” God instructed him, “and it will pour out all the water you need.”

But Moses was mad. Moses knew his people needed the water to survive, and he knew that God could and would provide it. But he was so ticked off at the whining tribal leaders that he had a monumental temper fit.

“Listen to me, you rebels,” he bellowed. “To shut your mouths and

water our flocks, do I have to do something as incredible as making water flow out of this desert rock?” Instead of telling them that God would supply the life-sustaining liquid, Moses implied that he would.

Then, turning to the rock God had designated, Moses brought forth a gusher of pure water. But he did it his way, not God’s way. God told him to speak to the rock, but Moses, driven by blinding anger, clobbered the rock with his staff as he yelled, “Must I get water out of this rock?”

God was gracious to Moses that day. He didn’t scold him. He didn’t embarrass him in front of the multitude by withholding the water. But decades later when Israel was about to cross the Jordan River to enter the Promised Land, God told Moses he couldn’t go with them. Why? Because of the mistake he made at the rock that day.

This is the same God we serve. By the grace Jesus bought for us on Calvary, our sins can be cleansed. Our worst mistakes can be forgiven. But we’re like Moses at that rock. While God forgives us, the consequences of our bad choices and wayward deeds may never go away.

God’s grace is unlimited, but, like Moses, we still pay the price if we strike the rock. CA

Things We KeepFrom the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

When We Foul UpFrom the Curse To Set Me FreeFrom the Curse To Set Me Free

CHRISTIAN18 APPEAL 19

Cur

tis S

helb

urne

“Since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man.”

The Apostle Paul1 Corinthians 15

*

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION(Required by 39 U.S.C. 3685)

1. Publication title: THE CHRISTIAN APPEAL. 2. Publication No.: 107-240. 3. Filing Date: 9/7/20. 4. Issue Frequency: Monthly. 5. No. of Issues Published Annually: 12. 6. Annual Subscription Price: free. 7. Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publication: Christian Appeal Publishers, Inc., 2310 Anna St., Amarillo, Potter County, TX 79106-4717. 8. Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters or General Business Office of Publisher: same as item #7. 9. Full Names and Complete Mailing Address of Publisher, Editor, and Managing Editor: Publisher: Christian Appeal Publishers, Inc., same address as above. Editor: Gene Shelburne, 2310 Anna St., Amarillo, TX 79106-4717. Managing Editor: Curtis Shelburne, P. O. Box 402, Muleshoe, TX 79347-0402. 10. Owner: Full name: Christian Appeal Publishers, Inc. Complete Mailing Address: 2310 Anna St., Amarillo, TX 79106-4717. 11. Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders Owning or Holding 1 Percent or More of Total Amount of Bonds, Mortgages, or Other Securities: none. 12. The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes has not changed during the preceding 12 months. 13. Publication Name: The Christian Appeal. 14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: August 2020. 15. Extent and Nature of Circulation Avg. Copies Each Issue Actual Copies During Preceding 12 Months Nearest to Filing DateA. Total No. Copies 4,000B. Paid and/or Requested Circulation 1. Paid/Requested Outside-County Mail Subs 3,419 2. Paid In-County Subscriptions 297 3. Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales 250 4. Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS 0C. Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation 3,966D. Non-requested Distribution 1. Outside-County 0 2. In-County 0 3. Other Classes Mailed 0 4. Outside the Mail 0E. Total Non-requested Distribution 0F. Total Distribution 3,966G. Copies Not Distributed 34H. Total 4,000Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation 100%16. Electronic Copy Circulation: none. I certify that 50% of all my distributed copies (electronic and print) are legitimate requests or paid copies. 17. This Statement of Ownership will be printed in the November 2020 issue of this publication. 18. Signature and Title of Editor, Publisher, Business Manager, or Owner: Gene Shelburne, Sr. Editor. Date: September 7, 2020.

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John

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Just Recorded & Coming Soon!

CURTIS SHELBURNE’S NEW MUSIC ALBUM

Almost Home

RedeemedRock of Ages

Softly and TenderlyCome Thou Fount of Every Blessing

The Ninety and NineWhat a Friend We Have in Jesus

Abide With MePeace in the Valley

In Christ AloneGive Me Jesus

Just a Closer Walk With TheeI Believe

Produced by Darrell Bledsoe

Visit online at www.CurtisShelburne.com.The album will be available on CD, USB flash drive, & onlineCDs/Flash Drives—Only $15.00 each (plus shipping & handling)P. O. Box 402, Muleshoe, TX 79347 (phone, 806-946-8887)Email, ckshel@aol.com.

FOR UPDATES, AVAILABILITY, & PRE-ORDERS . . .