Through the Eyes of Zacchaeus

Hi my name is Zacchaeus, formally one of the most despised men in Jericho that was until the day I encountered Christ. I was the Chief tax collector in the area and I had become wealthy by taking money from others, therefore I had been hated by most men; Which is what made seeing Jesus during his passing through Jericho very difficult. You see when I heard that Jesus was passing through my town, I wanted to get a glance of him, it began as just a curiosity but as I got closer to Him and meeting him, I was drawn to him and I wanted to meet him more and more despite being a sinner. According to all those around him I wasn’t worthy enough to be in his presence, I didn’t have a right to see their Lord. I tried to push through the crowd just see him, I really wanted to just see him, I didn’t have to meet him but the crowed just pushed me out and I was to short to see over them. 

I had to do something so I ran ahead knowing he would have to cross my path and then I saw the fig tree, it’s perfect. So I climbed the tree and Jesus started coming my way, and he stopped just below me and looked up. I was speechless I didn’t know what to say, I couldn’t catch my breath and I jut sat their in awe of Him. I then began to think the people were right I didn’t have a right to be here in front of Jesus, I was worried he was going to tell me so too, what might he say. He then spoke and I expected to be reprimanded and instead Jesus asked me to come down, I jumped down as fast as I could trying not to waste a moment. Jesus continued to speak and he said that he was going to stay at my house for the day; what? Jesus wanted to stay at my house, the house of a tax collector, a thief, and a sinner.

 An instant joy overtook me and I was immediately ready to change my life, Jesus loves me, that joyous moment was interrupted as I looked around and saw the people talking about me and saying that I was unworthy, but as I looked back to Jesus to tell him that he should stay with someone worthy of his company, I saw his face and he didn’t care, he saw me for me not my sin.  

In that one look I felt welcome and the guilt of my past had caught up with me, he didn’t have to say anything just being in his presence made me want to turn my life around. So I stood up and I said, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor” and I thought about it for a second, really? And then I felt a big YES and then I continued to say “ and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." It was as if in that moment a weight was lifted, I felt free from my own conviction and I wanted to follow this man as my Lord.  Jesus then answered saying "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.” I rejoiced, I belonged to Jesus and I was his follower, but even better is that he to accepted me as his follower and son. As asked we then went to my home and in that one day I was affected for the rest of my life.

Marcus Buckingham

“Building on my strengths and managing around my weaknesses” Marcus in case you cant tell from the opening statement is a man that focuses on the strengths of people and learns the best ways to use them. He believes in a positive psychology, that’s right psychology most of us don’t like to mix theory with religion but theory is on to something here. By fixing on peoples strengths and encouraging them for what they are good at instead of what could be better, we are raising up a stronger group of people. There are certain myths that Marcus addresses in his speech and those are “as you grow you personality changes,” “you will grow most where your weakest,” and “a great team member puts his strengths aside for the benefit of the team.”  

The first myth is “as you grow you personality changes” basically this means that we grow up and put our childish things behind us, in reality as we grow we just become more and more of who we are. We begin to grow in those strengths and we grow most in what we are strongest in already, so we don’t grow out of the childish things we only use them differently and mature in those strengths. Marcus ends this section by saying “The most dominant personalities will strengthen in your core” they are a part of you and always will be. 

The Second myth says that you will grow most where your weakest, in this part of Marcus’ presentation he gives example as to how to enforce a more positive effect, for example say your child comes home with two A’s, a B, and a F on his or her grade report; which one do you focus on? Most people of course jump to the F and begin asking questions, but positive reinforcement by focusing on the A’s can have a better outcome than stressing over the F, focus on the strengths encourages and gives the kids self worth. In addition there are two reason that your child could be doing badly, either there bad in that subject or they haven’t been taught correctly, but by getting on them about the grade it is only going to discourage them. The Truth is you grow where you are most strong. 

The Final myth is to be a great team member you put aside your strengths for the benefit of the team, Wrong you need to make your strengths know that way you can be used, you will help your team out better using your strengths rather than just staying quite and being assigned somewhere else. All in all we need to focus on our strengths and use them. Continue sharpening your strengths and get out there and do what you do best and if you don’t know what your good at start looking for it.

Brian Hewitt

There were a lot of great things I could have pulled from this interview mainly though I really wanted to write on Brian’s involvement in the community and his approach to ministering to the it. I know your thinking okay get to the point, so Ill start with say Brian believes that community service or community missions is very important, its important to create a partnership in your community. You want to have a good relationship with those around you we should all be working together, not against each other. So how does Brian minister to the community, well a big one is getting involved in the schools the community is made up of those kids and their families. What did Brian do? Well he started by simply caring for his community, having a heart for the community around him. 

Next he took action, by bringing lunch for the teachers and just having an appreciation for our public school teachers. In addition to the lunches for teachers Brian put together gift boxes full of school supplies for the teachers, sometimes there where enough in there to last most of the year; he did this to help out because those teachers had to pay for their own classroom supplies. Brian also had the great idea to meet the need in other areas too, for example he would sit in on PTA meetings, in these meetings he was keeping up on what was going on in the school and kids of the community and also finding where the church can help. In one of these meetings he discovered that the school needed a new sound system and couldn’t afford one, at this same time they had a sound system and someone to put it in for the school as well, how great everyone working together to teach our children in our community. In another incident the school in the area had to evacuate the school do to parasites the school had to find a place to have school, the school had asked around and every church gave the school a fee, Brian’s church had decided to open their doors to the school and even provided donuts in the morning. We should be all working together for the benefit of the community.  As a church we should be doing all that we can to help in our communities, if your church left would your community miss it?

Tom Rees

Our past make us who we are today, whether for the good or the bad its up to you. Yeah that’s right, no longer can you blame everything on your past. You can choose to learn and grow from your past or dwell in it and never pick yourself up; I’m not saying its not going to effect you it defiantly will always have an imprint on you, but your not bound by your past. Tom Rees is a man that took the past and made something of it a little about Tom’s background, well he didn’t know his father as a child and his stepfather was a military pilot and he was shot down in the Vietnam War. So he experienced loss very early on, he said he remembers the military man coming to his home to tell his family about his stepfather’s death.  His mother had stayed strong and raised him on her own for a while; until she met someone in Philly and he became Tom’s dad number three. Well this man was not a great character he had a second family that he would visit on business trips.

 As you can see there haven’t been a lot of great men in Tom’s life that he can really look up to, there was one man in his life he could always count on, his uncle who didn’t always handle things normally for example when they discovered that dad number three had a second family Uncle was going to pay him an unkind visit.  The visit began with Tom’s uncle picking Tom and his mom up and driving toward the developments, when they pulled up and Tom’s uncle saw Tom’s dad his uncle got out of the car and pulled out a crowbar. Tom’s mother bravely wrapped her arms around Tom’s uncle and asked him to stop.  On the way back home Toms mom asked his uncle to pull over at the church, she had no background with the church she just needed something; his mother later came to the Lord, she just called out to him. 

Tom’s mother had encouraged Tom to seek out the Lord, and eventually he did.  So there is a point to covering Pastor Tom’s past and that’s to lead to the effects these things have had on his present; well as you know Tom didn’t have a father growing up, so how has that effected him? He says that it has made it hard to receive affection from men he also tries to prove himself and outdo himself. Tom has found that he now is an overachiever and a workaholic; he has made his family a priority although he does have to rip himself from his work at time he always takes time for his family. Tom sometimes takes trips to get away and disengage from the work and responsibilities, he tries really hard to not take away from his kids and there time together. He has worked really hard to keep his wife at home with the kids and dong things together as a family, even ministry together as a family. As you can see he has chosen to take the life challenges he and his mother had and use them to be a great father, minister, and leader.