Month: March 2019

Ash Wednesday 2019

I recently changed my LinkedIn job status.  In October I was invited to join my great friend Michael Ross as his company was acquired by HBK CPA and Consultants.  When my new profile was posted there were many in my family (a few with accounting credentials) shaking their heads.  Surely, some of them must have said, “Jimmy at a CPA firm?  He can’t even add!” (True story!!).  Lucky for the clients of HBK I am helping to build a different division!

As I was grabbing a cup of coffee yesterday, I noticed a sign in the break area. The CPA humor caught my eye.  “Know your worth.  Add Tax.”  Frankly that is what Ash Wednesday and Lent is all about.  Please Know your worth. The life, message, mission, passion, and death of Christ s the ‘Value Added” tax to our lives.  Look at Him, look to Him, Listen to Him, Sit with Him, Follow Him, Die with Him …and you will know HIS WORTH and YOUR OWN.

Humility is the first step on this Lenten journey.  Do we have the humility to abandon our ways and our choices to follow His?

St. Paul told the Philippians who He was and how to follow. Ponder this today and get LinkedIn!

Philippians 2:5-11

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.

Rather, he emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness;

and found human in appearance,

8he humbled himself,

becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Because of this, God greatly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name^*

that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend

of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that

Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

Excited. I can say it no other way. Sorting through the mail today, I found a letter from a friend in prison. I was so excited. (No stigma. Statistics reflect the national reality that over 1/3 of us are connected to someone in the prison or correctional system — sad stat for our nation.) I had written two letters and hadn’t heard from him. All I wanted to know was that he was ok, and if he wanted to hear from me. We all make mistakes. I wanted him to know he was still my friend — I needed him to know that.

It is the night before Ash Wednesday. Two millenia ago, three young Christian communities and a believer were also excited to get letters from prison. The Churches at Ephesus, Corinth and Philippi and a certain beleiver named Philemon recieved letters from prison from a certain Paul. His letter was to comfort them…to challenge them…the teach them…and to remind them in whose name he was imprisoned, and in turn, in whose name they needed to remain steadfast. The prisoner was reminding the free that they sometimes made mistakes, and that both he and Christ were still their friends and loved them.

Tomorrow we will be reminded of our mortality – ashes and dust – but we shall also be called to a deeper reflection – to the immortal and eternal call – to reform our lives and believe the Good News.

Standing at the gas pump filling my tank, I could tell that the car slowly coming toward me was lost.  Lowing her window, the driver asked, “Excuse me.  Are you from around here?”  “Yes,” I said. With that I got to show up the GPS and give her the precise directions to her destination. “I could see how you could miss that.  When you come to the second light, take a left and then an immediate right.  You’ll find your way.” “Thank you so much!  I could never have found it without you.”

So are you a little lost on the journey?  Looking to pull over and ask for directions?  A wise man once said, even a genius is lost in a foreign land with a map!  Make sure you are asking the correct person for directions.  But first, make sure you know where you are going…or where you want to go.

Thomas said to him, “Master, we do not know where you are going: how can we know the way? Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” -John 14: 5-6

Disciples show people the way. Two days ’til LENT!!