Missouri Mark's Jungle Adventure

The world famous cryptozoologist Missouri Mark Applegate, bearing his trademark machete and with sidekick Spider Monkey Cheeto grasping with little white knuckles to his shoulder, fights meter by meter through the rainforest. Faint sounds of gibbon monkeys seem to laugh in a more and more pronounced way at the struggle of the overmatched scientist. Lemurs jaunt effortlessly throughout the vicinity, mocking Missouri Mark’s miniscule movement. After what seems like months, the hero finally emerges at the end of the forest...uhh...er...the end of his stinking overgrown yard. No monkeys, no lemurs. Displaced animals, a lawnmower preparing to file a protest with his union steward, and what appear to be hay rows ready to be bailed are the true attributes of my yard today. Three weeks between mowing has taken its toll.

There are a multitude of lessons to be learned from letting your yard get overgrown. Thomas Manton, a somewhat Puritan preacher who lived from 1620-1677, inspired C.H. Spurgeon to later edit some interesting thoughts in a discourse called Illustrations and Meditations. On page 21 subtitled “Choking the Weeds”, Manton through Spurgeon’s lens writes “The way to destroy ill weeds is to plant good herbs that are contrary. We have all heard about weeds choking out the wheat; if we were wise we should learn from our enemy, and endeavor to choke the weeds by the wheat. Pre-occupation of mind is a great safeguard from temptation. Fill a bushel with corn, and you will keep out the chaff: have the heart stored with holy things, and the vanities of the world will not so readily obtain a lodging-place.”
Lesson one through the infinitely less astute columnist: Plant good grass and take care of it. After a mere 3 weeks of neglect, my yard had rainforest-like foliage. I had tall, vine looking flowers, what appeared to be cactuses, and a plethora of other flora canvassing my yard. Standing water from last night, shrouded by tall grass, filled my mowing shoes as I trod through its murky reaches. Time turned small green “shoots” into robust green “cannon blasts”, if you will. These must be pulled quickly lest they take over. In a spiritual sense, similar problems arise. The busier your life becomes, the more the weeds crowd out your grass in a spiritual sense. Sin creeps in like a small weed. It grows steadily until it kills all around it. Some busyness can look attractive, with some nice flowers so to speak. However, these tall “flowers” are not grass, and will become overgrown and kill everything around them before you know it. As painful as it is, they must be pulled before they kill around it. We call this repenting in Christianity. Turning from sin, plucking it if you will, and committing to stopping it from coming back is a hallmark of a Christian (see Romans 7 and Psalm 51). As Theologian Barney Fife would say, “You gotta nip it in the bud!”

Lesson number two: In addition to pulling weeds, plant more grass. As our writer states so eloquently, “if we were wise we should learn from our enemy, and endeavor to choke the weeds by the wheat”. The longer you distance yourself from the spiritual “disciplines” of our faith, the more the weeds grow. If you feel as though your spiritual yard is looking rough, examine your walk with Christ. How is your prayer life? How is your Bible reading? Are you meeting with fellow Christians to sharpen your mower blades, so to speak? The problem isn’t with God.

Last lesson among the countless available is a plea: Do you prefer the weeds? Are you indifferent? Possibly the most horrific verse in the Bible is 1 John 3:8a (ESV) says “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil”. See, everyone has eternal life. Those who repent and trust Jesus Christ alone to save them from the sin debt their life has accrued will spend eternity in Heaven. Those who do not will be granted their desire of eternal separation from God in a real place of punishment called Hell. God is equally a God of Love and a God of Justice. He must punish sin. Look at Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments. Have you lied? Have you stolen? Have you committed adultery (with Jesus clarification including lustful thoughts being counted as adultery included)? Yeah...me too. We need a substitute to take our punishment, and Jesus Christ is just that if we repent and trust Him to save us. I have done that. Have you?

Three hours and four gas tanks later Missouri Mark conquered most of the yard. In the process he (and hopefully you too) has gained a new appreciation for the importance of proper yard maintenance. God Bless!
Bible Verse(s) of the week: The book of 1 John. Short but vital.

It's My Fault!!!

Easter season is upon us again. In a year filled with busyness, bills and battles, it is an ideal time to take a deep breath and reflect on what life is all about anyway. Most instinctively know Easter has a special significance beyond bunnies, spotted eggs and Peeps. There has to be something more. At times it seems like Easter is as hollow as the little chocolate bunny with the cute candy baseball hat on that I just dreamt of chewing the feet off of (sorry, just a post-diet food daydream relapse). Allow me to explain what Easter is about once and for all. Easter is about MY sin. Far from a boastful statement about the importance of Mark Applegate, I say, to repeat, that Easter is all about my sin. Allow me to circle a thought for you and tie it in a nice bow (as best I can with my limited skill).Last week I began sharing with you writings from beyond the grave. The next of my favorites that I must share with you comes from the “Prince of Preachers” Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892). Spurgeon was a reformed Baptist preacher who wrote and preached in a technologically slight culture to literally millions of people. He preached every day, wrote dozens of books, and truly lived an awesome life. He is in many ways an idol to me in the writing world. If I had half the vocabulary of this giant, you would be even more horrified when you read my babble. In this snippet, pulled from a favorite website of mine (gracegems.org), he points to why my sin, regardless of its relative apparent size is such a big deal.“A little thing?”“Beware of light thoughts of sin. It is sadly true, that even a Christian may grow by degrees so callous, that the sin which once startled him--no longer alarms him in the least. We palliate and excuse our sin; we throw a cloak over it; we call it by dainty names. Sin, a little thing? Is it not a poison! Who knows its deadliness! Sin, a little thing? Do not the little foxes--spoil the grapes? Does not the tiny coral insect--build a rock which wrecks a navy? Do not little strokes--fell lofty oaks? Will not continual droppings--wear away stones? Sin, a little thing? It girded your Redeemer's head with thorns--and pierced His heart! It made Him suffer anguish, bitterness, and woe! Could you weigh the least sin in the scales of eternity--you would fly from it as from a serpent, and abhor the least appearance of evil. Look upon all sin as that which crucified your Savior--and you will see it to be "exceeding sinful."Spurgeon rightly evaluated his own sin. At Easter, more than ever, we must look at ours as well. This last line from Spurgeon haunts me. Spurgeon states emphatically and soberly that we should “look upon all sin as that which crucified your Savior--and you will see it to be ‘exceeding sinful’." In this light is where I take the blame for Jesus dying on the cross the Friday before Easter! Romans 3:23 (ESV) says “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Lump me in the “all” category. Take a glance at the Ten Commandments. Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever stolen anything in your life? Did you always obey your folks the first time they asked for something? It might make me feel a little better to hear your conscience tell me that you are guilty too, but it really wouldn’t change anything for me. Romans 6:23a (ESV) shows us the consequence for our sins saying “For the wages of sin is death”. My sin deserves death regardless how big or many there are. (Death in a physical sense and in an eternal spiritual sense in a real place called Hell.) God would be righteous and just to fling me to Hell head first (no passing go, no collecting $200 for those readers residing in Monopolyville). Amazingly and with an unfathomable amount of Grace, God made a way for me to be forgiven. On the Cross, Jesus died as a substitute punishment-taker for Mark Applegate. In Matthew 27:46 (ESV) Jesus, agonizing in pain on the Cross, said "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" God was emptying His righteous cup of wrath on His Only Son in my place. When He shortly after said “It is finished”, he was acknowledging that an amazing transaction had just taken place. 2000 years later, once He led me to repenting (turning from sins) and placing my complete faith in Jesus Christ to save my soul, an amazing thing happened. Jesus applied His Righteousness to my account in exchange for my sinful, self-serving, Hell-deserving account balance. I get to go to Heaven not because I am worthy, but in spite of the fact that I am not. My sins caused Jesus to die on the Cross as part of God’s prearranged plan to show the world how truly amazing a God He is. My sins were such a big deal, they cost Jesus His life...and so are yours.This brings us to Easter Sunday. You may be in the same boat I was before God miraculously saved you. Don’t trust on your goodness to save you. Don’t trust in a religious ritual or an extra special prayer to save you. Put yourself in my place, and then look to the Cross! Realize that you too put Jesus on the Cross. Call out to Him and He will save you too. Turn from the old you and trust Him to save you. Then, and only then, will Jesus arising from the grave on Easter Sunday conquering death make sense to you. He saved me years ago, He can you too! May you have a truly special Easter this year above all others!

Economic Stimulus Explained

Welcome to Mr. Applegate’s Economics 101 class. Please make your way to your seats, power down your Blackberries, and focus your attention on me for the next few minutes. The objective of this mini-class is to explain the Economic Stimulus plan to you in simple, layman’s terms and give you something to bring home from today’s class to think about. At the risk of being accused of hyperbole, the rest of your life and beyond depends on your understanding of this concept. Allow me to begin.

We are in debt up to our chins. Debt, interest on the debt, and new debt arrives daily. Every man, woman, and child contributes, in a real and personal way, to this debt. We, as individuals, have no real possibility of being able to pay off even the interest of this debt. Foreclosure or default has tremendous, long-term consequences. Everything we do, whether good or bad in intention, fails to do anything to solve the problem of this economic albatross wrapped around our neck. Attempting to repay our broken economic system with these minimal efforts is like trying to dig in the couch for college tuition funds. Yum...I found a pretzel, but no $50,000! What is the answer to this dilemma? Work harder? Maybe if we worked as hard as we could and applied all of our resources to the problem. Two problems...the debt is growing faster than we earn our payoff and all we pull from the couch is snack foods. Wait...wait I found a gummy snake! Delicious. If only we had someone with the ability to cancel our debt or pay it off. It’s obvious my gummy snake and pretzel, while quite yummy, have no hope of achieving the desired goal. What on Earth can we do?
Before I answer the economic woes of our country, allow me to transition this scenario into your living room. Romans 2:5 (ESV) says “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” Romans 3:23(KJV) says “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” And Romans 6:23a (NASB) states clearly “For the wages of sin is death”. We have an economic crisis of the heart. We owe God more than we could ever dream of paying off, and He is not happy about it. “But God is a God of Love. He could never be mad!” you might say. Alas, He is a God of Love and a God of Justice. For God to love, he must be just. He must punish the wrong doing and collect the debt the wages of sin have earned. If a judge let go murderers and thieves, he would certainly not be called loving or just, except possibly by the lucky crooks that he let go.
I have much more than gummy snakes in my couch, you might proclaim. I have much of value to offer. I am a good person who gives to the United Way and volunteers at the library.

Isaiah valuates our individual good works saying in Isaiah 64:6 (KJV) “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (FYI... “filthy rags” in this context references an ancient feminine hygiene product, for lack of a better term.). Not only do these not pay off our debt, they offend the creditor. But if someone paid our debt the problem would be solved.
Enter Jesus Christ. Jesus lived a sinless life and died on a Roman cross as a substitute for the sin debt we have racked up and rose again on Easter Sunday. We are given His righteousness (right standing/ free and clear account) in exchange for the financial mess we made of our life. What an amazing God. All that is required to acquire this debt forgiveness is to turn from sin (repent) and trust Jesus Christ, not our own goodness or works, as our debt payer. What an amazing offer. What an amazing God!
How do I fix the economy you ask? Here’s the deal. I have a little confession to make. I am not an economics professor. I just play one in the column. I, frankly, have no clue how to fix the economy. That being said, I must believe the same God that created the world, forgave my sins, and sustains every atom of the universe, can handle the economy. I am likely at least as broke as you and only have fuzzy couch pretzels too. However, I fully trust that God will grow my character through this economic morass we live in today. His promise in Romans 8:28 (ESV) saying “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” applies to my family. Pray for our individual and collective financial well-being, and trust the only one that can really help anyway. Class adjourned.

Loathing Las Vegas

While I know it is far from the norm for me to stray from a standard column outline made up of one organized thought structured with three points and an odd joke, I will now give a potpourri of Mark Applegate Bizarro-world insight into the Christian experience from my recent trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Structured in a bird-shot shotgun pattern, I pray that God (very) supernaturally helps you find something useful in the process of reading my thoughts, and that somehow He might get infinitely deserved praise from my ramblings. Off we go...
Random thoughts from electronics paradise in Sin’s playground.
1. About Las Vegas itself: If you have never been to Las Vegas, let me summarize the experience with a word...indulgence. There is opportunity for indulgence, or overindulgence, of everything, legal or otherwise, in America today located in one sprawling city. In the process of my diet last year in which I lost weight in 49 out of 52 weeks, my biggest failure came at the hands of the Vegas Buffet monster. Indulgence in food, of course, is not the only option. During the same weekend every year of the CES is the largest pornography convention in the world. In a lovely twist of fate, I was saddled with this convention sharing a convention complex with half of the CES. “CEScool” sharing a place with a “cesspool”, if you will. I wish I had time in this column to share my opinion of pornography, but, suffice it to say, I consider it the biggest problem in the American church today. I work on computers often from Christian brothers and sisters with this garbage on them, and I get both sad and angry. We should know better! It is an incompatible situation to be Christian and view pornography (Please read 1 John 3). I am not one to somehow legalistically attempt to restrict Salvation by adding some sort of works requirement. That being said, being “of the Devil” in this passage leaves one wanting to test himself ala 2 Corinthians 13:5+. As an overview, however, one can certainly tell the difference between the attendees of the CES and the porn convention (insert your own joke here!).
2. As you fly into town from the east, you spend seemingly endless minutes chewing on outrageously expensive airplane peanuts (yeah, they charge for the snacks on the plane...just waiting for the pay-toilet to really get me steamed!) flying over desolate desert terrain. Sure you are blessed with a glimpse of the amazing Rocky Mountains, but they give way to brown, dead soil leading up to Vegas. Within a half hour of town, you fly over the Grand Canyon and Lake Mead, both stunning sites from the sky, as I am sure they are more so from ground. The town of Las Vegas is surrounded by beautiful Mountains and nature that screams “God” like enormous and beautiful natural Evangelists of the highest order. To look around the area from land or sky makes me quake at God’s supernatural Creation. The God that can create a mountain or carve a canyon numbers the hairs on my head (Matthew 10:30). While the job of counting the hairs on my head is becoming easier with each passing day of the financial crisis, it is still amazing that such a HUGE God care for me (read all of Matthew 10). In addition, to quote Todd Friel, how one can believe “that the Earth began with from nothing, became something, exploded, then became an organized everything” requires far too much faith for me. Evolution (and, similarly, global warming...brrrr, have you been outside last week?) one day will be laughed at and mocked in the same way we laugh at those who postulated that the world was flat and you can’t sail too far or you will fall off it. The same One who made the planet will see to it that it doesn’t get snuffed out indiscriminately.
3. While certainly not the reason to become a Christian in any fashion, one of the cool things about being “Born Again” is God’s Plan for Fellowship. I was really down in Las Vegas. My wife called and said the pilot light was broken in the furnace and they were cold, the van was beginning to assume rigor mortis, and my personal finances are a wreck. Being on a business trip “shopping” for the coolest technology on Earth and being broke is a challenging combo in itself. I missed my family and I had just walked a 1.7 million square feet building and looked at approximately 1800 booths, leaving me sore and tired. I had had hundreds of shallow sales pitch presentations, but no real conversation for two days. Waiting in line for a free opportunity to be in the audience of Jeopardy’s Tournament of Champion taping, I was feeling rock bottom and bummed out. We had been waiting for an hour to be seated so I struck up a conversation with a man in line that turned out to be a Christian couple formerly from Hollister, Missouri on one side of me and a Christian man who lived blocks from the “Applegate Trail” in Oregon (settled by my Great, Great, Great Grandpa). God knew exactly what I needed, and I was thankful! By the way, Alex Trebek is both delightful and real. I asked him of his opinion of the parodies of his show on Saturday Night Live (a show I should repent of), and he said he loved the show and was sad that the star that depicted him took the $22 Million and left the show to make movies. Watch for me on March 18th...I am the cheesy guy waving like a goober from Missouri that hadn’t ever been on TV before.
4. Upon reflection, I find myself not unlike Jonah angrily waiting for God to smite Las Vegas. Sin is flaunted there. Prostitutes and pimps surround the CES show. Porn magazine racks litter the town. Rampant gambling makes financial ruin of many who visit there. What goes on in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but it makes God angry in the process. So I sat (sit) on the edge of the Great City like Jonah (read the whole book of Jonah again...it is short and has one of the greatest miracles in the Bible located in it...the salvation of everyone in the biggest town in the world...in addition to a story about a big fish) hoping God will avenge His honor with fire from Heaven! Then it hits me. God should smite us too. Sin is sin. The sin I have committed in this piece alone in failing to revere God’s Name in the way I should, puts me in a state no better than Vegas or Nineveh from Jonah’s time (Read James 2:10). Stockton, Missouri is as deserving of a Holy God’s wrath as anywhere else. But He tarries instead...amazing grace! What’s more amazing, He died for us as a substitute penalty for the sins we committed. What an exchange! We get His Righteousness imputed to our account and He takes our sin debt and pays for it in His Blood. How can any of us not bow our knee to someone who loves us that much, and repent of our sins and trust Him for our eternal destiny? Email if you have questions about this process to markapplegate@alltel.net.

It was an amazing trip, as it is every year, but I am glad to be home. We have it good in Cedar County! Join me in being more thankful for Grace this year! God Bless and happy Inauguration week!