We're in Huntsville for Thanksgiving with the Hulls and we took the kids down to NASA's space and rocket center:

Ghosts

If ghosts were real, they would be among the lamest things in the world. I mean, sure, probably the lamest thing around these days would have to be Brett Favre still trying to play football for the lowly Vikings, but a close second would have to be ghosts. In fact, now I think about it, Brett Favre is a bit like a ghost... a misty, unsubstantial shadow of something that used to really be something hanging about and pointlessly haunting his old stomping grounds... Lame! If ghosts were real, they would probably be scary for the first few times you met one, and then not at all after that. I mean, they can't do anything to you, right? After you really hung out with one, you would quickly learn that they can't hurt you and you could just walk right through them into the next room whenever they tried to annoy you. Annoying... that's what they'd be! After you got over the initial shock of these airborne, ethereal stalkers, you'd simply tell them to get over it and go bother someone else! "Move on there, dude! You're dead! The dream is over! Stop being lame! We're all trying to actually live here!"

Now I know this is all just silliness. I mean, there are no such things as ghosts. Hebrews 9:27 says this, "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment." So there. Once you're dead, you're dead and gone. People don't hang about, creeping on all their old places and relations, trying to half-exist in the bygone memories of a terrestrial life that has left them far behind. No, people die and then they're gone. They face the Lord and He sorts out the rest. So, why in the world am I talking about how lame ghosts would be if they in fact existed? Well it's because, quite frankly, sometimes I look around and think that I see one swooping about and haunting their distant past when they ought to just move on. Now, don't get me wrong... I'm not talking about literal ghosts here. I'm not seeing disembodied spirits of dead folks floating around. I'm talking about people; real, live people who act just like ghosts; and believe me when I say, it's lame.

Colossians 3 says this: "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming."

If you know Jesus, you died to your old life! When we get too wrapped up in things that have to do with this life, it's like we're ghosts, haunting old memories! We died to all that stuff and now we've been raised up with Christ for a brand new kind of life!! It's time to move on! It's time to leave behind the ethereal phantoms of greed, impurity and the like and step out into the firm reality of true and new life in Jesus!! If you know and love Him, don't get too wrapped up in earthly things! Don't waste your day haunting the old neighborhood of money, worry and terrestrial politics! Give your heart and your energy to the kind of stuff that Jesus cares about! Don't be a ghost... it's lame. Move on. Live. Breathe the fresh air of resurrected life. You're already raised up and hidden with Him in God... So leave all that other stuff behind, or as Paul says, "You died, so put the rest of that junk to death too!" Come and live!