Thought for the Day March 17-21, 2025 NCTV-45

Monday March 17, 2025

Hi this is Pastor Jim Driskell of Christ Lutheran Church with the NCTV 45 thought for the Day.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day. Ya, this is one of the best holidays of the year. Saint Patricks Day back home in Boston is taken very seriously, very seriously. Ya, there’s the green beer and all that stuff. We don’t really have a proximate river to turn green and frankly not very cool. For example, I went to the Saint Patrick’s Day mass at Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston, the Roman Catholic, at the time, cardinal’s seat. Wow, have to give credit, that was an incredible mass. That was as real church as you can get! Not the phony big box church nonsense. There was no doubt what that mass was about, and a genuine show of reverence and true worship that we should always be ready to render our Lord Jesus Christ. You could not walk away in any doubt whatsoever as to who Jesus is. St Patricks is observed throughout the city. There’s a St Patrick’s Day parade in Boston. There’s a St Patrick’s breakfast which is where the local politicians hold a roast, taking shots at each other, not always so good natured. It is actually a holiday, everything closed on March 17. Mayor James Michael Curley, there’s a disproportionate number of men named James, Curley is why. He decided he needed a non-religious reason. Came to find out that during the American Revolution, March 17 was the day British evacuated Boston. Came to be known as “Evacuation Day”. The British never returned, they had their butt kicked at least three times in Boston, they didn’t want to deal with us. I have an ancestor who fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Anyway, St Patricks Day/Evacuation Day has become a very big part of my culture. Erin Go Bragh

I’m Jim Driskell the pastor of Christ Lutheran Church 1302 E Washington St, New Castle, Pa check us on the web Christlutheran-new castle.org questions comments contact me on the website. For a transcript of today’s Thought go to: wordpress.com/view/revjamesdriskellmdiv.com Sunday worship is at 10:30am, with the NCTV 45 thought for the day, God bless your day

Tuesday March 18, 2025

Hi this is Pastor Jim Driskell of Christ Lutheran Church with the NCTV 45 thought for the Day.

I have this thing about Dietrich Bonhoeffer going on lately, but I think he has a lot to share Carla Barnhill in A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer quoting from A Testament to Freedom: “In the face of the Cross the disciples realized that they too were his enemies and that He had overcome them by His love. It is this that opens the disciples eyes and enables them to see their enemy as a brother or sister. They know that they owe their very life to One who, though he was their enemy, accepted them, who made them his neighbors, and drew them into community with himself. The disciples can now perceive that even their enemies are the object of God’s love, and that they stand like themselves beneath the cross of Christ.” We do forget that our sin does set us as being enemies of God. Yes even the sweetest, nicest little folk sin, sinners by nature and are an enemy of God. The disciples were right there with Him and they realized how much in opposition they are to Jesus. We have these nicey little folk who are all about “Jesus loves the little children”, Jesus meek and mild, trying to drag Jesus down to them to make Him the ideal boyfriend and deny that He is the Lord of the universe. That Jesus should submit to their whims and desires instead of stepping up to the reality of who Jesus is, He who should be feared, that we submit to Him and His leading. He established His church to guide us and help us to faithfully follow Jesus instead of being entertained and patted and told how special we are. The only way we are special and saved is in Jesus. If we think it’s all about us and how we should be pleased and patronized, the further away we are from Jesus, maybe even out of sight of the genuine Jesus and too much about a Jesus we contrived to please ourselves.

Wednesday March 19, 2025

Hi this is Pastor Jim Driskell of Christ Lutheran Church with the NCTV 45 thought for the Day.

On a little bit more somber note, I was diagnosed with colon cancer and on my liver. We all expect healing and full recovery, but it will be a process. This is the first time I’ve ever had to confront any real medical problem. My wife and I were being received at a new doctor’s when I was in my early 60’s and the medical assistant was incredulous, almost to the point of indignant that I was not any kind of medication. I have tried very hard, work out 5-6 times a week, hoping I will do my 75th triathlon this summer and frankly yes, no question blessed by God. When i came out of anesthesia, everyone that was part of this was looking at me, ya, with a look like, mmmmm this is not good. When I went into this, I was sure, ehhh, no biggie, have to start some medication, a few days and badda bing, back to my active obnoxious self. Wrongo amigo! It is treatable and will be for awhile, and not pleasant, but, my perception shouldn’t be something to inhibit my lifestyle, much, right now I am recovering from a procedure, but, I’m aiming to be back to a more normal life style next week and progress from there. It has put me in mind of Tim McGraw’s song “Live like you were dying”. OK, I’m not jumping out of a plane soon, or riding a bull named Fu Manchu, but I sure understand the sentiment. When your life has a shelf-life, all of a sudden, your life perspective changes. I have had really wonderful support, and I feel I’m in good hands from the medical people treating me. Needless to say your prayers are coveted.

Thursday March 20, 2025

Hi this is Pastor Jim Driskell of Christ Lutheran Church with the NCTV 45 thought for the Day.

Jesus made it abundantly clear that His disciples “bear your cross”. Matthew 16: 24 24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Luke 14:27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. There are way too many people that come into Christianity, encouraged by either those who are deliberately deceptive or just not very intelligent that Christianity was either this therapeutic, moralistic, deism, Jesus wants you to be happy, wealthy, live this wonderful la, la land or just everybody is ok, God loves everyone, etc, etc. God sent His Son, Jesus, to suffer and die, to redeem us from our sin. We have become such vile sinners and have no way to save ourselves and Jesus came to suffer and die to take all our sin on Himself. But we have to trust in Him, we are saved by faith alone through grace alone in Christ, Paul’s words in Romans. All this other big church blather is just not in the Bible and is frankly spiritual poison. It will end up condemning you. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes about what Luke and Matthew quote Jesus saying: “The first Christ-suffering which every person must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old person which is the result of our encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death – we give our lives overto death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise God-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls us, he bids us come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time – death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old person at his call.”

Friday March 21, 2025

Hi this is Pastor Jim Driskell of Christ Lutheran Church with the NCTV 45 thought for the Day.

I just finished a book by Mosab Hassan Yousef, “Son of Hamas”. Yousef gave a very indepth view of his life as the son of a sheik who was involved in Hamas from its very beginning. Yousef became a Christian and has rejected the violence, death and destruction of Hamas and other like groups. But after the horrible terror inflicted on Israel this past October, a tiny little spot in the midst of Muslim hatred, it is kind of tough to be really empathetic with the “cause” of Hamas. Yousef put himself on the line, no question, but this mindless hatred and bigotry of Muslims towards Jews and Christians, getting a little hard to accept. One of the precepts of Islam is that all non-Muslims need to be driven off their lands, cause Islam feels that everything belongs to a false “god” Allah. To wit, this is from the Book of Joshua, it is where God is repeating what He has been telling Moses and this is in the context of many others who knew about the constant interaction between God and Moses to give His chosen people, the Jewish people their land, the land Muslims have been trying to conquer since Islam began in the fourth century, which notably, is about 3,000 years before Islam appeared:

Joshua 21: 43-45 “So the Lord gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they possessed it and lived in it. And the LORD gave them rest on every side, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers and no one of their enemies stood before them; the promises which the LORD gave all their enemies into their hand. Not one of the good promises which the LORD HAD MADE TO THE HOUSE OF iSRAEL FAILED; ALL CAME TO PASS.” Ya, if only, you have people who show up 2,500 years later and decide they will murder and destroy because they’ve decided they are entitled to absolutely everything. Which they are clearly not. For some odd reason too many in the world, the evil Satanic world, decided that the Jewish people shouldn’t have that safety of their own country given to them by God 3,000 years ago, because of greedy, vicious, vile haters abetted by other God haters and bigots in the world.

Pastor Jim Driskell

If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write. – Dr Martin Luther

Thought for the Day March 17-21, 2025 NCTV-45

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