Pastor's Page

A V.I.P. VISITOR

By Harry Caldwell, May 2008

The President will be in our city on December 10th for a one thousand dollar-a-plate fund-raising dinner, and I have a ticket. I will get to hear him and probably have an opportunity to shake hands with him. It is a privilege indeed.

How we look forward to a visit with our own family members. I remember, as a boy, how I looked forward to school vacation when I could visit my grandparents on their farm. What an enjoyable time that was for me

I remember so well another important visitor. Our pastor and his family came for Sunday dinner. We kids had to wait, of course. It seemed like they would never finish eating, and when they finally did, there were only the necks and wings of the chicken left for us. I was full-grown before I knew there were other parts of chicken besides necks and wings.

As I grew in years, there were other important people in my life. I went to high school parties with them. The football coach seemed very important. He worked with me and others so we could be first-string players. The other players were important, as well as the school principal and teachers who attended our games and cheered for us.

In college there were important professors who shaped our futures. We studied hard and we played hard and as a result we received awards and praise from other important people. Then graduation came and went. I met and married the most important person in my life so far. Thanks to her influence, we became members of her church.

To listen to the pastor's sermons seemed quite a let down, so to speak, after all the important people and things that had come to me in my short life. Then at one mid-week Advent service our pastor told us of the miraculous birth of a little babe to Virgin Mary. He told us who this child really was, both man and God. Somehow my thinking began to change.

How anxious I was to spend one thousand to hear our President, and how a panoramic view of my youth, up to this point, was so important to me. I began making comparisons. Each important person who had helped me as I grew up was to help me prepare for this most important Visitor of all times and to all people. This BABY, of which our pastor spoke, is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ whom God sent into the world to redeem us lost and condemned sinners.

Now I thank the Lord for all the important people He sent into my life and how He let me recognize the MOST IMPORTANT VISITOR possible to have.

Jesus comes into my life and the lives of my wife and family. The help my Lord gives is for this life and for eternal life with HIM. He is the MOST important Visitor in every person's life if he will accept Him as his Lord and Savior.

It won't cost you a thousand dollars to have dinner with Jesus. I won't just shake His hand and be gone. It will be a lifetime of being with Him and He with me. He says to me, "I will never leave you--I will never forsake you- - I will be with you forever."

Jesus is the most important V.I.P. Visitor any of us will ever meet. He will influence our lives more than all the others put together.

I thank God that He introduced me to this most important Visitor and now He is no longer a Visitor but a PERMANENT RESIDENT in my heart and life.