Happy late edition to  Friday, now  Saturday morning :)

..so I'm canceling cable. Unthinkable just a few short years ago. Like most others I had my favorite shows, set "appointments" on certain evenings. Weeks were structured into when various programs were scheduled. As a Pastor I learned early on never to book an event  on Thursday evenings as that night was owned by something called "must see tv".

As a child I watched tv from the floor directly in front of it because switching the channel meant turning a knob with your hand. Remember those days when your tv, along with that ridiculously large outdoor antenna could bring in all 6 channels..although 2 were fuzzy and one was some local community station that allowed anyone with a vision to have their own tv show.

Then came a cord attached "clicker".. you could now access as many as ten channels from your couch. Oh the glory.  I can still feel that tinge of excitement I felt the day my parents made the big leap to "color" AND something called cable. At the time I was still too young to know how my parents rated in the world of parents.. but this certainly gave me reason to believe they were among the better ones :)

As cable grew in its reach the extravagant turned into the absurd. Twenty channels became forty, then shortly thereafter we all needed a hundred for some reason. Soon enough the 700 channel universe became a reality and today no one really knows exactly how many channels we all have..

Except now, no one any longer cares.

Over the past few years a light bulb has slowly illuminated in my brain - despite having thousands of channels available to me, I still only ever watch about 6 hahaha..

That light bulb in my head could never really afford to be totally bright probably because all of my financial resources went towards paying the cable bill.

Money however, is not the main reason I'm cutting the cord. Something that every millennial has known for years is slowly seeping out to the rest of us - namely every thing you want is now available on an "on demand basis".

This generation coming up waits for nothing and has never lived their lives at the mercy of someone else's time table. They have "devices".  They watch whatever they want whenever they want.  Twenty-somethings don't live in the world of "being told".. They are the ones that tell.

The whole world is available to them on their "phone"; a device no longer relevant to its name.  

This new generation understands the word "phone" to mean a thousand different things, none of which has anything to do with what a "phone" actually is. 

Phone someone? You gotta be kidding... they snap, text, wall, whiff, zap, zoodle... ok I'm now making up these words because I'm too old to know what the actual words are hahaha.  

I figure cable companies have a good year, maybe two to reinvent themselves... because no one is going to continue forever paying $200 a month for a fraction of the service now available to you for $7.99  :) It just doesn't seem that long ago that everyone was forced to buy the "digital box" by a certain date or none of our TV's would work.  It seems as though keeping up with technology is an endless chasing of our tails. 

Want to hear about something that never changes? 

 God began the process of creating the heavens and the earth through the Word of His power. From that moment until now, and for all eternity ahead of us... that Word remains unchanged.  Jesus - also known as the "Word" - is described in Scripture as the same yesterday, today and forever.  

God put a form of media in place - His own network, and declared that all things were created through His Word. No wonder it never has to change. What would it change into given that there's nothing in existence that His Word didn't create in the first place. No need for a merger... a takeover, a joint venture... He owns everything. Better yet.. you don't need an antenna, or cable.. or a satellite dish - God has set up a direct "on-demand" signal straight from His heart to yours that can be accessed any time any place... and never from the days of Adam, through the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the times of the N.T. or any time in the past 2000 years... has there been a need to upgrade from Word of God1 to Word of God 2.0.   

Signal strength, bandwidth, mbps, ram speed, memory size... our best technology today is foolishness in comparison to what God can download into our Spirit in a blink of an eye. 1080p?  

God laughs. 

1080p is straight fuzz in comparison to the clarity the Holy Spirit can bring into your life. We think of ourselves as so advanced with what our phones can do... I've heard there is more computer power just in your personal phone than what was used to land Apollo 11 on the moon. Yet our phones are extraordinarily neanderthal in comparison to our connection to the God who created all things. 

Can you imagine for a moment if a company arose that claimed they now have a personal information device that knows everything that ever was or will ever be, that it will never need to be upgraded, there will never be a break in it's perfect definition signal, that there is nothing you need to carry as it communicates directly into your mind and that it is completely free?  You think the lineups at Apple are long?  

I guess the question is, given our access to such a media... why do we spend more time on our archaic devices than we do in our eternal connection with amazing God? 

God, who makes the claim; "Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plans to his servant." (Amos 3:7).  God who informs us that His will for us is "good, pleasing and perfect" (Rom 12:2).  God who tells us that "all things needed for life and Godliness are found in our knowledge of Him" (2 Peter 1:3).. and God who has removed sin, death, sickness and bondage through Jesus the atoning sacrifice....  That God.  Amazing, life giving God. 

Yesterday as I stopped at the corner where the girl scouts were selling their cookies (I have no power or ability to bypass the  girl scouts selling cookies) I was paying for my order when I heard two people talking behind me. 

A man and a woman were sharing stories of the power of God.  They were in obvious awe of encounters with God' s presence. 

I lingered for a moment borrowing their words so I could be covered in them too... I walked back to my car trembling just a little bit.  Later I thought; never has encountering someone standing and staring into their phone had any impact on me. No one has ever caused a stir in me because they are currently playing video games or accessing the latest news story from the street.  But here two people were accessing the God station.. and I thought how amazing would it be if the epidemic that plagued our region (and Country) was not masses of people with their heads downward into their phones, but rather masses currently receiving transmissions from heaven and talking with one another about such things..  If everywhere we went, Christ followers were alive and engaged and speaking of what we're plugged into... 

Forget the "I-Cloud", run with the "Hebrews 12 Cloud"... "Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let's throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Lets fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith" 

Join us for our weekend services...

  Saturday at  6pm and  Sunday  10:30 am...  can't wait to see what God does next :)

..don 

can't wait, can't help it..